THE CITY & THE CITY

After reading Kraken, I wasn't sure I would read another China Mieville novel, but I'm glad I read this weird fiction detective/murder mystery. It's not that Mieville isn't a brilliant writer, but his use of neologisms and his articulation of the English language is sometimes overwhelming. This novel was much tamer in the lexical ambiguity category than usual, but he still has his exemplar prints all over the text. If you don't understand what I'm writing, then you haven't read a Mieville fantasy novel.

The narrator and hero of this novel is Tyador Borlu, an inspector in the Extreme Crime Squad of the city of Beszel. This city's borders are crosshatched with a twin city named Ul Qoma. These cities are rivals, and the populations are taught to "unsee" each other, even if they are inches apart. Each city has different architecture, vehicles, garb and gait. The only way to travel to the other city is with special papers through Copula Hall, the only building in both cities. Any violation of the rules will bring the Breach upon you, which means you will not be seen again. The Breach is invoked by a 42 person board from both cities called the Oversight Committee that ensures the strict rules are obeyed. The Breach is an alien group living unseen between the borders of the cities with unbridled policing powers. What a setting for a murder.
 

A foreign student, Mahalia Geary, is found murdered in Beszel. Inspector Borlu finds out that she was working on a archaeology dig in Ul Qoma. Is this murder a breach? This sets off a chain of events, including the investigation of Orciny, a legendary invisible third city. Borlu teams with detective Qussim Dhatt (there are no easy names in this book) of Ul Qoma to try to solve this mystery. They are thwarted by unificationists from both cities, an arcane Doctor Bowden, and the prohibitive rules of "unseeing" people and events in the crosshatched areas.

The strange thing about this novel is that Mieville spends very little time on character development, but the reader still maintains empathy for the characters. Instead he spends a lot of time explaining the Breach and the rules of "unseeing" seemingly on every page. Another writer faux pas is that he does't let you know how the Breach came into existence or why they were called upon by the cities in the first place. Weird fiction/ fantasy is a unusual genre, and China Mieville is its master writer. I enjoyed this novel and highly recommend it.
 

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars
 

Comment: China Mieville's latest novel Embassytown is a stretch from his usual weird fiction, since it follows a slightly different path. It involves alien contact and war unlike his usual fantasy themes. Mieville considers himself a complete geek, who admires writers Neal Stephenson and Susanna Clarke.

THE IMPERIAL CRUISE

Horace Greeley's "Go west, young man" takes on a new meaning in James Bradley's eye-opening book. The history, narrated by the author, occurs between the years 1850 and 1908. According to Mr. Bradley, it's a time dominated by White Christian Aryans, who looked west to follow the sun and civilize any race or country in their path. How much of this book is gospel and how much is conjecture is unknown to me. I do know that at times I thought I was reading America's version of William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I do remember the history related in this book, but not with Mr. Bradley's white supremacy slant.

The book is about a large diplomatic mission sent across the Pacific Ocean in 1905 with the secret mission of an unconstitutional pact with Japan. The American delegation was led by future president and current Secretary of War, William Howard Taft. Among the many dignitaries aboard the ship Manchuria was Alice Roosevelt, the daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt. She was known as America's Princess, and in today's world, she would be what you would call a "rock star". This ship also stopped in Hawaii, the Philippines, China and Korea, supposedly to check on the progress of the "barbaric" territories and countries.

The book is primarily about the prevailing attitude of President Roosevelt, most of the politicians, and Ivy League Professors, who thought that only white men were capable of civilizing the world. A lot of the book is about the brutal and unfair take over of Hawaii and the Philippines by a very aggressive White Christian Aryan America. Remember, this is all according to James Bradley. Also very interesting is how America and England got China hooked on opium. The famous Queen Victoria of England actually became the largest drug dealer in history! The book also highlights America's horrendous treatment of Chinese immigrants on the west coast of America, which ultimately caused a boycott of America in China.

As a sidebar to the story, I thought the way Mr. Bradley portrayed Teddy Roosevelt was unique. Everybody visualizes President Roosevelt as a very manly "Rough Rider". The author characterizes the President as somewhat sickly, slightly effeminate and conniving. He goes into detail about how the President staged all his manly pictures. He also portrays the President as a treaty breaker, giving Korea to Japan, our "honorary" Aryan country, to civilize Asia. Most history books leave a lot of this book's theories out, so it's up to the reader to decide on who is right or wrong.

A lot of reviewers gave this book a poor rating. I believe it's because they don't agree with Bradley's seemingly Un-American slant on this subject. To some extent I agree, but I also think it was an enjoyable and well researched literary work supported by 51 pages of notes. I highly recommend this book to all those history buffs out there.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: James Bradley is the son of John Bradley, one of the men who raised the American flag on Mount Suribachi , Iwo Jima during World War II. James's book Flags of Our Fathers was made into a great movie directed by Clint Eastwood. I think that in all of his writings, James Bradley tells it the way he sees it, whether its popular or not.

THE ELEPHANT KEEPER

This is not a classic story like the The Elephant's Journey by Jose Saramago, but it's not Walt Disney's Dumbo either. This is a interesting novel about two elephants and their keeper journeying through England during the late seventeen hundreds. It's written by Christopher Nicholson, an award winning documentary producer for the BBC in England. You can feel his love for animals throughout the novel. The story is well formulated and uses the language and spelling of the times.

The novel starts out with a ship arriving in Bristol, England from the East Indies with various cargo, including exotic animals. Two of the crates contain two very sick elephants. They are purchased by a sugar merchant, John Harrington, for his estate, and are turned over to a young horse groomer, Tom Page, for the elephant's care and training. This turns out to be the start of decades of love between the trainer and the animals. Eventually the male elephant, Timothy, gets sold to another estate because of aggressive behavior. In the ensuing years Tom tries to find out what happened to Timothy, and when he finds out, it's not pretty.

The bulk of the book is spent on the life and trials of the keeper and his female elephant, Jenny. The communication between the two in the book is quoted conversation, but it's implied to be mental telepathy. It's really well done and has the reader believing that Tom and Jenny are really talking to each other. How much could we learn if this was possible? Jenny is bought and sold many times, including time spent at a menagerie, which is a humbling experience for both the keeper and animal. The book's ending is a little vague, but satisfying versus what I thought it would be.

This is a quality novel, and I highly recommend it to all the animal lovers out there. The book makes the reader wonder why man treats a magnificent animal like a elephant so dreadfully. Every so often you have to read a story like this to make you once again aware of animal conservation.   

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: Christopher Nicholson has been involved with natural history all his life and has produced many BBC programs relating to the relationship between humans and animals. His previous novel was The Fattest Man In America, which is about a 1,000 pound man in Texas who decides to market himself as a tourist attraction.What??

THE GOLDEN GLOBE

This novel is either part of John Varley's Eight Worlds stories or the second book of another wonderful trilogy. Varley is always unclear as to whether his novels fit into similar or slightly different universes. He continues to come up with characters that are familiar to movie goers. This time he submits a supposedly invisible character named Elwood P. Dowd, which happens to be the name of the delusional character that James Stewart portrays in the 1950 movie Harvey.

This novel tells the story of Sparky (Kenneth) Valentine, who is on the lam from the authorities in Luna for the murder of his father. He is also pursued by Isambard Comfort, a member of the mafia on Pluto's moon, Charon. This tale takes 70 years before it culminates in a trial on Luna by the recently mentally challenged Central Computer. Remember what happened to this computer at the end of Steel Beach? Also do you remember Hildy Johnson? Well, she's Back!

Since Sparky and his father are Shakespeare actors, the novel has the flavor of Dan Simmons's novels Ilium and Olympos, which relied heavily on Shakespeare's and Homer's works. I think this kind of writing is very difficult to research and to intertwine into a novel. Well done, John Varley. This novel is different in that there isn't a female narrator or heroine. Instead we have a male narrator, although I wouldn't consider him a hero. In the early parts of the book, Sparky is supplementing his acting monies by running "cons". This gets him into trouble with the Charonese mafia, and a chase ensues from Pluto to the Moon, while Sparky seeks the lead role of King Lear in a play by a old friend Polly. They starred together when Sparky had a children's hit T.V. show called "Sparky and His Gang".

The characters in this book are delightful and refreshing, including Sparky's ultra smart dog Toby. I love the way Varley brings back old characters in his books. This is easy since medical accomplishments have cured all physical problems except heavy brain damage. It's not uncommon to live 200-300 years in the Eight Worlds books. Since I'm a fan of Varley books, I give this book my highest recommendation.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: John Varley's next novel comes out in October 2012. The title will be either Slow Apocalypse or One Minute To Midnight. It's a story about a invented bacterium used to turn crude oil spills into a gooey mess. The problem is that it gets loose and destroys the World's oil supply! Sounds exciting; I can't wait.

ALL THE LIVES HE LED

The premise of this book is exciting! Then you read it and realize it's barely worth remembering. The story begins with a volcano in Yellowstone National Park blowing up, then the scene switches to Pompeii for the two-thousand year celebration of Mt. Vesuvius's 79 A.D. eruption. What a start! What's going to happen next? The answer is pretty much nothing. I know Frederik Pohl is a science fiction grand master, but he drops the ball with this novel, because he fails to run with the idea and create a classic novel.

The empathy I felt for the characters was nil. There wasn't any character development for any of the book's participants. Basically, the book is another terrorist  motif inspired novel set in the year 2079. The story's main characters, Brad Sheridan, Brian Bossert, a.k.a. Gerda Fleming, go through some interesting times working for the Pompeii theme park, but fail to excite the reader. The security people of the park and elsewhere seem to be omniscient-like without any validation of their powers. The theme park itself becomes less desirous when you learn that most of the park is actually virtual reality.

What happened in America after the Yellowstone eruption is left to the imagination. Mr. Pohl lets the reader know that America is no longer a super-power and the dollar is almost worthless, but that's it! We know people like Brad Sheridan indentured themselves to countries in Europe, but not why. It seems to me that more time should have been spent on the events after the U.S.A. eruption to set the seed for the exodus of Americans to Europe. Why would they sell themselves with a bond to pay off?

Then we have the issue of the Pompeii Flu. The pernicious virus seems to have originated from the "Stans" of Russia. These are the new countries that separated from Russia and became criminal safe havens. I'm surprised that James Bond didn't make an appearance! Nothing involving the terrorist and their activities is original or unpredictable. Paraphrasing Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, "This book coulda been a contenda"!

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Frederik Pohl is also a Lecturer and teacher in Future Studies, concentrating on environmental issues. He has written many trilogies and his famous Heechee novels have won him many honors during his brilliant career.

UNBROKEN

It took almost ten years for Laura Hillenbrand to write her second book, and it's a doozy! Wow! I thought Seabiscuit was a great maiden book, but this second effort destroys the sophomore jinx. It tells the story of Louis Zamperini, a Lieutenant in the Army Air Force during World War II. It's so realistically written that I felt that I was right there in the prison camps with the Lieutenant. This is a story of extreme mental fortitude and courageous actions in the face of hopelessness.

Louis goes from a juvenile delinquent, a high school track star, a Olympic runner, a bombardier, a prisoner of war, a post-war alcoholic to a Billy Graham inspired speaker in 406 delightful pages. The side characters are real and play important roles in Louis's life. They include his brother Pete, Marine officer William Harris, and B-24 Liberator bomber pilot Allen Phillips, who shared most of Louis's horrors. Laura Hillenbrand draws you into one calamity to the next at a furious pace. This book is hard to put down. It reads like a fiction novel, but it's all true. This is non-fiction at it's best.

While on the Green Hornet, a B-24 Liberator, in a bombing raid, Louis's plane gets shot down over the Pacific. He, along with his pal Phil and tail gunner Mac, float on a raft for 47 days while drifting west towards Japanese held islands. They are constantly surrounded by sharks; they are strafed by Japanese aircraft; and they are starving. Mac dies, while Louis and Phil are picked up by the enemy on the island of Kwajalein (known as the execution island). This starts two and a half years of misery from Kwajalein to Ofuna to Omori to Naoetsu, all prison camps from hell. Geneva Convention rules don't work in Japan. Here they meet the monster, Mutsuhiro Watanabe, the most hateful disciplinary officer in Japan, known as The Bird. This part of the book is troubling - how can anybody beat another human senseless day after day? This is what Louis experienced. The Bird hated him!

The good news is that Louis Zamperini is alive and well at 94 years old. He may well be the indestructible man. He still has all his wits and a zest for life. He did 75 interviews with Laura, presented her with a 65 pound scrap book, and provided most of the photos for this book. This was the most awe inspiring book that I've read in a long time. If anything, this book should be read for the sake of American history.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars.

Comment: As a young Marine in the early sixties, I sat with veterans of these island campaigns at a camp fire in Camp Lejeune during a training exercise. They told me stories that sent a cold chill down my back. I still can't think of Kwajalein, Tarawa, or Iwo Jima without thinking of these brave Marines I met.

MILLENNIUM

John Varley's Millennium is a distinctly different type of time-travel book, and I enjoyed it. It's not as good as The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, but what can compare to that all-time classic. The only comparison is that both novels were made into movies (I only saw the 1960 movie that starred Rod Taylor). This novel has an unusual plot. People from the future go into the past via a gate and exchange doomed crash victims with replacements called wimps. Since the Earth of the future is a dying planet due to thousands of years of wars and pollution, the people from the future built a spaceship to carry the healthy humans from the past to another planet or to a future Earth millions of years from now. The people from the future couldn't go because they didn't live long due to the poisoned air that they evolved to breath. So Earth's future was really its past.

The biggest concern during these "snatch" operations was to avoid paradoxes. One little mistake could change the future and eliminate mankind forever. For example, if you went into the past and killed your father, you wouldn't have been born and therefore unable to kill your father. Changing anything in the past could cause the catastrophic erasing of man. So when the future time travel team lost two stunner guns, one in 1955 and one in 1980, the panic was on, or you know what hit the fan!

The guns were lost on two separate plane crashes during the removal of the crash victims before the accidents occurred. The guns are used to stun the passengers so that they can be transferred through the gate and into a holding pen while the wimps take their place. The head of the future snatch team is Louise Baltimore, and the head of the past crash investigation team is Bill Smith. The two other meaningful characters in the book are the Big Computer and Louise's robot, Sherman (like the tank). Can Louise go back into the past and find these stun guns before Bill Smith?

The story seemed to flow easily enough, although certain things didn't make much sense or add anything of value to the book. For instance, when Bill Smith's group discovers that the crash victims all ate chicken during the flight - so what? And when Smith discovers that some of victim's watches ran 45 minutes fast and some ran backwards, I didn't understand what that meant. Anyway both matters were quickly dropped and never came up again. Other than that, the book was well written and thought out. I especially like the way most chapters were titled the Testimony of Bill Smith or Testimony of Louise Baltimore, as if the story was a trial in front of God...maybe it was. John Varley continues to make me happy with his ability to make all his scientific theories comprehensible.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: The theory of time travel has always been a puzzlement to mankind. Would the laws of physics even allow travel to the future or the past? Causing paradoxes would be very feasible, thus creating potentially perilous situations. Great authors have dealt with this subject in some respects, such as Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, and Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle.

THE LAST THEOREM

The reviewers have been way too harsh on this novel by the great Arthur C. Clarke. Readers must remember that Clarke was 90 years old when he started this book, became ill, and turned over his unfinished manuscript to 89 year old Frederik Pohl. I liked the book. Okay, there were some reoccurring themes, such as the skyhook elevator, the solar Yacht race, and the concept of an older controlling species as in the Space Odyssey novels.So what! For some readers, this is the first Clarke novel they've read. Days before Clarke died, he saw the final product and approved it. That's good enough for this reader.

The story centers on Sri Lanka in the near future. The main character is Ranjit Subramanian, a young math addict. His ambition is to solve Pierre de Fermat's Last Theorem in the short form, using only what was known to math in the year 1637, unlike the 150 page modern proof by Andrew Wiles. He enters college as a young man concerned about world violence. Unfortunately for Earth, so are the Grand Galactics, located thousands of light years away. Ranjit, visiting friends aboard a cruise ship, is kidnapped by pirates and when rescued by an unknown country, is mistaken for a pirate. While he spends two years in prison, he solves the Last Theorem. He is rescued by his childhood friend Gamini Bandara, now a member of the United Nation's 'Pax Per Fidem' (Peace Through Transparency). Ranjit becomes a famous professor, marries his childhood sweetheart Myra and has two children. All is well.

All is not well! The Grand Galctics have seen the nuclear explosions on Earth and decide that the humans must be liquidated. They dispatch the aliens known as the One Point Fives in a massive armada navigated by another A.I., the Machine-Stored. Earth is being spied upon by a third alien race, the Nine Limbeds. It will take the time equal to a full human generation to travel to Earth from their planet.

The last two-thirds of the book deal with the rest of Ranjit's life, Earth's effort for world peace, and the long voyage of the Grand Galactics closing in on their target. What will happen? Can Earth get a pardon or is it doomed? The ending is unexpected and thrilling. Unlike 2001: A Space Odyssey, the ending is very understandable. I'm sure there would have been a sequel had Clarke not died. The pipeline of Clarke novels is closed, but now is the time to catch up on all his wonderful previous novels.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: Both Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl are Science Fiction Grand Masters. Clarke was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1998. Some of Clarke's famous novels include the four 2001: A Space Odyssey books and Rendezvous with Rama. Clarke was a confirmed atheist, and as per his will, he wanted no religious rites or icons at his funeral.

STEEL BEACH

John Varley states that this book is not a part of his novels and short stories known as the Eight Worlds future history. I say it is, and one day he will tie all these tales together in some kind of chronological order with a final book in this series. Having read Varley's Gaea and Red Thunder trilogies, I expected more of the same. No way! This book explodes with new thoughts and innovations unlike any of the previous seven Varley books I've read and enjoyed.

If you saw the play The Front Page or the movie His Girl Friday, you will remember the heroine was a lead reporter named Hildy Johnson. Well, he (or she) is back along with the crusty Editor who doesn't want him to quit. Varley has also added a reporter named Brenda Starr. Remember her from the eponymously titled comic strip? Only the time period is 199 years after the aliens kicked us off the Earth! The aliens evicted the humans to the Moon and other planets so they could give the Earth to the non-polluting whales and dolphins. No one can describe the aliens since anyone who has seen one has been killed.

On the Moon, the editor of The Nipple wants to do a Bicentennial Commemoration of the invasion of Earth. He puts the suicidal Hildy Johnson in charge of the project, who does his best to avoid this assignment and spends most of his time trying to commit suicide, scooping the competition on other lunar stories, and building his period house in a Disneyland known as Texas of the 1800s. The infrastructure of the Moon and the health of the humans are controlled by a central computer known as The CC. Halfway through the story, Hildy changes to a female, a routine operation on the Moon, while some of the other characters in the book also change their sex from time to time. Wouldn't you get bored with your body if your life span was at 200 to 300 years? Only a splattered brain was incurable, although The CC was working on a remedy for that.

This is not your normal world. How about: dinosaur farms, microscopic nanobots in your body, slash-boxing as a sport, or children born in jars? Then, enter the mysterious Merlin, a.k.a. Mister Smith and his Heinleiners, their starship and nullfields. What's a nullfield? Don't ask. When Hildy, Mister Smith, and The CC collide, the result is what was known as The Big Glitch! This clash with the Lunarians and The CC is monumental and tragic resulting in a unexpected ending.

This is a typically well written book by John Varley. His character development has always been second to none. He also continues his trend of having prominent female characters. Varley has the ability to make his innovative technology easily understandable. This novel has his usual sexual situations, but they don't get in the way of the story. My final conclusion? Great book!

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: John Varley has won 10 Locus, 3 Hugo and 2 Nebula Awards. Many of his novels are of the trilogy genre or related themes. If you want to read one of his stand-alones, grab a copy of Mammoth. It's fabulous.

THE SORCERER'S HOUSE

This is the latest delightful tale from Gene Wolfe published in 2010. Although only 300 pages, it seems to be a larger tale than it is. Maybe Gene Wolfe is really a sorcerer or a warlock. Every time I read a Wolfe book, I'm surprised by his style and ingenuity. There are a few parts that remind me of Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which is a good thing.

The entire book is composed of letters written mostly by our lead narrator, an ex-con named Baxter Dunn, to his twin brother George. Baxter was recently released from prison and is asking his brother for some much needed money. His luck changes when he discovers an abandoned house. He decides to hire a real estate agent to find the house's owner. He'd like to live there rent-free in exchange for much needed repairs to the house. Realtors Doris Griffin and Martha Murrey inform him that the previous owner, Zwart Black, has left the house to him in his will. He later finds out that a certain Mr. Skotos has left him valuable real estate and a large bank account. Who are these people, and what did they want in return?

This peculiar house has many rooms, some without entrances, some without exits. The strangest of people and animals arrive and disappear. As he tries to unravel this mystery, he meets a werewolf, a changeling pet fox, a pair of strange butlers, a dwarf and a host of eccentric people. Some of the supernatural creatures in this novel are somewhat unique and original. The ending is unpredictable and is climaxed by some unanswered questions. Does this mean a sequel?

Although Gene Wolfe is 80 years old, his mind remains forever young and imaginative. This novel displays Wolfe's great storytelling abilities, and even though this is not quite a five star novel, it is highly recommended reading for any  fantasy fan.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: Writers Neil Gaiman and Patrick O'Leary admit that they have been inspired by Wolfe and consider him to be the best writer alive. Early in his career, Gene Wolfe was able to communicate with the great J.R.R.Tolkien; I wonder if he got some helpful guidance.