The Tragedy of Fidel Castro

The author sent me a copy of this novel to review: 

The real tragedy is that this novel changes direction way too many times. At one point I think I’m reading a book version of the movie, Red Dawn (1984), then I think, wait a minute, I’m reading Monty Python's Flying Circus . And it ends with an incident from Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court , and I thought China Mieville was confusing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the novel was bad, just disorganized. The back cover says alternative history. Really? How about satire, fantasy, tall tale, and political satire as a new combined genre. I think Mr. Cerqueira gave the literary world a new look, but this novel is not ready for prime time. Does Joao Cerqueira have talent? Absolutely! But it must be harnessed in one direction, it can’t alternate literary genres from chapter to chapter. Look, I don’t know how prestigious the USA Best Book Awards are in the literary world. I am aware that this novel won for Fiction: Multicultural, but it’s not like this story won a Hugo Award. I don’t think I’m being too critical, because I generally liked the novel. I just simply think that the novel could have been written more reader friendly. In other words, give me a better understanding of what is going on. For instance, isn’t Fatima really the Blessed Virgin Mary ? In the novel, Christ seems to view her as an old acquaintance (isn’t she his mother?) Oh well, this is why this novel is so bewildering.

In the novel’s preface, Mr. Cerqueira denies that any of his characters are real, or even similar to anybody, with the possible exception of Fidel Castro. Throughout the entire novel, the reader doesn’t know what countries are involved or what year it is, because the author states,”This book takes place in an imaginary time and space.” The reader assumes it really is the USA and Cuba because of Fidel and JFK. It’s almost like he wants to wash his hands of everything written in this novel. If God isn’t God, and Christ isn’t Christ, and Fatima isn’t Fatima, who are they? The story itself is unique, although I don’t think it falls into the ergodic literature category. The Fidel character is most interesting. He declares Cuba open to international tourism. The people seem to turn on him, because isn’t that why Fidel deposed the previous leader? Fidel is now convinced that he is going to be overthrown. Meanwhile, he decides to invade the USA (the book doesn’t tell us where he will step ashore). In the USA, JFK prepares for the invasion by having deep pits dug filled with sharp stakes. JFK releases a captured spy, Varadero, against the advice of the counselor (we never find out who he is), but J.E. Hoover is trying to dig up some dirt on him. At least the Hoover part in the novel seems true to form. In Cuba, Fidel gets his spy back. On page 91, Fidel says to Varadero, “You are under arrest because I need to take every measure necessary to stop from being overthrown.” When Varadero challenges Fidel’s idea that he is irreplaceable, Fidel says,”When I am dead, the country will be reconquered by my enemies and by drug traffickers.” Some of this stuff is very funny.

The real fun starts when Fidel lands ashore. The beach has been secured by his trusted Commandant Marcos. After an argument with the spy, Fidel goes for a long walk in the woods alone. He eats a flower, falls asleep, and wakes up not knowing where he is, or what he is doing there. He stumbles upon a Monastery staffed by an aggressive abbot and war-like monks. This is where I stop my synopsis, because the rest of the book is very amusing and should be discovered by you, the next reader. I know that I found a lot of things in the novel that I didn’t like, but I also see a very talented writer as well. Even though I am going to give a neutral rating to this book, I do give it my recommendation because of it’s eccentricity.

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars

Comment: One of the best books written about the USA / Cuba conflict is, The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Castro, and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs . amazon.com says, “The U.S.-backed military invasion of Cuba in 1961 remains one of the most ill-fated blunders in American history, with echoes of the event reverberating even today. Despite the Kennedy administration’s initial public insistence that the United States had nothing to do with the invasion, it soon became clear that the complex operation had been planned and approved by the best and brightest minds at the highest reaches of Washington, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff and President John F. Kennedy himself.”  

According to a 3/18/2012 article on nydailynews.com, “A new book by an ex-CIA spook claims that Cuban dictator Fidel Castro knew about Lee Harvey's plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy and did nothing to stop it.

Author Brian Latell was the agency's former national intelligence officer for Latin America and is now a senior research associate in Cuban American studies at the University of Miami.

In the upcoming volume, "Castro's Secrets: Cuban Intelligence, the CIA, and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy ," Latell writes that on Nov. 22 1963, Castro ordered his intelligence officers in Havana to drop their normal responsibilities and pay close attention to communications coming out of Texas — "any little detail small detail from Texas," The Miami Herald reported.

Javier Galeano/AP

The first phone call from heaven

This is the story of a town’s somewhat cavalier attitude towards the possible presence of heaven. When confronting the possibility of heaven existing versus not existing, the idiom... it’s better to be safe than sorry... comes into play. The town of Coldwater, Michigan (not the real one, says Mitch Albom on page 324) not only falls hook, line, and sinker in this belief, but also drags the rest of the world into the fray. Mitch Albom has written a delightful tale that could be made into a movie as the drama that it is, or even as a comedy. I prefer it as a drama. Also woven into this novel  is anecdotal evidence how Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. It seems to me that this ex-sports columnist is now an inspirational writer. This is another book involving heaven after previously publishing, The Five People You Meet in Heaven , and the enriching, Have a Little Faith  . The style and flow of Mitch’s writing coupled with his exciting chapter endings causes the reader to blow through a hundred pages without realizing it.

The novel starts with Tess Rafferty getting a phone call from her deceased mother, and Chief of police, Jack Sellers getting a call from his son, Robbie, a Marine recently killed in combat. Then it’s Katherine Yellin telling Pastor Warren that her dead sister has just called her. Then the story segues to our protagonist, Sully Harding, leaving prison. It takes way too long to find out why he was in prison, but the reader eventually, in dribs and drabs, finds out. How many idioms have I used so far? Three. Anyway, several other people also get calls from the dead. The calls become public after Katherine Yellin announces in church that she is getting calls from her deceased sister, Diane, from heaven on Fridays. This admission causes Nine Action News to send reporter Amy Penn to investigate. Other people say they are getting calls from heaven on Fridays. The local news becomes national news, as believers and nonbelievers crowd the small town. Katherine has nutcases praying on her lawn, phone sales in town accelerate, while Sully’s young son sleeps with a toy phone expecting a call from his passed away mom.

Sully, disturbed by the insanity in town, decides to investigate the calls from heaven with the aid of the local librarian. Seven terminally ill people, hearing about the proof of heaven, give up the fight to survive in order to enter heaven sooner. Protesters enter the town to clash with the believers. Kelly Podesto admits that she lied about her heaven calls. This causes an uproar with the T.V. stations and the general population. Are all of these people lying? The Mayor arranges for a national telecast of Katherine Yellin getting a phone call from her sister in heaven. The stage is set. Untold amount of tourist descend on Coldwater. What will happen? Will the call come? Why do all of these calls come on Friday? Is this a ruse, or a real event? This is not a long novel (326 pages) and can be easily enjoyed in two days. The twists and turns (4th idiom?) took me by surprise, especially from pages 305 to 323. I’m going to highly recommend this simple to read novel.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: According to examiners.com: Over the years I have received many reports of "phone calls from the dead" from my clients as well as relatives. These are actual phone calls that seem to come in from someone who has passed on. 

Most recently, my newfound friend, in which I will refer to only as “Dave” has had these experiences as well. These calls seem to come from a brother that has passed. The caller ID shows unknown name and unknown number, and the voice appears distant but can be recognized with personalized messages.

Dave has a high interest in the paranormal and his brother knew this at the time he passed. So is it possible this is the reason? Although I have had numerous reports from clients that have never had a paranormal experience, and have contacted me because they were left dumbfounded.

One of the questions that I am asked most often, is why do the calls come into only one family member? Is it because they are more open to it? As a psychic, I believe the answer to that is “Yes”. I also believe that there is no spirit out there that was related to you, that will intentionally scare you.

As a paranormal investigator, common reports are small appliances that will come on and off. Most common reports are televisions, stereos, microwaves and VCR’s. Some of those reports do include a phone that will ring and no one is there. Other reports are phones that will only ring once or twice. I, as well as other members of CVAPI, have personally witnessed some of these events.

On two separate occasions I have seen a dead cell phone begin to charge on its own, witnessed by others. Are phones an easy source to manipulate by the spirit world? Can our loved ones speak to us through the phone where they can be heard? On more than one investigation, we have had voices come through our hand held radios so I believe at this point that it is possible.

The direct phone calls are not only personalized messages, but the person receiving the call immediately recognizes the voice. It is common that the caller id reads unknown name or private number, but I have had reports of a phone number that used to belong to a family member long ago.

Two of Mitch Albom's bestsellers have become movies. Tuesdays with Morrie was a 1999 award winning television film. Picture courtesy of moviegoods.com.

The ABOMINABLE

It seems to me that the latest novel by Dan Simmons is receiving unjustified criticism. If you have read The Terror , Drood , or Black Hills , you will realize that this is how he writes. Yes, his older novels contained more horror and fantasy, but I think he has moved on to another genre. His latest novels are a mixture of historical fiction and alternate history with a dash of “thriller”. This has to be one of his most clever novels. The twenty two page introduction of Jacob Perry’s meeting with Dan Simmons was awesome. Since the novel had a medley of real climbers, like George Mallory, A.C. Irvine, and Felix Norton, it wasn’t hard to believe that Perry was also genuine. Also impressive was how Simmons was able to keep the 663 page novel down to five main characters, thus giving the reader plenty of time to develop a rapport with the group. On page 247, we meet two fictional Sherpas (Ethnic name for the mountainous people of Nepal) Tenzing Bothia and Tejbir Norgay. They are minor characters at best, and I only bring it up to illustrate Simmons’s probable extensive research for this novel. Mount Everest’s summit was finally reached on 5/29/1953 by Edmund Hilary and his Sherpa (you guessed it) Tenzing Norgay. I noticed that the novel was thoroughly peppered with creative tidbits of information by the author. Well done.

The novel starts out with Jacob Perry, Richard Deacon (the Deacon), and Jean-Claude Clairoux (J.C.) climbing the Matterhorn in the summer of 1924. As they are eating their newspaper wrapped lunch, they see the headline that says British climbers, George Mallory and A.C Irvine, were killed in an attempt to reach Mt. Everest’s summit. According to German witness Bruno Sigl... Lord Percival Bromley and Kurt Meyer were following Mallory and Irvine when they were swept away by an avalanche and also killed. The Deacon, a WWI war hero and respected British climber, is a friend of the Bromley family. The Deacon, J.C., and Jacob meet with Percival’s mother, Lady Bromley, who still thinks Percy might be alive and asks the group to find her son on Mount Everest. She will fund the trip but the trio must take Percy’s cousin Reggie with them. The trio spend a lot of chapters practicing and gearing up for the 1925 trip. Once they get to the Bromley tea plantation in India to join cousin Reggie, they are surprised to find out that the cousin is a lady. Deacon protests taking a Lady to Mt. Everest, but has no choice since she controls the funds and also is an accomplished climber. Reggie’s Indian right hand man and M.D. for the climb is Doctor Pasang. Now that the reader has met all five core characters, the group heads to Tibet to find out what really happened on that 1924 expedition.

Once they have permission to enter Tibet (Nepal is off limits to visitors), the core five starts the journey to the mountain. They are warned at a Monastery to look out for bandits and Yeti, or the Abominable snowmen. Simmons’s writing makes the journey so cold that I actually felt chilled reading the novel. The reader learns how the mountain is prosecuted with many Sherpas and animals carrying all the gear and food up and down the mountain. Base camp is pitched along with other camps going to higher elevations. This is where the story bursts with anticipation. Will they find Mallory and Irvine, or Bromley and Meyer? How did they really die? Who is following them? Is it Yeti, or the supposed German witness, Bruno Sigl? Will the core five make a run to the summit? The last 200 pages, or so are filled with intrigue and twists and turns that the reader truly doesn’t see coming. In the afterword, Dan Simmons keeps the ruse alive that Jacob Perry (our narrator) is a real person. Simmons visits Perry’s grave in the autumn of 2012 in a little Colorado town. He says on page 663, “I’m not a religious man, but I’d brought a bottle of the Macallan twenty-five-year-old single-malt Scotch and two small glasses that day. I filled both glasses, left one on the small headstone that said only JACOB WILLIAM PERRY April 2, 1902-May 28, 1992, and lifted the other.” This is a wonderful novel, I highly recommend it.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Mount Everest is 29,029 feet to the summit and is the tallest mountain in the World. The Tibetans and Sherpas call the mountain Chomolungma, which means "Mother Goddess of the Earth." To date there have been 4,000 attempts to reach the summit with only 660 being successful. 


According to my friend and literary aficionado, Lisa Yoskowitz, the best book written about Mt. Everest is: Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster . barnesandnoble.com says, "A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that "suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down." He was wrong. The storm, which claimed five lives and left countless more—including Krakauer's—in guilt-ridden disarray, would also provide the impetus for Into Thin Air, Krakauer's epic account of the May 1996 disaster.

By writing Into Thin Air, Krakauer may have hoped to exorcise some of his own demons and lay to rest some of the painful questions that still surround the event. He takes great pains to provide a balanced picture of the people and events he witnessed and gives due credit to the tireless and dedicated Sherpas. He also avoids blasting easy targets such as Sandy Pittman, the wealthy socialite who brought an espresso maker along on the expedition. Krakauer's highly personal inquiry into the catastrophe provides a great deal of insight into what went wrong. But for Krakauer himself, further interviews and investigations only lead him to the conclusion that his perceived failures were directly responsible for a fellow climber's death. Clearly, Krakauer remains haunted by the disaster, and although he relates a number of incidents in which he acted selflessly and even heroically, he seems unable to view those instances objectively. In the end, despite his evenhanded and even generous assessment of others' actions, he reserves a full measure of vitriol for himself."

A GORDIAN WEB

The publishing consultant sent me a copy of this novel to review:

I was pleasantly surprised with Guy Butler’s second novel of a proposed trilogy. While it didn’t have the suspense of Ken Follett’s Eye of the Needle (1978) or the drama of Alistair Maclean’s The Guns of Navarone (1957), it did have it’s moments. I didn’t read the first novel, but I found that I didn’t need to because this invigorating novel can be read as a stand-alone. I am reminded of the various series written by Bernard Cornwell, whose books can also be read separately or out of order. Lastly, I detected the undertone of the alternate history guru Harry Turtledove, author of The Man with the Iron Heart . Whoa! I’m not saying Guy Butler is in the class of the above mentioned authors. I am saying that he is on the right track to have a successful career as a writer. I did find some faults with this book, such as Mr. Butler naming the novel’s elite British group: Special Air Services (SAS on page 30), and Strategic Air Services (SAS on page 200). Which is correct? Also, I find that there are way too many described characters to remember. A sergeant is a sergeant, a officer is an officer, no need to describe them all. I’m still a student of ten or less main characters (Cormac McCarthy’s theory?). I also thought that some of the harrowing events behind enemy lines could have been less predictable and drawn out for a high anxiety affect.

This is the story of Czeslaw Orlowski, aka the Spider or Chez, the fearless folk hero of the Polish resistance of World War II. It seems that the Germans and Spider are being pursued by the Russians in 1945. The Germans for obvious reasons; Spider because Stalin wants no resistance when he takes over Poland. Spider hides out as a farmer with his wife Jadwiga and his in-laws but is hunted down by the Russians. He sends a message to his friend in England, Malcolm McClain, asking for help in getting out of Poland. This prompts Winston Churchill into a meeting with Paddy McBride, a Major of the British elite Special Air Services (SAS). They decide that Spider has saved many British lives with his heroics and should be rescued. A plan is put in place for twelve SAS fighters, known as the Black Widows, to go to Poland and rescue Spider and his family under the noses of the Russians. The mission is successful although it encountered many misadventures. You will have to buy your own copy of this exciting novel to find out what occurred.

This takes the reader to the guts of this novel. Since Churchill saved Spider and his family from sure death, he wants a favor from Spider. The question: Is the real Hitler in the bunker? Brigadier Zumwalt says on page 170, “M16 has solid intelligence suggesting a long standing plot is under way to stage Adolf Hitler’s suicide...as we stand here tonight, Adolf might already subbed in his stooge and be miles away from Berlin.” Do you smell Harry Turtledove’s style? Anyway, Spider, with the help of SAS volunteers, must somehow enter Hitler’s bunker in Berlin and find out if Hitler is actually in there. Spider on page 248 confirms that...”The entire top echelon of the Nazi Party is planning on flying to Spain within the next couple of weeks to pick up a U-boat to South America and freedom.” These last 100 pages, or so, are worth the price of the novel. So once again, I’m reading a new author that should be under contract from a large publishing house, but is not. Why? With a strong editing job, this novel could have been a bestseller. I do recommend this novel and the writer.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: In the beginning of Butler's novel, he tells the reader how he came upon the title of the book, "A Gordian Knot is a metaphor for a problem deemed insurmountable, yet easily solved by thinking outside the box. When the impossible problem involves The Spider, it is better characterized as... A Gordian Web."

Let’s talk about two of my favorite World War II novels that I mentioned in the first paragraph of this review. The first is Ken Follett’s 1978 novel, Eye of the Needle. ken-follett.com says, “It is 1944 and weeks before D-Day. The Allies are disguising their invasion plans with a phoney armada of ships and planes. Their plan would be scuppered if an enemy agent found out… and then, Hitler’s prize agent, “The Needle,” does just that. Hunted by MI5, he leads a murderous trail across Britain to a waiting U-Boat. But he hasn’t planned for a storm-battered island, and the remarkable young woman who lives there.”
                                            
The second book is Alistair MacLean’s 1957 novel, The Guns of Navarone. debate.org/reference says, “The Guns of Navarone is a 1957 novel about World War II by Scottish writer Alistair MacLean that was made into a critically acclaimed film in 1961. The Greek island of Navarone does not exist and the plot is fictitious; however, the story takes place within the real historical context of Dodecanese Campaign- the Allies' campaign to capture the German-held Greek islands in the Aegean in 1943, while "Navarone" is an obvious variation of Navarino, the place of a famous naval battle in 1827. The story is based on the Battle of Leros, and Leros island's naval artillery guns - among the largest... naval artillery guns used during World War II - that were built and used by the Italians until Italy capitulated in 1943 and subsequently used by the Germans until their defeat. The story concerns the efforts of an Allied commando team to destroy a seemingly impregnable German fortress that threatens Allied naval ships in the Aegean Sea, and prevents over 2,000 isolated British soldiers from being rescued. The story is based on the real events surrounding the Battle of Leros in World War II.”
                                     

DEAD ENERGY

The author sent me a copy of this novel to review:
 

This maiden novel by James M. Corkill is satisfactory at best. Mr. Corkill displays raw talent, but is still in Double A ball. I can see that he is trying to create a character similar to Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt, but it’s a ‘no cigar’ comparison. I had a hard time believing in Alex Cave’s credentials. What man could be an ex-CIA agent, a college professor, an advisor to the Director of the National Security Agency, and have the ear of the President of the United States at the age of twenty four. Mr. Corkhill, you must age this man quickly. I know the age wasn’t a typo, because you wrote on page 75, “The President stared at Alex while he listened to the suggestions tossed around the table. He found it odd that this young professor…” While I know Dirk Pitt stories are fast paced, this one is on double-time and a little herky-jerky. Sometimes an author has too many subplots and sidebars. Well, this is one. My suggestion for Mr. Corkhill is to slow done. You have the expertise. Let the story breath at it’s own pace and mature naturally. Lastly, If you want Alex to be a man’s man, don’t let him act cowardly like you did when Alex was in the AOS camp. I know he was faking, but Dirk Pitt would rather die then act less a man. Okay, enough said about that. What about the story?

The story is very busy, with several plots and subplots going on simultaneously, alternating from chapter to chapter. The first scene has our protagonist, Alex Cave, witnessing a flash of light on a oil tanker on the Puget Sound. Just like that the crew and 80,000 tons of crude oil disappear. What happened? The scene switches to Brownsville, Texas were the same event happens to another oil tanker. Six out of the seven crewmen on the first tanker are found 150 miles away frozen to death on Mt. Baker. How did they get there? Seven out of the eight crewmen on the second tanker are found dead on a ranch. How did they get there and where are the two missing crewmen? On page 34, the Director of the NSA calls Alex Cave and says, “The President called a moment ago and informed me the Joint Chiefs think someone is sabotaging our domestic oil supply.” Meanwhile the novel shifts to Boulder, Colorado, where we meet the Minister Menno Simons, his mother and his 350 worshipers. Is the Minister and his group behind the missing oil? He is seen by a government agent passing out vials of a strange crystal to seemingly hypnotised zealots. I think it’s interesting that early in the story Menno Simons seems to be the culprit of the missing oil, yet he disappears until page 322, which is 55 pages from the end of this story. To me, this is incomprehensible.

Now the scene switches to Seattle, Washington, where we meet Harold Woolly, a meek and harassed banker, his wife, Calli, and his two kids, Mark (who loves the military), and Pamela (an A student). Suddenly the West Coast is in a chaotic and rioting mood, since gas and food are now in short supply. The family is on the run when they meet a motel owner, who befriends the family. Mark suggest they drive to Idaho, where a private army, known as the Army of Survival (AOS) resides, headed by a Col. Blackwood. This is the point in the novel were pandemonium and anarchy breaks out everywhere. Now you are probably thinking, “Will all these groups collide, and if so, will it solve the oil problem, or make it worse?”Somehow the author manages the pile-up fairly well, albeit in a semi confused and choppy way. Like I said in beginning of the review, this writer has ability. He needs to get better, and the best way to get better is to write more novels. I will recommend this novel, because it’s the first book in a series that can be improved upon. As for Alex Cave, he needs to get older. If he was born in 1969 (instead of 1989), he would be rejuvenated to a believable 44 year old contender to Dirk Pitt.

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars

Comment: The twenty two Dirk Pitt books by Clive Cussler have been very successful. Two have been made into movies, Raise the Titanic (1976) was made into a film in 1980. clive-cussler-books.com states that: 

 “The Sicilian Project is the undercover plan of the decade. It is undoubtedly the best-kept secret since the atomic bomb. And it's the President's baby. If successful, it will create a defense network that will insure America's security from foreign attack for the foreseeable future. The sole hitch is that the project requires a quantity of Byzantium, an extremely rare element. In fact, it looks as though the only Byzantium in the world lies in the hold of R.M.S. Titanic, sunk in 1912 and still resting more than twelve thousand feet deep in the North Atlantic."

"The task is simple enough: Raise the Titanic! The man in charge of the mission is Dirk Pitt, jack-of-all-trades and master of-most. Using highly sophisticated submersible equipment, Pitt sets to work at his Herculean job. The presence of two Russian spies doesn't help, nor does the intervention of one very nasty lady, Hurricane Amanda. For balance, however, there is one very sweet lady who doesn't in the least resemble your average marine archaeologist."

However, the film (1980) starring Jason Robards, Anne Archer, Richard Jordan (Dirk Pitt), and Alec Guinness was a financial disaster. It grossed 13.8 million on a 40 million budget.
                                             
Sahara (1992) was made into a film in 2005. clive-cussler-books.com states  that:

 “It is 1865. A Confederate ironclad, Texas, fights her way through the Federal blockade and vanishes into the Atlantic as Richmond falls, bearing a secret cargo that could change history... It is 1931. A world-famous Australian aviatrix, Kitty Mannock, vanishes mysteriously in the middle of the Sahara while attempting a record-breaking flight from London to Capetown and is never see again..." 

"It is 1995. Dirk Pitt, on a mission to find the remains of a Pharaoh's funeral barge buried in the bottom of the Nile, rescues an attractive young woman, Dr. Eva Rojas, a biochemist with the UN World Health Organization, from being murdered by thugs on a beach near Alexandria."

"Dirk Pitt and his friends plunge into darkest Africa, battling their way up the Niger to a huge secret, hazardous waste project, a partnership between Yves Massarde, French billionaire entrepreneur, and General Zateb Kazim, the brutal, despotic, corrupt tyrant who rules the West African nation of Mali. Pitt's epic journey up the Niger River against the gunboat fleets and modern jet fighters of two African nations leads him to the discovery of Kazim and Massarde's secret, only to find himself captured and forced to work as a slave under inhuman condition in a gold mine deep in the desert, along with Dr. Rojas and her team of UN scientist."

However, the film starring Matthew McConaughey (Dirk Pitt), Steve Zahn, and Penelope Cruz was also a financial disaster. It grossed 122 million and had a total cost of 241.1 million.
                       

PARASITE

About a third of the way into this novel, I became aware of the dreaded words on page 502, “To be continued…” Mira Grant, are you kidding me? I don’t like reading trilogies unless all three books are available to read now. By the time the next novel comes out, I will have forgotten this one. I know that I can go to Wikipedia for a recap, but most of the time I’ve already lost interest. Oh well, I should have been aware of her tendencies with the previously published, The Newsflesh Trilogy . Okay, enough said. The first novel is a success, but  it makes the reader wonder if these ‘tapewormed- sleepwalkers’ are going to morph into ordinary zombies. Mira, don’t do it, because what you have here is a fresh idea that should only get better in book two and three. I, for one, am tired of zombie novels. Keep your thoughts on what you started and develop it further. Your last chapter was dynamite waiting to ignite. I thought that was where the story was heading, but I wasn’t sure. The future readers will know what I’m talking about after they get to the end of this intoxicating work.

It seems that SymboGen Corporation has developed a tapeworm that once implanted into a human body shields the person from sickness and actually dispenses drugs to fight any disease. Dr. Banks, Dr. Jablonsky and Dr. Shanti Cale are the three architects of this ‘Intestinal Bodyguard’ that has been ingested by most of the population. The year is 2027. The protagonist is Sally Mitchell, who had a horrible car accident, which left her in a near plug-pulling state, until her tapeworm somehow pulled her out of her coma. She was twenty at the time of the crash, and now six years have passed. She has no memory of her first twenty years and had to be re-taught everything as if she were a baby. Dr. Banks of SymboGen has taken an interest in her case and monitors her health and life at no expense to Sal (she changed her name since she has no memory of her first twenty years). Sal has a Dr. Bank’s arranged job at a animal shelter and has a boyfriend, Dr. Nathan Kim, who is a parasitologist at a San Francisco hospital. Sal has ‘night terror dreams’ of being in a hot and warm dark place with the distant sound of drums. Nonetheless, all’s well until she and Nathan run into a strange man and his dog in a park. He seems to be suddenly aggressive while sleepwalking. Sal and Nathan leave with the dog, who becomes their lovable pet named Beverly. Dr. Kim finds out that there are many similar cases nationwide. He discovers that a wand with a purple light run over your skin can detect whether you have an parasite infection, or not.

Meanwhile Dr. Shanti Cole has disappeared. Dr. Jablonsky has committed suicide. What’s going on? Sal and Nathan meet the mysterious Adam and Tansy. Who are they and why does Adam call Nathan... brother? Are implants taking over their human host? Sal’s father, Colonel Alfred Mitchell, director of research at a U.S. Army research institute for infectious diseases gets involved in a big way. So in book one, Mira Grant has introduced the eight to ten main characters (good job). We know that the originally beneficial tapeworms seem to be revolting and taking over the brains of some human host. We suspect that there is a chief tapeworm, but I will not guess who that is at this time, although I think I know who it is. This is a well written piece of horror/urban fantasy from Seanan McGuire (writing as Mira Grant). She managed to keep me wide awake and feeling empathy for the characters while reading this thriller. A writer can’t do any better than that. I highly recommend this novel, but with the caveat that two more books are coming before we meet the denouement.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: According to Barnes&Noble, this isn’t the first parasite themed novel. Parasite Eve  by Hideaki Sena (translated by Tyran Grillo) was a massive hit. “When Dr. Nagashima loses his wife in a mysterious car crash, he is overwhelmed with grief but also an eerie sense of purpose; he becomes obsessed with reincarnating his dead wife. Her donated kidney is transplanted into a young girl with a debilitating disorder, but the doctor also feels compelled to keep a small sample of her liver in his laboratory. When these cells start mutating rapidly, a consciousness bent on determining its own fate awakens, bent on becoming the new dominant species on earth."

"Parasite Eve was the basis of the hugely popular videogame of the same name in the U.S. and has been cinematized in Japan. Hideaki Sena Ph.D. Pharmacology, was still a graduate student when his first novel, Parasite Eve, turned him into a pop cultural heavyweight. He became the first recipient of the Japan Horror Award and is credited--alongside Koji Suzuki, whose Spiral appeared the same summer--with initiating a smart, new style of horror writing in Japan. Subsequent novels include the Japan Sci-Fi Award winner Brain Valley and Tomorrow's Robots. Dr. Sena, who lectures on microbiology and genre fiction, lives in Sendai, Japan."



What’s the best zombie novel? What about, The Last Bastion of the Living  by Rhiannon Frater. Goodreads.com says : “The Bastion was humanity's last hope against the fearsome undead creatures known as the Inferi Scourge. A fortified city with a high wall, surrounded by lush land rich with all the resources needed to survive, protected by high mountain summits, and a massive gate to secure the only pass into the valley, the Bastion became the last stronghold of the living on earth. But one fateful day, the gate failed and the Inferi Scourge destroyed the human settlements outside the walls and trapped the survivors inside the city. Now decades later, the last remaining humans are struggling to survive in a dying city as resources and hope dwindle."

"Vanguard Maria Martinez has lived her whole life within the towering walls of steel. She yearns for a life away from the overcrowded streets, rolling blackouts, and food shortages, but there is no hope for anyone as long as the Inferi Scourge howl outside the high walls. Her only refuge from the daily grind is in the arms of her lover, Dwayne Reichardt, an officer in the Bastion Constabulary. Both are highly-decorated veterans of the last disastrous push against the Inferi Scourge. Their secret affair is her only happiness."

"Then one day Maria is summoned to meet with a mysterious representative from the Science Warfare Division and is offered the opportunity to finally destroy the Inferi Scourge in the valley and close the gate. The rewards of success are great, but she will have to sacrifice everything, possibly even her life, to accomplish the ultimate goal of securing the future of humanity and saving it from extinction.”

ZEALOT

This book by Reza Aslan flitters around a lot, but is an unqualified eye-opener. It’s the gospel Jesus versus the historical Jesus. Who is right and who is wrong is up to each reader to decide. Mr. Aslan has certainly done plenty of research, but he has the undertone of a former Muslim about him. I say this only so the reader can take what Aslan says with a grain of salt. He is obviously schooled in both religions, but seems to prefer the historical Jesus as the true son of God. With the gospels written many years after Jesus’s death, does anybody really know the truth? The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written well after Jesus’s death. The events of Jesus’s life are hazy at best since Mark and Luke (some say he was) were not eyewitnesses to Jesus’s life. The gospel of Matthew is by an anonymous author, and the gospel of John is authored by ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’, but is not named. Aslan states that his research took two decades, and he supplies about sixty pages of notes at the end of the book. I guess one can’t ask for more. But for me, some of his revelations are truly stunning. Why was this Christ so different from all the other messiahs that traveled through Jerusalem during Jesus’s time preaching repentance and damnation? They were also convicted of sedition (rebellious acts against the Roman Empire) and crucified, or beheaded. Why were they not the true Christ? Especially, John the Baptist .

According to Aslan, Christ didn’t leave Nazareth till he was about thirty years old. On page 88, (to paraphrase Aslan) he says, “Before his encounter with John (the Baptist), Jesus was an unknown peasant and day laborer toiling away in Galilee.” If Jesus was the main man, why did he come to the Jordan River to be baptized by John? Yet the gospels try to make the reader feel that John the Baptist was inferior to Jesus. In fact, After John was seized and put to death by Roman Tetrarch (governor of the region) Antipas, only then did Jesus’s first disciples, Andrew and Philip, leave John the Baptist and follow Jesus on his quest to cleanse the souls of mankind. This is some strong information. Aslan also states that Jesus was born in Nazareth, and not Bethlehem. Jesus had brothers, most notably, James, who took over the leadership of the Catholic Church after Jesus’s death. Also stunning is that Jesus, because of his peasant status, could not read or write any language. This is not me talking. This book is very thought provoking and obviously highly controversial.

Another fact that is historically disputed is the disposition of Pontius Pilate, the fifth governor Rome, sent to oversee Judea. The gospels present Pilate as a weak-willed governor who didn’t want to kill Jesus until the Jews demanded that Jesus should be put to death. The Jews were not pleased when Jesus entered Jerusalem riding a donkey with a mob of people shouting, “Hosanna!” Aslan says in his book, “The message conveyed to the city’s inhabitants is unmistakable: the long awaited messiah-the true King of the Jews-has come to free Israel from its bondage.” Aslan says history shows Pontius Pilate to be a very violent man who hated and killed Jews at will. Wow, that’s not the Pilate I saw back in the 1970s, when I went to the marvelous play, Jesus Christ Superstar: A Rock Opera . Pilate with the help of the Jewish High Priest, Joseph Caiaphas, had no hesitation in sentencing Jesus to death.

One fact that is consistent both historically and gospel-wise is Jesus’s ability to heal. On page 105, Aslan says, “For while debates raged within the early church over who Jesus was-a rabbi? the messiah? God incarnate? -there was never any debate, either among his followers or his detractors, about his role as an exorcist and miracle worker.” Okay, both sides finally agree. This was a time when there were many magicians charging money to perform similar feats, but Jesus never imposed a fee. As Jesus approached Jerusalem in 30 c.e. (common era) “...it is not just Jesus’s miraculous actions that they fear; it is the simple yet incredibly dangerous message conveyed through them: the Kingdom of God is at hand.” On page 126, Aslan says, “No wonder, then, that at the end of his life, when he stood beaten and bruised before Pontius Pilate to answer the charges made against him, Jesus was asked but a single question…”Are you the King of the Jews?”

Was Jesus’s last words on the cross (gospel of Mark), “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And did the resurrection really happen three days later? Who is James the Just? Did Jesus really say, "I say to you that you shall be called Peter, and upon this rock I shall build my church."  I’ve only touched on a few of the enlightening discoveries this reviewer learned from reading Aslan’s book about the historical Jesus. I have the feeling that Jesus was more of a man, than the Son of God. In fact, according to Aslan’s research, Jesus rebuffed the messianic titles given to him and preferred the title, “The Son of Man.” In my opinion, Aslan did a remarkable job putting this non-fiction work together. I felt somber when Jesus’s three year old ministry came to an end. Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples (also called apostles), let the Jewish hierarchy know where Jesus was hiding after The Last Supper. Aslan states, “He is praying when they come for him…” This is a sad and provocative book. I highly recommend this book by Reza Aslan.
 
The Supper at Emmaus by Italian master Caravaggio 1601...Resurrected Jesus reveals himself to two of his disciples. Picture courtesy of Wikipedia.
 

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: There are a lot of books about Jesus Christ. One book that defends the Bible is a book by Ben Witherington III with a very long title: What Have They Done with Jesus?: Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History--Why We Can Trust the Bible . Goodreads.com says, “Strange theories about Jesus seem to ooze from our culture with increasing regularity. Ben Witherington, one of the top Jesus scholars, will have none of it. There were no secret Gnostic teachings in the first century. With leading scholars and popular purveyors of bad history in his crosshairs, Witherington reveals what we can—and cannot—claim to know about the real Jesus. The Bible, not outside sources, is still the most trustworthy historical record we have today.

Utilizing a fresh "personality profile" approach, Witherington highlights core Christian claims by investigating the major figures in Jesus’s inner circle of followers: Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Thomas, Peter, James the brother of Jesus, Paul, and the mysterious "beloved disciple." In each chapter Witherington satisfies our curiosities and answers the full range of questions about these key figures and what each of them can teach us about the historical Jesus. What Have They Done with Jesus? is a vigorous defense of traditional Christianity that offers a compelling portrait of Jesus’s core message according to those who knew him best.”

And there are some strange ones, such as, The Lotus and the Cross by Ravi Zacharias. Goodreads.com says, “Have you ever wondered what Jesus would say to Mohammed? Or Buddha? Or Oscar Wilde? Maybe you have a friend who practices another religion or admires a more contemporary figure. Drop in on a conversation between Jesus and some well-known individuals whose search for the meaning of life took them in many directions -- and influenced millions. Popular scholar Ravi Zacharias sets a captivating scene in this first in the intriguing Conversations with Jesus books. Through dialogue between Christ and Gautama Buddha that reveals Jesus' warm, impassioned concern for all people, God's true nature is explored. It's a well-priced, hardcover volume readers will want to own, and also share with others.”

Even the press throws their hat in the ring with Lee Strobel’s, The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus . Goodreads.com says, “Using the dramatic scenario of an investigative journalist pursuing his story and leads, Lee Strobel uses his experience as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune to interview experts about the evidence for Christ from the fields of science, philosophy, and history.”

Finally, there is the old classic, Ben Hur by Lew Wallace. Goodreads.com says, “Judah Ben-Hur lives as a rich Jewish prince and merchant in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 1st century. His old friend Messala arrives as commanding officer of the Roman legions. They become bitter enemies. Because of an unfortunate accident, Ben-Hur is sent to slave in the mines while his family is sent to leprosy caves. As Messala is dying from being crushed in a chariot race, he reveals where Ben-Hur's family is. On the road to find them, Ben-Hur meets the Christ as he is on the road to Golgotha to be crucified. That day changes Ben-Hur's life forever, for that is the day he becomes a believer.” Picture courtesy Wikipedia.