SAM HOUSTON & the ALAMO AVENGERS

I’m always a little leary of historical fiction novels written by Fox News Network celebrities. Most of them are published in an uncannily fast time, such as novels written by Bill O’Reilly (ex?), usually co-written with Martin Dugard, published at least once a year. He is what I call a commercial writer. How much research can be done at that pace? But, lo and behold, Brian Kilmeade, Fox News Network TV star (Fox and Friends) and radio star (The Brian Kilmeade Show) seems to have written a book all by his lonesome. So you can imagine that I was apprehensive reading another Fox Network star. Guess what? Although not a fact-filled almanac, I was pleasantly surprised at the author’s historical accuracy. This is not my first rodeo reading about the Alamo and its afterlife. It was a smooth and seemingly factual rendition of one of America’s favorite stories. One thing though...I thought the author spent too much time on The Alamo and too little time on the Avenger part.  

The birth of Texas was started by Stephen F. Austin’s father in 1821. “The fifty-nine-year-old Moses Austin obtained permission from the Mexican governor of Texas, who was eager to populate the sparsely occupied state, for three hundred American settlers to establish a colony there. Just weeks after settling the deal, he died of pneumonia.” On his deathbed, he pleaded for his son, Stephen, to take up his cause. He came. As the years went by, Austin went to see President /General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna about making Texas a separate state. Santa Anna would have nothing to do with that and had him arrested. “He felt lucky when, in late July 1835, he was finally permitted to head home to Texas. After his many months in Mexico City, he fully grasped the size of the enemy; he and his thirty thousand Texian (spelling at the time) settlers faced a fight with a nation of some eight million.”

The fight to take Texas from Mexico (go west, young man's first step? haha) would be a mammoth struggle, to say the least. And Santa Anna was a Napoleon look-alike to the nth degree. Here is a man who ordered one of his own Mexican states (Zacatecas) to give up their weapons and when they refused to give them up...he destroyed them. “The president permitted his soldiers to run wild, setting fires and pillaging. In fact, more than two thousand civilians in the town had been slaughtered, among them hundreds of women and children. Santa Anna’s message was clear: He would be merciless in putting down any who opposed him.” This is the man the brave Texians would have to wrest Texas from. Read the rest of this historical novel to find out how they did it! In it, you will meet President Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston, Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett (see my review of (7/18/2013).

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Winning the war:

“Sam Houston, through some mix of luck, instinct, fortuitous timing, and good counsel-and bravery-of men around him, did something remarkable. He and his army of farmers and shopkeepers, men distracted by the plight of their families and friends, who had become homeless wanderers fleeing for their lives, faced off with a large professional army, one amply supplied with guns, artillery, and munitions. And won a stunning, one-sided victory.”  

TOUGH LUCK

R. D. Rosen’s biography, Tough Luck, only trails two other sport’s biographies that I have read and liked. My all time favorite is Tunney by Jack Cavanaugh (2006). The story of Gene Tunney’s life and his brilliant upset boxing victories over Jack Dempsey for the heavyweight championship of the world. Next in line is a true hard look at one of baseball’s icons, Joe Dimaggio, The Heroes Life by Richard Ben Cramer (2000). What makes the life of football legend, Sid Luckmam, interesting is how he was able to live a superstar life even though his father was the notorious mobster, Myer Luckman. Yes, friends with the Capones and the Lepkes of the 1930s. Bang Bang, you’re dead. The book opens with Myer Luckman having his own brother-in-law killed for skimming a few bucks to cover his gambling losses. It makes big news in Brooklyn, NY where a budding Erasmus High School football player was emerging. 

The book is narrated by the author, R. D. Rosen,“In 1959, when I was 10 years old, I was fascinated by the new occupants of a big redbrick colonial house around the corner from my family’s quirky custom split-level. Word had spread quickly throughout Highland Park, our suburb on the North Shore of Chicago, that the new occupants were former Chicago Bears quarterback, Sid Luckman and his family.” The author then turns back the clock to Sid’s childhood in Brooklyn, NY. Meyer Luckman loved football (Myer would never see Sid play a Chicago Bear game) and gave Sid a football on his eleventh birthday. Wow, since he owned the only football on the block, guess who was the neighborhood’s mandatory QB? Meyer arranged for NY Giant QB Benny Friedman to show Sid how to hold and throw a ball, although in the early years of football, almost all of the plays were a run. The QB was behind the center, the fullback was behind the QB and a tailback was behind the fullback. This formation was known as the I - Formation. Every team used it. Nearly every play was a run off tackle by the tailback. Ohio State’s legendary coach, Woody Hayes, used to call it, “three yards and a cloud of dust.”  

Sid becomes a star at Erasmus High. Coach Paul Sullivan loves Sid and considers him his son. By the way, Sid’s high school graduated many famous people such as: Yankee pitcher, Waite Hoyt, actresses: Clara Bow, Mae West, and Barbara Stanwyck, singers: Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, writers: Mickey Spillane, Roger Kahn and actor Moe Howard of The Three Stooges to name a few. Ha,ha. Anyway, in the stands watching Sid play was Columbia University’s head football coach, Lou Little, chomping at the bit, to sign him up. Lastly, watching Sid play football at Columbia was the Chicago Bears coach, George Halas. George visualized Sid as his QB in his newly formed T-Formation idea. The formation of the future! Finally a passing game! And Halas knew who he wanted for the position. I think the love these two men developed for each other was the best part of the book.

Did I find anything wrong with this book? Well, it was a bit of a snoozer at  times. I have to admit that my head drooped down more than a few times. Also there was no dirt on Sid Luckman. It seemed that anybody who came in touch with him, instantly fell in love with him, including Joe Dimaggio (who was very dirty in his aforementioned biography), Frank Sinatra and the famous Manhattan restaurateur, Toots Shor. And every ballplayer he ever played against (or with) including hall of famers: Otto Graham, Sammy Baugh, Bronko Nagurski, Johnny Lujack, Norm Van Brocklin and George Blanda to name a few who loved him. And he was so generous that he had a room in his Florida house filled with presents! If you visited him...you left with a present. Don’t even ask what kind of tipper he was. 
 
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: It seems that Sid was as perfect as you can get. There are plenty of documents at the book’s end that support that fact (I’m trying not to be facetious). The great original owner and coach of the Chicago Bears, George Halas (Papa Bear), typed a letter to Sid five months before Halas died at the age of 88:

My dear Sid, “I love you with all my heart.” When I said this to you last night as I kissed you, I realized 44 wonderful years of knowing you were summed up by seven words.
My boy, my pride in you has no bounds. Remember our word “now!” Every time I said it to you, you brought me another championship.
You added a luster to my life that can never tarnish. My devoted friend, you have a spot in my heart that NO ONE else can claim.
God bless you and keep you, my son. “I love you with all my heart.”
Sincerely yours, George

Sid Luckman kept the original letter framed in his apartment and a copy of it folded in his wallet for the rest of his life.

The War Hound and the World’s Pain

This is a guest review from Deron O:

The War Hound and the World’s Pain is the first of two stories by Michael Moorcock chronicling the history of the von Bek family and their relationship with Lucifer and the Holy Grail. This novel has a more mature tone and style as compared to nearly all of Moorcock’s other novels I’ve read. It took me some time to adjust to that. The constant struggle between Law and Chaos in all of his Multiverse novels is present here in the form of God and Lucifer. Consequently, in addition to the action, there is a significant amount of religious and philosophical discussions that might exhaust readers expecting something more akin to Moorcock’s Elric or Hawkmoon series.

The novel begins at the sacking of Magdeburg, Germany in 1631 in the midst of the Thirty Years’ War. Ulrich von Bek and his band of irregulars, mercenaries for the victorious Catholic army, quit the burning city, tired of the slaughter and discouraged by the lack of loot. Von Bek soon deserts his men when some show signs of the Plague. He heads deep into the Thuringian Forest where he happens upon a castle, strangely uninhabited but immaculately maintained and fully stocked, a fine place to recuperate.

Eventually, the occupants return. First, Lady Sabrina, with whom von Bek falls in love, and later, the lord of the castle, who introduces himself: “Welcome, Captain von Bek. I am Lucifer”. It was not by chance that von Bek found himself in this castle. Lucifer explains, “I am weary of the Earth and still more weary of Hell, captain. I yearn for my position in Heaven...I must make amends...I must discover the Cure for the World’s Pain...God has bestowed the world one object, one means of healing humanity’s ills. If that object is discovered and the world set to right again, then God will listen to me...I might be able to convince Him that I am truly repentant...I am asking you to embark upon a Quest on my behalf. I want you to find me the Cure to the world’s ills...The Holy Grail..”

Von Bek wonders what he gains in exchange for undertaking this hunt and if Lucifer is somehow trying to buy his soul. Lucifer answers, “Buy your soul, von Bek? Did you not realize that I own your soul already? I am offering you the chance to reclaim it.” Seeing no alternative, von Bek assents but not without also including Lady Sabrina’s lost soul in the bargain.

All do not share Lucifer’s desire for reconciliation with God. The minions of Hell enjoy their stations. Will they too be allowed back into Heaven, or be cast forever into Limbo? Faced with this uncertainty, they set out to stop von Bek at all costs!

In broad strokes, the plot mirrors the novel’s backdrop. The Thirty Years’ War began as a religious war between Catholics and Protestants around the time of the Protestant Reformation and ended with the weakening of religion’s influence in the affairs of man. Von Bek, an aspect of the Eternal Champion, similarly brings balance. He says, “I pray, in short, that God exists, that Lucifer brings about His own Redemption and that mankind therefore shall in time be free of them both forever: for until Man makes his own justice according to his own experience, he will never know what true peace can be.”

Once in the right mindset, I enjoyed this first tale of von Bek and appreciated Moorcock’s attempt at something a little more ambitious.

4 out of 5

Comments

There is a character named Philander Groot. In chapter 10, he says, "I am Groot. Groot is who I am." I was struck by that as it sounds like someone else’s catchphrase.

Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1960; but according to this article, it was only in 2008 during the Annihilation Conquest comic book miniseries that Groot began saying, “I am Groot.” 

Given that The War Hound and the World’s Pain was published in 1981, is it possible that the writers of Guardians of the Galaxy lifted that now famous line? Considering Michael Moorcock’s influence on comics and fantasy in general, I’d have to lean towards “Yes”. I have absolutely no proof of that, but it would be cool.

THE SEVEN AND A HALF DEATHS OF EVELYN HARDCASTLE

This novel made me dizzy and woozy with a slight case of vertigo at times. If you saw Bill Murray’s movie, Groundhog Day... multiply the confusion by one thousand, and you will be at this novel’s level. If Stuart Turton didn’t possess such wonderful writing skills, I would have thrown the book against the wall. And here is an example of his descriptive skills, “The fellow who enters is large and shambling, scratching a head full of white hair, dislodging dandruff in every direction. He’s wearing a rumpled blue suit below white whiskers and bloodshot red eyes, and would look frightful if it weren’t for the comfort with which he carries his dishevelment.” I thought the book had way too many characters, all of them playing a roll in this murder/mystery, thus adding to the confusion. And eight of them became hosts to the malady I call...the waking up for the next eight days in a different person’s body (or much longer). Sometimes the chapters would start off with a new person in a certain host, then lapse back into an old body they had a few days before, while you tried to solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle in a rundown castle. You also had to contend with a footman (a liveried servant, who admits guest and serves tables) who was hell-bent on killing each host or anybody else that got in his way. This character never made any sense to me.

The book starts with the narrator, Aiden Bishop, running through a forest shouting “Anna." He thinks to himself, “My mind has gone blank. I don’t know who Anna is or why I’m calling her name. I don’t even know how I got here.” He looks at his hands, “I’m cut short by the sight of my own hands. They’re bony, ugly. A stranger’s hand. I don’t recognize them at all.” He has no idea who he is (many people in this novel are also confused at certain times). He shouts, "Anna" again...a woman screams back, “Help me!” “I spin, seeking the voice, glimpsing her between distant trees. A woman in a black dress running for her life. Seconds later, I spot her pursuer crashing through the foliage after her.”  Aiden hears the fading echo of the pistol’s report. He is exhausted as a man’s warm breath touches his neck and says, “East”. Aiden falls to the ground as the tormentor backs out of the forest. Aiden thinks, “My relief is pitiable, my cowardice lamentable. I couldn’t even look my tormentor in the eye. What kind of man am I.” The alleged murderer left a compass in his jacket pocket. By the way, I’m using the name Aiden Bishop for clarity purposes...he doesn’t know who he is until deep into the story and then he still isn't sure. So he heads east. On page five he breaks out of the woods and sees,”the grounds of a sprawling Georgian manor house, it’s redbrick facade entombed in ivy.” He makes his way to the crumbling old estate’s front door and “hammers it with a child’s fury”. The door is slowly opened and... Welcome to the Hardcastle family’s Masquerade, or the nineteenth anniversary of Thomas Hardcastle’s murder at the Blackheath estate. Sorry, that’s it, you only get a six page taste of this 435 page novel. 

I didn’t love, or hate Stuart Turton’s novel...it just made me pull my hair out too many times. Bang my head against the wall too many times. Pinch my arm. Read with your own peril.

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars

Comment: Some reviewers are comparing Stuart Turton to Agatha Christie. Are they talking about the author who has sold over two billion novels? Are they talking about that author? Nuff said. 

WANDERERS

Chuck Wendig’s chilling novel, Wanderers, is a spectacular work of apocalyptic fiction reminding me and other reviewers of Stephen King’s The Stand. They are similar in that both novels have a raging outbreak that can cause the annihilation of the world’s population. King’s novel has the evil Randall Flagg and Wendig’s novel has the monstrous Ozark Stover. Both antagonists have designs to take control of the USA and beyond during the worldwide turmoil. Politics are involved (another reviewer complaint) but were white noise to me compared to the exciting main drama. Wendig’s novel even mentions The Stand on page 539…”and the world was dying like it’s The Stand.” Hey, it can’t hurt to be compared to King. I don’t know if any other reviewer mentioned the one page prelude, The Comet. What was that for? Anyway, let me tell you a little of the story.

Eastern Pennsylvania: Nessie is the first sleepwalker. Her sister, Shana, sees her empty bed and searches the entire house to no avail. Shana thinks to herself, Nessie ran away again. Dad was already working outside on his cheese dairy farm...she is not with him. Then she spotted Nessie in her PJ pants and pink T-shirt walking down the long driveway heading for the road. Shana tries to wake her up, but Nessie continues walking. “It was then she saw the girl”s eyes. They were open. Her sister’s gaze stood fixed at nothing…dead eyes.” No matter what Shana does stops Nessie. Dad spots the girls. Shana runs back to dad and tells him what’s going on. They jump into his rat-trap pickup to find Nessie, who has already disappeared down the road. They spot Nessie and jump out of the truck to try to stop her. She can’t be stopped. If you try to restrain her, the sound coming from Nessie’s mouth is…”something otherworldly: a whooping, screaming alarm, inhuman in its volume and composition-it grew from that to something animalistic, then the shriek of a wild, vengeful banshee.”

Meanwhile, in Seattle, a Dr. Benji Ray arrives from Hawaii to meet Sadie Emeka, head of The Black Swan program (an offshoot of the CDC). Dr. Ray is updated on the unusual happenings in Pennsylvania. The sleepwalker line that started with Nessie is growing larger by the day. No barrier stops them. They don’t eat, rest, urinate or defecate. They march through any weather (with only the clothes they had on their backs) to an unknown destination. Benji left the CDC (under some dishonor) even though he was the top researcher for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Benji wants to know why she called him in since he burned his bridges with the CDC. Sadie says, “Black Swan (a machine intelligence) did.” “Black Swan did what?”, asks Benji. Sadie answers, “Pointed me toward you.” He narrowed his eyes, “I’m sorry I don’t understand.” She said, “Black Swan wants you, Benji. And that’s why I’m here.”

Someone called the police to stop the surging line. A cop shoots his taser at one of the walkers. It does nothing. When the cop physically grabs the man and stuffs him in the squad car, the walker shook with tremors. Then: “The car shuddered. Something dark sprayed up across all the windows. Something red. The glass broke. Inside the car, the cop screamed. Others outside the vehicle began yelling, too, in panic - some running toward it, others fleeing in the opposite direction. The cop staggered out, covered in...something wet. Red and black. Clutching at himself. It’s gore.” Apparently the walker in the squad car heated up and then literally exploded. That was the last time they tried to stop a walker by force. Where are they going? The band now numbers in the hundreds. The walkers are named the flock and the people taking turns walking on their sides are called the shepherds.

You just got a 50 page taste of this 782 page thriller. With 732 pages ahead of you, I’m envious. Benji, Sadie and Shana are only a few of the many protagonist ahead for your reading pleasure. I haven’t mentioned any of the antagonist...you will easily pick them out. Especially the despicable Ozark Stover. I had no trouble remembering all the different characters...you know why? Because the author used simple names to remember...well, duh! Try to explain that to a Russian writer. Right? Vladimir or Vlatko or Vladik or Vlade or Wladek, etc? Haha. Anyway, I know I’m now going to struggle to find a better book to read. Wait, I have an idea...how about reading another Chuck Wendig novel?

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Lately, I find myself reading longer books. I think the extra pages gives the author adequate time to develop the story and leave the reader satisfied. I noticed that most of the shorter books come to an abrupt ending and leave the reader no time to decipher or enjoy the ending. Wendig’s novels, like Stephen King’s and Dan Simmons’, leave nothing to the imagination. Wanderers had a good 38 pages left to describe the aftermath after the last shot was fired.
 
If you want to read some good long books, grab hold of Stephen King’s It, or Under the Dome. Try Dan Simmons’, Black Hills, The Terror, or Drood...You will love them.   

the VAGABONDS

The next time you take a road trip, you can thank four famous Americans for putting the idea in your head to begin with. Jeff Guinn tells the non-fiction story of the ten year summer road trips taken Henry Ford (automotive industrialist), Thomas Edison (inventor), Harvey Firestone (the tire maker) and American naturalist and nature essayist John Burroughs. They didn’t always make the summer trip with all of the four, but most of the time they did. Sometimes they traveled in a  caravan of six to seven vehicles with a large dining tent, butlers, their wives and a professional cook and staff. Other times, they roughed it without all the amenities. Firestone was always in charge of mapping out the trip and making sure hotels were available on the way (if needed). Burroughs was in charge of identifying all the foliage and birds (Ford loved bird-watching with Burroughs). Edison was Edison...overwhelmed by crowds that revered him at every stop. Ford always paid for everything...and I mean everything. Ford was a generous man that always sent over a brand new shiny Model-T to Edison every year at no charge. Other men received  brand new Model-T’s if they pleased him… and that could be as simple as if he liked the way you played a fiddle! (it really happened.) It took Ford awhile to warm up to the crusty Burroughs, who “predicted that automobiles and their drivers would eventually seek out even the most secluded nook and corner of the forest and befoul it with noise and smoke...to him, the Model -T was a demon on wheels.” At the time, there were fourteen million horses on the roads compared to eight thousand cars. What did Henry Ford think of Thomas Edison?...Ford worshipped him.

“Edison and Ford discussed subjects of mutual interest, most business-related, some more general. Edison lectured on the dangers of smoking cigarettes - he claimed that the paper, though not the tobacco, was poisonous when burned.” However Edison chewed tobacco and smoked cigars. Ford immediately outlawed cigarette smoking on any of his properties and factories. In 1915, San Francisco’s telegraph operators hosted a dinner in Edison’s honor (many of Edison’s first inventions involved the telegraph).”The dinner was a merry affair. An estimated four hundred city telegraphers attended. The menu was printed in Morse code, and all the speeches - none by the honoree himself (Edison almost never gave a speech) - were tapped out on telegraphs. While everyone else dined elegantly, Edison asked to be served only a slice of apple pie and a glass of milk (his favorite lunch).” The foibles by Edison and Ford were delightfully recorded throughout this novel by the author, Jeff Guinn. Ford spent a lot of time and money trying to keep the USA out of WWI and went as far as sailing a ‘peace ship’ to Europe in order to get the foes to sit down and make peace, not war. It failed. When America entered the war, Ford converted his factory into making military equipment. Edison spent his time during the war on “the Naval Advisory Board creating devices that would enable America and its Allies to overcome the enemy at sea.” By August 1918, Edison and Ford were worn out and ready for a return to their road trips. You will have to buy your own copy of this wonderful history book that reads like fiction (yea!) to get all the details of the ten years of road trips. You will not need a couple of drops of Visine to get through this book. 

Is it possible that Ford (brilliant in business) was illiterate? He came from a poor family and had to drop out of school after a couple of years. An example of his inadequacies was the way he approached running for Senate or for the president of the USA. In the senate race, he ran as a Republican and a Democrat. He won one nomination, but he lost his bid for Senator by never campaigning, never making a speech and never running an ad...and at a time the whole nation loved him. He would have beaten Calvin Coolidge for President but backed off when Coolidge said he would help Ford get a government project (the Tennessee Valley Authority) that Ford treasured. Ford backed off but never got the project; instead, FDR founded the project in 1933. The best example of Ford’s ignorance was his libel suit against The Chicago Tribune. The newspaper’s lawyer wanted to expose Henry Ford to the jury, and the world, as the ignorant man. The lawyer asked him if he knew anything about history. Ford said he lives in the present. The lawyer asked Ford the date of the American Revolution. Ford guessed, “eighteen-twelve.” The lawyer asked him, “who was Benedict Arnold?” Ford said, “a writer.” Ford’s reasoning was that he didn’t have to know, “because I could hire a man in five minutes who could tell me all about (them).” The lawyer asked Ford to read portions of documents out loud. Ford declined saying he’d forgotten his spectacles. The lawyer pounced on Ford, “I think the impression has been created by your failure to read some of these things...that you could not read.” “Do you want to leave it that way?” Ford said, “Yes, you can leave it that way, I am not a fast reader and I have the hay fever and I would make a botch of it.” The lawyer said, “Can you read at all?” Ford answered , “I can read.” The lawyer said, “Do you want to try it?” Ford said, “No sir.” Ford won the libel suit, but the jury only awarded him six cents.

There is so much to this book that I only touched a small portion of it. Hooray for Jeff Guinn! He wrote one of the few books that I didn’t find anything wrong.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Ford was fond of Burroughs (the unapologetic old man), who identified all plants, birds or flowers that caught the traveler’s eyes. “In exchange for the privilege of sharing Burroughs’s wisdom, the others overlooked his prickliness and constant complaining.”

Ford considered Firestone a friend on the vagabond trips, but not equals. “Ford paid for everything  and had the overall vision for the trips. Firestone, as a willing lieutenant rather than fellow general, took care of the details.

John Burroughs died at the age of 84 in 1921.
Thomas Edison died at the age of 84 in 1931.
Harvey Firestone died at the age of 70 in 1938.
Henry Ford died at the age of 84 in 1947. 
     

THE LAST ASTRONAUT

David Wellington writes the best surreal first contact sci-fi novel I’ve ever read. What an unusual ending. I’ve read many novels where a undefined body heads to Earth at a breakneck speed from deep outer space and suddenly decelerates as it nears. If it decelerates...it’s not a comet or asteroid. Wellington kept my attention throughout the novel while delivering empathy for his five or six main characters, which was also to my liking. What else did I like? I liked the lack of technical jargon. You can tell me how something works one time and one time only. And I’m not interested in hard to remember acronyms with two exceptions in this novel...NASA and EVA. What didn’t I like? The last two pages, but I can’t tell you why because it would spoil it for you. It’s not inept, but seemed inconsistent with the direction of the story...maybe a tad careless. A good editor would have pointed that out to the writer. Oh well, I have to find something wrong...don’t I? You probably have noticed that I love the use of an ellipsis.
 
It’s 2055 and astrophysicist Sunny Stevens goes to Houston to meet with Roy McAllister, head of exploration and operations for NASA. NASA has been in the doldrums for the last twenty one years after the failed Mars mission of 2034. The spaceship developed a fuel tank leak, and mission commander Sally Jansen and astronaut Blaine Wilson had to do an EVA outside the ship. A fire broke out and Wilson was burned alive. Jansen was blamed for the death of Wilson and the aborted mission to Mars. For the past twenty one years, no new astronauts were trained since Congress severely cut NASA’s budget. America no longer had an astronaut program. To make matters worse, China successfully landed on Mars. In this atmosphere, Sunny landed in Houston with urgent news.
 
Sunny settles down in McAllister’s office. “Sunny cleared his throat. 21/2054 D1,” he said. McAllister says, “I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand.” “That’s it’s name. Its designation, whatever,” Sunny said. McAllister said to stop babbling. “The message you sent me contained the orbital elements of an...asteroid? Comet? McAllister said, “I had one of our people take a look, and they just about split their skin.” Sunny said, “I have more. More data I can give you.” Sunny had been tracking 21 (the name of the body shortened) for over a year where he worked at KSpace, the commercial leader in space travel. He told his boss about it at KSpace. Sunny said he didn’t hear a peep from his boss. “Somebody had to do something. Somebody had to send a ship to go look at this thing. If KSpace wouldn’t do it, then Sunny was sure NASA would. It would have to. Except judging by the look on McAllister’s face, NASA didn’t necessarily agree.”
 
McAllister said, “So why don’t you tell me why you came here.” Sunny replied, “It’s decelerating, Spontaneously. It’s spontaneously decelerating.” McAllister said, “Welcome to NASA.” Finally someone believed him! Now to get a crew together...the only astronaut with experience was the publicly hated Sally Jansen, the last astronaut. Let the poop hit the fan! Oh, well. That’s my review of the first seventeen pages. I loved this novel, grab a copy...it’s different.
 
RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: I’m a sucker for First Contact novels. I think Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel, Contact, was the first ‘man meets alien/alien meets man’ novel that perked my interest. I also loved Larry Niven’s 1985 novel, Footfall. Earth comes under attack by the ‘elephant look alike’ Fithp from Alpha Centauri. Recently (see my review of 4/18/2019) I read Immortal by Nick M. Lloyd. All three were first contact novels, but totally different.  

FALL or, Dodge in Hell

Neal Stephenson’s latest mammoth story (883 pages) is, as usual, a very elaborate, complicated, technical story. It starts off with easy to understand modern day cryonics (you know...freeze the body and bring back to life when the cure is found) and then transmutes into a cloud computing system using a network of remote servers to delve into the connectome of millions of peoples brains. The hoi polloi will line up to sign contracts to have their remains upon death scanned, vaporized, and rebooted into a cloud computing system that guarantees life after death. Welcome to BITWORLD. The story comes up with many speculations that will make your head spin. “We are stuck with the process. We must find ways to keep it running as we learn how to inspect it, and - if it actually does work like a brain - to talk to it.” If you turn the computer off...is it murder? Could your soul always be rebooted if something went badly wrong? Maeve, an amputee with artificial legs, asks, “Does that mean I won’t have legs in Bitworld?” Why do some souls in Bitworld have wings and a few are godlike surrounded by a host of angels? To paraphrase the author, known for speculative fiction, “That he got the idea for this novel from John Milton’s Paradise Lost (published in 1667 - It consisted of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse), a weird and interesting poem, but wanted to go somewhere with a technological or science fiction slant.” 

Richard Dodge Forthrast was a multibillionaire  who lived in Seattle, Washington. He was at a point in his life that all he wanted to do was spend time with his niece, Zula, and her young daughter, Sophia. His gaming corporation, 9592, was running smoothly and no longer needed his guidance. One day he was going to drop off some books to Sophia and then have lunch with his friend, Corvallis, but first he had to stop by his doctor’s office for a routine procedure (a tinnitus ringing in his ear). His friend, Corvallis, was in the waiting room while Richard was wheeled into the operating room on a gurney. "Richard felt a mask over his nose, a cold gas flooding his nostrils, a hiss". While waiting for Richard, suddenly all hell broke loose. “He (Corvallis) did raise his head and look when the front door of the office suite was punched open by a team of three fireman (EMT’s). Waiting for them was a woman in scrubs. She had made eye contact with the firemen before they even reached the door. As they burst in, she turned on her heel and ran into the back, and they understood that they should follow her...they wheeled the patient out of a room, down the hallway toward the exit. Just like that Richard Dodge Forthrast was brain dead. Corvallis is the named executor on Richard’s living will. Dodge wanted to be frozen for a future awakening. Wow, it was only the first 37 pages. With great enthusiasm I looked forward to the next 800+ pages! Wrong. The book treads water from there on...at least it did for me.

After some jostling and in-fighting among the relatives over the will, the story converts to Sophia taking a cross country trip that takes forever to complete along with Corvallis investigating a fake nuclear attack. That dual interlude gobbles up at least 200 pages! It ruined the momentum of the story. This was 200 pages that didn’t need to be in the book. Finally, the story returned to Dodge’s brain and future improved cryonic’s research. On the plus side, I did enjoy the simulated world of the dead and the battle of heaven and hell starring previous life foes, Richard Dodge Forthrast/Egdod and Elmo Shepherd/El. Talk about technical improvements: “You could hover above the town squares in the cities of the dead and watch them mingle with one another and, to all appearances, talk, trade, fight, and copulate...depending on the current value of the Time Slip Ratio.” (what?) “So it was with speciation on the activities of the dead in Bitworld. In many ways, these were as mundane as they could be. Except that there was one difference, which was psychologically important to living spectators: the dead were dead...but there was no doubt that they had gone on to an afterlife.” So have your thinking cap on and Google on standby when ruthless powerhouse companies battle for the cryonic business. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate the effort Neal Stephenson needed to write this complicated story, it’s just that I’m not a Mensa Society member (close, but no cigar). Every so often, I need to read a book like this (are you listening China Mieville?) to throw a bucket of cold water on my face
   
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: Whereas this Neal Stephenson novel was a chore to get through, I can think of two oldies that I’ve read that were extra painful to read (at least for me). The toughest was Utopia by Sir Thomas More published in 1516 (see my review of 10/26/2015). It’s the first book that defines utopia as an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. How many Utopian novels have been written since? Or Dystopian?

The second toughest was The Divine Comedy written by Dante Alighieri and originally published in three books in 1320 (Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso). This mind bender was a long narrative poem highlighting his view of the afterlife.

I needed two large buckets of water to keep me awake.

WARLIGHT

You would think that a novel about both parents suddenly leaving their two children to be cared for by unknowns in 1945 England would be exciting. But Michael Ondaatje (win a chicken dinner if you can pronounce that last name) has a knack for being boring and dull. The author of the award winning novel, The English Patient gets away with his seemingly anemic story because of his first class prose. Do you remember that episode on the Seinfeld TV show where Elaine is forced to watch the movie (The English Patient) that all her friends and boss loved? She shouts in the theater, “I can’t do this anymore...I hate it...die already!" Anyway, a blitzed out England should be a great milieu for a story. And it is, as we see that the main chaperones for the children are known by Nathaniel (age 14) and Rachel (age 16) as The Moth and The Darter. The story is narrated by Nathaniel, who at the age of twenty-eight, decides to find out the truth beyond their disappearances. Although the mother came back to the kids in about a year, it was like pulling teeth to get the answers of where she was. And when the answers come, the author takes his good old time to pass along the humdrum details to the reader. I liked the novel strictly because of the composition of the writer, but if you are expecting excitement in war torn England...forget it

“One morning either our mother (Rose/Viola), or our father suggested that after breakfast the family have a talk, and they told us that they would be leaving us and going to Singapore for a year.” Really? The father told them that he got a promotion to take over the Unilever office in Asia.They would be put in boarding schools a mile apart and on weekends and holidays they would be cared for by a guardian they previously met at their home. Mom stayed for a week after dad left to pack her steamer trunk and to firm up the boarding school arrangements. The kids could not stand boarding school because, “Everyone there already knew they had been essentially  abandoned.” Luckily, Nat gets caught urinating in the bathroom sink and almost gets expelled if it wasn’t for The Moth talking the School Master into letting the kids become day students only. Once home, the kids meet Moth’s friends. All lovable...my favorite is The mysterious Darter. One day the kid’s find mom’s steamer trunk in the basement. How could she have gone away without all her belongings? That night, Nat asks The Moth, “Where is my father?” Moth says, “I’ve had no communication with him.” Nat says, “But my mother was joining him.” The Moth says, “No...you must believe me, she isn’t there with him.” That’s all happens in the first twenty nine pages.

You know everybody has different opinions. For me the novel was lackluster, while other people will find the story exhilarating. That's what makes the world go around. The author's assets are his prose, his minimal main characters, and his ability to make the reader feel empathy for everyone in the story. I guess I just wasn't wholeheartedly committed to the story line. Anywho, Michael Ondaatje is recognized as a premium writer, so don't let my review stop you from reading his novel. Not for nothing, does anybody know what nationality Ondaatje is? I know he was born in Sri Lanka, spent time in England and now is a Canadian living in Toronto.
 
RATING: 3 out of 5 stars

Comment: I just looked at Goodreads.com’s The 421 most boring books ever. The first 57 on their list (that I’ve read) don’t make any sense to me (except two). The following are their rank of boredom according to Goodreads.com: 
  
(2) Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (1957) - Are they crazy! Number two! One of the greatest books ever written.

(4) The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951) - This is one of the exceptions that I agree with.

(26) Life of Pi by Yann Martel (2001) - I didn’t think this novel was boring at all.

(29) A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1859) - How dare they attack one of the greatest writers of all time.

(32) The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939) - What!!! This book is a classic.

(43) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (1861) - I loved this book, It was required reading in high school. Dickens is going to turn over in his grave.

(46) The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (1390) - I couldn’t agree more! But shouldn’t it be number one? I was forced to read this book in High School.

(52) Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (2004) - A wonderful walk through the world of magic.

(55) David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1849) - Are you kidding me?

(57) The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (2005) - The best vampire novel ever written and in the epistolary style to boot.