SPECTRUM

The author sent me a copy of his novel to read and review:

I didn’t find the genre of this novel post-apocalyptic or dystopian like most reviewers did. It smacks of weird fiction (but not in a bad way). You don’t know what weird fiction is? Read award winning author, China Mieville, who is the undisputed champion of that genre. See my reviews of Railsea (10/26/2012); Embassytown (3/4/2012) and Kraken (4/10/2011)...then you will know what I’m talking about. Martin Ott’s novel is written in that style sans Mieville’s rather sesquipedalian language and the constant use of "that that". I thought Ott’s novel was weird fiction because no matter how well you assume that you understand the story, you really don’t have a full grasp of what’s going on. You kinda do, but you really don’t. That’s the hallmark of weird fiction novels. I mean in Ott’s novel, exactly what is the Usan empire? Why is "usa" used as an interjection throughout the story, such as, “Usa, that hurt!” (in other words, “God, that hurt”). Did you get a good handle on what crisping was? And what’s up with Mr. G? Why are there pets in this story, such as a Chimpanzadog or a Chickendog? Because that’s weird fiction. Have a idea for a pet? Just go to your local Pet Center and tell them what you want. I mostly enjoyed Ott’s story, but like the three Mieville novels I mentioned above...I felt, nonetheless, that I had brain damage when the story ended.

President George Polk (a crisping freak) was on top of the world in his ozonodome in Collings City. “A party smoldered behind smoky windows, emanating a hazy crimson glow. Inside, a crowd had formed in George Polk’s rumpus room, a high-tech entertainment center and gambling den where the president entertained guests, brokered deals, pretty much whatever he wanted.” Mere Roosevelt, who works for Polk, is there. His claim to fame with Polk is that he developed a transmission fluid that increased the efficiency of the city’s organiputer (don’t ask me what that is). And he just got crisped! (first treatment?). Mere is a lightening...why is it important to be dark skinned? “He didn’t notice any change in pigmentation - he was still plenty light for a Hightowner.” Mere and his wife, Gail, used to be Lowtowners. Mere wanders home after some shenanigans in town and gets into a heated argument with Gail. Mere falls asleep. When he wakes, “Her Zero G suitcase was gone, just as she was. After all the threats, she finally gone and done it. She’d moved out on him.” Then, “Mere waited as long as he dared and sliced airborne through the faint after-image of the phasing hatch. He pivoted after landing and whirled in time to watch the doorway solidify.” When I was in the Marine Corps, the D.I. would say, “Now that’s how a Marine leaves a room.” Haha.  

Mere realizes that “Today was Augusa 1, the beginning of yet another citywide clothing mandate. To liquidate overstock from faulty quotas, Pyramid marketers had created a new fashion-turtle neck shirts without shirts. Mere was stopped by a policemen (a white shirt) who said, Where is your turtleneck ring, citizen? The white shirt flicked on his portable comp, unwrapped a fresh needle, and pricked Mere in the palm. A trail of wires snaked beneath the guard’s uniform and emerged through his pant legs into an organiport.” The white shirt realizes that Mere is okay and just got promoted by friends in high places. Mere says, “So does this mean I’m free to go?” The officer says, “With a warning. But don’t let it happen again or we’ll slag your ass, friends or no.” Mere’s major troubles start when he finds his wife in a sexual situation at the Sierra Resort. He beats the men up and leaves. He decides to head to a bar that was in his old neighborhood in North Irony called Boo’s Bar. “A watered down rom (the drink of choice) didn’t sound like too bad an idea, especially after demolishing those loin-clothed fatcats.” Later that night (on page 42), outside the Boo’s Bar, Mere would mistakenly kill a white shirt. This is where the main anguish for Mere starts and the action shifts into overdrive.

Weird fiction is tough to read because almost every situation is somewhat bizarre and fuzzy. That’s why I say that my brain bleeds trying to figure out what’s going on. Sometimes the reader is not cognizant of the simplest things, such as what year the story is taking place in, or whether or not the characters are on earth or on an imaginary land. Anyway, Martin Ott did a yeoman’s job on this novel, but I can’t grade his novel at the same level that I rated China Mieville’s Railsea. By the way, I had to read three of Mieville’s novels before the lightbulb went on.  
  
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: I believe it’s notable that Book Reviews and Comments by Rick O has surpassed a significant milestone...The Tercentenary level. That’s right, the above review of Spectrum is review number 301. It took six years and nine months to do it, but it got done. Hopefully my reviews over that time period have become more expressive, eloquent and omniscient (just kidding). But seriously, after writing reviews for almost seven years, it has given me a better understanding of the writing game, and I hope that that knowledge has reflected in better and better reviews by me and my guest reviewers. Did I get China Mieville with that that or what? Anyway, I’m constantly getting emails from authors expressing their preference for my style. They tell me that they like my in-depth look at their work (remember it’s their baby) and they love my comparing of their book to similar books and authors. My third book of reviews should be published around Christmas time.

EMPIRE of the SUMMER MOON

In 1871, the Manifest Destiny was in full swing and it was time to rid the West of the hated Comanches. This 2010 bestseller by S.C. Gwynne certainly gives the reader a belly full of hate for the Comanches. Was the author writing about the savagery of the Indians more than the brutality of the white man? Probably, but the Indians were most likely employing their terroristic actions against the settlers to discourage any others from coming west. Early on Andrew Jackson wanted to extend the area of freedom west. He had many followers that believed the United States should set up democratic governments going west. That was the death knell for Mexico and all Indian tribes...later it was extended to the Pacific Ocean and beyond. It seemed the prevailing attitude was: If you weren’t Caucasian...you weren’t qualified to govern your territory. The author didn’t say that, but it was done in a tacit manner. Any historian knows how the Manifest Destiny advanced westward after the Indians were defeated. Anyway, this book centers on the hated Comanche nation. The Comanches were so vicious that they were able to kowtow the ferocious Apache tribe and chase them into Mexico. This book also features the kidnapping of nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker by the Comanches culminating in the birth of her half breed (by Comanche war chief Peta Nocona) son, Quanah, who later became the leader of the Comanche nation. A 1956 movie starring John Wayne, The Searchers, was inspired by this true event. Caveat to the faint of heart...don’t read anymore of this review.   

The book basically covers the forty year war against the Comanche nation. The book tends to flip back and forth during the various years of conflict. This was a tad annoying to me; I would have preferred the years to have been in a chronological order during the hostilities between the Comanches, the white settlers, the Union Army and the Texas Rangers. Anyway, Colonel Mackenzie was given the task of wiping out the Comanches in 1871 by General William Tecumseh Sherman, hero of the Civil War. “For Mackenzie on the southern plains, Comanches were the obvious target: No tribe in the history of the Spanish, French, Mexican, Texan, and American occupations of this land had ever caused so much havoc and death. None was even a close second.” Early on, Mackenzie’s troop came upon an Indian attack of a wagon train. It became known as the Salt Creek Massacre. “According to Captain Robert G. Carter, Mackenzie’s subordinate, who witnessed its aftermath, the victims were stripped, scalped, and mutilated. Some had been beheaded and others had their brains scooped out. Their fingers, toes and private parts had been cut off and stuck in their mouths. They had been clearly tortured, too. Upon each exposed abdomen had been placed a mass of live coals. One wretched man, Samuel Elliott, was found chained between wagon wheels and, a fire having been made from the wagon pole, he had been slowly roasted to death...burnt to a crisp.”

By 1869, the Transcontinental Railroad was completed, making the old trails west obsolete, such as the Oregon Trail. Buffalo hunters were slaughtering the buffalo. “In Kansas alone, the bones of 31 million buffalo were sold for fertilizer between 1868-1881.” All these changes were underway when Mackenzie’s Raiders left their camps on Clear Fork. The Indian tribes were impeding progress...they needed to be wiped out. Especially the hostile Comanches band known as the Quahadis. “Quahadis were the hardest, fiercest, least yielding component of a tribe that had long had the reputation as the most violent and warlike on the continent; if they ran low on water, they were known to drink the contents of a dead horse’s stomach, something even the toughest Texas Ranger would not do. Even other Comanches feared them.” In 1871, Mackenzie was tracking a Quahadi band that was led by a young war chief by the name of Quanah. Mackenzie and his men didn’t know much about Quanah. No one did... Quanah was simply too young for anyone to know much about him yet...He was reputed to be ruthless, clever, and fearless in battle. But there was something else about Quanah, too. He was a half breed, the son of a Comanche chief and a white woman.” Okay, aside from the first paragraph, all of this happened in the first seven pages. On page eight the reader is going to find out why Quanah’s mother was famous... “She was the best known of all Indian captives of the era...She was ‘the white squaw’ because she had refused on repeated occasions to return to her people.” Who was she?

“Her name was Cynthia Ann Parker. She was the daughter of one of early Texas’s most prominent families, one that included Texas Ranger captains, politicians, and prominent Baptists who founded the state’s first Protestant church. In 1836 (you see what I mean about flip flopping years?), at the age of nine, she had been kidnapped in a Comanche raid at Parker’s Fort, ninety miles south of present Dallas. She soon forgot her mother tongue, learned the Indian ways, and became a full member of the tribe. She married Peta Nocona, a prominent war chief, and had three children by him, of whom Quanah was the eldest. In 1860, when Quanah was twelve, Cynthia Ann was recaptured at the battle of Pease River during an attack by Texas Rangers on her village, during which everyone but her and her infant daughter, Prairie Flower, were killed.” Her husband, Peta Nocona was pursued by Texas Ranger, Sul Ross, and ultimately killed, but her two sons, Quanah and Peanuts, got away. Okay, you just had a eight page taste of history, the rest of the pages are on you. The book seemed long (although it was less than 400 pages) because reading history in its straight form can be a bit boring, but the knowledge gained is priceless. I highly recommend this piece of yesteryear.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: It seems to me that the Union Army and the Texas Rangers took a very long time to figure out how to fight the Comanches, and when they finally did...the war turned in their favor. Why the troops would dismount to fight the world’s best horsemen (the Comanches), who could accurately fire arrow after arrow with precision, is beyond me. Finally, when the Texas Rangers got the famous Jack Hays to lead them, strategy was used for the first time against the Indians. “Hays preferred surprise-killing them, just as the Comanches preferred to do, in their villages while they slept. He had learned the fundamental lesson of plains warfare: It was either victory or death.” There was no such thing as a fair fight. You either won or lost.

“He also learned quickly what would become his main advantage: Comanches were extremely predictable. They never changed their methods. They were deeply custom-bound and equally mired in their notions of medicine and magic. They reacted to a given situation - such as the killing of their war chief or medicine man - in exactly the same way, every time. In white man’s terms, they were easily spooked.” In other words, if you killed one of their leaders, they became disorganized and scattered.

The invention of Samuel Colt’s .36 caliber, five chambered rounds revolving pistol was a God send for Hay’s troops. Now in a mounted close-up fight, Hay’s troops each had two chambered pistols (a total of ten shots before having to reload) against the Indians, who had a quiver of twenty arrows each. “No one knows exactly how these revolvers came into the hands of Jack Hays and his Rangers. But they most certainly did. Whenever the event took place, the Rangers immediately grasped the significance of such weapons. To them, Colt’s contraption was a revelation: a multishot weapon that could be used from horseback and thus, at last, even the odds.”

Unknowingly, a big weapon the white men brought to the plains were their diseases. Cholera, measles, malaria, smallpox, whooping cough and influenza killed off many thousands of Indians.        

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

This is a guest review by my thirteen year old grandson, Kai O:

Don’t panic! The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy starts off as a normal day for Arthur Dent. However, Arthur will soon have to walk outside his home to try to stop a construction crew from clearing out his house for a new bypass. But for Arthur Dent, that’s a small problem to worry about, because unbeknownst to him, a Vogon spaceship is heading to Earth to demolish it for a new Galactic Freeway.

Luckily for Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, one of Arthur’s friends (who is actually a
researcher for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) shows up. And Ford knows exactly what’s going on. So he grabs Arthur and pulls him away from his home to go to the local pub for muscle relaxants (booze). At the pub, Ford tries to explain to Arthur how he is really a researcher for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who has been marooned on Earth. Next he tries to tell Arthur that a Vogon Constructor fleet is screaming towards earth with the intent to demolish the planet for a new Galactic Freeway.

Their muscles relaxed, Ford and Arthur leave the pub to try to get off the planet. Unfortunately, Arthur isn’t cooperating because he just discovered that his house has been destroyed. In his rage, Arthur doesn’t notice the Vogon fleet descending towards Earth. The Vogons announce their plans to the entire world. Finally, Arthur understands what Ford has been trying to tell him. At the last second, Ford takes Arthur and beams them up into a Vogon ship. Ford explains to Arthur that the Dentrassi chefs aboard the ship allowed them to be beamed up.

Arthur doesn’t know this yet, but this is the beginning of an adventure that will take him across the galaxy. This is just the first of five hilarious novels by Douglas Adams. This series is easily one of the best I’ve ever read. I strongly recommend this novel to anyone thirteen and up.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: My grandson has taken over the YA book review duties, so I can concentrate on other genres (not that Hitchhiker’s was a YA book). I think he has been doing a great job in honing his review skills.

the X VARIANT

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

When the author, Rosemary Cole, said her novel would be a post-apocalyptic/time travel/zombie novel, I thought no way. She did accomplish that, but I think that it would have been a smoother trip without the time travel part. Couldn’t they (the Unathi) figure out a cure for the zombie-like virus without going back in time? For that matter, couldn’t the author come up with a better name for the surviving human race of the future other than Unathi...how do you pronounce that? (I’m being picky) Mutating viruses in novels are not new. I wonder if the author got some of her ideas from Michael Crichton. Crichton’s Andromeda Strain (1969) deals with a out of control virus that mutates. And Crichton’s Prey (2002) deals with the nanoswarm similar to Cole’s dronet. If she did read the Crichton novels to get ideas...kudos to her. I can’t think of two better novels to read to gain insight to the future scientific world without boring the reader to death with technical hodgepodge. Rosemary Cole gave the reader just enough technical information to understand what was going on. More importantly she gave the reader (in my opinion) an original story with three dissimilar predicaments in the same novel...well done Rosemary.  

It’s 2616 and life on earth is utopian. Humans have evolved into a super post-apocalyptic being known as the Unathi after a virus notoriously called SHAV (synthetic hemorrhagic airborne virus) almost wiped out earth’s population in 2079. Originally SHAV was created to cure cancer, then unwisely used as a weapon against the United Islamic States...later it mutated into a worldwide killer. The new human model known as the Unathi knows no violence. The current human of 2616 was of the old flesh and bone version combined with a symbiont and undetectable drones. What? Okay, I’ll let our main character, Kala, explain what they are, as she answers a question on how she can detect people, if they are around or not, from a human of the 2079 past, “My symbiont lets me do that,” explained Kala. At his blank stare, she went on. “I am Unathi. We are a symbiotic race, two combined species dependent upon each other - human host and symbiont. Our symbionts evolved from the SHA virus over hundreds of years. It produces drones inside our bodies that can tell us where objects or living things are in our vicinity. They can also pacify humans.” She almost said “or kill them,” but stopped herself just in time. Do you see how easily you can understand the science in this novel without all the technical jargon? Simple and to the point.

Anyhow, The 2616 Unathi rarely had any health issues; that’s why it was a surprise when some of the population developed problems with their drones and the Dronet that connected everyone directly mentality. “Every Unathi individual was carefully engineered (They have careparents, not a mom and dad) in a science that had developed over the centuries since the pandemic, selecting the most desirable genetic material from around the globe...but now there was something wrong. People’s drones had stopped functioning, and no one knew why.” Our heroine, Kala (who has a sentient symbiont and is stronger and faster than the rest of the Unathi’s, but is smaller in stature), was meeting her bondmate (apparently Unathi’s don’t get married), Liet, for lunch at a nearby open-roofed dining room. Liet seemed troubled over what was going on. “Kala fully expected someone to figure out what was going on and make the disappearances stop (people were disappearing from all over North America), but they went on and on...she heard their cries on the Dronet.” Suddenly a man in the dining room started to breathe heavily. Unexpectedly, Kala’s drones couldn’t feel him, it was like he was a animal. His eyes bugged out, bared his teeth and attacked a woman near him. He was killing her, but since the Unathi knew no violence in their utopian world, no one knew how to help her. Kala and Liet ran for their lives. They ran to the airtrain station. A woman on the train turns on a man, sinking her teeth into his neck. The woman had mutated into what’s called a Xin (a X-person, later called a ghal) causing her to become a killer. Kala, Liet and some passengers they met on the train are forced to jump off the train or face death. They are badly hurt from the jump, but the symbionts in their bodies quickly healed their broken bones and other severe injuries.

Afterwards, Kala and the train survivors find a woman who was building a hovering device. They attach it to a floating barge and look for food. They find a rooftop where a holocast conference for the living is just starting. The main speaker is a scientist named Wilm. “Greetings, he said. I am Wilm. I know you’re all thinking that there’s no hope. And you’re right, there is none-not for us personally. But there is hope of saving our kind. Please listen to what I have to say.” He explains that the 2079 virus mutated into different strains. The epsilon strain was flawed and these genes are latent. “We don’t know why they’ve suddenly switched on now, but that’s what has happened in the symbionts of the Xin, and we have the X-variant mutant as a result.” So what’s next? “However, we did discover something we didn’t know: there is one strain that doesn’t have the genetic flaw. Beta has no flaw, Wilm said, Beta is perfect.” Okay, how can they defeat this virus and survive as a race? Alright I will tell you and end this teaser...what happens later is worth the price of this novel. “Now, you’re probably wondering what this discovery can do for us. Well, it can’t save us personally, but it might save the Unathi race. As luck-or fate-would have it, after decades of work my colleagues and I have just completed testing a device for faster-than-light space travel...we are now attempting to convert that technology to time travel, and I believe it will work. If we can go back to 2079 and change the past, we have a chance to save the Unathi.”

Wilm believes that if they go back to 2079 and kill all the humans that have the epsilon strain and protect all the people that have the Beta strain, the future will change and the current virus of 2616 would never have happened. Wow, what a story. But since the Unathi are nonviolent, will they be able to kill? If they succeed, will they be able to get back to 2616? What happens if they don’t succeed? What if Wilm’s theory is wrong? Okay, I covered the first 67 pages, now you will have to read the next 234 pages to find out what happens. By the way, this is only book one of a planned trilogy...book two will be out in 2018. As I said in the first paragraph, Rosemary Cole would have had an easier time writing this novel if she would have left the time travel part out, nevertheless she triumphed big-time on her own accord. Get your copy of this exciting novel now...you will be glad you did.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: As I mentioned in the first paragraph, I loved the two Michael Crichton novels, but my favorite mutated virus novel is a Stephen King’s novel, The Stand (1978). I read the novel in 1978, so I never got to review the novel on my site (I would have to reread the novel...it’s too long to do that again) because I started my review site in 2010. But I’ll tell you what Goodreads.com and Amazon.com said about King’s novel:

Goodreads.com says: This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.

And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abagail and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.

Amazon.com says: Stephen King’s apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and tangled in an elemental struggle between good and evil remains as riveting and eerily plausible as when it was first published.

A patient escapes from a biological testing facility, unknowingly carrying a deadly weapon: a mutated strain of super-flu that will wipe out 99 percent of the world’s population within a few weeks. Those who remain are scared, bewildered, and in need of a leader. Two emerge-Mother Abagail, the benevolent 108-year-old woman who urges them to build a peaceful community in Boulder, Colorado; and Randall Flagg, the nefarious “Dark Man,” who delights in chaos and violence. As the dark man and the peaceful woman gather power, the survivors will have to choose between them and ultimately decide the fate of all humanity.

Kidnapped

Sharpen up your Gaelic and colloquial language skills if you want to get through this classic novel by Robert Louis Stevenson set in 1751 Scotland...smoothly. Although published in 1886 in a boy’s magazine, Young Folks, the story is told in the local Scottish dialect with lots of Gaelic thrown in for good measure. I loved the challenge. I’ll give you a sample of what I’m writing about. When our narrator (young seventeen year old David Balfour) meets his crotchety Uncle Ebenezer for the first time at Ebenezer’s dilapidated estate and while David’s having something to eat, Ebenezer answers David’s question of: Why is he so hostile to him? “Hoot-toot!” Said Uncle Ebenezer, “dinnae fly up in the stuff at me. We’ll agree fine yet. And, Davie, my man, if you’re done with that bit parritch, I could just take a sup of it myself. Ay,” he continued, as soon as he ousted me from the stool and spoon, “they’re fine, halesome food - they’re grand food, parritch” (I’m assuming that he is talking about porridge). Later he says, “Na, na; na, na, I like you fine; we’ll agree fine yet; and for the honour of the house I couldnae let you leave the way ye came. Bide here quiet, there’s a good lad; just you bide here quiet a bittie, and ye’ll find that we agree.” Did you notice that Stevenson is a big fan of the semicolon? Later, I’ll give you some examples of the Gaelic language in this story. Some of the characters are real, such as the Jacobite rebel, Alan Breck Stewart, who has been fleeing from the British redcoats in the aftermath of the Jacobite Rebellion (Charles Edward Stuart’s failed attempt to grab the British throne from King George II, in 1745/1746). There are a lot of innuendos of actual happenings in this excellent work of historical fiction to go along with the compelling fictional story.  

The story opens with David Balfour talking with Minister Campbell of Essendean. David’s father has recently died (his mother previously), and Campbell reads David a letter in which states is his inheritance, “give my boy this letter into his hand, and start him off to the house of Shaws, not far from Cramond. That is the place I came from”, he said, “and it’s where it befits that my boy should return. He is a steady lad, your father said, and a canny goer; and I doubt not he will come safe, and be well lived where he goes.” So off he goes to live with his Uncle Ebenezer, who he has never met. On his walking trip to his uncle’s estate, he ask people on the road about the House of the Shaws. The responses are not good. The last person he asks is a woman on top of a hill as they look down to the valley at a ‘great bulk of a building’...with anger, she says, “Blood built it; blood stopped the building of it; blood shall bring it down. See here!” she cried again “I spit upon the ground, and crack my thumb at it! (what does that mean?) Black be its fall! If ye see the laird, tell him what ye hear; tell him this makes the twelve hunner and nineteen time that Jennet Clousten has called down the curse on him and his house, byre and stable, man, guest, and master, wife, miss, or bairn-black, black be their fall!” Wow, it doesn’t sound like David is going to a friendly asylum. Once David gets to his uncle’s estate, he finds Ebenezer unsympathetic with his situation. During an evening storm, Ebenezer sends David up an unfinished tower with missing steps and without a candle to retrieve a chest. David realizes that his uncle might have been trying to kill him after he almost falls to his death. Why is Ebenezer trying to get rid of David? A irritated David locks Ebenezer in his room with the promise that Ebenezer will answer all of David’s questions in the morning.

The next morning, before David can quiz Ebenezer, a ship’s cabin boy comes with a letter for Ebenezer from the Hawes Inn at the Queen’s ferry. It’s from a Captain Hoseason of the ship Covenant. It reads: “Sir,-I lie here with my hawser up and down, and send my cabin-boy to informe. If you have any further commands for over-seas, to-day will be the last occasion, as the wind will serve us well out of the firth. I will not seek to deny that I have had crosses with your doer, Mr. Rankeillor; of which, if not speedily redd up, you may looke to see some losses follow. I have drawn a bill upon you, as per margin, and am, sir, your most obedt., humble servant, ELIAS HOSEASON. Agent.” Now you can see for yourself why this novel was so hard to understand. The cunning Ebenezer says to David, “You see, Davie, I have a venture with this man Hoseason, the captain of a trading brig, the Covenant, of Dysart. Now, if you and me was to walk over with yon lad, I could see the captain at the Hawes, or maybe on board the covenant if there was papers to be signed; and so far from a loss of time, we can jog on to the lawyer, Mr. Rankeillor’s. After a’ that’s come and gone, ye would be swierto believe me upon my naked word; but ye’ll believe Rankeillor. He’s a factor to half the gentry in these parts; an auld man, forby: highly respeckit, and he kenned your father.” What is Ebenezer scheming? What is he trying to hide from David? Later on that day, Ebenezer tricks David to come aboard the ship where he is knock out, chained and stowed below after which his uncle is seen sitting in the stern of a boat pulling for town. The ship was bound for the Carolinas...David realized that “white men were still sold into slavery on the plantations, and that was the destiny to which my wicked uncle had condemned me.” This is where the story takes off...and prospers. End of my 43 page review.

I liked this novel but thought Treasure Island (1883) was more exciting and was easier to comprehend the language (see my review of 8/23/2016). I promised you something in Gaelic. Okay, half way through the novel, the ship David was on (the Covenant) sunk. You can say, a little hole will sink a big ship, or you can say in Gaelic, bathaidh toll beag long mhor. I have no idea how you would pronounce that. Lastly, the author, China Mieville constantly uses the word ‘that’ consecutively (that that) in his novels, but Stevenson used ‘there’ consecutively (there there). Here is the sentence on page 144, “Now,” said he, “there is a little clachan not very far from Corrynakiegh, and it has the name of Koalisnacoan. There there are living many friends of mine whom I trust with my life, and some that I am no just so sure of.” So there there you go (Haha).

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Robert Louis Stevenson died at an early age of 44 in Samoa. He was sickly all his life, suffering from consumption (now called tuberculosis). In his later years he found the sea air helpful to his health. He travelled to the Hawaiian Islands (where he became a good friend of King Kalakaua), the Gilbert Islands, Tahiti, New Zealand and the Samoan Islands. In Samoa, the natives loved him, naming him Tusitala (teller of tales).

A CHILD MADE TO ORDER

The author sent me an autographed copy of his novel to review:

Norwegian filmmaker and author Piotr Ryczko offers the literary world something unique. He has written a quality enigma/thriller novel whereas the reader may dislike the personalities of (as I did) all the main characters (six). Is that a good thing? I say yes, if that was the author’s intention. And I believe that to be so...since there is no joy or time for commiseration in this novel. In fact, it is a very dark story involving the obscure business of permanently modifying genes in living cells to correct mutations and treat the genetic cause of the disease (CRISPR). It also features IVF, a medical procedure whereby an egg is fertilized by sperm in a test tube. All these procedures are performed on unhappy infertile woman. Why is everybody so angry in this novel? I’ll bet that Cormac McCarthy would love this novel. Did any of these women think to get married so they could adopt? Apparently, it’s next to impossible for a singleton parent to adopt a child in Norway. I did like this novel, however it was not without it’s flaws. Why didn’t Viola or Magda give the reader a good layman’s explanation of what mitochondrial disease was? I couldn’t find a easy answer to this disease on the internet. I also didn’t understand why it took so long to tell the reader exactly how Marcus died. Lastly, why did it take over half the novel before the reader finds out that Pål was a suspended cop? These are details that seem minor, but cause the reader to somewhat stumble through the story in a wishy-washy way...if that makes any sense.

The story is based in Oslo, Norway in 2016. Marianne Stine, a women’s rights campaigner, had disappeared three years earlier. Since her disappearance, her video blog that catered “to the community of infertile women” has been inactive. Marianne has a condition known as mitochondrial disease, which caused her to have three miscarriages in a row. Where did she go? Meanwhile, Viola Voss, the investigative reporter who tried to find Marianne with the help of Police Officer Pål, is being promoted to Middle East correspondent in Syria. She was being promoted by her mother, Anne, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Aftenposten. While the party was downstairs waiting for Viola to join the festivities, Viola, who also suffers from the mitochondrial disease was…"Upstairs, in the bathroom. Dressed in her onyx Sherri Hill one-shoulder cocktail dress. Hiding like a wounded animal, scraping her knees against the bathroom tiles. This was the only place where she didn’t feel like she was about to lose her mind. And the only thing that took away some of the numbness, stabbing at her heart, was the scrubbing. Her hand clenched onto a piece of wiry cloth, while she did her best to remove a practically non-existent stain from the bathtub.” What happened in that tub five years ago?

Her boyfriend, Ronny (a doctor), finally gets Viola to come downstairs for the promotion celebration. Everything goes well, including the news that Ronny has given up his practice and will go with her to Syria...until the doorbell rings (note to the author: I also love the ellipsis). It’s Mrs. Stine, Marianne’s disgusting mother. “Three years earlier, Viola offered to help look for Stine’s daughter. She was a public figure, a known personality in the blogosphere, but most of all, she was the voice of the many childless women out there.” What did Mrs.Stine want of Viola? The missing person case was dropped a long time ago. Viola tries to push Mrs. Stine nicely out the door, “But just as she had almost managed to get rid of the older woman, Stine shoved a phone into her face.” Viola says, “But. But. But...The blog has been dead since she disappeared. Right? So, what is this? Stine pressed her finger at a snippet of text from Marianne’s blog. A fresh comment read: Don’t let the bed bugs get under your undies-Anon.” Viola tells Mrs. Stine that it could be anything...probably a prank. But Mrs. Stine vigorously disagrees, “These are my words, Miss! I sang them when I put her to sleep. Don’t you see? My baby...She is alive.” Wow, what’s going to happen now? Will Viola disappoint her pig headed mother and give up her promotion to look for Marianne again? Did Marianne find a clinic that can cure her disease? If so, can they cure Viola’s? Or is what’s to come a criminal hoax? I only reviewed the first twenty pages of this suspenser (notwithstanding my first paragraph of analysis), the other 276 pages are on you. I do recommend reading this dark tale...it’s a trip.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: I wondered how authors like Piotr from Norway heard about my reviews. Then I checked my internal stats and saw that I’ve had 1,373 “hits” on my site from Scandinavian countries. Enough said...the internet is truly worldwide. Are there any great Norwegian writers? I couldn’t find any, but there are several great Scandinavian writers. Surely you have heard of the Danish author, Hans Christian Andersen and his The Complete Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales (1835). And what about the great Swedish children’s writer, Astrid Lindgren and her Pippi Longstocking character (1945).

But I saved the best anecdote for last. Swedish writer Stieg Larsson died of a heart attack in 2004. After his death, three manuscripts that he wrote for his own pleasure (with no intention of publishing) came to light. They are; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2005), The Girl Who Played with Fire (2006) and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (2007). Besides becoming bestsellers, all three novels were adapted as motion pictures. Go figure.       

the BEAR and the NIGHTINGALE

Although Katherine Arden is a Texan by birth, she writes like a seasoned Russian novelist. I presume studying Russian literature in Moscow had a lot to do with her Russian folklore style. I especially admire her using the Russian peculiarity (to us, not to them) of each character having multiple names. Sometimes this causes confusion for the reader. But when you realize that Russians have a first name, patronymic name and surname spelled in many varieties each, it’s less puzzling. They might also have a peasant name or a cutesy/loving name to go along with their other names. For example our main character is Vasilisa, but she is also known as: Vasya, Vasilisa Petrovna, Vasochka, and Vedma by a bathhouse spirit named Bannik. Oh yes, Vasya sees lots of spirits and they all relate to her. If you want a better example of multiple names, read Dostoevsky’s 1866 masterpiece, Crime and Punishment (see my review of 11/17/2014). Katherine Arden’s descriptive writing is in play when writing about the approaching cold winter in northern Russia, “The season was just turning, the drab fields full of shaved stubble and dusted with snow...it was cold, but Vasya did not think of it. She had been born to cold.” Throughout the novel the author has a foreboding style of writing that makes the reader wince when thinking of what’s going to happen next...and the heebie-jeebies usually transpire. I find it hard to believe that this novel is Katherine Arden’s first.

Katherine Arden recreates fourteenth century Russia with this fresh tale drawn from old Russian fables. Pyotr Vladimirovich was a great lord living on rich lands with many peasant workers. He enjoyed a good life with his wife, Marina; sons, Kolya, Sasha and Alyosha and daughter, Olga. Longtime nurse and nanny, Dunya, also lived in the big house, now the chief cook and family storyteller. Early in the novel, Dunya tells the tale of The Frost King, “The master of the white snow, the black firs, and the silver frost”, to the children. All the peasants believed him to be real along with all the other woodland spirits. Later in the day, Marina tells Pyotr, “I am with child.” Pyotr was concerned because Marina was older now “and she had grown so thin that winter.” Marina said, “I want a daughter like my mother was.” Marina’s mother is a story in itself. During the reign of Ivan the first, “A ragged girl (Marina’s mother) rode through the Kremlin-gates, alone except for her tall gray horse. Despite filth and hunger and weariness, rumors dogged her footsteps. She had such grace, the people said, and eyes like the swan-maiden in a fairy tale...when Ivan first saw this girl, he sat unmoving for a full ten minutes. A year later he married this mysterious girl.” Who is she? Where did she come from? “The princess would not say where she had come from: not then and not ever.” The Church didn’t like the princess or her  daughter, Marina. “At the bishop’s insistence, Marina, her only child, was married off to a boyar (Pyotr) in the howling wilderness, many days’ travel from Moscow.” The stage is set for the birth of Vasya. Will she have the same special abilities and attributes as her grandmother had?

Vasya is born. “Marina breathed out once, gently, and died.” Before Marina died, she named the baby girl, Vasilisa...Vasya. “All that winter, the house echoed with the child’s cries. More than once, Dunya and Olga, despaired of her, for she was a scrawny, pallid infant, all eyes and flailing limbs. But the winter passed and the child lived. She ceased screaming and throve on the milk of peasant woman.” As she got older, Vasya had a habit of going into the woods alone. One day she didn’t come home for supper after a day in the forest. Who was Vasya calling when she sat in the snowy forest and said, “I know you sleep when the snow comes, but couldn’t you wake up? See, I have cakes (stolen from Dunya’s kitchen).” With no answer, Vasya decides to go home, but for some reason gets lost in the woods. She sees a tree unlike another. It was big, black and gnarled like a wicked old woman. “A man lay curled like a beast at the foot of this tree, fast asleep. She could not see his face; it was hidden between his arms. Through rents in his clothes, she glimpsed cold white skin. He did not stir at her approach.” With Vasya’s urging, he finally woke up. One side of his face was fair with a gray eye. The other side of his face was a mass of bluish scars with the eye socket sewn shut. He says, “What manner of girl-child comes here, all alone?” And then softer, “Such eyes, Almost I remember...Well, come here.” He made his voice coaxing. “Your father will be worried.” What did this thing (?) almost remember? I know that I told you a lot, but so far I’ve only reviewed the first 24 pages of a 314 page novel...are you ready to buy your own copy yet?

Before the one-eyed man could do any harm to Vasya, “There came the crunch of hooves in the snow, and the snorting breaths of a horse. A horse and rider stepped into the clearing. The horse was white and strong; when the rider slid to the ground, Vasya saw that he was slender and bold-boned, the skin drawn tight over cheek and throat. He wore a rich robe of heavy fur, and his eyes gleamed blue.” I told you that the author’s descriptive writing was to my liking. Anyway, who are these strange men and is one of them the Frost King? If so, who is the other man? The man in the rich robe of heavy fur says to the one-eyed man, “What is this?” The ragged man cringed, “No concern of yours, she came to me-she is mine.” The newcomer said to him, “Is she? Sleep, Medved, for it is winter.” So, they obviously know each other. Vasya is now frightened and turns around and flees. The stranger doesn’t follow. Vasya is eventually found by her brother, Sasha and returned home. Later, “Sasha, though he told no one, ranged the forest to the west, looking for this one-eyed man, or an oak tree with roots about its knees. But never man nor tree did he find, and then the snow fell for three days, straight and hard, so that none went out.” Okay, that’s the end of my 29 page review. The real good stuff is still ahead...and I mean real good. Did you notice that I never mentioned the bear or the nightingale? I also didn’t mention all the Russian folklore spirits and demons that you will meet. Only one thing annoyed me. I had to keep going to Google or Wikipedia to decipher some Russian words; such as, devushka (girl) or domovoi (a household spirit in Russian folklore). Guess what? I didn’t realize that the author had a glossary at the book’s end that would have answered all my questions. Oh well!

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: I looked up a listopia that Goodreads.com had on the internet concerning the top novels based on Russian folklore. They all seem to be recent novels, so I don’t know what the criteria was when the vote took place, but the following are the top two novels:

1. The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey (2012). This was a surprise because it was a novel that I reviewed in 2013. Goodreads.com said, “Alaska, the 1920s. Jack and Mabel have staked everything on a fresh start in a stark place, and Mabel is haunted by the baby she lost many years before-when a little girl appears mysteriously on their land, each is filled with wonder, but also foreboding...is she what she seems, and can they find room in their hearts for her?” What did I think? Check out my review of 4/13/2013.
2. Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maguire (2014). Goodreads.com said, “Elena Rudina lives in the impoverished Russia countryside. Her father has been dead for years. One of her brothers has been conscripted into the Tsar’s army, the other taken as a servant in the house of the local landowner. Her mother is dying, slowly, in their tiny cabin. And there is no food. But then a train arrives in the village…”