A Momentary Taste of Being

It is a positive thrill to be able to review a book as interesting and profound as Mr. Mullen's The Revisionists .  Time travel, or its near facsimile must be this season's zeitgeist, because both The Revisionists and The Map of Time have it as a central core. For long-time fans of science fiction, Mr. Mullen doesn't really pull out any new stops in his story as far as the SF elements go.  If you take an pound or so of Leiber's Change Wars and mix liberally with the paranoia/schizophrenic world you find in Philip K. Dick,  you'll have a good sense of the novel.  Oh, and add in a little C. L. Moore as in "Vintage Season." Our hero--known to us as Troy--travels in time to preserve the Perfect Present in which he lives.  His job is to preserve the disasters of the past that have ultimately led to the wonders of the future. Right now he watches over the series of events leading up to The Great Conflagration--the event immediately prior to the establi...

from When I am Playing with My Cat, How Do I know That She Is Not Playing with Me? Saul Frampton Our zeal performs wonder when it seconds our inclinations to hatred, cruelty, ambition, avarice, detraction, rebellion. But moved. . . toward goodness, benignity, moderation, unless by miracle some rare disposition prompt us to it, we stir neither hand nor foot. Our religion is intended to eradicate vices whereas it covers, nourishes, incites them.  (Quoting Montaigne) All too true and frightening, and so how much more frightening, then, when words, spoken innocently enough and without guile or intent to deceive can be used to foment division and unrest.  Words of faith, rightly used and wrongly construed still result in the negative that Montaigne conceives here.  So our doctrine must not only be sound, but soundly worded so that there can be nothing within it that can be taken to detract from the value of another human being--nothing that can be interpreted to mean th...

I must start by admitting a terrible prejudice.  I came to this book half in dread--part of which was caused by the cover--which, as you can see bears the mark of a period romance.  And I suppose that there is that element of the book as we shall discover.  But a further, and far more terrible strike against it (in my fevered imagination) is its publisher Bethany House--renowned as a Christian press and purveyor of the most vapid and terrible fiction imaginable--all in the name of Christian art. Well, yes, I did read one bad book from Bethany House before I picked up this one.  And yes, it was so terrible that I picked this one up three times before I committed to it.  But the subject matter of this one was so compelling, so utterly interesting and involving, that I was compelled to pick it up.  No matter how terrible, no matter how fierce-bad, I had to read it because it is about one of those fascinating figure in history--half hidden and fully revealed...

Of the three books I mentioned in my post below, this was the next easiest.  I breezed through it in less than a full day of reading and given its compelling writing and subject matter, it is easy to imagine that the interested reader would do likewise. McEuen, in this novel at least, is vying to join the ranks of Preston and Cloud, Rollins, Reilly, and Maberry.  While nowhere near as armaments oriented as the last two, neither is the plot nearly as convoluted as the first two.  And that makes for a satisfying, deeply interesting, and intelligent read. More intriguing is that Mr. McEuen, while he may not be aware of it, also brings the strains of a fascinating Japanese horror film into his book.  The "Spiral" of the title is Uzumaki  (the Japanese word for Spiral and the name of a fascinating and grotesque Japanese horror film about people who turn into snails as the result of a curse--or something--as with most Japanese horror, the cause is never really qui...

Another distraction in a long line of distractions that distract me from my distractions.  I wonder when I'll discover what it is I'm being distracted from.  Reading, it occurs to me, is like a long conversation between two old friends--you may start anyplace, but in the course of ranging the field, you'll cover a great deal of ground and never truly exhaust the initial topic of conversation. Ah, well then,  The King of Plagues.  For a reasonable description think, James Rollins crossed with Matthew Reilly.  James Rollins for the fact-based scenarios and Matthew Reilly for the sheer love of military equipment.  It is this latter that I find hard to take in the Joe Ledger series of books.  So difficult, in fact, that I have not finished the first in the series-- Patient Zero --dearly beloved of the Zombieists in the audience. So, what to say without giving the house away?  Well, once again we're in plague-land--while it isn't obvious from the...

A consideration of two works--Murakami and Millhauser I must confess to lacking an appropriate appreciation for either author.

"The Seasons" a quartet of short poems.  Or one longer poem.

The City and the City by China Miéville

While I liked Wolf Hall , I was not nearly so enthusiastic as Frank is in this review.   I found her use of third person at times extremely thorny and confusing, and felt that we lingered a trifle in places where I would have preferred to speed on.  On the other hand, I enjoyed it greatly while I read it.  I must say though, that it has no lingering power with me.  Nothing from it sticks in my head as particularly provocative or evocative after having read it nearly a year ago.  This is, ultimately, how I judge the value of what I have read.

Norwegian Wood trailer

Mailer v. Vidal For those who thought incivility in public was a relatively new phenomenon.  

The Last Ringbearer Yisroel Markov And a link to the entry on which one may find the downloadable file. And in an odd case of synchronicity--Brandywine Books discovered this as well.

"The Chinese Restaurant in Portrush"

Four fatal flaws Ah fiddle-dee-dee, Tomorrow is another day.  I'll think about it tomorrow--at Tara.

"The Scholar and His Dog" usefully glossed

Steampunk, a glowing policeman, a zombie plague in Whitechapel, a woman who can see into the future, automata, laudanum, and a Victorian male/female detective team to rival Inspector and Mrs. Pitt--how much more can one cram into one slender volume? This is a rapid and fun run through Steampunk Victoriana.  It centers around two investigations: a glowing policeman who shows up to strangle the poor and destitute in Whitechapel and the crash of a huge airship on which a member of the royal family was traveling. The mystery--entirely satisfactorily resolved.  All the elements brought together in a coherent and logical manner.  The investigation is a little drawn out--but that allows for zombie attacks, automaton attacks, visits to Cassandras, and other elements that never cause the pace to slacken. The steampunk--nicely done from a bellows-attached Queen Victoria to automated surgical machinery and airships--beautifully conceived. Fun, tightly written, intelligent, kee...

The Orchard Keeper reviewed

Joanthan Maberry considered Interviewed Another Interview   (I don't know if this link will work--it is a link into facebook)  If you try it and it doesn't work, please let me know and I'll reprint the interview from the site.  (My brother put it together and so I think I can re-use so long as there's no objection for Mr. Maberry.)

Michael Moorcock chats with Hari Kunzru

Some insights into the letters of DPM