Up The Down Staircase - Bel Kaufman

   1965; 370 pages.   New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Humor; Schools & Teaching; Epistolary Literature.  Laurels : 64 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    Today’s the big day!  Sylvia Barrett starts her new job in her new career!

    Okay, so it’s as a substitute teacher at Calvin Coolidge High School, which is not the most prestigious educational institute in town.  That would be Willowdale Academy.  But hey, this is Sylvia’s chance to get her foot in the door, and maybe that will eventually lead to an opportunity to teach at Willowdale.

    It's an exciting moment for Sylvia.  She will be teaching several classes of English and shepherding a homeroom class.  She dearly wants to make an impact on the teenage lives in both of those situations.  She can hardly wait to see their faces light up when they’re introduced to Shakespeare's plays or Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken”.

    Best yet, she’ll have the other teachers, the principal, and the school’s entire key support staff to assist her in this new chapter of her life.  It all starts now, the first day of the fall semester.  I wonder what the class’s first words will be?

    “Hi, teach!”

    “Looka her!  She’s a teacher?”

    “Who she?”

What’s To Like...

    Up The Down Staircase came out in 1965, and was a “wildest-dreams-come-true” experience for Bel Kaufman.  She was 50+ years old, this was her debut novel (originally written as a short story), and it became an instant and long-lasting New York Times bestseller.

    The story is written in epistolary format – the text consists of various written communications such as official memos from the school’s administration to teachers, unofficial memos between Sylvia and fellow teachers, student homework essays on English Lit books, notes from students put in the suggestion box Sylvia installs, and snippets of dialogue between her and her students, primarily those in her homeroom class.  I like this format, see here for another book I read in this style.

    The book is based on the author’s personal teaching career experiences, albeit fictionalized to increase the humor value.  The storyline highlights Sylvia’s attempts to connect with her students, most notably Joe Ferone and Eddie Williams, and with mixed results.  There is some mild romantic tension between Sylvia and an attractive-but-dorky fellow English teacher, a mysterious custodian who Sylvia never meets but for whom lots of students request passes to see, and a professional quandary when she contemplates applying for a position at the more upscale Willowdale Academy next semester.

    I liked the character developments of both the students and the adults.  The students include a class comedian (hey, that was me!), an apple-polisher, an overweight girl jealous of Sylvia’s looks, a woman-hater, a girl with a hormonal overdrive, a lone and bitter black student, and a Puerto Rican student searching for his identity.  The school officials include an older, wiser, and trusted confidante, an idealistic but utterly clueless principal, his polar-opposite assistant (aware, but cynical), and a number of fellow teachers, embittered by experiences with “the system”.

    The book brought back memories of high school days.  We too had a mandatory Shakespeare play to read each year, and my teachers presented it with an equal lack of enthusiasm.  Sylvia’s students get assigned 100-word essays, mine were 200-worders, including one memorably called “The Mining Industry in Siberia” that was assigned to me as punishment for some class shenanigan.  OTOH, when Sylvia’s explains the meaning of Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” I was thoroughly thrilled; I hated it and had zero comprehension of it when we read it in high school English.

    For me the most entertaining parts were the replies put in Sylvia's suggestion box by the students, often anonymously, and their mini-essays for homework assignments such as “What I Got Out of English Class so far”.  But be forewarned, if you’re a grammar nazi, you’ll grit your teeth at the spelling, syntax, and punctuation errors.  There’s also some more-serious insight into topics such as racial integration and the uneasy trust issues between students and school officials.

    The ending was kind of a “lump-in-the-throat” thing for me.  It’s not particularly surprising, but makes up for that by being heartwarming, which I think is apt for this type of story.  Lots of issues remain unresolved, but that too is okay – major personal and cultural issues are rarely solved in a single semester.  Timewise, the story covers only the fall term, and it screams for a sequel to cover the spring semester, but alas, this is a one-and-done novel.

Excerpts...

    “Keep on file in numerical order” means throw in wastebasket.  You’ll soon learn the language.  “Let it be a challenge to you” means you’re stuck with it; “interpersonal relationships” is a fight between kids; “ancillary civic agencies for supportive discipline” means call the cops; “Language Arts Dept.” is the English office; “literature based on child’s reading level and experiential background” means that’s all they’ve got in the Book Room; “non-academic-minded” is a delinquent; and “It has come to my attention” means you’re in trouble.  (loc. 600, and is a decoding of key phrases in "Intraschool Communications" that Sylvia is struggling to comprehend.)

    Correct the following for Fri.

1. Rowing on the lake the moon was romantic.

    Correction – While rowing on the lake the moon was romantic?

    Or – Rowing on the lake, the moon was romantic?

2. Looking out of the window was a tree.

    Correction – Looking out of the window a tree appeared in view.

3. I found a pencil loitering in the hall.

    Correction – A pencil loitering in the hall was found by me.  (loc. 3247; homework notes jotted down by a student)

Kindle Details…

    Up The Down Staircase goes for $5.99 at Amazon.  Bel Kaufman subsequently published three more books: a romance, a collection of her essays, and an anthology of short stories by her.  None of these are presently available at Amazon in e-book format.

What do I do about a kid who calls me “Hi, teach?”  (…)  Why not answer Hi, pupe?  (loc. 592)

    The quibbles are minor.  There’s a bunch of acronyms – SS, PPP, PRC, CC, etc. – repeatedly used in the school memos.  Bel Kaufman tells you what they mean the first time, then expects you (and Sylvia) to remember what they stand for thereafter.  Keep notes.

    Some reviewers were critical of the shallow way the integration issue was handled, but Up The Down Staircase is meant to be a lighthearted tale, and frankly, in my high school in 1964 there was no sense of activism about it.  I’m actually pleasantly surprised Bel Kaufman gave it some ink in the book.  Ditto for the use of the word “Negro”, which is obsolete nowadays, but was politically correct back then.

    There is a smattering of cussing, including the F-word (once spelled correctly, once not), which IMO is realistic for high school student dialogue.  In the book's Foreword, Bel Kaufman discusses the efforts by the publisher to get her to "soften" the words used in these instances, which ones she acquiesced to, and which ones she didn't.  That section is somewhat lengthy, but gives some keen insight into pressures that publishing houses can put on fledgling authors.

    8 Stars.  Up The Down Staircase is a fast, easy read; ideal if you have a book review due tomorrow and you haven’t even started reading anything.  It took the reading world by storm in 1965, and was made into a hit movie a couple years later.  Bel Kaufman lived to the ripe old age of 103, born in 1911, died in 2014.  Amazingly, her (second) husband, five years her junior, was still alive when she passed away.  It would be great to have their combined longevity genes.

The Queen of Bedlam - Robert McCammon

   2007; 645 pages.  Book 2 (out of 7) in the “Matthew Corbett” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Historical Fiction; Murder Mystery; Intrigue.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

    New York, in the year 1700.  We can’t quite call it New York City yet, since the population hasn’t even hit 5,000.  But it’s growing rapidly, and who knows, it might eventually grow to be as big as Boston or Philadelphia.

There are boatloads (literally) of new colonists coming to New York from England.  But there are also lots of Dutch colonists left over from when the town belonged to Holland, who called it New Amsterdam.  England took it over less than forty years ago.

    Matthew Corbett has been here for about three years now, having come up from the Carolina colony at the conclusion of his adventure down there, chronicled in Speaks The Nightbird and reviewed here and here.  He’s still a clerk, but now he works for the Magistrate Powers.  But his first love is solving mysteries and he's jokingly invented a new word to describe someone who goes about detecting clues to figure out who committed a crime: a “detective”.

    At present, he has a chance to put those “detecting skills” to good use, since someone recently slashed the throat of Dr. Godwin, a local physician.  Most likely it was some crazy person, since they also mutilated the doctor’s face.  It happened at night, out on a dark street, and if the madman has any sense (is that an oxymoron?), he’s probably skipped out to some other town.  Everybody in New York certainly hopes he has.

    But a respected merchant has just suffered the same fate, and when Matthew happens upon the scene right after the murder, it’s time once again for him to go detecting.

What’s To Like...

    The Queen of Bedlam is Book Two in this series, and like its predecessor, is equal parts Historical Fiction, Murder-Mystery, and Intrigue.  All three genres are masterfully done.  Most of the story takes place in New York and the surrounding countryside, but Matthew’s sleuthing will also take him on trips to Westerwicke, New Jersey and Philadelphia.  I found it fascinating to see how traveling on business trips was done back then.

    The character development – even secondary and bit-part ones – is exceptional.  Although for the most part you can tell who the good guys and the bad guys are, I liked that even Matthew has faults.  For instance, he's not nearly as good at tailing a suspect as he thinks he is.

    The depth of Robert McCammon’s research is revealed in the historical details, including visits to a brothel and a mental hospital.  I I enjoyed the glimpse of forensic science in 1700, and chuckled at Matthew’s “acid trip”, which could be described as both “very bad” or “very good”.  I’m always delighted when chess gets worked into a story, and was surprised that even a drag queen could make it into the tale.

    At one point Robert McCammon gives some literary nods to authors who apparently were popular in 1700, and I want to check them out to see if Amazon offers them as free e-books, since any copyrights have surely expired.  There’s also a bit of subtle humor sprinkled throughout the story, which gives some balance to the dark deeds going on.  For instance, we get a graphic illustration of a “bull in a china shop”, and Master Samuel Baiter makes a cameo appearance, when he's addressed by a slightly shorter version of his name.

    There are at least eight plot threads for Matthew (and the reader) to investigate.  1.) Who’s the Masker and why is he carving up people?  2.) Who killed an earlier victim?  3.) What’s troubling Reverend Wade?  4.) What’s the connection, if any, between the three (presumed) Masker victims?  5.) Who’s the Queen of Bedlam and what’s her story?  6.) How does Simon fit in?  7.) What’s the code in Ausley’s notebook mean?  8.) Who and where is Professor Fell?

    The ending is extended (a good fifty pages or more), exciting, packed with action, and suitably twisty.  I love it when not everything in the hero's plans goes smoothly.  The second-last chapter serves as an Epilogue to clear up a couple of the plot threads, and the final chapter serves as a teaser for the next book in the series.

    The Queen of Bedlam is a standalone novel, as well as part of a series.  I don’t think it’s necessary to read the books in order, although I’m doing so.

Excerpts...

    “What are they going to do to us?” (…)

    “They’re going to kill us,” he said.

    Berry stopped.  She stood gaping at him, her blue eyes scorching holes through his head, until Dahlgren gave her a shove that almost propelled her into Matthew. (…)

    “Kill us?” she gasped when she could speak.  “Kill us?  What have you got me into?”

    “An adventure,” he replied.  “I thought you liked those.”

    “I like adventures I can live through!”  (pg. 578)

    In this town of soon to be more than five thousand persons there was a governor who wore a dress, a reverend who loved a prostitute, a printmaster who could crack walnuts on his forehead, a high constable who had killed a boy, a magistrate who was once a tennis champion, a laundress who collected secrets, and a coroner who collected bones.  There was a barber who owned a squirrel named Sassafras, a tailor who could identify a dead man from a suit’s watch pocket, and a black giantess who would put aside her gittern just long enough to kill you.  (pg. 638)

Kewlest New Word ...

Bloatarian (n.) : someone who consumes significant amounts of brewed alcoholic beverages.

Others: Stoggered (adj.).  (both these words are borderline “made up” ones.)

“Spoken like someone who forgot to brush their brain this morning.”  (pg. 485 )

    It's hard to find anything to quibble about in The Queen of Bedlam.  There's a fair amount of cussing, but it fits the story’s dark tone and isn't excessive.  The subject of child molestation crops up, and there’s one instance of forced sex, wherein we learn the meaning of term “the nymph’s itch”.

    The titular Queen of Bedlam doesn’t enter the story until the halfway point; I suppose purists could cavil about that.  And for those who read Robert McCammon’s novels for their paranormal horror content, well, all we have here is a pig that can foretell disasters and a girl’s who is a bad luck magnet.

    Oh yeah, two birds and one farm animal die.

    9 Stars.  I found The Queen of Bedlam to be just as good as Speaks The Nightbird, and I quite liked that book.  I've yet to read any of Robert McCammon’s “horror” novels, and I’m quite curious to see whether he can do those with equal mastery.  But I’ve got three of the remaining five Matthew Corbett books on my Kindle, so I might just as easily concentrate on this series.

Defining Moments in (Black) History - Dick Gregory

   2017; 271 pages.  Full Title: Defining Moments in [Black] History – Reading Between the Lies.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Historical Essays; African-American History; Non-Fiction; Socio-Political Commentary.  Laurels: 2017 NAACP Image Award (winner); 2018 BCALA (Black Caucus of the American Library Association) Literary Award.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

    America today is once again in a Black Lives Matter crisis, and while I am fully support the protesters and activists, I also have to admit that I know very little about their mindset.  It’s therefore a good time to read something/someone relevant to the movement, but who and what to choose?  Well, let’s use the “BOFFO” criteria.

    B.  Black.  It makes sense to select a black author, because they will inherently be more attuned to BLM than us white folks, just like you wouldn’t pick a male author to describe what labor pains feel like while giving birth.

    O.  Old.  It would be best if the author participated in the 1950’s/60’s Civil Rights protests, yet was also still around when the BLM demonstrations of this decade were going on.

    F. Famous.  Famous people rub elbows with other famous people, and it would be interesting to hear what black professional athletes, movie actors, and politicians think about the protests from someone who knows them personally.

    F. Funny.  Yes, Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter are serious topics, but a couple of witty anecdotes every once in a while would help lighten the mood.

    O. Outspoken. There’s no need to sugarcoat the subject.  The author should have a reputation of telling it like it is.

    That’s all fine and dandy, but who’s out there that fulfills all our BOFFO preferences?

    Well, Dick Gregory for one.

What’s To Like...

    The "meat" of Defining Moments in (Black) History consists of five essays written by Dick Gregory, plus a Frontspiece (worth reading), Foreword (skippable), Introduction (kind of a sixth essay), and Epilogue (the author’s closing thoughts).  A brief summary of the Essays:

    Introduction : Dick-ol-o-gy (3%)

        Getting used to the writing style; getting used to the comedic interludes.

    Essay 1 : Searching For Freedom  (11%)

        The early history of slavery in the US.

    Essay 2 : Solidarity  (22%)

        The Civil Rights movement in the 1950’s/60’s and the organizations formed to promote them.

    Essay 3 : The More Things Change, the More Thy Stay the Same  (41%)

        Politics and the passing of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965.

    Essay 4 : Making Something Out of Nothing  (59%)

        Notable black people in the Arts.

    Essay 5 : Running in Place, Embarrassing the Race  (85%)

        Notable black people in Sports.

    The essays are written in a “conversational” style, which took me a while to get used to.  I have a feeling someone taped Dick Gregory as he spoke, and then transcribed it.  The result is a lot of “As I said”, “Follow me now”, and “But, keep in mind, as I keep saying“ type of expressions, plus an occasional cussword.

    Dick Gregory does a lot of name-dropping along the way, but that’s okay.  It was enlightening to read his opinions about all sorts of famous folks, both historical and recent.  Rosa Parks, my personal hero, gets major ink, as do Muhammad Ali, Toni Morrison, Tiger Woods, Sidney Poitier, and Maya Angelou.  I had forgotten about Tommie Smith and John Carlos, and it's embarrassing that I’d never heard of Mae Jemison.

    The discourse on “the difference between racism and white supremacy” was educational for me.  For lovers of trivia, it’s pointed out that November 11th is both Veteran’s Day and  Nat Turner’s Death Day.  I think I’ll start commemorating it for the latter event.  You’ll also learn things like why Louis Armstrong was nicknamed “Satchmo”.

    I was surprised to learn the Dick Gregory had a rather low opinion of both Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy.  He views Bill Clinton in only a slightly better light, but really appreciated John Brown’s commitment to abolition.  The history of The Supremes was fascinating, and oddly enough, one of my favorite bands, The Doors, get a brief mention.

Excerpts...

    For those who haven’t been to jail but kind of wonder in the back of their minds what it was like in the civil rights days, let me explain it to you.  First day you get arrested, the food is horrible.  Second day, it’s miserable.  The third day, it doesn’t taste too bad.  The fourth day, you’re asking for the recipe.

    By the time I got down south to protest, blood was running in the streets.  (loc. 1274)

    Once you admit that there’s somebody in the universe other than you, white supremacy goes out the window, doesn’t it?  Organized religion as we know it goes out the window, doesn’t it?  My grandmother didn’t have space in her head to believe there could be a Baptist on Mars.  Worst of all, in the view of white supremacists, if we start to think we’re not alone in the universe, then white supremacy doesn’t mean a thing, because we would all become earthlings.  There wouldn’t be a Memphis or a Chicago or an America or a Russia or a China or an Africa – we would be Earth people.  This is what this thing is all about.  (loc. 3500)

“White is not a color; it’s an attitude.”  (loc. 678 )

    The book has some weaknesses.  For starters, the comedic interludes, while entertaining, were also distracting.  Yes, you can tell Dick Gregory’s spiel about the history of hurricanes is not to be taken seriously, but it wasn’t clear whether the Jocko Graves anecdote was fact or farce; ditto for the "turtle, butterfly, and dinosaur" object lesson.  A lot of the historical tie-ins – such as the role of the (black) Tuskegee airmen saving the day for the whole D-Day invasion – seemed overstated.

    Even worse were Dick Gregory's conspiracy theories.  Lincoln and Kennedy were both killed by the banks.  Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed by someone other than James Earl Ray.  Otis Redding and Sam Cooke were both killed by the Jewish owners of record companies.  The King Kong movie was really a slander against the boxer Jack Johnson.  Tiger Woods was brought down by white supremacists.  And last and laughably least, Michael Jackson was killed by the government.  Using lasers.

    It was also sad to see the author struggling to defend some of his personal friends, such as Bill Cosby.  It’s noble to have a friend’s back, but the evidence against Cosby is overwhelming.  Dick Gregory can’t refute it, so he justifies it by saying lots of others in the movie industry were doing the same thing, and they weren’t punished.  Somehow, that sounds eerily similar to wing-nuts defending Trump's grabbing of female genitals.

    But overall, the pluses about Defining Moments In (Black) History outweigh the minuses.  It’s important to remember these are essays, not dissertations.  You’re getting Dick Gregory’s opinions about important steps in the road to black freedom, not a scholarly presentation of facts.  He’s trying to instill a sense of pride in black readers through telling them their history that was never taught to them and giving them lots of black role models,  He couldn't care less whether some of the details are debatable.

    When viewed in that light, the book is a powerful effort.  And it shouldn't be surprising at all that Dick Gregory gave the Black Lives Matter movement his wholehearted endorsement.

    7½ Stars.  Defining Moments In (Black) History was Dick Gregory’s seventeenth and final book.  He was born on October 12 (Columbus Day!) in 1932, and he passed away on August 19, 2017, less than a month before, on September 05, the hardcover version of the book was published.  RIP, sir!

The Janson Command - Paul Garrison

   2012; 436 pages.  Book  2 (out of 4) in the “Janson Directive” series.   New Author? : Yes.  Action-Adventure; Intrigue; Espionage.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

    Paul Janson just landed a job, and a well-paying one to boot.  The Houston-based American Synergy Corporation (“ASC”), the largest oil company in America, wants him to “retrieve” one of their trauma doctors, Terry Flannigan, and bring him home.

    This could be quite the challenge, since the doctor has been taken hostage by rebel forces on the Isle de Foree, a small island country off the west coast of Africa, close to Nigeria.  But Janson is a former black-ops agent, so he’s well-qualified for the task.  With some careful planning and a world-class sharpshooter for a partner, things should go swimmingly.

    And they do.  Oh, there were a couple of surprises, including a bunch of Russian tanks and a fighter jet of unknown origin, but a few hiccups along the way were to be expected.  The doctor is rescued and it’s time to take him back home.  

    Alas, that's when everything goes haywire.  Terry Flannigan insists he’s not an employee of ASC, never has been, is happy where he is as he nurses the rebel leader back to health, and frankly thinks Janson’s been sent here to kill him.

    And when the doctor slips away to parts unknown, Paul can feel his “retrieval fee” slipping away as well.

What’s To Like...

    The Janson Command is the second book in a 4-book series, that appear to be completed, since the fourth one was published in 2015.  Robert Ludlum penned the first book in the series, Paul Garrison wrote #2 and #3, and Douglas Corleone authored the last one.  This is the only book in the series I’ve read.

    The action starts immediately, the pacing is fast, and the only time things slow down a tad is when Paul Garrison wants to introduce some intrigue into the tale.  There are a bunch of settings, most of which are exotic: Nigeria, New York, Cartagena in Spain, Zurich, Baghdad, Sydney and Canberra in Australia, Corsica and Sardinia, and Singapore.  The last one resonated with me, as I spent 24 hours there on business one time, and Garrison’s portrayal of it felt very “real” to me.

    I liked the “Janson Rules” that he plays by, and expects anyone work for him to abide by as well: 1.) no torture, 2.) no civilian casualties, 3.) no killing anyone who doesn’t try to kill you.  Those are difficult rules to follow when you’re doing covert espionage missions, and Janson in particular is sorely tested by them.

    You’ll learn a little bit of French (the fictitious Isle de Foree appears to be a former French colony), including a French cussword or two; and a smidgen of Spanish as well.  On a more practical note, you’ll learn how to make a smoke bomb using only items that are available in a cruise line gift shop.  There are 44 chapters plus a prologue, and the book is divided into four parts, each one signaling the main plot thread is about to become deeper and twistier, which leaves both the reader and Janson wondering just what the heck is really going on.

    The ending is suitably exciting, although not particularly twisty.  Everything goes according to Janson’s well-contrived plans, and despite their numerical superiority, the bad guys seem to be outmatched.  Some of the secondary plot threads, such as who’s really behind all this, remain unresolved, presumably to be addressed in the next book.  Nonetheless, The Janson Command is a standalone novel, and I didn’t feel I was missing anything by having not read the first book.

Excerpts...

    “The downside I see to working with a woman is that in the clutch, when the lead is flying, it’s only natural that you’d be distracted, worried about her getting hurt.  Particularly if she’s your protégée.  Devoted followers have a habit of getting killed in our line of work.  I’ve lost them; so have you."

    “Jessica is predator, not prey.”  (pg. 40)

    “Isle de Foreens dislike Nigerians.  They accuse us of being overbearing.  It is relatively typical of small nations to dislike big nations.  As many nations hate America, so many hate Nigeria.”

    “To have Nigeria as a neighbor is to sleep with a hippopotamus.”

    “My nation and your island are separated by two hundred miles of open gulf.”

    “Hippos can swim.”  (pg. 310)

“What’s our Coast Guard doing six thousand miles from home?”  (pg. 78 )

    There’s not a lot to nitpick about in The Janson Command.  There’s a fair amount of cussing, but I didn’t feel it was overdone.  There’s one instance of sex, and one instance of sexual abuse; but both are handled deftly.  A bunch of acronyms crop up in the story, so you might want to keep notes about what things like SR, Cons Ops, ASC, GRA, and FFM stand for.

    Judging from the Amazon reviews, the biggest gripe seems to be the book cover itself.  Glance at the image above.  What jumps out at you?  Robert Ludlum and Jason Bourne, right?  Well, the first one didn’t write this book, and the second one doesn’t appear in it.

    Some readers apparently were duped and irked by this, but honestly a second glance should have told them who the actual author and protagonist were.  Further, it should be noted that utilizing a replacement when a well-known author of a series passes away is not an uncommon practice.  It’s been done for Tony Hillerman, Lawrence Sanders, and Robert Jordan, just to name a couple right off the top of my head.  Yes, it’s a marketing ploy, but I think it’s more savvy than misleading.

    In closing, I enjoyed The Janson Command, mostly from the aspect of being an “airport novel”.  Is it as good as the Bourne series?  No, but how many other action-adventure stories are, including ones penned by Ludlum himself?  I expected to be entertained from the first page to the last, and didn't care if the writing wasn't elegant and deep.  By those standards, The Janson Command measured up quite well.     

    7½ Stars.

The Missing Link - Brandon Meyers and Bryan Pedas

   2011; 349 pages.  New Author(s)? : Yes and Yes.  Genres : Fantasy; Satire; General Humorous Fiction.  Overall Rating : 5*/10.

    It’s been a horrible morning for Brent Porter.  The server at TriuTek is down (again), and there’s a big corporate meeting scheduled for this morning.  Since Brent is TriuTek’s IT geek, his coworkers are expecting him to fix it, and do so pronto, since they have lots of Internet things to do, none of which are work-related.  But that’s not the worst part.

    Everybody’s cellphone, including Brent’s, isn’t working this morning either.  That might mean the phone company’s Internet is also down, which could be a sign that the power outage area is a lot larger than just TriuTek's office.  But that’s not the worst part.

    An ugly-looking monster just walked out of the server room, chewing on Ethernet cables.  It’s child-sized, mud-colored, and with a mouthful of super-sharp teeth that warn Brent to keep his distance.  But that’s not the worst part.

    That little gremlin has just stolen Brent’s very own personal router.  And that’s why things couldn’t get any worse.

What’s To Like...

    The Missing Link is a mash-up of Lewis Carroll’s classic tale Alice In Wonderland with a post-apocalyptic scenario where all electronic devices are dead.  Both of those concepts have been done before (a review of one is here; and of the other is here, but combining the two is a novel idea.  You can call the genre Fantasy or Spoof, but don't call it Science Fiction which is what Amazon labels it.

   There are three plotlines to follow.  1.) Brent and his security-guard pal Mickey start in Denver and go dimension-hopping to all sorts of other places, bashing monster heads along the way.  2.) Molly, Brent’s internet girlfriend, experiences warped-&-updated versions of the Alice in Wonderland adventures.  3.) The Downriver Boys, a bit of a misnomer since one of them is a woman and another is a beagle, start in Chicago, and, well, pretty much stay in Chicago, bashing monster heads in clever, makeshift ways.  All three storylines eventually come together, which is not a spoiler since you know that’s going to happen.

    The emphasis throughout is on humor, although it’s the “snarky parody” type, which is not to everyone’s taste.  Brandon Meyers and Bryan Pedas take jabs at Greepeace Hippies, Facebook, cellphones, iPads, Twitter, anti-virus programs, Starbucks, writers, music piracy, and much, much more.  The barbs have a right-wing tone to them, but I think a more accurate adjective would be “Luddite”.

    I liked the critters.  In addition to the main characters encountered in Alice In Wonderland, the authors showcase an interesting menagerie of Sparrowheads, Goblins (sometimes called Gremlins), Gobliguanas (sometimes called Iguoblins), Hobblits, and even Musical Bars.

    There are music nods to Poison and Britney Spears (how’s that for an odd combination?) and, having taken two years of Mandarin Chinese myself, I enjoyed it getting a brief mention.  I would point out, however, that if you are ever in Hong Kong, and wish to communicate with the locals, it would be best to try Cantonese instead.

    The ending is logical, reasonably exciting, although not very twisty.  I liked the way the “technological outage” was resolved, and think a follow-up novel about that could be quite interesting.  The Missing Link is a standalone novel, and I don't think it's part of any series.  If the title references anything in the story, I missed it.

Kewlest New Word ...

Goblobotomy (n.) : removing the prefrontal lobe of a goblin’s brain  (a made-up word, and way-kewl.)

Excerpts...

    “You should be angry.  The capitalist world is using up the environment like toilet paper.”  He dropped his gaze to the turd which was appropriately swallowing Molly’s foot.  “And, hey, come to think of it, toilet paper kills trees.  We should all use leaves.”

    Molly’s face was flooding in bright red streaks.  “Leaves are from trees, you idiot!”  (loc. 1103)

    “The probability of your escape, human, is precisely 2.653 times less likely than being struck by lightning in the next twelve seconds.  This mathematical calculation is based upon not only the current sunshine and annual projected weather patterns, but also on the presence of the six malnourished, carbon-based life forms of pitiful socio-economic status that have just entered the room.  While you no doubt hope that these transients will prevent your immediate expiration, allow me to offer assurance that such an event will not occur.”  (loc. 6349)

Kindle Details…

    The Missing Link sells for $5.99 right now at Amazon.  As a team, Brandon Meyers and Bryan Pedas have another dozen or so e-books on Amazon, ranging in length from short stories to novelettes to novels, and in price from $1.99 to $5.99.  Both authors also have solo works available for your Kindle.  Their most recent effort as a writing team seems to have been in 2016.

“Sir, my dog eats bananas.  I’m pooping for my sexy friends.  Did you help?”  (loc. 2940 )

    There are a number of things to quibble about in The Missing Link, the first and most serious of which is the heavy overuse of cussing.  I counted 18 instances in the first 5%, and things didn’t let up after that.  A little cussing to set the tone is okay, but here it’ quickly becomes annoyingly distracting.

    I thought the storytelling was weak.  For most of the book, our three parties of protagonists wander around trying to figure out what’s going on, but not getting anywhere.  The story opens with Agnes Butterton destroying the Internet (so we are told), but she then disappears never to be seen again.  Twiddledee and Twiddledum serve no purpose except to make fun of Twitter.  It was funny the first time, it was old and irritating the fiftieth time.

    The target audience seemed to be Junior High and High School male readers who will titter nervously at all the cussing and wisecracks.  But this book would appeal to a wider audience if it had less foul language and more polishing.  OTOH, some reviewers criticized the writing itself as being overly simplistic, but if the target audience is indeed teens, then I think the writing style is appropriate.

    5 Stars.  Add 1½ stars if you’re a teenage boy looking for a fast, easy “beach novel” for a book report due in a couple days.  That was me once, and I probably would have enjoyed this way back then.

Sharpe's Tiger - Bernard Cornwell

   1997; 379 pages.  Book  1 (storywise) or Book 15 (in order written) out of 24 in the “Sharpe Novels” series.  Alternate Title: “Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Seringapatam, 1799”.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Historical Fiction; Military Fiction; English History.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    Life is hell for Private Richard Sharpe, a member of low standing in His Majesty’s 33^rd Light Company.  He’s a long way from his native England, trudging through the hot, mosquito-laden parts of southern India, on his way to some woe-begotten city called Seringapatam in the spring of 1799.  Chances are he won’t live to see 1800.

    He has no one to love, except maybe Mary, the widow of the lately-departed Sergeant Bickerstaff.  But why would she want to be with a lowly private?  The proper thing for her is to marry an officer who can give her better protection and security this long, long way from home.

    But Private Sharpe has bigger problems than a war that can kill him and a woman who’s socially out of his reach.  Captain Morris, who he indirectly answers to, doesn’t like him, and Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill, who he does directly answer to, hates his guts.  Hakeswill especially would like to see Sharpe dead, either in battle or flogged to death.  He’s a conniving so-and-so, and when you combine that with Sharpe’s hot temper and sassy tongue, it’s only a matter of time before bad things happen to “Sharpie”.

    So it’s a godsend when Sharpe is offered a chance to go on a suicide mission behind enemy lines.  The odds are overwhelming that he’ll never come back alive, but those are slightly better than the odds of surviving Hakeswill’s wrath.  Besides, if the mission is a success, Sharpe’s been promised a promotion to sergeant.

    And Sergeant Sharpe versus Sergeant Hakeswill is what we call a “fair fight”.

What’s To Like...

    Sharpe’s Tiger is the first book in a “prequel quintet”, chronicling the early years of Bernard Cornwell’s famed protagonist's military career in the British wars in India.  Sharpe will eventually rise through the ranks to become a lieutenant, but for now he is just a lowly private, bored to death, seeing no future for himself, pondering the circling vultures, and weighing the pros and cons of desertion.

    I liked Bernard Cornwell’s balanced treatment of the two opposing forces here.  The British may be the good guys, because Sharpe’s part of their army, but they have some rotten officers in their ranks and their justification for marching on Seringapatam is far from noble.  The opposing leader, “the Tippoo”, has a streak of cruelty in him, yet he’s also a charismatic leader who inspires his men by acts of personal bravery.  If there’s an overlying theme here, it’s that war is hell, no matter what side you happen to be on.

    The three religions involved – Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity – are also treated equally.  Each has one or more dedicated believers in this tale, and at times each of their gods seems to give divine messages and/or answer prayers.

    The book is written in English, so you have picquet lines, jewellery, and saltpetre; and things can be meagre, sombre, and grey, but I didn’t find it distracting.  There’s a brief mention of chess, a smattering of French, a potent booze called “arrack” to drink, lots of potent-but-inaccurate rockets to shoot, and a way to determine whether some unknown black substance is or isn’t gunpowder.  Hey, you never know when that last one will come in handy.

    There’s a 7-page “Historical Note” at the end of the book, where Bernard Cornwell details who/what is historical face and who/what is literary fiction.  It gives you some idea of the depth of the author’s research for this novel, and I always like it when a writer of this genre takes the time to provide these details.  There’s a few instances of cussing – probably less than a dozen, and a fair amount of blood and gore, courtesy of battles and executions.  It’s certainly not a cozy, but neither does it wallow in R-rated stuff.

    The ending is reasonably exciting: some baddies get to live to fight another day, some don’t.  The good guys suffer some casualties along the way as well.  Things close with a “sombre” funeral cortege where those in attendance can reflect upon the cost of taking part in war.

Kewlest New Word...

Kirks (n., plural.) : a church.  (a Scottishism, and/or northern Britishism)

Others: Brailed (v.); Havildar (n., Indian rank).

Excerpts...

    “Assaulted me, sir, he did!”  The Sergeant could scarcely speak for the pain in his belly.  “He went mad, sir!  Just mad, sir!”

    “Don’t worry, Sergeant.  Hicks and I both saw it,” Morris said.  “Came to check on the horses, ain’t that right, Hicks?”

    “Yes, sir,” Hicks said.  He was a small young man, very officious, who would never contradict a superior.  If Morris claimed the clouds were made of cheese Hicks would just stand to attention, twitch his nose, and swear blind he could smell Cheddar.  (pg. 76)

    “I think the British army lost a good man in you, Sharpe,” Gudin said, standing and guiding Sharpe deeper into the trees.  “If you don’t want to stay in India you might think of coming home with me.”

    “To France, sir?”

    Gudin smiled at Sharpe’s surprised tone.  “It isn’t the devil’s country, Sharpe; indeed I suspect it’s the most blessed place on God’s earth, and in the French army a good man can be very easily raised to officer rank.”

    “Me, sir?  An officer?”  Sharpe laughed.  “Like making a mule into a racehorse.”  (pg. 220)

“Fight like the Englishmen you are.”  “I’m a Scot,” a sour voice spoke from the rear rank.  (pg. 17 )

    For some reason, Sharpe’s Tiger was a slow read for me.  I’m not sure why – the writing is good, which is the norm for any Bernard Cornwell effort, and it’s not a difficult read.  I suspect it’s due to the subject matter:  sieges just aren’t as exciting as glory-filled running battles.  The author does his best to liven things up – with sorties and skullduggery and lots of intrigue – but we read his novels for the epic battle scenes and that doesn’t occur until the British begin their assault on Seringapatam.  No matter, once that commences, things hum along nicely.

    Other than that, well…  the horse dies, and the cat dies.  Oh, and Amazon inexplicably lists this as a “Sea Adventure Fiction” for the paperback version, which is the format I read it in, and nobody here even gets close to the ocean.  The other options – Hardback, e-book, audiobook, don’t call it that, which makes me wonder just how Amazon chooses the genre options for its books.

    This is my third Bernard Cornwell book; the other two are reviewed here and here.  All have been superb works of historical military fiction and if I don’t rate this one quite as high, it’s not because it was bad; it’s because the other two were  Just.  That.  Good.

    8 Stars.  We’ll close with a teaser.  One of the characters here is a British officer named Colonel Arthur Wellesley.  He’s a “grey” character – young, headstrong, and Sharpe and him don't think much of each other.  Wellesley was a real historical figure, and went on to fame and fortune under a different and more familiar name.  Who was he and what is he known for?  (Answer in the comments)

The Years Ran Like Rabbits - Anna Taylor

   2020; 367 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Science Fiction; Space Opera; Colonization; Hard Science Fiction; Romance.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

    It’s getting to where a girl can’t even go for a nice, zero-g spacewalk anymore without some sort of interruption cropping up.  Just ask Quinn Lyons, a low-tier employee on the Achilles Deep Space Mining Installation, floating around in the Asteroid Belt, out in the remote area of space between Mars and Jupiter.

    Whatever the interruption is, it’s huge and headed right towards her, and therefore towards the Achilles as well.  It consists of four or five irregularly-shaped pieces, but its high metal content indicates it doesn’t have a naturally-occurring origin.

    Quinn manages to survive the encounter, and the Achilles successfully snags the objects.  It turns out to be the crumpled remains of a spaceship of some sort.  The markings on the wreckage doesn’t match any known company or force native to our Solar System, but it doesn’t exactly look like it came from an  “alien” civilization either.

    What makes it really interesting is (what remains of) its propulsion system.  The computer records recovered from it indicate it achieved a record speed for a ship of its size.  But for less than a minute.  Before falling apart.

    Someone on the Achilles ought to take a closer look at that wreckage.  Maybe a big leap in the speed of space travel is just a tweak away.

What’s To Like...

    The Years Ran Like Rabbits is set in the somewhat near future: the polar ice caps have completely melted and penguins have been extinct for 75 years or so.  Advances in rocketry have reduced the time it takes to get between Mars and Jupiter from 6 years to 49 days, so the inner planets of the Solar System have been explored and, in the case of Mars and the Asteroid Belt, some settlements have been established.

    The Amazon blurb lists the two main genres for The Years Ran Like Rabbits as Space Opera and Colonization, but I think it’s better described as a combination of Hard Science Fiction and Romance.  We can zip around the Solar System more quickly, but I liked that we’re still a long way from disproving Einstein by means of FTL (Faster Than Light) travel.  If you’ve ever read any James P. Hogan hard sci-fi stories, you’ll like this book.

    The romance aspect of the book involves our two protagonists – the Achilles’ second-in-command Angle Xiang, and the lowly cleaning lady Quinn Lyons.  Both are hiding personal secrets, and neither seems like a good fit for the other.  But male readers can rest assured, the book is definitely a science fiction novel first, and a love story second.

    The title is a slightly-altered snippet from a poem by W.H. Auden’s As I Walked Out One Evening, and doesn’t really have a direct tie-in to anything in the storyline.  The same goes for the intriguing cover image; although there is a rabbit in the story, it refers to … well, I’ll let you discover that for yourself.  Anna Taylor gives literary nods to Alexander Dumas’s The Three Musketeers, and a Chinese story Outlaws of the Marsh which I've never heard of.  I also liked the music nod to Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant.

    I chuckled at both the word “squikked” (see below), and the esoteric term “smoke-shifter”, since one time, long ago, at Boy Scouts summer camp, I was sent out to find one of those.  I also enjoyed visiting a ghetto area called “the Dent” and learning a phrase or two of Dengi; it reminded me of Cockney Rhyming.

    The ending is decent, although not overly exciting.  I anticipated its “what”, but not its “who.  The person in charge of security for the climactic meeting should be shot.  The Years Ran Like Rabbits is a standalone novel, although it also leaves room for a sequel.  I didn’t see any telling/showing issues, which is a pleasant surprise, given that this is (presumably) Anna Taylor’s debut offering.

Kewlest New Word ...

    Squikked (v.) : ANAICT: “freaked out”.  Presumably a made-up word, and way-kewl.

Excerpts...

    “Wait a minute.  You’re asking Bergmann to solve the Planck strings.”

    “That would make a lot of things clearer.”

    “The Planck strings have been out there for seven years, and only the first three are solved.”

    “About time we tackled a couple more.”

    “This is academic research.”

    “Show me an academic with a solution and I’ll show you a wealthy man who’s handed in his university robes for a business suit.”  (loc. 2833)

    “Your friend is creeping me out.” (…)

    He remembers Ripper coming up in her interrogation.  He was her crew boss when she worked illegal labor on Titan construction projects.

    “I’m Angle,” he tells the man.

    “Sure you are,” he snorts.  “You’re keeping low company, Io.  He’s military.”

    “Ex,” she insists.  “He’s with me.  I vouch, so tell me you feel like talking about more than my change in looks and taste in men.”  (loc. 4709)

Kindle Details…

    The Years Ran Like Rabbits presently sells for $9.99 at Amazon.  This is the only e-book offered there by Anna Taylor right now.

“For a very smart woman, you play dumb convincingly”  (loc. 5381 )

    There are a number of quibbles, starting with the usual “spellchecker errors”: sooths/soothes, forth/fourth, who’d/would, tenants/tenets, and you’re/you’ve.  Several of the secondary characters, (Higgs, Odawa, etc.) enter the story without any introduction, and it took me a while to realize that Emilith was not a new character, but was Colonel Ayers’ first name.

    There’s a lot more intrigue than action, which is one of the reasons I’d call this Hard Science Fiction, not Space Opera.  I thought there were several missed opportunities to insert some excitement, such as when Ayers gets waylaid while on a tour.  Early on, there were a couple of time-skips that I was slow to pick up on, but in fairness, they were eventually noted.

    There is a slew of cussing.  I noted 19 instances in the first three chapters before I stopped counting, and if we assume that rate holds true throughout the 21 chapters, that’s 133 times we get to hear “shock talk”.  Cussing doesn’t offend me, but here it’s overdone.  Maybe this was done to give the story a Space Opera feel, but I think an author shows good writing skills when foul language is used sparingly.  And admittedly, like any good Space Opera, there is some sex in the book, but none of it is lurid, and that’s a plus.

    Another round of editing/proofreading/beta-reading will fix most of these quibbles.  Frankly, I’m surprised the beta readers didn’t catch a lot of this.  The amount of cussing is a personal viewpoint, and it will be interesting to see how subsequent reviewers feel about this.  Reviews penned by family, friends, and writing circle colleagues don’t count.

    7 Stars.  Add 1 star if/when the next edition  fixes the typos and continuity issues.  Don’t let my quibbling stop you from buying this book.  Hard Science Fiction is an ambitious genre to take on, since you always have to balance thrills-&-spills with scientific reality.  The Years Ran Like Rabbits is a fine effort by Anna Taylor, it kept my interest throughout, and I'm hoping a sequel is in the works.