The Basque History of the World - Mark Kurlansky

   1999; 359 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : World History; Spain; France; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    The Basques.  Like most people, I’ve heard of them, but don’t know much about them.

 

    I vaguely remember them making headlines back in the 1970s for killing Spanish policemen by remotely detonating bombs.  So I’m pretty sure the Basques are concentrated in some area of Spain.

 

    They have their own language too.  It seems neat that they’re maintaining their heritage, but jeez, if you live in Spain, shouldn’t you be speaking Spanish?  I also recall that their language bears no resemblance to any other European tongue, which makes it a mystery as to where they came from and when they showed up.

 

    I’m a lover of History, so my ignorance about the Basques is embarrassing.  Fortunately, one of my favorite History authors, Mark Kurlansky, wrote a book on them, The Basque History of the World.

 

    Let’s find out why the Basques don’t like to speak anything but Basque.

 

What’s To Like...

    Mark Kurlansky divides The Basque History of the World into three sections, namely:

        Section 1 : The Survival of Euskal Herria

        Section 2 : The Dawn of Euskadi

        Section 3 : Euskadi Askatuta

 

    Those titles represent a progression in the self-identity of Basques.  “Euskal Herria” means “the Land where Euskera (“Basque”) is spoken”, and simply denotes a place.  “Euskadi” is a word coined by a Basque nationalist, Sabino Arana, and can be roughly translated as “Euskera speakers together”, and implying that it is a country, not merely a location.  “Euskadi Askatuta” means “Free Basqueland” and recognizes that achieving an independent Basque nation may necessitate a revolution.

 

    Each section has an introduction plus 4-6 chapters, and things close with a "Postscript" titled “The Death of a Basque Pig”.  The book chronicles the Basque history from the earliest writings about them (courtesy of the Romans since the Basque ancestors left no written records) up through the 1990s (the time of publication).  A lot of the latter chapters go decade-by-decade, starting with the 1930s; many of the earlier chapters use the clever template “The Basque Xxx” format (“The Basque Cake”, “The Basque Whale”, “The Basque Beret”, “The Basque Ear”, etc.) to pique the reader's interest.

 

    The Basque History of the World nicely combines both historically important events, such as the importance of the math formula “4 + 3 = 1” and the idiocy of witch trials, with enlightening trivial tidbits, such as recipes for cat dishes, which sounds yucky, but are useful when the Spaniards are besieging your city and you're starving.  I chuckled when the renowned “Bilbo swords” were mentioned; they have nothing to do with Hobbits.  I came away with a much greater appreciation as to what Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica” masterpiece is all about, and was sobered by the fatalistic Basque adage “una bache mas, un cabron menos”, which I'll leave for you to look up the translation, or read this book.

 

    Mark Kurlansky includes various maps, drawings, and photos throughout the book.  Some of the latter could use a bit of computer-enhancement, but maybe that’s just a printing issue with the paperback format I read.  The Index at the back of the book comes in handy, although it’s limited to proper nouns.  Beyond the “basted cat” entrée already mentioned, there are various other Basque culinary recipes mixed in with the text .  This is a Mark Kurlansky trademark in the books he writes, and they sound delicious, but they are wasted on me since my cooking skills are abysmal.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 438 ratings and 240 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.87/5 based on 4,409 ratings and 422 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Auto de fe (n., phrase) : a public ceremony during which the sentences upon those brought before the Spanish Inquisition were read and after which the sentences were executed by secular authorities.

 

Excerpts...

    By the sixteenth century, witchcraft should have seemed a ridiculously old-fashioned accusation.  In 787, Charlemagne had outlawed the execution of witches and made it a capital crime to burn a witch.  A tenth-century Church law, Canon Episcopi, demanded that priests preach against belief in witchcraft as superstition.  By the fourteenth-century, stories of witchcraft were widely dismissed among educated circles as a primitive belief of peasants.

    But by the late sixteenth century, the Canon Episcopi, which had been universal Church law, was being circumvented by the claim that society was faced with a new and more virulent form of witchcraft and therefore the old laws did not apply.  (pg. 93)

 

    The Basques are not isolationists.  They never wanted to leave Europe.  They only wanted to be Basque.  Perhaps it is the French and the Spanish, relative newcomers, who will disappear in another 1,000 years.  But the Basques will still be there, playing strange sports, speaking a language of ks and xs that no one else understands, naming their houses and facing them toward the eastern sunrise in a land of legends, on steep green mountains by a cobalt sea—still surviving, enduring by the grace of what Juan San Martin called Euskaldun bizi nahia, the will to live like a Basque.  (pg. 351)

 

Revolutions are always easier to admire from across the border.  (pg. 135)

    The editing is good in The Basque History of the World; I only noticed two typos: finely/finally and peeled/pealed.  As you’d expect of a Historical Non-Fiction tome, the text is incredibly clean: just a single “damn” which got in only because it was part of a direct quotation.

 

    I did find one “fact” in the book to take issue with.  On page 138, the author asserts that the word “honcho” is of Basque origin, coming from their “jauntxo”, meaning a wealthy, powerful, rural landowner.  Plausible, but every other etymological source on the Internet says "honcho" comes from the Japanese word “hancho” meaning a group leader, and brought back to the US by servicemen stationed in Japan.  Methinks somebody in Basqueland was pulling Mark Kurlansky’s leg.

 

    Also, it should be noted that there is a definite pro-Basque, anti-Spanish slant to The Basque History of the World, particularly when the subject is the iron-fisted Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco.  I doubt that Mark Kurlansky will offer any apologies for this, but I do recall one of the Basque nationalist groups, the “ETA”, being classified as a Terrorist Group due to the bombings they carried out against the Spanish police back in the 70s.

 

    8 Stars.  Overall, The Basque History of the World gave me a much better understanding of history – both ancient and recent – of the Basque people, the Basque culture, the Basque heroes, and most of all, the Basque hopes for a country of their own.  Such aspirations may or may not be realistic, but they certainly are inspirational.

Slapstick - Kurt Vonnegut

   1976; 275 pages.  Alternate Title: Slapstick or Lonesome No More.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Satire; Humorous Science Fiction; Absurdist Fiction; Futurism.  Overall Rating: 7*/10.

 

    Over the course of his long life, Dr. Wilbur Rockefeller Swain, or, as he is called now, Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain, has endured many ups and downs.

 

    As a child, he was “neanderthaloid” ugly and stupid, so much so that his own mother referred to him and his twin sister Eliza as “a pair of drooling totem poles”.  Yet, when Eliza and Wilbur were in each other’s company, they connected like two specialized halves of a single brain, and produced genius intellectual concepts that would send Einstein back to the drawing board.

 

    As an adult, Wilbur became a Senator from the state of Vermont, followed by two terms as President of the United States.  The country prospered swimmingly until getting devastated by a plague called “the Green Death” combined with a sickness called “the Albanian Flu”.

 

    Now, as a 102-year-old geriatric hanging out in the lobby of the ruins of the Empire State Building, Wilbur decides to write his memoir.  His life seems to him to have been sort of like a slapstick comedy, something akin to a Laurel and Hardy routine, hence its title.

 

What’s To Like...

    Slapstick is a loosely autobiographical work by Kurt Vonnegut, with extra emphasis on his relationship with his older sister, Alice, who died in 1958, when Kurt was still a struggling writer.  I read the “Rosetta Books” e-book edition, which claimed it was 275 pages long, but it seemed much shorter than that.  The story is written from the first-person point-of-view, with 49 extremely short chapters (Wilbur’s memoir) bookended by a prologue and epilogue which are sort of an introduction and afterword from Kurt himself and kind of a “mini-memoir” of his life.

 

    While the 49 chapters do indeed provide a fictional chronicle of Wilbur’s life, the book is really just a means for Vonnegut to air his views on all sorts of his favorite subjects, including what the afterlife holds in store for us, and the feeling of “disconnect” in everyone's day-to-day life.  Indeed, someone (Amazon perhaps?) has suggested the alternate title “Lonesome No More”, which is both a sacrilege and a improvement over just plain “Slapstick”, as well as Wilbur’s campaign slogan when he runs for President.

 

    I chuckled at the role China plays in the story, especially since this was written in the 1970s.  Vonnegut portrays them as technologically superior to us: they’ve somehow transported several hundred explorers to Mars, without using a space vehicle; they know how to miniaturize humans down to where they can fit in a coat pocket, thus significantly lessening the amount of food needed to sustain the population; and probably screwed up gravity in the process, since it is now a variable, not a constant.  Some days all you can do is lay pressed to the ground during a period of high gravity.

 

    The suggested “cure” for Loneliness was fascinating.  As President, Wilbur ordains that everyone gets a new middle name (see second excerpt below for details); which instantly means you have thousands of cousins, brothers, sisters, etc. any and all of which you can contact for support, care, and affection.  Alas, even here in the story, mankind still fails to achieve a state of complete harmony.

 

    As he did in Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut comes up with a catchphrase to close out any important point he’s making.  In Slaughterhouse Five, it was “And so it goes”; here it is “Hi ho.”  Those who are allergic to cusswords will be happy to know the first 93% of the book is remarkable clean (just eight cusswords noted), but at that point we encounter someone with Tourette’s Disease, with an outburst of its requisite swearing.  Subjects like incest, spousal abuse, and erections are also discussed in brief along the way.

 

    The ending is classic Vonnegut, having surprises and twists to it while at the same time somehow being not exciting or climactic.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.2/5 based on 644 ratings and 215 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.86/5 based on 37,892 ratings and 1,649 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Panjandrum (n.) : a person who has or claims to have a great deal of authority or influence.

 

Excerpts...

    We made at least one prediction that was so deadly accurate that thinking about it even now leaves me thunderstruck.

    Listen: We began with the mystery of how ancient peoples had erected the pyramids of Egypt and Mexico, and the great heads of Easter Island, and the barbaric arches of Stonehenge, without modern sources and tools.

    We concluded there must have been days of light gravity in olden times, when people could play tiddledy-winks with huge chunks of stone.  (loc. 5237)

 

    “Your new middle name would consist of a noun, the name of a flower or fruit or vegetable or legume, or a bird or a reptile or a fish, or a mollusk, or a gem or a mineral or a chemical element—connected by a hypen (sic) to a number between one and twenty.”  I asked him what his name was at the present time.

    “Elmer Glenville Grasso,” he said.

    “Well,” I said, “you might become Elmer Uranium-3 Grasso, say.  Everybody with Uranium as part of their middle name would be your cousin.”

    “That brings me back to my first question,” he said.  “What if I get some artificial relative I absolutely can’t stand?”  (loc. 1416)

 

Kindle Details…

    Right now, Slapstick sells for $13.99 at Amazon.  There are a couple dozen of his books available in Kindle format.  They vary in price from $1.99 to $14.99, and some of his more popular works come in several editions, so compare prices.

 

“History is merely a list of surprises. (…) It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.”  (loc. 1939)

    I noted only a couple of typos (hypen/hyphen, saving/saying) in Slapstick, which no longer surprises me in anything published by Rosetta Books.  It didn't happen enough to be a distraction, and the bigger issue I had was with the plotline: there wasn’t one.

 

    Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain writes his fictional memoir (is that an oxymoron?), with lots of fascinating trivia, both real (the origin of “Robert’s Rules of Order”) and made-up (“The Church of Jesus Christ the Kidnapped”), but it never progresses into anything.  The problem isn’t Vonnegut’s writing skills, he’s a master at his craft, but the storytelling is nonexistent.  After a century of living, Wilbur is about to pass away, wiser perhaps from all the amazing things that have happened to him, but not noticeably happier.

 

    For me, Slapstick marks the start of a decline in the quality of Kurt Vonnegut's novels.  Everything before this – Player Piano, The Sirens of Titan, Mother Night, Cat’s Cradle, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions – sparkles.  Everything from here on in, at least the ones I’ve read so far – Slapstick, Galapagos, and Hocus Pocus – are ho-hum.

 

    Hi ho.

 

    7 Stars.  We’ll close with a brain teaser from the book.  At one point Wilbur is subjected to an IQ test, with one of the questions being:  How many digits are there to the left of the decimal place in the square root of 692038.42753?  Vonnegut may have been just making this up, but the geek in me just had to solve it.

 

    It took me about five minutes, with no calculator, computer, or pen-&-paper to do so.  Can you?  Answer, and the logic I used, in the Comments section.

Gasher Creek - J. Birch

   2011; 323 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres: Western; Murder-Mystery; Natural-or-Supernatural.  Overall Rating: 6½*/10.

 

    Last night started out pretty good for Jack Devlin.  He was winning at the card table and the liquor was flowing mighty fine at the whore house in Gasher Creek called The Ham.  True, he got into a shouting match with Sally earlier, one of the establishment’s “girls”, but they’ll work it out.  He’s kinda sweet on Sally.

 

    Jack doesn’t remember much after that, but apparently things did get even better, since the morning light found him in bed with Sally.  Alas, that’s when everything fell apart.

 

    Somebody has beaten the crap out of Sally, as evidenced by those nasty bruises all over her head and face.  Sally’s dead, and the number one suspect is the guy she was in bed with.  Jack can’t remember anything about that part of the evening, but surely he didn’t kill her, no matter how things look now.

 

    But the sad thing is, Jack has inner rage issues and was on a black-out drunk.  Even he’s not sure he didn’t do it.

 

What’s To Like...

    Gasher Creek is equal parts Classic Western and Murder-Mystery genres, with a dash of natural-or-supernatural? (or more precisely, normal-or-paranormal?) thrown in to spice things up.  The chapters are short, 52 of them in all, and they switch back and forth between the two protagonists: the suspected murderer fleeing for his life, Jack Devlin, and the tough-but-honest sheriff determined to bring Jack in and give him due process before hanging him, Tom Tracker.

 

    There are a bunch of interesting characters to meet along the way, including the half-breed, “almost-preacher” Charlie Sewell who teams up with Jack in his flight to freedom, a trio of homesteaders, and a number of hard-working whores.  It was fun to watch as the relationship between Charlie and Jack developed: which one was the more educated?  The more civilized?

 

    The sheriff’s investigation of the sudden uptick of deaths in Gasher Creek was well-paced and handled nicely.  To say more would be a spoiler, but I always enjoy “historical" and "scientific" sleuthing”, and here the facial-bruising and throat-slashing aspects of the crimes quickly warranted further study.  I also liked some of the seldom-encountered vocabulary J. Birch used, a couple examples of which are given below.

 

    The ending successfully ties up the main plot thread – who was doing all those killings, why, and in some cases, “how”.  The perpetrators all get their just desserts.  Some of the meeting-ups out on the trail seemed a bit too convenient to me, and some of the confessions seemed to come a bit too easily, but this did make for a concise conclusion to the tale.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 28 ratings and 28 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.35/5 based on 20 ratings and 6 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

B’hoys (n., plural) : young men of the rough-&-tumble working class culture in the late 1840s and beyond.

Others: Fustigate (v.); Capall (n., Irish), Soddy (n.).

 

 

Excerpts...

    “[He] won’t talk,” the Doc said.  “Most days he barely says a word.”

    “I’ve dealt with worse,” Tracker said.  “I once coaxed a confession out of a man they called Tweel the Tattler.”

    “So?” the Doc said.  “What’s so difficult about that?”

    “It was after they’d cut his tongue out.”  (loc. 5237)

 

    “Devlin!”

    Troy Plymouth approached him.  “A glorious day,” he said.  He reached Jack and nodded at Emily’s wagon as it rumbled down the trail.  “She looks pretty, doesn’t she?  Like a white flower, one of those—well, whatever white flowers are called.”

    Which ones?”

    “That’s it,” Troy said, clapping Jack’s shoulder.  (loc. 5915)

 

Kindle Details…

    Gasher Creek presently sells for $2.99 at Amazon, and is only offered in e-book format.  Amazon does not list any other novels by J. Birch.

 

“A man should be able to fight and fart as he pleases.”  (loc. 2308)

    There were some nits to pick in Gasher Creek.  Firstly, the book screams for another round of copy editing.  Typos, misspellings, compound words separated into individual components, and comma abuses abound, to the point where they were a distraction.  Some examples: gun powder/gunpowder, peak/peek, sun up/sunup, solider/soldier.  There were many more.

 

    Secondly, the whole “big, black coyote” angle was a letdown.  Another reviewer called it “confusing”; I’d call it a missed opportunity.  Without the beast, Gasher Creek is just another run-of-the-mill Western.  With it, and supplemented by Charlie’s mixed heritage to justify it, it could put this book in a fascinating "paranormal western" literary niche.

 

    Thirdly, the perpetrator is caught way too easily.  Some sort of tension-building device would’ve worked well.  For example, the perp could've gotten the upper hand against the Sheriff, whereby fugitive Jack is faced with the dilemma of whether he should intervene.

 

    Fourthly, a bit of research could’ve helped enhance the story.  A Google search for “Chewak” and “singultus planta” didn’t yield any pertinent hits, so I’m going to presume these sprang from the author’s imagination.  How much stronger would it have been to reference a real tribe and plant?  For instance, the Chumash tribe would ’ve been a great choice for the former; and something like Jimson weed would’ve worked well for the latter.  I really get hooked on historical fiction books when they also educate me about the History aspect.

 

    Despite all this, I still found Gasher Creek to be a fast-paced page-turner that struck a nice balance between action, mystery, and human-interest.  I think that's indicative of J. Birch’s innate writing ability.  Alas, this appears to be a one-and-done project (a bucket list item, perhaps?) even though the ending leaves open the possibility for a where-does-Jack-go-from-here sequel.

 

    6½ Stars.  The time-setting of Gasher Creek was curiously elusive.  Per the text, baseball had already been invented, and was being played recreationally, which infers the storyline took place sometime after the Civil War.  A referenced song, “Paddy Works on the Erie”, along with several others penned by Stephen Foster, dates the setting at some point after 1864.  So far, so good.

    But a player-piano also makes a cameo appearance, admittedly as a new-fangled device, and Wikipedia indicates those weren’t available until shortly after the start of the twentieth century (1900).  That's well past the age of the Wild, Wild West.

A Second Chance - Jodi Taylor

   2014; 382 pages.  Book 3 (out of 13) in the series “The Chronicles of St. Mary’s”.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Time Travel; Humorous Fantasy; Historical Fiction; Romance.  Overall Rating: 10*/10.

 

    Madeleine “Max” Maxwell's proposed trip to Troy has just been approved by the board of St. Mary’s Institute of Historical Research!  It’s a journey she’s been wanting to take all her life.

 

    I can relate, I’ve always wanted to go see Troy, too.  It’s an archaeological treasure trove found in 1871 by Heinrich Schliemann, and the main subject of Homer’s classic The Iliad, and until Schliemann unearthed its ruins, Troy was generally regarded as a merely a myth.

 

    But Max’s trip will be even more fantastic, because she won't be visiting the ruins.  She’s not just a historian, she’s also a time-traveler, and she’s going to do the time-warp back to Troy when the Trojan War was going on, to witness how the fall of Troy actually went down and hopefully separate fact from legend.  Max has high hopes that this will be a once-in-a-lifetime event for her.

 

    But be careful what you wish for, Max.  When the gods want to curse someone, they sometimes make their fondest wish come true.

 

What’s To Like...

    If you think time-travel novels should have lots of chrono-hopping, you‘re going to love A Second Chance.  There are eight time-jumps, including two to ancient Troy, the first to scout the area, the second to hopefully witness the tragic Fall.  The other six jumps are all to various points in the past; and range in importance from civilization-impacting events to taking part in a hilarious sporting pastime called a cheese-rolling contest.

 

    Jodi Taylor is English, which means the book is written in English, not American, and I'm always fond of this.  Odd-sounding terms abound, some of which are listed below, but which also include food-related terms such as “Toad-in-the-Hole”, “Marmite”, and “toxic honey”.  The first two look yummy, the third one is potentially deadly.

 

    A Second Chance is the third book in the series, which I am reading in order.  So far, each tale is told from the first-person POV, Max’s.  There are plugs in the back for the next three books, all of which piqued my interest.  And as always, there’s the “Dramatis Thingummy” (“Cast of Characters”) in the front which is extremely helpful, although not quite comprehensive.  But I'm not complaining, the omissions are mostly minor characters.

 

    Most time-travel novelists avoid those pesky time-travel paradoxes (what happens if I go back in time and shoot my grandfather?), but here Jodi Taylor embraces them.  Three or four major players get caught up in these paradoxes.  So far, no discernible aftereffects are noted, but I have a feeling that will change in the upcoming books.

 

    I enjoyed the music references, although I had to look up the song “Things Can Only Get Better”, which I learned was a Howard Jones hit.   The mention of Eratosthenes thrilled me; IMHO he was the most brilliant person ever to walk this earth.  I also liked the attention paid of how they hauled those huge slabs of rocks to Stonehenge.  We know they were transported across a long distance, but to this day we don’t know how it was done.  Other sidelights were a nice literary nod to Terry Pratchett, a chilling curse from Kassandra’s, and being introduced to the feisty character Professor Eddington "Eddie" Penrose.  I have a feeling he’ll become a recurring character.

 

    The ending is fantastic, being twisty, unexpected, and satisfying all at once.  It opens up a whole new otherworld of possibilities, and closes out with a teaser for the sequel, which some have called a cliffhanger, but I respectfully disagree.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Welly Whanging Contest (n., phrase) : a sport in which competitors are required to throw a Wellington boot as far as possible.

Others: Stonker (n., British); Pillocks (n., British, plural), Knees-Up (n., British); P45 (n., British), Bimbling (v., British); Oik (n., Derogatory), Gurning (n., British).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 1,833 ratings and 686 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.28*/5, based on 12,586 ratings and 1,004 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    I could have been a bomb-disposal expert, or a volunteer for the Mars mission, or a firefighter, something safe and sensible.  But, no, I had to be an historian.  I had to join the St. Mary’s Institute of Historical Research.  Over the years I’d been chased by a T-rex, had the Great Library fall on me, grappled with Jack the Ripper, and been blown up by an exploding manure heap.  All about par for the course.  (pg. 2)

 

    “I think I may have cholera.  You really need to check me over.  Fast.”

    “Do you actually have any symptoms at all?  Of anything?  Anything medical?”

    “Yes.  Yes, I do.  I’ve got that thing that makes you feel funny.  You know.  All over.  Requires immediate and urgent attention.”

    “What are you talking about?”

    “You know.  Four letter word.  Begins with L.  Ends with E.”

    “Ah, lice!  Come with me.”  (pg. 114)

 

When you’ve really screwed something up, the secret is to jump in with both feet and make it worse.  (pg. 296)

    I gave A Second Chance a rare 10*/10 rating, so I don’t really have any quibbles.  There is a small amount of cussing, (8 instances in the first 76 pages, 20% of the book), a roll-in-the-hay or two, and allusions to rape and mutilation.  But those sort of things are to be expected when you tplop down in a war zone where a 10-year siege is underway.

 

    Most of the negative reviews seem to be about the Romance aspect of the story, primarily Max and Leon’s relationship.  The reviewers either think he’s a jerk, she’s a jerk, or they’re both jerks.  But since I’m not reading these books for the Love angles, our protagonists' relationship issues don’t bother me.  And for other guys who are reading this, rest assured that the romance plays second fiddle to the time-travel and historical fiction aspects.

 

    A Second Chance is the third book I've read in this series; the first two books in the series are reviewed here (***) and here (***), and I feel like Jodi Taylor is really hitting her stride with this one.  Books 4 through 10 are sitting on my TBR shelf and I can’t wait to see if they continue the streak of excellent reads in this series.

 

    10 Stars.    It’s always fun to learn a new and useful phrase in a foreign language.  Here it’s the wee bit of Latin wisdom: “Policiti Nostrae Omnec Wankers Sunt” (“Most Politicians are not very good”).  Heh.

Dead Men's Hearts - Aaron Elkins

   1994; 229 pages.  Book 8 (out of 18) in the “Gideon Oliver Mysteries” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : International Mystery & Crime; Egypt; Whodunit; Forensic Anthropology.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Gideon Oliver is going to be in a movie!!

 

    Well, kinda.  It would be more accurate to call it a documentary, all about ancient Egypt, and Gideon will be just one of several hand-picked “experts” speaking briefly on something very old and very archaeological.  Since Gideon is nicknamed “the Skeleton Detective”, you can pretty much figure what his relic is going to be.

 

    But hey, it does come with a perk – an all-expenses-paid weeklong trip up and down the Nile, and his wife Julie gets to come along for free as well.

 

    So kick back and enjoy things, Gideon.  All you need to do is act like you’re an expert and memorize your lines.  What are the odds that you’ll actually need to use the skills of your profession – a forensic anthropologist – for anything?

 

What’s To Like...

    I liked the idea of making the protagonist a forensic anthropologist.  It means there will be emphasis on both medical science (“forensic”) and history/archaeology (“anthropology”).  The storyline does not disappoint in this regard, it was fun to see Gideon applying the scientific method in order when analyzing both recent and ancient skeletons.

 

    The main murder-mystery case for Gideon to solve doesn’t occur until around 40%-Kindle, and doesn’t even involve a skeleton, but there are several relics and miscellaneous bones that seem to jump from one place to another on their own volition.

 

    I appreciated that Aaron Elkins presents a balanced view of both modern-day and ancient Egypt.  Gideon – and the reader – learn the nuances of the Arab words “Inshallah” (Allah willing) and “Bukhra” (similar to the Spanish word ‘manana’, which technically means ‘tomorrow’ but often really implies ‘soon’, ‘whenever’, or even ’you may as well just forget about it’).  There was a nice feel to the leisurely cruise up the Nile, and I learned that “Cleopatras” are a common brand of Egyptian cigarettes, also how the “Law of Interconnected Monkey Business” can help you solve perplexing mysteries.

 

    It was enlightening to watch how much Gideon could determine merely by a careful study of a set of bones. Case in point: he could look at a skeleton and deduce that a 4400-year-old skeleton belonged to someone who was a scribe when he was alive.  It was very “Sherlock Holmesian”, although I also thought it was neat that, unlike Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective, Gideon occasionally would come to embarrassingly wrong conclusions.

 

    The ending is okay, but felt a bit arbitrary.  Gideon realizes that he has no conclusive evidence of the perpetrator’s guilt, although the fact that one of the suspects is suddenly trying very hard to kill him is certainly indicative of guilt.  This makes for an exciting climax, but it also means that you (and Gideon) probably won’t solve the case before the bullets start whizzing by.  So just sit back, go sleuthing along with Gideon, and enjoy the adventure and the wonders of Egypt.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Fusty (adj.) : old-fashioned in attitude or style.

 

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.2*/5, based on 576 ratings and 58 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.97*/5, based on 1,460 ratings and 58 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Have you ever heard of the Deir el-Bahri cache?”

    She sighed.  “Gideon, dear, have I ever pointed out to you that you have a slightly annoying habit of starting your stories by asking me if I’ve heard of something that hardly anybody has ever heard of?  The Deir el-Bahri cache, the Menshiya, the Neiman-Marcus fragment—”

    “Many times,” he said, flopping into one of the beige armchairs, putting his feet up on the ottoman, and stretching comfortably out on his lower spine.  “It’s a pedagogical stratagem, well known to ensure listener participation in the communication process.”  (loc. 1153)

 

    Gideon winced.  Tempers were already simmering and it was just the first hour of the first morning of taping.  Making a movie, a retired Port Angeles neighbor who had worked in Hollywood had once told him, was like making sausage.  The finished product might be terrific, but you didn’t necessarily want to watch the process.  (loc. 1238)

 

Kindle Details…

    Dead Men’s Hearts sells for $6.99 right now at Amazon.  The other six books in the series cost anywhere from $1.99 to $8.99.  There are also a pair of bundles from this series, one runs $14.99 (three books); the other runs $16.99 (four books).

 

“Did you know that if you keep yogurt in a pyramid-shaped carton it just about never spoils?”  (loc. 43)

    There’s not much to grouse about in Dead Men’s Hearts.  Those who are looking for a cozy mystery will be happy to know there’s only a small amount of cussing (I counted 12 instances in the first 20% of the book), and since I’m a pedantic proofreader, I liked that I noted only one typo: “photo graph” as two words instead of one.

 

    Dead Men’s Hearts was my introduction to Aaron Elkins’ Gideon Oliver mysteries.  I don’t know if it’s one of the best books, or one of the weakest ones in the series.  The pacing felt good, the characters were well-developed, but for me the mystery itself seemed a bit humdrum.  Still, there is much to like here: plenty of wit, mystery, history, archaeology, forensic science, and Egyptology.  I plan to read more books from the series.

 

    8 Stars.  There are two more Gideon Oliver e-books sitting on my Kindle, waiting for my attention: Icy Clutches and Murder in the Queen’s Armes.  Neither one of those titles sound like they are set in Egypt, so I'm guessing Aaron Elkins likes to have Gideon travel all over the place.

Early Riser - Jasper Fforde

   2018; 400 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Dystopian Fantasy, Alternate History.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    It’s late autumn in Wales, and we all know what that means, right?

 

    Yep, it’s time to eat two or three times as much as we normally do, and hopefully gain twenty, thirty and if we’re lucky, maybe even forty pounds in a hurry.

 

    Because Winter is fast approaching, and come Slumberdown, the day we start our hibernation, we want to be as heavy as possible.  Just like the bears, we'll go to sleep, not wake up until Springrise, and all that extra poundage will keep us nourished in between.  “Slim and trim” is a fatal condition for hibernators.

 

    That’s the routine for most of the population.  But a few people have to stay awake, both to protect those hibernating and to fix anything that might break down.  Wintertime in Wales, and many other places, is exceptionally harsh.

 

    Charlie Worthing has just volunteered for the Winter Consul Services, those guardians of the deep sleep.  He has a lot to learn, not much time to do it, and above all, get rid of his dreams.

 

    Because dreaming can be a terminal condition.

 

What’s To Like...

    Every Jasper Fforde novel I’ve read has fantastic worldbuilding, and Early Riser is no exception.  Presenting a plausible scenario of modern-day civilization dealing with fantasy creatures during a rip-snorting Ice Age is no easy task, but Fforde handles it deftly.  The entire story is set in Wales, mostly in a place called the Gower Peninsula, which is both real and scenic.  It is told in the first-person POV, that of the protagonist, Charlie.

 

    There’s a handy schematic of a dormitorium (a what?) which reminded me of the underground structures in Hugh Howey’s Silo series, except here they are aboveground.  The text overflows with wit, a Fforde staple, and there are lots of neat weapons (most of which go “Whump”), and critters (most of which go “Chomp”) to meet and give a proper amount of respect to.

 

    The tale is written in English, Jasper Fforde’s mother tongue, so American readers may have to suss out the meaning of some weird phrases such as “pumping out the zeds”, “come a cropper”, and “car park”.  But that’s a fun task.  Acronym-lovers will also be kept entertained, and any when’s the last time you read a tale where being fat is admirable and being thin is reprehensible?

 

Charlie and the reader both have lots of stuff to figure out, including:

    a.) What is Project Lazarus?

    b.) Who is Kiki, and why does he/she need the cylinder?

    c.) Is there a better alternative to the dream-quelling drug called “Morphenox”?

    d.) What’s so special about dreams involving blue Buicks, oak trees, severed hands, and being buried alive?

 

    There are some neat music references along the way: Tom Jones (well, he’s Welsh, so this is no surprise), Bonzo Dog Band, Mott The Hoople, The Dark Side of the Moon, Ziggy Stardust, Mott The Hoople (again!), Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" album, Val Doonican (who?), and Richard Stilgoe (who?  Wiki him).  The text is very clean – only 9 cusswords in the first hundred-pages, and limited to scatological and afterworld references, plus the pseudo cuss-phrase “Gronk’s dung in a piss-pot” which made me chuckle.

 

    Like Charlies, you may find yourself wandering around in a fog while reading the first 300 pages of Early Riser, but if you persevere, you’ll be rewarded with a spectacular 100-page ending, full of lots of excitement and full explanations for what’s going on and why.  Early Riser is a rare standalone novel by Jasper Fforde, and is not set in the worlds of any of his previous series.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Come a cropper (n., phrase) : to fall heavily (a Britishism).

Others: Snaffle (v., also a Britishism).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.4/5 based on 928 ratings and 262 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.87/5 based on 13,404 ratings and 2,204 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “The enemy aren’t the Villains, womads, scavengers, insomniacs, Ice-Hermits, Megafauna, nightwalkers, hiburnal rodents or flesh-eating cold slime — it’s the Winter.  To survive, you need to respect her first.  What do you need to do?”

    “Respect the Winter.”  I paused.  “Sir?”

    “Yes?”

    “What’s flesh-eating cold slime?”

    “It’s probably best not to think about that.”  (pg. 28)

 

    “Did you do any dreaming on your four-week sojourn to the dark side?”

    “No, ma’am.”

    “Good,” she said.  “The one thing I loathe more than winsomniacs is dreamers.  Feet on the ground, head out of the clouds.  Agree?”

    “Yes, ma’am.”

    “I don’t like subordinates always agreeing,” she said.  “Sycophants have no place in my department.  You’re to speak your mind when the opportunity calls for it.”

    “How will I know when that is?”

    “I shall inform you.”  (pg. 216)

 

“I hope the Gronk lays eggs in your brain, Mrs. Nesbit!”  (pg. 107)

    There are some nits to pick, but no show-stoppers.

 

    The first 3/4 of the book is not only confusing, it is also slow.  Charlie wanders around, trying unsuccessfully to make sense of what's real and what’s a dream, and what's happening to the various “non-productives” of the not-asleep society, namely the nightwalkers, winsomniacs, and Villains.  There’s also the matter of determining whether Gronks are real; a bet is riding on that.

 

    The “advertisements” at the end of the book, another Jasper Fforde staple, were great, and the footnotes were okay (although not on a par with Discworld footnotes in wittiness), but the abstracts at the start of every chapter didn’t do anything for me.  There were lots of chapters, but no list of them with their page numbers at the beginning of the book, so back-referencing was a pain.  But I read the hardcover edition, and this may not be true of the e-book version.

 

    Lastly, and leastly, the Wikipedia article on Jasper Fforde is in desperate need of updating.

 

    That's enough of the quibbling.  In the “Acknowledgements” section at the end of the book, Jasper Fforde mentions his “creative hiatus of 2014-2016”.  Early Riser was his first published book after that three-year gap, and maybe we should cut him a little slack.  To be clear, this isn’t a case of Early Riser being a poor book, it’s a case of his earlier books, particularly his Thursday Next series, being JUST. SO. GOOD. 

 

    7½ Stars.  One last thing to note, courtesy of Wikipedia:

 

    “The novel is notable because Fforde never uses a gender descriptive pronoun for the protagonist Charlie Worthing, referring to Charlie variously as they/them, I/me, and as simply 'Charlie'.”

 

    Incredible.  Only an exceptionally-skilled author could pull this off, and I am in awe that Jasper Fforde could do this.