Darklandia - T.S. Welti

   2012; 183 pages.  Full Title: Darklandia – Suffering Is Optional.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres: Dystopian Fiction.  Overall Rating: 6½*/10.

 

    Welcome to New York City, 2147 CE.  For you old-timers’ information, it is now in the fine nation of Atraxia.  The country called the United States is no more.

 

    The biggest problem in Atraxians right now is an extreme shortage of water due to drastic climate changes over the past century.  All water is now strictly rationed by the powers that be, but both its quality and quantity is poor.

 

    Drinking water is essential for good health of course, and the government helpfully enriches it with Potassium, Sodium and other nutrients, even though those additives give it a salty, sweet, and metallic taste.

 

    17-year-old Sera Fisk has been having digestion issues with her water rations for several years.  The authorities have adjusted her ration dosage, but the new strength causes her to vomit it back up.  It also has begun to make her see everything differently.  That’s not a good thing in Atraxia, where freedom of thought is frowned upon.

 

    Sera might have to turn herself in to the Department of Felicity to be “purified”.

 

What’s To Like...

    Darklandia starts off with Sera leading a comfortably numb life.  She’s proud to be part of her 114-yer-old grandmother’s “rapturing ceremony”, at least until granny whispers a enigmatic and disturbing bit of news into Sera’s ear: "It's in the water rations."  From that revelation onward, Sera's mind starts to open up to what is really going on in Atraxia.

 

    I liked the concept engendered by the book’s title.  Darklandia is a virtual reality site where all Atraxians are required to go daily to do, well, whatever they choose to work out any inner urges that run contrary to the government-mandated "proper" thinking.  Enforcement of attending Darklandia is handled by the Department of Felicity, and monitored by the ever-present Guardian Angels.  You don’t want to run afoul of those thugs.

 

    Daily life in Atraxia is subject to near-constant surveillance, including security bands (“sec-bands”) worn on the wrists.  It is easy to go wrong.  Crying is forbidden; it indicates unhappiness.  Girls older than five years must keep their hair between 12-to-18 inches long, and must not wear clothing with “warm” colors such as red, purple, or orange.  Failure to conform might stir up unwarranted passions.  And you can’t use certain “filter words”, such as “terrible” or “mistake” when talking; they promote negativity.

 

    The book is written in the first-person POV, Sera’s, of course.  I liked this, it enables the reader to “see” Atraxia through Sera’s eyes, and watch as her perception of it evolves.  At just 183 pages long, Darklandia is a quick yet thoughtful read, and is divided into 20 chapters, which means you can always find a convenient place to stop for the night.  I only noted two typos and recall just one cussword, a single damn.  I was impressed by the text's cleanliness.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  3.8/5 based on 85 ratings and 71 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.52/5 based on 246 ratings and 62 reviews

 

Things That Sound Dirty, But Aren’t…

    This was the second time someone had nearly walked in on me with my hands down my pants. (loc. 1802)

 

Excerpts...

    “Sera, what would you say if I told you there’s a whole world outside Manhattan?  A different world.  A place where cherry soda runs like water from fountains and people are so happy that sometimes they cry.”

    “They c—?”  I stopped myself from repeating his last word.  Now I glanced around at the angels wondering if they were listening.

    “Real tears,” my father continued.  “How does that make you feel?”

    “Feel?”

    Crying wasn’t allowed.  Just thinking about it, the red eyes and nose, the frown, the tears burning tracks down cheeks… it was hideous.  Of course, I was frightened.  But saying the word aloud…  (loc. 161)

 

    “Darklandia is not a way for you to ‘exorcise your darkest thoughts’ as they would have you believe.  Darklandia is the hand of the government reaching inside your brain and rearranging your thoughts to suit their reality.  Why do you think you’re forbidden from speaking about what happens inside Darklandia?  Do you think it’s a coincidence that you see your father every single time you serve your hours, except today?”  (loc. 1127)

 

Kindle Details…

    ANAICT, Darklandia is currently unavailable at Amazon in e-book format.  Two options are shown: Audiobook and Paperback, but the latter is also listed as “Currently Unavailable”.

 

“Excuse me, Ms. Locke, but you’re stepping on my slippers.  Could you please hand me that elephant ear?”  (loc. 1626)

    The ratings for Darklandia at both Amazon and Goodreads are not very lofty.  Judging from the reviews, the main cause for this is the ending, which resulted in a number of 2-star ratings at both sites, and even a 1-star rating at Goodreads.

 

    I have to agree with those low assessments by disappointed readers.  The ending is bizarre and illogical, and it feels like the author simply got tired of writing this tale, wanted to be done with it, and couldn’t come up with a satisfying way to do so.  A team of beta readers should’ve pointed this out.  If they weren't used, some should be found.  If they were used, replacements should be found.  The question for a reviewer is: when a book’s ending is weak, but the rest of the storyline is engaging and well-written, what should be done?

    I’d recommend a rewrite of the last chapter.  This wouldn’t entail many pages; and could even merely point to a yet-to-be-written sequel.  The excellent world-building done by T.S. Welti, plus the existence of a couple other unfinished plot threads (the murder of the mayor is one) begs for at least a second book, or even better, a series.  Indeed, most of the negative reviews expressed a keen interest in that.

 

    This assumes, of course, that the author has any desire to write more episodes of the adventures of Sera in Atraxia.  Alas, T.S. Welti’s most recent offerings at Amazon date back to 2013, so perhaps she's no longer living the dream of being an indie author.

 

    If so, more's the pity since, if one ignores the ending, Darklandia is a wonderful book by a talented author.

 

    6½ Stars, subject to an upgrade if the ending is rewritten  And BTW, the Amazon generic blurb for the “audible audiobook” (isn’t that tautological?) for Darklandia lists the age recommendation as “1-3 years”.  Wow!  I would love to hear any feedback given by a 1-year-old after reading this.

Night's Master - Tanith Lee

   1978; 244 pages.  Book 1 (out of 5) in the “Flat Earth” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres: Dark Fantasy; Anthology; Folklore.  Overall Rating: 7*/10.

 

    He is known by many titles: Lord of Darkness, Bringer of Anguish, Eagle-Winged, the Beautiful, the Unspeakable, the Prince of Demons, and the Master of Night.  Besides being a demon, he’s also a shape-shifter.

 

    He rules the Underearth from his capital city of Druhim-Vanashta, “The City of the Demons”, where the sun never shines.  He is the lord of the princely Vazdru, the worshipping Eshva, and the lowly Drin.

 

    He enjoys traveling to Upperearth, at least when it is nighttime.  He can cast spells, pronounce curses, conjure up foul beasts, and create new beings.  All of which wreaks havoc on the mortals up there.  But he despises the great orange sphere that rises in the east and bathes Upperearth with heat and light, and he is careful to scurry back to Underearth when rays of lightness begin to shine in the eastern sky.  His name is Azhrarn, and this is his story.

    Actually, it’s six stories about him and various creatures which have had the misfortune to cross his path.  I’m pleased to introduce you to the Night’s Master.

 

What’s To Like...

    Night’s Master is really three pairs of interrelated tales.  They all center around Azhrarn, of course, but each duad of stories also features at least one recurring character.  Ferazhin costars the first section, Zorayas in the second, and Janeve in the third.

 

    The “Flat Earth” appellation in the series' name caught my eye since I’m a devoted reader of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.  But Tanith Lee’s version isn’t circular and doesn’t have elephants standing on a giant turtle’s back.  It’s square, and the Sun apparently revolves around it.  I’m curious to see whether anyone ever reaches the edge and accidentally falls off.

 

    The world-building is fantastic.  The author utilizes a flowery style of writing.  For instance, at one point we meet a “pedlar”.  I looked it up; it is an archaic version of “peddler”.  There are also lots of descriptive passages that let you “see” Underearth and Upperearth.  In the hands of an amateur, this writing style could be irksome.  Here it works beautifully.

 

    The character-development is also masterful.  Yes, Azhrarn is the Prince of Demons. But the gods have a wry sense of humor, and at one point he’s forced to save mankind.  Zorayas is also deeply developed.  Events in her early life leave her scarred, turning an innocent child into a vengeful adult.

 

    Upperearth is filled mostly with humans, and Underearth has mostly demons.  But there are other creatures to meet and steer clear of, including witches, dragons, giants, magicians, gods, and even a unicorn.  It was also fun to see something called the Chair of Uncertainty; it's definitely an artifact I want to get my hands on.

 

    Each of the six tales has its own ending, but I didn’t sense anything tying together and closing the entire set of stories as a whole.  I suspect Tanith Lee’s main goal for Night's Master was to introduce the reader to Azhrarn and the two planes of Flat Earth.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.2/5 based on 293 ratings and 52 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.04/5 based on 2,816 ratings and 359 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Fane (n.) : a temple or shrine.

Others: jestling (v.); asphodel (n.); vulpine (adj.).

 

Excerpts...

    She called out: “Blessed be the name of the Dark Lord, and let him do me no harm.”

    To which Azhrarn, smiling, replied: “Time has harmed you enough with his claws.”

    “So indeed he has,” cried the witch, her eyes glittering greedily.  “May the Dark Lord grant me my youth again?”

    At that Azhrarn laughed coldly: “I do not often grant favors, hag.  But though I will not give you your youth, I will see to it you grow no older,” and a lightning slipped from his hand and struck the witch down.  It was never wise to ask a boon from a demon.  (loc. 269)

 

    “You may not drink,” said the first Guardian to Azhrarn, regarding him with this pitiless fearsome eye.

    “Indeed you may not,” said the other, regarding him also.

    “I am not here to drink,” said Azhrarn.  “Do you not know me?”

    “It is futile to know anything,” said the first Guardian, “since all things below pass, alter, decline and perish, and all things here above are unchanging.”

    “Humankind know me,” said Azhrarn.

    “Humankind,” said the second Guardian.  “What are they that we should be interested in their knowledge?”  (loc. 3072)

 

Kindle Details…

    Night’s Master currently sells for $6.99 at Amazon.  The other four books in this series are priced in the $7.99-$9.99 range.  Amazon offers a couple dozen Tanith Lee e-books for your reading pleasure, generally in the range of $1.99 to $12.99.

 

So there he sat.  And the stars grinned like naked daggers.  (loc. 401)

    I noticed only a couple of typos in Night’s Master: except/accept, wreck/wreak, and back/black.  I suspect these crept in when the book was converted into digital format.

 

    Amazingly, I didn’t note any cusswords in the text.  I can’t remember the last time that happened in a dark fantasy book.  There are a bunch of “intimate relations”, including those of the gay, hetero, forced, oral, and aroused varieties and occasionally involving gods with humans and dwarfs with spiders.  That last combination makes my head spin.  To be fair though, Tanith Lee alerts the reader to this degree of sexuality in her Introduction at the front of the book.

 

    Tanith Lee was a British author, which means occasionally American readers will run into strange spellings, such as travellers, grovelling, lustre, and a few others.  Curiously, both marvelous and marvellous were used.  I got the feeling that someone made an effort to Americanize the spelling for the e-book version and, for the most part, succeeded.

 

    That’s about it for the quibbles.  The Flat Earth series is an early effort by Tanith Lee (Wikipedia says she wrote more than 90 novels and 300 short stories), and I gather it is her most popular one.

 

    For me this was an interesting and well-written introduction to a fantasy world I’ve been meaning to explore for quite some time.  Alas, I’m not a big fan of anthologies, but in fairness, I knew this was one of those going in.  If Book 2, Death’s Master, crosses my path in the future, it’s even odds whether I’ll pick it up.  But if you happen to like books like 1001 Arabian Nights, then by all means give this series a try.

 

    7 Stars.  We'll close with a bit of trivia, courtesy of Wikipedia.  Night’s Master was nominated for the 1979 World Fantasy Award – Best Novel.   It didn’t win – Michael Moorcock’s Gloriana did – but to give you some idea of the competition, Stephen King’s The Stand was also nominated that year, and didn’t win either.

The Roman Revolution - Nick Holmes

    2022; 245 pages.  Book 1 (out of 2) in “The Fall of the Roman Empire” series.  Full Title: The Roman Revolution: Crisis and Christianity in Ancient Rome.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : World History; Rome; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    Quick, think back to that World History class when you were in Junior High, High School or college.  What year marked the end of the Roman Empire, according to your instructor?

 

    I was taught it happened in 476 CE, when the German warlord Odoacer forced the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, to abdicate and installed his own lackey on the throne.

 

    But that was just the end of the Western Roman Empire.  The Eastern Roman Empire, with its capital city of Constantinople, was still doing fine, and decided not to go retake the city of Rome from the barbarians.  So you could say 330 CE was the end for Rome, as justified in the second excerpt, below.

 

    The Eastern Roman Empire, later renamed the Byzantine Empire, survived another millennium, until the Ottomans finally destroyed it in 1453 CE.  So that’s another possible answer.

 

    Nick Holmes proposes a different date, 718 CE, and plans to present his case for that year in a four-volume series chronicling Rome’s demise.  The first volume covers the rise of Rome’s fortunes, and presages the debacle coming in 476 CE.  Its title is The Roman Revolution.

 

What’s To Like...

    After a brief overview via an Introduction, Nick Holmes divides The Roman Revolution into five parts (Title, Year Start, Kindle %), namely:

    Republic:  ~ 500-1000 BCE  (5%)

    Empire: 44 BCE  (18%)

    Decline: ~ 170 CE  (27%)

    Crisis: 248 CE  (36%)

    Revolution: 268 CE  (52%)

 

    Those titles give you a hint of what was going on.  Nobody is sure just exactly when Rome was founded, but they had a couple kings to begin with, then switched to being a Republic.  Julius Caesar’s death marks the start of the Empire.  The Decline is a gradual phenomenon and is due to Germanic invaders and a pandemic plague.  Crisis sees another plague, more invading Germans, weak emperors, Persians tearing up the eastern border of the Empire, and climate change messing up the food supply.  Revolution sees a couple strong emperors, most notably Constantine and Diocletian, revitalizing the empire, at least temporarily.  The text wraps up with Constantine’s death in 337 CE.

 

    The book is written in English, not American, so you get spellings such as armoured, outmanoeuvred, artefacts, jewellery, despatched, and judgement.  Spellchecker nixed all but one of those words (artefacts), but frankly, if you’re from America, it reads just fine.

 

    I liked the “tone” of Nick Holmes’s text.  The Roman Empire is neither presented as a glorious ideal, nor as a cruel tyranny.  There are reasons why it thrived among other peoples (such as the Etruscans, the Greeks, and the Carthaginians) and why, as all empires must, it eventually declined and fell.

 

    I also appreciated the author’s efforts to demythologize Roman history.  The wolf-suckled twins, Romulus and Remus, never existed.  Caesar never said, “Et tu, Brute” (Shakespeare did).  Constantine’s “vision of the cross” was a story invented later on by others.  And the degree of persecution of the early Christians in the empire varied from place-to-place and time-to-time, and was most likely, in most cases, overstated.

 

    It was fun to see some of the pagan religions—Druids, Mithras, Zoroastrianism, et al.—get some ink.  The footnotes worked flawlessly, which is a notable feat in Kindle e-books.  There are also some useful and interesting maps and images, about a dozen or so of each.  They worked almost as smoothly as the footnotes, although occasionally the link would drop me off at, say, image #1, when it was supposed to be redirecting to, say, image #12.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.4/5 based on 406 ratings and 22 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.34/5 based on 248 ratings and 15 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    There was no survival of fundamentalist Gallic beliefs that could seriously undermine Roman rule.  The best example is that of the Druids, who had always been the most powerful religious and cultural challenge to the Romans, but in Gaul they simply melted away.  By the first century AD, it was simply not cool to be a Druid any more.  But it was cool to be a Roman.  (loc. 724)

 

    [Constantine] turned to the cheering people.  They fell silent.  Then he addressed them.  He declared he would now dedicate this new city.  Henceforth it would no longer be called Byzantium but Constantinopolis, ‘Constantine’s City’.

    The date was 11 May 330.  Little could the thousands of people gathered in the Forum of Constantine, including Constantine himself, have realised that for centuries to come this date would be seen as a historic turning point, the marking of a new era.  For it is now seen as the beginning of the second age of the Roman Empire.  The age when power passed from Rome to Constantinople.  (loc. 2577)

 

Kindle Details…

    Right now, The Roman Revolution sells for $2.99 at Amazon.  Book 2, The Fall of Rome, goes for the same amount.  Nick Holmes offers a third e-book at Amazon, also in the History genre, The Byzantine World War; you can pick it up for a mere $0.99.

 

“Monarchy degenerates into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and democracy into savage violence and chaos.” [Polybius] (loc. 286)

    As you’d expect from a nonfiction History tome, profanity is almost nonexistent – just a single “hell”, in the whole book.  Surprisingly, this was the author’s own utterance, not a quote of someone else’s vocabulary.  I only spotted one typo: Mark Anony/Anthony, which means the editor did a great job.

 

    The “Christians” in the book’s subtitle don’t show up until about 76% (chapter 36 out of 41), and frankly, unlike what you may have been taught in school, get very little blame here for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.  However, there’s more than a century to go before the 476 CE Doomsday, so it’s possible they’ll shoulder more of the blame in Book 2.

 

    The Roman Revolution was an educational and enjoyable read for me, but it helps that I'm a lifelong history buff.  I was amazed that Nick Holmes could condense a millennium’s worth of history into 245 pages and still make it feel like a comprehensive treatise.

 

    I’ve got the Book 2 in this series on my Kindle and am looking forward to reading about the next one hundred years of Roman history, which I was taught ends in disaster for the capital city.  I have not picked up Books 3 and 4 yet, which are briefly previewed in the “Find Out More” section in the back of The Roman Revolution.  But that’s because they haven’t been published yet.

 

    9 Stars.  We’ll wrap this up on a lighter note taken from The Roman Revolution.  The acronym SPQR has long been associated with the Roman Empire.  You’ve been taught it stands for “Senatus Populusque Romanus”, Latin for “the Roman Senate and People”.  But modern Italians will jokingly tell you that it means “Sono pazzi questi Romani”, which translates into “They’re crazy, these Romans’.

Double Whammy - Carl Hiaasen

   1987; 320 pages.  Book 1 (out of 7) in the “Skink” series.  Book 2 (out of 16) in Hiaasen’s (overall) Florida noir series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Crime–Humor; Florida Crime-Noir; Beach Novel; Satire.  Overall Rating: 8*/10.

 

    Do you live in Florida and want to make some quick money?  Here are three easy ways.

 

    Hold a bass fishing tournament.  There are lots of avid fishermen throughout the Southeast that love to enter these, and you only have to pay off one winner.

 

    Build some condos around some lakes.  And by “lakes” we mean any body of water, manmade or natural, no matter how polluted, but one that’s large enough for fishing boats.  If you call it a lake, they will come.

 

    Hold a fundamentalist healing revival.  You’ll need a human who can fake being crippled for this, preferably someone young and cute.  After you perform the “miracle” the believers will shower you with dollars.

 

    Reverend Charles Weeb is both needy and greedy.  He plans to combine all three of those rackets and a lollapalooza of a fundraiser!

 

What’s To Like...

    Double Whammy is an early entry in what I call Carl Hiaasen’s “Florida Crime-Noir” series.  This is the eighth book I’ve read from that collection.   I have not been reading them in chronological order and I don’t think I’ve been missing much.  Amazon prefers to label it the first entry in the “Skink” series.  More on that in a bit.

 

    Our protagonist is the avid photographer and Private Eye, R.J. Decker, sometimes nicknamed “Rage” (a play upon his initials) by special friends, and “Miami” by one of his certifiably nutzo pals.  When Bobby Clinch, a local and not-very-successful bass tournament enthusiast is found dead in suspicious circumstances. Decker is hired to look into possible skullduggery.

 

    The action starts on the first page as Bobby Clinch sneaks out of the house early one morning.  The pacing is fast and the action is often over-the-top, which for this genre, is an asset.  I liked the character development done by the author; Decker, Ott, Fast Eddie Spurling, Skink, and Al Garcia were all interesting people to meet.  Those final two become recurring characters in this series, with Skink appearing in another six installments by Amazon’s count.  And let's give a quick nod to Lucas; his tenaciousness is impressive.

 

    Bass tournaments are the central focus of Double Whammy.  The title refers to a specific type of fishing lure used by the recognized tournament champion in the area, Dickie Lockhart.  To be honest, I’ve never had the slightest urge to participate in a fishing tournament, but while reading this book, I did get an appreciation for how much preparation is done for competing in one, and how much excitement is generated by fifty anglers, all on the same lake, all trying to out-fish everyone else.  And as an added bonus, I even learned how the cheat in bass tournaments.

 

    Double Whammy was first published in 1987, which means it has a lot of "outdated" items.  Decker drives a 1979 Volare, which he notes is  “stylistically the most forgettable auto” around.  That brought back old memories since I drove one of those in the 80s.  His camera uses film — imagine that! — and he has a darkroom in his home where he does his own film-development, a hobby I used to do with my dad in my teenage years.  Cassette tapes are how Decker listens to music, and there were only three Star Wars movies at that time, which you watched on videocassette.

 

    Events build to Reverend Weeb’s three-pronged money-making scheme described above.  The ending is exciting, albeit not particularly twisty, and both the good guys and the bad guys get their just desserts.  One loose end remains, and I doubt it is resolved in the next book: what will happen to Queenie?!

 

Excerpts...

    “Hey, Rage, where you at?”

    “In a motel outside New Orleans.”

    “Hmmm, sounds romantic.”

    “Very,” Decker said.  “My roommate is a 240-pound homicidal hermit.  For dinner he’s fixing me a dead fox he scraped off the highway near Ponchatoula, and after that we’re taking a leaky tin boat out on a windy lake to spy on some semi-retarded fishermen.  Don’t you wish you were here?”

    “I could fly in tomorrow, get a hotel in the Quarter.”

    “Don’t be a tease, Catherine.”  (pg. 119)

 

    “We’re here for the bass tournament.”

    “Is that right?”  Weeb eyed the rowboat disdainfully.  “Sorry, son, but this event’s not open to the general public.”

    Al Garcia said, “We’re not the general public, son.  We’re the Tile Brothers.”  Coolly he handed Charlie Weeb the receipt for the registration fee.  Weeb passed it to Deacon Johnson.

    “It’s them, all right,” Deacon Johnson reported.  “Boat number fifty, all paid up.”

    “You don’t look like brothers,” Reverend Weeb said accusingly.

    “Si, es verdad,” Jim Tile said.

    “Fo sho,” added Al Garcia.  “We true be bros.”  (pg. 268)

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 4,881 ratings and 588 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.94*/5, based on 18,429 ratings and 1,120 reviews.

 

“Just one of those days … when you feel like the spit-valve on the trombone of life.”  (pg. 314)

    If you’ve never read any of Carl Hiaasen’s books. Be aware that they generally never skimp on cusswords.  I found 28 in the first 10% of this book, which is about normal.  Racial epithets also are used, and adult situations and nudity occur on a regular basis.

 

    There were only a couple of typos, mind/mine and Scaggs/Skaggs) which still surprised me since I was reading the mass-market paperback version, published by Warner Books.  But since Scaggs was as in “Ricky Scaggs”, I’m wondering if it was a deliberate error to avoid copyright issues.

 

    Also, if you’re of the Pentecostal persuasion, you probably won’t like this book.  And if you’re a dog-lover, you should probably skip it as well.

 

    I enjoyed Double Whammy.  There were no slow spots and there was enough spoofery, wit, and outrageous events (such as the culinary delights of eating roadkill) to keep me turning the pages.  This book would make a great airport or beach read.

 

    8 Stars.  I read Double Whammy during 2023 Banned Book Week (October 1-7), which turned out to be a timely effort since Wikipedia notes that in 2017 the Texas Department of Corrections put this on its list of books that inmates in its state prisons were not allowed to read.  Neither Carl Hiaasen nor I have any idea what the reasoning for this act was.  No policemen are killed in Double Whammy, and in fact, the actions of the two main cops here, Jim Tile and Al Garcia, are quite commendable.

The Relfe Sisters - Richard Herley

   2022; 330 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Family Life Fiction; Romance.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    It was the best day of Clive Wilson’s life; it was the worst day of Clive Wilson’s life.

 

    On one hand, he saved an eleven-year-old boy’s life by pushing him out of the way of an oncoming Range Rover as he crossed the street.  All the locals are calling him a hero, so maybe this was his best day ever.

 

    On the other hand, Clive didn’t have time to get out of the way of the Range Rover himself, he got clobbered, ended up in the hospital, and now walks with a limp and a cane.  So maybe this was his worst day ever.

 

      Clive doesn’t feel heroic; he thinks that anyone else would have done the same.  So why should he view this as his finest hour?

 

    Well, because if he hadn’t saved the life of little Oscar Northfield, he never would have met Miss Sophie Relfe, the boy’s aunt.  And he never would have fallen in love.

 

What’s To Like...

    Amazon labels The Relfe Sisters a “Family Life Fiction”, which seems like an apt descriptor, although I’d hasten to add you could also call it a Romance.  Clive’s life-saving effort introduces him to three sisters who are all dysfunctional in their own way.

 

    Diana, Oscar’s mom, is the eldest sister and is suffering through a lucrative, but unhappy marriage.  Marianne, the youngest of the three, is divorced, a settlement from which has left her financially okay, but emotionally bitter.  Sophie, the middle sister, has had a couple of wild romantic flings, which have made her fearful of falling in love.  You might say she’s “twice bitten, third time shy”.

 

    The text is a vocabularian’s delight, partly because Richard Herley is an English author, and partly because he is a wordsmith par excellence.  That means there were a whole slew of fascinating terms to suss out.  My favorite one is listed below, but others include: skip-hire, kerb, Hilux, Teasmades, motor-yacht, wheelie-bins, splashback, Dysons, broody, nugatory, brolly, chin-chin, bolshie, pellucid, tannoys, twee, satsuma, coign, pelmet, and snaffled.  I'm a bit embarrassed to note that Spellchecker is familiar with almost all of these.

 

    There are a whole bunch of interesting characters to meet and get to know besides the three sisters.  Mrs. Blennerhassett was one of my favorites, so was Uncle Jerome.  As an American reader, I found Richard Herley’s depictions of modern-day life in England to be delightful, particularly riding the trains and preparing the meals.  The book’s settings, especially London and Surrey, also brought back fond memories, since I’ve visited both while in England on a couple of excursions.

 

    The ending was a very logical wrap-up to the tale.  There weren’t any this-changes-everything twists to it, but Romance lovers will find it satisfying.  The final chapter is a “flash-forward”, and made me say “awwww."

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Subfusc (adj.) : dull and gloomy.

Others: see above.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.0/5 based on 4 ratings and 3 reviews.

    Goodreads: *.**/5 based on 0 ratings and 0 reviews.

 

Kindle Details…

    The Relfe Sisters currently sells for $3.58 at Amazon.  Richard Herley has 15 other e-books for you; they range in price from free to $4.99.  The freebies are The Penal Colony, Nature Writing, and The Stone Arrow, in three widely different genres.  I’ve only read that last one, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

Excerpts...

    Before her marriage she had worked as a librarian: it was at the public library that Julian had met her. Issuing his books one Saturday morning, she had, boldly for her, mentioned that she too was keen on medieval poetry, and Julian, who had never so much as summoned the nerve to ask a girl to the pictures, had thereupon asked her what time she got off, and would she like to have a cup of coffee with him and discuss Piers the Plowman?  (loc. 502)

 

    “I was telling Mr. Wickham here, London is overrun with foreigners.”

    “His name is Wilson.”

    “I know that very well.  I have been testing him.  I wanted to see if he would correct me and he did not.  Not once.  What are you doing with a milquetoast like that, my dear?  He looks like a bank clerk and behaves like one.  At least your other conquests had a bit of spark in them.  Maximilian, for example.  Why did you have to part from him?  He was streets better than this one.  (loc. 2775, and no, I have no idea what the phrase “streets better” means.)

 

“Marry me or be murdered.  It couldn’t be plainer.”  (loc. 3383)

    There’s not much to gripe about in The Relfe Sisters.  The cussing is sparse; I counted just 17 instances in the first 50% of the book.  There are some adult situations and sexual references mentioned, and unless I’m overthinking it, at least one gay relationship.

 

    Sophie definitely gets the most ink of the sisters.  Indeed, when I was about halfway through the book, I was questioning whether Marianne and Diana were impactful enough to merit being included in the title.  But their roles get bigger as the story went on.

 

    That’s all nits I can pick.  For me, The Relfe Sisers was a fast-paced, easy-to-read tale of human relationships that held my interest despite it being in a genre I normally don't partake of.  I wish that more Romance novels were written with this depth.

 

    Finally, if you purchase and read this book, and like it, I recommend next picking up Richard Herley’s Darling Brenda, which is in the same genre.

 

    8 Stars.  One last delightful word that I added to my vocabulary as soon as I ran across it in The Relfe Sisters: “forfuxake”.  Yes, I’m sure it’s a made-up word.  But jeez, it ought to be added to the dictionary.

Visions - Michio Kaku

   1997; 355 pages.  Full Title: Visions – How Science Will Revolutionize the 21^st Century.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Physics; Futurology; Science; Speculative Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating : 9½*/10.

 

    There’s a curious phenomenon that happens as the world approaches a “turn of the century”.  People like to speculate on what their world will be like after another hundred years.  At the end of the 1800s, some fascinating predictions were made for how life in the following century would unfold, almost all of which were far afield, particularly from a technological point of view.  One of them is pictured at the end of this review.

 

    As the year 2000 approached, Michio Kaku decided to share his views of where science and technology are headed in the coming century.  Who the heck is he, what does he know about such complicated stuff, and why should we care what he thinks is going to take place over the next 100 years?

 

    Well, Michio Kaku is not your average layman.  He’s a Professor of Theoretical Physics, the cofounder of something called String Field Theory, and the host of a nationally-syndicated radio science program.

 

    It might be enlightening to read his Visions of the future.

 

What’s To Like...

    The sixteen chapters of Visions are divided into four sections:

Part 1: Visions (Chapter 1)

    An overview and predictions for 1997-2000.

Part 2: The Computer Revolution  (Chapters 2-6)

    Smart Cars, Robots, Holograms, Computers that Think, et al.

Part 3: The Biomolecular Revolution  (Chapters 7-12)

    Killing Tumors via Gene Therapy, Living Forever, Clones, Making Angels, et al.

Part 4: The Quantum Revolution  (Chapters 13-16)

    Nanotechnology, Antimatter, Warp Drives, Wormholes, et al.

 

    The chapters are fairly long, averaging just over 22 pages apiece.  But Michio Kaku breaks them down into bite-sized subsections, mostly only 1 or 2 pages in length, which made it much easier for me to focus on the physics-y concepts being presented.  It also helped that he gave a lot of those subsections catchy titles such as:

    Roadkill on the Information Highway  (pg. 121)

    Of Microbes, Mice, and Men  (pg. 151)

    How Long Can We Live?  (pg. 212)

    What Happened Before the Big Bang?  (pg. 350)

 

    Michio Kaku generally divvies up his next-century predictions into the time slots of 2000-2020, 2020-2050, and 2050-2100.  Once in a while he ventures even further into the future, but those predictions are understandably very iffy.  The fact that the book was published 26 years ago means that his first time slot is now “history”, and it was fun to look at how many of his “visions” have, and have not, come to pass.  The first excerpt below is an example of just how accurate most of his predictions are.  On the whole, he’s spot on, but we’ll list a couple of his “misses” a bit later.

 

    There’s a nice blend between “hard science” topics and popular ones.  At one point, five “Star Trek” gizmos are examined:

Force Fields, 

Starships, 

Portable 

Ray Guns, 

Transporters/Replicators, and Invisibility (Cloaking Devices).

    Michio Kaku concludes that four of those are scientifically impossible to achieve.  Guess which one might eventually be developed?  We’ll leave the answer in the comments section.

 

    In addition to all the cutting-edge technology that is discussed, Visions is also a trivia lover’s delight.  A few examples are: the origin of the word “turnpike”, how to grow a new hand (surprise!: it’s already been done!) why cats are more detached and reserved than dogs, and what percentage of all humans who have walked this earth are alive today.  Who says a science book has to be dull?!

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.7/5 based on 266 ratings and 105 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.02/5 based on 2,366 ratings and 99 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Eventually, accessing the Internet may resemble talking to the Magic Mirror of children’s fairy tales.  Instead of typing arcane codes and symbols into a Web navigator and being flooded with fifty thousand incorrect answers, in the future we may simply talk to our wall screen or tie clasp and access the entire planet’s formidable body of knowledge.  This Magic Mirror, endowed with an intelligent system complete with a human face and a distinct personality, may act as an adviser, confidant, aide, secretary, and gofer all at the same time.  (pg. 44.  Shades of Siri and Alexa!)

 

    NASA has wisely decided not to repeat the same mistake made in the 1960s, when the space program was largely driven by the Cold War and collapsed after the politicians lost interest in the moon.  It is difficult to chart the future of space travel because the driving force behind the space program has often been politics, rather than science, with politicians demanding that astronauts perform glamorous but largely ceremonial stunts in space which could be done by robots for a fraction of the cost.  As one politician put it: “No Buck Rogers, no bucks.”  (pg. 299)

 

“Bioengineered crops can’t be recalled.”  (pg. 245)

    There is zero cussing in Visions, but that's the norm for science-y books.  Also, the usual geek caveat applies: if things like quantum physics, DNA, and nanotechnology don’t interest you, you probably should give this book a pass.

 

Here are a couple of “misses” in Visions:

    a. Cancer will be cured by 2020.  So will most infectious diseases.

    b. Newspapers will flourish during the Computer Age.

     c. CDs will be our primary way of storing and transporting information.

    d. Enron will contribute to solar energy development.

    e. The middle class will continue to grow in size.

 

    To be fair, a lot of these visions came with caveats.  Kaku notes that if a pandemic hits, then the timing of the disease cures gets set back significantly.  Newspapers will prosper only if they change their ways, doing things such as customizing their content for each customer.  And Enron had not been exposed as a scam.  

 

  But these misses pale in comparison to Michio Kaku’s “hits”.  For me, Visions was both an enlightening and captivating read.  This was my third book by this author, and I’ve loved every one of them.  Full disclosure: I am a chemist by career, so of course I’m fascinated by science-geeky books like this.

 

    9½ Stars.  As promised, here is a postcard depicting one of the many visions made just prior to 1900 predicting daily life one hundred years hence.  For more of these Google-Image the word “FutureDays”.