Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains - Harry Harrison & Robert Sheckley

   1990; 248 pages.  Book 3 (but Volume 2) (out of 7) in the “Bill the Galactic Hero” series.  New Authors? : No, and Yes.  Genres : Science Fiction; Humor and Satire.   Overall Rating: 3*/10.

 

    Central Headquarters needs a volunteer and Space Trooper Bill is the perfect fit.

 

    Maybe it’s that pair of Deathwish Drang fangs he sports.  They’d scare a Chinger right out of its lizard pelt.  Of course, since Chingers are only seven inches tall, that's not saying much.

 

    Maybe it’s that alligator foot that the military surgeons at Camp Diplatory have just attached to Bill’s leg.  Alligator feet are quite powerful.  But since Bill only has *one* of them transplanted so far on him, all it does is make him walk lopsided.

 

    Maybe it’s because Bill’s a part of the famous “Fighting 69th Deep Space Screaming Killers” unit.  But heck, there’s fifty thousand such troopers stationed here at Camp Diplatory.  So what makes Bill so special?

 

    Actually, it’s because Bill’s been classified as expendable, and that’s exactly the kind of soldier needed for this next mission.  It’s a trip to “Tsuris”, a mystery planet where objects passing nearby – even starships – get plucked from space, disappearing into thin ether, only to reappear again millions of miles away.  Someone needs to go there and reconnoiter, even if they also get zapped to who-knows-where and are never heard from again.

 

    Someone expendable.

 

What’s To Like...

    Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains is the third book in Harry Harrison’s 7-volume humorous sci-fi series, and the first to feature a co-author, which then became the norm for subsequent entries, although the co-authors change from one book to the next.

 

    The book is first and foremost a spoofery of other Sci-Fi series, most notably Star Trek (with Captain Dirk and Mr. Splock) and Star Wars (with Ham Duo and Chewgumma).  Bill gets introduced to time-travel, thanks to a gizmo called a "Temporal/Spatial Displacer", and a bit later experiences getting sucked into a computer as well.

 

    The writing is a vocabularian's delight, featuring some kewl words I’m familiar with (such as “simulacrum” and “tintinnabulation”) plus some that were new to me, a couple of which are listed below.  The multifunctional expression “bowb” (it can be used as a noun, verb, interjection, and/or adjective) is back; I think it should be added to everyone’s vocabulary.  I enjoyed the nod to Robert Heinlein by having Dirk “grok” things, and of course the journey back through time to Carthage and the encounter with Hannibal resonated deeply with me. 

 

    There's some subtle wordplay, such as a capital city named “Graypnutz” and some hilarious mistranslations as Bill’s computerized translating device struggles with the idioms of the Tsurisian language.  I chuckled at some of the religious references, including the “Church of Very Little Charities” and the “Zoroastrian Winter Solstice Defloration Festival”.  Nowadays we call that latter one "Christmas".

 

    There are multiple plotlines to keep the action and excitement flowing: will Bill get a brain transplant?, will he fail the intelligence test?, can he successfully steal a temporal/spatial displacer for his superiors?, can he avoid being court-martialed and executed?  I guess the answer to that last one is self-evident, since there are four more books in this series.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Zaftig (adj.) : having a full, rounded figure; plump,  (a Yankeeism)

Others: Crampon (n.); Concomitant (as a noun, not an adjective).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.2*/5, based on 11 ratings and 5 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.42*/5, based on 811 ratings and 18 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “Yipe!” Bill yiped.  “What the bowb are you doing with my ear?”

    “I’m fastening a translating device to your ear, so if you find any Tsurisians on Tsuris you can talk to them.”

    “Tsuris!  The place nobody ever comes back from?”

    “You catch on fast.  That’s the whole point of the operation.  Your non-return will give us the excuse to invade.”

    “I don’t think I like this.”  (pg. 16)

 

    “They’re giving me the Usladish look; you know what I mean?”

    “No, I don’t,” Bill said, desperation in his voice, a trapped feeling coursing through every fiber of his being.

    “I keep forgetting you weren’t born here,” Illyria said.  “An Usladish look is what we call a look that means, I know you’re up to something sneaky and rotten but I’m not going to tell anybody about it yet because I’m sort of sneaky and rotten myself.”

    “They don’t have that feeling where I come from,” Bill said.

    “No?  How curious.”  (pg. 22)

 

“When they handed out the brains you were in the corner picking your toes.”  (pg. 181)

    Sadly, there are a bunch of weaknesses in Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains.  Overall, the writing is bad, and the storytelling is even worse.  I felt like I was reading a high school student’s effort.  The various plotlines meander all over the place in the tale, and there is no overarching storyline to tie everything together.

 

    The first part of the book has some funny moments, but things soon devolve into just plain silliness.  I felt like the authors were trying to spoof Starship Troopers and its “so bad it’s good” reputation, but ended up instead with a “so bad it’s terrible” result.  I’m also at a loss to say who the target audience is; the book’s too silly to appeal to most adults, but it’s also got too much cussing and sexual references (tumescence, phallus, copulation, detumescing) to be appropriate for a YA audience.

 

    Summing up, there’s just too much wrong with this book, and the series as a whole, to recommend it.  The low Goodreads rating and the scarcity of reviews/ratings at both Amazon and Goodreads (B,tGHotPoBB has been around for 32 years now, and both Sheckley and Harrison are well-known sci-fi writers) should’ve clued me in that this was something to avoid.  I doubt I'll go any further in this series.

 

    3 Stars.  The book’s cover lists Harry Harrison and Robert Sheckley as co-authors, (with Sheckley’s name getting the smaller font size), while the Wikipedia article (the link is here) says Harrison was merely the editor.  Also, Harry Harrison’s comments in Wikipedia sound like he really didn’t want much to do with this series, likening it to “sharecropping”.

 

    Personally, the 72 chapters of Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of the Bottled Brains seemed like a friendly contest between the two writers.  I got the impression that one would write a chapter, but end it with a ill-fitting and superfluous sentence, and it would then be the other writer’s challenge to somehow make it fit.  For instance, Chapter 60 ends with this sentence: “Surprisingly, the answer was to be provided by a single long-stemmed blue rose.”  Oy.  Good luck making that segue smoothly into the next chapter.

Grand Portage - Scott Seeger

   2019; 259 pages.  Full Title: Grand Portage: One Man’s Journey to Bring Nuclear Power to the World.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Intrigue, Technology Fiction  Overall Rating : 3*/10.

    Portage.  The dictionary defines it as “the carrying of a boat or its cargo between two navigable waterways”.

    Generally we envision it as involving a canoe, with a pair of outdoors enthusiasts toting one through a forest on their shoulders.  I think I vaguely remember a Three Stooges comedy routine utilizing portaging.  Lots of running into trees and Moe whupping up on Curly.

    But it can apply to transporting larger vessels as well.  Wikipedia has an excellent article on it, with some neat pictures including one where a warship is portaged.  You can read about it here.

    But let’s stop thinking small here.  How would one go about portaging a full-sized aircraft carrier?  A person would have to be nuts to attempt that stunt.

    Well, meet Tyler Chambers.  He must be nuts.

What’s To Like...

    The titular challenge in Grand Portage tickled my fancy: how do you go about moving a huge aircraft carrier across land?  The book’s cover shows you Scott Seeger’s proposed answer, which is an intricate system comprised of bulldozers, tow lines, other mechanical devices, and last-but-not-least, a bunch of giant inflatable “logs” on which to roll the ship across land.  It's a take-off on how historians think the huge stones of Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids were moved, and seems plausible to me.

    The protagonist, Tyler Chambers, is the inventor of the “pool noodle” (who knew those things had a name?!), and apparently is noteworthy enough to where a bunch of our present-day leading innovators – Richard Branson, David Sacks, and Elon Musk, to drop a few names – invite him to join their confabs.  Highly unlikely, but hey, this is a work of fiction.  But Chambers has some character flaws as well, most notably some serious relationship issues with his wife.  Overall, he’s a “gray” (albeit, more light than dark) character, and I like it when a book’s characters aren’t just boringly straight black or white.

    The writing style is good; the storyline was presented clearly and I don’t recall any telling/showing issues.  There’s a nice variety of settings, including New York City, Lake Superior and the Upper Midwest, Nevada, and a whirlwind trip to mainland China.  The internet satire sensation “The Onion” gets mentioned, as does the outdated “Peter Principle”, which had a brief-but-hyper heyday way back in my salad days.  Even the quality guru, Malcolm Baldrige, gets a nod, which was ironic, since both his first and last names are misspelled as “Malcom Baldridge”.

    There’s a fair amount of cussing and at least one roll-in-the-hay.  Amazon labels the book’s genre  as “Acton-Adventure”, but that’s inaccurate.  The only action spots are one minor barroom brawl, and one egg being thrown later on.  Finally, there’s a nice tip-of-the-hat by the author to the “Aubrey/Maturin” book series, which I’d never heard of, but which apparently lots of other have.  I'll have to go looking for some books from it whence next I hit the bookstores; the Amazon blurbs on them are quite interesting.

Kindle Details...

    Grand Portage currently sells for $2.99 at Amazon.  Scott Seeger has two other e-books available at Amazon; they go for the same price.  All three have a right-wing bent to them, so if you’re of that political persuasion, you might want to check them out.   

Excerpts...

    Quietude.  He was sealed in his library.  He ran his fingers along the spines of the books.  He inhaled and relished the smell of the books, an affirmation of these few precious moments before the party.  He reflected on how a time and place once existed when he found little value in reading beyond academia. Why read fiction which contributes nothing to your knowledge when a universe of fact existed to further yourself?  Tyler wondered how he could have ever thought that way.  (loc. 1583)

    “Hey, you go see carrier?  Tolkov?”  The man had a Slavic face and drank a clear liquid on the rocks.  He spoke with a thick Eastern European accent.

    “That right (sic), seeing the Tolkov.”

    “Ahh, amazing boat.  I serve in Russia Navy, never Tolkov, but Varyag.  That’s cruise missile and intel.”

    “Ah, what brought you to Northern Minnesota?”

    “Ahh friends, you know, the weather too.  Like Siberia only more tropical.”  (loc. 3438)

“I’m the guy shooting crap into space.  I roll over the unknown and leave the flat-earthers in my wake.”  (loc. 678)

     Alas, the writing in Grand Portage is good, but the storytelling is another matter.  In relative brevity:

    Pacing.  If the picture on the book cover is what attracts you, you’d better have patience.  That part of the story doesn’t start until 27%, and its time on center stage is disappointingly spotty.  Scott Seeger is unashamedly pro-nuclear power, and spends a lot of time telling you why he feels that way.  Since most readers will be expecting an Action/Adventure tale, these nukes-are-good sermons get tedious.

    WTF’s.  There were a bunch.  Firstly, although you can get from Lake Superior to the ocean in a boat, the system of locks has size limits, and I’m pretty sure an aircraft carrier won’t fit.  Secondly, you mean to tell me a Russian aircraft carrier can make it on a waterway half the width of the United States and along an international border without our defense and intelligence systems being aware of that?!  Unbelievable.  Thirdly, the whole “diplomatic immunity” issue is baloney.  If that were true, I think Russia (or us, or any other nation) could infiltrate any territory they bloody well please.  Finally, if you think that, on the spur-of-the-moment, you can fly a bunch of people in your private jet to mainland China just to badmouth their coal-energy system, without prior notice and visas, you’re crazy.

    Editing.  I’m a grammar-cop, and this was a painful read.  Errors like boarders/borders, discrete/discreet, Ms. Farnsworth’s first name morphing from Lana to Lara, Premier/Premiere, and an atrocious misuse (or lack of use, to be pedantic) of commas.

    There were other issues, but these were the major ones.   If beta-readers, editors, and/or proofreaders weren’t used in the writing of this book, those resources should be seriously considered.  If they were used, better ones should be found.

    3 Stars.  One last thing.  I found out about Grand Portage via a paid advertisement of Facebook,  The ad is gone now, but the text was succinct and something along the lines of “Download it.  Enjoy it.  Write a review of it.  Tell your friends about it.”  The main challenge for every indie author is to get noticed by prospective readers.  I don’t know how much a Facebook ad like that costs, but it seems to me a worthwhile investment, even if 99% of those who download it never write a review.

Pieces of the Puzzle - Jennifer Fowler and Carrie Wahl

   2008; 368 pages.  New Authors? : Yes.  Book 1 (out of 2) in the “Timekeepers” series.  Genre : Historical Fantasy; LDS Fiction.  Overall Rating : 3*/10.

    King Gilgamesh has lived for a long, long time, but his days are coming to an end.  He has six children, and the gods have ordained that they too will live for centuries on end, albeit not as long as their father.

   There’s a downside to this.  They are fated to be pitted against the six children of Chantu, the implacable foe of Gilgamesh.  And Chantu’s kids, like those of Gilgamesh, will be similarly long-lived.

    But the gods have a sense of humor, and have devised several objects that will be up for grabs among the two sets of children, including an amulet, a tablet, a scroll, a bracelet, and a seal.

    And a vial.  Which contains the elixir of immortality.  Yeah, that should stir things up for quite a few centuries.

What’s To Like...

    The "Gilgamesh" in Pieces of the Puzzle is based loosely on the incredibly old Epic of Gilgamesh story, which comes to us from ancient Sumer.  The Wikipedia article on this is quite interesting and can be found here.  PotP starts out with a prologue, set somewhat soon after the Great Flood; but the bulk of the book is the storylines of the children of Gilgamesh.  Timewise, their stories are set in the 20^th Century, and that’s “BC”, not “AD”.

    By then, the kids have scattered into Africa, India, China, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, and North America.  Historically, this is an interesting time for those zones; civilization is just beginning to take root.  And not coincidentally, one each of the Chantu children has also settled in the vicinity of each of these six locales.

    The authors have inserted a handy “Cast of Major Characters” at the beginning of the novel.  Bookmark it; you will be referring to it frequently.  The historical settings are adequate for the story, but not overly detailed.  The upside to this is that there are no info dumps.  Stylistically, this is a “cozy” tale – some pirates drown, but that’s about as gory as it gets.  There is also an instance of reaching up a camel’s “canal”, but that’s more funny than gross.

    This is not a standalone novel, but it ends at a decent spot, with most, but not quite all, of the rival siblings being drawn to one giant meeting.  Jennifer Fowler and Carrie Wahl have published the sequel, Race To The Portal, but that seems to be it.  It doesn’t look like Book 2 was meant to be the end of this series, but Amazon doesn't show a third book, so the whole effort may have fizzled out.

Kewlest New Word ...

    Gwier (n.) : Hmm.  Google came up empty for this.  A made-up word?

Kindle Details...

    Pieces of the Puzzle sells for $2.99 at Amazon.  The sequel sells for $3.99.

Excerpts...

    “I am seeking the Far Away, Utnapishtim.”

    Menachem raised an eyebrow.  “You must come from far to use that name.  What is your purpose?”

    “He and his wife know the secret to eternal life.  I wish to be immortal, as well.”

    Menachem frowned.  “My children have completely corrupted everything I taught them.  Like all men, you seek the impossible.  It has been decreed no man shall find immortality in this life.  Men are weak, and it is a blessing that our lives here are temporary.  Everything we gain here is as naught when we pass on.  I have seen more life than any man on earth today, and I know it would be a curse to choose this immortality you desire.”  (loc. 132)

    They were mean and miserly, hording (sic) everything they had, unwilling to share just one crust of bread with an outsider.  Even their trees were caged to keep animals from stealing one bite of their bounty.  The unfortunate beggar who chanced to come to these cities and ask for a bite to eat would be showered with gold and silver, while all food was mockingly withheld from him.  The poor man would die on the streets with an empty belly and full pockets, which would be raided as soon as he was dead.  (loc. 4041)

 “Perhaps…a long life is not always the treasure one might think.”  (loc. 2220)

    Truth be told, Pieces of the Puzzle didn’t resonate at all with me.  The pacing was slow, and there was way too much telling and not nearly enough showing.  The half-dozen storylines were too many and too repetitive, and the six protagonists were cookie-cutter clones of each other, and rather dimwitted to boot.

    The storytelling is unambitious.  Our heroes are “drawn” to cities, or “feel the need” to board a certain ship.  They also all have the “magic ability” to understand all languages past-and-present, which avoids those pesky communication issues.  Amazingly, one of them is able to gad all around the New World, with only a dog for a companion, and not run into any food or foe problems.

     But the real turn-off for me came when the story veered off into Religious Fiction.  I knew I was in for this when Abraham & Sarah (aka Abram and Sarai) were awkwardly and pointlessly inserted into the story, time-after-time, with the authors gushing effusively about how spiritual they were.  The only mystery was exactly what sort of dogma I’d be subjected to, since Abraham/Sarah are crucial to at least three religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

    It took a while, but this finally became clear when swords were introduced into the North American narrative.  The only place you’ll find this sort of nonsense is the Book of Mormon, and no one considers that to be historically credible.  This is not the first time I’ve had to endure religious drivel disguised as literary fiction (another example is here), and it’s one of my pet peeves.  Hey, Jennifer and Carrie, Amazon has a Religious Fiction section; if you want to toss your religious views into a storyline, kindly label your book’s genre(s) properly.  You are not doing God’s Will when you resort to deception.

    3 Stars.  Not recommended.  Add 2 Stars if you’re LDS and think all those Jaredites, Nephites, and Lamanites just routinely made transoceanic trips to the New World at incredible speeds.  SMH.

Viele Tausende - Devin Patrick Bates

    2012; 350 pages.  Full Title : “Viele Tausende (Many Thousands), Book One of The Ruthan Analects.”  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Fantasy, (sorta).  Overall Rating : 3*/10.

     Ruthan is the Chosen One.  His blood will flow through the generations of many races and he will live to see the world rent apart and knit back together.  But first he has to be taught all sorts of things.  From all sorts of races.  Not the least of which is to learn to hear The Voice.

What’s To Like...

    The story can be summed up in three words and an acronym :  Siddhartha set in LOTR.  There are elves and dwarves and dragons, and hints of fairies, pixies and Entish creatures to come.  And humans, of course.  There are some nice descriptions of the lands that Ruthan travels.  Ruthan meets people and he learns magic.  Women of all races seem to want to help him spread his blood through many generations.  No one seems to doubt that Ruthan’s da Man.

    Viele Tausende will give your vocabulary a workout.  Devin Bates will never choose a common word when a longer, more obscure one can be found.  Milton would be proud.  It gets distracting at times, but it could be worse.

    But as a fantasy novel, Viele Tausende has some serious issues. There are continuity problems, the magic system is poorly developed, there are lots of unanswered questions (e.g., why does the horse live so long?), and worst of all – there is zero action.

    I mean none.  The closest we get is a lovers’ spat 2/3 of the way through, where spells are thrown instead of dishes.  Other than that, we get to listen to Ruthan muse about life, the Universe, and everything else.  Frankly, I found our hero/chronicler to be long-winded, slow-witted, and spoiled.

Kewlest New Word...

    Saccade : a rapid movement of the eye between two fixations points.

Kindle Details...

     Viele Tausende sells for $2.99 at Amazon.  AFAIK, this is Devin Bates’ only novel thus far.  But in his Amazon blurb, he indicates this will become a trilogy.

Excerpts...

    Men have wondered for untold ages about the nature and purpose of their existence, Valéria, but the answer to the mortal condition is really much simpler than we make it.  Love and peace are the great meaning of our mortal sojourns.  A life is only wasted when it has not been well-lived, and death is nothing for a wise soul to be afraid of.  (loc. 402.  Herman Hesse would be proud.)

    “Are you safe, nephew?” I asked Solfallin.

    “As well as can be expected, no thanks to you,” he quipped.  “I’m burning with exhaustion and I reek of sweat and horse shit.  Are you safe?”  (loc. 4907)

“Of what value is magic ... if a person can’t, or won’t, make use of it?” (loc. 5712)

    It is difficult to know what the author intended with this book.  Readers looking for a fantasy book are going to be sore disappointed by the lack of action.  As a “Siddhartha” book, it does much better, but a book about spiritual enlightenment doesn’t blend well with dragons and elves.

    I suspect this was a labor of love, with things like editing and beta-reading dispensed with.  Here’s hoping the next two books in the series have some excitement infused into them.  3 Stars.  Add another 4 stars if you’ve read Siddhartha, and liked it.

Madmen at the Tombs - Ilow Martin Roque

2012; 378 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Catholic Polemic.  Overall Rating : 3*/10.

    Jia Chen is going to Montreal.  Ostensibly, she will be working with the brilliant scientist, Dr. Lanning Balcourt.  But in truth, she is a spy for the Chinese government.  Ah, such intrigue!  It's a pity that her cover's been blown before she even sets foot in Canada.

What's To Like...
    The story takes place in 2165 AD, and Ilow Martin Roque does a nice job of creating a believable world set 1½ centuries in the future.  Most of the changes are technological.  Which, when you think about it, is also true of the present compared to 150 years in the past.  Global travel is faster, and there are some nifty techno-geeky gadgets for one's daily life.

   There are also sociological differences.  China now sits at the top of the economic, politicial, cultural, and technological pyramids, which is a pleasant change of pace.  The US doesn't even make it into the book.  The story opens in Hangzhou and Shanghai, China; which just happen to be the only two cities that I've visited there.  How kewl is that?!

    The storyline has a promising start.  There's a neat bit of brain surgery at 22% (Kindle).  Alas, just when you expect Madmen at the Tombs to kick it up a notch, it degenerates into a piece of Roman Catholic evangelism, and it's all downhill from there.

Kewlest New Word...
Encomium : a speech or piece of writing that bestows high praise on something or someone.

Kindle Details...
   I bought Madmen At The Tombs for $2.99 at Amazon.  It is also available in paperback for $15.33.  Amazon Prime members can read it for free, but frankly Amazon Prime seems like a royal rip-off to me.

When a necessary evil has lost its necessity, what are you left with?   (47%)
    MatT is in dire need of a good editor.   There is too much telling, and not enough showing.  There are run-on sentences and overly-descriptive paragraphs that serve no purpose.  There's too little action, and some of what is there seems unconnected to the storyline.  Even the boffo ending is diluted somewhat by Jia being unconscious when the shooting starts.  I've forgotten too much of my Mandarin to critique those passages, but the French ones are atrocious.  "Je n'est c'est pas"??  Ouch.

    All this is fixable.  What isn't is the motif of the book - Catholic doctrinism disguised as Science Fantasy.  We learn that abortion clinics promote Satanism, the evil ones use sex and drugs to further their nefarious plans, Science is a false god, cloning will herald in Armageddon, the Pope can speak and do no wrong, and China unfairly imposes their will on the local Catholic churches.  The only thing missing is the Sun revolving around the Earth.

    People who are tired of the Vatican always getting portrayed badly in books and movies (I'm thinking Angels and Demons here) might enjoy Madmen at the Tombs.  Everyone else, especially those looking for science fiction or action-adventure, should give it a pass.  3 Stars.
 

The Fire - Katherine Neville

2008; 441 pages. Sequel to "The Eight", which is reviewed here. Genre : Cospiracy Fiction. Overall Rating : 3*/10.

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21-year-old Alexandra "Xie" Solarin returns to her mother's Colorado lodge for a birthday celebration, only to find that her mom, "Cat" Velis, has flown the coop, but has left some intriguing puzzles as clues. The next round of "The Game" has begun, and like it or not, Alexandra finds that she is an integral part of it.

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What's To Like...

The Fire has the same structure as The Eight. There are two interwoven storylines; one set in the present (2003, actually); the other set in 1822, in various countries around the Mediterranean Sea.

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Once again, there are some cool settings - Italy, the Rocky Mountains, Morocco, the Alaska-Russia border, and Albania. When's the last time you read a book set in Albania? There are lots of historical references, some kewl French phrases (always a plus for me), and even a romance or two. As in The Eight, Neville does a lot of name-dropping (Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, Thomas Jefferson, Tallyrand, Alexander Dumas, to name a few), but I like that.

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Alas, it's what's missing that pulls down the score. First and foremost - a lack of action. We spend 430 pages fleeing from danger with Xie. But said danger doesn't make an appearance until there's only 10 pages to go. And the relatively wimpy threat devolves into an unsatisfying ending.

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The1822 storyline suffers similarly. Early on, our heroine is in a castle, and the Ottoman Turk enemies are literally breaking down the doors to the room. Haidee, accompanied by a lone warder, has to flee the castle, make her way through the beseiging Turkish army lines, board a waiting ship and flee to Italy. But once at sea, pirates attack the ship, and all aboard are taken as slaves to Morocco. The warder escapes, but Haidee is put in the Sultan's harem, Until he dies, when she is auctioned off as a slave.

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Well, that certainly sounds like action, doesn't it? Unfortunately, it's all in the background. At the end of one chapter, Haidee is told to flee the castle. At the start of the next, she's in the harem preparing to be demoted. How boring.

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There are lots of twists, but they never seem to go anywhere. And although the chess motif is again present, it becomes evident Ms. Neville doesn't play. "I picked up the kinght and put it on d4. I was still looking at the board some moments later when I realized that Vartan hadn't yet made his opening move." (pg. 397). Um, yeah. Just one problem. It isn't possible to play Nd4 as White's first move. Sloppy, sloppy.
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Kewl New Words...

Analemma : the figure-eight path that you'd see if you took photos of the sun from the exact same place at the exact same time over the course of a year. Penury : a state of poverty. Pourboire : A small amount of money given for services rendered. Hermeneutics : the study of the theory of interpretation (usually "scriptural"). Oh yeah, Factotum appeared again. I'm being stalked by that word.

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Excerpts...

Eremon always called Rodo "E.B." for "Eredolf Boujaron", a Basque "in" joke that he'd shared with Leda and me on one of our very late ciderfest nights. Apparently there are no names or words in Basque that begin with R : hence Eremon's name - Ramon in Spanish, Raymond in French. And Rodolfo seemed almost Italian. This linguistic flaw would seem to make Rodo something of a Basque Basqtard. (pg. 168)

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The attendant shook his head and pointed upstream, toward Washington, D.C. The man with the shades reached in his jacket and pulled out a phone.

I had that sinking feeling. We were out here in the middle of the river on an open boat, like a crate of eggplants awaiting delivery. (pg. 311)

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I am ashes where once I was fire,

And the bard in my bosom is dead,

What I loved I now merely admire -

And my heart is as gray as my head. (Lord Byron, and pg. 321).

In the end, the negatives outweigh the positives. This is not a stand-alone book. You have to read The Eight first, and alas, The Fire pales in comparison to that.

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I can only give it three stars. OTOH, the co-worker who originally turned me on to The Eight, also read The Fire, and felt that they both were equally good. So maybe its just me.