Blasphemy - Douglas Preston

   2007; 505 pages.  Book 2 (out of 4) in the “Wyman Ford” Series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Thriller; Action-Intrigue.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    It cost forty billion dollars, but the United States government has built a world-class particle accelerator.  They’ve named it “Isabella”.  It’s out on a Navajo reservation in Arizona and will out-perform the one called CERN, presently in operation in Switzerland.

 

    Curiously, a lot of people are upset about this.  The President is ticked off because it’s election year and a lot of voters think it’s a waste of money because thus far, Isabella isn’t even up and running.

 

    The Navajos on the reservation are mad because they were promised lots of jobs and lots of scientists spending lots of money there to but food, gasoline, and other necessities.  None of that has happened.

 

    The scientists at Isabella are frazzled because they’re working long hours trying to debug the process, and don’t have a clue as to what the glitches are.

 

    A televangelist claims the whole project is demonic, since particle physics and the Big Bang Theory runs contrary to God’s Word in the Holy Bible.

 

    And a fundamentalist preacher has been personally told by God to gather up an army of believers and destroy Isabella because doing so will usher in the End of Days.

 

    Well, it’s true that Isabella is way behind on getting up and running.  Something’s going wrong out there, the scientists are keeping it secret, and the President wants to know what it is.  Hey, let’s send a federal agent out there, undercover, to nose around and find out what the problem is!

 

What’s To Like...

    Douglas Preston is half of the “Preston & Child” writing team that authors the 22-book Agent Pendergast series.  Blasphemy is from one of Preston’s solo series, featuring Wyman Ford, a widowed, ex-monk anthropologist who’s still trying to come to grips with the death of his wife.

 

    The storyline is first and foremost a Thriller, but it also takes an in-depth look at how God might talk to people of various religious/philosophical beliefs.  The evangelicals, fundamentalists, and Native American theologies are cited above; and the ex-monk Wyman can put forth the Roman Catholic viewpoint.  Most of the rest of the scientists at Isabella are agnostics, the notable exception being their charismatic team leader, Gregory Hazelius, who’s an atheist.

 

    The bulk of the story takes place on the reservation, and I liked the way the author portrays the Navajo nation.  A couple of Navajo phrases are also worked into the text, including chindii, Bilagaana, Diné, and my personal favorite, Ya’at’ eeh’ which I became familiar with many years ago in college.

 

    I chuckled at the thought that God has chosen my home state, Arizona, as the starting point for both Armageddon and the Apocalypse.  Balanced against those doomsday events is the scientific possibility that Isabella will accidentally create black holes, which will immediately start disintegrating Earth, starting with, yep you guessed it, Arizona.

 

    Everything builds to a big climax featuring clashing factions, the resolution of which is suitably exciting, twisty, and open-ended.  At the end of the day, any or all of the disparate groups could claim to be right and everybody else is wrong.  Yet something has changed.  Read the book to find out what.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.2*/5, based on 2,354 ratings and 402 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.73*/5, based on 11,228 ratings and 866 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “What kind of research are you doing over there?  I been hearing weird stories.”

    “Investigating the Big Bang.”

    “What’s that?”

    “That’s the theory that the universe came into existence thirteen billion years ago in an explosion and has been expanding outward ever since.”

    “In other words, you people are shoving your noses into the Creator’s business.”

    “The Creator didn’t give us brains for nothing.”  (pg. 92)

 

    “Everyone will be underground.  When you and your riders arrive, I’ll be the only one there to meet you.”

    “We aren’t doing a meet and greet.”

    “I didn’t want you to think we were being disrespectful.”

    Begay patted his horse and stroked his flank.  “Look, Mr. Ford, we got our own plans.  We’re going to set up a sweat lodge, do some ceremonies, talk to the ground.  We’ll be peaceful.  When the police come to arrest us, we’ll go quietly.”

    “The police aren’t going to come,” said Ford.

    Begay looked disappointed.  “No police?”

    “Should we call them?” Ford asked quietly.  (pg. 253)

 

“He can’t help it.  His doctorate was in horse’s-assery.”  (pg. 74)

    The profanity level is moderate.  There are 16 cusswords in the first 10% of the book, but most of them are eschatological ones.  Later on, a racial slur is used, and there was one adult situation.

 

    In the back of my book, there's a “Note on the Paperback Edition” wherein Douglas Preston recounts the righteous indignation that came out after this book was first released in hardback format.  It is short and well worth taking the time to read.

 

    I have high expectations for any novel by Preston & Child, both as a team or writing solo, and Blasphemy did not disappoint.  Yes, I was trying to deduce which band of religious zealots would be revealed to be the “chosen ones”, but after reading the blowback alluded to in the previous paragraph, I think Douglas Preston opted for the best way to wrap things up.

 

    8 Stars.  One last thing.  At one point, one of the characters decides to prove he’s right by citing a single cryptic name: “Joe Blitz”.  The group of scientists reading this is stymied, and so was I.  Have fun trying to figure it out.

Bulldog - Mike Faricy

   2015; 231 pages.  Book 9 (out of 30) in the “Dev Haskell – Private Investigator” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Airport/Beach Read; Hard-Boiled Mystery; Private Investigator Mystery.  Overall Rating: 8*/10.

 

    Dermot Gallagher and Dev Haskell have been close friends for a long time.  Even after Dermot married Casey, and even after Dev started his Private Eye business.

 

    So it’s no surprise that the news of Dermot’s passing hits Dev like a ton of bricks.  Especially the circumstances of Dermot’s death.  According to the police, someone rang the doorbell of Dermot and Casey’s house, Dermot answered it, and was immediately shot in the face.  To say Dev is devastated is an understatement.

 

    The St. Paul police department's investigation is underway, and they have a request for Dev: stay out of this case and let us do our job.  We recognize your PI sleuthing is well-intended, but it will only slow things down.

 

    Yeah, we all know Dev’s not going to comply with that.

 

What’s To Like...

    Bulldog is the ninth book in the Dev Haskell series.  So far, I’ve been reading the series in order, sometimes via economy-priced bundles, sometimes as discrete e-books.  If you don’t happen to own the whole set of tales in this series, don’t fret.  Each of them is a completely standalone story.

 

    The storyline follows the usual formula for a hard-boiled mystery novel: fast pacing, lots of action, and lots of witty dialogue.  But Mike Faricy seems to be subtly tweaking his usual format.  For starters, Dev has no client; he is tackling this case strictly for his personal reasons.  Second, to me the plotline seemed to be more focused on the mystery, with less attention paid to Dev’s amorous interests.  And thirdly, the tone felt a bit darker here.  Personally, I thought these tweaks all worked rather well.

 

    A fascinating new character is introduced: Fat Freddy Zimmerman.  Dev’s first impression of him is given in an excerpt below.  At first I thought he was just another stereotypical “big, dumb, thug”, but he turns out to be an important character in the tale and I certainly hope Mike Faricy promotes him to being a recurring role.

 

    Louie the Lawyer is back, so is Lieutenant Aaron LaZelle of the St. Paul Police Department.  I like both those characters.  The widowed Casey Gallagher is new, and it was neat to watch the way her character gradually develops.  Tubby Gustafson makes for a suitably evil-but-crafty crime boss.  And Bulldog is everything you could want in a mob enforcer.

 

    The ending is exciting and over-the-top, which is mandatory for a hard-boiled crime mystery.  Dev figures out why someone shot Dermot, justice is served, and good triumphs over bad, with a couple of surprising benefits thrown in for good measure.  All the crime-mystery plot threads are tied up.  None of Dev’s romantic efforts are resolved, which is just fine.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.1/5 based on 1,823 ratings and 257 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.95/5 based on 772 ratings and 52 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    As I moved closer, the face came into focus, and I actually recognized the idiot.  The flattened nose, the Mohawk hairstyle, a half dozen piercings in each eyebrow, and the three rings in his bottom lip left little doubt.  Then, there was the gauging in his earlobes the size of a giant doughnut hole.  I didn’t so much know him as I knew of him.  Freddy Zimmerman, Fat Freddy, a wannabe criminal of dubious reputation.  I was pretty sure he was a general disappointment to folks on both sides of the law.  (loc. 282)

 

    “The license plates had been removed, to answer your next question, and no, a quick search of the immediate area did not turn them up.”

    “Did you search the river around there?  You know in the water, some idiot could have just tossed them in there.”

    “Right now, we’re dealing with a stolen car that was torched.  I’m not calling divers out to search the river bottom for a quarter of a mile in all directions to confirm what we already know.”

    “I was just thinking.”

    “Don’t, please don’t.  You are forbidden to think, which shouldn’t be too hard for you.  You are also forbidden to call me from here on in unless you have been murdered, in which case you wouldn’t be able to call anyway.”  (loc. 1731)

 

Kindle Details…

    Bulldog is priced at $4.99 at Amazon right now.  The rest of the books in the series are currently either $0.99 or $4.99.  Mike Faricy has several other series (Hotshot, Corridor Man, and Jack Dillon Dublin Tales) that have similar pricing structures.

 

As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I noticed the place had the definite reek of cheap perfume and dumb guys.  (loc. 619)

    The profanity in Bulldog felt like the usual amount, in this case there were 28 instances in roughly the first third of the book, and a nice mixture of mild and not-so-mild expletives.

 

    The story ends on page 231, which is at 57% Kindle.  The rest of the e-book included two sneak-peeks at other Mike Faricy opuses: 8 chapters from Double Trouble (the next book in this series), and 36 chapters from Corridor Man (the eponymous first book in another of his series).

 

    There were only a few typos (such as whacko/wacko), but lots of grammar errors, most of which involved apostrophes.  The editing seems to be gradually getting better, and I’m tempted to read one of the recent books in the series next to see if that trend continues.  The series is now up to Book #33, and yes, I know, that doesn’t add up to the number listed in the header of this review.

 

    Overall, I found Bulldog to be a fun and quick read; filled with plenty of thrills, spills, and intrigue; and with lots of interesting characters gallivanting around and uttering witty remarks.  I doubt it will win a Pulitzer Prize but it did keep me coming back for more (mis)-adventures by the incomparable Dev Haskell.  Which is exactly what I wanted.

 

    8 Stars.  One last thing.  Chapter 43 is devoted to an incident that we’ll simply call “Mouse in the Kitchen”.  We’ll not reveal any details, but let’s just say it brought back “been there, done that” memories for me.  Thank you, Mr. Faricy, for that little aside.

The Great Troll War - Jasper Fforde

    2021; 353 pages.  Book 4 (out of 4) in the “Last Dragonslayer” series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Fantasy; YA.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

   The Trolls are coming!  The Trolls are coming!!

 

    And the entire population of the UnUnited Kingdom is quaking in their boots.  Well, everyone that’s still alive, anyway.  Trolls find humans to be a culinary delight.  There are so many good ways to cook them and eat them.

 

    The Trolls have advanced to the border of the Kingdom of Snodd, but they’ve been stymied there, thanks to the Button Trench.  Trolls despise buttons.  No one knows why, but the Button Trench is keeping them out of Snodd.  For now.

 

    Jennifer Strange has been put in charge of organizing Snodd’s defenses for if and when the Button Trench fails.  Things could be worse.  Snodd has called up hundreds of fencers, marksmen, and warriors to aid in her cause.  There’s just one problem.

 

    There seems to have been a bit of a communications mishap when recruiting those soldiers.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Great Troll War is the fourth and concluding book in Jasper Fforde’s “The Last Dragonslayer” fantasy series.  There’s a 7-year gap (2014-2021) between publication of the previous book in the series, The Eye of Zoltar, and this one.  The story is told in the first-person POV, Jennifer’s.

 

    As always, Jasper Fforde combines masterful storytelling with lots of wit.  How *do* you repel a horde of Trolls who have the advantage in size, power and most importantly, wizardry?  Meanwhile, Jennifer has to contend with princesses behaving badly, games of Thrones, and the realization that her magic is puny compared to the evil mastermind directing the Troll invasion, "The Mighty Shandar".

 

    The book is written in English, not American, which features weird spellings including centred, despatch, storeys, dykes, pyjamas, and manoeuvring.  Jeez, spellchecker hated that sentence.  There are some witty acronyms, such as HENRY, which stands for Hex Energy Neutralising Reversal Yieldiser, and even a brief moment where Jasper Fforde personally breaks down the fourth wall.  I liked the nods to Pachelbel and the movie Back To The Future, and enjoyed the ride on the Cloud Leviathan.

 

    The ending is a stutter-step affair.  After the titular Troll War issue is resolved, the storyline segues into a final showdown theme, pitting Jennifer and The Mighty Shandar.  Fortuitously, this allows Fforde to tie up several plot threads.  Things close on a sad-yet-hopeful, unexpected-yet-hinted-at, dark note.  It wraps up the series succinctly, yet leaves the door open for a sequel.  However, I have a feeling this series is done for good.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 976 ratings and 45 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.17/5 based on 1,570 ratings and 212 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Numerical values are seriously overrated.  Here’s another example.  If I were to tell you the mass of the sun is roughly 2 x 10³⁰ kilograms then it would just be a meaninglessly high number – ten with thirty noughts after it.”

    “I agree with that,” said the Princess.

    “Right,” said the Troll.  “But if I were to tell you the sun has 99.86 per cent of the combined mass of the entire solar system, what would that mean?”

    “It would mean . . . wow,” said the Princess.

    “Exactly,” said the Troll, grinning broadly.  “Wow.”  (loc. 1344)

 

    “I’ve only got a few things to say, and I shall be brief.  Firstly, I am to wield absolute power in all the Kingdoms, and anyone who has not signed the book of allegiance in the foyer will be considered an enemy of the Crown.  But, to show my caring nature, they shall not be executed, but banished: thrown forcibly across the Button Trench in the direction of the Trolls after being painted with gravy.”  (loc. 2069)

 

Kindle Details…

    The Great Troll War presently sells for $2.99 at Amazon.  The other 3 books in the series range in price from $6.07 to $9.99.  Jasper Fforde offers about 16 other e-novels, in the form of several other series, and costing anywhere from $2.99 to $14.99.

 

“There are always a few naysayers who want to rain on your parade when you contemplate galactic domination.”  (loc. 3239)

    The target audience is YA, so The Great Troll War is virtually profanity-free; I noted just one “damn” and three “hells” in the entire book.  I don’t recall any adult situations.  The editing is superb; the only typo I saw was a variant spelling of Princess Jocamanica’s name: “Jocaminca”, and I’m not even sure if that wasn't just a deliberate snubbing of her. 

 

    The seven-year hiatus between Books 3 and 4 means a lot of readers, including me, remembered little about recurring characters and overarching storylines.  The author cleverly addresses this by back-referencing past events and beings from earlier books via footnotes, but some reviewers thought this was overdone.  Personally, I found that I could follow the storyline easily even when bypassing the footnotes.

 

    Overall, I felt that Jasper Fforde’s ultimate aim in writing The Great Troll War was to bring closure to this series, and in this regard he succeeded nicely.  I wasn’t blown away by the way it ended, yet the story kept me entertained throughout.  There is a rumor afoot that a series-ending eighth book in Fforde’s fabulous Thursday Next series, Dark Reading Matter, will be coming out in June 2025, and I’m looking forward to finding out how he pulls that one off.

 

    8 Stars.  One last thing.  Two catchy little sidelights in The Great Troll War are the “20:1 Quickener Spell” and the “El Carisma pout”.  I simply have to figure out some way to learn both of these talents.

The Maker of Universes - Philip José Farmer

   1965; 247 pages.  New Author? : No. Book 1 (out of 7) in the “World of Tiers” series.  Genres : Classic Sci-Fi; multiverses, pulp fiction.   Overall Rating: 4*/10.

 

    Robert Wolff is in his 60s and has just realized he is losing his mind.  Well, this sometimes happens to people his age, but it’s especially unfair to Robert, since he also has zero memories of the first twenty years of his life.

 

    His latest realization is also ill-timed.  He and his wife Brenda are doing a walkthrough of an empty house they’re considering buying for their retirement years.  And Robert keeps hearing a bugle playing behind one of the closet doors.

 

    Apparently neither his wife nor the real estate agent accompanying them hear the blaring horn, which is why Robert is sure he’s losing his mind.  Maybe he should just get it over with: open the closet door, discover there’s nothing there, and accept his mental deterioration.

 

    Don’t do it, Robert!  If that bugling you hear is unsettling, you’re going to freak out when you see what and who is causing it!

 

What’s To Like...

    The Maker of Universes is the opening volume in Philip José Farmer’s World of Tiers 7-book sci-fi series.  We tag along with our hero, Robert Wolff, as he gets dropped into a strange, multi-tiered world, ruled by a Lord who seems to like kidnapping beings from other dimensions and time-periods to populate his domain.  Each of the five tiers resembles a specific time and place in terrestrial history, but it would be a spoiler to give full details.

 

    The book is written in what I’d call “classic 1950s science fiction” style.  That means non-stop action, paper-thin character development, and a hero who can perform feats of bravery while attracting every female he meets.  Here, our protagonist is initially in his sixties, but magically tones-up and ages-down in the new universe he’s plopped into.

 

    There are lots of creatures for Wolff to cross paths with.  Some are helpful; others want to kill and eat him.  Philip José Farmer gives a name to just about every beast, being, or geographical area and I’m sure he amused himself greatly when doing this.

 

    The Maker of Universes may be written in classic-50s style which targets YA male readers, but Philip José Farmer does some tweaking to that to spice things up.  Lots of humanoids run around unclothed and several rolls-in-the-hay are hinted at.  Natives enjoy eating something called a punchnut, which is an alcoholic fruit, and chewing the leaves of a plant called dhiz, which turns their teeth black, gives their eyes a smoldering look, and slows down their physical motions.  Hmmm.

 

    The ending is typical for classical sci-fi tales.  The old Lord is vanquished, the new Lord assumes the throne, and Wolff is a changed man, and of course, for the better.  However, a chance still exists of thwarting all that, in the form of a cliffhanger ending, which is one of my pet peeves.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.2*/5, based on 132 ratings and 24 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.82*/5, based on 2,094 ratings and 132 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “The histoikhthys is handy.  They seem almost too much of a good thing.”

    “The Lord designed and made them for our pleasure and his,” Ipsewas replied.

    “The Lord made this universe?” Wolff said, no longer sure that the story was a myth.

    “You better believe it,” Ipsewas replied, and took another drink.  “Because if you don’t, the Lord will end you.  As it is, I doubt he’ll let you continue anyway.  He doesn’t like uninvited guests.”  (pg. 65)

 

    “I am as much the enemy of the Lord as you, and he hates me, he would kill me!  He knows I stole the horn and that I’m a danger to him.  His eyes rove the four levels of the world and fly up and down the mountains to find me.  And . . .”

    “Where is this horn you said you stole from the Lord?  Why don’t you have it now?  I think you are lying to save your worthless carcass!”

    “I told you that I opened a gate to the next world and that I threw it to a man who appeared at the gate.  He stands before you now.”

    Podarge turned her head as an eagle swivels hers, and she glared at Wolff.  “I see no horn.  I see only some tough stringy meat behind a black beard!”  (pg. 81)

 

“You Lords are a mean, crafty, sneaky bunch.”  (. . .)  “But I like your style, anyway.”  (pg. 239)

    The cussing is sparse in The Maker of Universes, just 16 instances in the entire book, and limited to damns and hells.  A possible rape is mentioned, and one of the females suffers a miscarriage.  Those sorts of things are atypical in old-time science fiction.

 

    There were a few typos, such as: decible/decibel; slivery/silvery; muscial/musical; carnivous/carnivorous; tired/tried; and wll/will.  I’d make a bigger fuss about this, except the paperback version I read was published in 1965, long before spellchecker existed.

 

    My biggest issue was with the storytelling itself.  Even for the 1950s-60s timeframe, it was terrible.  The plotline teemed with dei ex machina.  Wolff and his companions repeatedly travel hundreds of miles through perilous lands within a single sentence.  A bunch of the humans in the alternate dimension speak Mycenaean, an ancient Greek dialect, and wouldn’t you know it, so does Wolff!  And somehow, his newly-acquired muscle tone is bigger and better than anybody else’s.

 

    Then there are the ethical slurs.  The “negroid” fighters encountered are portrayed as stereotypical savages.  At one point, Wolff is encouraged to make some passes at the ladies at a social gathering, because if he doesn’t, “they’ll think you’re queer.”  And last but not least, Wolff—our hero!—cavorts with several beautiful well-endowed damsels in the new world, since he’s lost interest in his 60-ish wife because she’s fat and wrinkly.  No matter that he was fat and wrinkly too, before his coming to this dimension magically rejuvenated him.

 

    All these issues will make for a terrible read for any adult.  But I have a funny feeling I would’ve loved this book when I was 12 years old.

 

    4 Stars.  One last thing.  At one point (page 147), a chemical reference is made about water, calling it “hydrogen oxide.” Folks, you can call it “dihydrogen oxide’, or “hydrogen hydroxide”, but not “hydrogen oxide”.  Trust me.  I’m a chemist.

The Invention of Yesterday - Tamim Ansary

   2019; 407 pages.  Full Title: The Invention of Yesterday: A 50,000 Year History of Human Culture, Connection.  New Author?  : Yes.  Genres : Ancient History; World History;  Non-Fiction; Anthropology.  Overall Rating: 9½*/10.

 

    Okay, I admit it.  I’m a history nerd.  I’ve been one ever since 7^th grade when Mrs. Stoudt taught “World History 1”, introducing us to ancient empires and closing with the fall of the Roman Empire.  She made a profound impact on me, but I have noticed, however, that there’s a subtle bias in history classes, even if it’s a college history course.

 

    For instance, in the “Greeks vs. Persians” chapters (Alexander the Great, Thermopylae, Socrates, etc.) the Greeks are always portrayed as the heroic defenders of democracy; the Persians are always the evil bullies.  The Crusaders are invariably cast as the defenders of the Faith, even though they were invading the Near East.  And in 476 CE, after Rome was sacked, we entered the Dark Ages where evidently nothing notable happened anywhere in the world for the next 400 years.

 

    But how did those Persians view their wars with Greece?  What went through the minds of Palestinian Muslims (besides swords and arrows) when the Crusaders fought into the streets of Jerusalem?  And surely the empires in China, India, and the Middle East were doing something while Europe was enduring four centuries of the Dark Ages, right?

 

    Tamim Ansary examines all those questions, and a whole lot more, in his book, The Invention of Yesterday.

 

What’s To Like...

    As the subtitle indicates, Tamim Ansary places the dawn of human civilization at 50,000 BCE (after a brief review of terrestrial life dating back to 15 million BCE), when homo sapiens separated themselves from the rest of animal world via three innovations: tools, environment adaptation, and most importantly, language.  He divides The Invention of Yesterday into 31 chapters, covering world history from way back then up until now, with the last three chapters even giving his musings about where we’re headed.

 

    Squeezing 50 millennia of history into 400 pages is amazing, but what impressed me even more was the breadth of the realms that Ansary focuses on.  Events in China, India, Mesopotamia, and Egypt get just as much attention as European happenings.  The Americas and Africa also get some ink, albeit not as lengthy due to a lack of annals in those areas.

 

    The main point of the book is that there inevitably were a lot more interactions between all the various empires (aka “social constellations”; more on that in a bit.), not only via wars, but also through trading, traveling, technological advancements, and even plagues.  The author even goes so far as to suggest that “the policies of China’s Qing government did contribute to the birth of the United States.  Thank you for asking.”

 

    There are lots of maps, all of them easily expandable.  There are lots of footnotes, a majority of which are the author’s asides, and worth your time reading.  The text is crammed full of fascinating historical tidbits, including Mithraism (I once knew a devotee of it!); the “People of the Sea” (one of the great historical mysteries); Daevas (who?!); and the etymology of the word “Lombards”.

 

    So if you’re looking for a comprehensive history book that’s both enlightening and interesting, which goes beyond just “Western Civilization” and is filled with lots of facts and trivia, The Invention of Yesterday might be a perfect fit.  You’ll even get to see those invading Persians, the Crusaders, and the Dark Ages in an entirely different light.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 307 ratings and 61 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.27*/5, based on 1,022 ratings and 151 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Concatenation (n.) : a series of interconnected things or events.

Others : Reifying (v.).

 

Excerpts...

    In many cases, the paintings in a given cave were made over the course of thousands of years; people were coming there to paint, generation after generation.  But the oldest of them were made about forty thousand years ago, and the odd thing is, those earliest paintings were already quite sophisticated.  What hasn’t turned up are transitional products.  It’s not like Stone Age painters spent a few hundred generations learning to doodle and then a few hundred making blotches vaguely suggestive of animal shapes and then finally figuring out how to make recognizable horses and hunters.  Instead, it seems that around thirty-five to forty-five millennia ago, people rather suddenly started making sophisticated art.  (pg. 13)

 

    The Americas had grasslands too, but the hunter-gatherers who lived there never developed into pastoral nomadic civilizations capable of taking on the big urban powers.  Instead, they continued to refine their hunting-and-gathering way of life.  The reason is simple: North America had no animals that could be domesticated.  It had no sheep, no goats, no cows, nothing that could be herded.  It’s true that millions of bison roamed the great plains, but for some reason, these ill-tempered animals can’t be tamed, and when you can’t domesticate a grouchy two-ton animal with horns, you’d better not try to milk it.  (pg. 170)

 

Kindle Details…

    The Invention of Yesterday sells for $17.99 right now at Amazon.  Tamim Ansary has eight other e-books for your Kindle, ranging in price from $2.99 to $17.99.

 

In 1290, after populist rumors arose that Jews were eating Christian babies for Passover, all Jews of England were expelled.  (pg. 220)

    As one would expect, there’s very little cussing in The Invention of Yesterday; just 4 instances in the entire book: two “damns”, one “hell”, plus one “for Christ’s sake”.  The typos were few and far between, but more than I expected.  Examples: Atilla/Attila; lamas/llamas; unleased/unleashed; Columbia/Colombia; identity/identify; honey bees/honeybees.

 

    The author likes to coin phrases such as social constellations, social organisms, trialectic (a modification of “dialectic”), progress narrative, belief systems, and my favorite: bleshing (a portmanteau of ‘blending’ and ‘meshing’, referring to what happens when cultures, religions, and/or nations collide).  These are quite innovative, but sometimes I struggled to remember exactly what they meant.

 

    That’s all I can gripe about.  For me, The Invention of Yesterday was a great read, giving me new insights into all sorts of historical interactions and an opportunity to learn about various ancient empires that existed in places outside of Europe.  I’m looking forward to reading more books by this author.

 

    9½ Stars.  One last thing.  There’s a small town here in Arizona called Bisbee.  It’s not well known, and mostly exists for artists and tourists who want to experience that “Old West” feeling.  Incredibly, it gets mentioned in The Invention of Yesterday (pg. 75).  Wowza.

The Tainted Cup - Robert Jackson Bennett

    2024; 406 pages.  Book 1 (out of 1) in the “Shadow of the Leviathan” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Intrigue; Epic Fantasy, Murder-Mystery.   Overall Rating: 9½/10.

 

    Taqtasa Blas, one of the Commanders of the Engineers, has met a gruesome end.  You can read about it in the first excerpt below.  The “how” is easily determined – exposure, either through ingestion or inhalation, to the malignant blooms of the dappleglass.  It appears there is a murderer afoot. 

 

    Interestingly, ten other engineers also perished recently from dappleglass poisoning.  But they were nowhere near Blas, and they died at somewhat different moments, which indicates they weren’t all infected at a single time and place.

 

    Iudex Inspector Ana Dolabra has been assigned to the case, along with her assistant, Dinios “Din” Kol.  Their task is to figure out who the poisoner, or poisoners, were, and when and where those lethal doses were administered.

 

    But Ana is a topnotch investigator.  She intends to also find out who hired the poisoner(s), which will answer the question of why someone wanted so badly to kill a bunch of engineers.  Good luck on that quest, Ana.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Tainted Cup is an epic fantasy tale set in the Holy Empire of Khanum.  Ana and Din are emissaries of its ruler, the Conzulate, but they are a long way from the capital city, Imperial Sanctum.  Khanum is a hierarchal society where one’s rank is of utmost importance.  Ana’s and Din’s loyalties will be tested, but this is also true for those whom they will question about Blas’s murder.

 

    Our two protagonists reminded me muchly of Arthur Conan Doyle’s heroes.  Din assumes the role of scribe, chronicling the events like Dr. Watson did for Sherlock Holmes.  Ana has some remarkable deductive talents, just like Sherlock, and uses some quirky habits, including most of the time interacting while blindfolded, to better “read” the tones and nuances of witnesses’ testimony.

 

    Din himself has some special talents as well.  He’s an “engraver”, which means he has eidetic memory, which in turn means he is the perfect set of eyes and ears to witness events and to “record and playback” testimony.  And unlike the usually clueless Dr. Watson, Din frequently injects biting sarcasm into his snappy remarks, even when conversing with his boss, Ana.

 

    The action starts immediately with Ana and Din arriving at the manor where the remains of Taqtasa Blas repose.  The servants there seem to be covering something up, but what?  From there the case quickly gets more complicated as additional bodies are found.  The worldbuilding overall is superb, with Robert Jackson Bennett deftly blending it into the storyline, yet somehow avoiding bogging things down with long descriptions.

 

    The ending is how I like them: tense and exciting, with lots of twists, yet quite logical.  All the murders are solved, and both Ana and Din reveal personal secrets to each other.  It is obvious that they are going to be a formidable investigative team for the Conzulate of Khanum.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 3,017 ratings and 463 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.69*/5, based on 22,048 ratings and 4,903 reviews.

 

Things That Sound Dirty, But Aren’t…

    “Pick a glass and stick it up your damn nose quick!”

 

Excerpts...

    The most remarkable feature of the room was the clutch of leafy trees growing in the center—for it was growing from within a person.

    Or rather, through a person.

    The corpse hung suspended in the center of the bedchamber, speared by the many slender trees, but as Otirios had said it was initially difficult to identify it as a body at all.  A bit of torso was visible in the thicket, and some of the left leg.  What I could see of them suggested a middle-aged man wearing the purple colors of the Imperial Engineering Iyalet.  The right arm was totally lost, and the right leg had been devoured by the swarm of roots pouring out from the trunks of the little trees and eating into the Stonewood floor of the chamber.

    I stared into the roots.  I thought I could identify the pinkish nub of a femur amid all those curling coils.  (pg. 9)

 

    “The number of people holding a grudge against the Hazas is beyond count.”

    “Might you also count among that company, ma’am?” I asked.

    She raised her eyebrows at me behind her blindfold.  “My, my.  That’s rather insolent of you, isn’t it?”

    “I would simply note, ma’am, that Vashta just referenced your old grudges with them.”

    “A rumor,” she said dismissively.

    “And you also once said of the Hazas—I wouldn’t mind seeing all their progeny rotting in the ground like a bunch of f**king dead dogs.  Which is, I feel, mostly how one talks of one’s enemies.”

    “Oh, yes, well,” she said, sighing.  “This is why people are so loath to talk before an engraver. . .They never forget a f**king thing you say!”  (pg. 241)

 

“What a tool cynicism is to the corrupt, claiming the whole of creation is broken and fraudulent, and thus we are all excused to indulge in whatever sins we wish.”  (pg. 286)

    There’s quite a bit of profanity – 22 instances in the first 10%, seven of which were f-bombs.  Later on, “localized” expletives were used—“by the Harvester” and “by the titan’s unholy taint”—which I always like.  I don’t recall any adult situations, but homophobes beware, a gay relationship is alluded to.

 

    I didn’t note any typos at all.  Kudos to the editors.

 

    For me, The Tainted Cup was a captivating first book in a series, with fantastic world-building, mystery-composing and witty interactions.  My only gripe is that the second book, A Drop of Corruption, won’t be released until next April.  I have very little patience when I’m forced to be patient.

 

    9½ Stars.  One last thing.  Here’s hoping that the next book’s cover includes a drawing of the main creature in this story, the leviathan.  It has a major impact on the storyline, periodically comes out of the sea, and wreaks havoc on the human coastal bulwarks, even when the humans are tipped off that it’s on its way.  Yet I don’t recall it ever being described. Is it a giant whale-like beast?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Unnatural Exposure - Patricia Cornwell

   1997; 367 pages.  New Author? : No.  Book #8 (out of 28) in the Kay Scarpetta series.  Genres : Serial Killer Thriller; Medical Thriller; Crime Fiction.  Overall Rating: 6*/10.

 

    It began as just a routine cadaver dismemberment case, a body unearthed at the local landfill.

 

    Well, okay, that wouldn’t seem very routine to you or me, but for Kay Scarpetta, the Chief Medical Examiner of Richmond, Virginia, it’s not her first mutilated corpse.

 

    Preliminary lab results offer only scant information.  The victim is female, and was old and emaciated.  A check of missing persons files doesn’t yield any likely matches.

 

    To make matters worse, Kay’s come down with some flu-like symptoms.  Probably picked it up while examining that corpse.  Oh well, she’ll take things easy the next couple days.  What’s the worst it can be?

 

    You’d be surprised, Kay.  Very, very surprised.

 

What’s To Like...

    Unnatural Exposure is my third read from Patricia Cornwell’s “Kay Scarpetta” medical thriller series.  Determining who the dismembered body belonged to is an important part of the storyline, but, as the book’s title indicates, this is more about a possible outbreak of a plague-like virus.  Is it deadly?  Where did it come from?  Do we take two aspirin and sweat it out, or are we all going to die?

 

    Being a chemist, I was fascinated by the lab scenes.  Yes, the analytical chemistry is medical in nature, but it was fun to watch Kay deduce things via laboratory procedures.  Being a medical examiner, Kay also has some knowledgeable and enlightening viewpoints about the details of Elvis’s death.

 

    The book was published in 1997 and it was fun to “relive” that era.  AOL is where you go to send an email.  One of the morgues is hoping to get an intranet computer system installed.  Cell phones are still in their infancy, so most people carry pagers.  A portable color scanner will cost you $500.  Zoom meetings don’t exist, but AOL chatrooms are a nice substitute.  And Kay’s first Virtual Reality experience was mindblowing.

 

     I enjoyed watching the bureaucratic (FBI, CDC, etc.) response to the *possibility* of a plague arising out of all this.  When you have only preliminary medical results, how do you balance prudent precautions with hysteria-inducing drastic measures?  Food for thought since the Covid virus still runs rampant in today’s world.

 

    The ending does tie up both the criminal plot thread (who put the corpse in the landfill) and the pathological one (where and why did the virus come from?).  It’s not particularly exciting, which is a plus for a medical thriller and a minus for a mystery tale.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 6,235 ratings and 461 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.07*/5, based on 61,231 ratings and 970 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Hinky (adj.) : nervous; jittery.

Others: Kerf (n.).

 

Excerpts...

    “I can’t believe this.”  I was only getting angrier.  “I have to release information to correct misinformation.  I can’t be put in this position, Marino.”

    “Don’t worry, I’m going to take care of this and a whole lot more,” he promised.  “I don’t guess you know.”

    “Know what?”

    “Rumor has it that Ring’s been seeing Patty Denver.”

    “I thought she was married,” I said as I envisioned her from a few moments earlier.

    “She is,” he said.  (pg. 68)

 

    “Ma’am, this flight is overbooked.  We simply don’t have room.”

    “Here,” I said, showing her the paperwork.

    Her eyes scanned the red-bordered Declaration For Dangerous Goods, and froze halfway down a column where it was typed that I was transporting “Infectious substances affecting humans.”  She glanced nervously around the kitchen and moved me closer to the rest rooms.

    “Regulations require that only a trained person can handle dangerous goods like these,” I reasonably explained.  “So it has to stay with me.”

    “What is it?” she whispered, her eyes round.

    “Autopsy specimens.”  (pg. 247)

 

“I think the public has a right to know if there’s a psycho in their midst.”  (pg. 97)

    There’s a moderate amount of profanity in Unnatural Exposure; I noted 14 instances in the first 10% of the book.  They are all of the “milder” variety, but a couple of f-bombs show up later, as well as a roll-in-the-hay.  I only noticed one typo: PH/pH, but this will only bother you if you’re a scientist.

 

    The text contains lots of references to past books and cases in this series.  Indeed, the tale starts with Kay in Dublin, Ireland, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story.  To be fair though, this would not be bothersome if one is reading these books in chronological order.

 

    The book spends way too much time concentrating of Kay self-examining her life choices and having sharp words with anybody else foolish enough to render an opinion or offer advice to her on that.

 

    And as mentioned above, the ending is anticlimactic.  The key break in the landfill cadaver mystery felt arbitrary, and the whole rationale for the infectious assault seemed hard to believe.  For maximum enjoyment, it's probably best to ignore the crime-solving aspect, and just focus on the plague-stopping aspect.

 

    So read the books in this series in order, don’t try to solve the crime before Kay does, and for pete’s sake don’t try to tell Kay how to live her personal life.  The result will be an pleasant read and you’ll end up saying, “Well, at least it wasn’t Covid!”

 

    6 Stars.  One last thing.  Kay makes a business trip to Memphis, and checks in at the Peabody Hotel.  I’ve stayed there.  The book’s assertion that ducks are privileged guests there is completely accurate.  They even stage a daily “duck parade” there, during the noon hour IIRC.  If you’re ever in Memphis, be sure to check this out.