Dave Barry Slept Here - Dave Barry

   1989; 192 pages.  Full Title: Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Historical Humor; Parody; Political Humor.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    Here’s a little history question for you: name the three ships that comprised Columbus’s fleet when he sailed west to discover the New World in 1492.

 

    If you answered “who’s Columbus?”, your knowledge of American history is, sadly, probably about average.

 

    If you answered “the Good Ship Lollipop, HMS Pinafore, and the Starship Enterprise”, you’ve been watching too much TV.

 

    If you answered “the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria”, you are absolutely correct.  Give yourself a pat on the back.

 

    And if you answered “the Ninja, the Pina Colada, and the Heidy-Ho III, you’ve read Dave Barry’s book Dave Barry Slept Here, and you’re to be commended for your excellent literary tastes.

 

What’s To Like...

    Dave Barry turns his witty and comedic eye on your old and boring American History class in Dave Barry Slept Here, using 21 chapters (plus a great introduction wherein you will learn the significance of October 8th) to cover a timeline starting with the original settlers coming across the land bridge from Asia during the last Ice Age all the way up to the present day, which in this case, since this book was published in 1989, was the 1988 presidential election.

 

    The emphasis here is on silliness and humor; if you have a history exam tomorrow, you really shouldn’t use this book as your pseudo “Cliff Notes”.  There’s a smattering of maps and graphs, and a whole bunch of footnotes, the latter of which would make even the late, great Terry Pratchett proud.  Each chapter closes with a couple of “Discussion Questions” which are much more interesting than those that were in your musty old history textbook.

 

    I liked the attention given to “historical details” even if they are mostly figments of the author's imagination.  The Bill of Rights is presented in easy-to-understand lingo.  Light is shed on the sex scene between James Madison and the Federalist Papers, which might motivate me to read that tome.  It was nice to see e.e. “buster” cummings get mentioned; ditto for “Senator Sam” Ervin (D – Okeefenokee) of Watergate fame.  It was enlightening to learn about the British (and factual) “cock-a-leeky-soup” and the translation of the Spanish name “Juan Ponce de Leon”, which in English we are assured is “John punched the Lion”.  Finally, we would be remiss if we didn’t point out the special attention the book gives to the contributions of women and minority groups.

 

    Interwoven among all the fun-&-games are some subtle political jibes, including some eerie prescience about someone who would become president long after this book was published.  Nevertheless, the amount of enjoyment you get from reading Dave Barry Slept Here will most likely depend on how much interest you have in American History and to what degree your sense of humor can tolerate pure silliness.  

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 258 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.90/5 based on 5,568 ratings and 238 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    This book does not waste the reader’s valuable brain cells with such trivial details as when various events actually occurred.  Oh, sure, it contains many exact dates – it is, after all, a history book – but you will notice that we have tried to make these dates as easy as possible to remember by making them all start with “October 8”, as in “October 8, 1729” or “October 8, 1953”.  We chose this particular date after carefully weighing a number of important historical criteria, such as (a) it is our son’s birthday.  (loc. 99)

 

    The first major president to be elected after the War of 1812 was President Monroe Doctrine, who became famous by developing the policy for which he is named.  This policy, which is still in effect today, states that:

    1. Other nations are not allowed to mess around with the internal affairs of nations in this hemisphere.

    2. But we are.

    3. Ha-ha-ha.  (loc. 746)

 

“Ask not what your country cannot do that you cannot do, nor what cannot be done by neither you nor your country, whichever is greater.”  (loc. 1600)

    I can’t find much to quibble about in Dave Barry Slept Here.  There’s only a smidgen of cusswords in the book (16 in the first 50%, of which a dozen were the rather mild “hell”), but even that surprised me a bit, since I don’t recall his newspaper columns containing any.

 

    Dave Barry pokes fun at politicians of both parties, but if you happen to tilt towards the right, I predict you’ll take umbrage at some of his points, particularly the utterly senseless invasion of Grenada, which at the time of the book’s publication was a recent event.

 

    Finally, the book skips over the details of all the wars in United States’ history because, let’s face it, there’s nothing funny about killing and shooting.  Still, learning about wars happened to be the favorite part of my American History classes, much more interesting than studying things like stock market crashes the invention of the cotton gin.

 

    Dave Barry Slept Here is a short (192 pages), fast, easy, and delightfully funny read.  It may be unsuitable for your history class, but if it’s 8 o’clock at night and you have a book report due tomorrow, and you haven’t even started reading something yet, this book may be a GPA-saver for you.

 

    7½ Stars.  This madcap approach to spoofing history has been done before, by an author I thoroughly enjoyed in my teenage days, Richard Armour.  A few years back I reread the book he wrote about US history, It All Started With Columbus, and I've reviewed it here.  If Dave Barry Slept Here tickles your fancy, you might go looking for some of Armour’s books.  Be forewarned though, they seem to be few and far between in used-book stores.

The Analyst - John Katzenbach

   2002; 501 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre: Psychological Thriller.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    Happy 53^rd birthday, Doctor.  Welcome to the first day of your death.

 

    Well, that’s a heckuva opening sentence of an anonymous letter, delivered last thing in his workday, to Dr. Frederick “Ricky” Starks, one of New York City’s foremost psychoanalysts.  The rest of the message is even worse.

 

    The letter is signed “RUMPLESTILTSKIN”, an obvious pseudonym, and announces the start of a bizarre game.  Ricky has fifteen days to discover Mr. R’s real identity, and can also ask three questions via classified ads placed in the New York Times, as kind of a bonus.

 

    If Ricky succeeds, he goes free.  If he doesn’t, Rumplestiltskin will start killing 52 of Ricky’s unsuspecting relatives.  The letter lists their names, so that Ricky may know that Rumplestiltskin has done his homework.  And there is an out.  At any point. Ricky can kill himself and the slaying of his relatives will stop.

 

    It all sounds like the doing of one of Ricky’s disgruntled patients, right?  One with a psychopathic streak in him.  Probably venting some pent-up anger, that’s all.  But shortly after receiving the letter, one of Ricky’s patients gets pushed in front of a speeding subway train, with body-splattering results, so it’s time to take the threat seriously.

 

    Better sharpen up those psychoanalyst skills of yours, Ricky.  Because the clock's ticking and you’ve got two weeks to win the game.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Analyst is a psychological thriller and is divided into three parts, namely:

        Part 1: The Unwelcome Letter  (pg.1)

        Part 2: The Man Who Never Was  (pg. 273)

        Part 3: Even Bad Poets Love Death  (pg. 375)

    I’d paraphrase them as “Ricky Reacts”; “Ricky Acts”, and “Ricky Attacks”.

 

    I loved the character development of our protagonist/analyst.  At the start he’s somewhat smug, confident in his mental acumen that comes from lots of schooling and years as a psychoanalyst.  He quickly discovers that Rumplestiltskin, and his two accomplices Merlin and Virgil, are every bit his match when it comes to playing mind games, and he’s forced to develop new survival skills.

 

    The book is written in the third-person POV, but we essentially tag along with Ricky as he tries to figure out who Rumplestilstkin is, which of the various secondary characters are working with him, and whether the deaths of a couple of those are real or merely staged to unnerve Ricky.

 

    Along the way we learn the secret to winning at chess (if only it was that simple!), how to play the game of “Foxes and Hounds”, pick up a smattering of French (while visiting an exotic location), and how to create a new identity for oneself (not nearly as easy as you’d think).  Since the book was published in 2002, public telephone booths are still around, and you can obtain something that's called an “electronic mail address”.  AOL and Yahoo exist, but not MySpace or Facebook.

 

    The ending is full of tension, psychologically intriguing, and with a couple twists that I didn’t foresee.  All the main plot threads are tied up, and even though we never learn Rumplestiltskin’s real name, we do get to understand why he hates Ricky so much.  The Analyst is a standalone novel, but has room for a sequel, which does in fact exist (The Analyst 2, published in 2018), but unfortunately is only available in Spanish at this time.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 426 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.13/5 based on 40,367 ratings and 2,983 reviews

 

 

Excerpts...

    “All right,” Ricky said.  “You keep talking about this game.  Well, it is not a game to Mr. Zimmerman.  He has been in analysis for slightly less than a year, and his treatment is at an important stage.  You and your employer, the mysterious Mr. R., can screw around with me.  That’s one thing.  But it is altogether something different when you involve my patients.  That crosses a boundary…”

    The young woman called Virgil held up her hand.  “Ricky, try not to sound so pompous.”  (pg. 40)

 

    “I believe I have only a single week to live,” he said.

    Dr. Lewis’s eyebrows arched upward.

    “You are ill, Ricky?”

    Ricky shook his head.

    “I think I must murder myself,” he answered.

    The old analyst leaned forward.  “That is a problem,” he said.  (pg. 171)

 

It was the most deadly of races.  A ghost pursuing a dead man.  A dead man hunting a ghost.  (pg. 419)

    There’s not much to quibble about.  There’s a fair amount of cussing, as you’d expect in a psychological thriller, but it didn’t feel overdone.

 

    Part One of the story dragged a bit for me, as Ricky reels from one Rumplestiltskin-induced disaster in his life to the next.  At times I wanted to shake Ricky and tell him to wise up, which he does in Part Two, whereupon the excitement and pace pick up nicely and the book becomes a page-turner.

 

    The overall plotline was well-conceived, John Katzenbach’s writing is superb, and everything builds nicely to a satisfying climax.  Learn from Ricky’s mistakes: instead of trying to figure out who Rumplestiltskin is, focus on how the various other characters might fit into his diabolical scheme.

 

    I don’t read a lot of Psychological Thrillers, but if I find a few more as good as The Analyst, I could easily be motivated to investigate this genre further.

 

    9 Stars.  John Katzenbach is the son of former US Attorney General (during the Lyndon Johnson administration) Nicholas Katzenbach.  I frankly had never heard of this author before reading The Analyst, and for some reason his works seem to be much more popular in Mexico than here.  But if you've heard of or seen the 2002 movie Hart’s War, starring Bruce Willis, guess what?  It’s based on a book of the same title written by John Katzenbach.

Shadow on the Sun - Zoe Saadia

   2011; 297 pages.  Book 1 (out of 4) in the “Mound Builders” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Historical Fiction; Native American History.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    The tribute collector is coming!  The tribute collector is coming!

 

    Well, that’s the rumor anyway, although if you live in a small, out-of-the-way village in 13^th-century North America, you might want to double-check such hearsay.  Visits from Quachil Thecou’s “Honorable Tribute Collector” are sporadic when your tiny settlement is so far out-in-the-sticks (literally), but it pays to have some food, hides, and pretty trinkets on hand in case he pays a surprise visit.  It's a good strategy to set aside just enough to buy him off, and hide the rest of your valuables out in the woods somewhere, in the event he decides to search your tents because he thinks you might be holding out on him.

 

    It's vital to know if the rumor's true, so let’s send some of our people to that nearby, slightly-larger village just down the river a bit and where the tribute collector would stop before visiting us.  That’s where this rumor originated, after all.  Maybe send a trading party there?  Swap some goods, pick up some gossip, and come back with some reliable news.  We might even put that young buck who just killed a bear in charge of the group.

 

    This will be his first leadership role for the tribe.  He’s quite good in a fight, and a master at throwing a spear.  Let’s see if he’s got some brains to go along with those physical skills.  On the downside, he’s short-tempered, acts without thinking, shoots his mouth off a lot, and tends to tell lies often, even when there’s no reason to do so.

 

    But hey, it’s a simple mission, an easy test of the young buck's wits.  What’s the worst that can happen, anyway?

 

What’s To Like...

    There are three main characters in Shadow on the Sun, Iciwata (the young buck); Ahal (the tribute collector), and Sele (Ahal’s niece, and soon to be the favorite wife of the ruler of Quachil Thecou, known as the Revered Sun).  Each has their own storyline, and the tale jumps from one to another, which keeps the pace brisk and the tale interesting.  The paths of Ahal and Iciwata cross quickly in the story, but I'm guessing they may go their separate ways as the series progresses.

 

    Shadow on the Sun has a decent amount of action and adventure, lots of intrigue, and a hint of romance, but first and foremost it is historical fiction.  As the series’ title indicates, the focus here is on a pre-Columbian civilization dubbed “the Mound Builders”, whose realm(s) extended throughout the upper Mississippi and Ohio River area, and whose name references the many sacred “mounds” they built, some of which are mind-bogglingly huge and can still be seen today.  Wikipedia has an excellent article on them; the link for it is here.

 

    I liked the “feel” that Zoe Saadia paints for the Mound Builders’ world – including small details such as tattoos, clothing, pearls, and the use of tobacco.  They had no horses or other beasts of burden, and no carts with wheels and axles on them, so the only way to transport the tons of earth needed for the mounds was - you guessed it - on the backs of humans.  That in turn means cities had to be established, which shatters the image that most of us have of the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the American Midwest being just a bunch of hunter-gatherers.

 

    Each of the main characters is developed nicely, and all are somewhat “gray” and slightly “anti-heroic”.  Iciwata is too brash for his own good, Ahal is (by necessity, we admit) pathetically fawning, and Sele is much too naïve to last long in the enviable but dangerously political position of “favorite wife”.

 

    There’s just a smidgen of mild cussing – four “damns” in the entire book!  Instead, Zoe Saadia coins colorful euphemisms such as “stupid skunks”, “filthy lowlifes”, “pieces of rotten meat”, and “excrement eaters”, plus three terms for the rigid castes in Mound Builders society: the “honorables” (upper class), “considerates” (middle class), and “miche-quipy” (the lower class, and by far the largest).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.7/5 based on 27 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.45/5 based on 47 ratings and 15 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Peltries (n., plural) : pelts; furs, especially raw undressed skins.

 

Excerpts...

    Among her numerous siblings and Father’s wives, she knew better than anyone how to get her way without turning outright rebellious and demanding.  Women saw through her sometimes, her mother and the older among Father’s wives, but men were incredibly gullible, even the most powerful among those.  A good state of affairs, certainly.  Most comfortable.  (loc. 1305)

 

    “You will do well starting to remember the proper address, foreigner.”  The tone grew sterner again, still ringing with the previous lack of distance, but now having a thread of admonition in it.  “Honorable Leader will do.  Make certain to use this title while speaking to anyone who is in the position to give you orders.  It will make your stay in Quachil Thecou more bearable by far.”

    Under different circumstances, he might have wished to suggest to the giver of such snotty, unasked for advice to stick his “honorable leader” up his honorable haughty behind.  (loc. 3315)

 

Kindle Details…

    Shadow on the Sun sells for $4.99 at Amazon, as do the other books in this series.  Zoe Saadia has written several more series, most or all of which are set in pre-Columbian America, with a majority of them focusing on the rise and fall of the Aztec Empire.   The individual books range in price from $2.99 to $4.99.

 

“Whatever the filthy warriors from the west say, I didn’t do any crime.”  “Except for killing one of them.”  (loc. 1522)

    There are a couple quibbles, but none of them are show-stoppers.  The book could have used another round of editing, particularly, for some odd reason, the section from 27% to 47%, where typos abound.  Almost all of these are “spellchecker errors”: first/fist, trucks/trunks, statues/status, subdue/subside, where/were, bore/bear, piqued/peaked, et al.

 

    A few of the sentences are oddly worded, which caused a couple reviewers to give Shadow on the Sun low ratings.  They make a point, I saw some of those sentences, but I didn’t find it distracting or confusing, and thus just chalked it up as the author’s literary style.

 

    For me, the biggest issue was the ending: not one of the plot threads is tied up.  Yes, things end at a logical spot.  Yes, there are at least three more books in the series for those plot threads to be resolved.  So shouldn’t a book close with at least one of them being brought to a conclusion, so we can call it an ending and not a pause?

 

    But hey, this is historical fiction, so maybe not.  I have books 2 and 3 on my Kindle, and frankly the series had me hooked the moment the phrase “Mound Builders” appeared.  I read Shadow on the Sun to be immersed in the world of this pre-Columbian empire, and I wasn't disappointed in any way.

 

    8 Stars.  There is a short, fantastic “Historical Note” section at the end of the book, wherein Zoe Saadia reveals what is fact and what is fiction, and I always find that enlightening.  There is a reason why Zoe Saadia set the story in 1205 AD, and mostly in the secondary/fictional city of Quachil Thecou rather than the primary/factual city of Cahokia.  We don’t do spoilers at this blog, but we can point out that the book’s title, its front cover image, and the Historical Note all give you a hint as to why she chose this time and place.

The Trivia Quiz Book - Volume 1 - Rich Meyer

   2012; 312 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Trivia; Reference.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

   Some questions for you to ponder:

 

    1. What was the original name of the corporation known as Bank of America?

 

    153. If you count the playoffs, how many points did basketball legend Kareen Abdul-Jabbar score in his professional basketball career?

 

    171. What is the nickname of the bell in the clock tower of the London House of Parliament?

 

    180. What is the performing name of Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta?

 

    301. Who was the arch-enemy of Corgi-Boy in print ads?

 

    If you’re mildly curious about the answers to these five questions, they’re given in the Comments section of this post.

 

    If you find such questions pointless and …um… trivial, you can probably skip the rest of this review.

 

    But if you’re thoroughly fascinated by such questions, and want 296 more of them, they’re all in Trivia Quiz Book – Volume 1, by Rich Meyer.  Provided you can find a copy of it, electronic or otherwise.

 

What’s To Like...

    This will be a “mini review”, since there’s only so much you can say about a book that consists of a couple hundred questions and answers.  Trivia Quiz Book – Volume 1 is just one of many quiz and trivia books compiled by Rich Meyer.  I counted 58 others listed in the appendix of this one.  Alas, only seven of them are listed at Amazon, none of which are in e-book format (as mine is), and all of them either “out of print” or ridiculously priced.

 

    There’s a nice mix of subject matter in the 301 entries, as well as a broad range of difficulty levels.  The author apparently is a veteran participant in Trivia Contests, including the “World’s Largest Trivia Contest”, held annually in Stevens Point, Wisconsin and the answer to question #97 in the book.  The questions come one per page (except for one hiccup about halfway through the book), with the answer then given on the next page, so you don’t have to worry about spoilers.

 

    Recently I’ve been participating in a weekly “Family Trivia” get-together on Zoom, where each participant is encouraged to submit one question per session.  This book is a handy resource when I can’t think of anything on my own, although some of its posers, such as question 153 above, are just too obscure for our group.  Does anyone really keep Kareem’s total points memorized?

 

    Unfortunately, it appears Amazon no longer offers Trivia Quiz Book – Volume 1.  Indeed, just about the only place I find it mentioned is at Goodreads, where it has zero ratings and zero reviews.  Has it been subsumed into one of Rich Meyer’s larger trivia compendiums?  Or is it now extinct, making my e-copy somewhat of a collector’s item?  Inquiring minds want to know.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  n.a.: the book is not available there.

    Goodreads: n.a.: 0 ratings and 0 reviews.

 

    7 Stars.  I enjoyed Trivia Quiz Book – Volume 1, and it is serving its purpose, giving me lots of possibilities for my submissions to the family trivia meetings.  My only quibble is its brevity – 301 questions is not a lot; but I remember this being a free download, so I can’t complain about not getting my money’s worth.  I’ll probably leave an even briefer review at Goodreads, because every book listed there deserves to have at least one rating/review.

You Are Dead (Sign Here Please) - Andrew Stanek

   2015; 204 pages.  New Author? : Yes. Book One (out of 7) in the “You Are Dead” series.  Genres : Humorous Fantasy; Satire.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    Nathan Haynes is having a bad day.  A serial killer has broken into his house and just shot him.  Dead as a doornail.  Oh well, at least he was a polite killer.  Somehow that makes it all bearable.  Plus Nathan’s gets to discover what the afterworld is like.

 

    Sadly, it’s not much different from the land of the living.  Lots of hustle and bustle, and a huge amount of bureaucratic red tape.  Tons of forms (literally) to fill out.

 

    For some reason, Form 21-B is of particular importance.  Actually, there’s nothing to fill out; he just has sign it, and he gets to spend eternity in the afterlife, for better or worse.

 

    But inquiring minds - such as Nathan’s - want to know what happens if you don’t sign Form 21-B?  He’s already dead, so what else can they do to him?  Nathan’s about to learn an important lesson.

 

    Bureaucracy doesn’t like inquiring minds.

 

What’s To Like...

    If novels that throw lots of complicated plotlines at you are not your cup of tea, then you’ll love You Are Dead (Sign Here Please).  The only plotline is Nathan refusing to sign Form 21-B, and the director of the Afterlife and his minions trying their best to coax or trick him into doing so.  Nathan meets some interesting characters along the way, but you won’t have any trouble remembering who’s who.  We don’t get to cross paths with Horace Pickelfern (see below), but I found Travis Erwin Habsworth and Quaestor Dominique Delroy both fun guys to meet-and-greet.

 

    Andrew Stanek uses “cutaways” –  pseudoscientific digressions about various technical matters – to break up the prolonged “will he sign or won’t he?” issue, and I thought that worked quite well.  Those side topics include things like Cosmology, Deep Sea Oceanography, Molecular Biology (all of which we are assured are scams) and Quantum Physics.

 

    There are only two settings in the tale – you’re either in the Afterworld or Nathan’s home town of Dead Donkey, Nevada, a godforsaken Podunk town where the chief recreational pastime is something called "Muleball".  And despite being in the middle of the desert, Dead Donkey has a city seaport that's fitted out with a luxury liner, which is sadly inoperable due to sand in the propellers.  You may scoff at this, but here in Phoenix, Arizona - surrounded by hundreds of miles of desert, our airport is called “Sky Harbor”, and you get a lovely view of the harbor as you land or take off.

 

    We are introduced to some neat gizmos, such as Dieting Spoons and Xylophone Fences, and the Meaning of Life is revealed late in the book (which is not “42”).  Australia's Ayer’s Rock gets a mention, and I chuckled at the acronym “FBN”, which stands for “Faster-car, Bigger-house, Nicer-restaurant-goers”.  This is the second time in less than a year where a badger plays an important part in the book  I’ve read (the other one is reviewed here ***), that's got to statistically odd.  And I don’t remember any other novel where there were four different Atheist Churches (isn't that an oxymoron?) competing for parishioners, and we’re not even counting the weirdos from the Pluto Liberation Front.

 

    The book ends at a logical point.  I wouldn't call it exciting, but it's delightfully clever and zany.  Most of the loose plot threads are not tied up, but I suspect they are addressed in subsequent books in this series.  Be assured that You Are Dead (Sign Here Please) is a standalone novel.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  3.8/5 based on 855 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.48/5 based on 1,564 ratings and 263 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    Everyone has their own theory about what happens.  The Christians believe in heaven and hell.  The Hindus believe in reincarnation.  Horace Pickelfern of 289 Timbercrest Road, Anchorage, believes that after death everyone is hugged by a giant spirit bear, and if you fail to hug him back then he mauls you to double-death and you have to progress to the after-after-life, which is on the whole less pleasant.  (loc. 36)

 

    “Do you hear voices?”

    “Lots of voices.”

    “Whose voices do you hear?”

    “Yours, for example.”

    “I see.  And do you ever feel that other people are watching you?”

    “I suspect that lots of people are watching me all the time,” Nathan said.

    “And why is that?”

    “I don’t know, but they somehow manage not to bump into me when I walk through crowds of them, so I think they must be looking at me.”  (loc. 1603)

 

Kindle Details…

    You Are Dead (Sign Here Please) normally sells for $0.99 at Amazon, but occasionally Andrew Stanek generously discounts it to free.  The other six books in the series are likewise priced at $0.99.  The author offers a couple dozen more e-books, some in other series; some as standalones.  They range in price from free-to-$2.99, with the majority of them going for $0.99.

 

“I was mauled to death by an unmarried badger.”  (loc. 1585)

    There’s not much to quibble about in You Are Dead (Sign Here Please).  Like other reviewers, I thought the writing style and humor were a bit "juvenile" at the beginning, but things seemed to get better as the story went on.  Maybe Andrew Stanek was getting more polished; maybe I was getting acclimated to his writing and storytelling.

 

    For me the storyline seemed to drag a bit.  Instead of steadily progressing somewhere, it was just a do-loop of Nathan getting killed and being cajoled into signing Form 21-B, again and again.  As a plot device, that's pretty good, but I was disappointed that it lasted 200 pages or so and didn't lead to anything else.

 

    This begs the question: who is the target audience – adults, teens, or both?  My gut feeling is that the answer should be “teens”.  Some YA books appeal to readers of all ages, but here adults may find the writing style and storytelling a bit too simplistic.  Maybe that's just me though.

 

    It should be noted that You Are Dead (Sign Here Please) is a very clean book; there's no sex or drugs, and I only counted four bits of cussing in the entire book.  That's another indication that Amazon should call this a YA tale.

 

    7 Stars.   Add one star is you’re 10-16 years old; you’re going to love this tale.  I used to be hooked on Hardy Boys mysteries at that age, and You Are Dead (Sign Here Please) is far better than those.  For adults, this book is a calculated risk, but at 99 cents, not a very costly one, and I'm now curious if Andrew Stanek’s writing style evolves as the series progresses.

Newton's Wake - Ken MacLeod

   2004; 339 pages.  Full Title: Newton’s Wake – A Space Opera.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Space Opera; Hard Science Fiction.  Laurels: 2004 British Science Fiction Award (nominated); 2005 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (nominated).   Overall Rating: 6*/10.

 

    The year is 2367 AD, and the human race has abandoned Earth.  Artificial Intelligences have taken over the planet, and the few humans that survived are now fleeing for their lives and star-hopping across the galaxy.  Fortunately for them, FTL (Faster Than Light) space travel is now possible, and a web of wormholes (dubbed “the Skein”) has been discovered as well.  The search for other habitable planets and other sentient lifeforms is an ongoing project.

 

    The Skein is controlled by a clan of Scottish entrepreneurs called “the Carlyles” and Lucinda Carlyle is leading her very first exploring mission for the family.  It behooves her to impress her familial peers with her leadership skills and lucrative results.

 

    Lucinda and her team have just stepped out of a stargate and made an astounding discovery – a planet, dubbed Eurydice by its natives, that's flourishing with sentient life!

 

    Alas, everything goes to crap after that.  The natives aren’t little green men; they’re just another group of exiles from Earth, whose existence was up until then unknown.  Lucinda and her group are cordially welcomed, but placed under a kind of loose house arrest.  Eurydice's secret is out and it won’t be long before rival groups of galaxy-roaming Earthlings start invading this planet to exploit its resources.

 

    As well as the Artificial Intelligences.

 

What’s To Like...

    We follow three major plot threads in Newton’s Wake, each with their own protagonist, namely:

        Lucinda’s adventures on Eurydice,

        Cyrus Lamont’s asteroid-mining enterprise, and

        Ben-Ami’s planning and staging of “deep sky” concerts and musicals on Eurydice.

 

    Each one was fun to tag along with.  Lucinda wants to investigate a mysterious henge on Eurydice, as well as go on a suicide mission to recover a QTD (“Quantum Teleportation Device”).  Cyrus has a close personal relationship with his talking spaceship, which occasionally turns intimate.  And when Ben-Ami wants to see someone in concert, he doesn’t let the fact that they’ve been dead for a couple hundred years stand in his way.

 

    The book is written in English and Scottish, not American; but I didn’t find this distracting.  There are some way-kewl 24^th century weapons; and we finally get to fly around in those self-driving aircars that everyone’s been predicting since the 1950’s.  Talking starships are nothing new to sci-fi novels; neither is zipping around the galaxy via those wormhole gates; but they were both still fun to experience.  The “revival tanks” technology was a nice innovation; so was the “universal recognition” programming, which allows you to instantly and permanently recognize every face and remember every name.

 

    Ken MacLeod’s writing style is a wordsmith's delight with lots of fancy and obscure (at least to me) vocabulary.  Some of new words are real, such as a “cromlech” (there's one on the book’s cover); others are made-up, such as “fittle”, an acronym corruption which means …well, we’ll let you figure that out on your own.

 

    I liked the mention of “cosmic strings”, which I presume was a nod to the late, great Stephen Hawking.  There are musical nods to Phil Ochs and Billy Bragg; I doubt either have ever been mentioned before in a science fiction novel.  It was fun to play the 24^th century children’s game of “sea, ship, fish” ; and learn from what present-day game it evolved.  The book's title appears on page 105 and is not, as I mistakenly presumed, a reference to a  funerary vigil/feast for some poor, dearly-departed soul named Newton.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 3.5*/5, based on 66 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.69*/5, based on 2,544 ratings and 142 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Thrawn (adj.) : ill-tempered; perverse; twisted; crooked.

Others: Chibbing (v.); Cromlech (n.), Squick (n.); Birled (v.).

 

 

Things That Sound Dirty But Aren’t…

    “Oh dear.  The things I see when I’m pointed the wrong way.”  (pg. 57)

    “I sit in the bowels of Marx.  I swim around the trousers of Mao.”  (pg. 128)

 

Excerpts...

    “These aren’t-“ he began.

    “-anything I’m familiar with,” said Ben-Ami.  “They must be the starships.”  He turned, eyes shining, to the two musicians.  “This is marvellous!” The end of our isolation!  It is no longer possible to doubt it! (…)

    “Yeah, that’s nice,” [Winter] said, shrugging Calder’s hand from his shoulder.  “In itself.  Can’t say I’m thrilled at the thought of the ships’ inhabitants.”

    “Why not?” asked Ben-Ami.  “They are human beings like us.”

    “Exactly,” said Winter, as Calder cackled.  (pg. 107)

 

    The machine and the man had been together a long time.  The Hungry Dragon knew Lamont a great deal more intimately than he knew it.  Even so, it did not expect the next question, as Lamont theatrically arranged himself in a midair lotus position.

    “Tell me about your dreams,” he said.

    “I do not dream.”

    “Let me clarify,” said Lamont.  “I refer to fleeting combinations of thoughts and images that intersperse your logical mental processes.”

    “Ah,” said the machine.  “Those.”  (pg. 145)

 

“I look like the wife of some geezer picking up a Nobel Prize,” Carlyle said.  “For chemistry.”  (pg. 55)

    I was surprised to see the low ratings at both Amazon and Goodreads for Newton’s Wake, particularly since it has been nominated for two prestigious Sci-Fi Awards, but there are valid reasons for that.

 

    First of all, while the long, detailed world-building made for a very convincing setting, it came at the cost of a lack of an overarching plotline.  Halfway through the book I asked myself what the main storyline was, and sad to say, I couldn’t come up with anything.  Eventually one develops – a journey back to Mother Earth - but even that fizzled out after a promising start.

 

    The ending felt anticlimactic to me.  It could only be justified if Newton’s Wake turned out to be the first book in a series, but that appears not to be the case.

 

    Other reviewers pointed out that the story is full of already-forgotten references – things like David Koresh becoming a famous religious influence, and America On Line still being a major entity in the 24^th Century.  Yeah, fat chance of either of those panning out.  Some were also put off by Lucinda’s Scottish accent, but I had no trouble decoding what she was saying, so this seemed a bit nitpicky.

 

    Last and least, I counted 21 instances of cussing in the first 10% of the book.  For me, that felt just about right for a Space Opera novel.

 

    6 Stars.  This was my second Ken MacLeod sci-fi novel.  The other one was Cosmonaut Keep, and is reviewed here.  Both of them were great on world-building but short on plot.  Maybe that's just the author's writing/storytelling style and I haven’t gotten used to it yet.