I'm a Stranger Here Myself - Bill Bryson

1999; 288 pages. Genre : Comedic Narrative. Overall Rating : B-.

    Bill Bryson returns to the USA after spending 20 years in England. He buys a house in rustic, Newhartesque New Hampshire, and shortly thereafter, a journalist friend talks him into writing a weekly article for a British magazine called Night & Day; loosely themed around readjusting to American life. IASHM is a collection of 70 of those articles.

What's To Like...
    It has the typical Bryson dry, self-deprecating humor. Since they are weekly articles, all 70 chapters are essentially the same length - about 4 pages each. The topics vary widely, so if one doesn't float your boat, be of good cheer, you'll shortly be reading about something completely different.

    .It is obvious that Bryson reads a lot, and oftentimes that spawns the weekly topic. You will learn things like the origin of Drive-In Theaters, and that computer hackers successfully breached the Pentagon's security systems 161,000 times in 1996. He's possibly the only person I know that can write four pages about cup-holders (in the car and on the PC) and keep you interested. To appreciate that, try putting out four witty pages on that subject yourself.

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What's meh...
    While you'll catch yourself laughing out loud at times while reading IASHM, this is an easy book to put down. The problem isn't Bryson; it's the format. Being limited to four pages means none of the articles have any depth. One of the chapters deals with inherently good- and lousy-sounding words.

     Kewl beans and something I'd really enjoy, but just as soon as the chapter got rolling, it was done.
.The other format problem is the weekly deadline. It must be difficult to be newsworthily witty once a week, every week, for several years. What do you do when your Muse takes a couple weeks vacation? Some of the topics seem to suffer in this manner.
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Uncle John, you have competition...
    It took me a lot longer to get through IASHM than I anticipated. After reading a half-dozen chapters in one sitting, they all start to blur together. I think it would be better to use this book as a Bathroom Reader. We'll give it a B-, and recommend that this not be your introduction to Bryson.

Whiskey Sour - J.A. Konrath

2004; 289 pages. Genre : Murder Mystery. Overall Rating : B-

    .A serial killer is abducting young women, playing Operation on their torsos, and dumping their naked bodies butt-cheek-upwards into local 7-11 dumpsters. Police Lieutenant Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels tries to find the common link, and catch the self-dubbed Gingerbread Man before all of Chicago goes into a panic.

What's To Like...
    If you like James Patterson's "Alex Cross" detective novels (that's before he went all sucky with his "Maximum Ride" stuff), you'll like J.A. Konrath. The killings are tastefully lurid (which is probably an oxymoron), and Konrath also mixes in a bit of punnish humor. Jack Daniels is non-stereotypically middle-aged and average-looking.

Excerpt...
    An example of the Whiskey Sour wit :

"He may be disfigured or disabled. He might have severe acne scars, or scoliosis."
"That's a curvature of the spine," Dailey added.
"Is that a hunch?" I asked.
"Just an educated guess."
I thought about explaining the joke to them, but it would be wasted.

On the other hand...
    There are several places where you just go, "Am I expected to believe that?" For instance, our protagonist's police car is broken into, and a bag of candy is left on the seat. Suspicious? Nah. Daniels' partner tears into the bag without any hesitation and falls for the old razor-blade-in-the-candy-bar trick.

   .Then there's the "lucky break" itself. Interviews of the victims' family and friends get the usual response : "So-and-so was just the sweetest person around. We can't think of anyone who would want to kill her." Yet when the connecting link is finally found, it's something that even a remote acquaintance would recall and instantly think of as a motive for murder.

Then there's the clichés...
    The books is riddled with them. Some, such as the two clueless FBI agents with their computer-generated profiling, are obviously deliberate. Ditto for the doughnut-loving partner of Daniels, who IMHO is ripe for killing or severe-hospitalization is some sequel.

    .But the not-so-deliberate clichés can be annoying. The oh-so-confident psychopath decides to also include our heroine on his hit-list. Gee, that's worked what - zero percent of the time - in the past? This naturally results in our heroine being pulled off the case. Which of course never stops any cop from staying involved one bit. Then there's the poor schluck who goes out on an arranged date with Daniels. Yeah, that's a ironclad guarantee for bodily harm by the jealous stalker.
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    Finally, there's Daniels herself. She's a burnt-out, workaholic, insomniac whose marriage was ruined by her devotion to the job, and who drinks way too much. Sometimes I think that is de rigeur for fictional detectives .
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A little bit about J.A. Konrath...
    Konrath's website is at http://www.jakonrath.com/. His bio claims he wrote nine novels and received more than 500 rejections for them before #10 (Whiskey Sour) was finally accepted/published. He has done 612 book-signings in 28 states, and has sent 7,000 letters to libraries touting his books. I'd say he paid his dues.
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    If you visit his website, you'll be able to read the first seven chapters of most of the books in his Jack Daniels series (5 of them, I think). Except for Whiskey Sour itself, whch you can download in its entirety as a pdf file. Gotta love that.

    .In conclusion, this was a bit of enjoyable light reading. It doesn't strive to be anything more than an entertaining story, and to that end, it succeeds. We'll give it a B- and hope that the sequels have a few more twists and a few less stereotypes.

The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison

1970; 160 pages. Genre : Modern Literature. Awards : Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993; The Bluest Eye was selected for Oprah's book club in 2000. Overall Rating : B.

   .11-year-old Pecola Breedlove has been taught that she is ugly. Rejected by both parents; abused by white folks and black, and by friends and strangers; her fervent wish is for God to give her blue eyes so she can be beautiful.

.What's To Like...
    The book is a masterful effort, which is all the more surprising since this is Toni Morrison's debut novel. The formatting is unique - each chapter starts with a happy little "See Dick and Jane" snippet, which stands in stark contrast to the bleakness in Pecola's daily world.
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    The overlying theme of the book is people and circumstances allying to make a person believe that he/she is ugly. Being black in Pecola's world (Lorain, Ohio in 1941) is not beautiful, and if you were born that way, it was ingrained in you to marry someone mulatto, or at least lighter-complexioned than you. Frizzy hair and/or a wide nose was ugly, and your beauty was defined by how much you conformed to the standard of the white world. The brainwashing process started at an early age for girls - when they were given a white-skinned doll to play with.

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Be Forwarned...
    This is a coarse, gritty book, devoid of hope and without a happy ending. There is child-abuse, pedophilia, and rape. The only "shades" of character in the various people in the book is in the degree of hatefulness and uncaring they have. I have to question whether life for anyone, even for a black child in the 1940's, was as bad as Morrison paints it. I certainly hope not.

    .An Excerpt that sets the tone...Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs - all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured. "Here," they said, "this is beautiful, and if you are on this day 'worthy' you may have it.".

On The Matter of Censorship...
    A while back, a high school teacher in Bakersfield, California assigned The Bluest Eye to be read by a 12th-grade student. The topics apparently shocked the kid, who showed the book to his parents, and a brouhaha ensued. You can read details about it here.
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    Now, I am completely against book-banning, which was what the parents sought. However, I question the judgment of the teacher here in making it required reading for a teenage kid. Is parental-rape is suitable subject at that age? I for one would have found this book shocking and revolting when I was 17, and I would have resented any teacher telling me to read it. In the end, the school district voided the assignment, but refused to remove The Bluest Eye from the school library's shelves. It's nice to see that every once in a while, the authorities get it right.

The Wheel of Darkness - Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

2007; 385 pages. Genre : Thriller. Overall Rating : B..

    Someone has stolen the Agozyen {"Darkness"} from a remote Tibetian lamasary. NBD, except that it has the power - indeed it has the destiny - to annihilate mankind from the face of the earth so that the world can begin anew. That's a bummer for us humans.

   .FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast and his ward, Constance Greene, need to track down the thief and recover the purloined power object. They end up on a luxury liner, where things go amok when they realize that the "darkness" has already been unleashed.
What's To Like...
    The plot is action-packed and fast-paced. There are several unexpected twists, including the "Hero vs. Ultimate Evil" confrontation. The plot is a bit formulaic (a bunch of terrified people trapped in a confined space, with a monster rampaging about), but it is convincingly done. There is even some Holmesian logic involved, as Pendergast has to somehow quickly and deductively narrow the suspect-list down from the 2700 passengers on board.

    .The negatives are few and mere trifles. There's a certain bumblingness (I doubt that's a real word) about the monks. The monster isn't all that scary. Then there's a small incident that piques one of my literary peeves. To wit...

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Just once I'd like to see...
    The commander of the ship, Commodore Cutter, is a real butthead. That's fine. A "Caine Mutiny" situation develops, and he is subsequently relieved of his leadership role. Later on, for reasons I won't give due to spoiler concerns, it is expedient that the crew again avail themselves of his services. They find him sulking in his quarters, and with gritted teeth, offer him his job back.

   .Alas, Commodore Cutter has no redeeming qualities. He spurns the offer, leaving the crew to a seemingly hopeless fate. My peeve is this - how come 99% of the characters in Action/Thriller/Alt-History stories have to be either black or white? Just once I'd like to see some "grayness". It would've been nice here to see Commodore Cutter accept their offer and contribute to the resolving of the issue, albeit without stealing the spotlight from our intrepid hero. If nothing else, it would've added a bit of complexity to him.

   .But I digress. The Wheel of Darkness is a worthwhile thriller; keeping me on the edge of my seat and turning the pages as the situation became more and more dire. This was my second Preston & Child book {"Relic" was the first} , and it is obvious that they make a good team for writing contemporary novels in this genre. I'm sure I'll be reading more of the series.

Playing For Pizza - John Grisham

306 pages; 2007. Genre : Fiction. Awards : #1 New York Times Bestseller. Overall Rating : C..

    Rick Dockery is a bench-warming 3rd-string quarterback on the Cleveland Browns, until Fate and injuries-to-others deal him a disastrous performance in a playoff game. He is figuratively run out of town, and ends up playing the next season for the Parma Panthers in an Italian Football League. There he learns some of life's lessons about loyalty, friendship, and dedication, and also gains an appreciation for the culture of a foreign country.

What's To Like...
    It's an easy, pleasant read. It screams to be made into one of those Sunday night Hallmark Special made-for-TV movies. It's got a smidgen of romance for female readers, and lots of football for male readers.
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Replaying for Reheated Pizza...
    Although the book has a logical climax (the league's Super Bowl), Grisham leaves a number of important loose ends dangling. I presume this is deliberate, and that we'll be seeing a sequel to this in a year or two.

   .Reading this book, I couldn't help but think that Grisham wanted to vacation in Italy, and decided to charge it to the publishers as "research". His descriptions of Italian churches, countryside, and cities all sound like they were taken from a tourbook. If you're a Grisham fan (and I'm not), you'll probably find P4P a disappointment. There are no legal themes, no complexities, and no deviations from a predictable plot. It is safe to say this made it to #1 on the NYT bestselling list by virtue of the author's name.
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    Nevertheless, this is a decent book if you're looking for some "Hallmark movie" relaxation, so we'll give it a "C". But you can be sure that the next book I read will have killing and mayhem in it.

Galileo - Bertolt Brecht

1966; 150 pages {8-41 : Introduction; 42-129 is the play itself; 133-150 : "Writing The Truth - Five Difficulties", an essay by Bertolt Brecht}. Genre : Dramatic Play. Overall Rating : C+ (the play rates a "B"; the rest rates a "D").

   .The book's plot centers around Galileo's invention (or more accurately, his plagiarism) of the telescope, and the impact this had on himself and on various institutions.

What's To Like...
    Brecht gives a very even-handed presentation of Galileo-the-scientist, and Science-the profession. Being a chemist, it was interesting to me to see these two topics in such a light. In the play, there are a wide variety of responses to the introduction of the telescope.

    .For Galileo, it starts out as simply a money-maker. He is told about the Dutch already producing small telescopes, and he duplicates the design and sells it to the city of Venice as if it were his own idea. Later, he uses it to observe the moon and planets, and discovers that Aristotle was wrong - the earth revolves around the sun; not vice versa.

   .The city officials are only concerned with its marketabiity. It is seen as an amusement at best, or else a device for Peeping Toms. The government sees it as a military breakthrough - they will now be able to spot enemy fleets hours before those fleets see them. The church couldn't care one way or the other, unless it contradicts Scripture, and their interpretation thereof. The latter of course leads to a sharp conflict between the Astronomer and Rome.

What's Not To Like...
    In a word, the Introduction, written by one Eric Bentley, sucks. Here's his first sentence :

    "Brecht was all wrong about the seventeenth centruy in general and about Galileo Galilei in particular."
    Wow! That really makes you want to read the book, eh? Bentley then spends 40 more boring pages, using Miltonesque verbiage, telling you why he's miffed at Brecht. In the end, it boils down to this : Brecht's Galileo isn't noble enough for Bentley. This one is a plagiarist, naive, and when it comes to facing the Inquisition's "methods", quite the coward.

    .Sorry, Eric. In Galileo, Brecht is exploring the inevitable tension between dogmatism and the search for truth. It's not meant to be historically accurate, any more than, say, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Get over it.
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    Oh, and the epilogic essay by Brecht is boring too.
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A word or two about Bertolt Brecht...
    Brecht (1898-1956) was born in Germany and was a lifelong Marxist and outspoken anti-Fascist. The latter appellation became hazardous to his health as Hitler came to power in the 1930's. So he chose to emigrate, but Hitler kept invading countries, necessitating multiple moves by Brecht. He went from Germany to Denmark, then to Sweden, then to Finland, and then to the USA. Here, as a self-proclaimed Marxist, he ended up being a target of the House of Un-American Activities. So his final move was (back) to East Germany. All because of his beliefs. Which is quite sad. Freedom-of-thought is ever the bane of dogma.
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    But I digress. I enjoyed Galileo, and even read it twice. Partly to better grasp the themes of the book, and partly cuz it was only 80 pages long. If you believe the Pope is infallible, or that Seeking After Truth is as noble an endeavor as you can have (and I fall into that latter category), then this book will challenge your beliefs.

Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett

1989, 355 pages. Genre : Comedic fantasy. Awards : #69 on the BBC's "Big Read" List. Overall Rating : A.

    .In the city of Ankh-Morpork, a secret society of bumblers figure out how to summon a big, nasty-tempered, fire-breathing dragon. As it turns out, that was the easy part. Much more difficult is how to get rid of the beast once you're done with it. This is a job for Captain Vimes and his Night Watch guards, who unfortunately have the mentality of the Keystone Kops.

What's To Like...
    This is part of Pratchett's Discworld series, which is in the same genre as Piers Anthony books, save that, whereas the latter's works feature lots and lots of puns; the former chooses to use lots and lots of groan-inducing metaphors. One quick example (from page 55) :

    "He was a small, bandy-legged man, with a certain resemblance to a chimpanzee who never got invited to tea parties."

   .The plot is good and there are lots of likable characters. The writing is witty and had me laughing out loud. Pratchett's books are a spoof of fantasy novels in general, with each book then also lampooning various smaller topics. Guards! Guards! takes a laugh at things like Secret Societies, Dog-Breeding (here it's Dragon-Breeding), and how to properly build your own dungeon. The book's an easy read, but I found myself going slowly anyway, just to soak up the pervasive humor.

An Introduction to Discworld...
    Discworld is your typical fantasy universe (trolls, dwarves, dragons, wizards, etc.). The world is flat and ...um... shaped like a disk. The disk is held up by four cosmic elephants, who in turn stand on the back of a great turtle. There are (so far) 36 novels in the Discworld series, and although a lot of characters do go and grow from one novel to the next, you don't need to start with Book #1 to enjoy the series. For instance, Guards! Guards! is the eighth Discworld book, but was personally my first Pratchett encounter, and the storyline flowed just fine.

What is the "Big Read" List?
    In 2003, the BBC conducted a survey to determine the 200 most-popular books in the UK. Guards! Guards! came in at #69. Terry Pratchett had 5 books in the top 100, and 15 books in the top 200. You can find the complete list here. FYI, #1 was Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. No real surprise there. #2 was Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. That's quite a swing from LOTR.
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    To close, Terry Pratchett and Discworld were a pleasant discovery for me, and Guards! Guards! was a very nice "light" read. After the darkness of The Bell Jar, it was just what I needed.

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

1971; 200 pages (216 if you include the biographical note). Genre : Autobiographical fiction. (Is that an oxymoron?) Overall Rating : A-

  ..The Bell Jar was originally published in early 1963, and is Plath's only novel. It is a thinly-veiled autobiography of her summer internship at Mademoiselle Magazine in 1952, followed by her mental collapse when she returns home.
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What's To Like...
This is a beautifully-written novel, which is a rare treat. We have lots of great story-tellers nowadays (Dan Brown, James Patterson, Steve Berry, etc.); but frankly, they're not good writers. Plath paints stunning images, even when describing mundane things. A couple examples :
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"He had a big, wide, white toothpaste-ad smile." Kewlness. Or :
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"It's like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction - every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it's really you getting smaller and smaller, and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those lights and that excitement at about a million miles an hour."

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    The 200 pages are divided into 20 chapters, and they almost all are exactly 10 pages long. One wonders if Ms. Plath also suffered from OCD.

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So what was Sylvia Plath's problem?
    Some think she was manic-depressive, but I doubt it. She had no "up" periods. Those who think she was clinically depressed are on the right track. Here's a glimpse (from page 2 of TBJ) into her world, describing her summer in NYC :

."I just bumped from my hotel to work and to parties and from parties to my hotel and back to work like a numb trolleybus. I guess I should have been excited the way most of the other girls were, but I couldn't get myself to react. I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo."
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    In the whole book, I never found Plath to "feel" anything. At one point, she remarks that she hadn't felt happy since she was nine. She supposes she'll fall in love and get married someday, but you can tell she's never going to feel "love". She enters into her first sexual encounter the same way she approaches electro-shock therapy : "Let's get this over with." Indeed, those five words might sum up her entire outlook on life.
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    Sadly, although I felt like I grasped Plath's mental issues, I can't think of a solution for them. The electro-shock therapy seemed to help, but subsequent events prove this either was an illusion, or was temporary. While "playing the game" of getting well, she discusses various methods for killing oneself with her similarly-afflicted friend, Joan. And when Joan hangs herself in the woods, you still don't get the impression that Plath "feels" anything.

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    To close, The Bell Jar is a fantastic read, but it is broodingly dark and sad, without an uplifting paragraph anywhere in it. It gave me a great deal of insight into the world of depression, but I still can't say I understand it, nor would I know how to talk someone who's depressed out of suicide. The world was too soon deprived on Sylvia Plath's literary excellence, and 45 years later, we still don't have any answers for her plight. In February 1963, one month after The Bell Jar was first published, Sylvia Plath turned on the gas, and stuck her head into the deepest part of her oven.

The Life & Times of the Thunderbolt Kid - Bill Bryson

2006; 268 pages. Genre : Fiction. Overall Rating : A..

    I'd describe Bill Bryson as a kinder, gentler David Sedaris, although there is still a lot of hyperbole and caustic wit to go around. TL&TotTK is a series of memoirs about Bryson's boyhood days. He was born in 1951, so this is primarily about life in the late 1950's to early 1960's, growing up in Des Moines, Iowa.

What's To Like...
    Simply put - this is as hilarious of a book as I've ever read. From cover to cover, I kept laughing out loud, which was distracting to Liz as she read.
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    And since I was born within a year of Bryson, a lot of his boyhood memories are also mine. Things like : silly putty and slinkies; lincoln logs and model airplanes; Sky King and Roy Rogers; bumper cars and fig newtons; wearing galoshes to school and being sent to the cloakroom; and the widest selection of comic books that any generation ever enjoyed. Last but not least, the stupidest, annoyingest, inanest game/toy that was ever invented - electric football.
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What's Not To Like...
    Not much, since I give this an "A". Most of the negative reviews seem to come from dittoheads who are irked that Bryson at times reminisces about the political foibles of that time period. Yes, we had hula hoops and TV dinners. But we also had a House of Un-American Activities Committee; rampant segregation, and A-bomb tests in the Nevada desert that spewed radioactive fall-out all over the country. Sorry, guys. That's part of this era as well.

   .The other negative that got cited a lot - and I happen to agree with this - is that Bryson sprinkles the book with a few too many 4-lettered words. I have no moral objection to that, provided it serves a purpose. Here, it seemed to be forced and unnecessary.

    .Finally, while those aged 50-65 will relate to this book, there may be a bit of a disconnect for anyone younger.
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Where's Billy?
    For a popular author with a dozen books to his credit, finding Bryson's books in a bookstore is a daunting challenge. Yeah, I could ask the help desk, but where's the sport in that?
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    You'd think his books would be filed under "Humor", but neither store did that. TL&TofTK was over in the "Literature" section at Borders, but that was the only Bryson book there. This past weekend, I found a stash of his other books at the used bookstore under "Travel". They're still written in Sedaris-style, but deal with living in England, hiking the Appalachian Trail, and/or traveling around Australia. He has a couple linguistic-themed books to his credit, and I still haven't found where either store stashes those.

   .I don't think I've enjoyed a book this much since Slaughterhouse Five. I can see me going on a Bryson kick for the next few months. If you want to get a feel for the bright side of the 1955-65 decade, this is as good as it gets. As for its darker side, well, that's what the book I'm reading now is all about.

Pirates of the Universe - Terry Bisson

1996; 285 pages. Genre : Post-apocalyptic sci-fi. Awards : A New York Times 1996 Notable Book of the Year. Overall Rating : C+..

    In an energy-depleted world, the Ranger "Gun" hopes to make one more space-harvest and earn admission into the fantasy-park retirement-community owned by Disney-Windows called "Pirates of the Universe". Unfortunately, his bank account's been frozen; his e-mail is blocked; his brother's a runaway convict; and his family's being forced out of their home. Plus someone wants him to join a revolution, although Gun's not sure exactly who, and what it is revolting against.

What's To Like...
    It's set in a post-apocalyptic world; it has dimension-travel (one of my favorite pastimes); and Gunther's spaceship is the U.S.S. Penn State, named after one of my alma maters. Kewlness.

.A subtle humor permeates the book. For instance, the pricey virtual ...um... pleasure girl (who is accessed via a potent opiate) is copy-protected. So you can cyber-enjoy her company, but you aren't allowed to retain her image in your memory.

.You run into a host of new terms here - Peteys, Gens, Doggits, The Tangle, the Overworld, Softies, Rangers, Sierras, Fundamentals, the Protocols, The Three, Disney-Windows, et al. Bisson's style here "assumes" you are already familiar with these. Some, like D-W, are easy to deduce. Others...

What's Not To Like...
    POTU is a slow-read. You spend a lot of time trying to figure out all those new terms. I'm still not sure what a gen is. Neither is Gun.

.   The bigger weakness is the storyline itself. It's kinda like the movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The book keeps plodding along, right up until the very end. Then the "this changes everything" moment occurs, and... and... and then the book (or movie, in the case of CEot3K) ends. What a letdown. Some of us like to read/see the other side of "this changes everything".

This was the NYT's 1996 Notable Book of the Year??
    Terry Bisson is the author who finished Walter Miller's sequel ("midquel", actually) to A Canticle for Liebowitz, when WM had the misfortune to pass away after spending several decades getting the midquel about 95% done. I still haven't found that one, and POTU was the only Bisson work the used bookstore had.

.   According to Wikipedia, Bisson mostly does short stories. He's won a Hugo and a Nebula Award. He's only written a couple full-length novels, one of which is POTU. Frankly, this would've been better done as a short story. The 225-page build-up - while amusing, well-written, witty, and oozing with satire - could've been distilled down to 50 pages, followed by a 50-page boffo climax.
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    Still, it is reasonably well-done, with lots of things to chuckle at and to puzzle out. And, like A Canticle for Liebowitz, POTU is done in a very unique style. That makes it a worthwhile book for Sci-Fi fans and people interested in unusual literary techniques. For everyone else, this might be an "optional" read.

Thunderstruck - Erik Larson

2006; 392 pages. Genre : Animated Non-fiction. Overall Rating : B..

    Thunderstruck combines two stories - one technical; the other sensational. The technical tale tells about Guglielmo Marconi and his work to develop "wireless telegraphy". The sensational tale concerns one Hawley Crippin, a diminuitive henpecked husband who one night decided "Enough is enough", and... well, we'll leave that as a teaser. The setting for both tales is London around the dawn of the 20th century. The tie-in between the two tales doesn't become evident until about 75% of the way thru the book, but it's there.

What's To Like...
    Larson meticulously researches both stories. He includes a separate Notes section at the close of the book, in case anyone wants to check his sources. The whole thing is well-written, and in a unique style. More on that later.

.The chapters/subsections jump back & forth between the two stories, which some may find confusing, especially since the timelines don't exactly match up with each other. But I've read some Alt History books that try to carry a dozen simultaneous storylines or so (yuck!), so only two tales is childsplay to me.

.Larson gives you a fabulous feel for life 100 years ago. This is the third book he's done in the 1890-1910 era, and they all immerse you that period. Also, his character development is top-notch. In their own ways, both Marconi and Crippen are flawed characters. Indeed, you may find more empathy for the latter than the former.
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What's Not To Like...
    To fully enjoy this book, you had better like both the "True Crime" and the "Technical Science" genres. That narrows the target audience down quite a bit.

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    It must be said that Thunderstruck is a slow-read, especially the technical parts. Oh, and a word about the 50 pages of notes. That's a lot of pulp-&-paper used up for the sake of them. Why not post the notes online? 99% of us don't give a hoot, and the 1% that does will hopefully be internet-literate. The Trees thank you in advance.

.A unique style...
    I struggled to think of an apt descriptor for this genre, until I read a review that calls it "animated non-fiction". Ça marche. I've read works of fiction where the author endeavored to make it read like it was real. This is just the opposite : non-fiction where the Larson makes it read like it's a novel. He "invents" dialogue and deduces moods and emotions. Presumably all of this is a consequence of his researching.

    .He employs this same style in his three most-popular books. I don't know of anybody else that uses this format. Of course, I don't read that much non-fiction, so who knows. FWIW, the intertwining tales in the other two books are : The development of the US National Weather Bureau coupled with the killer 1900 hurricane that destroyed Galveston (6,000-12,000 dead) ("Isaac's Storm") ; and the 1893 Chicago World's Fair coupled with a serial killer named H.H. Holmes ("The Devil in the White City"). I recommend all of these, provided that you like the disparate genres.

The Traveller - John Twelve Hawks

2005; 480 pages. Genre : Dystopian Sci-Fi. Overall Rating : B..

    The plot is easy to summarize : The Orwellian Big-Brother types (the "Tabula") are trying to exterminate the Dimension-Hoppers (the "Travelers"), who are protected by Highlander-type Ninjas (the "Harlequins").
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    Actually, the Tabula have pretty much won already. There are only 3-4 Harlequins left alive, so we follow one of them - a young, beautiful Ninja babe named Maya - as she tries to keep two sons of a Traveler alive long enough to determine whether they inherited the gift.

What's To Like...
    There's lots of action; there's decent character development; and there's some nasty mutant killer-animals called "splicers". There are some good points about how thoroughly we are monitored nowadays (surveillence cameras, credit cards, and hey, even library cards), and it is interesting to see what steps Maya takes to avoid detection.

   .Although the bad guys are pure evil, Maya isn't your perfect Mary-Sue. And of course, there's dimension-travel. Twelve Hawks apparently uses a Buddhist model for this. There are six dimensions here - Gods, Demi-Gods, Humans, Animals, Hungry Ghosts, and Hell.
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What's Not To Like...
    The storyline is fairly obvious. It turns out this is Book One of an intended trilogy, and I can pretty much tell you how the relationship between Maya and the two brothers is going to end. BTW, Book 3 isn't out yet, and Book 2 is reportedly lots of action and no plot-advancement, so my fear is that Twelve Hawks is setting this up to be more than a trilogy.

    .Considering it's a central point in the book, there's not a lot of dimension-traveling here. The only other plane that is visited is the "Hungry Ghost" one, and that world is given only shallow treatment.
.Twelve Hawks is a pseudonym, and apparently there is much speculation as to his/her identity. This seems like publisher's hype, or maybe J12H just doesn't want to do the endless promotional stuff that goes with hawking one's novels. No matter. The story may be compelling, but the writing itself feels high-schoolish. Like something James Patterson would pen. And that's not a compliment.

Personal Security vs. Privacy
    I watched a commercial yesterday - by Duracell, I think. Mother and child are at the park, when Mom suddenly realizes that Junior isn't around. She panics, then realizes that she's got a GPS locator, powered of course by a Duracell battery. She presses the button, the GPS gives her the location of Junior, and there's a happy ending as she goes to the indicated place and finds him.

   .I wonder if there was a subtler message being given in that commercial. The GPS thingy (IIRC) hung around Junior's neck. But we already implant GPS microchips in pets, and I predict it won't be long before a movement is made to do the same to/for our kids. The premise will be that if someone snatches him/her, they can be traced and rescued. The kidnappers can easily detect and dispose of a GPS worn around the neck. But locating it under the skin - not so easy.

   .That sure sounds parentally praiseworthy, but the flipside is that any child with an implanted locator can then be monitored and tracked for the rest of his life by anyone with access to the GPS signal. Like the parents. Or the government. Or one's employer. Which leads to the question - how much privacy are we willing to forego in order to have more security? And in the end, do we really gain any more security at all?

    .But I digress. The Traveller is a decent book, and beyond the story itself, gives us some chilling insight into how easily we could find ourselves in a world where we are constantly monitored. However, it won't be displacing Brave New World or 1984 when it comes to the standard in dystopian novels. It held my attention okay, but when I saw Book 2 (The Dark River) at the used-bookstore yesterday, I didn't have any great urge to buy it.

When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? - George Carlin

2004, 295 pages. Genre : Stand-up Comedy. Overall Rating : D+..

    WWJBTPC? is the last of three books that Carlin put out between 1997 and 2004. It also happens to be his last book period, since he passed away last June. It is the first Carlin book I've read, and is also available as an audio book, with Carlin himself doing the reading.

    .WWJBTPC? is a plethora of Carlin sketches, some of which are transcribed from his recent stand-up acts. It is less witty than I remember his performances. Wikipedia claims that he chose the title because it offends three major religions. Somehow, that seems to sum up the tone and intent of this book.

What's To Like...
    If you have ADD, this is a great read. The maximum length per sketch is about three pages. If he wants to expound on a longer theme (for instance : "euphemisms"), he breaks it down into smaller parts and distributes it throughout the book.

   .There are some funny parts. One of the best is the recurring "Bits & Pieces", which is simply a couple pages (each) of one-, two-, and three-liners. Here's one of them :

    "When it comes to God's existence, I'm not an atheist and I'm not an agnostic. I'm an acrostic. The whole thing puzzles me." Good stuff from the man who invented the term "frisbeetarian".

   .Oh yeah, Wal Mart initially refused to sell this book because it was too offensive. And the fundies are disturbed by it. Those are two good reasons to read it.

What's Not To Like...
    Frankly, 95% of WWJBTPC? isn't funny. Or even witty. It's just bitter. I know this is "shock comedy", and I know Carlin was heavily influenced by Lenny Bruce. But to be honest, I never found Lenny Bruce to be funny either.
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.Here's an example :
    "Incredibly, there was no Hitler. There is no record of any such person. It's true, there was a little German man with a small moustache who combed his hair to one side and started World War II. He also killed six million Jews. But he was not Hitler. He was, in fact, a shoemaker named Hank Fleck."
If there is redeeeming virtue and/or humor in that little diatribe, I can't find it.
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Talibanderson
    Maybe the audio book is more humorous. Other reviewers say his earlier two books, Brain Droppings and Napalm & Silly Putty, are better. I guess I picked the wrong book to get introduced to Carlin.
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    In the end, too much of WWJBTPC? just isn't funny. And reading a stand-up comedy book that isn't humorous is like watching Pamela Anderson do a Baywatch episode wearing a burqa. Both are pointless. Skip this one, but if you come across either of his other books, they may be worthwhile.

Days of Infamy - Harry Turtledove

2004; 520 pages. Genre : Alternate History. Overall rating : C.

   .In DOI, Turtledove examines an alternate timeline where Japan, instead of just raiding Pearl Harbor on 07 December 1941, successfully invades and occupies the islands of Hawaii. DoI is the first of two books on this (does that make it a 'bilogy'?), covering the invasion and about 12 months after that.

.What's To Like...
    Turtledove is at his best when he's describing military stuff - the planes, the ships, and the strategies that would be involved in conquering Hawaii. But beyond the fighting, he also looks at a number of other topics. Among them are : the racial stereotyping that both the USA and Japan were guilty of; the Hawaiians yearning for their own sovereignty again; the pull that one's homeland has, even when one has lived for decades somewhere else; the role that oil played in Japan's decision to attack the US, and how transient basic supplies are when 99% of life's necessities and luxuries are imported from overseas.

   .Turtledove creates some interesting characters to follow. There's a Zonker-type surfer dude who doesn't let something like a war interfere with his catching that perfect wave. There's a Japanese father who finds an insurmountable generation gap between him and his two Americanized kids. Also, the Japanese fighters are not mindless zombies; nor are the American soldiers John-Wayne clones. Even the lackeys are shown to have redeeming points.
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What's Not To Like...
    The characters may be interesting creations, but they don't progress at all. The surfer and the fisherman go out to sea. And catch fish. Again and again. And again. Then there's the haole civilian woman who is forced to plant a turnip garden. Follow her adventures as she rakes, hoes weeds, battles bugs, and eats turnips. Again and again. And again. What fun.

   .Also, while Turtledove does a good job examining the Japanese and American psyches, he doesn't create any Hawaiian characters, outside of a few royalty figures making cameo appearances. That's a significant omission, given that the setting is Hawaii.

   .To steal a punchline from Ambrose Bierce, "The covers of this book are too far apart." Only about 20% of the book is Alternate History. The rest is character study. If I wanted character study, I'd be reading Tolstoy or Hawthorne or Steinbeck or something.

What if Japan had conquered Hawaii?
    Well, I suppose I'll have to read the sequel to this to get Turtledove's opinion. But I'm betting Harry has us Yanks tossing them war-crimes-committing, Japanese so-and-so's back into the Pacific to become shark-food.

   .And frankly, that would be my take on this Alternate Timeline as well. The dynamics of the Pacific fighting in WW2 would've been different, but not the outcome. In the long run, America's industrial might, larger population, and safe homeland means that we wouldn't lose.

    .Personally, I think Japan could not have made a bigger mistake than attacking Pearl Harbor. If the Axis were going to win World War 2, instead of attacking the USA possessions, Japan should've invaded Siberia. Make the Russians fight on two fronts, and keep (or at least forestall) America from entering the war. After Russia and Great Britain fell, who cares what the USA does? But this is speculation for some other time.
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In summary, this is a typical Turtledove book. The concept is great, but there's too much drama, and not enough Alternate History. The plusses pretty much balance out the minuses here. And I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that certain literary genres are inherently only worthy of a "C" rating.

Of Mice and Men & Cannery Row - John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men (1937) and Cannery Row (1945). Author : John Steinbeck. 306 Pages (OM&M - 107 pgs; CR - 195 pgs). Genre : American Literature. Overall Rating : A.
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.    This "twofer" book was published by Penguin Books in 1986. It's a nice pairing. Both stories are set in the same place (Northern California), the same time-period (1930's), and have the same theme - a bunch of "less fortunates" and the ruts they're stuck in. But the stories also nicely contrast each other. OM&M is a darker, tragic study of the hopelessness of trying to escape that rut. CR is a lighter, comedic study of a group of people who don't regard their situation as a rut at all.
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.What's To Like...
    The storylines are good, all the characters are engaging (even the bad guys), and there's quite a bit of character development in these relatively short tales. Steinbeck's literary description of California in the 1930's is masterful. Both stories are the proper length. These would suck if they were 500 pages long.
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.What's Not To Like...
    Not much, since I give this an "A". There is some cussing that might offend the faint-of-heart. That's not a problem for me, but it grates my soul when Steinbeck uses the ...ahem... N-word. I know it was commonly used in the 1930's, and I am dead-set against censorship, but I can't help it. That word offends me. Can't we just replace it with "black" in stories like these?

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    Oh, and I got quite excited when I found that someone was selling this book for $190 on eBay, since I had picked it up for $2. Visions of untold wealth danced in my head. Alas, that $190 asking-price had the curious acronym PHP after it. It turns out that stands for "Philippines Pesos", and the PHP:USD exchange rate is about 41:1. Easy come, easy go.

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Is the phrase "American Literature" an oxymoron?
    Being a biblioholic means reading a lot of "C-to-B-minus" books. After a while, one's expectations get lowered. Anything that rises a smidgen above humdrum is cause for a minor celebration. Furthermore, I'm not a big fan of any American Lit BV (before Vonnegut). So this book was a pleasant and unexpected treat. I don't know that I'm prepared to tackle Steinbeck's longer stuff (Tortilla Flat, The Grapes of Wrath), but I may have to give some of his other less-than-250-pages books a try.

The Dogs of Riga - Henning Mankell

1992 (Swedish); 2001 (English). 324 pages. Genre : Murder-Mystery. Overall Rating : B-.

    A life-raft floats up onto the Swedish shore. Inside are the bodies of two men, shot through the heart after being tortured and then dapperly dressed. There's no ID on either man, and no markings of the origin of the life-raft. With almost nothing to go on, Swedish detective Kurt Wallander tries to solve the case, which sudsequently leads him to Latvia, which is enduring the last throes of the Soviet Union.

.What's To Like...
    The emphasis here is on Wallander's (and several of his coworkers') plodding perseverence. No brilliancies; just dogged detective work. The plot unfolds beautifully as they try to determine the nationalities of the victims and the origin of the life-raft. It (naturally) quickly becomes clear that the two murders are simply a small part of a more complex plot.

.The Swedish ambiance is a welcome relief from that "bubbly buxom blonde girls skiing around as ABBA music plays in the background" scenario. Swedish winters are gray, cold, and like our Phoenix summers, seemingly never-ending. When Wallander travels to Riga, everything only gets grayer, colder, gloomier, poorer, and darker. Kewlness.

.Best of all, Wallander is a polar-opposite to a literary "Mary Sue". See here for Wikipedia's offering on Mary Sues. More about this in a bit.

.What's Not To Like...
    The plot unfolds nicely, but its resolution seems hurried and forced. For 200+ pages the sleuthing creeps along, then suddenly there's a 007 shoot-em-up, where a bunch of good guys get offed, while our hero amazingly gets neither a scratch nor caught. Kinda reminds me of The Last Samurai, where a couple hundred Japanese warriors get chopped into hamburger meat by machine guns, while Tom Cruise somehow handsomely survives.

.    While the Latvian ambiance is great, Mankell doesn't seem to have done much detailed research. For instance, when Wallander has to flee beyond Riga's city limits, all Mankell says is that he goes into various unnamed towns that Wallander never learns the names of. Sloppy, sloppy.

.    Finally, the translation (which Mankell had nothing nothing to do with) just sucks. There are spelling and grammar errors, and some clunky sentence structures. One wonders if this is a much better read in the native tongue.

.Mary Sue, Where Are You...
    If you're tired of too-perfect heroes, Kurt Wallander is for you. He's middle-aged, somewhat overweight, and average-looking. He drinks too much alcohol, even by Scnadinavian standards. He smokes too much and is addicted to lousy coffee. He's divorced, and frankly his ex is doing better without him. His father lays guilt trips on him, and thinks Wallander made a dumb mistake by joining the police force. So far, there's nothing to prove that wrong. His (grown) daughter barely tolerates him. He hates his job, but finds that he doesn't have any alternatives. His romantic charms are non-existent. In the previous book, he threw himself at the beautiful female lead, only to have her threaten to bring a sexual harassment charge against him. Here, he falls for a murdered-Latvian-detective's widow, and while she appreciates his solving the case and saving her life, she prefers to remain "just friends".

.    Nevertheless, I've enjoyed both Kurt Wallander books that I've read. I think Mankell is more concerned about giving you a gritty, true-to-life picture of Sweden (and in this case, Latvia as well), letting you know of some of the serious social issues there, and having you become friends with Wallander, his family, and his fellow detectives. Now if he'd just pay more attention to the plot itself...

A Canticle for Liebowitz - Walter Miller

1959; 313 pages. Genre : Post-apocalyptic fiction. Awards : Hugo (1961). Overall Rating : B.

    .A Canticle For Liebowitz chronicles a monastery in the futuristic American Southwest, and is divided into three parts : Fiat Homo ("Let There Be Man"); Fiat Lux ("Let There Be Light"), and Fiat Voluntas Tua ("Thy Will Be Done"). The first part takes place in the 25th century, as mankind struggles to survive in the aftermath of a devastating 20th-century nuclear holocaust. There are mutants, wolves and brigands, and a potent anti-knowledge movement which executes all intellectuals and burns all books.

   .The second part takes place 600 years after the first (3174 AD); when technology is being re-learned, for better and for worse. The third part takes place 600 years after that, (3781 AD) when galaxy-travel has been perfected, and when a nuclear holocaust again is a distinct possibility.
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What's To Like...
    The emphasis is on historical reflection here, not on thrills-&-spills action. Miller explores the "history repeats itself" motif : Holocaust, Dark Ages, Renaissance, Holocaust, Dark Ages, Renaissance, and so on. He also looks at the inherent conflict between Scientific Knowledge and Church Dogma, and the respective roles of Church and State on issues such as Euthansia. And he focuses on the contributions (past and future) of monasticism to civilization - copying books and preserving knowledge when no one else is/was there to do it.

   .There are a number of interesting characters. Brother Francis, who stumbles upon pre-holocaust relics. The wanderer who manages to show up in all three books. And the Poet, who's a man after my own heart : quick of wit, and short of common sense.

    .Oh yeah - and there's "booklegging". The art of locating, smuggling, copying, and preserving books, for the sake of Knowledge, even at the cost of one's life. Hey, every bibliophile should aspire to this noble criminal activity, should worse come to worst.

What's Not To Like...
    The characters may be interesting, but except for the Wanderer, they all die off within 100 pages/600 years. So don't get too attached to anybody.

    .There's an abundance of Roman Catholic-sounding Latin throughout the book. I hate Latin. If you saw my grades in it from Junior High, you'd understand why.

Those who don't learn from History are condemned to repeat it.
    A Canticle For Liebowitz received mixed reviews when it came out. Some loved it (hence the Hugo); some hated it, including the Catholic Digest. Miller joined the Catholic Church in 1947 (prior to that he called himself an atheist), and there is an aura of Catholicism througout ACFL.
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    The Catholic Church didn't like ACFL, because there are a lot of theologic foibles here. For example, "Saint Liebowitz" was in fact a Jewish engineer. And some of his "relics" revered in the monastery, are things like a shopping list ("pound pastrami; six bagels") and a cover page for an intra-office memo. Then there's the canonization of Saint Liebowitz, due to ailing penitents who swear they prayed to him, and were healed.

.   This novel took a huge toll on Miller. Prior to this, he was a prolific short-story writer. Indeed, ACFL is actually three of his short stories, re-worked and synchronized into a coherent novel. Alas, after this, he suffered from depression and writer's block; and he never had anything else published during his lifetime. He devoted himself to writing a sequel (technically a "midquel") to ACFL. In 1996 (that's 37 years later), when the midquel was just about done, he put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. A Miller-appointed author-successor, Terry Bisson, put the finishing touches on the midquel.
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    In closing, this is a great book for when you want to reflect upon history, mankind, and "the big cosmological picture". However it's not a good choice if you're in the mood for the clichéd Starship Troopers action-hero-against-the-monsters sci-fi tale. Read it to muse, not to be amused.

Holidays On Ice - David Sedaris

1997, 134 pages. Genre : (Semi) Non-Fiction, Humor. Overall Rating : C+..

    Six Christmas-themed stories (3 new, 3 previously-published) by David Sedaris. Among them : an over-the-top Christmas letter, a review of the neighborhood kiddie Christmas pageants, and a Christmas-is-Giving rivalry between two famiies that gets out of hand.

.What's To Like...
    Sedaris' wit is dry and hilarious. I kept laughing out loud, which isn't always desirable when one's spouse is trying to sleep. It's a quick, easy read. If, on December 30th, you realize you're still one book short of your reading goal, Holidays On Ice is your answer.

   .The best of the six stories is Santaland Diaries, recounting Sedaris' job at 33 years old of being a seasonal "Santa's Elf" at Macy's. The Christmas Pageant Review story, and "Dinah, the Christmas Whore" are good as well.

.What's Not To Like...
    The Christmas Letter story is a bit too in-your-face, even for me. Somehow, a tale with a dead baby (Spoiler alert : "I said WATCH the baby, not WASH the baby!) in a Christmas book is just inappropriate. The "Christmas is Giving" story goes on way too long. Overall, this is an uneven set of stories, and not a good choice as your first Sedaris book. Finally, this book sold for $8.99 new?! For 134 pages?! What a rip.
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"Congratulations, Mr. Sedaris. You are an elf!"
    There apparently is some controvery about Sedaris' books. The NYT lists them in their Non-Fiction list, yet it is alleged that some of his essays are ...erm... hyperbolized. I've read three of his books so far, and all I can say is : I certainly hope Sedaris availed himself to hyperbole. If not, he was raised in the most dysfunctional family imaginable, and half the people he's met in life are shoe-ins (shoo-ins?) for the loony bin.

   .In closing, here are two quick teasers from the Santaland Diaries. If you find them funny, you'll enjoy David Sedaris. If not, Art Linkletter books are still around.

."A spotted child visited Santa, climbed up on his lap, and expressed a wish to recover from chicken pox. Santa leapt up." (pg. 25)
."Today a child told Santa Ken that he wanted his dead father back and a complete set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Everyone wants those Turtles." (pg. 30)

The Bourne Betrayal - Eric Van Lustbader

2007, 717 pages. Genre : Action. Overall Rating : C.
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.  When Arab extremists kidnap his only friend in CI (Covert Intelligence), it's up to Jason Bourne to find and rescue him. But the kidnappers have already invaded Bourne's mind, and they are able to anticipate his every move.

What's To Like...

    The book is constant action, so at 717 pages, you're certainly getting your money's worth. There's a plethora of plot twists to keep you reading. As with any Bourne novel - there are well-described locations (Ethiopia, Odessa, Istanbul) to fall in love with. There are four major plotlines going on at the same time, yet you have no trouble keeping track of them.

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What's Not To Like...
    There's a lot of action, but not much progress. The core of the trilogy written by Robert Ludlum - the inner struggle between the assassin Jason Bourne and the "normal" David Webb - is missing here in book #5. Only Jason Bourne exists.

.The technical portions of the story will strain your limits of believability. EvL's attempt to write ebonics is just irritating. Then there are all those spy-novel clichés.
...

.Three clichés I've had my fill of... (and they're all here!)
1. Western Girl falls in love with Arab terrorist. This is always the kiss of death. If the evil BF doesn't kill her first-hand, he betrays her and the last thing she sees is his uncaring face. Just once I'd like to see a different ending. Maybe she betrays him. Maybe she perishes, fighting by his side. I don't care. Any new angle will do.

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2. The hero mistakenly thinks he killed an innocent bystander. Of course, he didn't. Evil people did and made it look like he did. For goodness sake, Bourne's an assassin. There is bound to be some collateral killing. If he wants to cry in his beer afterwards, so be it. But enough of the "only evil bullets kill innocent people" concept.

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3. The Ultimate Evil deliberately lures the hero to his central headquarters so he can finish him off. This sounds like something out of a bad Austin Powers movie. Folks, if I'm the UE, there's no way I'll ever let the hero get within 100 miles of my HQ, let alone show him the way. If we're going to duke it out, we'll do it out in the boonies somewhere, so that if/when the hero kills me, my evil plan will still go forward.

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Overall Rating : C
    In retrospect, this story should not have had the Bourne name associated with it. There's nothing inherently wrong with clichés and unbelievable technology. Clive Cussler enthusiasts have enjoyed them for decades. But the Ludlum-penned Bourne trilogy doesn't rely on Batmanesque gizmos, and is really about one man's reconciling his polar-opposite inner beings. The Bourne Betrayal has strayed a long way from Ludlum's premise. It is a decent read, as long as you are able to think "Dirk Pitt" instead of "Jason Bourne".

The Crossroads of Time - Andre Norton

170 pages; 1956. Genre : Sci Fi (Young Adult). Overall Rating : A- to C+.

.   By having a premonition to help someone out, Blake Walker finds himself drawn into dimension-travel, and the tracking down of a rogue who's importing sophisticated weaponry into less-advanced dimensions for personal gain.

   .Andre Norton (1912-2005) was one of the top Sci-Fi authors in the 50's/60's. While she didn't introduce the concept of time- and space-travel, she popularized it by using it as a repeated theme in her books. TCoT is one of her earlier stories, which she then developed into a 4-5 book series.

What's To Like...
    This is a perfect story for a young teen boy. There's a fair amount of fighting and killing; and no yucky romance. Parents will appreciate that there's no sex or drugs. The bad guy is a UE (Ultimate Evil), but at least he's resourceful and cunning. And our hero doesn't start out as a perfect defender-of-all-that's-good. Indeed, he's as much of a liability as an asset in this present UE-hunt.
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    I like Norton's treatment of our timeline. All too often, Alternate History authors portray our particular time/space continuum as being the most advanced there is. We boldly go where no one has gone before, benevolently enlightening the rest of the Cosmos.

   .No so here. Our dimension comes off as being quaintly naive, psionically primitive, and dangerously prone to violence. Just the sort of place a UE would want to take over. That's a refreshing viewpoint.

What's Not To Like...
    Not a lot. Norton doesn't spend a lot of time fleshing out most of the alternate worlds here, but I suppose that's to be expected in a 170-page book. And I swear, although every Norton book ever issued has at least two completely different bookcovers, none of them (including the one shown above) have anything to do with the story itself.
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What If...
    Norton's general hypothesis here is that an alternate timeline spins off at every critical juncture in history. Thus you end up with thousands of parallel universes.

   .The one that Norton does take some time to explore here is a world where Hitler wins the Battle of Britain. The remnants of the British army and government flee to Canada, and the main phase of World War 2 consists of Germany and Japan besieging North America from both coasts. The effort eventually fails, but at the cost of tremendous destruction and anarchy in the United States. TCoT is set in the present (well, mid-1950's), and while Blake and his associates try to catch the UE, a few plucky, local New Yorkers are trying to re-establish civilization.
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Overall Rating : Adults : C+; Young Adult : A-
    In the end, the plot is just a bit too straightforward to keep an adult reader's interest. And it has to be asked just how the universe decides what constitutes an critical juncture, worthy of an alternate world spin-off. But for a kid into science fiction, this should be a fun story. And it is cool to read someone who blazed the path for present-day Alt-History writers.

What's So Funny? - Donald Westlake

2007, 401 pages. Genre : Crime Comedy. Overall Rating : B-.

   .This is the latest (#13) in Westlake's Dortmunder series. John Dortmunder is a lovable galoot of a burglar, who here is blackmailed by a retired detective into masterminding a heist of a jeweled chess set, originally earmarked for the Czar of Russia.
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What's To Like...
    WSF? is a fast and fun read. Dortmunder and his associates are slow-witted but persistent, true-blue to each other, and lovable New Yorkers through-and-through. They are all proficient at their purloining profession, and take great pains to plot each caper carefully. But their best-laid plans inevitably go awry.

What's Not To Like...
    According to Wiki, the books are formulaic. The heists are always ethically-justified (the chess set here was already stolen property); meticulous plans are laid; things always go wrong; the gang is nevertheless muddly successful; yet in the end the goods somehow elude their grasp, ending up in some noble and charitable person's unwitting possession. Oh, and no one ever gets killed.

.I'd probably go batty if I had to read all 13 of these, but since this is only my 2nd Dortmunder book, the "formula" is still interesting.
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Less interesting is the first third of this book. The ex-cop forces Dortmunder to take the job by means of an incriminating photo of him at an earlier burglary scene. Okay, that's a plot device, and I can accept that. But the chess set is in a heavily-guarded vault, and for the first 150 pages, all Dortmunder does is sit, think, meditate, and conclude that a break-in is impossible. It would've been a better pace to spend the first 125 pages detailing the circumstances of Dortmunder getting caught on camera, allow 25 pages for "It can't be done", then move into the "Oh, things have changed. Here's how we're going to do it" stage.
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Overall Rating : B-.
    We'll call What's So Funny? cotton-candy for the mind. There's nothing heavy or substantive here; it's all-too-soon done and gone; yet in the end you're happy for having partaken of it. It's a good choice for when all you want is some "Lit Lite".