The Fall of Rome - Nick Holmes

    2023; 268 pages.  Book 2 (out of 2, so far) in “The Fall of the Roman Empire” series.  Full Title: The Fall of Rome – End of a Superpower.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Ancient History; Rome; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    I read recently a great book titled The Roman Revolution, (reviewed here) which is part of a planned 4-volume series collectively examining and explaining The Fall of the Roman Empire.  That book ended on a relatively optimistic note, despite Rome having endured some empire-threatening crises, thanks to several strong 3^rd- and 4^th-century Roman emperors, including Aurelian, Diocletian, and most notably Constantine.  If they didn't succeed in restoring the Roman empire to its full former glory, then at least they got it on the right track.

 

    Alas, their efforts came to naught, at least for the western half of the empire.  Something unthinkable took place in the early 5^th-century, a disaster such as hadn’t occurred for 800 years.  The capital city of Rome was sacked.

 

    How did this happen?  How did the Roman legions, and the Roman leadership—both the military and the government—collapse so fast and so completely?  Well, the reasons are complex and complicated, and various historians have offered various explanations, including: too many barbarians, too many Christians, and even too many baths.

 

    Nick Holmes makes a detailed and updated examination of these various possible causes (well, not the “too many baths” hypothesis, but that’s okay.), proposes several new ones, and gives a fresh perspective on how everything led to a new world order.  The book is appropriately titled The Fall of Rome.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Fall of Rome covers the history of Rome from 330 CE to 410 CE, a relatively short time span compared to the first book, which covered about a millennium.  But these 80 years are probably the most critical ones of Rome’s existence, and unfortunately do not turn out well.  Ineffectual leaders abound, and those that do show promise are weakened by jealous rivals (both political and religious) and external forces far beyond their control (such as climate and tribal migrations).

 

    The book is divided into 30 chapters covering 268 pages of text.  The first couple chapters overlap the closing section of the first book and focus on the emperor Constantine and his sons and three other heirs.  The internecine fight-to-the-death that follows immediately shatters the unity of the realm.  Nick Holmes then turns the spotlight on several important figures in 4^th-century Roman history, including Julian the Apostate, Theodosius, Stilicho, and Alaric.  I found Julian the Apostate a particularly fascinating “what if” study, since he had strong leadership qualities.  Alas, he was also pro-pagan, and the Roman Empire was becoming increasingly Christianized.

 

    By the dawn of the 5^th-century, it looks like the fate of the western empire will depend on the success of either Stilicho or Alaric, and sadly for the city of Rome, history chooses the latter.  Alaric cares not a whit about the thousand years of Rome dominating the world, as can be seen in the second excerpt, below.

 

    Things build to a historically-exciting climax: Alaric’s sack of Rome in 410 CE.  The city itself is ravaged, yet not destroyed, but it’s role as the capital of an extensive empire is over.  In the final chapters Nick Holmes gives an update about the Eastern Roman Empire, which is somehow doing relatively well; then closes by recounting the various theories about the causes of Rome’s collapse, and his honest evaluation of each one.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.4/5 based on 271 ratings and 19 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.24/5 based on 188 ratings and 12 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    The immediate threat the Huns presented in the fourth century was not a Hunnic invasion of Europe (this would come later in the mid-fifth century, led by Attila) but, like a ripple spreading across a lake, the domino effect they created by pushing the Germanic tribes west into the Roman Empire.  Bishop Ambrose of Milan summed this up with impressive clarity: “The Huns fell upon the Alans, the Alans upon the Goths, the Goths upon the Romans, and this is not yet the end.”  (loc. 1367)

 

    The Romans were holding out, hoping a relief force from Ravenna or the army based at Ticinum would move south.  But no help came.  Honorius and Olympius were too worried about their own precarious position to save Rome.  In desperation, a group of senators sought an audience with Alaric.  When they said the people of Rome would fight just like their ancestors, Alaric laughed.  They asked him what he wanted.  He said all their gold and possessions, as well as freedom of the slaves.  When they asked him what he would give them, he said, “Your lives.”  (loc. 2840)

 

Kindle Details…

    Right now, The Fall of Rome sells for $3.99 at Amazon.  Book 1, The Roman Revolution, currently sells for the same amount.  Nick Holmes offers a third e-book at Amazon, also in the History genre, The Byzantine World War; which you can pick up for only $0.99.

 

Valens would go down in history as the man who sent the empire into a death spiral at the Battle of Adrianople in 378.  (loc. 1603)

    It’s really hard to find anything to gripe about in The Fall of Rome.  There were only two cusswords in the whole book, one was utilized by the author, and the other, an f-bomb, was apparently in some graffiti scrawled on the wall of a brothel in Pompeii.  I’m not sure how one determines the Latin word for that bit of profanity, but I bet there’s an interesting anecdote there.

 

    I only spotted one typo: mains/main, so the editing was superb.  And be aware that Nick Holmes is an British author, hence the book is written in English, not American.  For us Yanks, that means you’ll see some strange spellings that are not misspellings, and an odd idiom or two.  The word “rooky” was new to me; I’m still not quite sure if it’s British slang or simply their spelling of our “rookie”.

 

    Finally, if you’re of the “My Deity, right or wrong” persuasion, you’ll probably not like the religious intolerance shown by the Christian leaders here.  Spiritual bigotry towards pagans was a common practice, and if there weren't any unbelievers around to persecute,  Christians of the Nicene sect were more than willing to persecute Christians of the Arian sect.  The net result was a further fragmentation of the Empire.

 

    Overall, I found The Fall of Rome to be a fine follow-up to The Roman Revolution, and I’m eagerly waiting for the next book in the series to be published.  Thus far I’m fascinated by Nick Holmes' presentation of the historical data concerning the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and am impressed by the conclusions he draws therefrom.

 

    9 Stars.  Nick Holmes the author should not be confused with Nick Holmes the lead singer in the British gothic metal band Paradise Lost, whom I had the privilege of seeing in concert many years ago, as an opening act for the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish.  And a freaking great concert it was, too!

Raft - Stephen Baxter

   1991; 303 pages.  New Author? : No.  Book 1 (out of 17) in the “Xeelee Sequence” series (so sez Goodreads).  Laurels: 1992 Arthur C. Clarke Award (nominated); 1992 Locus Award for Best First Novel (nominated).  Genres: Hard Science Fiction; Colonization Sci-Fi.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    Rees is a clever young lad.  No doubt he’ll go far in life somewhere out in the Nebula.

 

    But alas, not here on the Belt, where there’s only one job for all inhabitants: mining a burnt-out star kernel for ore.  It’s brutal toil and while Rees may be clever, he’s not physically built for hard labor.

 

    The ore is vital to survival on the Belt, since nothing grows naturally there.  Every so often, the privileged class who live high in the sky above in a place called the Raft, send down a transport device called the Tree.  It’s loaded with food, which they somehow have lots of, and are willing to trade for the Belt’s ore.

 

    Rees is determined to get off the Belt, even though that’s forbidden.  Raft people are Upper Class and mining people are Working Class.  The system only works when everyone knows, and conforms to, their social class.  However Rees is desperate, and has come up with an escape plan, albeit a risky one.

 

    Have I mentioned that Rees is a clever young lad?

 

What’s To Like...

    Raft is Stephen Baxter’s debut novel, and the first of 17 of his books set in the “Xeelee” universe, albeit many of which are novellas and short story collections.  In effect, this is a prequel, telling the backstory of how a ragged crew of humans arrived at, and subsisted in, a far-flung bit of the time-space multiverse where galactic physics has played out quite differently.

 

    There are actually two main storylines: the aforementioned class struggle with its inherent hostility; and a looming cosmic Armageddon that will wipe out the entire Raft and Belt colonies: the life-giving Nebula is dying.  Rees plays an integral part in both storylines.

 

     The world-building is unique and masterfully done.  There are no extraterrestrials (yet), and only a few strange space creatures, such as sky wolves, skitters, and flying whales.  The latter are sentient and reminded me of the dolphins in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

 

    I liked Stephen Baxter’s attention to detail in presenting this space world to the reader.  Time is now measured in “shifts” instead of hours or days; logarithms were found to be useful (which is something I’ve yet to discover here on Earth); and the classic situational-ethics dilemma of “too many passengers in the lifeboat” is still a vexing problem.

 

    The ending has a hopeful tone and sets the stage for the entrance into the far more expansive world of the Xeelees.  The primary plotline of what to do about the dying nebula is resolved.  Other plot threads remain up in the air, and will presumably be addressed in the next sixteen books.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.1*/5, based on 407 ratings and 40 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.69*/5, based on 4,055 ratings and 283 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Men don’t belong in this universe.  We came here in a Ship.  We passed through something called Bolder’s Ring, which was a kind of gateway.  Somewhere in the cosmos on the other side of the Ring is the world we came from.  It’s a planet, incidentally; a sphere, not a Raft, almost eight thousand miles wide.  And its surface has a gravity of exactly one gee.”

    Rees frowned.  “Then it must be made of some gas.”

    Hollerbach took the orrery from the shelf and studied the tiny planets.  “It’s a ball of iron, actually.  It couldn’t exist . . . here.”  (pg. 83)

 

    “Sir, the lists of passengers have not yet been published; and until they are it is up to all of us—”

    “They don’t need to be published.  We all know who’ll be on that trip . . . and it won’t be the likes of me.  Rees, I should have sucked your brains out of your skull while I had the chance down in the kernel.”  Roch held up a rope-like finger.  “I’ll be back,” he growled.  “And when I find I’m not on that list I’m going to make damn sure you’re not either.”  He stabbed the finger at Grye.  “And the same goes for you.”
    Grye turned ash white and trembled convulsively.

    Roch stalked off.  Gord hefted his jet and said wryly, “Good to know that in this time of upheaval some things have stayed exactly the same.”  (pg. 255)

 

“You’re a Boney now, lad!  Welcome to the arsehole of the Nebula.”  (pg. 163)

    There cussing is relatively sparse in Raft.  I counted just 20 instances in the first 20% of the book.  Most of those were damns, and I don’t recall any f-bombs in the entire book.  Often, the occasions for profanity were covered by made-up phrases, such as “bonesucker”, “by the bones”, and the oft-used social pejorative “mine rat”.  I love it when an author does this.

 

    The book is written in English, not American; so words are spelt, the mood can be sombre, and you can munch of airborne titbits.  If you’re perplexed by any strange spelling, you can look it up in an Encyclopaedia.

 

    The main issue I had with Raft, as did lots of other reviewers, was the way the science-y parts were presented.  The laws of physics in Raft are radically different from those governing our universe.  But instead of laying this all out at the start of the story, those differences are revealed piecemeal along the way.  This made for a difficult read.

 

    But enough quibbling.  I enjoyed Raft because it was an equal-parts blend of a “lost-in-space” scenario with some hard-hitting social commentary.  And it did this in a very “hard science fiction” manner.  The storytelling may be a bit rough around the edges, but it still got the job done and promises an exciting series to follow.

 

    7 Stars.  Book 4, Ring, has sat on my TBR shelf for quite a while.  Now that I've read Raft, I just have to decide whether to jump directly into its Xeelee-inhabited world, or first go looking for Books 2 and 3.  This is a pleasant problem to have.

Hermitage, Wat and Some Murder or Other - Howard of Warwick

   2014; 312 pages.  Book 4 (out of 30) in the “Chronicles of Brother Hermitage” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Intrigue; Murder-Mystery; Historical Crime Fiction; British Satire.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

   It was a strange request.  But it came from King William’s right-hand man, Le Pedvin, so it had to be legitimate.  And Brother Hermitage is officially “the King’s Investigator” so he’s duty-bound to obey.

 

    Hermitage and Wat are requested to travel from England over to Normandy, France.  There they’ve been ordered to do some murder investigating, then locate a noble named Lord Jean Bonneville, and arrest him for those crimes.

 

    Le Pedvin doesn’t seem too concerned about who the victim or victims might be.  Any corpse will do, just so long as Bonneville’s slapped in chains, then executed for the slayings.

 

    Oh well, it’s an all-expenses-paid trip to France, a place Hermitage has never visited.  And since he is the King’s Investigator, what could possibly go awry?

 

What’s To Like...

    Hermitage, Wat and Some Murder or Other is the third book I’ve read from this series, which is set in England shortly after William the Conqueror defeated the Saxons at the Battle of Hastings.  We follow a rather naïve monk (Brother Hermitage), a worldly-wise porn weaver (Wat), and an ahead-of-her-time woman (Cwen), all of Saxon heritage, as they stumble through murder investigations.

 

    This story takes place mainly in Cabourg, which is an actual small coastal town in Normandy, and which hosted a key battle by William the Conqueror on his way taking the Norman throne.  I like that this series, although lighthearted in tone, still strives admirably to conform to historical facts.

 

    The book is written in English, not American.  So fields are ploughed, buildings can be two-storey, messages are despatched, realisations can be focussed upon, and your vigour may be sombre.  I love learning foreign languages!  I also liked that, no matter which characters are involved, the dialogue was always full of wit.

 

    Our heroes are pleasantly surprised to discover that, upon arrival, they find that two murders had recently been committed in little Cabourg.  Both victims were tradesmen and the tools of their trade were left on their corpses.  A clue perhaps?  But if so, what is the message?  We’ll leave that to the King’s Investigator.

 

    The ending was quite good, with a twist or two that made it both surprising and logical.  All the murders are resolved and Hermitage and friends manage to comply with Le Pedvin’s edict that Bonneville be done away no matter how false the accusations are.  There’s a short teaser (one sentence) at the end of the story for the next book in the series.  Our heroes apparently are headed for Wales!

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 883 ratings and 100 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.37/5 based on 368 ratings and 17 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “But Le Pedvin said…”

    “And do you believe Le Pedvin?  The one who just trampled your herbs to death?” Wat asked.

    “Oh, well,” Hermitage began.  In all his investigations, well the few of them he had completed so far, people kept telling untruths.  It was both disturbing and disappointing.  If they only told the truth when they were asked, and as they should, things would be so much easier.  “You think he might have been lying?”

    “Do I think he might have been lying?  Do I think the sun will come up tomorrow?  Do I think Druids do it in the woods?  No, I’m absolutely sure he was lying.”  (loc. 489)

 

    “Are you saying the man was murdered by an ox?”

    “Certainly was.”

    Neither Blamour nor the old men on their bench seemed to think that this was in any way peculiar.

    “That’s ridiculous,” Hermitage eventually got his thoughts in some order, “oxen can’t commit murder.”

    “You tell that to the bloke who’s just been trampled to death,” Blamour retorted.

    “Being trampled to death is not the same as being murdered,” Hermitage explained.  Surely these simple country folk weren’t quite that simple.  “Being trampled to death is an accident.”

    “Not if the ox means it.”  (loc. 3224)

 

Kindle Details…

    Hermitage, Wat and Some Murder or Other currently sells for $3.99 at Amazon.  The rest of the books in the series range in price from $2.99 to $4.99, with the most recent books the higher-priced ones.

 

“What are you doing with your head on?”  (loc. 4778)

    The quibbles with Hermitage, Wat and Some Murder or Other are mostly a repeat of those for the previous book, which is reviewed here.  The punctuation errors are atrocious, especially comma abuse and missing periods.  Typos also abound, such as scatted/scattered; maybe/may be; Able/Abel; wrong doing/wrongdoing; and the frequently encountered discretely/discreetly and lead/led.

 

    OTOH, cusswords were a rarity, just two in the first quarter of the book, and mostly of the mild, eschatological variety.  Hats off to Howard of Warwick for being a sufficiently talented writer so that excessive profanity wasn’t resorted to.

 

    That’s about all I can grouse about.  The three books I’ve read thus far in this series have all been literary treats for me, and here’s hoping that somewhere down the line, the author makes use of a top-notch editor to peruse his manuscripts.

 

    8½ Stars.  One last thing.  If you find yourself in Cabourg, like Hermitage and his friends did, and you have occasion to mention the House of Margaret, try to do so without sniggering.

Subterranean - James Rollins

   1999; 410 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Thriller & Suspense; Action-Adventure.  Overall Rating: 8½*/10.

 

    Antarctica.  The only continent that doesn’t support native life.  Animals like penguins and walruses may live there; but they have to get their sustenance from the surrounding oceans.

 

    It’s been that way for millions of years, but not forever.  Earth’s tectonic plates shift slowly but inexorably.  Antarctica wasn’t always stuck at the South Pole.  Theoretically, someday we will dig down through all that ice and look for traces of plant life in the form of fossils.  Maybe even animal life.

 

    But that’s somewhere in the future.  At least that’s what paleoanthropologist Ashley Carter thinks.  Until someone contacts her and wants her to travel down to Antarctica to check out a recently discovered underground cavern.

 

    Which was found to have abandoned cliff dwellings in its walls.

 

What’s To Like...

    Subterranean is an early book by one of my favorite Thriller authors, James Rollins.  It predates his more famous Sigma Force series, and utilizes his standard, and satisfying, plot structure:

    Assemble a team of heroes and send them off on an adventure,

    Scatter them, put them all in peril, and make one or more of them a baddie,

    Keep the storyline interesting by jumping from one hero to another,

    Toss plot twists aplenty into the tale,

    Use incredible timing to get the gang back together for an over-the-top ending.

 

    In addition to lots of thrills and spills, Rollins examines what might occur if an isolated landmass, in this case Antarctica, is given millions of years to follow its own separate path of evolution.  In the real world, the Galapagos Islands give us a glimpse of what can happen, so does the second excerpt, below.

 

    There are a bunch of creatures for our adventurers to meet and flee from, usually unsuccessfully.  Listing them here would be a spoiler, but my favorite one was nicknamed “Tiny Tim” and is very definitely not the urchin from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

 

    Both the good guys and the baddies suffer some casualties along the way, and everything builds to an over-the-top, boffo ending.  All the plotlines get tied up, and there’s even some literary space for a sequel although I don’t think James Rollins ever penned one.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 3,429 ratings and 767 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.02/5 based on 26,250 ratings and 946 reviews.

Excerpts...

    “I have a proposal to—”

    “Not interested.”  She pointed to the door.  “You and your entourage can hit the trail now.  Thanks anyway.”

    “If you’ll only lis—”

    “Don’t make me toss your butt outta here.”  She snapped her arms toward the screen door.

    “It pays a hundred grand for two months’ work.”

    “Just get your—”  Her arm dropped to her side.  Clearing her throat, she stared at Dr. Blakely, then raised an eyebrow.  “Now I’m listening.”  (pg. 10)

 

    She helped him sit up and raised a cup to his lips.  With shaky hands, he collected the cup and managed himself.

    “What happened?” he asked, glancing at Khalid, who now snored quietly from under the wet cloth.

    She explained the story of poisonous fungal spores while he finished his water.

    He handed her the cup.  “Is there anything down here that doesn’t want to eat us?”

    She grinned at him.  “This is a hostile environment.  I think for anything to survive it must learn to utilize the scarce resources to the fullest.  That means intense competition and varied modes of attack.”

    “Great.   What’s next?  Carnivorous butterflies?”  (pg. 206)

 

“Great, we’ve been captured by a bunch of kangaroos.”  (pg. 246)

    There’s not much to nitpick about in Subterranean.  I counted 21 instances of profanity in the first 10% of the book, and there were a couple of rolls-in-the-hay later on.  That’s pretty normal for a thriller novel.  I only caught one typo, breech/breach, so the editing was very good.

 

    The timing of some of the action scenes and heroes reuniting with each other seemed incredibly coincidental at times; such as Tiny Tim’s ultimate contribution to the action.  But hey, if it heightens the excitement, I’m all for it.  My biggest quibble concerns the stereotypical portrayal of one of the bad guys.  Just for once, can we please build a character from the Middle East who isn’t a brainwashed, murderous, zealot based on his religion and ethnicity?

 

    But I quibble.  Overall, I thought this was a solid debut Action-Adventure novel by James Rollins which showcases his literary and storytelling talents and hints at more exciting novels being penned by this author as he gets comfortable in this genre.

 

    8½ Stars.  One last thing.  I liked that the outcome of Subterranean would have a permanent impact on our world.  Creatures and beings we didn’t know are about to emerge  from the depths of Antarctica, and the only event to compare it to would be the (re)-discovery of the New World by Europeans in 1492.  I for one would love see what James Rollins could do with such a scenario.

Something The Cat Dragged In - Charlotte MacLeod

   1983; 232 pages.  Book 4 (out of 10) in the “Peter Shandy Mystery” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Amateur Sleuths; Murder Mystery.  Overall Rating : 6½*/10.

 

    Betsy Lomax’s cat, Edmund, has once again brought something dead into the house.  Something red.  Something furry.  Probably a chipmunk or squirrel that he caught.

 

    Hey, that red stuff looks like human hair, not fur!  Jeez, did Edmund scalp somebody?

 

    Ah, fortunately, it’s not real hair, it’s a toupee.  Betsy even recognizes it; it belongs to one of her tenants, Professor Herbert Ungley.  But that’s odd, he’s very vain about wearing it.  He wouldn’t be caught dead without it.  Betsy had better go check on him.  Maybe something’s happened to Ungley.

 

    Maybe Edmund caught the professor, “dead with it”.

 

What’s To Like...

    Something The Cat Dragged In is set in the fictional town of Balaclava Junction, located somewhere close to Boston.  It is home to a small university, Balaclava Agricultural College, where Peter Shandy, our protagonist, is a professor.  In his spare time he solves murder-mysteries.

 

    As the above introduction indicates, the sleuthing starts immediately, when Betsy Lomax’s cat deposits Professor Ungley’s hairpiece on the floor.  Ungley’s body is found behind the meetinghouse of a fraternal group called the Balaclavian Society, which is where he was known to have given a speech earlier in the evening.  Sheriff Fred Ottermole and Peter Shandy are summoned and an investigation begins.

 

    The main question at the start is whether Ungley’s demise was an accident or due to foul play.  For the possibility of it being a murder, the storyline provides us with lots of suspects and lots of motives.  It was fun to watch our pair of sleuths make do with the skimpy resources a small town offers, and being a chemist by trade, I was happy to see the college’s chemistry professor, Professor Joad, contribute to the solving of the case via vital lab results. 

 

    Charlotte MacLeod infuses a lot of wit into the text, courtesy of a number of quirky-but-quaint characters.  She also manages to slip in a few more serious bits of insight, particularly those involving populist and pro-agriculture topics.  Plowing up farmland to make way for more housing developments is a sore subject for her.  Something The Cat Dragged In is also a wordsmith’s delight: if you enjoy being introduced to new words, you’ll love this book.  Some samples of new words (at least for me) are given below.

 

    The ending is okay, although not exactly packed with action.  Shandy comes up with a dubious scenario, then skirts a few legalities to determine whether it’s the real motive.  Once that’s confirmed, it’s just a matter of coaxing Sheriff Ottermole into assisting with the round-up of miscreants.  Things wrap up cozily.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 515 ratings and 46 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.92/5 based on 1,067 ratings and 69reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Shemozzle (n.): a state of chaos and confusion; a muddle (Yiddish).

Others: Redd (v.); Welter (n.) Swivet (n.); Interlarded (v.) Nobbling (v.); Josser (n.) Braw (adj.).

 

Excerpts...

    Professor Daniel Stott of the Animal Husbandry Department, a man not easily aroused to wrath, had waxed hot in defense of the genus Sus when somebody had been so injudicious as to call Claude a swine.  In Stott’s considered opinion, the district would have been far better advised to elect a sensible, well-disposed, right-thinking sow or boar to the seat Claude now occupied.  The local Plowmen’s Political Action Committee was said to be taking Stott’s recommendation under advisement.  (loc. 781)

 

    “Who are you?”

    “My name is Shandy.”

    “Well, well!”  This must be the deposed soap king in person.  “The great Professor Shandy, as I live and breathe, deigning to grace my humble abode.  Edna Jean, you damn fool, why didn’t you have brains enough to slam the door in his face?”  (loc. 2494)

 

Kindle Details…

    Something The Cat Dragged In presently sells for $9.99 at Amazon.  The other nine books in the series range in price from $1.99 to $11.99, which is quite a wide range.  Charlotte MacLeod several other series, including the 5-book Grub-&-Stakers series and the 12-book Sarah Kelling & Max Bittersohn set.

 

“For your future enlightenment, young lady, there’s only one ‘s’ in bastard.”  (loc. 1528)

    There are a couple things to quibble about.  Goodreads labels Something The Cat Dragged In a cozy mystery, and certainly has that “feel” to it, except that there’s way too much profanity.  I counted 22 instances in the first 25% of the book.  To be fair though, most of the cussing is courtesy of just one character, and there were no f-bombs.

 

    There are quite a few characters to meet and greet, many of whom are introduced with absolutely no backstory.  I suspect this means they’re recurring characters from the earlier three books in the series.  There are also references to earlier happenings, such as something involving “Silo Supporters”, but no details about the incident are given.  My recommendation therefore is to read this series in order.

 

    There were only a couple of typos, such as staffs/staff’s and entree/entry, so I was impressed with the editing.  But the one instance of verbal Hispanic condescension, “Steppo asideo, sister”, seemed dated.

 

    All in all, this was an okay tale, but it didn’t blow me away.  The reader makes the sleuthing rounds with Peter, meets lots of interesting suspects, but if you’re trying to solve the case before he does, forget about it.  It’s beginning to dawn on me that this may be a standard approach for cozy mysteries.  I reminded me of “Murder She Wrote”.

 

    6½ Stars.  One last thing.  Late in the investigation, Peter contemplates possible reasons for some odd actions by a few of the suspects.  His first thought is that they’d been “blind drunk”, but he then wonders if they “smoked peyote” or were “growing hallucinogenic mushrooms” in some dusty corners of the meetinghouse.  It made me wonder what kind of research Peter, and the author, did to entertain this possibility.

Mission Clockwork - Arthur Slade

   2018; 251 pages.  Book 1 (out of 4) in the “Mission Clockwork” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Steampunk; Young Adult & Teen; England; Historical Fiction.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    Modo hasn’t had an easy life so far.  Very few hunchbacks do.  Especially when they have a hideous face to go along with the grotesquely bent spinal column.

 

    Modo is presently doing what most hunchbacks do: he’s in a cage in a traveling freak show called “Merveilles et Mort”.  This is in 19^th century England, when there’s no such thing as child labor laws.  Modo is one year old.

 

    Right now, there’s a gentleman right outside Modo’s cage, staring at him, and offering good money to buy Modo from the show’s proprietor.   How odd.  But there’s method to the gentleman’s madness.  He’s heard that the boy-hunchback has a secret talent.

 

    He’s been told that Modo is a shape-shifter.

 

What’s To Like...

    Mission Clockwork is set in Victorian-era London, primarily in the poorer, darker neighborhoods, and both aboveground, including the rooftops, and underground, especially the sewers.  One of my recent reads, Terry Pratchett’s Dodger, was set in the same time and place, and it was fun to revisit it.

 

    It’s not a spoiler to reveal why Modo’s new owner, Mr. Socrates, bought him.  Socrates runs a British intelligence agency, and sees a huge potential in anyone who can self-rearrange his facial and body characteristics.  Modo is content; he has a personal combat trainer named Tharpa, and a kindly caretaker, Mrs. Finchley, both at Mr. Socrates' expense.  It’s a much better life than being locked in a cage with people gawking at you.

 

    The first task assigned by Socrates to Modo is to infiltrate a secret group of terrorists that is rumored to be plotting some sort of spectacular destruction in London in the near future.  Efforts to infiltrate the group thus far have been fruitless, but perhaps a shape-shifter can succeed.  Now, after years of training and upbringing, the teenaged Modo is ready to go out and do some official reconnaissance work.  There is, of course, some risk to his life, but hey, such sacrifices are occasionally necessary for Queen and Country.

 

    I liked that Modo’s special talent, while unique, also has limitations.  Yes, he can transform himself into someone else just by studying them for a bit.  And yes, it feels good to not have that ugly face and uncomfortably large growth on his back for a change.  But the transformation wears off after a short while, usually in a matter of hours, so Modo is always under a time constraint when using it.

 

    The ending is both spectacular and exciting.  It's a bit over-the-top, but that's standard fare in a “YA-ish” tale.  The main storyline is resolved, evil plans are thwarted, and Modo experiences his finest hour.  Mission Clockwork is both a standalone novel, and the first book in a series.  There is an short excerpt from Book 2, Mission Clockwork: The Dark Deeps, to close things out.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Knacker (n.) : someone who buys up old horses, then kills them for their meat, bones, and/or leather.

Others: Costermongers (n., plural).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.2/5 based on 269 ratings and 84 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.63/5 based on 3,574 ratings and 459 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    When Octavia had been a child in the orphanage, she had often dreamed a man would come to rescue her.  He would say, “I‘m your father and my ship was wrecked.  That is why you are here in the orphanage.  Now I can take you home.”  Or he would be a rich uncle.  As she grew older, she hoped it would be a young prince, and she pictured him so frequently that she could actually see his face.  In the end no one came, so one day she left on her own and began her life as a pickpocket.  (loc. 988)

 

    “I can read.”

    “Well, congratulations, Modo.”  She floated over and grabbed the book from his hands.  “Ah, Hamlet.  He’s too much of a gabber, that boy.  Wouldn’t survive a second in our world.”

    “It’s Shakespeare!”  He raised a hand as though on the stage.  “‘O, that this too too solid flesh would melt/Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!’  See!  It’s marvellous!”

    “Marvellously boring.  Though there is a good sword fight at the end.”  (loc. 1983)

 

Kindle Details…

    Mission Clockwork is usually priced at $2.99 at Amazon, although today and for a very limited time it is free!  The other three books in the series normally go for $2.99 (Book 2), or $3.99 (Books 3 and 4), and right now they too are discounted to $0.99 apiece, so I snapped them up.  This appears to be a completed series, but the author also has a more-recent 5-book YA fantasy series for you in e-book format titled the Dragon Assassin.

 

“I nodded off and fell into a story.”  (loc. 195)

    The nitpicking about Mission Clockwork is minor.  This is a “Teen and Young Adult” book, so I didn’t note any cusswords or adult situations cropping up.  You’d think that would make it a boring read for me, since I’m much older than the target audience, but that wasn’t the case at all.

 

    The book is written in Canadian, which is logical since the author grew up in Saskatchewan.  Therefore you occasionally run into weird spellings such as favourite, and greying, but at least worlds like judgments and recognized are spelled in “Yankee” fashion.  I spotted a couple of typos, such as Her/He, and wolf like/wolflike, plus one uncapitalized first word in a sentence: humour.  Overall though, I thought the editing was done well.

 

    Consistent with its target audience being Teen-&-Young-Adult, the storyline contains lots of action, with very little blood and gore, despite a couple of fatalities occurring along the way.  Yet it still entertained me from beginning to end, and I'm way out of the target age bracket.

    So if you’re looking for a kewl Steampunk adventure, set in a fascinating historical time period, loaded with thrills, intrigue, and having a hunchback shape-shifter for a protagonist, Mission Clockwork will be a perfect match for you.  Regardless of your age.

 

    8½ Stars.  We should not neglect to mention the story’s costar, young Octavia Milkweed, who is also one of Mr. Socrates’ agents.  She and Modo start off on the wrong foot, then spend a lot of time learning to work together, and more importantly, trust one another.  It all works out, of course, and I'm fairly certain  (is that an oxymoron?) that Octavia is going to become a recurring character.  But will she also be the catalyst for this series developing a Coming-of-Age plotline?  Who knows, but stay tuned.

Otherlands - Thomas Halliday

    2022; 305 pages.  Full Title: Otherlands – A Journey Through Earth’s Extinct Worlds.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Paleontology; Paleobiology; Ancient History; Evolution.  Overall Rating : 9½*/10.

 

    Here's a brief recap of our planet’s existence, as given in the introduction of Otherlands:

 

    The geological history of the Earth stretches back about 4.5 billion years.  Life has existed on this planet for about four billion years, and life larger than single-celled organisms for perhaps two billion years.   (…)  If all 4.5 billion years of Earth’s history were to be condensed into a single day and played out, more than three million years of footage would go by every minute.  (…)  The mass extinction event that extinguished pterosaurs, plesiosaurs and all non-bird dinosaurs would occur 21 minutes before the end.  Written human history would begin in the last tenth of a second.

 

    In short, very little of Earth’s history involves us humans.  Even the dinosaurs are relatively late arrivals.  A great number of plants and animals have appeared, in the seas and on the land masses of our planet.  Most of them have since disappeared.

 

    What happened to them?  What conditions, or changes to their habitat, caused them to become extinct?  It might behoove us homo sapiens to study these past inhabitants of our world, and determine the reasons for their demise, so that we can avoid, or at least delay, our own departure.

 

What’s To Like...

    I liked the way Otherlands was structured.  After an overview introduction, Thomas Halliday works backward through time, dividing the subject matter into 16 chapters.  The first six are the relatively recent epochs (such as the Eocene) going from 12,000 years ago to 66 million.  The next ten are classified as periods (such as the Jurassic), and take the reader back to 635 million years ago.  Things close with an Epilogue which focuses on where our present world might be heading, extinction-wise.

 

    Each chapter generally starts with a description of some portion of the world during that epoch/period, then proceeds to detail some extinction event, which may be gradual or sudden.  My favorite chapters were:

    #02 (Pliocene – first humans),

    #03 (Miocene – filling the Mediterranean Sea),

    #06 (Paleocene - the Chicxulub asteroid),

    #10 (Permian – Pangaea),

    #14 (Ordovician – Gondwana)

 

    Each chapter starts off with a map of the world during that age (important, since landmasses and tectonic plates are constantly shifting) and features an awesome illustration of some animal or plant that lived during that time.  There’s a handy "Table of Eras" chart in the front; bookmark it, you’ll be referring to it a lot.  The title reference is on page xiii of the Introduction, and kudos to whoever set up the links to Notes; they worked great!

 

    I was introduced to a couple of neat acronyms along the way, including LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor) and mya (million years ago).  I also learned some evolutionary tips, such as why chicken legs are dark meat but chicken breasts are white meat; and why zebras developed black and white stripes.  See the end of this review for the answer to that last one.

 

Kewlest New Word…

Regurgitalite (n.) : Fossilized vomit.

Others: Outwith (prep.); Schiltrom (n.); Catawampus (adj.); Jouking (n.); Stramash (n.); Eyot (n.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 580 ratings and 86 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.14/5 based on 3,495 ratings and 568 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    The hot Pangaean wind is rising, and from the top of the Earth, the Arctic is about to send down a blast unlike any other.  Siberia is about to erupt.  When it does, it will expel 4 million cubic kilometres of lava – enough to fill the modern-day Mediterranean Sea – which will flood an area the size of Australia.  That eruption will tear through recently formed coal beds, turning the Earth into a candle, and drifting coal ash and toxic metals over the land, transforming watercourses into deadly slurries.  Oxygen will boil from the oceans; bacteria will bloom and produce poisonous hydrogen sulphide.  The foul-smelling sulphides will infuse the seas and skies.  Ninety-five per cent of all species of Earth will perish in what will become known as the Great Dying.  (loc. 3071)

 

    Focusing on your hand in front of your face, you will not see in detail the pictures on the wall beyond.  However, the eyes of some trilobites, in existence by the late Cambrian, are bifocal, using a lens made of two materials with different refractive properties.  This allows them to simultaneously focus on small objects floating only a few millimetres away and far objects, theoretically at an infinite distance, without any modification, an ability that few other species have ever evolved.  (loc. 4289)

 

Kindle Details…

    Right now, Otherlands is priced at $12.99 at Amazon.  This appears to be the only e-book Thomas Halliday offers, although it is available in several different languages.

 

Even in the early days of bilaterally symmetrical animals, it’s a worm-eat-worm world.  (loc. 4204)

    Finding anything to gripe about in Otherlands is challenging.  As you’d expect from a science book, there is no cussing.  The closest we come to that is the mention of a marine worm aptly named the “penis-worm”.  Anyone who finds that offensive is overreacting.

 

    Some reviewers didn’t like the Epilogue’s message that things like global warming, deforestation, and carbon emissions could lead (or is already leading) our planet into a new Extinction phase.  They’re entitled to their opinions, but Science is on the author’s side on this issue.

 

    The Amazon page for Otherlands will tell you that the Kindle version is 409 pages long.  Don’t let that length deter you from picking up this book; the last one hundred pages are Notes and a Glossary.  The text stops at page 305.

 

    Finally, be aware that the author was born and raised in the highlands of Scotland.  So you get some “un-American” words and spellings such as encyclopaedia, outwith, plough, sough, scarper, faeces, and the indecipherable quango.  The unit of weight for 2,000 pounds is for some reason spelt two ways: tons and tonnes.  But cheer up, at least the “z” words like fertilize are spelt correctly, unlike in that crazy language the English use.

 

    But these are all petty quibbles.  I found Otherlands to be a fascinating and enlightening read.  I could see the progression (albeit, in reverse order) of life as it developed on this planet, struggled to cope with fluctuations in its habitat, and adapted-or-perished as a result.  We’ll close this review with one last bit of wisdom from the book that is applicable to another threat to our existence: overpopulation.

 

“Migration cannot save a population if there is nowhere to go.”

 

    9½ Stars.  Why do zebras have stripes, you ask?  Because the pattern prevents flying insects from being able to easily judge landing distances at close range.  So a striped zebra ends up suffering less insect bites than an unstriped one.