TBR Challenge - 2 down, 10 to go (****)!

Jeffrey Barlough's "Strange Cargo" was the first domino to drop. The challenge of making a list and attacking it had got under my skin so I decided to dive right into a second title on my challenge. Of course, it didn't hurt at all that Harry Harrison's "West of Eden" had been selected as the group read of the month for January. Bonus! Here's my 4-star review:

With “West of Eden”, Harry Harrison’s abundantly fertile imagination has posited a unique and intensely challenging alternate history. What if dinosaurs had avoided extinction and evolved into a sentient, intelligent, technology-savvy species vying for supremacy on an ice age earth with a less advanced homo sapiens still struggling at the hunter-gatherer stage of evolution?

As global weather patterns deteriorate and the ice age earth begins to chill precipitately, the human Tanu species find themselves pushed into contact with the reptilian Yilanè species. What starts as a lack of understanding and inability to communicate with one another escalates into armed territorial conflict and ultimately festers into intense hatred and an all-out war that can only culminate in complete extermination of one or the other species. Kerrick, a young boy and the sole survivor of a human group of hunters slaughtered by a Yilanè scouting party, is imprisoned by his enemy and grows to manhood among them. Learning their language and culture, he adapts to survive and his links to humankind fade to a distant and all but irretrievable memory. Ultimately, events force those memories to the surface and Kerrick escapes. He struggles to re-learn his true place in the world and becomes the only warrior with the knowledge and skills capable of leading the Tanu to ultimate victory over the rapacious Yilanè.

Harrison’s creations in “West of Eden” are, to say the least thought provoking. The fascinating science of the story, both hard and soft, has clearly been thought through most carefully – genetic engineering and the use of bio-technology at a time when those fields of scientific endeavour were all but embryonic in real-life; the creation of a language and syntax that is obviously (and correctly so) tied closely to Yilanè culture, custom and physiology; the plausible anthropological development of a society that is based on a matriarchal lineage with a class structure that in some respects bears a resemblance to ants or bees.

Our status as readers will be primarily human (at least I expect so)! Inevitably, most of us human readers will slot the Yilanè into the bad-guy role of the novel and our natural prejudices will find us cheering the Tanu on to victory. This almost unavoidable characterization (good guy/bad guy, Tanu/Yilanè) will probably lead many critical readers to the conclusion that Harrison was also using “West of Eden” as a platform to express his personal objections to the US participation in the Vietnam War – a belligerent, spiteful, technologically superior nation (the Yilanè US) attempting to overpower the Vietcong Tanu, a more agrarian society seeking only to maintain their more earthy way of life. The analogy comes complete with a metaphor for the US draft dodgers and conscientious objectors – see if you don’t agree as you read about “The Daughters of Death”!

A fascinating combination of conflict and high adventure, convincing science and alternate history make “West of Eden” a novel well worth the reading for any fan of quality science fiction.

Paul Weiss

A thrilling finale to a superb trilogy (*****)!

“The Book of the Dead” is everything a thriller fan could hope for – a page-turning, unputdownable, thrilling, decadently readable, thoroughly entertaining, slam bang finale to a colourful, imaginative trilogy!

The basic plot premise is simplicity itself! FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast’s younger brother Diogenes has announced his plan to execute a mysteriously undefined perfect crime. As a result of intense psychological examination, Pendergast has determined that this crime is to be Diogenes’ revenge for a childhood sin perpetrated against his younger brother, the nature of which has been completely suppressed in Pendergast’s unconscious memories! The dastardly crime must be prevented at all costs despite Pendergast not knowing even the tiniest detail of Diogenes’ actual intentions! The story gallops at breakneck speed from crisis to crisis as the life or death clash between Pendergast and his psychopathic megalomaniacal brother escalates to a thrilling climax but we are privileged to watch it being played out with masterful attention to character building, dialogue, detail, pacing and clever ratcheting or release of tension!

As we have come to expect from their previous work, Preston and Child have once again packed their tale with a dazzling myriad of mini-plots that have afforded them a number of stages from which they could also deliver a series of wildly entertaining and informative lectures – the politics and history of Egyptian archeology; the religious beliefs and burial practices of the ancient Egyptians; the nature of security in a modern maximum security prison built for incorrigible offenders; the logistical details of mounting a world class exhibit in a modern museum; the potential for neurological damage caused by intense light and high volume sound bombardment; the trivia of diamond classification, colour, cut and value; and, arcane details of forensic evidence examination such as the study of knots or cloth; to name only a few examples.

Readers who have observed Pendergast’s growing resemblance to Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes in the novels which preceded “The Book of the Dead” will shiver with a frisson of delight at the tumultuous Reichenbach Falls style climax which takes place on the very flanks of Mount Stromboli in Sicily. When Pendergast announced his intentions to retire to a period of solitude and contemplation at a Tibetan monastery, I quietly sent up a short prayer to the writing gods with the fervent hope that Lincoln and Child bring Pendergast back for a 21st century version of “The Final Problem”! Quiet retirement or beekeeping would not suit Pendergast any better than it did Holmes.

And, by the way, be very, very sure that you read this novel right to the very last sentence … and what a last sentence it is!

Oh yeah … did I say that I enjoyed the novel?

Paul Weiss

Scientific brain candy, lovingly prepared!

This time it’s not the Appalachians or England.

In “A Short History of Nearly Everything”, Bill Bryson has taken his readers on an exciting, informative and always entertaining tour of both the history of science and the details of the science itself. Essays covering an eclectic diversity of scientific topics ranging from the Big Bang and quantum physics, to paleontology, geology, biology, pandemics, genetics, evolution, glaciation, plate tectonics, weather patterns, volcanism and beyond are pitched at the perfect level to be accessible to the layman without being patronizing to a reader who happens to be more informed about a particular topic. Even the most esoterically learned science-ready polymath will find at least one or two of the topics set at a level high enough to be challenging as well.

Beautiful illustrations peppered throughout the text, a dash of humour and cynicism plus a wonderful series of amusing anecdotes and side bars make “A Short History of Nearly Everything” a delicious confection of eye candy and brain candy. The multiplicity and diversity of the ideas covered means that “A Short History of Nearly Everything” can be read in bite-sized chunks with the interested reader taking a random walk through the book starting at virtually any paragraph on any page. But the intelligent organization of the topics and the chronology that Bryson follows also guarantees a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience for those that want to travel from first page to last in order!

Science-phobes take note! If you’ve been looking for a way to set your fears aside, “A Short History of Nearly Everything” just might be the ticket you’ve been looking for. Highly recommended.

Paul Weiss

STRANGE CARGO (*** A Victorian Ice Age?)

I made these comments in a review of Barlough's earlier novel The House in the High Wood but, frankly, they bear repeating for Strange Cargo, his third novel. Barlow's very special blend of writing styles is probably unique in today's literature and gives us a novel that defies classification. One can say, I suppose, that it represents a delicious blend of Lovecraft, Collins or Poe's version of tension and horror, Brooks' ideas of a modern, dark, urban fantasy and the very best of Dickensian characterization, complex and intricately described environments with superbly comic dialogue and story-telling. But to say that is to suggest somehow that Barlough's efforts are derivative and that is selling him far too short. Barlough's style is quite clearly his own and he has mastered it completely.

Nantle, a small seacoast town and sailor's haunt in Barlough's special universe in which the Ice Age has never ended and a small Victorian population live side by side with saber tooth tigers, woolly mammoths and mastodons, plays host to two simultaneous story lines.

In the first, Miss Jane Wastefield arrives seeking Gilbert Thistlewood with whom she has corresponded. Wastefield, at her wit's end, needs his promised help in ridding herself of a malevolent mirror, a gift she received on her twenty-first birthday, which she keeps locked inside a traveling trunk. The mirror, reflecting eerie visions of a long dead society reminiscent of a fantastic Greece in which monsters and evil demi-gods hold sway, threatens Miss Wastefield's very sanity and, despite her best efforts, refuses to be parted from its owner.

In the second, the Cargo family and their solicitor, Mr Arthur Liffey, seek out Jerry Squailes, the mysteriously elusive beneficiary of a significant piece of their grandfather's estate. This particular sub-plot is more recognizable as the product of the combined influences of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. We are witness to a superbly crafted detective story involving skullduggery, fraudulent wills and, ultimately, even the appearance of a wonderfully traditional Victorian ghost.

Unfortunately, the two plot lines, while they bump into one another and occasionally interact, never conjoin and become inter-dependent. I finished the novel with the distinct feeling that Barlough had two independent ideas sufficient unto themselves for a novella length story and felt compelled to shoehorn them together in order to produce something with sufficient length to be classed as a novel. This left me with a mystifying and disturbing sense of non-completion even though both stories wound down with nothing that even the most particular reader could classify as a loose end. It somehow just didn't seem quite right!

That said, Barlough's style and his mastery of dialogue, characterization and scene setting is more than enough to justify reading his work and I'll look eagerly for that next novel in this very special world.

Paul Weiss

AM I THE ONLY ONE?

The ideals of Olympic competition , "citius, altius, fortius", the sweat, the teamwork, the glories of the medal podium, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, the camaraderie of teamwork and the chill of a stadium full of delirious fans! It's all pretty heady stuff, to be sure ... and I've always been a fan of a good game of virtually any sport well-contested.

But I can't be the only jaded ex-sports fan who has the lost the zest for sitting in the stands savoring these bygone thrills because I now believe the system is seriously confused and has lost its way!

This morning I woke to hear the news report of a 5 year contract for $250 million US dollars ... for a soccer player! Puhleeze, I don't care how skilled the man is. I don't care about his celebrity and I frankly don't give a jot for what anyone expects he might bring to the US game of soccer.

Now, I don't begrudge the man his living and I'm the first to acknowledge that his skills probably represent the pinnacle of world achievement in the sport of kicking a ball around a soccer pitch. But surely even the most drooling, rabid fan can stop a moment and come to the realization that no footballer - indeed, no sportsman at any skill level in any sport - can possibly justify that sort of compensation.

And do you know what it would take to have the team owners and the players snap to attention and return to reality instantly - one game played to a completely empty stadium and a nation of television sets left turned off. If the fans chose to convey that message even just once, it would be unmistakable and I've no doubt it would be heard and acted upon!

And what if the players and owners were still thick-headed enough to misunderstand the message? The advertisers would be walking and ultimately money will still do the talking. The whole house of cards comes tumbling down and sportsmen will perhaps return to playing the game with fundamental values that, for now at least, are hibernating!

EMPTY FAT CELLS AND EXCESS SKIN!

Help me out, ladies! Please ...

Have any of you new mothers found a natural moisturizing product that works to restore elasticity to the skin that was ultra-stretched as a result of your pregnancy? I admit that I'm thrilled at the weight loss I've achieved but I'd like to really cap it off by rejuvenating the tone in the skin that was rather badly stretched over that formerly overweight beer-belly! I'm working on the six pack but nobody's ever going to see it if I can't achieve a little more tone in the skin that's covering it!

DANCE OF DEATH - Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (****)

Blindly leaping off the edge of the cliffhanger which Preston and Child left us poised upon at the end of "Brimstone", "Dance of Death" quickly moves the rivalry and hatred between FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast and his demented brother Diogenes to centre stage. Pendergast has come to the realization that Diogenes' plan is to utterly destroy his life by killing anyone near and dear to him - colleagues, mentors, friends, his fragile ward, Constance Green and, God forbid, Viola Maskelene, the lady who appears to have stolen Pendergast's heart!

Like any good thriller, the novel entertains us in passing with some red herring sub-plots - the Dangler affair, a sad-sack perv who exposes himself to the security cameras at bank ATMs; and the rather more topical and interesting Sacred Images exhibition at the New York Museum of Natural History that highlights the ongoing conflict between modern man and aboriginal cultures and religions. But centre stage is reserved for Diogenes' evil machinations and Pendergast's efforts to thwart his plans!

With every page turned, Preston and Child's uncanny characters will move further and further into the realm of reality in the minds of a reader. In an almost eerie re-incarnation of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, invested by fans to this very day with a life well beyond Doyle's writings, Pendergast too becomes warm-hearted and human as his affection for Lieutenant D'Agosta, his very own Watson, rises to the surface. That Pendergast (like Holmes) is devastated and grief-stricken over his own failures is obvious as he drives himself to extreme personal sacrifice to protect Lady Maskelene, his own Irene Adler. One can almost imagine Pendergast, in a refined Southern drawl, referring to her as "that woman"!

Preston and Child's almost trademarked diverting sidebars into science and beyond - details of the forensic investigation into the minutiae of murder scene clues; the disturbing ethical conflicts faced by modern anthropologists and museums; the trivia of diamond classification, colours, cuts and values; the technology of modern building security; and legal requirements for the involuntary commitment of the mentally ill, for example - are not neglected ... and I, for one, enjoy these well placed sidelines of fascinating detail. But, as the three-part story picks up pace, plot and character development, driven by sparkling dialogue, grab the lion's share of the novel's pages!

The break between "Dance of Death" and "The Book of the Dead" is natural enough but - make no mistake - it is little more than a pause in the action. I turned the final page on one, took a sip from my martini and immediately cracked the cover on the next to continue the story. I'm sure you will too!

Paul Weiss

(It's an uphill battle to overtake Harriet Klausner at Amazon but maybe, just maybe, with your votes and support it might be possible ... the review is located at http://tinyurl.com/yzhq4z )

THE CHRYSALIDS - John Wyndham (*****)

At a time in some unspecified distant future after a nuclear war has left much of the world a barren, poisonous wasteland, David Strorm, Sophie Wender and Rosalind Morton live in Waknuk, a small agriculturally focused community in central Labrador. With modern technology yet to be re-invented, the strict religious fundamental beliefs of this still primitive community label the apocalypse as "Tribulation", a punishment visited by God upon the "old people" for their sins. Genetic variations and mutations, now commonplace (no doubt as a result of higher worldwide radiation levels), are seen as evil. "Deviant" crops and animals are burnt. Humans with even the most minor mutations from their highest religious ideal, a physical norm which the community calls God's "True Image", are labeled as blasphemies and are killed outright or banished to eke out their future existence in a wildly savage outlying area called "The Fringes".

When the community discovers that David and Rosalind together with a small group of other young people have developed the ability to communicate telepathically, they are forced to flee for their lives. They are re-united with their friend Sophie, earlier banished to the Fringes for the disgusting aberration of having six toes instead of the normal five. David's younger sister, Petra, able to communicate her thoughts with a power and at a distance far beyond any of the other children discovers the presence of others like them in a distant community who mount a campaign to rescue the children from their persecutors.

In "The Chrysalids", John Wyndham has mounted a vicious attack on religious fundamentalism, bigotry, intolerance and narrow-mindedness. Analytical readers will be mindful of the irony in the closing chapters as it is clear that the more advanced community is as repressive and intolerant as the community from which the children fled. Wyndham leaves us with the unresolved open question as to whether Man's evolution into a new species will perforce require the extinction of the remaining members of the previous species.

Wyndham's characters, his easy-going unforced and completely natural dialogue, his heartwarming portrayal of children at play, a mother's grief-stricken tragedy as she tries to protect her children from religious attack, and the faltering growth of love between young men and women will all remind classic science fiction fans of the pastoral easy reading style of Clifford D Simak, another giant of the genre.

If you've yet to savour "The Chrysalids", a perennial front runner in the field of soft science fiction, I can't think of a better time than right now. Highly recommended indeed.

Paul Weiss

(For those that care to express their appreciation by voting on Amazon, the review is located at http://tinyurl.com/y7rntt )

I'VE REACHED MY GOAL!

Just three months on the Bernstein diet and, frankly, I'm blown away by how successful it's been. I started at 193 pounds, size 37 pants, 16 1/2 neck and a 44 chest in a suit jacket. By the greatest of coincidences, a local charity phoned us this evening and asked if we wanted to leave a load of clothing out for pick-up and, you guessed it, my wardrobe is now officially completely useless! I was thrilled to tell the person who called to "come and get 'em!" A whole collection of men's suits that I couldn't wear to save my soul!

I dropped into the local men's shop to buy the first installment of a new wardrobe. Size 40 jackets, size 32 pants, 15 1/2 neck on the shirts and I'm down to 150 pounds even. Not too bad for a former short fat guy!

The New Year's resolution is to keep the weight off now!

2007 TBR CHALLENGE

I've done it! I need another reading group like I need a hole in the head but I went ahead and joined one anyway.

The whole point of this group though is to reduce the size of Mt TBR as opposed to the other way round. The idea is to select 12 books that have been sitting around collecting cobwebs screaming at you from your library shelves for at least six months. The challenge is to actually read one of these books every month with the ultimate objective being the reduction of your pile of unread books! Great idea (in theory, LOL)!

For better or for worse, here's the list of titles I've selected plus a handful of alternates in the event that a bad mood reading demon decides to attack me and I can't bear the thought of cracking the spine on one of the titles yelling at me:

1. Strange Cargo – Jeffrey Barlough (fantasy)
2. The World is Flat – Thomas L Friedman (non-fiction, sociology)
3. Angels and Demons – Dan Brown (thriller)
4. The Angel of Darkness – Caleb Carr (historical fiction)
5. Vancouver – David Cruise and Alison Griffiths (historical fiction)
6. Dreaming the Eagle – Manda Scott (historical fiction)
7. Rite of Passage – Alexei Panshin (classic sci-fi)
8. The Man Who Mapped the Arctic – Peter Steele (history)
9. The Historian – Elizabeth Kostova (fantasy)
10. Dark Fire – CJ Sansom (historical fiction
11. Backbeat – J Frederick Arment (sci-fi)
12. The Lions of Al-Rassan – Guy Gavriel Kay (fantasy)

Alternates:

1. Colonization: Aftershocks – Harry Turtledove (sci-fi)
2. War of the Flowers – Tad Williams (fantasy)
3. Clothar the Frank – Jack Whyte (historical fiction)
4. West of Eden – Harry Harrison (sci-fi)

2006 #1 READ:

No doubt about it for me at all. Claiming honours for the top spot in my heart for 2006 (drum roll, please) ... "One Thousand White Women" by Jim Fergus.

Every once in a very long while, I am privileged to read a novel that is so compelling, so breathtaking and so utterly absorbing that I find myself holding my breath in awe as I turn the final page. "One Thousand White Women" is one of those novels!

In 1854 at a peace conference held at Fort Laramie, a prominent Cheyenne chief had the temerity (or so the white US Army negotiators thought) to request the gift of one thousand white women as brides for his warriors. Coming from the perspective of a man in a matrilineal society in which all children born belong to their mother's tribe, it seemed to be the perfect solution to the integration of white and native people, society and culture. In fact, white society of the day was appalled at the suggestion and the peace talks collapsed. This novel explores, in fiction, how events might have unfolded had the government acceded to the request and what the lives of the volunteer white brides might have been like in an aboriginal Cheyenne society that knew they were facing possible genocidal extinction in an unwelcoming modern world!

Fergus has done a positively masterful job crafting a fast-paced novel that could be read purely on the surface as a wonderful period piece in the 19th century American West! You'll find it all here - romance, knee-slapping humour, outrageous stereotypes, credible dialogue, a magnificent cast of wildly disparate characters, pathos, sex, violence, guns, battles, bravery and derring-do, political bafflegab and adventure!

But even a moment's pause will furrow more thinking readers' foreheads as they question their stance on a wide array of socially and politically charged issues that persist even to this day - racially mixed marriages; men's roles vs women's roles in both modern and nomadic hunter-gatherer societies; homosexuality; charges of pedophilia in Catholic and Christian ministry; the efficacy (or even validity) of overly zealous Christian missionaries in pagan societies; the current status of aboriginals in modern society; the perennial flouting of treaties between white and aboriginal society negotiated in good faith; the demise of aboriginal language; the forced placement of aboriginal people into reservations, white settlements and parochial schools; and so very many more.

"Must read" is a term far too loosely bandied about in this era of marketing of blockbuster best sellers but I put it to those who enjoy historical fiction that "One Thousand White Women" easily earns it! (I'm willing to lay odds that more than one reader will find themselves teary-eyed at the close of this novel).

2006 Top 10 Reads:

There were some very clear standouts for me this year so I really didn't encounter much difficulty preparing this particular list. I've allowed myself the luxury of counting three series as single representatives on the list but, that said, my top 10 reads for 2006 (in no particular order) were:

The Liveship Traders Trilogy – Robin Hobb (fantasy)

The Alienist – Caleb Carr (historical fiction)

Jarka Ruus – Terry Brooks (fantasy)

The Bartimaeus Trilogy – Jonathan Stroud (fantasy)

The Suspect – Michael Robotham (psychological thriller)

The Martian Race – Gregory Benford (contemporary sci-fi)

The Lincoln Lawyer – Michael Connelly (thriller, police procedural)

One Thousand White Women – Jim Fergus (historical fiction)

The Bleachers - John Grisham (general fiction)

Freakonomics – Steven D Levitt & Stephen J Dubner (non-fiction, economics)

Honourable mentions that came close to making the grade:

Murder in Grub Street - Bruce Alexander (historical fiction)

The Werewolf Principle - Clifford D Simak (classic sci-fi)

Longitude - Dava Sobel (non-fiction, history)