TBR Challenge 2007 (continued)

5 MONTHS IN AND WE'RE STILL LOOKING GOOD!

With spring well sprung and summer definitely into bloom, May has come and gone. But, I'm SIX titles into the challenge and I've actually started on the seventh. Amazing! Here's the list as it currently stands with completed titles italicized and highlighted in red (OK, OK, I've cheated a little and shown the one I'm only partway through as finshed as well). So sue me ... I'm still pretty proud of it and I've actually managed a teeny, tiny dent in Mt TBR to show for it!

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)

The Best of Stanley G Weinbaum (*****)

18 months of astonishing new writing ... and then gone!

Isaac Asimov called Stanley Weinbaum a nova who burst into the field of science fiction writing like an exploding star in 1934 with his debut short story "A Martian Odyssey". Perhaps super nova would have been a better euphemism because, like a supernova, Weinbaum not only exploded onto the scene but disappeared a scant 18 months after his first story was published, a victim of throat cancer. "The Best of Stanley Weinbaum" is a collection of short stories that, unfortunately, probably represents half of this astonishing writer's entire output.

Perhaps the greatest and most enduring charm of Weinbaum's stories rests with his collection of unique extra-terrestrial life - sentient, intelligent life that clearly had alien psychologies and motivations beyond human understanding. The most innovative feature of Weinbaum's collection of creatures was that they were not simply monstrous foils used to showcase the heroism of the human protagonists. Nor were they shallow anthropomorphized critters that merely happened to have green skin and six arms and legs. Tweel, the comical ostrich-like creature from "The Martian Odyssey" was Weinbaum's phenomenal response to John W Campbell's dictum "write me a creature who thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man". The outrageously bizarre intelligent plant "Oscar" from "The Lotus Eaters" challenged the thinking sci-fi reader in ways that had never been achieved up until that time. Indeed, a case may be made that no sci-fi writer has created this type of alien intelligence since.

Although current knowledge of our solar system has moved beyond what was available to Weinbaum in the thirties, his presentation of alien ecologies was fascinating, compelling and yet wholly believable in the context of the science of the day. His presentation of a hostile Venusian jungle in "The Parasite Planet" is positively chilling. Beyond that, even within the limitations of the short story format, Weinbaum also demonstrates the ability to create complete characters whose achievements matter to the reader. They are fleshed out utterly human down-to-earth "folks" with foibles, failings, happiness and sadness to accompany the heroism and feats of derring-do that are only to be expected in stories like this.

If you've never sampled Stanley Weinbaum, then you are in for a truly delicious treat. Read slowly and savour it, because, sadly, there is far too little of his work available. Highly, highly recommended!

Simple Genius (****) - David Baldacci

Wonderful Summer Escapist Thriller!

The seeds of Baldacci's latest novel "Simple Genius" are sowed a book earlier.

Mentally stressed beyond her ability to continue a normal life, Michelle Maxwell simply breaks down. Her horrifying experience in "Hour Game" with a boyfriend who turned out to be a serial killer and the continuing anguish of a deeply buried secret we will later learn she has carried with her since she was only six years old drives her into a potentially suicidal bar brawl with a complete stranger. Her long-time friend and investigative partner, Sean King, convinces her to check herself into a psychiatric hospital for rest, recuperation and serious examination of the demons she is encountering. Assuming full responsibility for the financial costs of this care, he desperately searches for work and accepts a contract to investigate the suicide (murder?) of Monk Turing, a quantum physicist and computer scientist working for Babbage Town, a high powered corporate think tank located across the York River from Camp Peary, a top secret CIA training facility. (That name, by the way - Turing, that is - is no coincidence!)

But like any good modern thriller, "Simple Genius" draws in far more detail, many more twists and turns, unexpected plot diversions and absorbing information than one would expect from this straightforward plot development in the opening chapters - the basics of public and private encryption keys and the related use of enormous numbers and their correspondingly huge prime factors; rogue CIA agents; the history of German POWs during WW II in New England; a treasure hunt from Colonial England and America's first days as an independent nation; the moral issues of civil rights as they apply to prisoners in the current wars on terror and drugs; hypnosis and the difficulties of diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses; and much more.

Like some of his high-powered peers in the thriller racket (Jonathan Kellerman, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child immediately come to mind), Baldacci's side bars on science, history, geography and politics are diverting, informative, interesting and entertaining without interrupting the timing and flow of the plot. This has got to be an art in its own right!

Highly recommended summer escapist reading! If you enjoy thrillers, you won't be sorry for taking a copy of this one to the beach or the cottage with you. And, thankfully, the door is left wide open for return appearances by Sean King and Michelle Maxwell.

How To Shit in the Woods - Kathleen Meyer (*****)

To the uninitiated, the art of having a dump in the woods probably seems no more complicated than "squat, squint, squeeze and squeegee"! But, alas, as the world shrinks and the use of the world's limited wilderness terrain by outdoor adventurers increases to the limit of the land's ability to withstand the stress of that use, it's just not that simple. When considerations such as ecology, weather, temperature, privacy, courtesy, hygiene, biodegradation, density of camping use in an area, terrain and so on are factored into the decision as to where and how to complete the necessary feat, all is not as simple as it would seem. The methods one should choose are as varied as the terrains one might choose to visit and the times of year in which those choices are made.

"How to Shit in the Woods" is a book that should be read by EVERY person who would choose to venture into the out of doors - whether you want to spend a weekend at the local campground or you're a hardcore toughened backwoodsman heading out into the bush for a week long solo canoe trip in Canada's northern boreal forest!

Be prepared for lots of silly toilet humour, hilarious anecdotes concerning toilet misadventures, lots of tongue-in-cheek jokes, a good number of belly laughs and a very earthy delivery to be sure - but the message ultimately is entirely serious and well worth the read! There is very little humorous when it concerns encountering the leavings of someone who trod the trail in front of you.

Highly recommended for campers of all stripes, sexes, ages and experience levels.

Klutz Book of Knots (*****)

In the outdoors, knowing and tying the right knot in the right circumstances can save your food, your canoe, your self respect and even your life. The "Klutz Book of Knots" is not the right choice for a sailor looking to win rigging contests. It certainly isn't the choice for someone looking to set records with the world's fanciest macramé creations. Nor is it appropriate for someone looking to begin a course in rock climbing. But it IS a superb primer of the very best set of basic and not quite so basic knot skills for someone who wants to develop an indispensable repertoire for use in the context of hiking, canoeing and backcountry camping - bowline, half hitches, tautline hitches, trucker's hitch, figure eight, double figure eight, figure eight on a bite, sheet bend and more.

You'll not only learn how to tie the knot but also how to tighten the knot and which context is correct for which knot. For example, you will learn that the choice between a bowline and two half-hitches depends on whether the rope you are working with needs to be snug to the attachment ring or post.

And what a brilliant idea ... the book's pages are made of heavy cardboard and are perforated so that the reader can practice with the supplied rope tying the knot to the page of the book directly over top of the illustration. Even a klutz can learn with great tools like that! Oh yeah ... I guess that's the whole point, isn't it?

And a bonus for those of us whose hiking boots or running shoes are constantly coming undone ... an absolutely bombproof way of tying up your shoes with a knot that simply will not loosen but is still a slip knot and comes undone with a simple one handed tug. I fell in love with that one! Highly recommended.

Burmese Days - George Orwell (*****)

Most lovers of English literature will be aware of George Orwell’s “1984” and “Animal Farm” but, sadly, few book lovers will have even heard of, let alone read, his scathing indictment of colonial British government rule in east Asia, “Burmese Days”. As Orwell’s parents and family were posted to Burma and were obviously participants in, if not supporters of this colonial imperialism, it is difficult to imagine how much putting such criticism and biting satire to paper might have cost Orwell on a personal level.

Like Thomas Hardy’s “The Mayor of Casterbridge”, this is an almost unremittingly dark novel with heroes that are at best deeply flawed. Orwell’s haunting and magnificently economical prose, is a gun turret mounted on a 360° swivel that is brought to bear on every character in the novel in turn.

Flory, a white timber merchant with an embarassingly insipid weak personality befriends Veraswami, a local Burmese doctor who, inexplicably, seems to be an avid supporter of the British colonial government. When Veraswami’s name is floated as the possible token native member of the British “club”, the hostile reaction is immediate and visceral. Flory seems overwhelmed and is simply unable to muster the courage necessary to stand up to the demands of his peers who insist on maintaining an institutionalized prejudice against the local “niggers”. Veraswami comes under attack on a second front from U Po Kyin, the utterly corrupt Burmese magistrate who covets the European patronage to enhance his own wealth and prestige. Beautiful Elizabeth Lackersteen – now there’s a character! If this novel were placed in the US, she would have been a “flapper”! Today she would simply be written off as a vapid airhead! But, in “Burmese Days”, she represents the worst of decadent imperial decline.

“Burmese Days” is not easy or comfortable reading. I felt at times queasy, often appalled, frequently saddened and even embarrassed that bigotry, hatred and corruption at this level is clearly a part of my heritage. Sadly, we are not yet able to claim we have grown completely past this type of behaviour but perhaps it is to our credit that people like Orwell had the courage to commit this to paper solely for the purpose of making us aware of our own shortcomings and that we are to this day profoundly uncomfortable when we read it!

Highly recommended.

The Alexandria Link - Steve Berry (***)

The world is a poorer place for the sad and never satisfactorily explained disappearance of the Ptolemy's amazing library at Alexandria. With the possible exception of the current collections of the Library of Congress or the Vatican, the Alexandria Library was probably the greatest accumulation of the world's knowledge in history. And it's all gone. But Steve Berry has cleverly parlayed that germ of an idea, the missing library, into "The Alexandria Link", an entertaining if somewhat overwrought geo-political potboiler. The scion of the Alexandria Library, a sadly reduced but still priceless collection of scrolls, papyri and documents rescued from the original library, hidden in the Sinai desert and carefully guarded by a small group of guardians and librarians for over two thousand years is the subject of a winner-take-all, no-holds-barred search by the American, Israeli and Saudi governments as well as a shadowy right wing cabal of the world's wealthiest industrialists known as The Order of the Golden Fleece.

Thrillers like this need their heroes and Steve Berry has chosen to give centre stage to two returning characters, Cotton Malone, recently retired from the US Department of Justice and his ex-wife, Pam Malone. Admittedly, the notion of the good guys chasing around the world getting ever closer to their goal by solving impossibly obtuse archeological puzzles is getting somewhat stale as the reading public has been inundated with an endless string of "Da Vinci Code" copy-cats! The jury was in and out of the room on any number of occasions as I read through book but ultimately the verdict is that Berry pulled it off ... but just barely!

The basic premise of the entire story was, to give full credit to Berry, quite ingenious and thought-provoking. The proof of an inaccurate translation of certain passages of the Old Testament from Old Hebrew through Greek and Latin to modern English rests in the Alexandria Library under the stewardship of The Guardians. If the accurate translation surfaces, the tensions between the Islamic, Jewish and Christian faiths would erupt in such a fashion as to possibly set a spark to a tinder pile that could well ignite World War III.

"The Alexandria Link", unfortunately, is a hit and miss affair that never rises to the level of a truly compelling page-turner but, when you get to the last page, I think most readers would agree that it qualifies as enjoyable reading. First prize for characterization goes to Danny Daniels, the president of the USA, who unabashedly styles himself as "the leader of the free world" and is eminently comfortable with the awesome power his position embodies. In spite of that he somehow remains a very human, compassionate and even humorous character.