THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
03/27/09 -- Vol. 27, No. 39, Whole Number 1538
El Honcho Grande: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
La Honcha Bonita: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
All comments sent will be assumed authorized for inclusion
unless otherwise noted.
To subscribe, send mail to mtvoid-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To unsubscribe, send mail to mtvoid-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Topics:
Correction (comments by David Goldfarb, Mark Leeper,
and Evelyn Leeper)
Hugo Nominations
Hadron (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Just Me Again (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Inflate Wolverine (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Economic Face-Huggers (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
SITA SINGS THE BLUES (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
BLONDE ROOTS by Bernadine Evaristo (book review
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (STEINBECK'S GHOST, REDCOATS' REVENGE,
and 44 SCOTLAND STREET) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Correction (comments by David Goldfarb, Mark Leeper, and
Evelyn Leeper)
In response to the puzzle in the 03/20/09 issue of the MT VOID,
David Goldfarb writes:
> What determines the order in the following sequence:
>
> 8,5,4,1,9,7,6,3,2
>
Are you sure you haven't got 9 and 1 reversed there? [-dg]
Mark answers, "No, I absolutely do not have them reversed. EVELYN
HAS THEM REVERSED AND THEN SHE FRAMED ME!!!!! Incidentally, this
is not the problem as it was in the Spanish-language film." [-mrl]
Evelyn says, "David is right. The 9 and 1 are reversed. I was
re-constructing this and it *is* slightly different from the way
it is expressed in the film. The answer will appear next week to
people a chance with the correct question. David, of course, gets
double-credit for (apparently) solving it even though it had an
error!" [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Hugo Nominations
Best Novel:
ANATHEM by Neal Stephenson
THE GRAVEYARD BOOK by Neil Gaiman
LITTLE BROTHER by Cory Doctorow
SATURN'S CHILDREN by Charles Stross
ZOE'S TALE by John Scalzi
Best Novella:
"The Erdmann Nexus" by Nancy Kress (Asimov's Oct/Nov 2008)
"The Political Prisoner" by Charles Coleman Finlay (F&SF Aug 2008)
"The Tear" by Ian McDonald (GALACTIC EMPIRES)
"True Names" by Benjamin Rosenbaum & Cory Doctorow (FAST FORWARD 2)
"Truth" by Robert Reed (Asimov's Oct/Nov 2008)
Best Novelette:
"Alastair Baffle's Emporium of Wonders" by Mike Resnick
(Asimov's Jan 2008)
"The Gambler" by Paolo Bacigalupi (FAST FORWARD 2)
"Pride and Prometheus" by John Kessel (F&SF Jan 2008)
"The Ray-Gun: A Love Story" by James Alan Gardner
(Asimov's Feb 2008)
"Shoggoths in Bloom" by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov's Mar 2008)
Best Short Story:
"26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss" by Kij Johnson (Asimov's Jul 2008)
"Article of Faith" by Mike Resnick (Baen's Universe Oct 2008)
"Evil Robot Monkey" by Mary Robinette Kowal (THE SOLARIS BOOK
OF NEW SCIENCE FICTION, VOLUME TWO)
"Exhalation" by Ted Chiang (ECLIPSE TWO)
"From Babel's Fall'n Glory We Fled" by Michael Swanwick
(Asimov's Feb 2008)
Best Related Book:
RHETORICS OF FANTASY by Farah Mendlesohn
SPECTRUM 15: THE BEST IN CONTEMPORARY FANTASTIC ART
by Cathy Fenner & Arnie Fenner, eds.
THE VORKOSIGAN COMPANION: THE UNIVERSE OF LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
by Lillian Stewart Carl & John Helfers, eds.
WHAT IT IS WE DO WHEN WE READ SCIENCE FICTION by Paul Kincaid
YOUR HATE MAIL WILL BE GRADED: A DECADE OF WHATEVER, 1998-2008
by John Scalzi
Best Graphic Story:
THE DRESDEN FILES: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE Written by Jim Butcher
GIRL GENIUS, VOLUME 8: AGATHA HETERODYNE AND THE CHAPEL OF BONES
Written by Kaja & Phil Foglio
FABLES: WAR AND PIECES Written by Bill Willingham
SCHLOCK MERCENARY: THE BODY POLITIC Story and art by Howard Tayler
SERENITY: BETTER DAYS Written by Joss Whedon & Brett Matthews
Y: THE LAST MAN, VOLUME 10: WHYS AND WHEREFORES
Written/created by Brian K. Vaughan
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form:
THE DARK KNIGHT
HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY
IRON MAN
METATROPOLIS (Audible Inc.)
WALL-E
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form:
Lost: "The Constant"
Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Battlestar Galactica: "Revelations"
Doctor Who: "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead"
Doctor Who: "Turn Left"
Best Editor, Short Form:
Ellen Datlow,
Stanley Schmidt,
Jonathan Strahan,
Gordon Van Gelder,
Sheila Williams
Best Editor, Long Form:
Lou Anders,
Ginjer Buchanan,
David G. Hartwell,
Beth Meacham,
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Best Professional Artist:
Daniel Dos Santos,
Bob Eggleton,
Donato Giancola,
John Picacio,
Shaun Tan,
Best Semiprozine:
Clarkesworld Magazine,
Interzone,
Locus,
The New York Review of Science Fiction
Weird Tales
Best Fan Writer:
Chris Garcia,
John Hertz,
Dave Langford,
Cheryl Morgan,
Steven H Silver,
Best Fanzine:
Argentus edited by Steven H Silver,
Banana Wings edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer,
Challenger edited by Guy H. Lillian III,
The Drink Tank edited by Chris Garcia,
Electric Velocipede edited by John Klima,
File 770 edited by Mike Glyer,
Best Fan Artist:
Alan F. Beck,
Brad W. Foster,
Sue Mason,
Taral Wayne,
Frank Wu,
The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer:
Aliette de Bodard*
David Anthony Durham*
Felix Gilman
Tony Pi*
Gord Sellar*
*(Second year of eligibility)
Full details, and links to on-line versions of stories, etc., can
be found at http://www.anticipationsf.ca/English/Hugos or
http://www.anticipationsf.ca/Fran%e7ais/PrixHugo (though the
stories themselves are all in English from either link).
==================================================================
TOPIC: Hadron (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
News from the Cern and the Large Hadron Collider is disappointing.
The big prize of finding the Higgs-Boson particle has eluded the
physicists there. This has not been at total waste since many
intersting results have been discovered along the way and await
further investigation. In specific they have made contact with
subatomic intelligent life forms and proven the existence of
archangels. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Just Me Again (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
There seems to be a whole brouhaha over the Sci-Fi Channel renaming
itself Syfy with a slogan "Imagine Greater". I think what they
mean is "imagine bigger snakes." Hey, the Sci-Fi Channel dropped
off my radar a long, long time ago. It has been an embarrassment
to science fiction fans for many years. But take my opinion for
what it is worth. It is coming from the guy who did not see what
the big deal was that Pluto was reclassified a "planetoid" and not
a planet. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Inflate Wolverine (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
You may have seen a picture on the web of a kids' inflatable
punching bag that is decorated with a picture of Wolverine. The
inflation valve is right over Wolverine's loins.
http://bloghoax.s3.amazonaws.com/wolverine.jpg
or
http://pixelatedgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/wolverine.jpg
I guess the coincidental placement takes the character with a
threatening look on his face and long attack razor blades coming
out of his knuckles and makes him seem almost unwholesome for young
kids. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Economic Face-Huggers (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
The film ALIEN created a classic philosophic dilemma with the
creature dubbed a "face-hugger." This thing grabs the victim with
its tail around his neck. The tail is strangling the victim, but
at the same time the thing is feeding the victim oxygen. You try
to remove it and it just stops the oxygen flow and tightens its
grip, strangling the man in its clutches. What is the best
strategy? Well, if you are willing to let it kill the victim in
its grasp, it is not a problem. You can just try to take it off
and it will strangle the victim. Or you just let it have its way.
That can be much worse. There is no winning strategy. The best
plan is not to let it get a hold on a victim. Once it has grabbed
on, the question is only how badly are you going to lose. It is
odd that I am reminded of this when I think about the last week and
the situation with A.I.G., the American International Group.
Under the last administration the Securities and Exchange
Commission was duty bound to regulate A.I.G. But the
administration's policy at the time was one of the Republican
mantra of non-regulation, a guiding principle harkening back to
Ronald Reagan's policies. I was reminded of the horrific creature
from ALIEN when I was reading a New York Times article about A.I.G.
A.I.G really is necessary for the world's economy. It did a lot to
create the whole financial mess and it cannot be untangled without
A.I.G. I won't go into why, but A.I.G. failing would really
heavily damage the global economy. A.I.G. has its tail around the
throat of the economy. So the government must not allow A.I.G. to
go under and instead it went in to bail out A.I.G. with what has
now amounted to $170,000,000,000. That was the part of the ALIEN
when they decided they could not remove the face-hugger and get rid
of it. It would kill the patient. Instead they supported the
creature and kept it going. That was the government pumping huge
amounts of money into A.I.G., so much so that the government
nominally owns 80% of the company now and it has put in their own
man in as CEO, Edward Liddy.
That sounds like the government are now in control, but that really
is not true. Certain obligations still have to be honored. Even
making nice to the face-hugger in the movie did not give the humans
control of it. It continued implanting embryos. In real life it
seems that the company had made contracts with its upper management
before the government took control. The contracts obligated the
company to give obscene bonuses to the upper management. After
all, the company needs good management if it is to continue making
the great business decisions like those that endangered both A.I.G.
and the world economy. These people running the company were to be
given huge bonuses as a matter of contract. And a contract is a
contract. It is not like the pension promises or healthcare
promises some company has made to its grunts. Contracts really
have to be honored. The company is contractually obligated to give
out $165,000,000 in bonuses if it has the money. And it got
$170,000,000,000 in bailout money. The company needs to pay these
retention bonuses for fear that the employees will go to some other
employer. I suppose there must other companies waiting in line to
hire them to screw up the economy. (The sad thing on second
thought is that there probably are.) Now you can suggest that
these bonuses not be paid. But as soon as you do the face-huggers
tail is going to tighten around the neck of the economy. Don't pay
the bonuses and A.I.G. will let the economy fail. You don't argue
with a face-hugger that has its tail around your neck.
So the public just looks on helplessly as their money, and the
welfare of their children and that of their grandchildren gets
vacuumed up by multi-millionaires and multi-multi-millionaires.
And the system is so broken by years of under-regulation by the
S.E.C. that there is nobody who can stop the flow. It is going on
right before our eyes and the public and Congress are helpless to
stop it. Right now the country owns 80% of A.I.G. and appointed
the CEO and still it cannot stop the machine that is going to give
horrendously big bonuses to the people at the top of that company.
But those bonuses are small compared to the damage that will be
done if the company defaults on those promises. Contracts that
were allowed to be made last year and two years ago that the S.E.C.
should have blocked at the time were allowed to be made. Not just
the rewards should have been stopped, what A.I.G. people were doing
to "earn" those bonuses should have been stopped by the S.E.C.
A.I.G. arranged for trillions of dollars of credit default swaps
that lulled people into thinking they had diversified, high-rated
investments when really what they had was a lot of little pieces of
bad investments.
You and I have to face it. We insignificant small wealth holders
have lost the fight. For many years now (and particularly the last
eight) we have let the rich and powerful become even richer and get
a lot more powerful. They have better schemes and better lawyers
and everything they need. You may think that Obama was elected to
put the brakes on the situation and restore sanity. But the
economy now is like a large pump, pumping money from taxpayers up
to the wealthiest people. Barak Obama can make faces, but the
machine goes right on. It is coming to a question of strength and
resolve and the public is simply out-matched. The best hope of the
public is just to make sure that it does not happen again.
Some Republicans are saying they hope the Democrats fail to fix the
economy, and they certainly are not being cooperative. They think
that if the Democrats fail to fix the damage that has been done
over the last few years they will return the country to the party
that was in power during those years. Who else do they have in the
two-party political system? The Republicans may be wrong. Here in
admittedly liberal New Jersey people I talk to blame the
Republicans for the whole mess. If the Democrats fail not a whole
lot of people are going to go over to the Republicans. The public
will be looking to the left of the Democrats and not the right.
The public will be looking for an alternative that is as close as
possible to the opposite of the Republicans. And they are going to
be looking for extreme solutions. Those will probably be very
left-wing solutions. The Republicans do not have the monopoly they
assume on everybody unhappy with the Democrats.
Now this is just now wild guess. But it is what I think is going
to happen. The machine is just too broken to be fixed in a matter
of months or in even four years. I don't think that people are
going to discover that the current administration gives people a
whole lot of hope that things are going to get better. I think we
might get a heavy shift to the left and perhaps a militant leftist
third party. But the people surely are not going to feed this
country again to the hounds of the right. If I were a rabid
socialist (and I'm not) just about now I would be thinking that my
time had come. A lot that is happening sounds like socialist
theory with the working classes being heavily exploited from above.
Too many people have been losing their jobs and their pensions and
their salaries and reasonable prices for goods. In one battle
after another the working classes have been losing to the wealthy.
In a democracy frustration is the most powerful force for change.
I think frustration is going to really change the political
landscape in some extreme ways. And it probably will not be for
the better.
The article was inspired by A.I.G. Coverage by the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/ business/15AIG.html
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: SITA SINGS THE BLUES (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Nina Paley interweaves her own story of her relationship
with her lover (husband?) with a parallel story of the Indian epic
poem, the Ramayana. Paley emphasizes the relationship of Rama and
his wife Sita. Each layer of the story seems to have its own
animation style and the narration, apparently done by shadow
puppets, is apparently informal and very funny. Sita sings out her
sadness in the voice of 1920s blues singer Annette Hanshaw. The
film is charming on many levels. It may be running on PBS
stations, but it can be downloaded for free. Rating: high +2
(-4 to +4) or 8/10
SITA SINGS THE BLUES is a unique animated film, 81 minutes in
length. It tells a double story of director/screenwriter/producer
Nina Paley and her relationship with her man, and in a parallel
line it is a retelling of the story of the Ramayana, one of the two
great epic poems of Hindu culture (the other being the
Mahabharata). Each animated story is done in its own style, but
greater screen time and much greater creativity goes into the
Ramayana story. Each different level of the story uses its own
animation technique from very simple to complex. The film seems
heavily influenced by Terry Gilliam's animation in films like MONTY
PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, but there are also pieces that look like
better animation films from the National Film Board of Canada.
In one plotline the story of the Ramayana is commented on by three
shadow puppets who apparently learned the story in their youth but
who cannot quite agree on how the story should be told. Their
style is something between that of a Greek chorus and that of the
robots on "Mystery Science Theater 3000". They argue about the
facts of the story and correct each other. They tell the story of
Rama who was unjustly banished from his father's kingdom. His wife
Sita follows him into the forests. There the evil Ravana sees Sita
and decides to abduct her. Will Rama rescue his loyal wife? Will
Sita's and Rama's loving relationship ever be restored. Sita pours
out her feelings, and they come out as songs from 1920s blues
singer Annette Hanshaw. The story has parallels to Paley's
relationship to her lover and their relationship is similarly
tested when from San Francisco he gets a six-month job in India.
The humor comes from many levels. The images are full of visual
puns. Westerners will find this a light and bright introduction to
the Ramayana.
This film is not being sold anywhere. It is being given away free
with a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License. That
means everybody is allowed to copy it, share it, download it ...
everything but make money off of it. That is very rare for a
feature-length film and more so for a film that is this much fun.
Channel 13 (NY) is not only making it available for download (see
below) but they also broadcast it.
All the various visual styles come together perfectly. It is rare
to find a film that can be enjoyed from start to finish. I rate
SITA SINGS THE BLUES a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 8/10. Take
my word on this one. You can see it free. If you watch five
minutes I bet you will watch the whole film, even if you do not
think you would have an interest in the Ramayana. See it.
That's all.
The film is on-line from Channel 13, New York, at
http://tinyurl.com/sita-sings-blues
Film Credits: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt1172203/
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sita_sings_the_blues/
[-mrl]
[It's also available at its own web page,
http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/. [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: BLONDE ROOTS by Bernadine Evaristo (book review by Evelyn C.
Leeper)
I read BLONDE ROOTS by Bernadine Evaristo (ISBN-13
978-1-59448-863-4, ISBN-10 1-59448-863-0). Let me start by saying
that I may have been reading a different book than Evaristo was
writing (as they say). But there were problems in this book, and
it's not just something that requires a "willing suspension of
disbelief," but which undermines the entire premise.
Okay, here goes. The idea of this is (according to the jacket)
"what if the history of the transatlantic slave trade had been
reversed, and Africans had enslaved Europe?" Now that may be a
sort of obvious premise, but it at least seems to have
possibilities. However, these are dashed on page -4 (that's "minus
4"), when one encounters a map of Evaristo's world. It contains
"Amarika", which looks and is positioned like "America" in our
world except for an archipelago of islands containing the cities of
"New Ambossa" and "New Londolo". So far, so good. But in the Old
World, she has swapped "Europa" and "Aphrika". And although
"England" is on the new Europa, there is a Britain-shaped island
northwest of of Aphrika called the "United Kingdom of Great
Ambossa" with a capital of "Londolo" (which explains "New
Londolo").
To avoid putting Europa in the tropics and Aphrika in the temperate
zone, everything has been moved south so that the equator runs just
south of what seems to be Greenland, the middle of Great Ambossa,
and what would be the Sahara region of your Africa. So when the
jacket says that the Africans enslave the Europeans, we *still*
have the situation of the people from the north enslaving those
from the south. (The map seems to have everything in the Southern
Hempisphere, which does move the slave trade a bit south.)
One problem, though, is that if one looks at the proportions of the
land masses on the map, Europa still seems to be in a tropical
area. Another is that the map does not show any land connection
between Aphrika and Europa which would account for a population
which evolved on one continent migrating to the other. (Okay,
maybe it's off the edge of the page.)
Almost lost in all this geographical confusion is the wholesale
adoption of European names, "Aphrikanized" a bit but still
recognizable: Voodoomass, Paddinto Station and the Bakalo Line on
the Londolo Tube, Edgwa, and so on.
This playing fast and loose with words extends to more mundane
expressions. Doris talks about being with someone "24/7". She
talks about clothing being size 4 or size 20. She even says things
like, "She's like totally spoiled, y'know?"
There are posters for films called GUESS WHO'S *NOT* COMING TO
DINNER, TO SIR WITH HATE, and LITTLE WHYTE SAMBO, ESQ. There's a
hymn titled "When the Saints Go Marchin' In".
And ultimately, the book undermines many of the basic premises of
what we "know" about the slave trade, and makes unclear what
Evaristo is trying to say. What we have in BLONDE ROOTS are
Aphrikans from the tropics with black skin enslaving Europanes in a
(more) temperate zone with white skin apparently only because
Aphrika is north of Europa. The culture of the Aphrikans seems
based on African culture, and the culture of the Europanes seems
based on European culture. There is no explanation of whether the
Aphrikans are more technologically advanced than the Europanes and
hence able to enslave them for that reason, or whether there was
some other reason. (One would think that living in a harsher
climate would force a culture to advance its technology at least
somewhat, but maybe not.) The technology is certainly
inconsistent: they seem to have a knowledge of DNA, as well as
highrises and skateboards, even though in transportation they
haven't gotten past trains. (The question of when this takes place
is never answered. It reminds me of the Universal horror films of
the 1930s and 1940s, which seem to take place in a central Europe
which is a mixture of the then+-present and sometime around 1890.
In any case, the technology levels in Aphrika and Europa don't seem
different enough to account for the widespread slave trade.
Actually, Annalee Newitz summed this problem up in someone's blog
by noting 1) the difficulty of maintaining paper documents and
wooden housing in a tropical climate, 2) the lack of stone for
building in Africa/Aphrika, 3) the tse-tse fly preventing the
effective use of calvary or farm animals in Africa/Aphrika, 4) the
heat of Africa/Aphrika precluding heavy body armor, and 5) the
scarcity of African/Aphrikan plants and animals suitable for
domestication.
Here's the problem, then: if Evaristo made just swapped Europe and
Africa, then all that would change would have been skin color--and
even that would not, because that is due in large part to climate.
But by keeping Aphrika tropical and Europa colder, she ignores that
these are among the factors that would have created the societies
or cultures that would make Europa capable of dominating Afrika
rather than vice versa.
But as it stands, an Aphrikan culture similar to our African one is
the slave-holding society. So it isn't culture that makes slavers.
(So much for the glorification of African cultures with the claim
that they would never have done such a thing--which of course they
did in our world, but that's another story.) And it isn't climate,
given that in Evaristo's world the hot climate people have enslaved
the cold climate people. And it isn't skin color (well, it
wouldn't be, would it?). Apparently it is pure chance.
And, as has been pointed out, in our world Romans enslaved Angles,
Turks enslaved Europeans, and even in some cases, Africans enslaved
Europeans.
And it is not as if Evaristo is the first author to do this black-
white reversal. There is the duology LION'S BLOOD and ZULU HEART
by Steven Barnes, and "Lion Time in Timbuctoo" by Robert
Silverberg, both of which rely on a much more severe Bubonic Plague
of 1348 than our world experienced.
Some think even this would be insufficient. Someone else said, "I
think to have an African dominated global civilization we'd have to
change history much earlier and then reverse events several times
again later on. I think the inflection point would actually be the
defeat of Twenty-Fifth Egyptian Dynasty at the Battle of Sile by
the Assyrians."
And my last complaint is aimed not just at Evaristo, but at a lot
of authors who, for whatever reason, decide to attempt to write in
dialect. Here is a passage which is a snippet of spoken dialogue:
"I been meaning to aks yu dis. I want mi bwoy Yao to have more
storee in his hed dan what go round in mine about dis damn place,
which, kwite franklee, give me flamin hedake all de time! Yao will
neva git outa dis hellhole exept to be sold to some odder
plantashun, but de wurld out dere will get into his hed if you help
him reed an rite. I have contakt in de big house who will git book
fe me."
Now, this is harder to read that the "correct" spelling would be.
The argument is that this reminds the reader that the person would
sound different. But all it does is remind the reader that English
spelling is irrational.
"I been meaning": This (and other examples) do actually represent
different grammar.
"aks", "dis", "dan", "dere", "odder": These actually represent
different pronunciations.
"yu": What is the point of this? It is pronounced exactly the same
way as "you".
"I want mi bwoy": Is "mi" pronounced "my" (in which case why change
it, or "mee" (in which case "mee" would be better)?
"storee", "hed", "kwite franklee", "hedake", "plantashun", "wurld",
"hed", "reed", "rite": Why not "story", "head", "quite frankly",
"headache", "plantation", "world", "head", "read", "write"?
"damn": And if one is going to change spelling to match
pronunciation, this should be "dam".
"hellhole": This just seems an odd word to find in this long
dialect speech.
This book has gotten good reviews from others, but I found it very
predictable, and cannot really recommend it. [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
This is the time of year when I find myself reading several
alternate history novels as part of the Sidewise Award judging. I
vow to keep up through the year, but some books don't look that
good, and I hope other judges will read them first and let the rest
of us know we can skip them. Others are unavailable at the
library, and the publishers somehow wait until the "last call" to
send copies. So here I sit with a book about dragons fighting the
Napoleonic Wars (book 4 for a series), a book in which several
communities are all flung back in time to the Cretaceous (obviously
book 1 of a series, and distantly related to another series as
well), a book about a different geography (book 2 of a series), and
a few books that actually seem to stand on their own. But it's
hard to bring myself to read those, when I can read a really
enjoyable book like STEINBECK'S GHOST.
STEINBECK'S GHOST by Lewis Buzbee (ISBN-13 978-0-312-37328-3,
ISBN-10 0-312-37328-7) was probably inspired by the announcement in
late 2004 that the Salinas Public Library was going to close
because of lack of funds. Salinas was John Steinbeck's hometown,
the town he wrote about the most, and for many years now has housed
a very impressive John Steinbeck museum which draws a lot of
tourists. So the closing of the library was not just sad, it was
ironic.
In STEINBECK'S GHOST, teenager Travis Williams has just moved to a
new neighborhood, hardly sees his parents because they have started
working late every night, and then discovers that they are closing
his favorite place--the library. On top of all this, he starts
seeing characters out of Steinbeck's stories around town, and
someone--Steinbeck's ghost?--in the upper window of Steinbeck's old
house.
I would like to believe that someone who obviously loved books and
libraries as much as Travis would receive the acceptance that he
does rather than be considered a dork. To be fair, he at least is
concerned about this, but the book does really show this as a
problem. In fact, in spite of video games and cell phones, the
Salinas of this book seems like a town from twenty years ago, or
more. All the books that Travis loves are older books: A WRINKLE
IN TIME, SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, and so on. There was
some mention of Harry Potter for Halloween costumes, but no one
seems to be reading the "Ender" books or anything else recent.
However, if you can exercise a willing suspension of disbelief, the
book is a delight for people who love books, and writers, and
readers, and libraries. (It is no coincidence that Lewis Buzbee
has also written the non-fiction book THE YELLOW-LIGHTED BOOKSHOP.)
(Oh, and not to leave you in suspense: when word of the library's
imminent closing appeared in the press, Salinas was pretty much
shamed into keeping it open.)
REDCOATS' REVENGE by Col. David Fitz-Enz, USA (Ret.) (ISBN-13 978-
1-57488-987-1, ISBN-10 1-574-88987-7) is a novel of the sort I
haven't seen since FOR WANT OF A NAIL by Robert Sobel--the fake
history textbook. (This doesn't mean there haven't been others,
just that I haven't seen them.) There is some dialogue, but on the
whole it's clear this is written more as a history book from this
alternate world (where the British win the War of 1812) than as a
novel. True, it lacks the fake footnotes, bibliography and other
accoutrements of Sobel's work, but that may be just as well. These
days, if it had all that, people might actually believe it was
really true. For that matter, for reasons known only to the
publisher, they have decided to give the Dewey Decimal
classification as 973.5/2, which is plop in the middle of the
American history section, rather than in fiction. (I got my
library to ignore the given classification and move it to fiction
before some high school kid tried to write a report on the War of
1812 from it.)
Of REDCOATS' REVENGE, Joseph T. Major wrote, "... this is an
attempt to provide a serious speculation about a point of departure
and its consequences. ... Those who want to read about what if
Spartacus had a Piper Cub and the like likely won't be thrilled by
this."
44 SCOTLAND STREET by Andrew McCall Smith (ISBN-13
978-1-400-07944-5, ISBN-10 1-400-07944-5) is the first book in
another series by the author of the "Number 1 Ladies Detective
Agency" books. This one is set in the art world of Edinburgh, and
I did not find it anywhere nearly as enjoyable, but that is
probably because I thought none of the characters were really
interesting in the same way that the characters in the "Number 1
Ladies Detective Agency" books were. The only interesting
characters were Bertie and his pushy mother. What was intriguing
was McCall Smith's discussion of what it was like to write a serial
novel, which this was.
First, McCall Smith did not write the entire novel ahead of time,
so although he started with several chapters written, he fell
behind in his writing, and found himself up against a perpetual
deadline. And he also discovered something perhaps less commonly
thought of: he could not go back and make any changes in earlier
chapters. So if he decides while writing chapter 15 that it would
have worked better if the painting at the beginning was a still
life rather than a seascape, that too bad--he's stuck with the
seascape. [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
I hope that posterity will judge me kindly,
not only as to the things which I have explained,
but also as to those which I have intentionally
omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of
discovery.
-- Rene Descartes, 1637