SERENITY: THOSE LEFT BEHIND BY JOSS WHEDON: With the incredible DVDs sales and cult success of Firefly, as well as the popular movie Serenity, fans are always looking for something more, which is why they should pick up the beautiful new hardcover edition of Serenity: Those Left Behind. Originally released as a three-issue comic series to link up the end of the Firefly series with the Serenity movie, Those Left Behind features amazing artwork that makes it feel like you’re watching the show again.
This edition begins with a great introduction by Nathon Fillion (who played Captain Malcolm Reynolds) as he relives his childhood of reading comic books, how important they were to him, and what it was like to want to be a superhero; and how on the day that Joss Whedon cast him as Mal, he knew his dream had been achieved. Each of the covers from the original comics are shown at the beginning of each issue, making up the entire crew, as it is explained how Inara and Shepherd eventually chose to leave the ship, as well as another grand adventure involving the whole crew.
In this edition also is a true gem: a pre-production memo that Whedon wrote for the making of Serenity titled “A History of the Universe, Circa 2516 A.D.” Here we see Whedon’s ideas for where the characters came from, their histories, and what led up to them all being on the same ship. The history of the universe is also explained, with the creation of the Alliance and the rebels who fought for freedom. Also included is some original concept artwork for the movie.
Serenity: Those Left Behind is a wonderful graphic novel that goes much further than the story told in the original three-issue comic series, with incredible artwork, and gives fans and readers a sliver of hope that maybe, one day, there may be more to be told about Serenity and her special crew.
STAR WARS: A POP-UP GUIDE TO THE GALAXY BY MATTHEW REINHART: In celebration of the 30th anniversary since the release of Star Wars, along with The Star Wars Vault, there is this true gem for all fans alike: Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy. You may be turned away by the term “pop-up,” thinking it something that applies only to children’s books and to be ignored, and I would tend to agree with you, except in this case! The Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy is the only pop-up book you will need to and ever want to own.
The thick but light book is divided into six double-spread pages. It does not tell the chronological story of Star Wars from episodes I-VI, but is instead more like a report from someone who traveled to this galaxy, far, far away, and came back to tell of what he or she saw and learned there. The copy on each page is detailed and complex. This is not for anyone (if there is anyone) who has yet to see Star Wars, for prior understanding is required, since on each page facts, stats, and details are thrown at you along with incredible colorful pictures that pop-out before your very eyes and almost become real.
To say there is just something for everyone would be like saying the Millennium Falcon could “probably” make the Kessel Run in maybe 12 parsecs. The most impressive tableau is the pop-up of a large Mos Eisley spaceport where our heroes Luke and Obi-Wan first met Han and Chewie. Organized in wonderfully complex 3D fashion, we see the familiar scene with different groups of people and lots of familiar faces, who are all explained. But whether you’re hoping some of the lesser known bounty hunters, like IG-88 and Bossk get mentioned; or whether Jabba the Hutt’s Desert Skiff can hover up to 50 meters and travel up to 250 kilometers per hour; or whether they remembered to mention the formidable but often forgotten Wedge Antilles; rest assured they are all recorded here.
And if that isn’t enough for you, why then you can turn to the last page where you will be greeted by Lord Darth Vader coming out at you with the scarred old man’s face beneath. After recovering from that, you turn to the fold-out panels either side of the black helmet which discuss Anakin Skywalker who became Darth Vader on the left and Luke Skywalker on the right. The key here is to open both at the same time, as each character pops out in miniature, each holding their familiar lightsabers which actually light up red and green.
SWORD SONG: THE BATTLE FOR LONDON BY BERNARD CORNWELL: We last left Uhtred, in Lords of the North, apparently an ally with King Alfred, while the Vikings were making a very successful takeover of England, making it seem like there was little hope left for Alfred and his Saxon people. But Alfred has God on his side, and feels he will be ultimately victorious; Uhtred on the other hand, a pagan, cares little for this Christian religion, but is still a little unsure of where his allegiances lie.
While the first three of the Saxon Chronicles gave little hope and direction for Uhtred, in Sword Song, he has more to fight for with a wife and child, and another baby on the way. The old Roman town of London, an important one with its link to the Thames, has been taken over by the Vikings. If Alfred gives them London, Wessex is next and soon there will be little left to defend and England will be a Viking nation. So Alfred charges Uhtred with this great task to use the Saxon army, as well as his own loyal men, and take back London.
At this point Uhtred is an warrior and a great leader in a shield wall. But with the siege of London, he must mount an attack from the Thames, using ships and men. It will involve all his previous experience of battle, as well as appeasing both the Saxon army, and his own Northmen. His plan is to appear as an ally to the Vikings upon reaching London which, with his history, is a possibility, but then to spring the trap and take back the pivotal town. The question is whether Uhtred will live up to his side of the bargain, with his loyalty being challenged. Coupled with this is Aethelflæd, Alfred’s daughter, who has been recently kidnapped and is being held somewhere in London by a Viking lord; her life must be protected at all costs.
Sword Song jumps the bestselling series one big step forward, with this pivotal battle in the creation of the nation of England and its people. Ending on a cliffhanger, Cornwell skillfully leaves fans having to wait another whole year until they can get the next important chapter in the story of Alfred the Great.
Check out Bernard Cornwell's interview on BookBanter in Episode 5.
THE BALL IS ROUND: A GLOBAL HISTORY OF SOCCER BY DAVID GOLDBLATT: The Ball is Round is possibly the most comprehensive and thorough book on the sport of football or soccer – depending on where you’re reading this from – ever compiled and written; weighing in at a smidge under a thousand pages, after reading it cover to cover you will be able to hold an argument with any well versed football hooligan on the planet, or have a discussion with any professional sportscaster. While David Goldblatt hasn’t much to his name, other than the Dorling Kindersley World Football Yearbook, The Ball is Round is an ideal book whether you consider yourself a soccer aficionado who knows everything there is to know, or whether your new to the sport and wish to satisfy a curiosity.
Goldblatt begins at the beginning with a somewhat brief but complete history of soccer, due to the lack of evidence on the subject. While he doesn’t necessarily say one specific country was the sole creator of the international sport, he does indicate that England was the first to play the closest relation to the modern day version. Nevertheless, it is an interesting look back at the different cultures that used a type of ball for sport, such as in China, where it would be bounced off the trunks of trees, or a simplified version that was played in the Americas involving not just feet, but hands and all parts of the body.
It is during the nineteenth century that football or soccer as we know came to be played and here Goldblatt outdoes him with the details of people, places and times, going up through the years and decades. Once passed the First World War, Goldblatt breaks it down even further, dividing the time periods by location, from Europe to Latin America to Africa. But the author doesn’t simply tell the complete history of soccer, but also relates to the importance of culture, economics, sociology, and anthropology. For a sport that has become so ingrained in so many societies for some time – such as countries like Spain and Italy and South America where it is the lifeblood – Goldblatt goes beyond just the sport, but extending it as a metaphor for the world, the ultimate uniter.
Twenty years in the making, Goldblatt traveled to many different places around the world for both research and inspiration. There is even a preface for the paperback edition where he discusses why soccer has not become as popular and prevalent a sport in the United States as it has in the rest of the world, explaining its completely different pacing, layout, and scoring system as opposed to the major American sports like baseball, football, and basketball. The Ball is Round literally has something for everyone, and with a thorough list of contents and index, along with some interesting photos, it’s also the ideal reference manual.
THE COMPLETE CLIVE BARKER’S GREAT AND SECRET SHOW BY CHRIS RYALL AND GABRIEL RODRIGUEZ: After an incredible undertaking, with much conferring with the original creator Clive Barker, writer Chris Ryall and artist Gabriel Rodriguez have finally finished the complete story of the epic Great and Secret Show, now released in paperback in its complete form. With a brief but proud introduction from Barker, who has nothing but good and great to say about Ryall’s and Rodriguez’s work, and the hopes that they will do the same to the sequel, Everville; The Complete Clive Barker’s Great and Secret Show is a great tale the likes of which you will not read anywhere else, brought to life in beautiful graphic fashion.
Randolphe Jaffe is a loser who’s going nowhere fast, that is until he gets a job for the post office working in the dead letter room in Omaha, Nebraska – the nexus of the country where all lost and undeliverable mail ends up. Going through thousands of pieces of undelivered mail per day – money and everything of value is surrendered to his boss – he begins to find clues of an undiscovered power in existence beneath the realm of society. It takes time, but he puts the pieces together until he has a good idea of this power known as the Art, where he then receives a medallion, the very symbol of the Art. While it means little to him at first, he knows it is an important piece of the puzzle. Naturally, his boss wants the item and it is then that Jaffe takes the first step down his new path and kills the man in cold blood.
Collecting the important evidence together, with the medallion, he travels across America, living on the whim of the Art, letting it guide him where it will. Innocent bystanders are used by him, sensing the power of the Art and agreeing to whatever Jaffe tells them. It is in an alcohol- and drug-infused stupor that Jaffe conducts his pilgrimage into the desert and finds the Loop: a place out of time, and meets Kissoon, the last member of the Shoal. The Shoal was the group appointed to protect the Art. For the world is part of the Cosm, and beyond this is the Metacosm where the sea of Quiddity lies – a place visited by all when they are born, the night with their first love, and when they die – and within Quiddity lies the islands of Ephemeris, the dreamlands. More importantly at the far edge of the Metacosm lie the Iad Uroborus, a great evil that is always looking to consume the Cosm. The Art is a way of getting to Quiddity. Kissoon tells Jaffe that he must occupy his body so he can leave the Loop and defend the Cosm. Jaffe suspects otherwise and flees, embarking on his own mission of discovery with Richard Wesley Fletcher as they research the Art in its entirety. Fletcher soon discovers a liquid form of the Art known as nuncio, testing it first on a chimpanzee who becomes a human with the ability of speech and thought, known as Raul. The nuncio will force the being to the next evolutionary step, but Richard also knows if Jaffe were to use it, it would focus on his urges of murder and revenge, making him a monster. But it is too late, for Jaffe discovers the existence of the nuncio and in a fight both are infected by it and become higher beings – The Jaff and Fletcher.
And then a great war is fought in the skies of America between these two gods of power until they are spent and plunge into a lake in Palomo Grove, California. There they both rest until four unsuspecting girls go swimming and are inseminated by The Jaff and Fletcher to create offspring to continue their war while they regain their power. And so the town is irrevocably changed for ever as the four girls in becoming pregnant, give birth to the offspring of these deities. Only three survive: a son of Fletcher and twins of The Jaff, and it is when, years later, that Fletcher’s son and The Jaff’s daughter meet and fall in love at first sight that the gods are awakened and the town takes a turn for the worst. Using the life-force of a recent victim, The Jaff is able to regain his power and begin collecting minions that he calls terrata from the people of Palomo Grove, sucking out their souls and using their rage, evil and anger to fuel his creatures. Fletcher is left with the dregs and is barely able to leave the crevasse where the lake used to be and reveal what has happened to his son, then in a heroic effort, he gives up his life, spreading his power through the minds of the people of the town, who then have their dreams of meeting celebrities come true. These are the allies who must battle against the terrata in the mansion on the hill.
With help from a pulp reporter, Grillo, and his friend, Tesla, Fletcher’s son Howard with The Jaff’s daughter – who despises her creator – confront The Jaff and his son in the big showdown. Only the evil god takes it to a whole new level when he rips a hole in the fabric of reality with the power of the Art, opening a widening doorway to Quiddity. Soon everything in the room is being sucked into this other realm, with only The Jaff, Grillo and Tesla making it out of the room alive. As the rest of the world comes to comprehend the catastrophic events taking place in Palomo Grove and take notice, a decision must now be made with how to solve this whole horrible mess, as the Iad Uroborus are on their way at high speed to pass through this rip and take over the world. All creation and its people stand on a brink, and it is a question as to what can be done and whether the key players will be able to do it.
With this incredible story to tell, Ryall and Rodriguez have outdone themselves, bringing the people and places, the creatures and creations to life in a visual medium. As Barker says in his introduction: “This is no longer my Great and Secret Show . . . They’ve given life to my words.” For Barker fans, this is a wonderful adaptation to discover and enjoy; for non-Barker fans who enjoy the medium of the graphic novel, this is a perfect introduction to Barker’s incredible imagination, brought to life under the pen of Ryall and the brush of Rodriguez. The Complete Clive Barker’s Great and Secret Show is an incredible and fantastic journey that once discovered and begun, readers will be unable to stop until they reach the last glossy page.
THE LANDMARK HERODOTUS EDITED BY ROBERT B. STRASSLER, TRANSLATED BY ANDREA L. PURVIS: Readers are living in a great age. Classical history through primary sources has never been so accessible, with the success of Robert Fagles’ translations of The Odyssey, The Iliad, and The Aeneid; Robert B. Strassler, editor of The Landmark Thucydides, now brings us The Landmark Herodotus. Translated by Andrea L. Purvis, with a introduction by Rosalind Thomas, The Landmark Herodotus is a hefty tome that will delight any historian or fan of Herodotus and the classical Greek period.
Called “the father of history” by Cicero, Herodotus was an Ionian Greek historian who lived in the fifth century BCE. In his Histories, he recounts the rise of the Persian Empire and its tumultuous war with the Greek city-states. Filled with insights into the unique geography and anthropology of the time, Herodotus also delves into the human psyche, exploring the importance of religion, the costs of war, the sacrifice of life, and what it meant to be a free and independent state.
What makes The Landmark Herodotus unique over any other translation of The Histories, is its encyclopedia of knowledge. The book begins with a comprehensive introduction of Herodotus and the period, leading to the editor’s preface, and seven pages listing the dates outlined in the text, where they take place, and a brief sentence on what is happening. Then The Histories begins in an almost conversational meter, making it very inviting and compelling to any reader whose background may be well versed in the period, or not at all. Split into “books,” each page is filled with footnotes and constant side notes that serve as reference points, as well as numerous maps detailing the events taking place, and where possible, photos showing the modern day reality of these renowned historical locations. As one completes The Histories, the book is not finished, as the appendices begin, twenty-one of them written by renowned scholars, informing the reader on topics such as Egypt, Persian Arms and Tactics, Scythia, the Spartan State, and Trireme Warfare, to name a few. Then there is a comprehensive glossary to help the reader with any terminology. Finally there is a hundred-page index that will bring any specific term, person, place or event immediately to their fingertips.
The Landmark Herodotus is not just a book, it’s a journey, a voyage into the history of ancient Greece and its war with the Persian Empire, as told by someone who, while not there at the time, lived in a period much closer to it than you or I. Questions will be answered, thoughts made, and wonders discovered. Upon completing the book, the reader will feel compelled to travel to Greece to see these ancient sites with their own eyes, and in their hands will be The Landmark Herodotus, as the invaluable reference that it is.
BOEING VERSUS AIRBUS: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE GREATEST INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION IN BUSINESS BY JOHN NEWHOUSE: John Newhouse, who covered foreign policy for The New Yorker from the 1980s through the early 1990s, and is the author of eight other books including Imperial America and Europe Adrift, brings a seminal work of business history in Boeing Versus Airbus. This is the short but complete story of the two airplane-developing giants, their history, their rises and falls, and where they stand in the twenty-first century.
Boeing is the more recognized name, based in Seattle, Washington, an example of what it takes to be a big and successful company in the United States. With the development of commercial aircraft, Boeing was early on the scene, and with some brilliant business strategies and a constantly developing technology, was able to seize the market and become the mainstay for aircraft development, leaving the leftovers for Airbus, the European aircraft development company, and the other US company, McDonnell-Douglas. With its constant development of bigger and better planes, culminating with the 747 – the most successful plane ever – the company remained on top for some time through the seventies and eighties; it seemed there was nothing they could do wrong, and Boeing felt entitled to this.
Airbus began small, a conglomerate of European countries including France, Germany, Britain, and Spain, and lacking in a business drive they were soon passed by Boeing in the entrepreneurial world of aircraft development and sales. Nevertheless, they kept going, continuing to develop new planes and trying to keep up with Boeing, trying to make that one plane that would be better, more efficient than what Boeing had on the market, and finally turn the tables. In the late eighties, going into the nineties, this is essentially what happened with the development of the ever popular A340. Coupled with this development of a successful aircraft that airlines wanted to use, was the aforementioned arrogance of Boeing in assuming they were always going to be on top, and when the company changed CEOs and business models, things started to go south for Boeing, and for the first time Airbus was a name to be reckoned with.
In the mid to late nineties, the future seemed hopeful for Airbus. Boeing had countered with some restrategizing and the development of the more spacious and organized 777. And then Airbus unveiled its secret weapon: the A380, known as a Superjumbo, the first double-decker commercial airplane. It was going to change the world, travel further than before, and with more people; orders were pouring in. And then the delays began, first technological ones, as development wasn’t moving fast enough, then some bad business decisions were made and the A380 still has yet to make it first commercial flight for an airline. Airbus hopes for this to change come late summer 2008. Meanwhile Boeing has its own secret weapon, the 787, which has been referred to and now be branded as the “787 Dreamliner,” and is scheduled to begin service in May, 2008. While the future for Airbus is not so good, and Boeing has regained its hold in the airline industry; the future still has a lot to offer this business giants.
While Newhouse’s writing style seemed like it needed some editing, with a repetition of facts already revealed throughout the book, the forced use of occasional quotes, and the somewhat lacking of direction in chapters, Boeing Versus Airbus is nevertheless a fascinating read written in a simple style that anyone can understand and appreciate.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: LONG WAY HOME BY JOSS WHEDON, ET. AL.: For Buffy fans who felt that when the show ended there was still more to be said about the Buffyverse, writer and creator Joss Whedon thankfully has turned to something else he does just as well as TV: comic books. With the first trade of what is officially being called “Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight” now out, it is clear that there is still much to be told by Whedon about Buffy and her friends.
Little time has past since the town of Sunnydale was turned into a giant crater. While there was originally one Chosen One, there is now a veritable army of “slayerettes” in training to be as good as the real thing. There are also two doppelgangers of Buffy, one in Rome and one literally underground in a different world, each intended to distract any enemies from the real Buffy. But at the same time there’s a secret government group – not the Initiative – which feels that the world isn’t safe when there’s such a powerful slayer on the loose, and with some help from some of Buffy’s old enemies, they intend to put an end to her once and for all. There’s also a strange symbol that keeps showing up, indicating something much larger and more sinister going on.
Long Way Home features some beautiful artwork, giving life to characters that many fans thought were done with; the trade also has full pages of the alternate covers from the first five issues. It’s the introduction to what looks to be a long series in the continuing story of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
DREAMSONGS VOLUME II BY GEORGE R. R. MARTN: In this second and final volume of George R. R. Martin’s short works, readers are treated to his writings of the 1980’s leading up to the 90s when his career took off with the eventual success of his Song of Ice and Fire series. It in this collection that we learn more of Martin’s dabbling into television and screenwriting, as well his exploits into the world of Dungeons & Dragons.
Divided into four parts, the first covers two stories involving Martin’s eccentric character Haviland Tuf, an animal seller, who is the last surviving member of the ancient and defunct Ecological Group. Tuf with his menagerie travel the universe in The Ark, a ship that is many miles in length. All stories involving Tuf were eventually collected and published in a book, Tuf Voyaging, which Martin recommends fans seek out to read more about the redoubtable Tuf, but they must seek the used and out-of-print stores to find a copy.
The second part covers Martin’s trip into screenwriting, specifically for TV shows. Two shows that Martin worked on were the 1980s incarnation of The Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast. Scripts for two episodes of The Twilight Zone: “The Road Less Traveled,” and “Doorways” are included here. While this was essentially the end for Martin’s involvement in TV, he is quick to point out that he learned greatly from it. It was just one of the stepping stones that led to the creation of his epic fantasy series, still some years away.
In the third section, Martin discusses the surprising success of the Wild Cards series, which began with role-playing games amongst a group of writers – including Martin – when he moved to Santa Fe. The worlds, ideas and set-ups created for the different games were the impetus for the Wild Cards series which is still doing very well and now has its own website at http://www.wildcardsbooks.com/.
In the fourth and final part, Martin leads up to the start of his epic series with some popular stories along the way, as well as including the novella The Hedge Knight set ten years before the start of the series. And for those hardcore fans, at the end there is an exhaustive and comprehensive listing of all George R. R. Martin’s works, should one feel the compunction to read absolutely everything the man has ever written.
While the completion and release date for the fifth Song of Ice and Fire book, A Dance With Dragons, is still a distant and unknown destination, the Dreamsongs series can lead one on tangents into Martin’s other writings, eventually bringing them full circle when A Dance With Dragons is finally released.
DUMA KEY BY STEPHEN KING: Most Stephen King fans will admit that the last couple of novels by the international bestselling author, while selling well, have been somewhat lacking coming from the renowned horror writer; one might even go so far as to use the term “mediocre,” and don’t get me started on Cell. Thankfully, with the arrival of Duma Key, the slate has been wiped clean and the master of horror is back! King’s first novel set in his alternate home of Florida weighs in at over six hundred pages, and while it reveals a more laid-back and matured author, with the terrifying days of The Tommyknockers and It perhaps over; Duma Key is nevertheless an incredibly well written novel with some wonderfully deep and complex characters, and a world that is just as complicated but in many more ways real.
Enter Edgar Freemantle. An entrepreneur who started a construction company and developed it into a multi-million dollar business; loving husband of two adult daughters; until he is involved in a freak on-site accident that should’ve killed him, but leaves him missing his right arm, a couple of slowly healing broken ribs, and a damaged mind that results in outbursts of anger and violence. The strain becomes too great and Freemantle’s marriage falls apart, leaving him an angry, empty shell. Seeking escape, he leases a beautiful house on the island of Duma Key. While watching the breathtaking sunsets, Freemantle decides to try his hand at some artwork, having sketched a little throughout his life. He discovers the more he works, the better he gets, soon switching to paints and canvasses; he also discovers that painting satisfies the seemingly insatiable itch in his missing right arm. Freemantle’s work is of the sunsets and the beautiful coastline, along with the occasional abstract object added in to offset it; he is eventually tagged as an American Primitive, but as more and more people discover his work, they are amazed by it and at his first gallery showing all works listed for sale are sold.
But beneath the art, there is a sinister plot at work, because this is after all a Stephen King novel. Freemantle discovers a psychic ability in his work, painting items he should know nothing about, as well as the eventual power to paint events that come to fruition: whether it be the restoring of blindness, or the forced suicide of a serial killer. And then there’s something wrong with the sold paintings: death follows them. The plot thickens, deepens, and becomes darker as the enigmatic history of Duma Key is discovered. It seems Freemantle isn’t the only person in its history to come to the island with a fragile mind and a special ability expressed through art. Then there’s the south side of the island which has become an overgrown and seemingly impenetrable jungle. The last time Freemantle and his daughter, Ilse, took a trip headed in that direction, Ilse immediately felt nauseous and horrible sick, while Freemantle felt the insatiable familiar itch that grew to an unstoppable buzzing; upon driving back north, they mysteriously found their ailments disappearing. Clearly something evil and powerful doesn’t want them getting to the south of the island.
Duma Key is not just a novel for the fans, but a cathartic response from King over his near-death accident in 1999; no doubt he relived his agonizing recovery while writing about Freemantle, and yet it is because of this firsthand experience, that Duma Key feels much more personal and empathetic. Also being King’s first foray into his new sometime Florida home, one might think his fellow Floridians a little unhappy on this introduction, or being Stephen King, they may feel the opposite and expect this. Regardless, Duma Key is a welcome return of the great horror writer, with an extra development of character and setting that King seems to have discovered in his later years, making this book one of his best, and one of my personal favorites.
Would you like to get yourself a copy? Click HERE for Amazon.com. 
GOD’S CRUCIBLE BY DAVID LEVERING LEWIS: In a time when our involvement in the Middle East seems almost certain to last for the rest of our lives, it is now more important than ever to understand why. The Middle East is still a very misunderstood place, with a deep and complex history that many haven’t an inkling about; a history without which the knowledge and existence of many modern day marvels like medicine, mathematics, astronomy, classical literature would be severely retarded. God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 by David Levering Lewis, a professor at New York University, is a book that takes you back to the very beginning of Islam, and the specific instances that led to its creation.
Lewis begins with the fall and breaking apart of the Roman Empire, and how the western known world went from a seemingly unstoppable empire to crumbling and dividing countries. Lewis sets the stage with the western chunk of the Roman Empire being overrun by invading barbarian hordes, and the more successful eastern part consisting of Byzantium and nearby Persia. Coupled with the growth and growing interest in the Christian and Jewish religions, along with the less popular Zoroastrian beliefs, as well as other smaller cults, the Middle East seems set for a new prophet. Much like Jesus, or any prophet in the religions of the world, from the beginning they are rarely seen as the great, world-altering people that they are, and Lewis is clear to point out such is the case with Muhammad. It is a fascinating look into a religion and culture that has captivated and converted the hearts and minds of a considerable number of the world population.
With Muhammad, along with the Qu’uran, firmly on the path of the growing faith of Islam, Lewis goes into detail with the genesis of the Muslim Empire, as it sweeps across the western world country by country, converting and conquering, ruthless in its unstoppable pace. All the important battles and places show themselves in God’s Crucible, and Lewis does a good job of providing a quick history lesson with each “people” that the Muslim army faces in its conquering, but fails somewhat in going into depth about the complex culture of Islam and the Muslim Empire as it grew and developed over the centuries, focusing more on the important battles, and its winners and losers. Nevertheless, God’s Crucible is a very important book in our current world, which at the very least will give one some answers to the status quo.
MARCO POLO: FROM VENICE TO XANADU BY LAURENCE BERGREEN: Laurence Bergreen, whose last book, Over the Edge of the World, charted Magellan’s circumnavigation of the world, returns with a fresh and thorough biography on the remarkable and renowned thirteenth century traveler, Marco Polo. Marco Polo begins in a style that is becoming modern with biographies such as Caroline Alexander’s Bounty, near the end of Marco Polo’s life when he is a renowned traveler of noble stature and wealth; this makes the return to Polo’s younger life as an inexperienced person all the more poignant.
Marco Polo was not the first to feel the urge and thrill to travel the world; it was an experience and almost expectation instilled within his family for some time. At the age of seventeen, barely a man, Marco Polo began his first journey with his father Niccolo and uncle Maffeo bound for the court of Kublai Khan in 1271. While the focus of the book is on Polo’s time spent with the Great Khan, Bergreen spends time details sights and experiences on the Polos’ travels across the known world to China where Marco became a personal advisor to Kublai Khan in 1275. Marco then spent almost twenty years in service to the Khan, traveling the many surrounding countries and gathering intelligence and acting as a tax collector for the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty. It is here that we see through Marco’s eyes and how he views this world that is greatly different to the one he was used to in Venice: from Asbestos manufacture, to crocodile hunting, to the sexual habits of the different peoples; the practice of offering up one’s wife to passing travelers was one that greatly perplexed and put Marco ill at ease.
While the book does cover Marco Polo’s life, Bergreen seems almost hesitant to offer commentary of opinion on the Polo’s habits, ideas, and reactions. Nevertheless, Marco Polo is a fascinating read into the life of the often misunderstood Venetian.
Want to get yourself a copy? Click HERE for Amazon.com. 
WIZARD’S FIRST RULE, SWORD OF TRUTH BOOK 1 BY TERRY GOODKIND: While Goodkind’s first book in his now complete 11-book Sword of Truth series begins with an eerie thorn bush that sends its thorns burrowing beneath your skin as if they were alive which immediately grabs the reader’s attention and interest, Wizard’s First Rule is a classic first epic fantasy novel that sets the stage for a great series.
Richard Cypher is your classic, innocent, ordinary guy who has grown up in a simple family with a relatively simple life. His mother died when he was younger, but his father has supported him and his brother since then. Early on, the reader learns that his father has died mysteriously, to the point where he may have been murdered. Then he meets a woman, Kahlan, fleeing for her life from four men who he helps her to kill. The woman is very beautiful and Richard is immediately smitten with her. When Kahlan meets Richard’s good old friend, Zedd, there is a strange connection between them, as if they know who and what each of them are.
It is then that the story begins to unfold. Zedd is a powerful wizard who has been in hiding for some time. Kahlan is what is known as a Confessor, a woman with the ability to “touch” someone and make them become obsessed with the Confessor and will do whatever they are told. And then the decision is made by Zedd that Richard Cypher is to be the Seeker and bearer of the mighty Sword of Truth. There is an evil man in the far east, Darken Rahl who is taking over, killing many, and looking to control all the known world. It is up to Richard, with the help of Kahlan and Zedd, too stop him.
From this description, Wizard’s First Rule seems like any ordinary fantasy series, where Richard is a Frodo-type or a Rand-type from Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. And yet there is a startling harshness to this series, it is a gruesome world, there is sex and lust, unlike that of Jordan’s or Tolkien’s worlds. It shocks the reader, but keeps them reading, wanting to know what will happen next.
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THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2007 EDITED BY STEPHEN KING: International bestselling author Stephen King takes the stage with a different kind of performance: instead of being the creator and writer, he is the director, selected as the editor for the 2007 edition of the ever popular Best American Short Stories series. But don’t pick this book up expecting to find blood and gore, or a sense of horror and a feeling of terror that you are more used to when reading the editor’s own work; in this collection, King has select works he finds most fascinating, the stories that “make his blood curdle” but in an emotional and moving way, as opposed to a terrified one. Nevertheless, this collection has something to offer everyone, with twenty unique stories that were selected and deemed the best during the year 2006 by Stephen King and Best American Series ongoing editor, Heidi Pitlor.
King kicks off the collection with his own entertaining introduction, as he sets the scene for his discovering these special stories: bending down, ass in the air, going through the dusty and ignored journals shelf of a big-chain bookstore in Florida, and then making his way to the surprised cashier with this mighty pile of rarely bought materials. While it is humorous, King is making the clear point here that short stories are in some ways a dying art, for they are not being read by many, and in most cases, simply by other writers. And yet it is a crucial stepping stone for many aspiring writers. King sets out to show to the reader that while there were a lot of mediocre and not so good stories published in 2006, there were also some great ones, appearing in this collection, showing that the art of writing short stories is still alive and well.
The 2007 collection features stories by well known authors like John Barth, T. C. Boyle, Alice Munro and Richard Russo, to name a few. Here there are stories about everything, satisfying every reader’s taste in some way, whether it be “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” which is exactly what it sounds like; to an enchanting and memorable Lolitaesque story about an Olympic swimmer and a young girl with Polio who have a love a fair set with the backdrop of the 1918 flu epidemic in Lauren Groff’s “L DeBard and Aliette: A Love Story”; to “My Brother Eli” by Joseph Epstein featuring a famous writer who can never accept that he has done what he set out to achieve; to the wonderfully haunting “Sans Farine” by Jim Shepard, where the history and invention of the guillotine is revealed in gruesome detail while the French Revolution spirals out of control.
The beauty of a short story collection such as this is that with so much good material, if one is not immediately satisfied, one can just skip to the next story; and by the same token one can also slowly read and savor each story. Stephen King has certainly shown that he has some interesting and appreciative reading habits, proving his job as a good editor for today’s short stories. The Best American Short Stories 2007 is an ideal gift for anyone who has read all of Stephen King and wants something different, or simply loves to read books for what they are: an escape from reality into a world of the fantastic.
DREAMSONGS VOLUME I BY GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: The two great mysteries of this world are when scientists will come up with a unification theory for quantum mechanics and relativity, and when George R. R. Martin will release the very long-awaited fifth book in his “Song of Ice and Fire” series, A Dance With Dragons. With a hopeful but doubtful release some time next year, for the time being there is thankfully Dreamsongs, a two-volume collection featuring George R. R. Martin’s short stories and novellas spanning his career.
This first volume is split into five parts, separating periods of Martin’s life from the sixties and on through the seventies. At the beginning of each part, Martin gives an introduction, telling his life story at this particular moment, and what were the circumstances that led up to each particularly story and how they were published. He begins from the beginning, writing and publishing at a young age, when one would expect the work to be simple and undeveloped, and yet it is clear that George R. R. Martin was a talented writer from the start. In each story are unique and memorable characters that stick with the reader long after the story is over. In “The Exit to San Breta,” the main character is driving his classic, ancient Jaguar along the old and disused freeways of North America. It is on a particular road in Arizona that he runs into an even more ancient Edsel in incredible condition riding a perfectly flat and unblemished road. Soon he becomes part of a horrific haunting accident set to continuously play itself out for all eternity.
In Martin’s science fiction, he establishes himself in a unique way, using the same world each time, but different planets, an distinct plot, and unforgettable characters that just add much more meaning to the story. In the last two parts, Martin reveals his love for first fantasy and his development as a fantasy writer, and finally as a horror writer. His most well-known story that won him the most prestigious science fiction awards involves a combination of these genres, in “Sandkings.” Kress is a collector of the unusual, whatever the cost, until the day he buys a terrarium of sandkings: small insect-like creatures that form alliances and coalitions, fight wars over land and food, live in peace when able; even worshiping their owner, if he feeds them and takes good care of them. Kress seeks to control and make them his playthings, until they become too intelligent and powerful, breaking free of the terrarium, increasing in size, until Kress has no form of escape.
In this first collection, one sees where the writer George R. R. Martin came from, and what events and stories led him to becoming an important writer in the growing science fiction genre, the barely-begun fantasy genre, and the growing popularity of the horror genre. It is in these stories that one sees the beginning characters and story complexities that would later lead to the epic “Song of Ice and Fire” series. In Dreamsongs Volume I, Martin confesses that he would never be able to write as well as one of his childhood idols, J. R. R. Tolkien, and yet has now been labeled as the “American Tolkien” of our time. Clearly, Martin is destined to become one of the most important fantasy (as well as science fiction and horror) writers of our time.
GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD: A TALE OF ADVENTURE BY MICHAEL CHABON, ILLUSTRATED BY GARY GIANNI: Michael Chabon fans are in for a treat this year with a second novel from the bestselling author of The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and now The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. Originally serialized in The New York Times over 2006 and 2007, each issue is now collected in a small and wonderfully designed edition, with illustrations by Gary Gianni, artist of the syndicated newspaper strip Prince Valiant.
This is the unlikely tale of Zelikman, a Jewish, tall, thin physician from the distant Frankish lands, most noticeable for his long blond hair; and Amram, a giant of a man from the distant land of Abyssinia who incites fear in all who gaze upon him, and yet possesses a calculating mind. The time is circa A.D. 950. This entertaining duo are out to make a quick amount of gold through almost any means necessary. They go where the pathways of the world take them, for they are gentlemen of the road.
After befriending a mysterious person known as Filaq, who turns out to be the unlikable heir of the recently deposed war king of the Khazars, they found themselves caught in larger invents involving war and the overthrowing of monarchies and the taking of nations. Balanced with some jocular humor and written in the author’s unique style: “A plume of dust half a mile tall moved against the southern sky, slow and menacing, a quill scribing oaths of rebellion along the shores of the Khazar Sea”; and Chabon originally wanting to name the book “Jews With Swords,” Gentlemen the Men is a quick but thoughtful read that recalls the days of high adventure.
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MISTER B. GONE BY CLIVER BARKER: The moment you pick up this book, you know you’re in for a treat. It’s small and compact, inviting, around 200 pages long. On the front black cover is the title in Gothic type: Mister B. Gone, with Clive Barker carved in rough letters beneath. Between the two lines is a strange pictograph making one curious and interested. On the back is the same symbol and not another word. Turn the cover and there is a strange marble page design, which kind of looks like a webbing of veins and arteries, followed by two title pages, then the book begins with these words: “BURN THIS BOOK.”
Bestselling author Clive Barker hasn’t released a book in some time, and is currently in the middle of his four-book Abarat series, as well as the third book in the Art trilogy due sometime this decade. And yet the concept for Mister B. Gone suddenly occurred to Barker one day and he was supposedly unable to do anything else until he got this book out of his head.
The is a book about a demon. In fact, it’s a book written by a demon; it’s his story, because he’s trapped in the book. He has but one request for the reader: to burn the book and free the demon by killing it, presumably sending it back to the ninth level of hell. His name is Jakabok Botch, and as he continuously tries to convince the reader to burn the book, he reveals more of his life story.
It is the sixteenth century, and when the demon is trapped and scooped from the ninth level of hell to the surface by a group of people looking to make a profit from selling demon skins, Jakabok’s adventure begins. He soon befriends another demon, Quitoon, of a much greater size and power than him, and their friendship lasts over a hundred years, as they spend their time terrorizing and demonizing the world. The story builds and builds to a crescendo involving Joahnnes Gutenberg and the invention of his revolutionizing printing press which will irrevocably change the world.
While Mister B. Gone lacks the depth, development and sheer incredulity that one is used to with Barker’s work, it is nevertheless a great little horror story. And each time Jakabok threatens on the page that he is coming up behind you with a knife, the reader can’t help but reflexively stop and look behind them.
20TH CENTURY GHOSTS BY JOE HILL: The first time you pick up the hardcover copy of 20th Century Ghosts, you know you’re in for a treat. The book is cloth-bound in darkest black, sans dust jacket, with a sticker on the front listing the title and author, along with a haunting black and white photograph. As one opens the cover, one is greeted by a dried blood-red inlay, followed by the white pages of writing. It is almost as if one is opening a black and bloody wound to read what Joe Hill has to offer.
20th Century Ghosts is a short story collection of modern horror, revealing what else has been going on in the mind of the author who brought us the bestselling Heart-Shaped Box. Originally released in hardcover two years ago in England, Joe Hill fans will be happy to have this beautiful hardcover edition available at the more affordable price than the out-of-print edition only available on the likes of eBay.
With a quick introduction from Christopher Golden, author of The Myth Hunters and Strangewood, the collection kicks of with a chilling story titled “Best New Horror.” It is about an editor of the annual Best New Horror collection who is sent a fresh and disturbing story for the next edition, featuring a level of the macabre and disgust that he hasn’t seen in a long time. The editor seeks out the author and finds himself in his very own horrific story on a level with that of the one that so entranced him. The title story, “20th Century Ghost,” is a classic modern-day ghost story about an old movie theater that is being haunted by a young girl who loved to watch movies until she died suddenly one day at the theater. Now she returns every once in a while to engage a movie viewer in chilling conversation.
From there Hill takes the reader on a journey into different kinds of horror. A man in a Kafkaesque world awakes as a giant cockroach. A young boy is kidnapped by a terrifying hulk of a man who admits he won’t hurt him, but simply wants to watch him. A short and enchanting tale about the ghosts of trees. The fascinating story about a boy who can fly whenever he wears his childhood cape. Not all stories are of the horror variety, but more the mundane and yet still able to move the reader. “Pop Art” is the incredible and yet strangely enchanting story about a world where some people are “inflatable,” composed of little more tan plastic and air and must be careful not to get caught on anything sharp, or they will deflate and die. It is a moving story about a boy and his relationship with one of these inflatable people. A considerable number of the stories in 20th Century Ghosts involve children, specifically young boys. Perhaps Hill is turning to his own childhood imagination, or maybe he feels that childhood is a time when the imagination is most creative and easily convinced, even if the demons and monsters that are imagined are actually real.
While Heart-Shaped Box was not as great a book as I’d hoped, 20th Century Ghosts has convinced me that Joe Hill is an entertaining and talented new horror writer, who is still working somewhat in the style of his father’s, Stephen King, but as time passes and more stories and books are written and published, he will no doubt become one of the most popular and most interesting of today’s horror writers. I look forward to reading his next work.
FROM THE DUST RETURNED BY RAY BRADBURY: Ray Bradbury’s “other” Halloween book, From the Dust Returned, is over some fifty years in the making, beginning as a spark from a single story in his early twenties that he would continue to add on throughout his career. This spark of a first story, “Homecoming,” was originally published in Mademoiselle magazine and featured unique artwork (which is here reproduced on the cover of the book) by a then relatively unknown artist by the name of Charles Addams.
In the style of his Martian Chronicles, this book feels very much like a collection of stories that are linked together through the characters, as well as specific chapters that provide the cement, binding them all together. From the Dust Returned consists of a most unique haunted house where the dead that unite and meet there are of all the same family, with exotic and incredible names like Cecy, Uncle Einar, and A Thousand Times Great Grandmére. Cecy is a unique corpse of a woman who spends her times in the dust dunes in the attic, sending her soul and spirit out into the world to occupy and experience anything and everything, whether it be a drop of rainwater on a rock, a young lover’s heart, or a giant eagle flying across the sky. Uncle Einar is a special uncle with thin veiny wings that allow him to take flight like a giant bird and travel wherever he pleases. And A Thousand Times Great Grandmére, who has existed in her decrepit state for many thousands of years has stories and experiences to tell that make everything else seem short lived and mundane. And then there are many more brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces from all over the world who come to visit.
The main character, a young boy called Timothy, is also unique compared to the family for he is an ordinary human boy who is left as a babe in a basket on the doorstep of this doomed mansion, and is raised in this very strange family. But with his humanity, he has a different viewpoint, and his job is to record the stories and experiences of these most strange and unusual family members.
While From the Dust Returned seems to unravel a little sometimes, with some stories going on tangents that never quite return to the coherent plot, there are gems in this book that are unlike any other I have read. Along with The Halloween Tree, it is a perfect book to be read, and to read aloud, around and during Halloween.
THE HALLOWEEN TREE BY RAY BRADBURY: I read this book every October because it’s the perfect Halloween book. It’s taken me a couple of readings, but I now finally realize that The Halloween Tree is the equivalent for Halloween what A Christmas Carol is for Christmas: an enchanting journey into the history of Halloween where one leans much and is changed by it.
A group of eight boys are on their way out to trick or treat on Halloween, all in different costumes – skeleton, mummy, gargoyle, etc. – and head over to the final friend’s house, Pipkin. Pipkin is sick, doesn’t look well at all, but is essentially the leader of the group and has never missed a Halloween, so he tells them to go on ahead to a specific house and he will catch up with them.
The house turns out to be the quintessential Halloween mansion, with many rooms and black windows. Beside the mansion they find a great and ancient oak with many branches and hanging from those branches are many carved pumpkins, swinging in the breeze. This is the Halloween tree, and as the boys watch, each of the pumpkins light up. At the door they ask for trick or treat, and the man on the other side tells them not treat, but trick. Terrifyingly, he appears from a pile of leaves. He is tall. He is skeletal. He is Mr. Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud.
After the boys get over the initial terror, they are invited on a journey by Mr. Moundshroud. They see Pipkin being taken into the past, weakened by his sickness, and it is up to Moundshroud and the boys to rescue Pipkin from time. And so the boys begin their journey, forming the tail of a giant kite controlled by Moundshroud and they pass back through time and visit the Halloweens of history: Ancient Egypt, Rome, Greece, medieval Britain, Notre Dame, and El Dia de Los Muertos.
It is an incredible story where one learns the history of Halloween seen through the eyes of many different cultures, told in the unique style of Ray Bradbury. Afterwards you will feel as if you’ve actually experienced many different Halloweens and be all the more ready to experience your own on October 31st.
SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT: A NEW VERSE TRANSLATION TRANSLATED BY SIMON ARMITAGE: In February of 2000, renowned poet Seamus Heaney published a new verse translation of the classic anonymous epic poem “Beowulf.” While not a complete literal translation, Heaney’s version set out to emulate the poetic style and meter of the original writers of the poem. “Beowulf” was first committed to parchment around the year 1000, up to then it had only existed as a oral poem recited to friends, families and subjects over fires, in mead halls, and by bards to many people. Heaney’s translation seeks to be this version, to be read aloud to people and appreciated in its original form. Heaney’s Beowulf, in a bilingual edition with the original Old English verse on the left page and his translation on the right, has gone on to become the most popular translation; selected as the version for the Norton English Literature anthology; and has been made more accessible to ordinary readers who don’t have a background in medieval literature.
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” is a poem much like “Beowulf.” While not as epic in scale, it was likely first written down in the year 1400 and up to that point had been recited orally. It has survived in only one form, in the original early Middle English, and now resides at the British Library. Simon Armitage, like Heaney, has employed the use of the bilingual edition, with the original Middle English on the left page and his translation on the right, allowing the reader’s eyes to wander from left to right and right to left, examining the translation and enjoying the story. If anything, the translation is more visible with this version, as Middle English is just a few steps away from our modern language and many words can be easily recognized, even if the spelling is barely decipherable. Armitage admits not going for a completely literal translation, but seeking to preserve the alliterative form of the original poem, even if it means using modern words and phrasing. The result is nevertheless a magnificent story which one reads, imagining what it was like being read or reading this poem aloud over six hundred years ago.
The story begins with King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, as they enjoy a marvelous feast in each other’s company. Then the party is suddenly disturbed by the entrance of a giant man dressed in a full suit of green armor; by his side he carries a gigantic axe. He then challenges King Arthur with the offer for anyone to chop off his own head with the giant axe. If he survives, then the person will return to the Green Knight’s abode to suffer the same fate in one year’s time. Gawain being the just, proud and humble knight that he is offers to do this job for his king. Taking the axe he makes a mighty swing and easily separates the Green Knight’s head from his shoulders. The Green Knight then picks up his head and makes the deal with Gawain to do the same to him on New Year’s Day one year from now.
This essentially ends the first part of the poem, with the second part focusing on Gawain’s journey across the lands to find the Green Knight’s home. On the way he finds a great castle where a gracious king looks after him during the terrible weather. Yet, like the Green Knight, the king challenges him, offering to go hunting each morning, while his wife offers herself to Gawain, tempting him. The deal is that whatever Gawain does, shall be dealt to the king upon his return from the hunt. They do this for three days, but Gawain is pious and just, and does not give in to the king’s wife, giving the king just kisses upon his cheek. The challenge certainly opens up an opportunity for some interesting interactions between Gawain and the king should Gawain have not been so just, but such was not the case. The last part of the story is of Gawain leaving the castle, finding the Green Knight and accepting the challenge visited on him a year ago.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, again much like Beowulf, has now been translated in this clear and alliterative version, making it accessible to any reader. Apart from being an entertaining tale, it asks many questions about what it is to be just and true to your king, how easy it is to be tempted. With a solid introduction from Armitage on the history of the poem, the book sets the scene well, letting the reader imagine what life was like in the fifteenth century, and more importantly, what the people were like back then.
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NOW AND FOREVER: SOMEWHERE A BAND IS PLAYING & LEVIATHAN ’99 BY RAY BRADBURY: Now and Forever, the latest book from one of the best writers of our time, Ray Bradbury brings together two novellas that have never been published in book form before. While the two have little in common, they show two sides to Bradbury’s incredible imagination, giving you a taste of his greatness as a writer and story teller.
The first novella, Somewhere a Band is Playing, opens with the main character, James Cardiff, getting off a train that barely stops at a tiny station in the middle of nowhere. But there is something special about Summerton, Arizona that makes Cardiff immediately fall in love with it. As he enters the town and meets the first person, in the background is the quiet sound of a band playing. In Summerton Cardiff discovers a quiet peaceful place where one could settle down and feel very much at ease. But the longer he spends there, the more mysterious it becomes. He soon discovers that there are no children here, no one under twenty for that matter, that everyone is an adult, many of them old. Cardiff then notices that there are no schools; that it seems like there have never been any children here. Also that there are no hospitals or apparently any doctors, that people simply don’t get sick here. He finally finds the cemetery but discovers that it is little more than a prop, serving no purpose except to reassure visitors that it exists. Cardiff finally forces a confession out of the beautiful woman he has befriended who tells him what is going on and what is the true meaning behind Summerton, Arizona. It is a story that defies belief, and yet makes so much sense.
While the first novella is a masterpiece in its own way, the second, Leviathan ’99, is one also, but in a totally different manner. It is the year 2099 and the story is Moby-Dick, except characters names are different – of course, not Ishmael – and the ship does not travel across the ocean in search of a white whale, but across the darkness of space in search of the white meteor that has been plowing through galaxies. The characters of Captain Ahab and Queequeg exist here with different names and are also alien beings. Bradbury outdoes himself here by not only distilling the story of Moby-Dick into a hundred-page novella, but by perfectly imitating the pacing, language and feel of Moby-Dick in his story with the characters’ thoughts and actions.
Now and Forever is a collection of two incredible stories that serve as a perfect introduction to the greatness of Ray Bradbury, not just one of the greatest science fiction writers of our time, but one of the greatest story tellers.
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WEAVEWORLD BY CLIVE BARKER: A relatively early book in Clive Barker’s career when he was still living in England, it is set within his hometown of Liverpool. Starting out seemingly normal with normal people, it immediately jumps to the mundane and insane. Weaveworld is a book that will delight, appall, horrify, and leave you thinking about the meaning of place and belonging somewhere.
The main character, Cal Mooney, is a person going nowhere fast in a dead-end job, until he comes into contact with this large rolled up carpet that is being moved from a house. Gazing into its intricate patterns, he sees more at work here, and discovers paradise for the first time. As the book develops and more characters are added, he discovers that the magically collected designs within the carpet is what is known as The Fugue: an ancient civilization and people who have lived since the beginning of existence but over time, after cohabiting with humanity, have lost numbers and suffered destruction. Over a hundred years ago The Fugue, using magic, picked the best pieces of their world and their people and wrapped themselves into the design of the carpet, safe and protected, until they will have a safer place to live in the future. Guardians were appointed over time to protect The Fugue, but now they are all gone. The Fugue’s greatest enemy, The Scourge, was a menace while they were living in the world, but now lies dormant while they are in the carpet. That is until they are freed and begin to change the world around them; old enemies come out of the woodwork, and Mooney, along with the daughter of one of the guardians, Suzanna Parish, must work to protect and save The Fugue before it is too late. While not every question is fully answered, or every problem resolved, the book is still an incredible journey.
If you haven’t read Clive Barker before, Weaveworld is the perfect introductory novel to his language, his incredible imagination, and horrors you never thought possible.
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THE DARK RIVER BY JOHN TWELVE HAWKS: John Twelve Hawks returns with The Dark River, the second of the trilogy, after The Traveler, in the Fourth Realm series. We last left off with Gabriel on the run from the Tabula with his Harlequin, Maya, having just sabotaged the Tabula’s quantum computer system which was part of the Virtual Panopticon: the Tabula’s effort to create a worldwide system to watch and know what everyone is doing all the time. The Dark River continues the story of this dystopia in our near future as the Traveler fights for survival while the Tabula fights for domination.
The Traveler is a person who can travel to another realm, learning from these others worlds, he or she returns with a heightened knowledge that they can pass onto others. They have existed for millennia; many famous people in history are believed to have been Travelers, including Jesus Christ. Then there is the Brethren, or the Tabula as they are known to Travelers, who are out to kill all the Travelers and have done so since the beginning. Except in the modern age the true power of the Traveler has been realized by the Tabula and they wish to capture Travelers and use them for their own gain. Finally there are the Harlequins, a secret group who have existed just as long, whose sworn duty is to protect the Travelers.
Gabriel and his brother Michael are Travelers. In the first book of the series, Michael was captured by the Tabula and has now become one of them, an enemy to Gabriel. So as the Tabula are both working on the Virtual Panopticon and looking for the Traveler, Gabriel discovers that his father – a renowned Traveler – is alive and goes to England to search for him. He finds his father’s body on an island near Ireland, barely alive, while his father’s consciousness is in another world, another realm. It is now up to Gabriel to travel to this other realm, the First Realm – better known as Hell – to find his father and bring him back. At the same time they most not forget about the Tabula who are desperately looking for them, using every means necessary.
The Dark River furthers the plot along, but falls short of offering up any shocking realizations or reveals, feeling more like a chapter in the great saga of the Fourth Realm series. It ends on a cliffhanger leaving the reader wondering how the enigmatic John Twelve Hawks (which is obviously a pseudonym) will complete the epic and growing series with just one more book to go.
GOD IS DEAD BY RON CURRIE JR.: Ron Currie Jr. is a new author to the world of publishing, having had stories published in Glimmer Train, The Sun, Other Voices, and Night Train; God is Dead is his first novel. It is a slim book, only 180 pages long, with an unusual layout: the pages are taller than a regular hardcover, but narrower. With a haunting image on the front of a dog looking in a cage where there is another dog lying on its side, apparently dead; the package of God is Dead immediately catches one’s eye.
The title offers an obvious hint of what is to come in the novel. The book is split up into nine chapters that in some ways stand on their own as short stories. In the first God has taken the form of a young Dinka woman in the Sudan in the region of Darfur where she is injured and then killed. God is now dead and word begins to spread, soon enveloping the entire world in this doom. And so each story plays out a different part of the world, with distinctive characters, in different times.
The second story is about a young girl who is now done with high school and wishes to sever all ties and connections with it, go to college in South Carolina, and pretend her past never happened. The story ends with the poignant scene of a priest committing suicide by jumping off a bridge. It is as a small and seemingly insignificant viewpoint that really speaks for the emotions and sensations that the rest of the world is going through. Religion and faith now seem pointless and so the novel goes from there into different peoples lives: boys who can’t take the anarchy anymore and begin a group suicide; adults who turn their beliefs and faiths to children who are pure and innocent and seen as brilliant; a war between the post-modern anthropologists and the environmental psychologists that involves the entire world.
Incredible story aside, Currie Jr. has a unique voice and a great talent for what he does, using a sharp and descriptive writing style that I will look forward to seeing again in his future novels. Ron Currie Jr. is a great new novelist to be watched, and God is Dead is sa fantastic first novel that is more than an introduction to his imagination.
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DEATH AND THE DEVIL BY FRANK SCHATZING: With the runaway success of The Swarm originally in Europe and now in the United States, Death and the Devil, Shatzing’s first novel, has been translated and published. It’s a medieval thriller; a murder mystery set with the back drop of thirteenth century Cologne. This is a completely different genre and story line for Schatzing after the sci-fi/horror of The Swarm, nevertheless he delivers his unique storytelling style in Death and the Devil.
It is the year 1260, and the crowning achievement of Cologne – the great cathedral reaching to the heavens – is almost complete. Its architect, Gerhard Morart, is a proud and respected man in the city. That is until he is pushed from the one of the windows high up in his beloved cathedral. He plunges to his death, whisper two words in his crushed form, and then dies. The people of Cologne believe it an accident or suicide, except for one young boy, Jacob the Fox – so called because of his noticeable red hair – who happened to be sitting in a tree stealing apples when Morart fell. Only Jacob saw Morart high up in the cathedral and he also saw the black shadow behind push the architect out of the window.
Now Jacob is on the run from this shadow that he believes is somehow the devil, chasing him, and will not stop until he is dead. Jacob must use the city to his advantage, make as many allies as he can, and always keep one step ahead of this chasing shadow, or he will be done for. The shadow is in fact a cold-hearted killer, a cruel assassin who will not stop killing until all proof of Morart’s murder is erased.
And so the chase continues set in the richly detailed medieval city in the style and texture of Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose, as well as Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, Death and the Devil is a story that will both educate and terrorize the reader, for Schatzing has done his research well: the reader will learn of medieval life in a big city, the different classes, the power of the nobles over the poor, the power of the church; at the same time they will be biting their nails in fear and excitement each time Jacob the Fox barely escapes the cruel black nails of the man he believes is the devil. Death and the Devil is a thriller that will delight any fan of this genre.
STALIN’S GHOST BY MARTIN CRUZ SMITH: Arkady Renko, the indomitable Russian detective is back with a new tale of murder and mayhem in Moscow. It is a time of political upheaval – nothing new for Russia – but a new politician must be elected. Renko meanwhile enters into a “murder-for-hire” scheme where he discovers the involvement of two fellow detectives – Nikolai Isakov and Marat Urman. Coupled with this is the supposed sighting of Stalin in ethereal form on the platforms of Russian’s subway stations. Black Berets bodies are also turning up at the morgue that are mysteriously linked to Isakov and Urman. The case eventually leads Renko transferring to Tver, where he will discover what exactly is going on and who is behind it all. Naturally, Renko’s uncertain and shaky love interest, Eva – who is also involved in the case – is in an uncomfortable relationship with Isakov, straining nerves and pushing Renko to the edge.
Stalin’s Ghost, Smith’s sixth book with Russian detective Renko once again does an incredible job of capturing the heart of this “new Russia” in a time when few people have visited there and know what the country is really like. Smith never holds back in description, loading each scene with the unique look of Russia, but also with the constant cold and snow adding a freezing tone to everything that happens. This is a new detective novel, with different twists and turns you don’t usually see, but is also part history lesson and part travelogue on Russia. This is a must have for all Smith fans, and a welcome introduction to those trying Martin Cruz Smith for the first time.
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MAINSPRING BY JAY LAKE: Mainspring is your classic cyberpunk novel: the world is run by machinery. The Mainspring is at the center of the world, constantly turning and working, making every other cog, wheel and spring turn and work. The world is split between the two hemispheres by a giant metal wall that reaches into space. The planet turns, and runs on an orbiting track around the sun and at midnight the wall connects with this track for one moment, obliterating everything on top of the Wall and starting anew. All this was created and set in motion by God: the Mainspring is the heart of the world and is also the heart of God.
In this world, the War for Independence never happened, and at the turn of the twentieth century, Britain still controls the colonies. Hethor Jacques is a sixteen year old boy and a clockmaker’s apprentice. He is visited by the Archangel Gabriel and told that the Mainspring is not running well and requires the Key Perilous to set it in correct motion again. This is necessary once over many generations and the time has come again and it is up to Hethor to perform this task. With lots of problems and obstructions along the way, Hethor makes his treacherous journey to Boston where he is press ganged in the British navy on Her Majesty’s Ship of the Air Bassett: an ordinary ship that is attached to a great air balloon sending the ship high into the sky. Commissioned to aid Her Majesty’s ships at the Wall, the Bassett travels over the Atlantic to the great iron curtain where they come face to face with horrors and monsters never imagined. The Wall is a place of legend and story, of fabled cities filled with jewels and ghosts.
It is in a town on the Wall that Hethor meets the Jade Priest who aids him in his quest to cross the Wall and enter the southern hemisphere. He must travel to the South Pole where he will find the entrance to the Mainspring and attempt to carry out his duty. It is here, in the last third of the book, that the plot of Mainspring devolves and becomes quite dreadful, much like the devolved and chaotic world of this hemisphere. Jay Lake takes an uncertain direction in pushing forth the religion that has been secondary to the incredible cyberpunk world so far, making Hethor into a messiah like character and therefore able to survive every devastating attack and tragedy that befalls him. It is here also that Hethor becomes a leader of this simian race that are between monkey and human on an evolutionary scale, known as the “correct people.” With Hethor leading the correct people south, it recalls the plight of Moses and the Israelites. Naturally there is a female in this group who has the incredibly developed and humanistic name of Arellya that Hethor becomes closer and closer to, eventually leading to a copulation scene that can only be described as bestiality: “He rubbed at her hairy back, enjoying the silky smooth feel, like petting a giant cat.”
With this severe downward turn to the novel, Mainspring was hard to finish. The failing of the book was in going from a complex and fantastic world of air ships and machinery and exotic places to a religious dogma coupled with a fascination for an ape-like race. Nevertheless, Mainspring possesses many facets of the cyberpunk novel making it a classic in some ways, along with amazing cover artwork of the Bassett at the Wall.
ACACIA, BOOK ONE: THE WAR WITH THE MEIN BY DAVID ANTHONY DURHAM: David Anthony Durham’s last book, Pride of Carthage, was a fictional retelling of Hannibal’s attempt to take over Rome; Acacia, Book One: The War With the Mein, is his first series set in the fantasy realm. While the title suggests an African world with African magic and people, this is sadly not the case. Nevertheless, the Known World is one in which magic has not existed for some time, while mythology, legend and old ignored gods are very much in everyone’s minds. Acacia at first seems to borrow a little too much from the likes of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time and George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, but then establishes itself halfway through and becomes its own unique story.
The Akaran Dynasty rules over the Known World from the island of Acacia. The Acacia tree is the symbol of the dynasty, with its many braches and strong curling roots, it shows the power and control of the Akarans. The dynasty is ruled by King Leodan who on all outward appearances is a strong and just king, but behind closed doors is a befuddled “mist” addict. This unique drug is supplied by a distant race that, in return for the annual supply of this drug, requires a number of child slaves. This unknown, despicable trade has gone on for generations and while Leodan disagrees with it wholeheartedly, he is a weak king and unable to do anything. This is a society where the past hangs over the present like a domineering father, making sure everything is done just as it has always been, regardless of moral questioning.
King Leodan has four children: two boys – Aliver, the apparent heir, and Dariel, the youngest; and two girls – Corinn, the beautiful older sister who looks to be a useful bargaining chip for forming alliances, and Mena, the quiet and younger sister who shows the most promise from the reader’s point of view in breaking away from the imprisoning bonds of the Akaran Dynasty. Then there are the Mein: a race who were exiled generations ago to the far north for fighting again the Akarans, and it is here that the seed of revenge and need to overthrow the Akarans has grown for generations. Hanish Mein, the current leader has set plans into motion: an assassin sent south to kill Leodan; an unknown people summoned from the north, the Numreks, who are giants with giant beasts to overthrow the Akarans once and for all.
Acacia takes a little while to get going, but once the story is established, all of sudden plans spring into action. Soon King Leodan is dead and the children have fled, exiled to different corners of the Known World to hide, while the Mein and Numreks take over and become the new rulers. With all hope seemingly lost, it is now up to the four children to somehow unite behind a strong army and cast out the Mein once and for all. And the only way this will be possible is by calling on the gods and magic, the legends and mythology from the past and using them to their advantage.
Durham’s world of Acacia is a unique one with many facets that have been seen in fantasy before, but also with many facets that have not. While the first book in the series is a seemingly obvious one where the ruling “good” dynasty is overthrown by the “evil” one and then must fight back and retake the throne, the book is an excellent foundation for a series that, in the future, will become one of the most discussed in fantasy.
THE SWARM BY FRANK SCHATZING (TRANSLATED BY SALLY-ANN SPENCER): The Swarm is technically not a new book, but was originally published in 2004 in German by Frank Schatzing under the title of Der Schwarm, where it immediately climbed onto the bestseller lists and has stayed there ever since. In 2006 the book was translated and published in Britain and the United States; a paperback edition was released in May, and in August The Swarm will be released in mass market edition. In the style of Kim Stanley Robinson’s trilogy starting with Forty Signs of Rain, and Michael Crichton when he was at his best some books ago, and The Day After Tomorrow, this is an eco-thriller set in today’s world with a story that while fantastical is not completely out of the realm of possibility. The paperback edition is 900 pages long, but the more you read of it, the more you will want it never to end!
It is the present time, the world is pretty much the same place, George Bush is still in office, but there are some very strange things happening in the oceans of our planet. Fishing boats have begun disappearing off the coast of South America, no boats or bodies are ever found. Just off the coast of Vancouver humpback and orca whales that have been entertaining sights for tourists now choose to attack the boats: the humpbacks break them in two, while the orcas move in for the kill. In France, fresh lobsters that are being prepared for dinners at famous restaurants burst open and exude a gelatinous substance; soon people begin dying. Around the world ships of all shapes and sizes mysteriously begin disappearing, as do submarines and other submersibles, never to be heard from again. Eventually a catastrophic event happens that shocks the world: the methane ice supporting the North European continental shelf collapses causing a Tsunami that drowns the west coast of Europe from Norway to Spain, and floods the east coast of Britain from Scotland to London; many people are dead.
The world is in shock, not sure what is happening or what they are going to do. A crack team of scientists is convened in Canada at a secret location to come up with a solution to these catastrophes. They include characters who have already had their lives put at risk: Sigur Johanson, a marine scientist who barely escaped the Tsunami; Karen Weaver, a journalist who specializes in marine stories and was rescued from the Tsunami by Johanson; Leon Anawak, a marine biologist who barely survived the whale attack off Vancouver, as well as many others, involving all agencies of the United States government. They are working against the clock to find out what is going on and to come up with a way to stop this, whatever this is. Meanwhile the land invasion has begun, with millions upon millions of crabs storming the beaches of the east coast again carrying this mysterious jelly substance; people begin dying in the thousands as the water supply is contaminated. New York is doomed, Washington DC is next.
While The Swarm features a sizable cast, as these events take place all over the world, Schatzing keeps everyone clear and identifiable, while the reader is left with wondering who’s going to make it and who isn’t. With a depth of research that I haven’t read since World War Z, the author takes the reader into the minds of many people around their world, seeing through their eyes and their culture, as they try to deal with these terrible events. It is a time to put differences aside, as everyone must work together to come up with a solution before it is too late. As far as the translation goes, Sally-Ann Spencer has done an incredible job of making the book run fluidly, to the point where I forget this book was originally published in German.
The Swarm is the perfect summer read to cool you down in the heat, but it also opens your mind to ideas and possibilities you never thought of, and with a movie adaptation due in a year or two, this will be the book you’ll read and not be able to forget.
THE DEVIL YOU KNOW BY MIKE CAREY: Mike Carey, a well-known writer for the successful comic book series Lucifer and Hellblazer, makes his debut in the world of novel writing. The Devil You Know includes story and character elements from his comic book writing, but also has its own individual feel about it; Felix Castor is a similar character to John Constantine, but this is also Carey style’s and one big reason why people enjoy his work.
Welcome to a somewhat alternate world where it seems to be the present day in cold and gloomy London, except that in this world ghost and zombies exist. Now I’m not saying they’re walking around like ordinary people, well, actually, in some cases they do just that. It’s a world where those who know about the reality of some of the dead coming back to life pretend it isn’t going on. In most cases, the zombies are more dead people who aren’t exactly sure why they’re still alive, but keep themselves well hidden from being recognized for what they are; while ghosts have a reason for not being able to move on to the next life, are trapped where they are, to relive the suffering they experienced at their deaths.
Enter Felix Castor: a ne’er-do-well, down and out, alcoholic, depressed, impoverished exorcist who is currently taking a break from work after his last exorcism leaving a close friend doomed with a demon trapped inside him. And yet he needs money to pay for things like food and a place to stay, so when an opportunity is offered to him , he takes it and finds himself investigating a ghost sighting at the prestigious Bonnington Archive, where the incorporeal spirit has recently physically attacked one of the archivists.
The Devil You Know takes a few pages to get up and running, but as Castor puts more and more pieces together, the mystery expands and becomes more complex, as more characters and details are added, and the conspiracy begins to grow. Near the end it seems like anyone and everyone could be to blame, and it will be up to Castor -- who is everyone’s enemy at the moment -- to solve the case and hopefully free the ghost. The Devil You Know is the first in the series with the recurring character of Felix Castor, much like Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, and with the second book in the series, Vicious Circle, already out in Britain, with third, Dead Men’s Boots, due out in September, it’s merely a case of time before they get published on the other side of the pond.
Check out Mike Carey's interview on BookBanter in Episode 16.
STAR WARS VAULT BY STEPHEN J. SANSWEET AND PETER VILMUR: Celebrating it’s thirtieth anniversary this year, the Star Wars franchise is in a similar predicament to the time after the release of Return of the Jedi: no plans for future movies, apart from a continuing animated series of the Clone Wars. By the same token, fans are in the same state with little to nothing to look forward to. Thankfully, to commemorate the third decade of the blockbuster, internationally bestselling movie series, there’s the Star Wars Vault: “thirty years of treasures from the Lucasfilm archives with removable memorabilia and two audio CDs.
This is not just a nicely decorated picture book in a sturdy slipcase; it’s an experience, a journey that one is immediately taken one when they open up the cover. Star Wars Vault is part of the new style of picture being published, like that of 1776: The Illustrated Edition, where the book goes beyond glossy, colorful pictures and photos, but incorporates all types of media, and with the rich heritage of the Star Wars franchise which literally revolutionized the world with merchandising, Star Wars Vault is a gift that would make any fan of the series, no matter how old or how much of a fan, respect you greatly in your choice of gift.
Sansweet keeps his story short, taking up little room on the page, and leaving the evidence reproduced here in various forms to speak for itself. He begins with the fascinating tale of how the first movie, Star Wars Episode IV, barely made it to release, and with little support, until the enormous numbers of audience members proved that the studio executives were very wrong. While Sansweet spends less time on the development and release of the rest of the movies, the experience as one turns the pages and relives the history of the Star Wars empire is unlike that of any other. With unique photos, movie posters, and a plethora of pictures from around the world, there are innumerable insets and handouts of unique items like patches, stickers, collectible postcards, film cells, and even two audio CDs with a variety of different pieces ranging from the mid-eighties radio ads, to special interviews, to a recording of the song sung by Carrie Fisher for the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special.
While the price for Star Wars Vault is considerable, no one will regret it when they turn the page and discover the world within. It is a book that will immediately be quickly read, the stickers and patches possibly used, and added to the shelf to be rediscovered over and over.
GENESIS CHAPTER AND VERSE BY TONY BANKS, PHIL COLLINS, PETER GABRIEL, STEVE HACKETT, MIKE RUTHERFORD: With the Genesis Turn It On Again 2007 World Tour now over, and no future plans yet for the band, fans of all varieties are left in a vacuum of sorts. Thankfully there’s the double-CD live album of the tour just released, and then the DVD of their Rome concert due out in February of next year. There’s also an incredible book spanning their entire career, giving you details to questions you never even thought to ask. And it’s not written by a fan, or someone in the music business, no, it’s written by the members of the band. Genesis Chapter and Verse is the autobiography fans have been waiting a long time to read: the Genesis story as told by Genesis.
Arranged in chronological order spanning the band’s entire career from their early days as young boys at school to the reshaping of the band in 1970 with the addition of Phil Collins and Steve Hackett, to the leaving of Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett, and then Phil Collins, and then the reforming for the Turn It On Again Tour; Genesis Chapter and Verse covers every piece of the band’s history. Printed in a large picture book form, it’s the ideal size for lots of colorful glossy pictures of Genesis through the decades. Along with the photos is the text: words and commentary from the current three main members – Tony Banks, Phil Collins, and Mike Rutherford – along with additions from Gabriel and Hackett, and the earlier Genesis members like Ant Phillips; each of these commentaries begins with the band member’s name, so you know who is saying what about when, and how multiple members saw the same event differently. Coupled with this are sidebars and interludes featuring different producers, managers, and the various drummers that Genesis had in their first five years, each telling their own unique story about this popular band.
Genesis Chapter and Verse is the required gift for any fan, whether they be short- or long-time, who is unsure of where Genesis is going next: to distract them they can relive the band’s history through the band’s eyes and in the band’s words. It will leave the fan with a satisfied and happy feeling as they wait to find out what the future holds for one of the most important rock bands of the last four decades.
BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE WRITING 2007 EDITED BY GINA KOLATA: Since this is the “best American science writing” of the year, you know it’s going to be good. What’s amazing is the variety of subject matter that just the term “science” covers. The result is a collection of incredible articles covering the latest discoveries and breakthroughs in the many different fields of science.
While this collection may not be for the average person who has little-to-no knowledge of science – some background is necessary – the beauty of a collection of articles, like a collection of short stories, is if you don’t like the particular article or find it too complicated, you can simply skip to the next. The first article, “The Theory of Everything” by Tyler Cabot covers the completion next year of a vastly superior particle accelerator in Switzerland. With the results from this giant machine, physics and science may be advanced greatly, with astonishing discoveries made. Cabot talks about this new device, as well as providing a summary of the important theories in science right now proposing possible answers to the famous Unification Theory: the theory linking relativity and quantum mechanics, or in Douglas Adams’s words: “Life, the Universe, and Everything.”
Robin Marantz Henig provides the latest ideas and technology on telling whether someone is lying or not in “Looking for the Lie.” Joshua Davis discusses the unique condition of prosopagnosia, or “face blindness.” A lot of people don’t even realize they have it; some develop it after a severe head wound or a stroke. It is a condition where the person simply does not recognize faces at all, as if they are blank pages that mean nothing to that person. The people suffering from this condition often have to use clues like clothes and the sound of a voice to recognize a person. But now with online groups linking these people together, breakthroughs are being made, as science goes one step closer to finding out the root cranial cause of this condition.
In “A Depression Switch,” David Dobbs talks about a new technique for helping patients who suffer from a form of depression so severe that no medication will help, and they are left with no choice but to remain in a padded cell. The procedure involves implanting tiny electrodes to a specific point in the brain, known as Area 25, attached to a small pacemaker that emits a minute four-volt charge. Miraculously, patients feel the depression go away, and whatever was missing in their lives returns instantly. It really seems to act like a switch and be as simple as that. With almost twenty patients, the new procedure is very much still in its infant stages, but could one day be a successful cure to this form of severe depression.
Oliver Sacks, Elizabeth Kolbert, Sylvia Nasar and Atul Gawande are just a few of the authors whose articles are featured in this collection, running the gamut from space and the universe, to mathematics, to neuroscience, to global warming and environmental awareness, to what science aids on blockbuster movies like The Hulk actually do. The Best American Science Writing 2007 will teach you things you never even knew were being studied, as well as give you hope that there are still many people out there working to make this place a better world.
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BORN STANDING UP: A COMIC'S LIFE BY STEVE MARTIN: Actor/writer Steve Martin’s latest book, Born Standing Up, is neither a novel nor a complete autobiography. It is an insightful and entertaining read about Steve Martin’s rise to fame through comedy, starting during his teen years and leading up to his success as an actor in blockbuster movies.
The book begins with Steve’s birth in a classic American family, with a supportive mother and a father who always wanted to pursue a career in comedy but never did, sticking to a more “productive” and safer job. From a very young age, Steve felt the need to be on a stage, entertaining an audience whether it was with comedic stories, amusing jokes, or slapstick magic tricks. When Steve was living with his family in Anaheim, CA, on July 17th, 1955, Disneyland opened its doors for the first time. He immediately went over and managed to get a job selling programs to park attendees. Steve Martin soon became firmly established as a Disneyland employee, climbing the ranks until he took the job as an entertainer performing tricks at the magic shop in the park.
In his later teen years, Steve began working with different groups in stage comedy. It was the start of his comedy career, when he was barely known, but would never give up. After falling in love with and falling out with Stormie Sherk, later known as Stormie Omartian, he pursued an interest in philosophy, attending Cal State Long Beach and then transferring to UCLA due to where he was performing. Eventually it became too hard for him, and he wanted to dedicate himself more to his slowly growing comedy career.
He set a goal for himself: if by thirty he hadn’t made it, he would change careers. He traveled across the country, getting work wherever he could, making friends and contacts. Thirty came and went, but he didn’t quit. His name became known, his audiences grew larger, and his routine became longer and funnier. It was at the point when he started drawing thousands that he knew he’d made it, as well as recording a number of comedy albums that were bestsellers. He also began performing on a new stand-up live comedy TV show called Saturday Night Live.
It was during 1980, when Steve Martin was performing an astonishing number of shows a week, his energy and stamina sapped, the audience numbers beginning to shrink, that he knew his stand-up career was over. It was a brilliant move by Martin, to stop when he was still at a relative high point. He turned to movies, using some of his stage material and working on a screenplay for a movie that would eventually be called The Jerk. The movie was an instant success, becoming a cult favorite, and was the perfect start to Steve Martin’s movie career.
While Born Standing Up provides a detailed biography to Steve Martin’s stand-up career, he also writes about his relationship with his family, and more importantly with his father, and how this changed during his life. Filled with memorable and some hilarious photos, Born Standing Up is an excellent, short, but very entertaining biography that will make the perfect gift for Christmas.
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THE CAVE PAINTERS: PROBING THE MYSTERIES OF THE WORLD’S FIRST ARTISTS BY GREGORY CURTIS: It was a special day when Gregory Curtis was vacationing in France with his family and entered some famous caves. When he gazed upon the unique cave paintings for the first time, this book was born. The Cave Painters is a two-part story: one small part the story of the rise of Cro-Magnon, modern humans, and their painting abilities; the rest the history of those people who first discovered the paintings and how they proved their finds to the world.
In the first chapter, Curtis starts right at the beginning with the first non-ape hominid to evolve and make their way across Africa as a being that would one day be known as human. He then takes the reader on a journey evolving through different generations of the Homo genus up to Cro-Magnon, better known as Homo sapiens. Curtis also discusses the merits of whether the Neanderthals were “wiped out” by the arrival of Cro-Magnon, leaning more towards no, since the population numbers that are being discussed here are in little more than the thousands. These two different groups of people would rarely have had any contact with each other at all. Nevertheless, it is clear that Curtis has gone all out with the research, making sure that it is clear and up to date, and to put forth multiple ideas that are currently supported, and not just the one he supports.
While the reader is left wanting much more in this area, this is sadly where Curtis essentially leaves it, now taking up the history of those special people who discovered the cave paintings of Western Europe. Though in some ways this is just as moving and tumultuous a story as that of the Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals. These people, for the most part French since the largest number of caves with paintings are located in France, have their story told starting in the nineteenth century. Some were shunned and mocked and even had their careers ruined by others when they told the world of these cave paintings that were over ten thousand years old. Curtis takes the research right up to the present day with what is currently being done with the cave paintings; how probably the most famous caves at Lascaux have been recreated in a separate building due to the deterioration of the paintings by the large number of visitors.
The Cave Painters is an incredible story where the reader first learns a detailed evolutionary history of humanity, and then a detailed biographical history of the famous discoveries of specific cave paintings throughout Europe. Recently released in paperback, the book features numerous copies and illustrations of the cave paintings to aid Curtis’s discussion, as well as a selection of colored plates. It is a short book that will educate the reader greatly.
NOTES FROM THE HOLOCENE: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE FUTURE BY DORION SAGAN: Dorion Sagan, son of the late astronomer and author Carl Sagan, attempts to outline our possible future in his latest book now in paperback, Notes From the Holocene. Sagan uses every informational tool possible, not just drawing from the sciences of physics and evolutionary biology, but also from “science fiction, knowledge of magic tricks, and even a little metaphysics to speculate on basics questions of who and what we are in relationship to the Earth and the universe.” It is a book that at times seems almost silly in its thoughts, drawing from ideas that are certainly not facts, and yet when viewed as a whole is comprehensive of the way things are and what they might turn out to be. As humans, we are always asking the “Why are we here?” question, sometimes with our own answers in mind. Notes From the Holocene is Dorion Sagan’s answer to this question and many more.
The book is split into four distinct parts: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. Each section goes into immense detail about these specific components, educating the reader greatly in these areas, but at the same time, Sagan ties each part significantly to the overall idea of the book. The afterword, “Twelve Mysteries,” does an excellent job of quickly summing up his answers to the questions posed throughout the book. The twelve questions are:
Why does life exist?
Why do we drink water?
Can we save the earth from global warming?
Are human beings central and special?
Is it possible that we’ve arisen by pure chance?
Is the Earth an organism?
Are we part of its exobrain?
If Earth is alive, can it reproduce?
Can the universe?
What does the future hold in store for us?
Does God exist?
What is the nature of human reality?
Whether you’re an absolute scientist, a fundamentalist, or one who believes in reading the future in tea leaves, there is something for everyone in this book. The key is that Sagan is open minded and non-judgmental in every regard, saying that nothing is right or wrong, for nothing is certain, but here are all the possibilities. Notes From the Holocene is a book that may not have your answer to life’s questions, but it may get you thinking more about these questions, and start you on a journey with a destination where you will have your own satisfactory answers to these great questions.
THE WORLD IS FLAT: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY (RELEASE 3.0) BY THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Thomas Friedman is a well known columnist for the New York Times and the person to turn to for answer’s about this country’s economy and where it’s headed. The premiere hardcover edition of The World is Flat hit the bookshelves in April of 2006, and in that time it has gone through a second edition in hardcover, and finally a third edition in both paperback and hardcover. Friedman’s excuse for updating is that the world is constantly changing, necessitating further chapters in his book. One wonders if there may be a “Release 4.0” in the paperback; only time and our ever-changing present will tell. Nevertheless, The World is Flat is a truly unique book, whether it be for a student of economics, or a person looking for answers to why outsourcing is getting so out of control.
Friedman begins with an introduction to how he discovered that the world had become flat; noticing details here and there in his travels around the world, and then putting it all together. He then leads into his ten forces that flattened the world, explaining how they came to be, what effect they had on the “flattening” of the world, and how some are continuing to do so. These include two important dates: 11/9/89, which was when the Berlin Wall came down and eastern Europe and Russia joined the rest of the world once again; and 8/9/95 when Netscape first released its browser to computer owners, allowing them to surf this new thing called the Internet. Friedman hits every important step in the way business has changed in the last three decades: from Wal-Mart’s ingenuity in supply-chaining, leading to the incredible system whereby a product is purchased at a Wal-Mart store sending a message to the supplier which immediately starts making another copy of that product; to software development in its original free form with LINUX; to the light speed development of sites like MySpace, Facebook, and online blogs where everyone has a voice; to the existence of large buildings in places like Bangalore, India, housing thousands of customer service representatives helping American customers thousands of miles away with anything from credit card bills to cellphone technical questions.
With these ten factors serving as a basis for how and why the world has become flattened, Friedman takes the reader on a trip around the world, elucidating exactly why when we call for help now, the chances of getting a person with an accent who’s native language isn’t English are incredibly high. But isn’t this what America is all about? Perhaps not, when the person you are talking to is on the other side of the world, and that this is somehow cheaper and better for the company you are calling that using an American citizen who could be just a few miles away. While Friedman does have some answers, it is clear that America and the world is at a turning point, much like the beginning of the twentieth century when there was the roaring beast of industrialization, and the explosion of the assembly-line system of the Model T Ford. One can certainly expect more from Friedman in the coming years, as new and inconceivable changes happen before our very eyes. For now, The World is Flat is the only guidebook we have, and it does its job to a T.
EMPIRE OF BLUE WATER: CAPTAIN MORGAN’S GREAT PIRATE ARMY, THE EPIC BATTLE FOR THE AMERICAS, AND THE CATASTROPHE THAT ENDED THE OUTLAWS’ BLOODY REIGN BY STEPHEN TALTY: Take a journey back to the dawn of the age of piracy in the Caribbean, in the mid-seventeenth century. England, having just overcome years of civil war after Charles I was executed and Oliver Cromwell has finally died, Charles II becoming king, is at war with Spain. On the other side of the Atlantic, in the Caribbean controlled by Spain, England has begun taking settlements: first Barbados and now Jamaica. Captain Morgan arrives with men and ships and as a privateer has carte blanche to seize Spanish ships in the name of the English crown, and so begins Empire of Blue Water.
It is during this time that the term privateer and the term pirate become blurred together. The clear difference is that a privateer must donate a portion of all that he seizes to the crown of his nation, while a pirate keeps it all for himself and his crew. Naturally, when you’re many thousands of miles away from the country you are privateering for, it is easier to just keep it all for yourself and not have anyone know about it.
Captain Morgan takes this dangerous road, living on the island of Jamaica in the pirate capital of Port Royal. The pirate’s life can be a treacherous one, but it can also be a lucrative one – whether you’re a captain or a lowly seaman. With a fully-crewed ship, the pirate captain can spend as long as he wants cruising the Caribbean waters, taking ships, keeping them and making them part of the fleet, or taking all of worth from them and then abandoning them. Some of the crew may be forced to become pirates, especially when they have valuable skills on a ship: surgeons or doctors of any kind, cooks and sail makers, for example. A pirate ship is a very democratic place: during battle the captain has final say and commands everyone, but otherwise all decisions are made by the crew as a whole. The amount of pay they receive depends on their services, starting with the captain getting the highest, and then going down to officers and the ranks below; again skilled seaman will receive a better share, especially surgeons who are invaluable on a pirate ship. Pirates also received excellent compensation if they suffered an accident during battle or their voyage: a loss of a limb warranted a specific stipend which would increase depending on how important that limb was, such as an arm or leg; if more than one limb was lost, the reward would be even greater.
From this viewpoint, a life of piracy seems almost acceptable as a position at that time, of course there were many pirates in the seventeenth about which little is known or remembered, simply because they lost the battle, lost the ship, and died. Many lives were lost during this time as ships filled the Caribbean waters looking for plunder, while dead bodies filled the seas.
The pirates would decide when they had enough plunder, constantly working out their share, and would return to Port Royal, where they would proceed to spend everything they had earned as fast as possible on drink and women, spending anywhere from six months to over a year doing this, depending how long they could make their money last. Captain Morgan was a little more careful with his earnings, buying a piece of land on Jamaica and then living there with his family until the money ran low, and then he would take to the seas again with a new crew, a new ship, and plenty of Spanish ships to be taken.
Stephan Talty does an excellent job of revealing the life of Captain Henry Morgan, going into detail on his major raids on Granada, Portobelo, Maracaibo, and finally Panama. This last battle saw the pirates taking to the land in an unusual attack that nearly resulted in them dying of thirst and starvation. Naturally, as all good things must come to pass, this is true even more so for a pirate whose life can end at any moment on the high seas. For Captain Morgan, it was the arm of the British crown knowing of his piratical efforts, stretching across the Atlantic and bringing him to trial. But when everything was revealed, Morgan was knighted and eventually returned to Jamaica as governor, yet was never the same man again and in 1688 died of dropsy. In 1692, a devastating earthquake and then a succession of tidal waves struck Port Royal, essentially obliterating the pirate capital. Port Royal was eventually rebuilt, but never became as great a pirate town as it once was.
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AN OCEAN OF AIR: WHY THE WIND BLOWS AND OTHER MYSTERIES OF THE ATMOSPHERE BY GABRIELLE WALKER: Each and every day the people of the world go about their daily activities: going to school, going to work, going to help someone; all with little idea of the great ocean of air above them that has trillions of molecules constantly performing crucial reactions – much like the population below – with the aim of keeping this planet (and its people) healthy and alive. An Ocean of Air by Gabrielle Walker is an excellent 235 page book that teaches you everything you could ever want to know about our atmosphere, its many layers, and the very air we are constantly breathing. Part science book, part history book; An Ocean of Air provides a whole semester’s worth of knowledge and learning in just a single volume.
Walker is an award-winning scientist with a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Cambridge University. As well as having served as climate-change editor for Nature and features editor for New Scientist, she is a visiting professor at Princeton University and has presented many programs for BBC Radio. In An Ocean of Air, she breaks down the atmosphere into its components, explaining each in detail and in clear layman’s language, making it easy to understand for any reader. Along with the science, she also goes into the history of when this air molecule or atmospheric layer was discovered, how and by whom. Apart from learning the makeup of our atmosphere, the reader is also learning of great scientists and inventors of the past who were able to discover so much about something that is essentially invisible.
The book is split into two parts. The first part, “Comfort Blanket,” explains what the air we breath consists of; the fascinating evolution of oxygen and why we cannot live without it, but at the same time it leads to our inevitable deaths; and how wind is formed and develops into the fierce and destructive hurricanes and tornadoes around the world. The second part, “Sheltering Sky,” is where Walker explains the various levels of our atmosphere, their history and discovery, from stratosphere to ionosphere – which is constantly being bombarded with radiation from the sun, but causes a reaction that protects the complex life below. It is here that Walker launches into the crux of the book, explaining the history of global warming from the invention of CFCs and the depletion of the ozone layer, to our present which is just beginning to look towards and understand the possibility of a doomed future.
Just as anyone can be amazed at the complexity of the human body and how it keeps living and moving with the millions of different processes and reactions taking place constantly, our atmosphere is seemingly just as complex and in some ways fragile. Walker keenly points out that while carbon dioxide levels have spiked in Earth’s history, they are now at a level never recorded before, and continuously increasing. Her intent is to inform and educate readers on what is happening to the atmosphere, and therefore the world, and with a further reading section, one can learn how to do their little bit to help this ailing planet.
LETTERS TO eBAY; HILARIOUS AUCTIONS, CRAZY EMAILS, AND BONGOS FOR GRANDMA BY ART FARKAS: In the vein of the Darwin Awards, Bad Cat, and the Book of Bunny Suicides, Letters to eBay is not a deep and contemplative book that offers reason and thought on the meaning of life. It is a book about unusual and strange auctions that have been posted on eBay and one man’s alter ego responding to them. The result is the perfect book to have lying around one’s home, on a coffee table next to the New Yorker, or to take on a trip with you, as I did: a hilarious and entertaining read that you can just pick up and turn to any page.
Art Farkas is not a real person, as you have possibly guessed. The real author behind this book created the pseudonym and fake character one night in August of 2005, when he decided to check out some auctions on eBay. As he looked through friends’ auctions, as well as just generally searching others, an alter ego began to develop who would question and challenge and befuddle the claims made by people on their auctions. The result was Art Farkas, “America’s top cyber-prankster.” Here are some examples:
An auction was listed for a large decorative bird cage, and at the bottom it made the promise to be “worry free.” Farkas seizes on this, contacting the auctioneer with a question about whether this will cure his constant worrying of everything: “I worry about simple and great things of the world including whether sippy cups are really safe, the GNP of Hungary, and the number 72.” The result is the amusing response from the auctioneer who explains in sincerity that the bird cage will not cure Farkas’ problem.
An unusual collector of vintage traps lists a “Large Lucien Legeard trap.” The auctioneer explains that while these traps were made illegal in 1904, they are still excellent collector’s pieces. Farkas contacts the auctioneer, setting up a story that he and a group of older men engage in a live-action game like the Fugitive, where they are all chasing one man. His question is whether the trap would work well to catch a man and how good of a job it will do. Farkas receives this amusing response that the trap would not work well and that any person could easily break free of it. “The British did have a man trap with double springs and plain jaws. But when these come up for auction they are terrible expensive because of their rarity.” As is the problem with all written Internet communication, one is never sure of the meaning and emotion behind a comment, e-mail, or letter. In this case, the auctioneer may well think this story is true, which is just bizarre; or they may see the prank that Farkas is playing on them, choosing to play along.
The result is a collection of responses from people who had pranks played on them and the question is whether they fall for it or not. As the more one reads of the book, the more one feels like after they read the Book of Bunny Suicides; it is an unsettled feeling in their gut, as they know that this just feels wrong. Nevertheless, it really depends on the type of person reading the book. Some who read Letters to eBay will, like me, feel that a lot of innocent people are being conned and tricked; while others will just be LOL (laughing out loud). Ultimately, this book has a little something for everyone.
EINSTEIN: HIS LIFE AND UNIVERSE BY WALTER ISAACSON: Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, takes biography writing to a whole new level with Einstein: His Life and Universe. This isn’t just the story of Albert Einstein from birth until death; Isaacson escorts the reader on a unique journey through the mind of Einstein, as well as through the eyes of his friends and family; along the way one becomes so close and understanding of the man of the twentieth century it is as if he were still alive and conversing with you. This book shows you the man and human being behind the genius of physics and astronomy, the creator of the theory of relativity.
Do not be fooled by the sheer girth of this 700-page book, Isaacson has a writing style that immediately makes the reader feel calm and at home, sitting in a comfortable chair doing what they love to do. Coupled with this is the knowledge – since the book is so large – that you will experience every important moment in Einstein’s life and you will be able to put to rest the urban legends that have developed over the decades. And no, Einstein did not flunk math.
Isaacson has done an incredible job in researching the math and physics so that the theories and ideas are presented in their entirety and laid out plainly so that if the reader wishes to truly understand Einstein’s ideas behind relativity, magnetic fields, quantum mechanics, and his never ending search for the unified field theory, they can. But unlike most Einstein biographies, this is only part of the book; another part is the human being behind the incredible brain. While being a very kind man throughout his life, Einstein also had a thing for the ladies, divorcing his first wife, Maric, of many years due to his infidelity with his second wife and cousin, Elsa, who he would outlive. Nevertheless, throughout his life Einstein always loved and cared for his children, even his first daughter with Maric who was given up for adoption and remains an obscure detail to history. There was a time when he held little respect for Hans Albert, his son, who pursued a career in engineering; Einstein’s love belonged to the world of theory and contemplation and despised the more manual sciences. Later in life, Hans and Albert became close once again and his son was by his side when Einstein died.
While not in the table of contents, the book can be divided into two parts, two worlds essentially for Einstein’s life. The first is his growing up in Germany and then moving to Switzerland, Prague and Berlin. His genius was there from the beginning, as he mastered calculus at the age of 15, and while working at a patent office began his work on relativity. It took some years before Einstein was granted a professorship in Berlin among his colleagues. It is during this time that Einstein was at his height and achieved a celebrity status that was very uncommon for a scientist, and where Hitler began his steady rise to power. While Einstein adamantly declared himself without religion, he never considered himself an atheist but a scientist; however he always considered himself a member of the Jewish culture and with the changes taking place in Germany, he became a prominent spokesmen for the Zionist movement. Sadly it came to the point where it simply wasn’t safe for Einstein to live in Germany anymore, as well as being forced out of his professorship, he made the decision to immigrate to the United States. He had visited the country a number of times during his tours around the world as a proponent of relativity and to meet other scientists at conferences, and was a big supporter of the rights and freedoms inherent in the country.
This is where the second part of the book begins, pursuing Einstein’s life in the United States. It was during this time that he sought out citizenship and left for Bermuda so that he could properly immigrate and go through the citizenship procedure. An adamant pacifist throughout his life, as the horrific events taking place in Germany began to surface, Einstein became more political and outspoken towards the country of his birth. And it was at this time the theory of the chain reaction was discussed between him and a scientist friend and the concept for the atomic bomb was developed. While it has been thought by many that Einstein was linked with the atom bomb from its conception to its detonation, he was only involved at the theoretical stage, kept out from the further proceedings due to his Jewish and German history. Once the full potential of the bomb was realized, Einstein went out of his way to voice his opinions on the effects of the bomb to the President, Defense Secretary, and anyone else who would listen.
After the end of the war and devastation caused by the bombs, Einstein became introverted, focusing more on his theoretical work and pulling away from the limelight. For the rest of his life, to his last days, he calculated, contemplated, and searched for the linking solution between relativity and quantum mechanics: the unified field theory that would explain the universe once and for all.
Einstein: His Life and Universe does not simply tell you Einstein’s life story and the incredible achievements he made, but instills a fascination and excitement with science in the reader. It brings back potent ideas of the past during the age of discovery, as well as laying a foundation in science for the ideas and inventions of the future when, perhaps, the unified field theory may finally be discovered and fully realized.
AUDIOBOOK VERSION: The reader for the audiobook version for Einstein: His Life and Universe is Edward Hermann who starred in The Aviator, received an Emmy Award for his work on The Practice and appeared regularly on Gilmore Girls. Hermann’s voice is like that of an enjoyable professor at a lecture, or a grandfather telling you an old story: soft and calming, but also clear and understandable. It is perhaps in the audiobook version that the book is a lot less daunting and the listener is able to enjoy the book wherever they are.
THE REPUBLIC OF PIRATES: BEING THE TRUE AND SURPRISING STORY OF THE CARIBBEAN PIRATES AND THE MAN WHO BROUGHT THEM DOWN BY COLIN WOODARD: Welcome to the Golden Age of Piracy, at least that’s what it can be considered from the pirates’ point of view. The ten years between 1715 and 1725 was the time when pirates ruled the high seas of the Caribbean. This is their story during those ten years when they had the times of their lives, and had it all brought to a halt by one man.
Woodard starts at the beginning, giving a brief history lesson from the seventeenth century, setting the scene and explaining the rise of piracy in this area of the world consisting of colonies controlled by countries on the other side of the world. It was a time when a captain with a faithful crew and a good ship could do whatever he wanted. Woodard explains in the prologue the distinction between three key terms that often are applied to those conducting themselves in piratical ways. Privateers: these were people who in wartime plundered enemy ships under instruction and allowance from their respective governments, and would then share the plunder between themselves and their governments. Pirates: naturally these people are similar to privateers, except they operated under no governmental control or order, and always kept the plunder for themselves. Buccaneers: these were pirates and privateers mostly from the seventeenth century operating out of the West Indies, were mostly French, and hunted cattle on the island of Hispaniola; the meat was dried on a bouccan.
Woodard then goes on to create the setting of the Caribbean at the beginning of this ten year period, explaining the democratic nature of pirates in dividing plunder, giving captured slaves the option to remain slaves or become pirates. He dedicates a chapter to each of the important pirate captains, including Captain Bellamy, Captain Bonnet, and Captain Blackbeard, whose actual name was Edward Thatch, but because of his decision to never shave or trim his beard, letting it grow freely and wild, was given this epithet. At the same time Woodard discusses the history of Woodes Rogers who, after gaining acceptance from King George, put together his own flotilla of ships and mounted a campaign to stop these pirates and chase them down one by one. In the waning days of this golden age, we learn of the pirate women Mary Read and Anne Bonny, who would disguise herself in men’s clothing. When they were to be executed, they pleaded that they were with child and under law could not be executed and so were able to live out their lives.
The Republic of Pirates is a sobering piece of nonfiction after the successful Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy as the reader learns it was rarely as fun and swashbuckling as Johnny Depp depicts it. Ultimately these people were breaking the law and many lost their lives; it was a harsh reality that is revealing and informative. It ultimately leaves one in contemplation over what life must have truly been like during this time in the deadly Caribbean.
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WILD TREES: A STORY OF PASSION AND DARING BY RICHARD PRESTON: Wild Trees is a big departure from Richard Preston’s usual nonfiction works of deadly diseases, but it is just as unusual and unique. This is a story of the giant redwoods of California and the crazy people whose passion it is to climb them. It is a story of daring adventure, but also of a humanity that holds great respect for some of the Earth’s dwindling survivors.
Wild Trees begins by revealing its real life characters who mean very little to the reader at first, to the point where the reader is wondering where it’s all going, but as the book progresses, each of these characters – their life stories revealed – come together because of their discovered love for the redwoods and their passion and what some might call obsession to climb them. There is Steve Sillett, a botanist who discovered his passion for the gentle giants when challenged to climb one of them. Michael Taylor, son of a wealthy real estate developer, never amounting to anything until the day he decides to find the world’s tallest redwood. Finally there is the Canadian botanist Marie Antoine whose mother died when she was young, and from a young age was obsessed with trees and climbing them. These three are brought together from their seemingly doomed and turbulent lives to a place of escape and rest in the Humboldt and Mendocino counties of California. Perfecting the art of climbing, they are three of the few who have discovered most of the great redwoods that have come to be known today.
Preston himself has an obsession with redwoods and climbing them, which becomes part of the book, as he travels with these three climbing trees, but not always giving specific locations. This is a group that is fully aware of the dwindling number of redwoods that can be thousands of years old, and wish to see them remain hidden and protected. A “wild tree” is one that has never been climbed and Preston is clear that for some trees he wishes this to remain so. It is an interesting execution with Wild Trees, for while he wishes to enamor and amaze the reader with these majestic creations that have stood the test of time, he wishes to maintain this hidden Eden in a way that prevents it from being seen band experience by the readers. Nevertheless, the book is an interesting introspective into these mighty trees about which little is known, most importantly their history and importance, which Preston does not hold back on.
A delight with the audiobook is that it is read by the author, Richard Preston, adding all the more to the tone and emotional resonance of the book. His voice is clear and strong, keeping the reader’s interest from start until finish. There is even a section where Steve Sillett and Marie Antoine each talk about their love for the redwoods and how important it is that we maintain them. The audiobook begins and ends with the a chorus of chirruping birds, as the reader imagines the reddish brown thick trunks reaching from the fertile earth to the cloudy heavens.
EMPIRES, WARS, AND BATTLES: THE MIDDLE EAST FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD BY T. C. F. HOPKINS: With little end in sight to the United States’ protracted stay in the Middle East, it’s important to understand the history of this crucible of civilization. T.C.F. Hopkins, author of Confrontation at Lepanto: Christendom vs. Islam, gives us Empires, Wars, and Battles, providing a short but detailed history of the Middle East beginning with the settling of civilization, when towns and cities were first formed long, long ago. Therefore it is not really surprising that the birthplace of civilization remains a very important location for today’s world. Empires, Wars, and Battles serves as an excellent short history book into the past of this renowned but relatively unknown place in the world.
The book is only split into five chapters covering over two hundred and fifty pages. Hopkins presents the reader with a lot of information that is not very well divided: “The Ancient World,” “The Roman Period,” “Byzantium and Islam,” “The Rise of the Ottoman Empire,” and “The Ottoman Century and Beyond.” Because centuries of history and events need to be covered in these chapters, the book would have been more approachable if the chapters had been parts, with further chapter divisions. As it is a nonstop narrative of information is given to the reader in each chapter, leaving them overwhelmed to say the least. Nevertheless, for those looking for a quick informational download to be quickly read and understands the cultures somewhat already, this is the ideal book. Also, as overbearing as it may, Hopkins, in this way, presents the history with dates and battles from this group to that group, from the Hittites and the Huns and the Mongols, all in different locations with different intentions. This is a relatively accurate portrayal of the confusing way of life that existed in southwest Europe and the Middle East during this time.
While my hope with Empires, Wars, and Battles was that Hopkins would link events and occurrences of the past with explanations for the situation at the present, there is only a sentence or two here and there that tries to link with what today’s Middle East is like. But Hopkins goes on to say that Empires, Wars, and Battles serves more as a companion book to Confrontation at Lepanto, which when both are read will no doubt provide a clearer picture on the enigmatic Middle East with its different cultures and faiths.
THE WALL: GROWING UP BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN BY PETER SÍS: Author and artist, Peter Sis, has had anything but an ordinary life. He was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia and grew up in Prague during the end of World War II and through the Cold War in Stalin’s Russia. In The Wall he tells his story of growing up in this world in graphic novel form, using a simplistic artistic style and careful useful of color for poignancy.
While the book is aimed at 9-12 year olds, it can be read by a person of any age. The story is somewhat simplistic because of who it is written for, but it is still moving and effective in its goal. Coupled with actual passages from Sís’s diary that he kept growing up, one gets a sense of what this world must have been like on the other side of the Iron Curtain in a country other than Russia. There is the sense of fear and repression, but perhaps not so much as those living closer to Moscow. Sís uses black and white illustrations with a strong vibrant red to indicate the power and control of Soviet Russia.
The Wall is a special story that you won’t read anywhere, which told in graphic novel form, adds a certain amount of importance and impact that just a page of words wouldn’t have to that extent. The result is a short, simple, but effective picture book that can be read or read to anyone of any age.
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THE GOLDEN COMPASS, HIS DARK MATERIALS BOOK 1 BY PHILIP PULLMAN: Originally published as Northern Lights in 1995, this is the story of a young girl who doesn’t know what to do or what is going to happen with her life, but soon discovers that she is on a specific course of destiny that she is unable to avoid. While The Golden Compass is considered a children’s book, like the Harry Potter series, it is written with an adult voice in an adult language, with adult themes. It seems that British authors give their young readers a lot more credit that American authors. The result is the first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy that is by no means “just a kid’s book.”
Lyra Belacqua is a young girl who spends her days roaming the many hallways and rooms of Jordan College, Oxford, where she makes friends with everyone regardless of class or status. She’s just looking to have a good time and loves taking risks, whether it be climbing the roof of the college, or chasing and attacking the gyptians who show up every once in a while on the river. This is a different world to ours, where everyday electricity doesn’t exist. This is a world of zeppelins, steam and air powered machinery, gyroscopes and wheels and cogs, essentially a steam punk world. Also in this world every person has what is known as a dæmon, essentially the embodiment of a person’s soul in the form of an animal. When young, children’s dæmons can change form, but when they reach puberty the dæmon settles on a single form for the rest of their lives, giving one an insight into the person’s nature.
But Lyra’s world changes when first she saves her grandfather, Lord Asriel, from being poisoned, and then learns of his work in the distant icy north where work is being done with something called Dust, the northern lights, and something about another world in the sky. Lyra then meets Mrs. Coulter, who she immediately takes a liking to for she is so strong and impressive and knowledgeable, that is until Lyra discovers that she is the one who has been kidnapping children and taking them to the north for experimentation. Managing to escape, Lyra joins with the gyptians who head north to find out what is going on with all this business about kidnapped children and Dust. The rumors are terrible. It is said that experimentation is being on separating children from their dæmons which, considering it is taboo for a person to even touch another’s dæmon, does not bode well for Lyra and the gyptians.
It is in the north that Lyra finally discovers everything that is going and more importantly, why it is happening, as well as a giant armored warrior polar bear, Iorek Byrnison, known as panserbjørne; and a Texan balloon-fighting man called Lee Scoresby.
His Dark Materials, in my opinion, is even better than the Harry Potter series for the subject matter is far more complex with truths that relate to every reader. And with a move adaptation of The Golden Compass set for release on December 7th, now is the perfect time to read this magical series for the first time, or simply to reread it again.
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INTERWORLD BY NEIL GAIMAN AND MICHAEL REAVES: Most people are familiar with Neil Gaiman, who has written such great novels as Neverwhere, American Gods, and Coraline for younger readers, but not so many know Michael Reaves. Reaves has written for Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Twilight Zone, and Batman: The Animated Series, as well as the New York Times bestseller Star Wars: Darth Maul – Shadow Hunter. Gaiman and Reaves began working on the idea for Interworld in 1995 wishing to make it a television adventure, but the idea was not received well, so they decided to write it down in novel form but was still never picked up. Recently, it was represented and has been picked up with a 2010 release, and the book finally published. It is the perfect young adult science-fiction adventure story to fill the vacuum left with the completion of the Harry Potter series.
Joey Harker is an ordinary boy with nothing special going for him. He’s stuck in high school with few friends and a girl who doesn’t even know he exists. While on a routine school field trip, Joey suddenly “Walks” into a parallel world, just like the one he is from but with subtle differences. He Walks through a couple more worlds and soon finds people on his tail. He runs and an ally soon joins him, covered in this strange silvery suit, and looking uncannily like him. Joey eventually discovers that there are thousands and thousands of alternate realities which he is able to Walk through and get to. He discovers that there are two forces vying for control of all the worlds: the HEX, who are based in science and technology, and the Binary who believe in sorcery and magic. Finally there is the Interworld, where a seemingly endless number of Joey Harkers from different worlds, with different but similar names, all looking very different, of various ages, working together to stop the HEX and the Binary.
Written in an incredibly descriptive and flamboyant style, with a pastiche of imagery styles – with the clear intention of transposing Interworld to the big screen – Interworld is a unique novel for all ages, taking you on a journey unlike any other where it requires you to stay on your “mental toes” to keep everything straight and make sure you know what’s going on in this strange universe.
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M IS FOR MAGIC BY NEIL GAIMAN: While it was only a year ago that Neil Gaiman released his last short story collection, Fragile Things, his latest collection, M is For Magic, is specifically a short story collection aimed at younger readers, especially those who enjoyed Coraline a great deal. While this collection features stories already published in Fragile Things, as well as new unread stories, and a single poem; it is a perfect collection for anyone, of any age, discovering Neil Gaiman for the first time.
M is For Magic begins with a classic mystery tale involving characters from the nursery rhymes of our past, with the natural victim being Humpty Dumpty. It is the perfect introduction to the mind of Neil Gaiman where you never know what you’re going to get, all you know is that it’s going to be magical and amazing. The highpoint of the collection, making M is For Magic the perfect gift for fall or Christmas, is “October in the Chair” as the months of the year recount some incredible stories they’ve experienced. Included is also “How to Talk to Girls at Parties,” which won the 2007 Locus Award for Best Short Story. It ends with the wonderful poem “Instructions,” as one is led on a step-by-step quest through a fairytale and what are the directions, and what it takes to survive.
Whether you’ve read these stories before in other books, or wish to try something new and different, M is For Magic has something for everyone. And the beauty of the short story collection is you can just pick it up and read a single story, or sit down and read the whole book over and over.
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HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS BY J. K. ROWLING: Who will die? What will happen to Hogwarts? Is Snape good or bad? Will Voldemort finally die? And is it possible Harry might die? Many people around the world have been waiting two years for the final installment of the Harry Potter series. As I write this, people of all ages are furiously reading; many have already finished. This is it folks, the last one, with no more planned; and the results are in: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, weighing in at 759 pages, concludes the series in spectacular, jaw-dropping, and awe-inspiring fashion, solidly placing the fantasy series up there with Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, possibly as one of the best fantasy series of all time. This seven-book series, which will be published as a complete set on September 18 in a beautifully designed trunk-like box with handles and your very own lock, will be one for the ages, to be read by children for many generations to come.
The Death Eaters are slowly but surely taking over, as we’ve always known they eventually would, increasing their numbers and employing the army of Dementors, under the control and guidance of Lord Voldemort. Rowling puts her three main characters – Harry, Hermione, and Ron – to the ultimate test here. In the last six books Harry has gotten by with help from friends and teachers, always seemingly getting that necessary and crucial help at the last second; but now the trio are seventeen, no longer considered underage, and able to perform magic wherever and however they so please. Rowling doesn’t hold back, leaving them to fend for themselves, solve their own problems, and get out of each and every situation on their own. Deathly Hallows is nonstop action, one scene of fighting and almost death leading onto the next, as the three seek out the Horcruxes. Going on the vague and barely informative words of wisdom from the late Albus Dumbledore, they piece it together, using their magical and educational knowledge – not just Hermione’s! – with the goal of finally defeating Voldemort once and for all. And while Harry has expressed in the past that it’s up to him, he’s the Chosen One, and needs to go it alone, he isn’t given the opportunity here.
People are dying, mainly muggles, but also Mudbloods, and any whose bloodline is tainted with that of the non-magical, leading to a growing world that harkens back to the time of the Third Reich in Nazi Germany, as well as echoing the doom and hopelessness of 1984. With Voldemort’s rule seemingly solid and complete, Harry gets help he doesn’t want from the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore’s Army, leading up to a great final battle where the castle known as Hogwarts lives up to its name as a defensible fortress.
This is the last book folks: who will live and who will die, who will triumph and who will fall is at the mercy of the turning page and the next sentence. But with the size of this book, you can be sure you’ll be on the ride of your life from the first page until the last. And you will feel a sadness and longing at the realization that the long journey in the life of Harry Potter is finally over. Yet Rowling has done such an incredible job with Deathly Hallows, weaving in details and points from all previous six books, that you are left with a strong sense of nostalgia. And what’s the only cure for this feeling? Why to begin the books all over again with the first when Harry Potter first looked upon Number Four, Privet Drive.
ELDEST BY CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI: I read Eragon last fall and while it was a decent fantasy novel (the first part of a trilogy), which Paolini had first written and self published when he was fifteen, I was ultimately disappointed with is lack of originality and obvious "borrowing" from Lord of the Rings, the Wheel of Time series, and no doubt other fantasy epics. I am pleased to say, having read an advanced reader's copy of Eldest that I'm now looking forward to the conclusion of the series. Paolini has grown up in many ways and this book is a lot more devleoped in both character and plot, plus he's developing his own ideas and making his own choices instead of using other works. He does make some references, as it is impossible to write fantasy and not do this, one being Beowulf, but it is more of an homage or a tipping of the cap to this or that work. Also he'll be coming to a high school in Santa Rosa on September 16th, basically due to my idea for a competition that readers can enter, and the prize is four of them will get to read their idea of what they would do and where they would live in Alagaesia. So I'm looking forward to meeting with him and discussing his influences and ideas, as they are quite similar to mine. We both seem to search for origins of peoples and civlizations, whether they are historical or invented; pretty interesting stuff.
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THE AMULET OF SAMARKAND & THE GOLEM'S EYE BY JONATHAN STROUD: So I met Jonathan Stroud last Friday, author of the Bartimaeus triology, of which the first two are out: "The Amulet of Samarkand" and "The Golem's Eye." He came to the bookstore I work at in Petaluma, Copperfield's, and was pretty entertaining. He was the classic English guy writing about a doomed England of magic and magicians and the regular people known as "commoners": average English accent from near London area with some clipped Cockney when speaking, but when reading clear, upper class southern England accent; a very ordinary looking guy in a t-shirt and slacks, totally unassuming and seemingly unaware that he's a big famous author who's growing and growing in notoriety.
I was talking to him about how I really liked that in his fantasy books involving magicians being separate and higher in social stature than ordinary people like you and me, Stroud pays more attention to what is happening socially with the paradigm, than just telling a story about a hot-shot wizard doing great things. And he seemed happy to know that I had spotted this in his books. That they took a different direction to most of the kids fantasy books out today involving the Harry Potter character, which has now practically become an archetype.
In the world of the Bartimaeus triolgy, magicians don't actually have that much power. They have all their control and magic from summoning djinn from another world and using them to do magical things, and all the summoning of imps, djinn, and higher level afrits is done through reading incantations from books. So in this world, the magicians really don't have that much power. The magicians control the entire government from Parliament to the prime minister.
And then you have the ordinary people, the "commoners" who are a subjugated people who work in factories and any and all jobs that involve labor. And are meek and always do as they are told, and it comes off as an almost Orwellian distopia. Except there are a few that somehow possess some ability to take attacks from magicians and djinn and not be killed by them and that they are able to see on multiple planes. There are seven planes, humans can only see on the first, and magicians with the aid of lenses can see the first three, while the djinn and afrits are on all seven planes. And this group are known as the "Resistance," as they try to overthrow the magicians and take back control of the country.
And then there's the nebulous rest of Europe in which you have the east consisting mainly of the Czechs who are warring against the English and have been for a long time, but are now at truce.
So it's a very interesting world with lots going on instead of just some tough wizard kid fighting a bad guy. I recommend it to all who want to read a different kind of fantasy.
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INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET BY BRIAN SELZNICK: Brian Selznick, who previously has done a mixture of writing and illustration, brings us his greatest creation to date: The Invention of Hugo Cabret. The main character, Hugo, is a young orphan who used to live with his uncle behind the scenes of a Paris train station. Then his uncle died, and Hugo now spends his time, in the late 1930s, winding up and oiling, fixing and maintaining the many clocks and devices around the train station, all alone. He is rarely seen and actually lives behind the walls, while thousands of people, day to day, travel to make their trains, or disembark for other destinations.
It is on one day that he gets to know the man who owns the newsagents in the train station, after befriending his daughter. The story slowly unfolds that the man is actually George Méliès, one of the most important people in the early days of film, his most famous piece being about four men who traveled to the moon known as A Trip to The Moon, with the memorable image of the dough-like moon with a face grimacing as the bullet-like ship is shot into its eye. Méliès died in 1938, but it is in this story that he lives on working in obscurity at the newsagents. The story unravels further to reveal an inextricable link between Méliès and Hugo.
While this would be an enjoyable story in its own right, Selznick has created a new medium using not just words, or pictures, or illustrations, but incorporating all three into a chronological miasma. The book begins like a movie, with fifty pages of gray illustration as we zoom in on the train station, into the clock and Hugo Cabret. Then there is the start of the story in word form, but instantly switching to illustration again, and then cutting to photographs where necessary. The difference here is that the illustrations are not revealing the written word, but continuing the story of the word. You cannot skip one, or you miss the story. The Invention of Hugo Cabret uses all these forms to make this not just a book, but a collection of illustrations, and a type of movie or flicker-book that are all interwoven to tell the story of Hugo Cabret and his relationship with George Méliès, one of the original geniuses in the early days of film.
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THE ARRIVAL BY SHAUN TAN: Shaun Tan was born and grew up in Australia. He has illustrated The Red Tree, The List Thing, and The Viewer and Memorial written by Gary Crew. Using a unique art style and form that seems modern but still comprehendible, it immediately catches the eye, making the viewer “read” on. In Tan’s latest work, The Arrival, he has outdone himself with a unique story of immigration and insertion into a new and very different culture.
The world is filled with different and diverse cultures, and when people immigrate to another culture, it is a very hard and trying life event to either be assimilated, or simply to fit in with this new culture. The many citizens of the United States have known this for centuries, while many these days are still dealing with the problem of how to keep their own culture alive, but to also be a part of the culture they live in. While some can understand and sympathize with people of different cultures who go through this great change, it varies from culture to culture as to what their lives will be like.
Tan has taken a unique step here in making The Arrival a story of immigration into a new culture universal and understandable to everyone, whatever cultural background they come from. A father must leave his wife and children and journey to a new country, get a job, and begin his life there. When he is ready, the rest of his family will join him. Except this is an alien world, with weird shapes and objects everyone, people look strange, there are unusual creatures everywhere, and travel is done somehow by hot air balloon. There is a type of symbolic writing that seems uninterpretable to the naked eye. So the reader begins the journey with the man, trying to comprehend what is going on, what people are saying to him, trying to get by each day with some kind of understanding.
The result is a very special story that that has incredible art from an alien world which is fascinating and enchanting, but at the same time is telling the story of the plight of the many over hundreds years who have immigrated and begun their life over in a new culture with new and different ways.
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RUNAWAYS, VOLUME 1: PRIDE AND JOY WRITTEN BY BRIAN K. VAUGHAN AND ILLUSTRATED BY ADRIAN ALPHONA: In this first volume of the smash-hit series, Runaways, written by award-winning writer Brian K. Vaughan, which has now attracted the likes of Joss Whedon, we are introduced to a bunch of young teenagers who have little in common and don’t like each other that much. Every year they are forced to hang out together as their parents meet secretively for some charity event, it is thought. Except this time, things are a little different. The kids are older, starting to take an interest in the opposite sex, which they immediately do, and their curiosity is insatiable. They decide to finally find out what their parents are exactly up to. Using hidden passages in the house they sneak up on their parents and discover two important things: 1) Their parents are super heroes, and 2) Their parents are not super heroes, but actually super villains.
Vaughan presents a very interesting and unique dynamic. The teens immediately work on running away from their evil parents and along the way discover unique powers that they possess. It is an enjoyable and ideal story for young teens or teens of any age who are looking for something in the vein of Teen Titans; but it is also a very enjoyable story for adults also. It marks the continuing tangent that Marvel has taken of late in looking into the early lives of their super heroes.
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STARDUST: BEING A ROMANCE WITHIN THE REALMS OF FAERIE WRITTEN BY NEIL GAIMAN, ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES VESS: The fairy tales we grow up listening to and learning from our parents and family are usually old, centuries old, sometimes ancient; all with one thing in common: they have elements of truth in them taken from history. Every once in a while, a story will come along that seems like it is a great fairy tale like that of Hansel and Gretel; a story that has come down from history with those elements of truth, even though it has been imagined and created by a single writer and artist not too long ago. Stardust is one of those stories: a story that feels like a fairy tale to be told and taught to children of all ages, everywhere, for generations to come.
Set in the time of Queen Victoria and when Charles Dickens was serializing Oliver Twist, there is a small and quaint town called Wall. It is named so for it sits on the very boundary between our world and the world of Faerie. Naturally, there is a strong stone wall stretching across the edge of town, along this crucial boundary. There is one opening in the wall that is constantly under guard; the guard’s duty is to let no one pass from the village of Wall through this hole and across the boundary into Faerie. Except that Dunstan Thorn, a sometime guard of the wall, wishes to see this magical world and one day sneaks through the wall and into another world. He finds a market, an event that only happens every seven years at this location. There he finds a beautiful woman who has been made a slave to a witch. She gives him a gift for a single kiss.
Returning to Wall, he knows he cannot stay away from the girl who will not leave his mind, and returns that night to her. They make love under the stars and then Dustan leaves the realm of Faerie and continues his ordinary life in Wall. Nine months later, a delivery is left on his doorstep. It is a newborn baby in a basket, along with an envelope with the name TRISTRAN THORN on it. This is Dunstan’s child, and the message in the envelope for Tristran, his son, when he is old enough.
Years pass and Tristran grows into a young man living an ordinary life in Wall. There is a young girl, Victoria Forrester, who has stolen his heart with her beauty and charm. They have known each other since they were children, but Tristran has been unable to confess his love for her. Then one night, under the stars, as they picnic together, they see a bright falling star plunge into the deep lands of Faerie. Tristran promises then to go out and bring back that fallen star for Victoria, as a token of his love. Victoria allows him, thinking it a joke, and says if he is not back in seven days she will marry the man who has asked for her hand.
So begins Tristran’s adventure into the land of Faerie in search of the fallen star. Little does he know the fallen star is now a young girl who was knocked from the night sky by a jewel, an heirloom belonging to the King to Stormhold. The King lies on his deathbed with three of his seven remaining sons by his bedside. Whoever returns with the jewel will become king of Stormhold. There are also three ancient witches who saw the star fall and seek it. If they return with the human form of the star, they can sacrifice her and regain their magical powers, their youth and beauty. And so Tristran must make this long journey, against all these odds; along the way he will meet many strange people – some friends, some enemies, some willing to do anything to get the star.
Stardust is a magical story that seems to possess elements of every fairytale ever told. With the relative success of the movie that did not do the original story justice, this new and beautiful hardcover edition is an ideal addition for any Gaiman and/or Vess fan. But it is also the perfect gift for those family members wishing to tell this story to their children. Along with the wonderful layout and incredible illustrations full of color and life, this edition has unique illustrations by Vess never before seen in the development of Stardust, along with the original proposal by Gaiman and Vess with the cover art and further illustrations.
Stardust is a story you will want to have on your shelf for the rest of your life, to read it yourself on cold rainy nights, or to read it to you children and your children’s children. It is a story to be told many times over and learned by many.
PREACHER VOLUME 2: UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD BY GARTH ENNIS: In this next volume of the successful Preacher series we go back into the past of Jesse Custer and learn of his terrible upbringing under the cruel thump of his fundamentalist grandmother assisted by two inbred ingrates. His father is shot and killed in front of him for not following the rules, while his mother suffers a similar fate later in his young age. Whenever Jesse commits a sin, he spends time in the coffin – sealed airtight and dropped in the river with a narrow breathing tube, in complete darkness. Tulip, his girlfriend, learns all this when they’ve been captured by said evil family and are to be killed. But the Preacher is now older and stronger while his family is older and feeble and with Tulip’s help, the terrible bloodline is ended once and for all.
In the second part of the book, they rejoin with their vampire friend Cassidy who tracks down the murderer of his girlfriend, leading them to a sex-addicted fiend who goes by the name of Jesus De Sade. There is also a sub plot going on here about a secret group who has been protecting the secret of the holy grail for thousands of years and it is in the year 2000 that the end will arrive and they intend to use Jesse Custer as their preacher.
The second volume reaches new levels with the storyline, revealing some important history and back story, keeping the reader rapt and wanting more. Thankfully there are many more volumes in the series to come.
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PREACHER VOLUME 1: GONE TO TEXAS BY GARTH ENNIS AND STEVE DILLON: Vertigo continues with another series with a “what if” involving the Christian pantheon. The preacher of the title is exactly that, although he has lost his faith of late, especially when he is possessed by a spirit from heaven and barely manages to escape before his church is burned to the ground with his congregation toasted inside. Preacher is a graphic novel series that starts off with questions and intrigue, leaving readers wanting more.
The spirit that has inhabited the preacher is known as Genesis, a burning ball of fire with infant features who was conceived between one of the angels of the Seraphi and a demon from hell. It’s an event that was never supposed to happen, and the result is a creation that can challenge the very power of God. Upon the discovery of this devastating event, the Seraphi killed their member who coupled with a demon, while the Adephi are left to imprison and watch over the creation known as Genesis. But Genesis manages to escape, coming to Earth in search of a soul which it finds in one Reverend Custer, the preacher. Custer is soon joined by a former girlfriend and a new friend who turns out to have some most unusual eating habits.
In the style and graphic vein of Lucifer, Hellblazer, and other such classic Vertigo titles, Preacher is a series I look forward to continue reading.
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