Cripple Creek

Cripple Creek by Douglas Hirt is billed as a "Western" but now that I've read it I tend to see it more as an historical novel. I suppose all westerns are, in essence, historical novels but in my mind they tend to be more or less confined to the years immediately after the Civil War and on up to the end of the 1880s or so. And they tend to be about cattle drives, the Indian wars, frontier justice and the like, usually with one main hero. Cripple Creek is not really about any of those things but rather about the birth and first six years of the boomtown of Cripple Creek, Colorado.

My family has lived in Colorado Springs off and on for about 17 years, depending on where my military assignments have led us and we've decided to make it our home now that I've retired from my military career. I've known the town of Cripple Creek, nestled up in the mountains to the west, as one of several historic towns in Colorado to be allowed limited gambling. I've always known it had begun as a silver mining town but didn't know the real history of the place. So when I saw this book at the used bookstore I just had to grab it.

The novel itself is an easy read but is a very good novelization of the area in the early 1890s. There are several main characters but chief among them is Casey Daniels, a mining engineer who runs afoul of one of the prominent mine owners of the region. There are quite a few story lines that interact among the many characters, lending a bit of a soap opera feel to the story but what I enjoyed the most was the large numbers of real historical figures. Some play major roles in the novel, including Winfield Scott Stratton, the "Three Jims", and of course, Bob Womack, the first man to discover the riches underneath the mountain. Many historical novels would stop there but in this one every major mine owner, hotel operator, saloon proprietor and whore house madam that plays a role in the story is a genuine historical figure. It was fun to see their names as well as the landmarks and relate them to some of the prominent street names and public buildings that exist today in Colorado Springs.

It occurs to me that while all of these familiar character names makes this a fun novel for me to read, it may have the opposite effect on those who do not live here or know the surrounding area. I noticed several times where we meet people for very brief moments and who have very little impact on the story, almost as if the author just wanted to make sure they made an appearance. That could be a problem for some. But overall I thought it was a nice story, albeit somewhat predictable. The characters were also a bit two dimensional and seemed to come straight out of central casting but something about this novel drew me to it and I definitely wanted to keep on reading, even past my bedtime.

Follow the River

Do you ever experience times when it's just hard to get into beginning your next read? I usually never have that problem but rather the opposite: difficult to choose what to read because I really want to start a bunch of different books. Anyway, I had difficulties after completing the last novel. Perhaps I was just very emotionally engaged with it but whatever the reason, I just wasn't looking forward to making a selection. This also probably has to do with my "December policy." I try to use the month of December every year to read some of those books that have been on my shelves forever but I just haven't gotten around to actually reading them. Of course there is usually a reason why they are on the December list, usually because I've read others buy that author with mediocre results. This time I actually started a fantasy novel (which will remain nameless) which was the 8th in a series...and I realized I just didn't want to invest the time in it. The other books in that series were OK but as I get older I'm really not looking for just "OK" anymore.

So I turned to Follow the River by James Alexander Thom. This one had been on my TBR shelves for over 10 years. I had never read this author before and the only reason it sat there was because I just always had higher priorities for my historical fiction reading. But, boy am I glad I finally picked it up! This is the novelization of the true story of the Mary Ingles, and young frontier wife in 1755 who was kidnapped by Shawnee Indians in Virginia. After several months of captivity she escaped and made her way back home (over 1000 miles) by following the Ohio River. The first part of the novel was fine but not extraordinary. It wasn't until Mary had escaped and together with her co-escapee, an older German woman named Gretel, began to experience the true hardships of survival that the novel really shines. The author really gets into the realities of what survival would be like with only a tomahawk and a couple of blankets. As they make their way further down the river and face utter starvation, I became fascinated with the story. Such an incredible journey and a testament to the strength of the human spirit.  Even though I knew Mary would somehow make it home (it is a matter of actual history after all) I did not know if Gretel would survive or if Mary's husband would be there when she finally made it.  And just how Mary, herself, survived was simply fascinating.

This is why I like my December policy. I uncover gems that have been waiting there patiently all along. I plan on investigating Mr. Thom's other historical novels now but I doubt they will remain on my TBR shelves for so long.

The System of the World

After nearly three long years of reading these books by Neal Stephenson I have finally completed the final volume. The System of the World contains the final three novels in his huge Baroque Cycle a “project” read that I began back in 2008. This volume contains these three novels: Solomon's Gold, Currency, and The System of the World. All told there are nearly 3000 pages of historical fiction, historical fact, irreverent humor, and a bit of science fiction thrown in.

I don't have too much to say about the story itself as there is just so much here. Lots of main characters and hundreds of lesser characters, combined with a verbose hi-brow style of writing make these books a viable read only for those who really want to tackle a challenge. Neal Stephenson is one incredibly intelligent human being and he allows his intellect to permeate his prose to such an extent that large parts of these books are almost unreadable. I plowed through them as a "project." That is, I work on them in between other reading with the ultimate goal of just getting through them. I am also a completist and so refused to give up on these books even though I see by reviews that many others did indeed given up on them. I didn't start out planning these as a project but after I got through about 100 pages of the first one, I decided I just couldn't read them in the normal fashion. I would have dumped them. I must say I'm happy that I made it through them but, at the same time, I won't be taking them with me to that proverbial deserted island.

Speaks the Nightbird

I am new to the author, Robert McCammon, but he came highly recommended from another blog I follow so I thought it worthwhile to give him a shot.  The results?  Speaks the Nightbird will be a very strong competitor for my best-of-the-year list and now that I think about it, will probably make my best-of-all time reading list.

Yes, it's that good.

This is an historical novel set in the Carolina territory in 1699.  Mathew Corbett is a clerk to a magistrate (judge) based in Charles Town and together they travel to the village of Fount Royal where the magistrate must have a trial for a reputed witch.  Of course, the townspeople all firmly believe the witch is guilty and there is no need for a trial, and indeed, the evidence is damning.  In fact there are even eye witnesses to her devilish acts.  What follows is a rather complicated and intriguing mystery in which we watch our protagonist uncover the truth of the matter, using his keen powers of observation and deductive reasoning much like Sherlock Holmes would do.  But there is far more to this novel than the mystery for this author has mastered the arts of setting, pacing, characterization, and plot.  The book is a rather large one, coming in at 792 over-sized paperback pages, and yet it did not seem like a "long" book.  I kept wanting to read and then read some more, cutting short some of my other well-loved hobbies (and sleep) just to get more reading time in.  And thankfully, there are two more novels featuring Mathew Corbett following this one.  Delightful!

Gallow's Thief

Gallows Thief is the 13th book I've read by Bernard Cornwell and, surprisingly, I've never read one from the Sharpe series for which he is most well known. I rank his "Winter King" trilogy among the best of Arthurian literature and I am rarely disappointed with his work.

This book was a bit of a genre mix. I picked it up thinking historical novel and indeed it is, taking place in 1817, shortly after the events of Waterloo. In fact, the protagonist, Rider Sandman, was an officer in that battle but now finds himself in London, unemployed and in need of some coin. He is contracted by the Home Secretary and former Prime Minister, Henry Addington to investigate the accuracy of a guilty murder verdict for one Charles Corday, an apprentice painter now locked up in Newgate prison awaiting the hangman's noose. It seems the Queen herself is interested in the matter and has doubts that Mr. Corday is the actual murderer. So yes, the novel is set in 1817 London but it is largely a detective/mystery novel. And a fine one it is. Sandman's investigation is conducted over a seven day stretch and, as the book cover says, "takes him from the bowels of Newgate to the scented drawing rooms of the ruthless and powerful, and into the darkest shadows of the filthy, bustling city." A very nice read.

Someday, I'm going to have to get around to those Sharpe novels...

Treason

Treason is a part of David Nevin's "The American Story, 1800-1860" historical novel series and takes place from the fall of 1803 through the late summer of 1807. This basically equates to the end of Thomas Jefferson's first term and his entire second term. These were important years in the history of the United States, a timeframe that included the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition, and the election of James Madison.

The novel is essentially about Aaron Burr although we experience this era through the eyes of many characters, most especially Dolly Madison. At the beginning of the novel Burr is Vice President but completely marginalized by the Jefferson administration. In those days the man who came in second in the election became the vice president, not the best recipe for a cooperative management effort. Burr is prominent in New York but when he returns there to run once again for political office, he is badly beaten. His personality is one that demands satisfaction and when he becomes convinced that Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury at that time, is responsible for his defeat, Burr finds an excuse to blow an insult out of proportion and challenge Hamilton to a duel.

This is an oft-visited episode in US history. Most people know of Burr's duel with (and victory over) Hamilton but far fewer know what Burr was up to after that. None of what follows in the novel, concedes the author, is perfectly factual as Burr never admitted to it. But based on the historical record, it seems highly probable that Burr conceived of and attempted to carry out a plan to take advantage of the newly completed Louisiana Purchase by creating a whole new country. He planned to exploit New Orleans's desire to remain "French", raise an army, convince the leadership of the Western states such as Ohio, Tennessee, and Kentucky to succeed from the union and attack Mexico, using their gold to finance the new country. They would then become strong allies of Britain/Canada and limit the US to an east coast-only country, much less of a threat to the continent. This would also set up the possibility for the industrial New England states to separate from the agrarian slave-friendly South, a concept favored by Northern governors at the time.

An intriguing concept, but of course it never happened. I was amazed to read about it though and see just how widespread the whole thing was, involving a number of governors, senators, and other prominent people. It failed for a number of reasons, chiefly, that his co-conspirator, General James Wilkinson, lost his nerve and tried to pin it all on Burr. But James and Dolly Madison also uncovered the plot and convinced Jefferson to act to prevent such treason.

The book itself was intriguing albeit a bit slow in places. The author's style is to use actual historical figures as his main characters, not a fictional person who is affected by history's great events, like many historical novelists do. This requires extraordinary research, of course, not only to get the facts right on where people were when, but also to know them well enough to extrapolate how they would react to events. I think the author does this very well indeed.

I've read 4 of the 5 books in this series, missing only Meriwether so far. Mr. Nevin plans more of these novels, but the last one was published in 2005 and so I have to wonder if there will be more.

Glory in the Name

James L. Nelson is one of "my" authors.  By that I mean I'll read anything and everything he writes as it's sure to be a great read.  I can't honestly say that about all of the authors on the "my authors" list at the side of my blog page but with James L. Nelson, I've now read 9 of his books and they have all been fantastic experiences; he's never let me down.  I even read his web page and get fascinated by his maritime expertise and how he translates that into fiction and nonfiction alike.  I have yet to try any of his nonfiction works but have no doubt that I will in due course.  As a long-time lover of nautical fiction, I tend to compare everything to the Horatio Hornblower series.  While that is certainly good, entertaining nautical fiction, and has transcended to the rank of "classic" literature, I enjoy Mr Nelson's novels more.

Glory in the Name is the first of Mr Nelson's "Bowater" series.  This is the story of Lieutenant Samuel Bowater, US Navy, at the outbreak of the US Civil War.  He reluctantly resigns his commission in order to fight on the side of the Confederacy.  Unfortunately, the Southern cause is long on heart and desire but short on resources, and the Confederate Navy is a perfect example with very few ships and fewer naval officers.  Bowater gains his first command of a modified tugboat, which he proceeds to mount guns upon, turning it into a sort of gunboat.  This is an exciting time in naval warfare as the switch from sail to steam and to ironclads is happening fast.  The resulting sea battles are strange events indeed.  Bowater has several adventures, culminating in the Battle of New Orleans.

The story is a good one, with fleshed out characters, interesting personalities, and complicated relationships. The realtionship between Bowater and his chief engineer, for example, is a wonderful mix of two people who dislike, even despise each other, and yet have a profound respect for each other.  The build up from a crew of strangers to one of comrades in arms is natural and fun to read.  The action/battle sequences are fascinating in their historical accuracy but also really intense.  It takes a great writer to write scenes from history where you already know the outcome, and yet as you're reading it, the result does not seem inevitable.  I have read a lot about the Civil War, both fiction and nonfiction, and yet the naval parts are mostly reduced to the USS Monitor/CSS Virginia (ne Merrimack) battle and the Battle of New Orleans (from Farragut's point of view).  But this novel really brought home the scale of such Civil War naval battles as well as the almost hopeless situation of the CS Navy, such as it was.  This novel is a great example of how to place a really good human story against an historically accurate backdrop.  We learn from the history without feeling lectured and we live the lives of the characters as they face great hardship and unbearable pain of tragic loss.

This is the first of a series, with Thieves of Mercy being the second, published in 2005.  Since then Mr Nelson seems to have concentrated more on his nonfiction work and I wonder how long it might be before he returns to his fiction.  Hopefully, not long.  Meanwhile I will be looking to purchase more of his stuff.

Larry Niven wrote "Leviathan", the next story in The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century.  I've read several of his science fiction novels, including the "Ringworld" series but he's not one of my favorites.  I really like his ideas and settings but his story telling just doesn't jive with me for some reason.  This story is no exception.  It's about answering the "what if" question of what if when you go back in time, you not only travel through time but you also travel to a different time path.  Here the protagonist (in our future) goes hunting for a Leviathan or extinct sperm whale as the largest creature ever on earth.  Not worth the time to read even though this was a short one.

Next up: William Corlett's The Tunnel Behind the Waterfall, the third book of the "Magician's House Quartet"

Mistress of Rome

I had a busy day today.  Went to the dentist first thing in the morning and then I retired from the US Air Force after 20 years.  It was a nice luncheon and one of my parting gifts was a bound copy of a novel I co-wrote about 10 years ago.  Honestly it wasn't ready for publication; I actually abandoned it about three years ago as slop but still...it was pretty cool to see a book I wrote even if there is only one copy in the whole wide world.

While waiting for the dentist, I completed Mistress of Rome by newcomer, Kate Quinn.  This one is scheduled to be on store shelves in April and I'm thinking with the right marketing and sales support, it might do pretty well.  As a novel-reading experience it was a pretty fun ride.  It's an historical novel, taking place during the reign of Emporer Domitian, the last of the Flavian dynasty in Rome.  There are several major characters who all act as POV characters at different times but the main one is Thea, a Jewish slave girl who rises to the very heights of Roman society as the Emporer's mistress.  Other major characters include a gladiator barbarian, and a spiteful heiress named Lepida Pollia.  There is a good mix of fictional characters intermingled with historical persons but you'll have to look in the appendix to know which is which unless you're a Roman scholar.

Basically, the novel is a well-plotted soap opera of intrigue.  There is plenty of blood spilled (not all in the gladiator arena), lust, conniving, backstabbing betrayals, assassination attempts, jealousy and old fashioned romance.  The story itself really grabbed me and kept me turning the pages, wanting to find out what happened next and I found the characters to be multi-dimensional for the most part.  I did have a bit of a problem with the constant switching back and forth among the POV characters as it wasn't always perfectly clear when the change happened.  It can really throw the reader off kilter when they go from one first person POV paragraph to another, also in first person, but from a different character's persepective.  Still, I really enjoyed this one and even though this novel is a complete stand-alone book, the "Historical Note" at the end hinted at a sequel to come.  I'll be in line to read that if and when it happens.

I also managed to read the second short story in The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century, called "Time Locker" by Henry Kuttner.  This one was from back in the so-called golden age of Science Fiction, copyright 1943.  This is an era that is hard for me to appreciate because it's just so far back that the science is, from today's perspective, of the middle school variety.  I can get past that though if the story is good but in reading this one, I just didn't get into it much.  The idea is a "what-if" scenario.  What if you could contain a time warp field inside an object, in this case an airport locker.  Most of the story is a crime caper told in the fashion of the 1940's.  I could just see somebody like Humphrey Bogart playing the lead role.  The ending was a cute twist based on flawed science as we know it today and it coaxed a chuckle out of me but overall I was disappointed in this entry.

Next up: back to the horror genre with Covenent by John Everson.

The Trade

The Trade, by Fred Stenson, is the first novel I've read in Amazon's Vine program (ARCs) that has already been published before.  My research indicates it was first published in the year 2000 in Canada and will now be available in a newly published version on April 1st, 2010.  It was a finalist in 2000 for Canada's "Giller" prize, a literary prize awarded to Canadian authors for novels or short story collections published the previous year.

This is the story of the Canadian fur trade between the years 1822 and 1848.  The Hudson Bay Company has merged with it's rival, The North West Company, and since the best fur trapping in eastern Canada has mostly tapped out, they are forced to look to the West, a largely unmapped region of Canada, mostly in present day Saskatchewan.  The Company sends out contingents of fur traders to the indigenous tribes of the area.  The story itself is told through the eyes of several people including John Rowand, a bitter Company man who was not chosen to lead an expedition, Ted Harriot, a clerk in the company, and Jimmy Jock Bird, who has made his life as a sort of middleman between the traders and the tribes.  The characters, particularly Harriot, has to live through some severe hardships, some dealing with the nature of the Company business such as long treks through bitter snow and ice but also in his personal life. 

But the real story here is about the evolutionary changes upon the land and among the various interacting societies.  The book is told in just a few long chapters, each dealing with a different theme.  For example, one chapter, called "The Missionary" deals with the issue of a Methodist missionary coming to teach the native population about his religion.  He is successful to some extent but not in the way he hopes.  I found the novel to be educational from many perspectives; afterall when I think fur trade and mountain men, I think western America.  The writing was well done and very much in the "literary" mold.  The characters were OK but to me they were a bit flat.  I understand they are true historical characters so perhaps the author wasn't as free to manuever them the way he might have liked to.  The result, though, was a definite feeling of realness, and not some contrived plot built for pure entertainment.

I've also completed the next short story in Jeffrey Archer's Cat O' Nine Tales collection.  "Know What I Mean" was very similar to others in the collection in that it is the story of a habitual criminal who tells his story to the author while in jail.  Only this time the criminal, a cigarette smuggler, doesn't get away with it.  In fact, in spite of some rather ingenious attempts, a sharp patrolman snags him three times in a row, resulting in a longer jail sentence each time.  But the silver lining is that during all of that jail time, his wife adapts and builds a legitimate company, allowing both to live a happy retirement. 

Next up: Grave Sight, by Charlene Harris.

Savannah: or A Gift for Mr Lincoln

John Jakes is another one of "my" authors, or an author that I will pretty much purchase and read anything they publish.  Over the years, these authors have changed somewhat, particularly if there is a downard trend in quality.  Savannah: or A Gift for Mr Lincoln ranks on the lower end of Mr Jakes' work but still there is enough enjoyment here to keep him on my list.  His last three books have suffered some so he's pushing it a little but his age would dictate there aren't too many novels left in him anyway.

This particular novel is one of his shorter ones and is a fairly light read.  He takes a tiny part of General Sherman's famous "March to the Sea" campaign near the end of the Civil War, namely that of the days and weeks surrounding the taking of Savannah during late December 1864.  Sherman, to this day, is often a hated man in the South due to this campaign which they see as unneccesarily harsh to the farmers and other non-combatants of the region.  But Sherman intended to break the back of the South and make them plea for peace and end the war sooner.  Not all that unlike another controversial decision almost a century later with the dropping of atom bombs on Japan.

The story here though is not about warfare or tactics or political decisions.  Rather, it brings it all down to the personal level, as we follow the story of how ordinary people in Savannah deal with what is happening around them.  It's a fairly basic story and the characters represent a cross section of society at that time.  One of the main characters is a twelve year old girl and as a result, the novel almost reads as a young adult novel.  Certainly there is no swearing or sex in this book.  General Sherman does put in a couple of appearances and comes across more as an understanding grandfather than the root of all evil.  This, ultimately, is a book about Christmas and the spirit of that time of the year so understanding the other person's point of view is easier, or at least people do tend to work harder at it.  I will say that I continue to be inspired by the historical accuracy of Mr Jakes' work.  He always manages to sprinkle in quite a few historical tidbits and that makes his books fun to read.

The third story in Jeffrey Archer's collection, Cat O'Nine Tales was awesome.  "Don't Drink the Water" is told in his same style of campfire storytelling; i.e. not much dialogue, just here's what happened.  The story tells of a man in Russia who got away with murder.  He does it by getting his wife to unknowingly drink the tap water at a hotel instead of the bottled water.  Apparently 50 some years ago the water there was downright dangerous.  Sure enough his wife gets a disease and dies.  Unfortunately for the protagonist, justice is ultimately served to him though, just not by the legal system.  The twist right at the end was a complete surprise and had me laughing out loud.

Next up: a young adult fantasy novel, The Steps Up the Chimney, the first in a series of four called "The Magician's House Quartet" by William Corlett.

The Confusion

I've been holding out on you.

As most of you know I read a book during the half hour or so before I go to work each workday morning. Since I only read about 30 minutes a day on it, I often take over a month to get one completed. Well...I also usually pick a "project" book to read...over a much longer period of time...even if takes a whole year. That means I will read a chapter or so here or there, perhaps a larger section, or whatever I feel like. I'll pick a book that is either very very long, or long and difficult. I just don't want to feel like I need to read it in a week so I rush through and can't absorb the whole thing.

So last year I selected the first volume of "The Baroque Cycle" Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson. I had never read Stephenson before but he has quite a reputation for deep, thoughtful writing; some would even say complicated. "The Baroque Cycle" is a set of three volumes and actually covers 8 novels. Quicksilver contained the first three. And yes, I did take the entire year to finish the volume although I did read each of the three novels just like I would read any other novel; i.e. not spread out over time.

So this year I continued with Volume 2: The Confusion. This volume can be...well...confusing in that the two novels contained therein take place simultaneously and are therefore presented at the same time as well. We read one chapter of "The Juncto" and then one of "Bonanza" and then back again. Really, it's not so confusing because the whole Volume 2 reads like one big novel. I started reading back in January and have taken my time getting through it.

Getting through it is a good way to put it actually. Had I tried to read this one start to finish I never would have made it. The story itself is engaging and the plots and subplots are intriguing. The characters are over-the-top and that makes them fun. There is some really good humor trickled throughout, mostly involving the situations the main characters get themselves in to. I would have preferred to see an index of all of the characters though. There are literally hundreds of them, many with obscure names, and I just couldn't keep track of who was who. The first volume did include such an index and I referred to it often.

The story itself revolves around two major characters (one for each novel) in and around the year 1689. Half Cocked Jack is the "King of the Vagabonds", truly a criminal mastermind in a happy-go-lucky sort of way. The other is Eliza, Countess de la Zeur, a sometime fianceer, sometime secret agent. They have adventures galore throughout 17th century Europe and all across the globe. But in the end I have to wonder if I am smart enough for this book. Mr Stephenson uses lots of words and phrases from other languages and even though the reader can usually get the gist from the context, it makes for some real effort on the part of the reader. That's OK and I don't shy away from smart reads but this book, as I found in the first volume, suffers from "too much." Too much plot, too many characters, and too much description. I felt like the author was spending as much time, and print, trying to impress me with his superior intellect as he did trying to entertain me. I love it when a novel teaches me something, be it facts or a new way of looking at things, but I have great difficulty when it becomes a chore to read a novel. I almost always finish a book that I start (even if it takes me a whole year) and I still plan to read the final volume next year.

So on the whole I would only recommend this series to those who like a more extreme reading challenge and have the time and energy to put into it. Not for the casual reader.

Red River

The second book I completed on my trip to Las Vegas was P.G. Nagle's Red River. This is the fourth and final (it appears) book in her "Civil War in the Far West" series. The series started with Gloritta Pass, and continued with The Guns of Valverde, and then Galveston.

I think this book really demonstrates how Ms Nagle has grown into her writing abilities. The first book was well researched and there were several strong characters but the plot seemed to be pretty basic and even predictable. She even included what I would consider to be an amateurish plot device that interrupted the climax of the story. But as she progressed through this series she just got better and better. The research was still outstanding, exhaustive even, but her characters were better written. The plots take place against historical realities so that, of course, can't be changed. But how her fictional characters act and interact with others has become delightful. This last book in the series illustrates that very well, with her long-time character, confederate officer Jamie Russell, becoming truly multi-dimensional. His interaction with Mrs Hawkland, forms the basis for the novel.

Ms Nagle's wartime action scenes are very well done as well. I felt like I was there, not in any kind of heroic battle sense but definitely feeling the fear, the exhaustion, and the filth of battle. Jamie leads his gun battery and is in the thick of battles...you can just hear the explosions and see the men around him struggle to do their duty. The Red River itself, a tributary to the Mississippi River, takes on a life of its own, especially as the Union boats try to free their ships from shallow waters in order to secure the entire Mississippi, a crutial strategy for the war.

All in all, this wraps up a very good historical fiction series. I was happy to see it progress but I wish there were one more novel to finish out the war. This one does take us up to where the end is in sight though, so perhaps another would be anti-climactic. I'm not sure if Ms Nagle planned for another but it seems she has turned her hand to romantic fantasy for the moment.

Next up: I've already begun the third book in the first "Kushiel" trilogy: Kushiel's Avatar by Jacqueline Carey. As we get closer to the end of the year I always try to finish up any series that I have open. That is, excepting those series that I actually plan to read over many years, like "Repairman Jack" for instance.

The Quest

Well the trip went fine. Las Vegas seems to be much the same as always; the crowds a little thinner than I've seen before though, probably due to the economy. I had quite a bit of time to read though and completed both books I brought along. The first was The Quest, by Wilbur Smith. As I mentioned before, this is the fourth and perhaps final volume of his ancient Egyptian series, which began with the excellent The River God followed by The Seventh Scroll and Warlock. Many folks have commented on the declining quality of this series and I see that, as well, to some extent. The first book was just so outstanding (it's in my top 10 list of all time great reads) that some deterioration was inevitable. This book seems to have received some brutal reviews though.

The book continues the story of Taita, a "long-liver" sage who sets off to solve and set right a series of plagues that are hitting the Nile Valley. Turns out the source is the evil "God" Eos. The cat and mouse confrontation between these two form the basis of the novel. Another major plot thread is the reincarnation of Taita's true love from the first book in the series. Since Taita is an enoch from way back, the author finds a way to have his manhood regrown through a process akin to using stem cells. I'll admit to this whole sub plot being extremely convenient for the main characters, a bit too contrived for my taste.

I think many people have problems with this book because it is not what they are expecting. This entire series is billed as "historical fiction" and the first book certainly seemed to be so but that moniker has long since worn off. The series has transposed into fantasy, pure and simple. The title itself is indicative of the genre and there are numerous examples of true magic throughout the book: pillars turning into faces that give directions, Taita turning invisible at will or mind travelling over great distances to give messages to others. Whatever historical accuracy might exist here is beside the point. Also, this is a fairly erotic novel with numerous sexual innuendos and some downright graphic sex scenes in it. This is my 6th Wilbur Smith book and although he does put in quite a few erotic encounters I think this is his rawest novel so far of the ones I've read.

I've pointed out some of the negative aspects of this novel, but there are positive points also, particularly if you don't mind the fantasy aspects. The story itself flows well and urges the reader to keep turning pages to see what happens next. The author has a way of allowing the reader in to his characters' minds making it realistic despite the very nature of the fantasy involved. And it's a downright fun book to read. A grand adventure full of danger, excitement, pitfalls, triumphs, and a good, satisfying ending. There is a definite end but should the author wish to continue the series, there is room for it to keep going. If he does, I will continue along with him.

More tomorrow on the second book from my trip.

Galveston

It was very cold out today but I persevered and spent my lunch break in my car anyway amidst swirling snow flakes and a bitterly cold wind. That's so I could complete Galveston, by P.G. Nagle. My fingers were cold and my hands were shaking and I even had to start the car's motor just to keep the heat up to a reasonable level. But I had to do it because I really wanted to finish this book.

This is the third book of a four book series about the Civil War in the Far West. I enjoyed the first book, Glorieta Pass quite a bit but I did see flaws in it. The second book, The Guns of Valverde was much less enjoyable although still not a bad book. I've been delaying reading this third book because of that, worried that the series was deteriorating. However, I was way off base. This novel was thoroughly enjoyable and I'm now really looking forward to the last book of the series, Red River, which has just been published in paperback.

This is not a civil war book that is filled with battle scenes. Quite the contrary. We follow three main characters through the story. Jaime is a confederate soldier, formerly of the Quartermaster corps but he now commands an artillery battery. He's been with us since the first book. We also follow his sister, Emma, as well as a Union naval ship master, Quincy. Galveston, Texas is the scene as union ships set up a naval blockade and invade the town while Confederate forces fight back. There is really only one major battle scene in the book, at the climax near the end, but the mounting tension throughout the novel makes for a great story. The story builds for the first half of the book as the players move into place and we get to see elements of the society of the times. That's what I like about historical fiction, a chance to "live" in the times represented. There is lots of good characterization here as we experience day-to-day living with these characters, see their ups and downs, fret over relationships and hope for better times. Ms Nagle seems to have grown as a story teller with this entry and I plan to move the last book of the series up on my reading list. Interestingly, I recently wrote the author to see if she would be writing any more in this series or any historical fiction for that matter. She replied very graciously to say that she has recently published a "romantic fantasy" novel under the name "Pati Nagle" and that she had no further plans for this series...but you never know.

I also completed one more essay/story from Harlan Ellison's The Essential Ellison. This one was called "Gopher in the Gilly" and concerns a time when the author was 13 years old and ran away to the circus. He lives and works with them for three months before being arrested and spending 3 days in jail with a "geek," a psycho drunkard that found employment with the circuses in those days because they were willing to do anything, and I mean anything, for the job. The circus experience was not at all what the author, the "gopher" was expecting, and was a truly horrible time. The piece is a short and somewhat bitter commentary on the society of the day, and how a child's dreams can be dashed with hard core reality.

Next up, The Raiders, by Harold Robbins, the sequel to The Carpetbaggers.

Stout-Hearted Seven

Today I completed a young-adult story, Stout-Hearted Seven, by Neta Lohnes Frazier. This is the true-story of the Sager Children who were orphaned during their trek along the Oregon Trail in 1844. It is written for 5th-6th graders I would suspect but older students (and even adults like me) will enjoy it as well.

The story is truly a tragic one. It begins as the family is preparing for their westward journey along the Oregon Trail and we come to know both parents as well as their six children, (a seventh would be born along the route). The story is told in third person, but mostly from the point of view of Catherine, the oldest girl at 13, and the third oldest child. This is primarily because in later years Catherine is the one who wrote of their ordeal in great detail, an account that today is considered one of the best historical references of the time period. As the family proceeds along their journey we get to enjoy the fun times, but more often, experience the truly difficult moments and day-to-day struggles to maintain their time goals and stay somewhat healthy. However, both parents die along the route, and the children are taken in by other members of the wagon teams. Eventually, the children are taken to and adopted by the Whitmans, missionaries that are trying to work with Indians. After only about three years there, the Indians massacre the Whitmans as well as several of the children. As I said, truly a tragic story. Eventually the surviving children make it to Oregon, and fulfill their father's dream.

The story is written for children and I congratulate the author for be historically accurate. The tragic parts are not glossed over but neither are they dwelled upon. All in all, this is an accurate account and is a great method for teaching children about life on the Oregon Trail.

I also completed the next entry in Harlan Ellison's The Essential Ellison. It was an essay this time, simply titled "My Father" and is a poignant look at the author's relationship with his father, who had died decades before. It was good to read, and timely, as this morning I had read Piers Anthony's newsletter/blog about the death of his daughter on September 3. That was truly heartbreaking and so Ellison's piece was a good balance.

Next up is the second Star Wars book in the "Black Fleet Crisis" trilogy.

The Fiery Cross

This is the big 1400+ page book I was referring to in the last two posts. The Fiery Cross is the 5th book in Diana Gabaldon's "Outlander" series. The overall series is about Claire, from the 20th century traveling back in time to 18th century Scotland and meeting Jamie Fraser. That makes it sound like a sci-fi series but they are really historical fiction novels. Eventually they marry and, through various circumstances, come to live in early America just prior to the American Revolution. Claire's 20th century daughter, Briana and her fiance also make their way into the past and become major characters as well. This particular book, covers a period of about two years around 1770-1772.

The book was, indeed, a long one. I chose this one for my long airplane ride because I would be able to stay focused and stick with it no matter what. For the first 200 pages or so, I realized I made the right choice because I'm not sure I would have stuck it out otherwise. Up to that point it was largely a novel of everyday life at the Fraser's homestead with lots of detail about how they lived as well as how they numerous minor characters interacted. Briana's wedding is looming and the preparations for the big event take an awful long time.

But then the action picks up a bit as Jaime is directed by the Governor of the colony to form a militia to put down some troublemakers. Here lies the central theme of the series at this point. Jaime and Claire know the future...they know the revolution is coming and they know which side to be on. But they can't make the jump to the revoultionaries too soon or risk treason. That is a cool concept and I understand the next book in the series takes it even further.

I enjoy long books because I get a real feeling of accomplishment when I complete them. And I often enjoy, as I did this time, really getting into the characters, expecially these old favorites. It seems like I know them personally and I can count on them to act true to form. There are sections of this novel that are pretty slow though and I have to wonder if Ms Gabaldon's editor feels comfortable cutting anything at all.

The other problem with a 1400 page paperback book is I think I would have sprained my wrist just holding the thing up if it hadn't been for the tray table from the seat in front of me :)

The Carpetbaggers

This morning I decided to take a break from my normal morning reading project and instead chose to complete The Carpetbaggers, by Harold Robbins. I did that for two reasons: I wanted to get it wrapped up because I knew I would have time to blog about it today but I also really wanted to see how it ended. Yes, I liked it quite a lot. This is one that I picked up at a used book store years ago, not knowing anything about it. But I do like the time period...an awful lot of things changed in the world between the early 1900s and 1945 when the book ends, and so I made the purchase.

According to my research, at least one source lists this book as the 4th most read novel of all time. I don't know if that is really true but certainly it has been a widely read story for more than 40 years so obviously a lot of people have read it. The book apparently is somewhat notorious, largely for pushing the sexual boundaries of the time, right up to the edge. By today's standards it is relatively tame and, in fact, most of the sexual scenes occur offstage although there is a lot of innuendo. The book is fairly long; my paperback is almost 700 pages long with pretty small print.

The main story takes place over a 20 year period between the World Wars. The main character is a Howard Hughes type tycoon named Jonas Cord with all sorts of business interests but most especially aircraft development and Hollywood pictures. His is mostly a tragic story up until the very end when he finally realizes what makes him happy. It is interesting to note that Harold Robbins knew Howard Hughes fairly well but despite so many similarities to Hughes, Robbins claims the model for the Jonas Cord character was actually Bill Lear (developer of the Lear jet and the 8-track tape player). The backdrop for the novel is absorbing as well; we get to see the roaring 20s, the depression era 30's, the lead up to World War II as well as the war itself; all major impacts on the plot.

The intriguing thing about this book though is not so much the story but rather, how the story is told. It is divided into eight sections: four sections are Jonas Cord's life told in his own first person point of view and the other four sections are devoted to the backstories of four key people who Jonas interacts with during his life. One is a former gunfighter turned stuntman turned star of the silent movie era. One is a Hollywood actress (allegedly based on Jean Harlow). A third is a movie company executive and a fourth is a high-priced courtesan turned movie starlet. We get absorbed in their individual stories; they are very captivating all on their own. And it is really through them that we come to know Jonas himself. When you put the whole thing together you really get a great sense of the characters as well as the era itself. I have to say I really enjoyed the novel a lot more than I expected I would.

I've also completed the next entry in Stephen King's collection, Skeleton Crew. This one was just a short poem though, "For Owen" but unlike most of the other stories in this colllection, this poem was previously unpublished. It is only 34 lines long and concerns Mr King walking his young son to school. His son tells him how the students in the school are like fruit. That's about all I can tell you because as I have mentioned before, I really don't get poetry. I'm sure there are meanings here within deeper meanings but I am simply too obtuse to understand them. Perhaps I am overly sensitive to the poem because as a young student, one of my nicknames was "Banana-Head." Life goes on.

Next up: Undiscovered Gyrl as part of my obligations to the Amazon Vine program.

Daughter of Kura

On Saturday, I finished up Daughter of Kura by Debra Austin. This is the third book now that I've reviewed as part of Amazon's "Vine" program where I get to pick from a list and they send me the book in return for a review. This one was cover blurbed as "in the tradition of The Clan of the Cave Bear", a book I read years ago (as well as all of the subsequent books in the series that are published so far). I have an interest in historical fiction and was intrigued with the potential of this book after I read of the expertise that the author has in physics and paleontology.

This novel depicts a tribe of ancient man (Homo Erectus) in Africa, in a village called Kura. It is a matriarchal society where the protagonist, a daughter in line to become leader someday, must chose a mate. The author's knowledge of ancient man/societies really seems to come into play here as we see the culture that she describes. Mates are chosen annually and may not necessarily be consistently chosen from year to year. The characters do not use a spoken language but rather sign their thoughts to each other. As the novel progresses, the plot picks up and we get to experience the inevitable conflicts of interactions from other tribes/groups and their potentially conflicting approaches to the best way to do things.

The novel is not just about survival though. It looks at some less concrete concepts as well, including conflicting outlooks based on how one is raised, and also man's first thoughts of the concept of religion. Even in those days, the author suggests, differing viewpoints on religion could be the source of banishment, strife, and even war-like behavior.

Unfortunately, this is no Clan of the Cave Bear. I found the beginning of the book to be a bit slow to get started. The setting was fine, the writing style was fine, and the plot seemed to be shaping up fine. But the charcterization was lacking and that, for me, is a hard problem to get past. I read in the author's afterward that Ms Austin choose to describe very little of the physical nature of her characters for fear that future scientists might discover something that contradicts what she wrote. What? Perhaps Ms Austin has never read any science fiction but there is a whole genre of successful storytelling that may well one day be disproven. That doesn't make the story itself bad in any way.

Another example: the author chose to have her characters sign to each other rather than speak since we may someday discover that their voice boxes were not fully developed yet. And yet we readers still "see" what they sign because the words are in quotation marks. Their "speech" is not simple and even includes complex concepts. Their sign language would have to be as robust as today's signing but how do we know they had the mental acuity to sign such concept thoughts? I'm being a bit facetious here but it seems difficult to reconcile when that particular excuse is used.

The character's names are sounds that they could make while signing, such as "Snap", "Whistle," "Hum", etc. Talk about a way to severely hamper your story-telling ability! There are quite a few characters in this book and it was impossible to keep them all straight. They are not described in any way other than their name and gender and I often forgot which gender they were; i.e. what gender would you say "Rattle" is? We never find out how they dressed, how tall they are, or what they look like. All of this led to me really not caring what happened to them and thus a promising story became merely mediocre.

I also completed the next short story in Stephen King's Skeleton Crew collection: "Beachworld." This one takes place in the far future where a Federation spacecraft has crashed on to a planet that is made up entirely of living sand. It's basically a quick study in going crazy due to knowledge of your own impending death. Interesting but probably won't be among my favorites from this collection.

Next up: a Star Wars entry, the first in the "Black Fleet Crisis" trilogy.

Warlock

Today, I completed the reading of Warlock, the third book in Wilbur Smith's ancient Egyptian tetrology. It is a relatively lengthy book coming in at 735 paperback pages and so it took me a while to finish it. But I used some of my precious morning reading time for the past two days to supplement my normal reading hours in order to get it done. That sounds bad...like I was hoping for it to be over with. That's not at all the case because I really like these characters as well as Wilbur Smith's writing.

This book, chronologically, is a direct follow-up to the first book in the series, River God which ranks among my all time favorite historical novels. The second book of the series, The Seventh Scroll actually takes place in the present day and concerns some archeologists/anthroplogists that become embroiled in a mysterious adventure dealing with the events of the first novel. So now, here in the third novel, the author returns to the era of Taita, his protagonist of River God, attempting to recreate the magic (and the hugely popular reviews) of that book. So the question is...did he achieve that? Was he able to garner the forces of whatever muse inspired him that other time?

Pretty close. This isn't the super shining star that was River God but it is a shining star none the less. I think there are two main differences between the two novels that led this novel to be inferior to the first. One is that it isn't the first. Had this one been the first of a series or a stand-alone novel it might well have been held to the same high esteem. But since we have River God to which to compare it, it loses a little bit in the originality department. But not much I have to say. The prose is equally well done and the pace of the novel is spot on. It reads easily like a quick novel despite it's length. There were only a couple of spots where I wished events would speed up. The plot itself is not unique, basically a story of bad guys usurping power from the rightful good guys and how the good guys make things right and come back into power. But since the good guy's army is always outnumbered, he and his allies must use intelligence to find ways to win battles. It sort of reminded me of "Braveheart" in the numbers of ways outnumbered armies can find cool ways to win.

The other main difference that makes this novel slightly inferior to River God is that it is told in third person point of view. This is probably necessary because this time Taita is not always where the action is occurring. We have multiple major characters all over Egypt making it impossible for 1st person POV. But the author loses the intimacy that comes with 1st person POV. In River God we really know the character of Taita and come to understand his foibles as well as his matter-of-fact superiority to those around him. We know his thoughts when he acts as puppet master whereas in this book, he seems more aloof and somehow, less interesting. There are times, especially during the climactic scenes near the end where he is hardly involved.

All in all I enjoyed this book as a darn good read despite the inevitable comparisons I had to make to an actual masterpiece. The next, and I think last book in this series is The Quest which has not received good reviews although I will be reading it for sure. Perhaps the author went to the well one too many times? I'll let you know.

I also finished the next short story in Stephen King's Skeleton Crew collection, "The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands." First published in 1982 in the horror anthology "Shadows 4", it is a story told by an elderly man about a poker game he once played that included a man that would not shake hands with anybody else. After that man wins a big hand, the loser enthusiastically shakes his hand in congratulations, causing the horror that ensues. Turns out there was a curse placed on him by an Indian shaman which results in his touch causing death to any living thing. This was an interesting story, more for the way Mr King crafted it rather than for the plot itself. It seemed almost Lovecraftian in style, the words painting the suspense and the mystery for what turned out to be a relatively straight forward story.

Next up: Daughter of Kura by Debra Austin, another Amazon Vine pre-publication offering.

Night Over Water

I've completed another audio book: Night Over Water by Ken Follett. Regular readers of this blog will know that I listen to an audio book back and forth to work every day, about a 30 minute commute for me one way. I selected this one from the library because I have read 4 or 5 Ken Follett novels so far and while some have been better than others, I have never felt that I've wasted my time.

This novel takes place in 1939 just after England has entered World War II. It's told from multiple points of view, all from people who will take a flight aboard a Pan-Am Clipper (a truly luxurious (and historically accurate) airplane in the second 2/3rds of the book. This is sort of like a "Murder on the Orient Express" set-up although more thriller than who-dunnit mystery. Passengers include business people, aritocratic families, a debutante, a film star, a petty thief, etc. They all have reasons for being on this luxury plane ride across the Atlantic, some of them because they want to be there and some because they have to be. The thriller/action part of the plot surrounds the lead engineer of the plane who is forced to sabotage it in order to save his wife who has been kidnapped by mafia types in America. They want to spring one of their compadres from on board who is being transported back to jail in the US. In the end it turns out to be much more complicated than that even and most of the characters that were unknown to each other at the beginning are involved together in the action at the end.

This is a well-plotted novel; the suspense builds as we make our way through the story and we get to see events from several perspectives. Mr Follett does a great job building his characters and even though there are quite a lot of them, it is easy to follow the action because we know them so well. And he does a fantastic job of establishing the atmosphere. The descriptions of the scenes and especially the dialog of the characters really brought me in to the era. Sometimes it was like I was watching a Humphrey Bogart movie. The only problem I had was not with the novel itself but rather the production of the audio discs I was listening too. The narrator did a good job of voicing so many parts but it seemed like the whole thing had been spliced together one sentence at a time. It made it sort of disjointed and it definitely interfered with the "Losing oneself in the story" aspect. Regardless of that, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and rank it among the best of Ken Follett's work I have experienced so far.

Next audio book for me: Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. Coming in at a cool 24 discs this one's going to take me to Thanksgiving to finish...