Chimes at Midnight by Seanan McGuire

Toby is doing well in her relationship with the King of Cats, Tybalt, so it's inevitable that something major should go wrong. Too many changelings are becoming addicted to goblin fruit, which is fatal over the long haul, but which provides an incredible high in the meantime, and is immediately addictive on the first dose. It has become widely available on the streets of San Francisco and its Fae desmesnes. It is a harmless intoxicant to the Fae, but the half bloods and full humans are strongly affected by it. The worst thing is, it turns out that the Queen is the one who is providing it, and isn't dismayed at all at the changeling deaths - it's a feature, not a bug.

Toby makes the mistake of confronting her, and ends up banished from the kingdom. In her inimitable and rather unique style, she sets about finding the true heirs of King Gilad, and encouraging them to claim their rightful throne, which coincidentally should end her banishment.

Along the way we get to meet a Dog Sidhe (if there are cats, there must be dogs, right?), struggle along with Toby when the Queen's agents forcibly addict her to goblin fruit, which has some wild side effect for someone who can change their own blood to become more human, thus enjoying the intoxication more deeply. Going along with the usual theme these days in urban fantasy with female heroes, we get to learn who all Toby's allies really are, and how she can count on them to have her back.

This book appears to mark a transition in the series. It will be fun to see what's next.

Agenda 21 by Glen Beck

They just don't write dystopian fiction like they used to. Agenda 21 is the tale of Emmeline, who dwells in a compound run by the Authorities along with dozens? hundreds? thousands? (we never really know) of other folks who have been removed from their land and lives by the results of the UN's Agenda 21, a radical green program which forces most of them to walk on a treadmill most of the day producing enough energy to "pay back" the government for the cost of feeding and housing them. Others are assigned as transport workers, manually towing the carts that move people and goods from place to place, caregivers, who watch over the children in the Authorities' crèche, or gatekeepers, who keep track of all the people in each compound, and report all their movements to the Authorities.

Emmeline appears to be the only child who was actually raised by her parents, the rest have been educated by the state, and know an entirely different version of history than she has been taught. There are hints that there may be other "home schooled" around somewhere, as she is mocked a couple of times for being "one of them". The Authorities even control who will mate with one another, pairing fertile couples to keep the population steady.

I think Beck and his co-writer are trying to go for a Katniss Everdeen type of heroine here, but I'm not sure they got there. Emmeline's mother, we find out after she is taken away for some imagined offense and "recycled", left Emmeline some illegal and subversive materials concealed in her sleeping mat; a map of the United States, a knife, a bible, and some matches, as well as some relatively innocuous photographs of happier times. Emmeline finally goes rogue when her baby daughter, Elsa, is going to be taken away to be raised by the government elsewhere. This happens near the end of the book, and I think the authors are planning on some sequel action.

Don't bother.

Possession by Kat Richardson

I really like how Richardson infuses her Harper Blaine stories with local lore, mixed well with more geographically diverse legends. In this installment, the mystery hinges upon the spirit of an early serial killer in Seattle, adds a local native American figure, plus the catalyst of an old goddess, imported from Europe.

Harper's case begins with her trying to figure out why an improbable number of people, statistically speaking, have passed into vegetative states which are interrupted by the symptoms of old-time spiritualists' ghost manifestations, such as directed painting and writing, and ghostly writing in blood scratched on skin.

Her boyfriend Quinton's father shows up in this story when he's capturing supernaturals and suborning and studying them, and this brings in Harper's old allies, Cameron and Carlos, when the elder Purvis captures one of their dhampires.

As seems to be a common theme in urban fantasy this year, Harper finds out in this novel just how connected she is to her friends and family, and realizes that she has more allies and support than she ever thought possible.

Quality and Service

Going totally off topic now, I'm going to say some good things about a well-established company, Chicago Cutlery. In 1983, when my beautiful wife and I got married, someone gave us a set of Chicago Cutlery knives, with a knife block and steel included. I spent a dozen years in the restaurant business, and had plenty of good knives, such as Henckels and Forschner, that I worked with professionally, so I'd always thought when the Chicago Cutlery set wore out, I'd buy myself a set of professional grade tools.

Fast forward (or slow) thirty years. The Chicago Cutlery is still in fantastic shape, though it has been used hard, not just set out on the counter to admire. The only problem I've had is that a small crack appeared in the wooden handle of the 8" Chef knife about ten years after I got it, but the crack never really got any worse, mostly a cosmetic thing. But, what the heck, they're a working set of knives, and like me they're starting to show their age a bit, right?

So, a couple of months ago, I decided that the knives I had in my camp trailer up in the mountains were crap, and thought, "I'll just put the Chicago Cutlery stuff in the trailer, and buy myself some Henckels". The better half and I went out shopping one weekend, looking at various flavors of Henckels, and I just couldn't bring myself to spend the money on them, even with my 20% discount coupons at a noted housewares retailer. So, I took a look online at what Chicago Cutlery cost to replace my set, and it was about 1/3 of what the "pro" knives cost.

Sure, they perhaps don't have quite the "heft" and balance of the high end knives, and perhaps you have to work a little more often with the steel to keep a razor edge on them, but was it really worth the difference. While I was on CC's web site, I saw a comments/feedback area, and so I told my little story about how long I'd had the knife set and how pleased I was how it had held up thirty years (not many things do these days) aside from the minor crack in the handle of the chef's knife. Then, I decided to just order a small three knife set, with a chef, utility and paring knife, which was all I really need when we're camping (well, maybe a bread slicer).

The new set arrived quickly, and I took the old knives up to the mountains, put the new knives in the block at home, and have been generally pleased with the replacement knives, which seem a little lighter in construction than the old ones. I haven't decided yet if that's better or not, but the minor weight change hasn't thrown me off my stride.

Last week, out of the blue, and with no communication from Chicago Cutlery, I received in the mail a brand new 8" Chef knife. I'm assuming they read my comment and decided to apply their lifetime warranty. Wow! Great people, great knives, great customer service.

Now, I just have to retrieve the old knife from the mountains and put it in the box with the return merchandise authorization...might take me thirty years...

Magic Rises by Ilona Andrews

Kate and Curran's pack, as well as the rest of the lycanthropes in the world, must deal with the hazard of its children going "loup", losing control of their shapeshifting and becoming little more than ravening monsters. Some of them do it at birth, while others face the crisis in adolescence, and it is heartbreaking for the parents and family to watch a child being put down for the safety of the pack. There is, however, a cure called panacea (how appropriate), a chemical and magical concoction that cures "loupism". The formula is secret, and the compound expensive and difficult to obtain from those who manufacture it. In Magic Rises, Kate and Curran and some of the best and brightest of the pack journey to the Carpathians in Europe for the opportunity to earn two barrels of panacea.

How much of this story is about advancing the overall plot arc and how much is about exploring more of the world than that portion of it which we have seen in the earlier Kate Daniels books is up for grabs, but we get the opportunity to see Kate & Co. encounter sea monsters and were-dolphins, so it can't be all bad, right?

It turns out that the entire trip is the result of a ruse designed by Roland's warlord, Hugh d'Ambray, in order to bring Kate to Europe, so he can implement his own agenda. Kate and her pack spend two thirds of the novel trying to discover his game plan.

There appear to be some events in this novel which are definitely setting up Kate's eventual rumble with Daddy. First, Kate's soft heartedness rescues a man whom Hugh has hung in a cage to die slowly, and I surmise that he may be key to providing Kate with access to books of magic which will allow her to learn more words of power sometime in the near future. Second, Kate encounters an ally overseas who is actually more powerful than Roland, though the power may be geographically localized - can't hurt to have powerful friends, can it? Third, Kate stumbles into the method for creating the blood armor that we recall from her earlier conflict with her aunt, Erra. Definitely comes in handy.

Kate also may have come to some emotional revelations in Magic Rises. I think she and Curran fully realize their love for and commmitment to one another, and both of them vow not to run away from that commitment when the final battle with Roland takes place. She also begins to understand, through some key conversations with pack members, that despite her "humanity" she is truly part of the pack and will be defended by them to the end. Contrast this with what is likely in Roland's case; that he is served only by those who fear him.

Transitional story? Perhaps. We'll need to see the next Kate Daniels book to be sure.

Venus by Ben Bova

Venus is another stop on Bova's Grand Tour. Alex Humphries, the son of a wealthy and powerful man, Martin Humphries, was lost on an expedition to Venus a few years prior to the start of the story, while trying to obtain, for the Greens, evidence that Earth's global warming is similar to the planetary greenhouse effect that has always enveloped the Planet of Love. When Humphries offers ten billion dollars to the first person who returns his son's remains, his other son, Van, who has been a sickly drone most of his life, decides to outfit his own expedition to compete for the prize, which will make him independent at last from his domineering and cruel father.

His only competition will be the expedition mounted by Lars Fuchs, an asteroid miner whose business was ruined and whose wife was stolen by the elder Humphries twenty years ago. Fuchs' ship is named Lucifer, and he spends much of his time in the story quoting Satan's lines from Milton. But there's more to Fuchs than his public persona would suggest, and he actually is one of the more interesting characters in the story by the end.

The best part of this book, however, is all of the fun details that Bova includes about the environment which he believes exists on Venus' surface, and in its cloud layers, and his suppositions about what sort of life might survive in such a vicious place. It ain't Carson of Venus, folks, or even Between Planets; it's nearly literally Hell, which suits the captain of Lucifer just fine, and our "hero" Van not as much.

Jupiter by Ben Bova

 I put some of the earlier books in the Grand Tour series on hold at the library, and the first to come in was Jupiter. I'm not quite sure how Bova fits in the Earth he describes as overrun by vast flooding caused by global warming in New Earth with the vision of an Earth run by the New Morality he envisions here. It seems a coalition of fundamentalists from all religions has banded together in the common cause of enforcing moral behavior and decency upon the entire world, and these fanatics are now in charge of government at all levels. Their antipathy to science is extreme, and their fears that scientists might discover something that disproves creationism or the puts into doubt the existence of God seems to drive all of the conflict in this novel.

The whiny little "hero" of this story is Grant Archer, a grad student in astronomy who is required to serve his four years of Public Service on a space station orbiting Jupiter, while his wife serves hers on Earth. He is recruited by the New Morality to spy on the scientists already on the station, who are suspected of the sin of finding intelligent life on another planet. Bova regales us with a vast data dump of interesting information about Jupiter and its environs, which I assume is mostly factual, though he certainly departs from terra cognita and takes us on a journey of the imagination as we explore deeper than any probes sent to date. You know (if you've read much SF at all in your life) how this has to go, don't you? Archer goes over to the "dark side", joins the expedition, finds the aliens, and broadcasts the truth far and wide so that it cannot be suppressed.

Hmm, is this how Bova creates the downfall of the New Morality and the rise of the government seen in later books? The truth will set you free?

I know that a good science fiction story often requires the willing suspension of disbelief, and yet I have a few quibbles with some of the themes in this story. Bova is cheating a bit with a cardboard cutout "anti-science" villainous entity here (he does the same with an evil corporate CEO in Venus, which I just started reading).

First, I cannot imagine a situation so dire that all of the fundamentalists of the world's religions would ever agree to cooperate for much longer than it took to stab one another in the back. Their fundamental beliefs, though it might not appear so to unbelievers, are not compatible. Not gonna happen. Ever.

Second, Bova seems to think that ALL, shall we say "religionists" are against science, and probably responsible for all of the funding cuts that our country's space program has taken recently (though he does mention in Venus that all NASA funds must be spent on studying climate change, not planetary exploration). Obviously Mr. Bova hangs around (or most likely doesn't) with a whole different group of Jesus Freaks from the ones I hang around with. It would be the exciting topic of many a Sunday afternoon coffee shop discussion if intelligent life was discovered on Jupiter. Do you know how many closet Trekkies go to my church?

Final Thoughts on our New Zealand Trip

(I jotted some of this down a while back, and just rediscovered it)

One of the prettiest places in the world, the most hospitable and polite people.

While lodging prices appear to be comparable to the and other Western nations, the prices of food, both in grocery stores and restaurants, were amazingly high. Out of season vegetables were as much as ten times the price back home, while most other things seemed to be double or triple, in general, what we are used to. The most surprising costs were associated with seafood, which one would expect to be cheap and plentiful. The only exception were the local green-lipped mussels, which could be had in the groceries for around $3 a kilo, while in the restaurants a kilo went for around $20, steamed.

Interesting differences:

Takeaway food does not automatically come with condiments; in fact one may have to pay exorbitant prices for packages of tomato sauce or tartar sauce to go with fish & chips.

I didn’t see any fountain drinks in restaurants; it was always cans or bottles offered. They may have been available at McDonalds and Burger King, but I didn’t go in to check.

Public restrooms were generally clean and smelled of disinfectant, but there was still an appalling amount of vandalism and littering for a country which prides itself on being eco-friendly.

Many homes use filtered rainwater, stored in immense cisterns, as their primary water supply.

Due to eco-friendliness, local detergents seemed weak and powerless against greasy messes.

After a week or so of driving, I began to see the benefits of the roundabouts and after conquering ingrained habits, driving on the left side of the road posed few problems.

I think that the NZ media is, either by design, laziness, or by giving them only what boosts ratings, doing the people the same disfavor ours in America is doing us, feeding them diluted news and infotainment. The publicly available news channels seldom delivered anything of great import, and were mind numbingly repetitive, just like home.

LOL. I always over pack a bit, and come home and make notes of things not to bother with next time. However, this time I had a couple of things come in quite handy. I had a fairly extensive first aid kit in my carry-on that saved my bacon when I gashed open my leg in the San Francisco airport, while gathering my luggage. None of the airport staff had any idea where to find a first aid station or kit. Pitiful. The other thing I had packed was a compact LED flashlight for my wife and myself, and when we went to Hot Beach in the dark to dig pools and sit in them, they worked out well. That was the only time I needed them.

I could go back there...I could.

Cast in Peril by Michelle Sagara

  After Kaylin's apartment is destroyed by a magic bomb, and the dragon who has been living with her is endangered, she temporarily moves into the Imperial Palace until things settle down. Yeah, that's likely. The egg that she's been caring for finally hatches out a familiar which looks much like a small dragon, for the moment, although I suspect it will be capable of taking on other forms at some point, as it becomes convenient.

Kaylin's presence becomes required soon thereafter upon a journey undertaken by the Barrani Court, upon which she is accompanied by her friends Teela and Severn, as well as Lord Nightshade and the Consort. Or perhaps she accompanies them, as they all seem to have their own motives and justifications for going on the quest. Yes, I said it. The Q word. Next, I'll mention the F word..."fellowship."

So, aside from the usual Barrani jostling for position and intriguery, the journey remains safe for the first few days, until they are past the point of no return to Elantra. Sagara introduces a new "race" into the mix - the Hallione - the guardians of the way stations on the trail to the Western March. They appear to have been created by the Ancients in much the same fashion as the other races, except they seem to have been created from varying races, as it turns out.

Kaylin gets to know one of these beings far better than those who have known them for centuries, in her inimitable style, and it affords her the chance to deepen her understanding of history, which helps us out a bit in this story, too.

There is at least one criminal (at least as far as the Emperor is concerned) hiding among the innocent Barrani on this journey. Severn has been tasked with assassinating the thief without causing a diplomatic incident. When the thief turns traitor to his own race instead, and instigates an attack on the adventurers, all bets are off.

Sagara continues with the oddest brand of magic I think I've ever encountered. In this world, words have meaning. Deep, powerful meanings which affect the very fabric of reality and the lives of all beings within hearing when a word is spoken. But words more importantly have their greatest meaning within the fabric woven into a story, which binds and shapes all actions and events. Kaylin, with her status as Chosen, has the ability to see and manipulate words in manners unavailable to others, which makes her uniquely qualified to overcome the difficulties she and her friends encounter.

This ain't your "I cast a fireball spell" rodeo.

New Earth by Ben Bova

 Here's another author whose works I've been reading for many years whom I've never reviewed on this blog. This particular novel is set in a series called The Grand Tour, which so far contains Mercury, Mars Life, and Jupiter: A Novel. I suppose I'm going to have to go out and hunt the others down and kill...er read...them. I have a ton of old Ben Bova books in the library, maybe it's time to add some Nook versions of his newer novels.

The future has arrived, and the results of global warming are in...much of the world is flooded by the melting of the glaciers and polar ice caps, destruction and refugees are the order of the day. Around the time that the first effects were being felt, a manned expedition (crew of 12) was sent to Sirius C, where an Earth-like planet was discovered. The expedition was supposed to be followed by a series of backup missions at short intervals, to augment the crew and explore the new world. However, the crisis on Earth and political considerations have kept new missions from being mounted, and 86 years have passed. The starship is about to land on New Earth.

The leader of the expedition is Jordan Kell, a former diplomat who has, like most of the others on board, been chosen not only because of his qualifications, but because no one on Earth will miss him; his only brother, Brandon, is also on board as a planetary biologist and his wife died of a bio-engineered plague on his last assignment in Kashmir. The nano-virus that caused her death remains within Kell, too, dormant in his guts, but fortunately for Earth, far enough away now that if it revives, it will not hurt anyone but his companions.

When the expedition begins to explore the planet, they're in for a series of surprises, as it turns out to be inhabited by an "alien" race who turn out to be identical in terms of DNA to the human race, and they have been waiting for Earth humans to contact them for a specific purpose - which our intrepid explorers must determine to be either benign or insidious.

The story of how they work their way through the layers of mystery surrounding New Earth is fairly entertaining, and a quick read in the old Bova style. Some of the grumbling and political maneuvers in the novel may reflect Bova's attitude about the current administration's curtailing our outer space exploration and mothballing the shuttle fleet - if I recall correctly, he used to work in aerospace. Whether you think the Earth will die by fire or by flood, you'll hopefully not be distracted by global warming alarmism here, as it serves mostly as a plot device to give the politicians an excuse to defund space missions. Perhaps some of the other Grand Tour books get into it more deeply. I'll keep you posted.

Mossad by Michael Bar-Zohar

If the stories in this book are anywhere near true, there had to have been some serious secrets declassification going on recently to allow the authors to tell them. Bar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal follow the Israeli Secret Service from its early days in the 50s to around 2011, and relate some great tales.

One of the tales which they  truncated is, of course, related elsewhere in book and film, but I'd have like to have gotten a more thorough take on it from these experts - the raid on Entebbe, when Israeli commandos journeyed to the heart of Africa and freed the hostages and killed the terrorists responsible for hijacking an airplane.

Here is the full story (probably) of the hunt for Adolph Eichmann, how he was apprehended overseas and smuggled back to Israel to stand trial for his war crimes, a number of stories about how most of the Black September organization, who had held the Israeli athletes hostage, then killed them all, during the Munich Olympics, were hunted down and assassinated, as well as many missions against Hamas and others.

Israel had a spy at a high level in the Egyptian government which helped them to win the Yom Kippur War, and another at a high level in the Syrian halls of power, and seem to have  a large organization in Iran which has helped them to keep the mullah's nuclear ambitions in check.

It also was betrayed by one of its own citizens - a mere disgruntled employee laid off from a low level position in their prototype nuclear weapons factory, embarrassed by Jonathan Pollard's discovery spying against a key ally, the U.S., and was once roundly criticized for assassinating the wrong target - someone who looked like a Black September leader.

On a more human note, one division of the Mossad has been responsible for rescuing children and families of Jews from Syria, and organized a mammoth operation to bring home thousands of Ethiopian Jews.

Fascinating reading.

User Friendly by Spider Robinson

 This book is a mixed bag of odds and ends from Robinson, with some short stories, some essays, and some raps that defy description. It's all typically Spider, but probably only of interest to serious fans. Many of the stories seem like they were a good beginning to a potential novel, and when they went nowhere, he blew the dust off them and had them published here.

In one essay about his mentors, Robinson says something with which I strongly identified:

"I was born, physically, in 1948. But I was born as a thinking being in early 1965, at age 6, when a librarian whose name I do not know gave me the first book I ever read all by myself, with no pictures in it. It was called Rocket Ship Galileo, the first of the books written especially for young people by the already legendary Robert Anson Heinlein, the first Grand-Master of Science Fiction."

Born a bit later, and already reading voraciously at age 11, my best friend handed me a copy of Glory Road, by Robert Anson Heinlein, and it started me on a journey which continues to this day.

Robinson has had, for many years now, a central theme in his stories. It's the belief that if we all became addicted to truth rather than lies, to giving each other love rather than hurting one another, and if all communication were as open and honest as telepathy, all the world's ills would go away. It's a lovely vision, and it's nice to visit it in Spider's stories once in a while.

Despite that, he does have a snarky little cynical streak he lets loose every now and then, and it's especially apparent in one of his essays which contains predictions about the future.

"When you can afford a TV linkup that offers you 245 channels in 3-D with digital stereo sound, there won't be a damn thing worth watching on any of them."

Nailed it - in 1990.

The Black Box by Michael Connelly

 The Black Box in the title refers to an item that, like the black box in an airplane, has the right information for a detective to understand exactly why or how a murder happened. In Harry Bosch's current case, retrieving the black box has taken more than twenty years. He's investigating a cold case that began during the L.A. Riots, when there were far too many bodies turning up to give each of them a proper investigation.

A Danish reporter was murdered in an alley, execution style, her body left slumped near a chain link fence. Everyone has always assumed that it was one of the local gangs who killed her, and Harry starts down that road to begin with. The trail does lead, somewhat circuitously, to an item very similar to a black box - a black pistol. Tracing the provenance of the pistol gets a little twisty (though Connelly always finds a way for Harry to get what he needs more quickly than the normal bureaucratic grist must grind, so the story doesn't drag out for months), but eventually it leads Harry to ask the right questions.

It's almost a required plot element for Harry Bosch books that he have some sort of conflict with his boss, and even get dragged in front of Internal Affairs at some point, and the book also delivers on that score. Not a bad installment in the series, but it really brings nothing new and exciting to the table.

Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin

 I think I know, now, why I quit reading Ursula Le Guin in the late 80s. This was the last book by her that I purchased, and it was and is so tedious and only a fantasy novel by virtue of occurring in the realm of Earthsea, that I think I just gave up - on Ged and his companions, and on Le Guin, until I happened upon The Other Wind recently and was motivated to re-read the series.

The story begins almost simultaneously with the end of the quest in The Farthest Shore, when Ged and King Lebannen have defeated the sorcerer, Cob, on the other side of death. A farmer's widow, Goha, whom we once knew as Tenar, from The Tombs of Atuan, finds out that the mage, Ogion, is ill, probably dying and rushes to be with him in his final hours. When the city life overwhelmed her after she returned with the ring of Erreth Akbe, accompanying the archmage, Sparrowhawk, she was sent to stay with Ogion for a while as his ward, before she moved out and became a farmer's wife and a mother. She has taken on a ward of her own, a girl who was thrown in a fire and burned horribly, left for dead, whom she calls Therru. Therru has recovered somewhat physically from her ordeal, but not emotionally, and she is easily frightened, and does not socialize easily.

After Ogion's passing, a dragon visits the Isle of Gont, delivering Ged, who is nearly dead, and who has lost all the powers of mage craft he once had. A great deal of the book seems to deal with Ged, dealing with his identity crisis now that he is no longer a mage. The rest of the book seems to be about Goha's identity crisis, worrying about who she is now that she's no longer a farmer's wife and mother, since her children are both gone, and trying to reconcile her self image with how others see her. The nobility of Gont, such as it is, seems to dismiss her as a mere peasant woman whose opinion is of no matter, while the villagers respect her a bit more from knowing how much Ogion loved her, and when Lebannen arrives, she finds his automatic respect for her, as the one who brought peace to the kingdom, and the regard of his courtiers, a bit daunting, as well.

What I'm saying is there's just far too much soul-searching and angst, and not nearly enough action and adventure. I think Le Guin got to the point where she was trying to gain acclaim as a mainstream author, rather than a purveyor of young adult fantasy, and lost that special something that made her early readers love her.

A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity by Bill O'Reilly

 A number of years ago, some friends recommended that I watch The O'Reilly Factor, and I started watching it fairly religiously, as its host seemed to truly operate a No Spin Zone, and there were some excellent debates between different political players, and Bill tried to keep everyone honest, seldom letting anyone weasel their way out of a question with empty phrases. But after a while, the show began to be more about O'Reilly than about anything substantive, and it seemed that he spent more time talking about personal attacks he was dealing with, and plugging his books and Factor Gear than he did actually talking about the issues of the day. So I tuned out.

It's funny, speaking of that, that people who are very conservative tend to think O'Reilly is too liberal, while the progressives complain that he has a conservative bias. I tend to think he's pretty darned close to the middle of the spectrum, given those gut responses from left and right.

You might wonder why, if I got tired of O'Reilly on O'Reilly, I'd pick up an allegedly autobiographical work to read. Well, there's a difference between hearing endless self-focus on the air versus reading amusing stories about a person's childhood, and A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity is more about the latter...at least for a while.

It was interesting to hear about Bill's childhood in Levitton, PA, and his adventures in Catholic school with the nuns, as well as his college years, plus a few anecdotes from his early days in broadcasting. I was hoping to get a more personal feeling for the man, perhaps something about his wife, his home life, his children, but he really doesn't divulge much on those subjects - are they painful, or just intensely private?

The book is a little unfocused, bounces from subject to subject, darts back and forth in time like the Tardis, but it may give you a feel for who O'Reilly really thinks he is, anyway.

Ride the Rising Tide by Peter Grant

 I think Grant has really begun to hit his stride in the second book of the Maxwell Saga. The resemblance to many of Heinlein's young adult works is uncanny. As Ride the Rising Tide begins, our hero Steve is packing up his belongings, heading off to the Recruit Training Depot, ready to become a junior member of the Lancastrian Commonwealth Fleet.

The only major "beef" I have with anything in this series is the ongoing saga of the Jade knife. I find it difficult to suspend my disbelief for long enough to believe that the (pardon the expression) jaded head of the Lotus Tong, Mr. Wang, would fall for as lame a story as Steve spins to conceal the fact that he is the actual owner of the artifact. I suppose that Grant has some key plot element later on that requires Steve to finally surrender the knife in return for a major favor from the criminal syndicate, but if I were a ruthless tong lord I'd have pulled him in for some enhanced interrogation techniques the first time he showed up - that's just how I think, I guess.

One other thing that slows down the story a bit is that the author is presenting a lot of expository information about the Lancastrian Commonwealth, its Fleet, and the purposes behind a great deal of the training Steve receives. It is, fortunately, not delivered in a lecture format, but in small doses from bit players in the saga. Steve has inherited from his "father" Bosun Cardle, a strong work ethic, a penchant for honesty and fair play (aside from when dealing with criminals, eh?), and a knack for getting along with nearly everyone he encounters, so he does well in his recruit training, graduating near the top of his class, then serves equally admirably in flight school later on, gaining his commission in the Fleet.

Where some authors have spent several volumes dealing with a meteoric career rise, Grant has managed to just hit the high points of Maxwell's ascent on the rising tide of good fortune, abetted by hard work on his part. There are some really good lessons wrapped up in a fairly exciting storyline here, but I wonder if today's young adults are too worldly to enjoy these books, in a media matrix filled with graphic sex and violence these days. For those of us, however, with a sense of nostalgia about the golden glory days of science fiction, they're a must read.

I eagerly await the third novel, due out in September, I believe.

Sammy Two Shoes and Billy Bellbird by Gavin Gosney

When my wife and I were traveling in New Zealand, we happened to stop in to a craft show in Howick, browsing for souvenirs, and met an author who has written a few books in a children's series about a cat named Sammy Two Shoes, which begins with Sammy Two Shoes and the Bumble Bee. We decided our granddaughter needed to have a new book to read, so we bought a copy of his second, most recent, story. I gave it a quick read not too long after we got home, and found it to be a cute story, marvelously illustrated and, if I were to return to New Zealand before she grows too old, I'd have to pick up some more books in the series, as they don't seem to be available through Amazon or Barnes and Noble yet.

Sammy Two Shoes - so named for her lovely white "powder puff shoes", is a very gentle, somewhat naive young cat, who is evidently unaware that birds and cats should not socialize. When she meets Billy Bellbird while on a stroll through her garden one day, her innocence pays off, as he decides that he can trust her enough to bring all of his bird friends by to serenade her the next day, affording her an experience no other cat has ever likely had, or will again.

There are a number of nice little lessons in the book about getting along with others, even with those whom we believe we shouldn't, and about using the gifts we all have to bring joy to others less fortunate, that I feel sure every child can profit from. Fun stuff, and I hope Sammy has lots more adventures to share with us.

Red Planet Blues by Robert J. Sawyer

 I'm not sure exactly how to describe this story by Sawyer. It has its shady origins in a hard-boiled detective novel, but veers off into some uncharted territory towards the middle, and turns into a near French farce by the end. Private investigator on Mars, Alex Lomax, is hired to find a missing husband, and stumbles into something a bit more sinister - a murder dressed up as a suicide. That is, if you can call terminating an artificial brain and body onto which you have imprinted the consciousness of a formerly live human being murder.

It seems to me that the murder takes place when the original human body is terminated, and the transfer takes over its life. Being a transfer is very handy on Mars, where the climate is extremely inhospitable for normal biological humans, and where, for a decade or two, there has been a "gold rush" on Martian fossils. Just finding one can make you rich, finding a whole trove of them can make you wealthy beyond your wildest dreams. The whole issue of determining whether a transfer is legally the same person as the body they left behind has already been settled by case precedent at the time of Sawyer's story, but Lomax has his doubts upon occasion, as should we. When is a human being not a human being?

There's a little bit of a Mad Mad Mad Mad World flavor to this thing, when it seems as if everyone and his brother, from the topless waitress Alex has a thing with to the second in command at the local PD, as well as geologists, poets and heiresses, is trying to find the mother lode of all fossils, which has eluded prospectors for so long. There's really no honor among thieves, and Lomax has a devil of a time sorting it all out.

The novel was built around an earlier novella, and I think, honestly, that it was better in the short form. The keystone antics of the full length plot weren't really all that entertaining. He should have left well enough alone, but perhaps he felt he had more to say on the subject.

The Racketeer by John Grisham

 It seems nearly impossible to believe that I've never written a Grisham review for the web site. I believe I've read most of what he's written over the years, but I guess I've never given them a full analysis before - and I won't now.

The story reads a little bit like The Shawshank Redemption. A professional fellow, lawyer (no surprises there) Malcolm Bannister ends up in jail on racketeering charges because of an overzealous federal prosecutor and his overconfidence in the U.S. justice system's ability to punish the guilty and free the innocent. Sucker. He's doing ten years in a minimum security facility, and has lost everything that's important to him; his job, his wife, his son and his reputation.

But Malcolm comes up with a plot to get himself out of prison. He knows the identity of the killer of a federal judge (someone he met in prison) and proposes to trade that information to a stymied federal task force in return for a full pardon and a place in the witness protection program. Things proceed reasonably predictably from there, and end up where many Grisham novels seem to, on the beaches of the Caribbean.

What did I tell you? Shawshank.

There are a couple of interesting twists to the tale, and plenty of Grisham's editorializing about the state of the justice system and treatment of prisoners in this country. Interesting, but distracting from the fact that Grisham really doesn't have a new story to tell, just a retread of some old ones.

Guilt by Jonathan Kellerman

 It seems as if, as Kellerman continues to write his stories about Alex Delaware and Milo, they turn into more of a police procedural than a thriller. From the moment when a woman discovers the skeleton of an infant, buried in a box in the back yard of the home she has just purchased, Milo and Alex crawl (not leap) into action, interviewing witness after witness, and brainstorm multiple theories about means, motive, and opportunity. It's like there's a contest to see how many red herrings we all get to follow down the path to the inevitable cul de sac, until at last in the final twenty pages or so, all is made clear, the answer revealed. We might begin to get a glimmer of guilt a bit earlier, but it's tough. And yet, if you've followed the duo this far, you know you'll have to hang in there to the bitter end to know how it all turns out.

After the new of the first skeleton leaks out, a possible copycat strikes within days, leaving the bones of another infant, strangely polished, in a local park, and an adult murder victim is found in the park the same night by a jogger. The first infant skeleton is at least fifty years old, while the second seems...fresher...so there really can't be any connection between the two, can there? This is what Alex and Milo have to find out. Alex, as usual, takes on those delicate tasks requiring perhaps a smidgen of con artistry and finesse, while Milo plays the bumbling police detective, and deals with the political pressures within the police department and city government. After all, it might be bad for real estate values of some of the city councilmen's homes if this sort of thing were allowed to go unsolved.

One nice thing about Kellerman's writing is that he spends a great deal of time and effort actually developing minor characters into believable human beings, complete with rational (or irrational) motivations, and complete backstories. You never feel like you're getting a hodgepodge of cardboard cutout characters with Kellerman; that he's really thought about these people a great deal, and cares enough to write the very best.

An interesting set of puzzles, a few kinks and curls on the way to a solution. Worth staying awake late to finish - which I did.

Getting Close

I actually did finish a book I was reading, late last night, so hope to have a review up by tomorrow, and get back on track with my reading and blathering again. Thanks for your patience.

A couple of recent purchases I'm looking forward to reading when they come to the top of the TBR pile were Peter Grant's second book in the Maxwell Saga, Ride the Rising Tide, and Ilona Andrews' Magic Rises in the Kate Daniels series. Lots in the pipeline, but summer keeps me very busy aside from reading.

Quiet Time

Sorry, folks. Just trying to catch up with things after a long trip. Hope to get regular posting going again soon.

The Last, Longest day

Maraetai

We got things packed up, had a nice breakfast of yogurt, fruit, ciabatta and honey, and tried to drink up the last of the fruit juice, then headed out to the Howick Village Saturday market for a while. Saw a lot of interesting crafts and baked goods, picked up a few last minute gifts to take home with us. Still had some time to kill after we'd finished there, so we decided to go down to Maraetai beach and enjoy the sunshine. Went for a walk on the beach, sat in a café and had a great last meal of a lamb burger for me and a Thai beef salad for Michele, and watched the interplay of water, earth and sky for a while. Took a short drive up the Pacific Coast Highway, then we stopped by the farm in Whitford to say goodbye to Stu and Liz before we headed to the airport.

Our GPS decided to give us one last adventure, and took us on a crazy route that included a mall parking lot and a detour through a construction zone, where I had to have M shift a construction cone out of the way to get through to the other side, and brave a couple of one way narrow bits, but we were determined to get back to the car rental place one way or another. Turned in the car, caught the shuttle to the airport, then began the process of checking in and getting through outbound customs.

Boat ramp at low tide

Far too many hours spent waiting in the airport later, we flew out of Auckland around 7 PM. Air New Zealand does a really nice job, and they're one of the nicest airlines I've experienced, but it was still a horrendously long, claustrophobic affair. I really need to get wealthy so I can fly first class, with its extra leg room and comfortable reclining seats. Arrived in San Francisco around noon, local time, and worked our way to the customs/baggage claim area, where I managed to rip open a bleeding hole in my shin on a protruding bit of metal at the baggage carousel. No one there could successfully direct me to an aid station, so I rummaged through my luggage to find my own first aid kit (yay! finally came in handy to have packed this), and got a piece of gauze taped to it. My pant leg was soaked with blood, but I was wearing convertible, zip-off pants and removed the lower portions to wander the airport in khaki shorts, with dress shoes and brown socks, a most amusing fashion statement.

Breezed through incoming customs and took our bags to the re-check area. M and I took the opportunity to re-pack things, and put our duty-free items in the checked luggage, as well as all the cool weather clothing, but Law and Vicky didn't have room to shift theirs around, so they ended up losing two liters of liquid gold to TSA when it turned out we'd been sent outside of the secured zone and we had to re-encounter security to get to our outbound gate. SF airport did a poor job of marking the exit to the secure area, and there definitely should have been a way to re-check the bags that did not involve leaving the secure area.

Auckland on the horizon

Spent still more hours waiting, then boarded the plane and flew to Boise, arriving right on schedule. Picked up our luggage and headed to our waiting taxi - except he wasn't. They lost our reservation somehow and didn't have a taxi available for us, so we ended up walking home in 100 degree heat. Survived the final trek, and spent the next few hours getting things unpacked, with a wonderful interruption in a welcome home Facetime call from our daughter and her husband. We have lots of catching up to do around the house and yard, but it's good to be home at last.

Around the Firth

Thames at low tide

After a nice little breakfast of ciabatta bread and honey, fruit and yogurt, we ran a load of laundry, and went for a walk along the beach at low tide, like the rest of the senior citizens in the area. Seems to be a large community of retirees in the vicinity of Thames. Checked out of the motor lodge and drove north along the coastline of the peninsula. There is a town called Coromandel on the peninsula of the same name, and so on all the road signs, to avoid confusion, it is listed as Coromandel Town, and that's where we headed. The road along the water is simply incredible. Every time I think I've seen the best road for motorcycling ever, I find another one here. I have to come back someday and ride them all.

The road to Coromandel Town

Coromandel Town, itself, was not terribly impressive but its surroundings and the route made the trip worthwhile. We walked around the main street for a bit, looking in a few shops, but soon turned around and went back to the coastline. We paused for lunch at a place recommended by Liz at the motor lodge, the Waiomu Beach Café, and had a "light" lunch of mussel chowder and roasted potato wedges. The chowder was creamy and rich, and generously peppered with perfectly cooked mussels, and the potatoes were steaming hot out of the oven, with flakes of sea salt and a homemade aioli dip. Washed down with a Bunderberg creaming soda, it put a pleasant spin on the rest of the afternoon, which was made a bit melancholy by the lowering clouds and our return to the vicinity of the airport.

Waiomu Beach fare

We chose to avoid the traffic of the motorway north to Auckland and chose instead to negotiate the country roads on the west side of the Firth of Thames, and drove through little hamlets like Miranda, Wharekaya and Orere before turning slightly inland and encountering Clevedon where we browsed for some time at the Wool Shed, finally discovering a nice merino/possum cardigan for Michele to take home. Checked in to the Howick Motor Lodge a bit later and ended up having a fish & chips dinner from a takeaway place nearby. The tempura fish was decent, the hoki bites passable, but the crab sticks left something to be desired. Spent a quiet evening in our room, organizing our luggage.

Crossing the Coromandel

Overlook near Hahei

Got up in the morning, and had our diverse breakfasts, from fried apples to chinese honey sausages with scrambled eggs. A group effort got things cleaned up rapidly, and we got all the sheets stripped, bathrooms sanitized to mil-spec, counters washed, floors swept and vacuumed, and in short time had the beach house all buttoned up once again. We then caravaned out to the overlook near Cathedral Cove, near Hahei. Lawrence and Victoria left us at that point, as they weren’t up for the strenuous hike down to the cove. Michele and I and Vinnie and Karen took about 45 minutes to hike the trail, which has the curious property of actually being uphill in both directions – walk it sometime. The tui birds were warbling in the forest, and the weather was perfect for a stroll in the woods.


Cathedral Cove

The Cove was made world famous by its use as the setting for the children’s return to Narnia in the recent movie, Prince Caspian, and is characterized by its beautiful white rock cliffs and a magnificent natural archway. I didn’t see the Pevensies at all, but the rest of the scenery was incredible, and the trek in was well worth it. On the way back Vinnie and Karen decided to explore another cove trail, but M and I wanted to get on the road again, so we parted ways with them as well, perhaps to meet in Belgium some day.
We got to drive the winding road across the spine of the Coromandel peninsula in the daylight this time, and enjoy all the views, including one spot where you can see the Pacific Ocean on the left and the Firth of Thames on the right simultaneously. We hunted for a rumoured outlet mall in Kopu without success, then paused in a nice little café at the edge of Thames for a cup of cappucino before semi-randomly selecting a place to stay.


Evening on the Firth of Thames

We ended up at the Coast Motor Inn just north of town, with a number of cute little chalets facing the firth and overlooking lovingly landscaped grounds. The proprietors are super nice folks, and we got settled in rapidly. Our room had a nice kitchenette and a deck perfect for al fresco dining, so we drove back into Thames to explore the main drag and pick up a few groceries to enjoy there.
We dined on smoked mussels flavored with sweet chili or barbecue sauce, slices of sharp cheddar cheese, toasted ciabbata bread with soft bleu cheese, cucumber slices marinated in balsamic vinegar,  accompanied by an Oyster Bay chardonnay and finishing with sliced apples and kiwi fruit for dessert.