Fin

This blog will no longer be updated. I started the blog to explore a different way of publishing my book reviews (I was bored and looking for purpose in life). It's been fun (not really), and I've learned a lot about Blogger in the process (it sucks). But ultimately, the blog must give me something of value (I want my own groupies) to justify the time and effort I spend maintaining it (I'm really lazy). After six months of updates, the blog has given me nothing of significant value (snarky comments by Thainamu don't count).

I will continue to write my book reviews. They will continue to be available online at http://luforum.dyndns.org/strangerthansf/, or you can subscribe to my RSS newsfeed. They will no longer be available online.

Update: You can read them at StrangerThanSF.com

Thanks for reading.

The Land That Time Forgot, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Rating: 3
Pages: 153

The Land That Time Forgot is the first of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Caspak trilogy. It begins with terror on the high seas: a German submarine torpedoes an American liner in the English Channel. Our hero, young Bowen J. Tyler, Jr., clings to life in a single surviving lifeboat. He rescues his dog, Nobs, and a beautiful young woman named Lys La Rue--whom he instantly falls in love with.

The three are picked up by an English tug, which has the misfortune to run into the same German submarine which sunk the American liner. This time, the Allies get the upper hand. They trick the Germans and storm the submarine, taking control of U-33.

Tyler and the rest try to sail the submarine into an English port, but sabotage by the German prisoners (or somebody) gets them lost. They stumble upon the lost island of Caprona in the Antarctic Sea. Caprona--or Caspak, as the natives call it--is a huge island rearing hundreds of feet out of the sea. The sides are sheer impassable cliffs. Over the cliffs, on Caspak, lies an ancient primitive land from Earth's forgotten past. Volcanic heat creates a tropical atmosphere that supports lush forests. Dinosaurs and savage, pre-historic beasts roam the land. Ape men eke out a meagre existence. Out of oil for the submarine's engines and out of food and water for the men, Tyler and his crew must survive on Caspak.

Most don't survive, of course. And the German prisoners are up to no good. This book was written during the first World War, and it shows.

It's a good book, marred by a few throwaway lines of subtle racism.

The Land That Time Forgot is out of copyright. It is freely and legally available online at Project Gutenberg: The Land That Time Forgot.

The Day of Their Return, by Poul Anderson

Rating: 3
Pages: 185
Spoilers?: Minor
Better than Moby Dick?: Yes

The conflict between Mersia and the Terran Empire is a primary focus of all Poul Anderson's Technic series books. The Day of Their Return is no different. Commissioner Chunderban Desai is sent to the frontier planet Aeneas, to restore order after a recent insurrection. The recalcitrant Aeneans still desire independence. The Terran Empire is afraid the Mersians will try to use Aeneas to drive a wedge into the Empire and hasten the beginning of the Long Night.

The seeds of rebellion are still strong on Aeneas. Young Ivar Frederikson, Firstman of Ilion, stirs the people's hearts when he attempts an attack on a Terran patrol. The attack fails and Ivar is forced into hiding; Commissioner Desai tries to bring him to justice, but is constrained because he fears to create a martyr.

While Ivar hides out among various nomadic groups, strange things are going on elsewhere. Aycharaych, a mind-reading Mersian agent, is loose on Aeneas. An Ythrian agent is also operating on Aeneas--and Ivar hopes to secure Ythrian aid for the Aenean independence movement. Finally, the prophet Jaan claims that the fabled Elder Race--which built the ancient ruins on Aeneas--will shortly return and free the people.

Minor spoiler: the nomadic tinerans of Aeneas keep pets which they call lucks, and which the Ythrians call slinkers. Unbeknownst to the tinerans, the slinkers are emotional amplifiers, reflecting emotions back at those around them.

The Day of Their Return to be one of Anderson's better books. It rates a strong 3. I wanted to give it a 4, but Anderson doesn't follow up on the slinkers--they're a throwaway plot element.

The Warriors of Day, by James Blish

Rating: 2
Pages: 160
Better than Moby Dick?: The Warriors of Day are giants who eat Moby Dick for a snack, like a sardine.

The Warriors of Day is a useless book. It would never be published today, but standards were lower in the 1950s. The book starts out promisingly: Tipton Bond goes toe-to-toe with a Kodiak bear and emerges the victor. It's a gripping fight scene. But the book goes downhill quickly.

Tipton Bond finds himself magically transported to another world, called Xota. On Xota he stumbles upon the Temple of Mahrt, where he discovers that he is the Sword of Mahrt. Apparently, the Warriors of Day have vowed to destroy Xota as part of their quest for galactic domination. The legends tell of the god Mahrt, who will call forth his Sword to defeat the giant Warriors of Day.

It's all ludicrous and not in the least interesting. Tipton Bond taps into the planetary consciousness of Xota, which has some sort of gaia collective subconscious mind. He uses that power to destroy the huge spaceships of the Warriors of Day. It's all rather inexplicable.

It's too bad The Warriors of Day is such a poor book. Blish is a good writer, and flashes of his brilliance show through. But the plot is so utterly outlandish that it comes across as nothing but a cheap third-rate fantasy. I am tempted to give it a rating of 1, but it isn't quite that actively bad. The Warriors of Day rates a 2.

Missile Gap, by Charles Stross

Rating: 3
Better than Moby Dick?: Yes

This short novel--really more of a novella--begins with a bizarre premise. At the height of the Cold War, the Earth suddenly becomes flat. Instead of a spinning globe wheeling through space, all the continents and oceans of Earth are spread out on an enormous flat disc. And the disc is unfathomably huge: its surface area can hold billions of Earths. In the oceans beyond the continents of Earth lie strange continents peopled by unhuman beings.

Humanity has no idea how it has come to be transported to the disc, but the change has severe geopolitical consequences. The nuclear deterrence between the superpowers is based on the ability to launch missiles in a polar orbit; polar orbits no longer exist, and nuclear missiles from America can no longer reach the Soviet Union. Consequently, the Soviets overrun Europe, and extend communism across their continent.

Both superpowers explore the unknown continents on the disk. The Soviets send Yuri Gagarin off in a huge Ekranoplan (a ground-effect aircraft), on a five year cruise to "boldly go where no Soviet man has gone before, explore new worlds and look for new peoples, and to establish fraternal socialist relations with them." Gagarin's expedition discovers an eerie secret: there are other Earths on this disc, and one of these alternate Earths has been destroyed in a nuclear holocaust.

It's a pretty good book, and it's short enough to read in a couple of hours.

You can read Missile Gap online for free at Subterranean Press.

The Horror in the Museum, by H.P. Lovecraft and others

Pages: 453
Spoilers?: Minor
Better than Moby Dick?: Yes

These are not Lovecraft's best stories. The early ones particularly show a lot of racist sentiment. Medusa's Coil relies on a racist premise as a key plot point: Marceline is revealed to be black (which is supposed to be the ultimate horror.) I found The Last Test to be interesting enough to hold my attention, though not unpredictable. The Mound is better; the exploration of the subterranean world makes the story worthwhile. My favorite story, by far, is 'Till 'A the Seas'. Also good are The Horror at Martin's Beach and The Loved Dead. The rest are second-rate fare.

• A Note on the Texts, by S. T. Joshi


• Lovecraft's "Revisions", by August Derleth

• The Green Meadow, by Elizabeth Berkeley and Lewis Theobald, Jun. - A meteorite contains a notebook with a message from a man who has passed over to The Green Meadow, "where young men are infinitely old."


• The Crawling Chaos, by by Elizabeth Berkeley and Lewis Theobald, Jun. - A drug-induced vision of the end of the earth. "And when the smoke cleared away, and I sought to look upon the earth, I beheld against the background of cold, humorous stars only the dying sun and the pale mournful planets searching for their sister."



• The Last Test, by Adolphe de Castro - Dr. Alfred Clarendon experiments with a deadly black plague, which is revealed to be not of this world.


• The Electric Executioner, by Adolphe de Castro - A train ride with a madman and an electric chair.


• The Curse of Yig, by Zealia Bishop - The snake-god Yig wreaks his vengeance on an Oklahoma family.


• The Mound, by Zealia Bishop - A mound patrolled by a phantasmic Indian guard is a gateway into a vast subterranean world of Tsathoggua worshippers.


• Medusa's Coil, by Zelia Bishop - Marceline, the wife of a young American man, is actually a fantastically ancient evil being.


• The Man of Stone, by Hazel Heald - To get revenge on his cheating wife, a degenerate hillbilly perfects a potion that turns people to stone.


• The Horror in the Museum, by Hazel Heald - Spending the night in a wax museum filled with living horrors.


• Winged Death, by Hazel Heald - Mad scientist murders fellow scientist with a strange African disease spread by fly bites--but those bitten by the flies lose their souls.


• Out of the Aeons, by Hazel Heald - An old statue found in the Pacific Ocean is actually a living man, frozen forever because he looked upon the god Ghatanothoa without carrying the proper protective charms.


• The Horror in the Burying-Ground, by Hazel Heald - Burying people alive.


• The Diary of Alonzo Typer, by William Lumley - Diary of a man whose old family home draws him in and kills him.

• The Horror at Martin's Beach, by Sonia H. Greene - A lurking sea creature engages the villagers in a macabre tug of war.


• Ashes, by C.M. Eddy, Jr. - Mad scientists turns assistant's girlfriend to ashes.


• The Ghost-Eater, by C.M. Eddy, Jr. - A traveller through the forest at night stays with a strange old man/werewolf who tries to eat his soul.


• The Loved Dead, by C.M. Eddy, Jr. - A twisted serial killer gets his only satisfaction from surrounding himself with death.


• Deaf, Dumb, and Blind, by C.M. Eddy, Jr. - A blind deaf-mute records his final moments on a typewriter as some horrible presence draws near.


• Two Black Bottles, by Wilfred Blanch Talman - The undead.


• The Trap, by Henry S. Whitehead - A sorcerer traps a young boy in a mirror.


• The Tree on the Hill, by Duane W. Rimel - A tree on a hill is a glimpse into another world.


• The Disinterment, by Duane W. Rimel - Mad scientist transplants the narrator's head onto a non-human body.


• ‘Till A’ the Seas’, by R. H. Barlow - The extinction of mankind comes at the hands of a merciless, scorching sun.


• The Night Ocean, by R. H. Barlow - A vacationer spies something unhuman in the ancient sea.

The Pool of Fire, by John Christopher

Rating: 4
Pages: 218
Spoilers?: Major
Better than Moby Dick?: Yes

The final installment of the Tripods trilogy is as good as the previous book. In The City of Gold and Lead, Will Parker and Fritz infiltrate the Tripods' domed city. Will escapes from the city and brings back much-needed information about the Masters, including the news that the Masters are planning to destroy the Earth's atmosphere. Humanity has only a few short years to defeat the Tripods before every last creature on Earth will choke to death in the poisonous air of the Masters.

The Pool of Fire moves quickly. Will and Fritz spend a year traveling through Asia recruiting freedom-minded boys to their cause. Then Will helps the Resistance capture a Tripod and kidnap a living Master for their scientists to study. Will serves as the Master's prison guard, and inadvertently makes a discovery: alcohol incapacitates the Masters.

That leads to a plan: small teams will sneak into the Masters' domed cities and dump alcohol into the city water supply. Will and Fritz are chosen to lead the attack on the domed city in Germany.

The attacks succeed. The Masters are incapacitated, and the Resistance cracks the city domes, asphyxiating the Masters in Earth's oxygen atmosphere. Except at one city: the attack on the domed city on the Panama Canal fails.

The Resistance has a backup plans: primitive airplanes and bombs. This plan fails too. The backup backup plan is balloons and bombs. Will, Fritz, and Henry are among the balloonists who attack the domed city. The attack is nearly a failure, because the bombs keep bouncing off the city dome before exploding. Finally Henry lands his balloon on the dome, and, cradling his bomb and holding it against the dome, sacrifices his life to ensure the bomb cracks the dome. The Masters are defeated.

The Pool of Fire--and the whole Tripods trilogy--makes a big deal of Will's shortcomings. Will, as the first-person narrator, is frank about his impatience, his rashness, and his foolish pride. His struggle to control himself is a constant throughout the story.

John Christopher comments on humanity, too. When the Masters are defeated, Will assumes that men will remain united. Why should they war with one another, as they did in the past? That would be foolish. But Will is in for a shock. At the first Conference of Man, bitter partisanship rules the day. The Americans and the Chinese leave in a huff, the Germans blame the French for instigating trouble, and the English delegation withdraws in disgust. Will, Fritz, and Beanpole realize that although they have defeated the Masters, their work is not done.

Fritz said, "I think perhaps I will give up my farming. There are things more important."
Beanpole said, "I'm with you."
Fritz shook his head. "It is different for you. Your work is important, mine not."
"Not as important as this," Beanpole said. "What about you, Will? Are you ready for a new fight--a longer, less exciting one, with no great triumphs at the end? Will you leave your seas and islands, and help us try to get men to live together, in peace as well as liberty? An Englishman, a German, and a Frenchman: it would be a good start."
The air was cold but exhilarating. A gust of wind scattered powdery snow from the face of Jungfrau.
"Yes," I said, "I'll leave my seas and islands."

The City of Gold and Lead, by John Christopher

Rating: 4
Pages: 218
Spoilers?: Major
Better than Moby Dick?: Yes

The second book in the Tripods trilogy is far better than the first. The White Mountains chronicles the adventures of three young boys on their journey to the community of free men in the Swiss Alps. In The City of Gold and Lead, the free men decide to strike back against the Tripods that rule the world.

But first they need information. Little is known about the Tripods, and nobody has ever entered the Tripods' huge domed city and returned. The Resistance comes up with a plan. Will, Beanpole, and Fritz Eger are fitted with false Caps sent to compete in the Games. The winners in each sport are selected to serve the Tripods in the City. If the boys win, they must gather as much information as they can, and escape the city.

Will wins the boxing championship, and Fritz wins the sprint. Both are selected by the Tripods. Inside the great domed city, they meet the Masters. The Tripods are merely mechanical vehicles. The Masters are tall, thin, tripedal, tentacled, hideously ugly creatures. They breathe a poisonous atmosphere--hence the domed city. Will, Fritz, and the other slaves wear gas masks as they serve the Masters.

Will and Fritz gather much information about the Masters. Will's Master is particularly forthcoming, and he confides to Will that the Earth will soon be rendered uninhabitable for humans. A thousand great atmosphere will spew out the poisonous concoction the Masters breathe, and soon the world will be ready for fullscale colonization. All this is set to occur within four years.

Shocked--the Resistance had expected to have decades to plan a decisive strike against the Tripods--Will and Fritz realize they must escape immediately. The Resistance must be warned so they can act right away.

The City of Gold and Lead is a fun book. My one objection is that Beanpole should never have been permitted to compete in the Games. His brilliant mind and his inventiveness would have been too precious to risk.

The White Mountains, by John Christopher

Rating: 2
Pages: 214
Spoilers?: Minor
Better than Moby Dick?: Yes

My dad read the Tripod books to me when I was a kid. When I saw a set at Half Price Books, I had to buy them. The White Mountains is not as good as I remembered. The book does little more than set the stage for the sequels. The sequels are awesome, though, so it's worth it.

Giant metals tripods from outer space enslave humanity. People live simply in rustic villages. Technology as basic as clockmaking has been lost. They tell dimly-remembered stories about the time before the Tripods came, when men overpopulated the Earth and fought wars amongst themselves. At the age of 14, every boy and girl is Capped. The metal Cap melds with the skull and ensures complete loyalty to the Tripods.

In a small hamlet in England, a 13-year-old boy named Will Parker has just lost his only friend. He has just watched his only friend Jack get Capped; Jack is now a man, his personality has changed, and Will realizes he wants no part of Capping.

A passing Vagrant called Ozymandius notices Will's dissatisfaction, and tells him about a community of free men. He tells Will to travel south, cross the English Channel, and continue on the the White Mountains. There, in the cold mountains where the Tripods never go, he will find the last remaining community of free men.

Will sets off to find the White Mountains. He picks up traveling companions: Henry, a boy from his village; and later Beanpole, a brilliant young French boy with a penchant for inventing. Together they find the White Mountains--but not before they have a run-in with a Tripod, which Will manages to destroy with a hand grenade scavenged from a weapons cache in a bomb-out subway.

Most of the action is boring, though. We learn very little about the Tripods--that comes in the sequel, The City of Gold and Lead. Beanpole is annoying--he keeps trying to invent things like the steam engine. And half the book is about how hungry the boys are, because they have to subsist by stealing food along the way. That's realistic, but it's not an interesting story.

At the Earth's Core, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Rating: 2
Pages: 210
Spoilers?: Minor
Better than Moby Dick?: Yes

Edgar Rice Burroughs has a pretty good formula. A hero gets stranded in a strange alien world, sees a princess, and falls in love. The princess is kidnapped, and the hero rescues her. Along the way everybody does lots of fighting with swords, knives, arrows, and other honorable weapons. At the Earth's Core does not deviate from the formula.

The alien world is Pellicudar, a world inside the hollow crust of the Earth. A tiny sun at the center of the Earth provides eternal daylight in Pellucidar. Without day and night, time in Pellucidar is variable. What seems a month to one man--as he fights his way through the savage jungle--is a mere hour for his companion studying quietly in a library. It's a ludicrous concept, but no more so than the idea of a hollow Earth.

The hero is David Innes. No Tarzan or John Carter, Innes is nonetheless a true Burroughs hero: athletic, educated, but a man of bold action rather than study. The love interest is Dian the Beautiful. Unfortunately for Innes, in his ignorance of Pellucidarian culture, he offends her grievously. He must go after her, but he is captured and enslaved by the Mahars.

The Mahars are intelligent winged dinosaurs, and are the dominant species in Pellucidar. They are served by the Sagoths, a race of primitive ape-men. Together, they enslave the true men of Pellucidar. Innes and his companions escape from the Mahars, Innes gets the girl, and then--in a surprise twist that surprises no one--Innes unites the men of Pellucidar and frees them from the tyranny of the Mahars. Hooray for happy endings.

Space Skimmer, by David Gerrold

Rating: 4
Pages: 218
Better than Moby Dick?: Yes

Mass, a young man from the heavy world of Streinveldt, is on a quest to find out what happened to the Empire. Once it had spanned thousands of planets. Then one day, centuries ago, the Empire simply disappeared. Nobody knows what happened to it.

Mass leaves from Streinveldt, which no one has done for hundreds of years. He quickly uncovers a link between the Empire's collapse and the invention of a new kind of super-fast spaceship: the Space Skimmers. Naturally, Mass tracks down a Space Skimmer. It is a pure energy construct, controlled via the mind. Along the way, Mass picks up some unwelcome friends, including an unlucky young prince named Tapper. Tapper, although his royal line has been bred for luck, is extraordinarily unlucky. He appeals to Mass to transport him to Liadne, where he can be treated for his unluckiness.

Mass reluctantly agrees to help Tapper. In their adventures together, Mass learns more about the Empire's collapse.

The plot of Space Skimmer is good enough, and Gerrold acknowledges his debt to Niven for the whole "breeding for luckiness" idea. But the best part is the poetry. Gerrold sprinkles the book with poems and songs, and for once, I read and enjoyed the poetry. Good stuff.

I don't want their crimson skies, nor their weeping, bleeding suns,
Nor their haunted glowing auras, nor their atmospheres that run,
I won't breathe their rusty airs of colors not like blue,
The sky of home has a yellow sun; the yellow sun is you.

I'll stand erect on a cloudless day beneath your yellow light,
I'll bare my head and breathe deep breaths; the colors will be bright,
No goggles dim, no breathing mask, no pressure suit to bind,
I'll take my home-filled sky with me, for I can't leave it behind.

But ere I go, I'll pledge to you this timeless bright blue dream,
Home is for the wanderer an ever-changing stream,
He never drinks from it so sweet a draft as sweet as this--
As sweet and tumbling easy as love's first tender kiss.

The memory so sweet and clear, it must be taken with,
And kindled into life again, by sunlight and by myth.
On hills so far from you that your light has not yet roamed,
I'll keep your bright blue sky, for the bright blue sky is home.

Star King, by Jack Vance

Rating: 4
Pages: 160
Spoilers?: Minor
Better than Moby Dick?: Yes

Star King is the first of the Demon Princes novels. The hero is Kirth Gersen. Not Keith Gersen, as the blurb on the back of the Daw paperback says. Oh well. At least Daw SF paperbacks are plentiful. They're probably my favorite line of books.

Kirth Gersen is a complex protagonist, but unlike a typical Vance character, he is not wholly self-centered. Orphaned, he was raised by his grandfather. His childhood consisted of training for a lifelong mission: to rid the galaxy of evil men. Gersen's grandfather left him a letter:

Actually the triumph [of good over evil] consists of two processes: first evil must be extinguished, then good must be introduced to fill the gap. It is impossible that a man should be equally efficacious in both functions. Good and evil, in spite of traditional fallacy, are not polarities, nor mirror images, nor is one merely the absence of the other. In order to minimize confusion, your work will be the destruction of evil men.

Gersen's first task is to find and kill the five pirate captains who operate in the Beyond, outside of the reach of the Oikumene. The first of these five Demon Princes that Gersen goes after is Attel Malagate. The true identity of Malagate "The Woe" is a jealously guarded secret. In Smade's Tavern on the desolate Smade's Planet, Gersen witnesses the murder of one Lugo Teehalt. The murder was ordered by Malagate, so Gersen follows the trail of the hitmen in an attempt to locate Malagate.

Gersen traces Malagate to the campus of Sea Province University on Alphanor. Malagate's alter ego is apparently an academic: but which one? Gersen's attempts to ferret out the identity of Malagate come up empty. At the same time, Gersen strikes up a romance with the university secretary, Pallis Atwrode. He becomes introspective, wondering whether he will ever have a normal life. If his life's work is to destroy evil men, then, as his grandfather told him, "you may never know a life of peace. However, I guarantee you ample satisfaction, for I will teach you to crave the blood of these men more than the flesh of woman." Gersen wonders if he ever had a real choice; his life's work was thrust upon him before he had the chance to decide for himself, and now he finds himself unable to deviate from the path his grandfather laid out.

Getting back to the matter at hand, Gersen narrows down the search for Malagate, and hatches an ingenious plan to learn Malagate's identity. Using the monitor filament from Teehalt's spaceship--which he stole on Smade's Planet--Gersen lures three university administrators out into the Beyond. They are searching for an uncolonized idyllic planet whose location is recorded only on Teehalt's monitor filament.

Gersen wins, of course. He has to. Well, he doesn't have to. This is a Jack Vance story, after all, and Vance would just as soon kill off his hero as let him win. That's what I love about Vance. He creates weird settings, populates them with complex characters that have their own motivations, and then doesn't force the characters to act in ways that are contrived to advance the plot. You never know quite what will happen.

Star King rates a solid four.

The Shockwave Rider, by John Brunner

Rating: 4
Pages: 280
Better than Moby Dick?: Yes

The world of The Shockwave Rider is dominated by the plug-in lifestyle. Citizens live fast-paced, high-tech lives, never putting down roots. People change jobs, change apartments, change friends as easily and as thoughtlessly as they change their clothes. One man, Nickie Haflinger, is a natural genius at writing worms. He can log into the net from any v-phone and punch in a worm to change his identity, or to manipulate the stock markets. His ability is critical, because he is running from the big bad government.

Interestingly, although John Brunner got a lot of things right, he got it wrong when it comes to surveillance: we don't need to be worried about the government as much as we do about private businesses. In The Shockwave Rider, the only malevolent force is the corrupt government. In the real world, corruption exists everywhere that power exists--government and private industry.

Further, Brunner falls back on his familiar socialist propaganda. Nickie Haflinger outwits the government hounds by writing a worm to reveal all the government's corruption. That's fair enough. But he's not content to stop there: Nickie offers the citizens two propositions:

THE CONTENT OF THE PROPOSITIONS

#1: That this is a rich planet. Therefore poverty and hunger are unworthy of it, and since we can abolish them, we must.

#2: That we are a civilized species. Therefore none shall henceforth gain illicit advantage by reason of the fact that together we know more than one of us can know.

Brunner would have you believe the correct vote to both propositions is Yes. But it isn't. Proposition #1 states that "this is a rich planet," which is a meaningless statement. A planet cannot be rich. Earth has many natural resources, but none of these are useful or valuable until an industrious, enterprising man figures out how to make good use of them. That is the source of property--and hence, ownership. A better proposition would be "That we are an industrious and enterprising people." But that doesn't segue into the whole socialist agenda of eliminating poverty and hunger, because it requires that each man work for his own living.

The second proposition is basically asking the people to choose between secrecy and transparency. I would choose transparency, but it's phrased in such a way as to make business seem an evil endeavor. Brunner's collectivist leanings betray themselves again.

Today We Choose Faces, by Roger Zelazny

Rating: 2
Pages: 174
Better than Moby Dick?: Yes

I read Today We Choose Faces on the strength of its title. It does not live up to my expectations. Zelazny gives us a novelette's worth of story stretched to novel length. The plot is straightforward enough: Lange and his fellow clones are telepathically linked, and they are the secret architects of the House. All humanity lives in the House, an artificial environment that shapes and molds humanity. The ultimate goal is to better mankind and produce a race that will not destroy itself through war, as previous human civilizations have done.

As Lange and his clones reshape mankind, they operate on themselves too: using a machine, they excise portions of their personality that they find repulsive and outdated.

But of course it won't last. A mysterious Mr. Black objects to the reshaping of mankind, and is out to kill Lange and the rest of the clones. To combat the deadly assassin, Lange is forced to undergo memory therapy to recover the lost portions of his personality. His lost memories include the violent, primitive tendencies from his past life as a mafia hit man--the qualities that will enable him to kill Mr. Black.

The big secret is that Mr. Black is one of the clones, who long ago decided he didn't like the idea of castrating humanity by destroying its capacity for violence. Zelazny takes a hundred pages to build up to this revelation, but it's too obvious, and Zelazny isn't a good enough storyteller to hold my interest when I already know what's coming. Today We Choose Faces rates a two.

The Guardians of Time, by Poul Anderson

Pages: 254

I am not a fan of time travel stories. Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories are the best of the whole silly subgenre.

• Time Patrol: Manson Everard is recruited by the Time Patrol, and goes back to fifth century England to stop a 30th century merchant from changing history.


• Brave to be a King: Everard tries to rescue a friend who is stranded in history and has been forced to play the historical role of King Cyrus.


• Gibraltar Falls: A fact-finding mission to the formation of the Mediterranean sea almost ends in disaster.


• The Only Game in Town: Everard and Sandoval head to pre-Columbus America to sabotage a Mongol expedition to the Americas.


• Delenda Est: When the timeline is changed radically, Everard and van Sarawak must locate the critical event that was changed--which turns out to be related to Hannibal--and fix it.


• Of Time and the Rover by Sandra Miesel: A brief essay about the celebration of individualism in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories.

Out of Time's Abyss, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Rating: 2
Pages: 139
Better than Moby Dick?: Yes

Out of Time's Abyss is the conclusion of the Caspak trilogy. It's not so much a trilogy as a three-part story, so it doesn't make sense unless you've read the previous installments.

Burroughs is not at the top of his form here. The action feels largely perfunctory. The plot is merely a device to allow Burroughs to explain the curious mode of evolution in the land of Caspak.

In Caspak, evolution is central to the lives of all men. The pinnacle of Caspakian evolution, the Galu people, do not have children. Instead, members of the lower races spontaneously rise and become Galu. Likewise, members of the highest order of apes spontaneously rise and become men. Thus in Caspak, even individual creature experiences the full evolutionary development from primordial tadpole to fully developed man.

Women in Caspak spend an hour each morning in the river water, releasing eggs that wash out to sea. There they begin the evolutionary process that will eventually come full circle. Because the women do not bear children, one might expect this to have an impact on Caspakian culture. Burroughs passes up this opportunity for building an interesting society, sadly.

Instead, Burroughs creates a whole new race of man: the Wieroos. The Wieroo are winged men who claim to be the pinnacle of human evolution. The Wieroo and the Galu compete for dominance on Caspak. Both groups are anxious to develop the ability to give live birth--which they call cos-ata-lu, as they hope this will allow them to increase their numbers and conquer the whole of Caspak.

A few Galu women are able to give live birth, but they are rare. The Wieroo can all reproduce cos-ata-lu, but they only have male offspring. To keep the race alive, the Wieroo steal any Galu women who shows signs of being able to bear children.

In Out of Time's Abyss, our hero Bradley is kidnapped by Wieroo. In captivity, he meets a Galu woman. They escape together and have many adventures. It's a boring story, though, except for the glimpses into the Wieroo culture.

Terror in the Mind of God, by Mark Juergensmeyer

Pages: 243

In his 2000 book Terror in the Mind of God, Mark Juergensmeyer explores the relationship between religion and violence. He begins by examining a number of case studies, including

• Radical right-wing Christianity in America


• Protestant-Catholic issues in Northern Ireland


• Jewish terrorists and assassinations is Israel


• Islamic terrorism


• Sikh violence in India


• The Tokyo subway nerve gas attack

In all these cases, Juergensmeyer notes that the sects that turn to violence are marginal, and are not accepted by the mainstream religions to which they claim affinity. On the other hand, the mainstream religious community can often understand the motivations of the terrorists, if not approve of the methods.

Juergensmeyer identifies several key qualities that tend to lead to religiously-motivated violence:

• A worldview that interprets history as a cosmic war between good and evil. The struggle is not against earthly institutions, but against heavenly powers. Often this happens when a culture fears for its existence, like the Sikhs fear becoming subsumed into India's dominant Hindu culture.


• The unavailability of other options, such as the democratic process, to achieve one's goals.


• The satanization and dehumanization of enemies, as when Islamic fanatics paint America and all Americans as evil, or when radical right-wing groups in America refer to all non-Aryans as mudpeople.

As for the terrorist acts themselves, Juergensmeyer interprets them as performance violence. They are not intended to directly achieve one's goals. They are symbols of a culture war. When Paul Hill murdered an abortion doctor, he wasn't expecting to significantly reduce the number of abortions performed in America; rather, he felt compelled to act to send a message that abortion is murder, and that deadly force is justified to defend the unborn.

The weakest part of Juergensmeyer's book is when he tries to interpret terrorism as a form of male sexual aggression. That, and his continual attempts to paint Timothy McVeigh as a religiously-motivated terrorist. I have just read two McVeigh biographies, and Juergensmeyer is deliberately misrepresenting McVeigh's motives for the Oklahoma City bombing. It is true McVeigh had contact with the radical Christian militia groups--notably the Christian Identity movement--but Juergensmeyer does not distinguish between contact and motivation. He sprinkles his book with unspecified comments about McVeigh's associations and links to Christian Identity--links which are often nothing more than an innocuous phone call, but you wouldn't know that from Juergensmeyer's insinuations. Then he goes into detail about Christian Identity's stated motivations for religious violence, and makes the unwarranted assumption that McVeigh shared those motivations.

I don't know why Juergensmeyer felt he needed to stretch the truth about McVeigh. Not all terrorism is religiously motivated, a point which Juergensmeyer admits more than once. There are plenty of other terrorist incidents that can be legitimately tied to Christian Identity groups, so there is no need to conjure up a fictional version of McVeigh. It calls Juergensmeyer's credibility into account. Even worse, in his public speeches Juergensmeyer is now apparently using McVeigh as a counterpoint to Osama bin Laden, claiming that McVeigh is as "Christian" as bin Laden is "Muslim." That's a lie, of course. McVeigh's motivations were wholly secular (although his crime was enabled and encouraged by a fringe group of Christian lunatics), whereas bin Laden's fatwa against America specifically uses religion to justify violence.

Hrolf Kraki's Saga, by Poul Anderson

Rating: 2
Pages: 277
Better than Moby Dick?: Yes

Hrolf Kraki's Saga is Poul Anderson's retelling of the Danish legends. The legends are not complete, so Anderson fills in the gaps with his own bits of fiction. The result is a unique story. It reads very much like Beowulf--which is no surprise, because Beowulf makes an appearance in the Danish legends.

As a novel, it's unsatisfying. It's tedious. But it does portray a non-Western culture, so it's interesting in that regard. The Scandinavian culture glorifies violence, views powerful women as witches, and expects its kings and heros to father numerous illegitimate children. The kings often employ berserkers to complement their warriors, but the berserkers are universally reviled. Strong fighting men were above the law; in a world before modern weapons, a great warrior could kill anyone who crossed him. Even the kings were terrified of their own warriors.

Hrolf Kraki's Saga is probably a great way to learn about Danish legends. As a novel, I am generous to give it a rating of two.

Apocalypse in Oklahoma: Waco and Ruby Ridge Revenged, by Mark S. Hamm

Apocalypse in Oklahoma: Waco and Ruby Ridge Revenged, by Mark S. Hamm
Pages: 242

Mark S. Hamm wrote Apocalypse in Oklahoma before the trials of McVeigh and Nichols were complete, so it is missing some of the facts. Still, it is a valuable book because it explores the culture of violent right-wing militias that gave McVeigh the support he needed to become a terrorist.

Instead of beginning with McVeigh, Hamm begins with an exploration of the right-wing survivalist militia groups in America. In particular, he examines the Christian Identity movement. Christian Identity (and numerous other similar groups) were steeped in racism, religion, and a deep distrust of the government. They turned violent and carried out domestic terrorist attacks on government targets, but by 1990s, the FBI had broken their power.

It was this community that Timothy McVeigh entered when he returned from the Gulf War. Although Hamm presents no evidence that McVeigh was religious or racist, it is clear that McVeigh found validation for his anti-government view among these separatist paramilitary groups.

McVeigh's association with the radical right is well known. Hamm presents another theory, too: McVeigh was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after the Gulf War. Further, he spent much of his time drugged up on crystal meth--a drug whose side effects include paranoia. Consequently, he developed a paranoid personality. The Waco incident was the final straw that convinced McVeigh that a violent response was necessary and appropriate. Hamm leaves unsaid the obvious conclusion that if it hadn't been Waco, it would have been something else. McVeigh's violence was inevitable.

Hamm's book is marred by his various agendas. He blames the military for not detecting McVeigh's personality problems when he enlisted, for not treating him for PTSD upon his discharge. He blames the FBI for failing to catch McVeigh before the bombing, and again for bungling the investigation. (This is perhaps the most curious of Hamm's criticisms. Hamm lambasts the FBI for not acting swiftly enough, thereby allowing John Doe Number 2 to escape. But Hamm later mentions that John Doe 2 was identified and turned out to be uninvolved.) Then Hamm takes potshots at the NRA and the Republican party, while going out of his way to all but deify President Clinton.

If you can get past Hamm's obvious agendas and his incomplete presentation of the facts, Apocalypse in Oklahoma is an excellent look at the culture that provided Timothy McVeigh with the support network he needed to become America's deadliest domestic terrorist.

Home Rule in America, by Andrew Carnegie

The Gospel of Wealth, by Andrew Carnegie

Part X: Home Rule in America

In 1887, Andrew Carnegie gave a speech before the Glasgow Junior Liberal Association. A major issue in British politics of the day was the question of Irish home rule. Ireland demanded a degree of self-governance; the rest of the nation was generally opposed, and the Home Rule act had been defeated in the House of Commons the previous year. Carnegie related Irish home rule to American federalism. Carnegie explained that home rule, or federalism, is not a first step toward secession, but is merely the most reasonable and most democratic form of government for any large nation.

Carnegie urges that Irish home rule be established as quickly as possible, using the US Constitution as a model. After all, it is a tried and tested method; no sense starting from scratch. The "great, beneficient principle of Home Rule" will bring peace and strength to the English-speaking world, with Britain as its leader, Carnegie promises.

Home Rule for each of the divisions, with a central authority over all to keep them in order; and in that congregation of English-speaking people, in that future Parliament - I know not how many divisions, I know not what their size or number, I know not their positions, but I know the position of one power is fixed, immovable, perpetual, and secure - that of this glorious little island. There may be many children clustering around her in that Parliament of Man; there can only be one mother. I say cursed be the arm and withered the tongue of any man, wherever found, who would strive to keep apart, by word or by deed, those children from that mother.

Although Home Rule was eventually enacted, by that time Irish politics had shifted such that they would settle for nothing less than independence. One wonders whether the independence movement would have lost support had Ireland been granted Home Rule in the late 1880s as Carnegie urged, rather than thirty years later.