All reviews copyright 1984-2013 Evelyn C. Leeper.
RAISED BY PUPPETS by Andrei Codrescu:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 08/01/2003]
I enjoy Andrei Codrescu's essays on NPR and find them thought- provoking, but somehow when they are put down on the printed page, they seem much more cynical and bitter. The latest of his collections that I'm reading, RAISED BY PUPPETS, certainly has that problem, though I suppose it's possible that the radio essays are bitter and cynical and I just miss it. Codrescu does say in "My Brush with Hollywood" that writing is different than speaking when he writes, "If they're written down, they're literary. When they're on tape [or radio], they're not." (He's wrong about Sabbatai Zevi, however. Codrescu places him around the year 1000; actually Zevi lived in the 17th century. In addition, Sabbatai Zevi and his followers were Jewish; why would they think the world was ending in the year 1000? And for that matter, there was no widespread belief at the time that the world was ending in 1000-- that was a story concocted about six hundred years later.)
To order Raised by Puppets from amazon.com, click here.
THE LIFE OF THE HONORABLE WILLIAM F. CODY by Buffalo Bill Cody:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 07/11/2003]
As I said, I got to only one Williams play before I got sidetracked into the autobiography of Buffalo Bill Cody. One might say that Cody's attitude towards Indians was less than currently politically correct, but he was after all a man of his times, and interesting times they were.
To order The Life of the Honorable William F. Cody from amazon.com, click here.
CODY'S BOOKS: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A BERKELEY BOOKSTORE 1956-1977 by Pat and Fred Cody:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 08/26/2005]
Pat and Fred Cody's CODY'S BOOKS: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A BERKELEY BOOKSTORE 1956-1977 (ISBN 0-8118-0140-3) is at times more about Berkeley in that turbulent time than about the bookstore itself. People looking for tips on how to start and operate a bookstore will find some information here, but even that is of more interest historically than practically. When Cody's started as a paperback bookstore, distribution, marketing, and just about every other aspect of book-selling was very different than it is now. (And by paperback bookstore, they seem to have meant primarily trade paperbacks, not mass market.) So far as I can tell, in fact, the store was kept afloat for many years only by the wildly successful European art calendars, in a time when there was not an American calendar industry other than those given away by service stations and such. This book probably has its greatest appeal as a history of those times in Berkeley from someone "on the front lines", so to speak.
To order Cody's Books from amazon.com, click here.
WHO KILLED THE CURATE? by Joan Coggin:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 01/02/2009]
I had bought a dozen "old" mysteries (from the 1930s and 1940s) re- printed by Rue Morgue Press in nice trade paperbacks. I read the first one (for me, anyway), WHO KILLED THE CURATE? by Joan Coggin (ISBN-13 978-0-815230-44-0, ISBN-10 0-815230-44-5). It was fine except for the main character, Lady Lupin, who is a society flibbertygibbet married to a vicar. The back blurb compares her to Gracie Allen, and an apt comparison it is--she is full of apparent non sequuntur(*), and as the back blurb says, "she literally doesn't know Jews from Jesuits." I never found this type of character either believable or funny, so it was hard for me to enjoy the novel, even though the mystery and supporting players were fine.
(*) Yes, that's the plural of "non sequitur"!
To order Who Killed the Curate? from amazon.com, click here.
is "The Wall Around the World" by Theodore Cogswell:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 07/16/2004]
My choice for the Retro Hugo for Novelette is "The Wall Around the World" by Theodore Cogswell. Oddly enough, this seems like it would be a fine companion piece for the "Harry Potter" books, with its "scientific" approach to magic. I also liked Philip K. Dick's "Second Variety", though either I remembered it or the ending was obvious. Still, the discussion of war and its methods was what the story was really about.
WANDERING LANDS AND ANIMALS: THE STORY OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT AND ANIMAL POPULATIONS by Edwin H. Colbert:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 08/10/2007]
As part of our recent trip to the Canadian Rockies (which included various paleontological sites), I re-read parts of WANDERING LANDS AND ANIMALS: THE STORY OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT AND ANIMAL POPULATIONS (ISBN-10 0-486-24918-2, ISBN-13 978-0-486-24918-6) by Edwin H. Colbert. He talks about the fauna of isolated islands, and says (on page 255) that the native fauna of Australia consists of "marsupials, of some monotremes, and of such placental mammals as rodents, bats, and the dingo." If the native fauna of Australia includes the dingo, and "it is obvious that the dingo was brought to the continent by aboriginal immigrants," then doesn't that make the aboriginal immigrants part of the native fauna, and in particular a native placental mammal along with rodents and bats?
One might also note that the "tradition" of a North American invasion into South America which drives many species to extinction is not a twentieth century phenomenon. During the Pliocene (a million years ago or so), the Panama land bridge was re-established between North America and the previously isolated South America, and the fauna of the latter --marsupial borhyaenids, litopterns, notoungulates, ground sloths, and glyptodonts--were decimated by the invading species.
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 03/04/2011]
WANDERING LANDS AND ANIMALS by Edwin H. Colbert (ISBN 978-0-486-24918-2-6) was February's choice for our [mostly science] book discussion group. I recommended it; the reason I like it is that it has an epic sweep the same way that Olaf Stapledon's LAST AND FIRST MEN has. Both cover millions of years and the evolution of species over that time. It is not the individual that is the character but the collective, the species.
Back in 1972, when this was written, continental drift (a.k.a. plate tectonics) was still relatively new, and the KT asteroid still unknown. Colbert notes that the initial paleontological evidence for continental drift, a.k.a. tectonic plates, was explained in other unlikely ways, but geological evidence suggested Gondwanaland and it explained the paleontological evidence much better as well.
Although the KT asteroid was not known in 1972, there were speculations that it was some sort of global catastrophe that killed off the dinosaurs, and Colbert asks a question still unresolved: "Why the dinosaurs should have become extinct at the end of Cretaceous time is one of the great puzzles of geologic history. ... [Why] did all of the dinosaurs die out at the end of Cretaceous history? Why did not some of them survive, as did their close cousins the crocodilians?" [page 202]
Colbert chooses his words very carefully. He writes, "A theory, to be valid, must satisfy all aspects of the subject upon which it touches." [page 13] Note that he does not say that a theory is "correct", but that it is "valid." All those who talk about how evolution is "just a theory" need to understand what a theory is and what it means to be valid.
Colbert writes about digging for fossils in Antarctica, saying, for example, "It was interesting, however, to note the variability of temperatures within the hut. At floor level, water if spilled would freeze; at waist level the temperatures were usually about 40 degrees; at shoulder level a comfortable 70 degrees was common; and at the top of the arched hut the temperature was commonly 90 degrees and more." [page 48]
On the other hand, sometimes the information Colbert had at the time was incomplete. There were many instances where fossils of a certain type might be expected on a given continent but had [have?] not yet been found. Other speculations have since been disproved-- for example, "It has recently [as of 1972] been suggested, upon the basis of geophysical evidence, that most of China, and perhaps Indonesia, may have been a part of Gondwanaland, forming a northeastern extension of the ancient continent, to occupy much of the area between Africa and Australia." [page 65, also page 152]
He has a sense of humor; after having discussed all the fossil evidence of Lystrosaurus on various continents for several chapters, he says, "By now the reader probably is sick unto the point of ennui of Lystrosaurus, yet there is no getting away from this useful reptile." [page 71]
[By the way, I indicate page numbers because the index is skimpy- there are some entries in the index for "India", but not for all the mentions of India in the text.]
When we visited Newfoundland, we saw evidence of the continental drift Colbert is writing about. We toured the Tablelands, where the Earth's mantle is exposed. Our guide used an analogy with an apple: the skin is the crust, the pulp is the mantle, and the core is the core. The Tablelands is a piece of the mantle. As he said, "Here the earth is flipped inside out." How did this happen? "Continents are big rafts floating on magma." What is now the Americas is called Laurasia, and Eurasia/Africa is Gondwanaland. The Atlantic was Iapetus. Laurasia and Gondwanaland collided a billion years ago (the sign there said 450 million years ago, though). Normally you have subduction (both plates move downward), but here parts of Gondwanaland rode up on top of Laurasia. After 250 million years, they split apart, but on a different line, leaving pieces of the mantle from Gondwanaland behind. The glaciers scoured off the crust, exposing the mantle. It is not unique, though--all of the Appalachian, Long Range, and Caledonian mountains are the same range formed from this piece of mantle.
Of course, Newfoundland is weird in many ways besides having exposed mantle and being partially covered by the European tectonic plate. It, along with Labrador, was an independent country until 1949. Its time zone is a half hour off from adjacent time zones. Its cell phone service is not shared by any other company. And its provincial flower is carnivorous.
To order Wandering Lands and Animals from amazon.com, click here.
FANCIES AND GOODNIGHTS by John Collier:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 05/03/2013]
Our book discussion group did several stories from FANCIES AND GOODNIGHTS by John Collier (ISBN 978-1-590-17051-9):
"Bottle Party": This is a traditional fantasy with a somewhat predictable twist.
"Evening Primrose": Did Collier originate this idea (the story was first published in 1941), which has been dramatized at least twice on television and twice on radio, as well as apparently inspiring several other teleplays? It is definitely a more poetic/literary style than "Bottle Party".
"Witch's Money": The ending is almost "The Lady or the Tiger". I have seen this idea before, I thought with a large bill that made the rounds in a small town, functioning almost like Eric Frank Russell's "obs" from THE GREAT EXPLOSION. Collier's story was published in 1939, but the story I am thinking of may pre-date even that.
"Are You Too Late or Was I Too Early?": This one was a bit too poetic and airy for me.
"Fallen Star", "Pictures in the Fire", and "Halfway to Hell": I suppose the "deal with the Devil" story was not stale when these was written, but by now tricking the Devil has gotten very familiar. In any case, Collier seems to love this theme.
"Three Bears Cottage": This is another story with a predictable ending.
"Wet Saturday": Another twist ending, but I cannot figure out the motivation for it.
"Squirrels Have Bright Eyes": Eh.
"The Lady on the Grey": This is not as traditional as "Bottle Party", but still has a somewhat predictable twist.
"Incident on a Lake": For some reason, this made be think of the film LAKE PLACID, though it really has very little in common plotwise.
"Over Insurance": Mark has often related this story, but it turns out his description does not exactly match the story--and I think I like his better.
To order Fancies and Goodnights from amazon.com, click here.
ROAD TO PERDITION by Max Allan Collins and Richard Rayner:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 03/28/2003]
We picked up Max Allan Collins and Richard Rayner's ROAD TO PERDITION since I was curious to see what graphic novels were like these days. What I discovered, at least in this case, was that the graphics were not very informative or useful to me in understanding the story. I found this strange, because in the film the visuals are very important. Maybe an appreciation of graphic novels is something that requires a lot more background, or practice, or something.
To order Road to Perdition from amazon.com, click here.
SIXPENCE HOUSE by Paul Collins:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 03/05/2004]
For people who know about Hay-on-Wye, Paul Collins's SIXPENCE HOUSE will be of interest. Collins decided to leave San Francisco with his wife and baby and move to Hay-on-Wye. This sounds like a book-lover's dream, but as Collins discovered, there is reality to deal with as well as the fantasy.
To order Sixpence House from amazon.com, click here.
BASIL by Wilkie Collins:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 06/03/2011]
People who complain about the overuse in coincidence in modern novels need to read one where it's laid on with a trowel. (Warning: Spoilers Ahoy!) In BASIL by Wilkie Collins (ISBN 0-486-24015-0), the main character, Basil, falls in love with a girl he happens to see on the bus. It turns out the the girl's father's clerk (and her tutor) is the son of a man hanged for forgery because Basil's father would not forgive him. This is bad enough, but there's more. Basil and the girl marry secretly, but she continues her affair with the clerk. Finally, it has reached a stage where she has Basil completely in her power--he is stuck with her and is responsible for all her debts, but she has run off with the clerk. So what happens? She goes to visit the clerk in the hospital, accidentally runs up to the wrong bed, contracts typhus for that five-second mistake, and dies.
To order Basil from amazon.com, click here.
BARKER STREET REGULARS
by Susan Conant:
MURDER, MRS. HUDSON
by Sydney Hosier:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 12/05/2003]
A couple of books inspired by Sherlock Holmes are Susan Conant's BARKER STREET REGULARS and Sydney Hosier's MURDER, MRS. HUDSON. The former involves a murder, dogs, and Sherlock Holmes aficionados. The latter is the second book in a series that has Mrs. Hudson as the detective and would be okay except for the fact that Hosier has decided to give her a friend who can travel out of her body. This is presumably explained more in the first book of the series, but I'm not going out of my way to find it.
To order Barker Street Regulars from amazon.com, click here.
To order Murder, Mrs. Hudson from amazon.com, click here.
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE by Richard Condon:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 04/16/2004]
I had heard that Richard Condon's THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE was different from the film primarily in that the sexual undertones of the film were made explicit in the book. This is true, and while the book is well-written, I'm not sure it adds that much if you've seen the movie. (By the way, director John Frankenheimer gives a great commentary track on the DVD. There is a new release of the film on DVD scheduled for July 13 with some additional features, but the older release also has the commentary.)
To order The Manchurian Candidate from amazon.com, click here.
MONITOR FOUND IN ORBIT by Michael G. Coney:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 02/16/2007]
MONITOR FOUND IN ORBIT by Michael G. Coney (ISBN-10 0-879-97132-0 ISBN-13 978-0-879-97132-8) is an old collection of nine of Coney's short stories that I was inspired to read by James Nicoll's review of it as part of his massive overview of DAW books that was posted to Usenet (http://tinyurl.com/2weru7). The lead story of a collection is usually assumed to be the strongest. But here the lead story, "The True Worth of Ruth Villiers", is a "gimmick" story, with the premises rather obviously set up so as to constrain the story rather artificially. "The Mind Prison" is also hard to believe, and predictable. I did rather like the idea behind "R26/5/PSY and I", even if it does not bear much examination, and similarly with "Esmeralda". I agree with Nicoll when he says, "[almost] all of these are competently written at the words and paragraph level even if some of the background assumptions don't seem to stand up to close inspection. This might seem like damning with faint praise but I do not intend to do so. It is a rare modern anthology which has this high a fraction of readable prose, and dodgy world construction is still just as common as in the 1970s."
To order Monitor Found in Orbit from amazon.com, click here.
LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 05/28/2004]
I tried to read Joseph Conrad's LORD JIM, this month's selection for the general book discussion group at the library. But it was just too tough going. I know people talk about how Joseph Conrad mastered English so well as a second language, but if one looks at just this novel, one gets the impression that he didn't really have the hang of it. His phrasing, combined with the non-linear telling of the story, made this the sort of book that I decided life was too short to read. (Many people felt this way, though a couple of people did finish it, and one really liked it. That gives it a slight edge over THE SUN ALSO RISES, which no one liked.)
To order Lord Jim from amazon.com, click here.
CASTRO'S BOMB by Robert Conroy:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 08/24/2012]
In CASTRO'S BOMB by Robert Conroy (Kindle only, ASIN B005ORV3IM), the politics and military aspects are done reasonably well (at least as far as I can tell), but Conroy really needs to have only male characters. Regarding female characters, one of two things seem to be the case: 1) Conroy has no idea how to write female characters, or 2) Conroy knows how to write female characters, but figures his audience is all male and consists of people who do not want well-written female characters.
So far as I can tell, the female characters are entirely defined by sex (including rape), fear of pregnancy, menstruation, emotions, what they are wearing, and how they look. They plead for their husbands, or spend time searching their bombed-out apartments for jewelry. The only real exception to this seems to be the Cuban women who stop the tank column, and even they are more into passive resistance. (One might speculate on the differing portrayals of Anglo and Russian women versus those of Hispanic women, but I am not going to go there.)
(This problem, by the way, also appears in his earlier books, HIMMLER'S WAR and 1942, and possibly others that I do not recall.)
Conroy also depends a lot on infodumps, even to the extent of explaining the origin of the military response "Nuts!" But in non- military matters, he makes mistakes (which should have been caught by his editor, assuming Kindle books have editors). For example, there is his use of the term "Hobson's choice" in the sense of Scylla and Charybdis, when it really means no choice at all. ("Any color as long as it's black" would be a classic example.) And it is not a case of the error being the character's rather than the author's--the speaker (Kennedy) was classically educated and would know what "Hobson's choice" means.
To order Castro's Bomb from amazon.com, click here.
1901 by Robert Conroy (Lyford Books, ISBN 0-89141-537-8, 1995, 374pp, hardback):
There are two kinds of alternate histories. The first is the kind that assumes some sort of change and then looks at what the world (or part of it) would be like years later. Examples of this are Philip K. Dick's Man in the High Castle, Ward Moore's Bring the Jubilee, and Robert Harris's Fatherland. The second assumes some sort of change and then starts following the affect of this change from that point. Examples of this are Harry Turtledove's Guns of the South and Leo Frankowski's Cross-Time Engineer. I must admit to a preference for the first. In part, this is because while the second can be well done, it all too often is just a detailed description of how the author thinks some war would have gone after the change. 1901 is precisely this sort of book.
The premise is that Germany, jealous of the United States' overseas possessions, attacks us in June 1901. Most of the book is spent detailing the land and sea campaigns resulting from this, with scant time given to what things are like in the areas of the United States not directly involved, or indeed even in the war zones except for a few somewhat perfunctory descriptions of fleeing refugees. As far as I can tell, Conroy does a reasonable job at what he does, though things work out a little too conveniently and pat. His characters are fairly one-dimensional: militarily, they're okay, but the emotionally they are trite and predictable, not to mention incredibly stereotypical. For example, it is the lower-class girl who gets raped, and who starts having "noisy" sex first, while the upper-class girl gets rescued after being merely groped, and who waits longer and then has more discreet sex.
If you are looking for an alternate history that dwells on "what-if" battles and wars, then you will probably enjoy this. The battles have a very World War I feel to them, though they are also reminiscent of Gallipoli, and it is interesting to read Conroy's speculations on how a German-American war would have gone fifteen years earlier, and on the other side of the Atlantic. By positioning the war when he does, Conroy gets to compare the styles of the commanders who fought in the Civil War with those of the commanders who fought in World War I (in our timeline). But if you're looking for a detailed look at a changed society, 1901 doesn't even start to do this.
To order 1901 from amazon.com, click here.
1945: A Novel by Robert Conroy:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 12/07/2007]
1945 by Robert Conroy (ISBN-13 978-0-345-49479-5, ISBN-10 0-345-49479-2) is an alternate history that takes as its premise that Japan does not surrender after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but rather that a coup imprisons the Emperor and insists on continuing the war. The premise is fine, the way the story unfolds is reasonable, but the writing style is wooden. Conroy often insists on referring to characters by full name and military rank, even when such usage is awkward, and misuses some words as "decimated". I suppose that military strategists might find this of interest, but I cannot really recommend it for other readers. (Conroy's other books are 1901 and 1862, which are not easily remembered titles, and also liable to be confused with the 1632, 1633, 1634, 1812, 1824, or whatever from Flint and Weber. Actually, I think that Flint and Weber have multiple books titled 1634, differing only in their subtitles.)
To order 1945 from amazon.com, click here.
ACRES OF DIAMONDS by Russell Conwell:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 02/05/2010]
One of my father's favorite books is ACRES OF DIAMONDS by Russell Conwell. I am not giving an ISBN for this, because what I am discussing here are various editions. My father had several copies on his bookshelf, and flipping through them I discovered that editors love to tamper.
Russell H. Conwell gave the text as a public speech more than 6000 times between 1877 and 1926. Not surprisingly, it was written in the ornate, declamatory style of the era. So I suppose it is not surprising that editors in the last forty years feel they should "update" it--after all, they are "updating" Shakespeare!
So what I had to compare were:
The first paragraph of the 1905 edition--which I would assume to be the most accurate to Conwell--reads:
"When going down the Tigris and Euphrates rivers many years ago with a party of English travelers I found myself under the direction of an old Arab guide whom we hired up in Bagdad, and I have often thought how that guide resembled our barbers in certain mental characteristics. He thought that it was not only his duty to guide us down those rivers, and do what he was paid for doing, but also to entertain us with stories curious and weird, ancient and modern, strange and familiar."
The 1968 edition renders this as:
"While traveling down the Tigris and Euphrates rivers many years ago, I found myself in the company of an old Arab guide we had hired at Bagdad. He was unusually talkative, and seemed to think it was not only his duty to guide us, and do what he was paid for doing, but also to entertain us with stories."
Ptooi.
The 2003 edition leaves the opening untouched, but makes other changes. For example, one story Conwell tells is of A. T. Stewart who started with $1.50, but lost 87-1/2 cents on his first business venture. He learned from this and invested the remaining 62-1/2 cents wisely. The 2003 edition decided that half-cents would confuse people, so it dropped them. The result is an arithmetic error: Stewart starts with $1.50, loses 87 cents, and has 62 cents left! But I suspect the biggest difference in the 2003 edition is the formatting to emphasize the key points.
The 1968 and 1972 editions retain the half-cents. In fact, the 1972 edition seems identical to the 1905; the difference in word count is probably due to sampling error.
AUGUSTINE FOR ARMCHAIR THEOLOGIANS by Stephen A. Cooper:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 02/02/2007]
And speaking of Augustine, I also listened to AUGUSTINE FOR ARMCHAIR THEOLOGIANS by Stephen A. Cooper (read by Simon Vance) (ISBN 0-664-22372-9, audiobook ISBN 1-596-44188-7). This is much longer (about six hours) and aimed mostly at Catholics, I suspect, but I found it interesting nonetheless. There were a couple of points I thought worth mentioning. First, Cooper talks about how Augustine "proves" the existence of "natural law". Augustine argues that stealing is against natural law, because even thieves do not believe it is right that people should steal from them. As such, this seems to be an application of Kant's categorical imperative centuries before Kant formulated it. And Cooper says that Augustine had tried to read the Bible when he was young but gave up, but not because it was too difficult. Cooper pointed out that Augustine was educated in a classical manner, and read elegant Latin works. However, the Latin translation available to him was aimed at the average person (I got the impression that the modern English equivalent would be the "Good News Bible"), and Augustine found it very inelegant and vulgar. I think this was probably the "Vetus Latina", not the Vulgate.
To order Augustine for Armchair Theologians from amazon.com, click here.
THE DOSSIER OF SOLAR PONS by Basil Copper:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 10/29/2010]
THE DOSSIER OF SOLAR PONS by Basil Copper (ISBN 978-0-897-33252-1) is the eighth in the series of Sherlock Holmes pastiches featuring Solar Pons. (The first seven were written by August Derleth.) Of all the "copies" of Holmes, Solar Pons is the best, and also the one who appears primarily in short story form (as did Holmes). One of the things Derleth did when he started the series was to place it in the 1920s rather than the late 19th century. This lets Pons use somewhat more up-to-date methods, while still setting the story back in a more picturesque time.
To order The Dossier of Solar Pons from amazon.com, click here.
LEVIATHAN WAKES by James S. A. Corey:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 06/22/2012]
LEVIATHAN WAKES (ISBN 978-0-316-12908-4) by James S. A. Corey is a classic space opera in the tradition of Robert A. Heinlein, with battling space ships, complicated politics, etc. Following what was going on was not always easy (because of the use of jargon), and the ending seems contrived. Also, it is the size of a doorstop, 600 pages in a large trade paperback format--you might have stuck RED PLANET in a back pocket, but this requires a tote bag. This makes it inconvenient to read.
To order Leviathan Wakes from amazon.com, click here.
"The Copenhagen Interpretation" by Paul Cornell:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 06/29/2012]
I have read "The Copenhagen Interpretation" by Paul Cornell (Asimov's 07/11) three times and when I am done, it is as if it has made no impression or sense whatsoever on my brain.
LEAVE ME ALONE, I'M READING: FINDING MYSELF AND LOSING MYSELF IN BOOKS by Maureen Corrigan:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 03/10/2006]
LEAVE ME ALONE, I'M READING: FINDING MYSELF AND LOSING MYSELF IN BOOKS by Maureen Corrigan (ISBN 0-375-50425-7) is about her experiences in reading, both as a girl growing up in Queens, and as a book reviewer in her adult life. Corrigan focuses on three categories of books, as she says: "I especially want to look at men's and women's lives as they've been depicted in three mostly noncanonical categories of stories: the female extreme-adventure tale, the hard-boiled detective novel, and the Catholic-martyr narratives." By "female extreme-adventure tale", Corrigan does not mean women mountain-climbers, but women who endure domestic abuse, societal mistreatment, etc. Examples she gives include Anne Bronte's THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL, or for that matter, almost any Bronte novel. Interestingly, though Corrigan talks a lot about the women in the Brontes' novels, she does not even mention any of George Eliot's female characters, though Eliot's Dorothea Brooke in MIDDLEMARCH and Dinah Morris in ADAM BEDE are very memorable. (And it's not even clear that Eliot's characters would contradict any of Corrigan theories.) "Catholic-martyr narratives" was perhaps a bit more central to Corrigan's life than to other readers since she attended pre-Vatican II Catholic schools. They include such books as KAREN (about Karen Killilea, though perhaps as much about the author, her mother Marie) and Dr. Tom Dooley's memoirs. KAREN rang a bell--I'm sure I read it back in school over forty years ago, indicating that that sort of inspirational book was probably promoted as much in public schools as in parochial ones. Corrigan's reminiscences of growing up reading will strike a wonderfully familiar and nostalgic chord with anyone for whom books were a major part of their childhood, as well as providing an interesting perspective on these categories.
To order Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading from amazon.com, click here.
"Early Retirement" by Mat Coward:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 12/13/2002]
One story I liked was Mat Coward's "Early Retirement" in the September 2002 issue of INTERZONE. As someone who worked for a company that sponsored these "team-building" exercises, I could appreciate it perhaps more than others. (Though I will admit that I personally never went on one.)
DISCOVER YOUR INNER ECONOMIST by Tyler Cowen:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 07/25/2008]
The notion that people are too concerned with the origins and expert opinions of art and not enough with their feelings about it ties in with comments made by Tyler Cowen in his book DISCOVER YOUR INNER ECONOMIST (ISBN-13 978-0-452-28963-5, ISBN-10 0-452-28963-7). He was discussing the best way to see an art museum. Interspersed with suggestions such as to skip the first room entirely (because it is always the most crowded), he observed that most people spend more time reading the labels than looking at the art. When you enter a gallery, he said, look around, pick the one item that you like the most or find the most intriguing, and spend your time looking at that.
To order Discover Your Inner Economist from amazon.com, click here.
AN ECONOMIST GETS LUNCH: NEW RULES FOR EVERYDAY FOODIES by Tyler Cowen:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 07/13/2012]
In AN ECONOMIST GETS LUNCH: NEW RULES FOR EVERYDAY FOODIES by Tyler Cowen (ISBN 978-0-525-95266-4), Cowen looks at food from an economic standpoint. Some of this may sound familiar, e.g., the idea that foods grown on another continent and brought in by ship may have a lower carbon footprint than locally grown foods. But Cowen spends more time talking about such things as the specifics of various ethnic cuisines. For example, Mexican cooking involves cutting meat thinner or shredding it, while American cuisine has thick steaks--why? Mexican beef is grass-fed, so the meat is stronger tasting, gamier, and "chewier" (tougher). American beef is corn-fed, hence milder and more tender.
As for why most American food is--or at least was--fairly mediocre, Cowen's theory is that the causes are primarily:
There is also a great chapter--perhaps the best chapter in the book--on learning how to shop in an Asian supermarket.
To order An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies from amazon.com, click here.
AMERICAN INDIAN VICTORIES by Dale R. Cozort (Booklocker.com):
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 07/18/2003]
Dale R. Cozort's AMERICAN INDIAN VICTORIES (published by Booklocker.com) is an odd book. It is not, strictly speaking, alternate history, but rather a discussion of how the conquest and colonization of the Americas went, and a discussion of a set of historical changes with brief suggestions of possible results of these changes. As alternate history it seems like taking the easy way out--coming up with a list of ideas for stories without actually writing the stories. But as history, this is perfectly acceptable, and I would recommend this to people interested in the historical aspects of that period. (By the way, this in general is a period well before the "Indian Wars" of the 19th century, so there are no alternate Custers et all here.)
To order American Indian Victories from amazon.com, click here.
THE OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH DETECTIVE STORIES edited by Patricia Craig:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 04/08/2005]
THE OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH DETECTIVE STORIES edited by Patricia Craig (ISBN 0-192-80375-1) is a 1990 collection of the classics of that genre. It is a great collection, even if the people who are most likely to be interested in it are also the most likely to have read many of the stories already. It might make a good gift for someone who has just discovered the English detective story, though, and needs a sampler to see which authors he might like.
To order The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories from amazon.com, click here.
FIFTEEN DECISIVE BATTLES OF THE WORLD by Sir Edward S. Creasey:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 02/09/2007]
Written in 1851, FIFTEEN DECISIVE BATTLES OF THE WORLD by Sir Edward S. Creasey (ISBN-10 0-306-80559-6, ISBN-13 978-0-306- 80559-2) is a classic.
The battles are (briefly):
490 B.C.E.--The Persians defeated at Marathon.
413 B.C.E.--The Athenians defeated at Syracuse.
331 B.C.E.--Darius III defeated at Gaugamela (Arbela).
207 B.C.E.--The Catheginians defeated at Metaurus.
9 B.C.E.--The Romans defeated in the Teutoberg Forest.
451 C.E.--Attila the Hun defeated at Chalons.
732 C.E.--The Moors defeated at Tours.
1066 C.E.--Harold defeated at Hastings.
1429 C.E.--The English defeated at Orleans.
1588 C.E.--The Spanish Armada defeated.
1704 C.E.--The French defeated at Blenheim.
1709 C.E.--The Swedes defeated at Poltava.
1777 C.E.--Burgoyne defeated at Saratoga.
1792 C.E.--Foreign armies defeated at Valmy.
1815 C.E.--Napoleon defeated at Waterloo.
One thing that is noted by everyone is that all of these are very Eurocentric choices. But even more than that, they are all battles that reinforced (western) European dominance. Even Teutoberg is seen by Creasy as leading directly to the establishment of the British peoples. Creasy chooses Tours as critical in halting the Arab invasion of Europe. But he ignores the recapture of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187 or the capture of Acre in 1291, either of which could be cited as halting the expansion of Europe into the Middle East and Asia. He ignores the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453. He ignores the defeat in the Battle of Koan of the Mongols invading Japan in 1281.
[He also does not include Yarmouk in 636 which brought Islam
flooding out of Arabia and is arguably the most important. See
One might think that Creasy's critical turning points would have
generated various alternate history stories, but one would be
only partly accurate. Yes, there are stories based on most of
the early ones (though with Alexander, Carthage, and Joan of Arc
they are more general than based on specific battles) and for
Saratoga and Waterloo, but nothing for Syracuse, Tours, Blenheim,
Poltava, or Valmy.
Historian Joseph B. Mitchell has five more battles since 1851:
For alternate histories, Vicksburg has been almost ignored, while
Gettysburg has inspired dozens of stories. Sadowa? Nothing.
The Marne? Most World War I alternate histories focus on either
the assassination or some obscure German corporal. And it seems
as though there are only a couple of stories on Midway and none
on Stalingrad. (One might argue that Mitchell should have chosen
Pearl Harbor, since without that we might have "sat out" the war,
and things would be very different now.)
By the way, in his chapter on Saratoga, Creasy quotes Alexis de
Toqueville, who had written fifteen years earlier. Even by
Creasy's time, it was a picture of the United States that was not
accurate, and certainly as a prediction of what would come was
fairly far off: "The time will therefore come when one hundred
and fifty millions of men will be living in North America, equal
in condition, one race, owing their origin to the same cause, and
preserving the same civilisation, the same language, the same
religion, the same habits, the same manners, and imbued with the
same opinions, propagated under the same forms. The rest is
uncertain, but this is certain; ...." (The United States
population was 150,000,000 in 1950.)
Creasy himself repeatedly refers to "Anglo-Americans", and says
things like, "They, like ourselves, are members of the great
Anglo-Saxon nation", and "our race is one, being of the same
blood, speaking the same language, having an essential
resemblance in our institutions and usages, and worshipping in
the temples of the same God." Again, even in Creasy's time this
was not accurate--even before the massive influx of immigrants in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the United
States had a fair percentage of German (almost 10% of the
population during the War of 1812), Scots, and Irish. And of
course there was a very large percentage of African-Americans,
which both he and de Toqueville ignored.
To order Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World from amazon.com, click here.
THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN
by Michael Crichton:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 01/16/2009]
The newly formed science fiction discussion group in Middletown
(NJ) chose THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN by Michael Crichton for the January
meeting. (Each month we choose a book and the movie made from it--
we read the book ahead of time, then watch the movie for the first
half of the meeting, then discuss the two for the second half.)
A few observations about the book: It is a massive expository lump
(or as Mark said, "an expository lump with trimmings").
A couple of weeks ago I talked about novels that blurred the line
between fiction and fact. Crichton did that forty years ago--the
"Acknowledgements" at the beginning and the "References" at the end
are both made-up. Even the opening quotes after the title page are
made up, attributed to characters in the book.
Crichton cites Lewis Bornheim's definition of a crisis: "a
situation in which a previously tolerable set of circumstances is
suddenly, by the addition of another factor, rendered wholly
intolerable." Then he says, "At the time of Andromeda, there had
never been a crisis of biological science...." What about the
bubonic plague, the introduction of European diseases to New World,
or the 1918 Influenza Pandemic?
He also claims that "1-101-1110" is "a perfectly reasonable
telephone number". No, it wasn't at the time (1969) and probably
not even now. Exchanges (the "101" part) could not start with a
"1", because that signaled long distance.
On page 201 he has the characters discussing "what is life?" One
definition they give is, "All living organisms in some way took in
energy--as food, or sunlight--and converted it to another form of
energy, and put it to use. (Viruses were the exception to this
rule, but the group was prepared to define viruses as nonliving.)"
Then someone claims three items stretch this too far: a black cloth
(in sunlight, it converts radiant energy to heat), a watch with a
radium dial (radioactive decay produces light), and a piece of
granite ("It is living, breathing, walking, and talking. Only we
cannot see it because it is happening too slowly.") While one may
agree with the first two, I have no idea what he means by the last.
But the classic test case that is usually given is fire--it
consumes fuel, outputs waste, etc.
To order The Andromeda Strain from amazon.com, click here.
THE ASTONISHING HYPOTHESIS: THE SCIENTIFIC SEARCH FOR THE SOUL
by Francis Crick
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 09/07/2012]
This month's book discussion group choice, THE ASTONISHING
HYPOTHESIS: THE SCIENTIFIC SEARCH FOR THE SOUL by Francis Crick
(ISBN 978-0-684-19431-8), is mis-named. The "astonishing
hypothesis" is a form of determinism--everything is reducible to
the activities of neurons. Of it, Crick says: "There are, of
course, educated people who believe the Astonishing Hypothesis is
so plausible that it should not be called astonishing. ... I
suspect that such people have often not seen the full implication
of the hypothesis. I myself find it difficult at times to avoid
the idea of a homunculus. One slips into it so easily. The
Astonishing Hypothesis states that *all* aspects of the brain's
behavior are due to the activities of neurons. ... Many of my
readers might justifiably complain that what has been discussed in
this book has very little to do with the human soul as they
understand it. ... Such criticisms are perfectly valid at the
moment, but making them in this context would show a lack of
appreciation of the methods of science."
There are several problems with this. First, the book is *not*
about the "scientific search for the soul"--indeed, the soul is
barely mentioned. Most of it seems to be about how vision works.
Crick explains that this is because that is one of the easiest
brain functions to study. (I am reminded of the joke about the
man looking for his keys under the street light.)
Second, Crick spends a lot of time talking about vision and color,
and describing various optical effects and illusions, but there
are no color plates or illustrations.
Third, I find it rather patronizing that Crick tells the reader
that if she does not think the hypothesis is astonishing, that is
because she does not understand it.
Mark gave what I thought was a good parallel to much of what Crick
was saying: a television picture is due to the actions of
pixels, yet the collective result seems to be more than just the
sum of the parts.
As is often the case, the discussion group drifted off-topic,
talking about such diverse topics as how many brains an octopus
has, the possibility of multiple origins of life, and "the doorway
effect." The last is the fact that you are more likely to forget
something when you pass through a doorway. For example, if you
get up to get a pen and walk ten feet within the same room, you
will probably remember why you got up. But if you walk ten feet
into the next room, you are more likely to get there and find
yourself thinking, "Now why did I come in here?"
To order The Astonishing Hypothesis from amazon.com, click here.
KAFKA'S SOUP
by Mark Crick:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 05/07/2010]
KAFKA'S SOUP: A COMPLETE HISTORY OF WORLD LITERATURE IN 14 RECIPES
by Mark Crick (ISBN-13 0-15-101283-0) is a collection of recipes,
each written in the style of a well-known author. (well, mostly--I
had never heard of Irvine Welsh before). One can only appreciate
the pastiches of authors one is familiar with, though, so I really
only "got" about half this book: Raymond Chandler, Jane Austen,
Franz Kafka, John Steinbeck, Homer, Geoffrey Chaucer, and (of
course) Jorge Luis Borges. Some of the others I could get a sense
of, but realized I was missing a lot. For example, "Tarragon Eggs
à la Jane Austen" begins, "It is a truth universally acknowledged
that eggs, kept for too long, go off." Or "Lamb with Dill Sauce à
la Raymond Chandler: "I took hold of the [leg of lamb]. It felt
cold and damp, like a coroner's handshake." Without a familiarity
with the original, these homages fall flat. The Borges, in
particular, is patterned after a specific story in addition to its
more general imitation of style and images. The Kafka, also, has
implicit connections to THE TRIAL.
On the other hand, I have no ideas if the recipes are any good.
(Having just tried a couple of recipes out of cookbooks that
sounded good to me, but turned out only so-so, I am convinced that
I cannot judge a recipe on the page.) I do find the idea of Kafka
serving "Quick Miso Soup" a bit outré--but maybe that was on
purpose. The rest of the recipes seem better paired to their
"inspirations."
To order Kafka's Soup from amazon.com, click here.
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 03/14/2003]
As part of my alternate history reading I read CRIMSON SKIES, a
tie-in to the game. It's three novellas (or perhaps novelettes)
rather than a single novel, and the first and third stories are
at least entertaining, if not great literature.
To order Crimson Skies from amazon.com, click here.
ECOLOGICAL IMPERIALISM: THE BIOLOGICAL EXPANSION OF EUROPE, 900-1900
by Alfred W. Crosby:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 01/14/2011]
ECOLOGICAL IMPERIALISM: THE BIOLOGICAL EXPANSION OF EUROPE, 900-
1900 by Alfred W. Crosby (ISBN 978-0-521-33613-0) was one of the
textbooks for Geography 10 at the University of California at
Berkeley. This was a course available through podcasts, or at
least mostly available--the course included several films, and
audio podcasts are not the best medium for a course which features
a lot of maps. However, I was able to gather some useful
information, and decided that reading this textbook would be
worthwhile.
Crosby wrote this in 1986, well before Jared Diamond's GUNS, GERMS,
AND STEEL, and Diamond seems to have gotten a lot of his ideas
either from Crosby, or from Crosby's sources. There's nothing
wrong with this, of course, but I suspect most people think Diamond
originated it all. Crosby covers just about everything Diamond
does, and more besides, such as how the existence of Pangaea meant
that evolution had a very different effect before its break-up 200
million years ago (or so) than after.
One of the films for the course, by the way, was GRASS (1925). This
silent documentary of nomadic herders in Iraq and Iran was
sufficiently popular that its filmmakers were able to get funding
for their next film: KING KONG.
To order Ecological Imperialismx from amazon.com, click here.
"A New Refutation"
by John Crowley:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 10/06/2006]
As with so many works these days,
"A New Refutation" by John Crowley (subtitled "Hommage a
J.L.B."), written for the Readercon 17 Souvenir Book,
suffers from a lack of editing. In it Crowley talks about
computers generating texts, and talks about "the long-standing
problem of how few colors a mapmaker would need to construct a
map where no two contiguous countries or regions would be the
same color" and says, "a computer . . . has proven that three
colors are in fact enough." No, it is four colors. What is
disturbing about this is that an author would be embarrassed to
have written that France is in Asia, or that Herman Melville
wrote DAVID COPPERFIELD, but I suspect that if this mistake were
pointed out, the response would be that no one would notice. (I
will not accept as valid the suggestion that the story is set in
an alternate universe where three colors suffice.)
THE TRANSLATOR
by John Crowley:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 04/04/2003]
I had seen John Crowley's THE TRANSLATOR in a new bookstore and
resolved to try the library, but when I saw a copy at Half-Price
Books, I figured it was probably as good a way as any to use some
of my store credit. Unlike his other books, this has no overt
fantasy element, but is the rather straightforward story of an
exiled Russian poet and a college student during the Cuban missile
crisis. Crowley has his characters spend a lot of time not just
writing poetry but explaining why they chose this word instead of
that word, and how this phrase was a reference to that other
quotation, and so on.
To order The Translator from amazon.com, click here.
A SLIGHT TRICK OF THE MIND
by Mitch Cullin:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 06/03/2005]
Mitch Cullin's A SLIGHT TRICK OF THE MIND (ISBN 0-385-51328-3) is
not a Sherlock Holmes pastiche in the usual sense of the term. There are
a couple of mysteries involved, but the focus is not so much on
solving them as on Holmes as an old man, ninety-two years old and
dealing with both the physical and the mental infirmities that so
often accompany old age. He can no longer take in a scene at a
glance and remember it perfectly. As he expresses it, "Over
time, I have realized my mind no longer operates in such a fluid
manner. . . . My means for recall--those various groupings of
words and numbers--aren't as easily accessible as they were.
Traveling through India . . . I stepped from the train somewhere
in the middle of the country . . . and was promptly accosted by a
dancing, half-naked beggar, a most joyous fellow. Previously, I
would have observed everything around me in perfect detail . . .
but that rarely happens anymore. I don't remember the station
building and I cannot tell you if there were vendors or people
nearby. All I can recall is a toothless brown-skinned beggar
dancing before me, and arm outstretched for a few pence. What
matters to me now is that I possess that delightful vision of
him; where the event took place is of no account. Had this
occurred sixty years ago, I would have been quite distraught for
being unable to summon the location and its minutiae. But now I
retain only what is necessary. The minor details aren't
essential--what appears in my mind these days are rudimentary
impressions, not all the frivolous surroundings. And for that I
am grateful."
I'm sure some will complain of this "aging" of the story. After
all, most people get hooked on the Sherlock Holmes stories when
they are fairly young, and A SLIGHT TRICK OF THE MIND has lacks
any of the adventure of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, or any of
the detection skills shown in A STUDY IN SCARLET. In science
fiction, a fair number of people have taken up the complaint that
the "sense of wonder" is vanishing, replaced by stories about old
age and downbeat futures. And this story may indicate a similar
trend in other fields (though the downbeat world here is not the
future, but a bombed-out post-WWII Japan.) Twenty years ago, we
had YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES, looking at a childhood (patterned more
after Indian Jones than Sherlock Holmes, one suspects), but now
we get what is in essence "Sherlock Holmes--The Twilight Years".
Is this because authors are getting older, or because readers of
books are getting older, or (possibly) not even an accurate
description of the current state of writing? In any case, I am
also getting older, and so at least for me this book was a
thoughtful change from the vast number of books set during
Holmes's prime. (Has anyone ever tried to take all the pastiches
and fit them into a timeline? I suspect that, like "M*A*S*H" on
television, or Bernard Cornwell's "Sharpe" series, there are more
stories than time to fit them into. And Mark has noted that
James Bond forty years after DR. NO still seems to be the same
age, so the timeline there is obviously off as well.
To order A Slight Trick of the Mind from amazon.com, click here.
SIMPLE LIBRARY CATALOGUING (SEVENTH EDITION)
by Arthur Curley:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 04/19/2013]
I recently finished SIMPLE LIBRARY CATALOGUING (SEVENTH EDITION) by
Arthur Curley (ISBN 978-0-810-81649-7) but frankly, what can one
say about a book like that? I suppose the only observation of
interest is that many of the alphabetization rules in it that we
learned in school have been replaced by rules based on computer
sort order. So the old rule to treat words starting with "Mc" as
if they started with "Mac" (e.g., "McBride" precedes "MacDonald",
which precedes "McDougall") has been replaced by alphabetizing by
what is actually there (e.g., "MacDonald" precedes "McBride" which
precedes "McDougall").
On the other hand, I still think that "Dr." and "Doctor" should
both be treated as "Doctor", because frankly, who can remember when
the title is spelled out and when it isn't?
And while one normally alphabetizes numbers as being spelled out,
there is much to be said for occasionally treating them as numeric.
For example, "World's Best SF: 1969" should precede "World's Best
SF: 1970". And "The Fourth Galaxy Reader" should precede "The
Fifth Galaxy Reader".
To order Simple Library Cataloguing from amazon.com, click here.
THE GOSPEL PROBE
by Myron Curtis:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 05/26/2006]
I recently read THE GOSPEL PROBE by Myron Curtis (ISBN
0-595-36327-X), published by iUniverse. iUniverse publishes
books that cannot find other publishers; it is what used to be
called a "vanity press" (though I am sure they would protest the
term). The book was sent to me as an alternate history, and there
is indeed an alternate history aspect (which I will not reveal
here). But it is minimal, and--the book is mostly a time travel
story of representatives from what is apparently the Roman
Catholic Church in the future going back to 30 C.E. to check on
the accuracy of the Gospels (and others trying to stop them,
etc.). It then also has a secret history aspect at the end. I
found the plotting disjointed, but it is also technically poorly
written. It is full of typographical errors ("Ok" for "OK" or
"Okay" [page 8]), spelling errors and/or wrong homophones
("effect" where "affect" is meant [page 37], or "in a lighter
vain" [page 53]), and just bad writing. For example, Curtis
defines acronyms within direct speech, e.g.:
He also coins the name "Palistisraelia", where "Palestisraelia"
is more likely (if either could be considered likely!). And he
gives long Latin or Italian names for committees, objects, and
such, immediately translates them, and then never uses the Latin
or Italian again.
It did make me realize that however bad I think proofreading as
become in major publishers' books, it is close to non-existent in
publishers like iUniverse.
To order The Gospel Probe from amazon.com, click here.
REVISIONS
edited by Julie E. Czerneda and Isaac Spzindel:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 10/01/2004]
All too often, alternate histories focus on battles or military
maneuvers. So it was encouraging to see Julie E. Czerneda and
Isaac Spzindel's REVISIONS (ISBN 0-7564-0240-9), whose premise was
alternate histories based on changes in scientific discoveries.
Not all lived up to this, though. For example, "The Resonance of
Light" by Geoffrey Landis has the scientific discovery, but then
it gets all wrapped up in an assassination. It's not a bad story,
but it falls into the same sort of track as so many others.
Others fail because they make some unjustified assumptions, or
because they fail to show how the alternate world is different
from ours. There are some good stories mixed in, however. Some,
like "The Ashbazu Effect" by John G. McDaid, work because simply
they have an interesting scientific premise and follow through on
it. Others, like Mike Resnick and Susan R. Matthews's "Swimming
Upstream in the Wells of the Desert", work because they give the
reader a well-drawn picture of the alternate world. And at least
one, James Alan Gardner's "Axial Axioms", is very good in spite of
the fact that it doesn't work as an alternate history story at
all. In fact, it's not even a story, but more an alternate
mathematical philosophy, or alternate philosophical mathematics,
or something. (Read it, and then you try to define it.)
Though the overall quality of this anthology is spotty, the fact
that there is at least at attempt to look at alternate history
from a different basis makes this worth looking at.
To order ReVisions from amazon.com, click here.
1863--Confederates defeated in the Vicksburg Campaign.
1866--Austria defeated at Sadowa in the Seven Weeks' War.
1914--German forces defeated at the Marne.
1942--Japanese defeated at Midway.
1942--Germans defeated at Stalingrad (now Volgograd).
"You must understand ...," said the secretary.
"If we make no effort to satisfy the Lobby for
Judeo-Christian Traditions (LJCT) which is
pressuring the council, ...." [page 18]
Go to Evelyn Leeper's home page.