THE PASSAGE: A Review

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First, the good things.

There is NO Bella in this book. No misty eyed teenage romance. There is no soul-searching Lestat who laments his life in overlong paragraphs filled with purple prose. There is no erudite Count with a cape. No Victorian damsels in flimsy nightgowns and heaving bosoms. In Justin Cronin's The Passage, the "vampires" are the result of a military genetic experiment gone horribly wrong and ultimately, out of control. They are vicious, nasty, virtually unstoppable and very very hungry. The first 250 pages of The Passage are the best fiction I have read this year.

Now the bad: Unfortunately, the book is 766 pages long. With two sequels on the way.

The novel covers over 1000 years. The first section follows modern day events. A military/ scientific expedition in South America captures a jungle virus and takes the secret to a lab for study. They discover the virus increases strength in test monkeys and prolongs their lifespan. The government hatches plans to create a Super Soldier. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is put on special assignment with the military to bring "volunteer test subjects" from death row prisons across America to be infected with the virus. But when Wolgast is ordered by his military superiors to capture a 10 year old girl, Amy, and deliver her to the lab, he rebels. The army hunts them down and Amy is taken to the lab to be tested. Then, the world goes to hell.

Twelve of the infected creatures escape the lab and overnight destroy the entire military installation. Wolgast and Amy barely escape and spend the next several years living in isolation. Then ... one day there is a brilliant explosion to the west. Amy is blinded by the nuclear blast, and Wolgast slowly dies of radiation poisoning.

The book then jumps 1000 years in the future. The creatures (called Virals or Jumps) have wiped out most of the human population. Ninety per cent of infected humans die - ten per cent become Virals themselves.

What follows is an alternately entertaining, horrific, tedious and ultimately, frustrating apocalyptic story of the human survivors and their civilization. This is where author Justin Cronin falls woefully short of his goals. Having published two short modern and very literary novels, Cronin branches into territory usually reserved for such "inferior" writers as Stephen King, Robert MacCammon and Richard Matheson. When "serious" writers stoop to write horror or science fiction - genre fiction! - the result is usually well-written crap.


(U.K. cover)


Several years ago we got the novel Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norrel, an old fashioned English novel about magic and evil. The literary world loved it ... heaped praise upon and claimed that it "redefined the horror novel." It redefined it as tedious and stodgy. The Historian was also forced upon us as a "brilliant re-working of the vampire legend." The only brilliant thing about the book was it's ad campaign. The book was literary sawdust. Remember when Norman Mailer (a literary giant, just ask him) claimed he could write a great mystery novel, and we got Tough Guys Don't Dance? If you actually finished that book, your place in heaven is assured. Those of us going to hell will probably have to reread it for eternity.

There are sections of The Passage, and I mean dozens of pages, that beg to be skipped. Cronin often forgets he is NOT writing a mainstream novel where nothing is supposed to happen. He has chosen to write a genre novel for money ... and of course, he can make it better than those popular writers because, after all ... he is a serious novelist.

If you really want to read this kind of story, I recommend 2009's The Strain, with a similar story and sweep (volume 2 is being published this fall, our copy has already be pre-ordered) or how about two all time apocalyptic classics: The Stand by Stephen King and Swan Song by Robert MacCammon. Those two pulp writers managed to write a couple of horrific novels that are everything The Passage isn't ... great. Click here to read a list of great apocalyptic fiction.

For all it's posturing (and intellectual promotion among the literary elites) The Passage is not a bad novel, just not a good one. I'm betting the Hollywood movie will be better than the book.

THIS BODY OF DEATH: A Review

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Thanks goodness Elizabeth George has returned with a huge dose of Barbara Havers.

For the uninitiated, Havers is the unpolished working class detective sgt. who is partnered with the ultimately urbane Inspector Thomas Lynley (the Eighth Earl of Asherton) of New Scotland Yard. The Lynley mysteries are the best written and plotted detective novels of the past 20 years. In each novel dozens of richly drawn characters and their messy lives are expertly woven into the story as Lynley and Havers are drawn into their world due to a murder. But the best part of the books is the complicated, multi-layered relationship between Havers and Lynley.

The previous novel in the Lynley series, Careless in Red, was 99% Lynley. It followed Lynley during his eight month bereavement leave-of-absence after the murder of his wife, Helen, which was covered in the book With No One As Witness. I, for one, applaud George for killing off a major character in a successful series. Like most readers, I had become frustrated with Helen (and her relationship with Lynley.) She was an annoying character who, with each appearance on page, irritated everyone reading. So, George killed her off and created a new dynamic for the entire series. Too bad Robert B. Parker never had the courage to do the same thing in his SPENSER series - to kill off the most annoying character in modern fiction, Susan Silverman.

In This Body of Death, Lynley returns to duty to assist the new department chief, Isabelle Ardrey. Havers and Ardrey are already at odds when Lynley arrives. Ardrey is horrified by Havers typical attire (mismatched socks, T-shirt with an off color slogan, and food-stained pants.) Ardrey is a hard woman, whose management style rubs everyone in the department the wrong way. She also has several personal problems - a bitter custody fight with her husband over their two children, and ducking into the bathroom to suck down mini-bottles of vodka.

In addition, Ardrey mismanages her detective crew (in Havers' opinion) and directs the murder investigation in the wrong direction. Lynley attempts to subtly help her steer the case in a proper manner, and Havers (as she is wont to do) disobeys orders and follows her own hunches in the investigation. Havers also is horrified to pick up the vibe that Lynley and Ardrey may becoming romantically involved!

Welcome back Elizabeth George, and Barbara Havers.

BILBIO SAYS: Read it, read it, read it.

SUREFIRE SUMMER BOOKS

The phrase "beach book" should conjure up certain images: a paperback novel, plot heavy and fun to read. A thriller, a comedy, a good mystery. Here are a few surefire books to get you through the hot days of summer.

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THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE by Pat Conroy. Conroy's breakout novel. Thrilling, passionate and impossible to put down.

ENDER'S GAME by Orson Scott Card. The great sci-fi novel for people who don't usually read sci-fi. Trust me, read this book.

EYE OF THE NEEDLE by Ken Follett. Simply put: one of the greatest thrillers ever written.

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO / THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST by Stieg Larsson. Two stunning crime novels featuring an unusual protagonist.

THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE UNIVERSE by Douglas Adams. As close to the Bible of great reads as you can get.

HARRY POTTER SERIES by J. K. Rowling. Each volume is good, and each volume is better than the previous one.

THE STAND / SALEM'S LOT by Stephen King. The "King of beach reads."

WATCHERS / STRANGERS by Dean Koontz. The second "King of beach reads."

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee. It's not often that a "classic" is also a compelling beach book.

THE PRINCESS BRIDE by William Goldman. As the source material for the movie everybody loves, almost no one has read this delightful (and surprisingly rich and compelling) novel.

SKIN TIGHT /NATIVE TONGUE / SICK PUPPY by Carl Hiaasen. Master of the comic crime novel. Wacky and exciting.

A TOWN LIKE ALICE by Nevil Shute. THE romance book. Harrowing and sweet at the same time.

THE TOMB / LEGACIES / CONSPIRACIES by F. Paul Wilson. The end of the world is coming, so better start reading the Repairman Jack novels to get yourself up to speed. Here are the first three (of fifteen.)

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving. Irving's masterpiece. We are all terminal cases.

TARA ROAD / QUENTINS by Maeve Binchey. A great Irish writer doing what she does best, telling stories of real people and their day-to-day lives.

THE SCARLET RUSE / THE GREEN RIPPER by John D. MacDonald. Two of the best of the "Travis McGee" mysteries.

REPLAY by Ken Grimwood. What if you could live your life over again, and over, and over?

CARRION COMFORT by Dan Simmons. Epic horror about psychic vampires. Stunning.

CITY OF DREAMS: A Review

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Two years before Indiana Jones. Twenty years before Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicholas Cage's character in National Treasure). And even before Robert Langdon of The DaVinci Code, there was Peter Fallon. If William Martin, the creator of Fallon, isn't sharing in the profits of the Treasure and Langdon movies, then he should be!

In 1979, Martin introduced Peter Martin in a superb historical thriller called Back Bay. And over the twenty years he has proven himself to the premier historical novelist of this generation. All the historical grandeur of Michener with none of the bad writing and tedious plots. Back Bay is the book that established his formula, and which the National Treasure producers use to great success. Alternating narratives: one that follows events in history, and the second which follows historian and collector of antiquities Peter Fallon in his search for some lost historical object. Gradually the two plots line merge to a roaring finish.

In Bay the object is silver tea set, made by Paul Revere and given to George Washington. After the War of 1812 the tea set disappears the in the late 20th century Peter Fallon uncovers some clues about the set and begins to pull the thread of history apart. In Harvard Yard it is a lost Shakespeare manuscript. In The Lost Constitution it is an annotated (by the writers) copy of the Constitution that was stolen at the Convention.

And now in City of Dreams Fallon is after some lost Revolutionary War bonds sold my Alexander Hamilton to pay for the Patriot rebellion. Seems like, due to a clause in the Constitution, that the bonds may still redeemable and the lost batch could be worth more than one billion dollars!

While no one will ever accuse Martin of being a great writer, he is a good one. And he is a masterful researcher who knows how to turn tidbits of research into fascinating (and plausible) fiction. All of Martin's books are enjoyable and you will come away with a deeper knowledge of history, and (hopefully) a desire to delve into the subject matter more deeply. Can a historical novelist ask for anything more? Maybe a share of the National Treasure profits, but ... I'm sure Mr. Martin is not holding his breath.

BIBLIO SAYS: Highly recommended for a great read.

MEN AND DOGS: A Review

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This is an easy review. I did not finish the book. Why? It's written in present tense, a death knell for fiction. Ms. Crouch, tell me one reason that this novel is better because of the present tense narrative point-of-view.

Oh, you argue, a few sections of the book are in the past tense POV. So, why is that? Would the book have been weakened if the entire novel was written in past tense POV?

Answer: No. So, the reason you chose the alternating present/past POV is merely an attempt to be hip, cool, modern?

Sorry, that's no good enough. All it did was annoy the hell out of me. It made me pay attention to the style and distracted from your story, a cardinal sin for fiction. It is nothing more than your pathetic plea to the reader: "Look at me, I'm a WRITER!"

And a poor one at that, Ms. Crouch.

BIBLIO SAYS: Avoid like syphilis.

CHANGELESS: A Review

Remember the first time you heard the 1976 LP, Boston? It blew you away. Swirling twin guitars, a sound that mixed Led Zep with Yes and The Beatles, hard rockin' songs with a melody, high harmonies, soulful singing by Brad Delp, and one mean ass rock and roll organ.

Remember the anticipation as you waited (and waited and waited and waited) for Boston's second LP? And then, it finally arrived! Don't Look Back. So you tossed it on your turntable (for those of you under 30, Google it) and you listened to the LP. And about halfway through Side Two you started to get a sour feeling in your belly. The album was good ... but was not great. It was ... the same, but not better. After two years, this is what you got? So, you listened to it again. For the next few days you walked around thinking: "Oh man, this sucks."

Welcome to CHANGELESS, the literary equivalent of Boston's Don't Look Back.

CHANGELESS is the sequel to SOULLESS, last year's Book of the Year at theBIBLIOfile. Read the Soulless review. Soulless was a delicate literary lampoon that seamlessly merged the darkness of Bram Stoker with the sensibility of Jane Austen set in Charles Dickens' London. It was a world in which vampires, werewolves and ghosts were accepted in English society. Author Gail Carriger deftly pulled off a screwball comedy of manners.

So what's wrong with CHANGELESS? The freshness has worn off. The wackiness of a English woman without a soul who can disarm vampires and werewolves with a thrust of her silver-coated parasol and sitting in council with Queen Victoria discussing the "vampire problem" is no longer new. Carriger has done little to move the story (and her world) into something else. We are stuck in a world that we already know, in a story that seems stale and mundane.

Like Don't Look Back, it's more of the same thing ... and then only a mere shadow. It serves to remind you how good the initial offering is.

BIBLIO SAYS: Read, but prepare for disappointment.

GLIMPSES: A review

The first rock n roll time-travel novel!

In the song "American Pie" Don McLean asked the question: "Can music save your mortal soul?" Glimpses answers that question with a resounding "YES!"

Ray Chackleford is an unstable, self-employed electronics repairman whose marriage is foundering and whose father has recently died. During his youth (in the 1960s) he played drums in a rock and roll band.

His unresolved relationships with wife and father are complicated when Ray travels to the Mexican site of his father's death and promptly falls in love with a woman even more unstable than he. In the midst of this emotional turmoil,

His unresolved relationships with wife and father are complicated when Ray travels to the Mexican site of his father's death and promptly falls in love with a woman even more unstable than he. In the midst of this emotional turmoil,
His unresolved relationships with wife and father are complicated when Ray travels to the Mexican site of his father's death and promptly falls in love with a woman even more unstable than he. In the midst of this emotional turmoil, begins to hear in his head and manages to transfer to tape legendary unfinished recordings by Jim Morrison, Brian Wilson, and Jimi Hendrix. This music is accompanied by "journeys" into the troubled lives of these rock musicians.

This is a brilliant evocation of the 1960s, and one man's journey through an altered past. Ray is far from being a traditional hero, but during his music quest he begins to heal some of his past angst.

If you love classic rock and roll, this is a must read!

BIBLIO SAYS: Highly recommended!


BIBLIO SAYS: Highly recommended!

ESSENTIAL TIME TRAVEL NOVELS

Books listed alphabetically ...

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THE ANUBIS GATES by Tim Powers (1985)

Quite brilliant. The colonization of Egypt by western European powers is the launch point for power plays and machinations. Steeping together in this time-warp stew are such characters as an unassuming Coleridge scholar, ancient gods, wizards, the Knights Templar, werewolves, and other quasi-mortals, all wrapped in the organizing fabric of Egyptian mythology. The reluctant heroes fight for survival against an evil that lurks beneath the surface of their everyday lives.

BRING THE JUBILEE by Ward Moore (1953)

This is one of the first (and the best) of the alternative history novels that ask: What if the South won the Civil War? Politically complex, astute and endlessly fascinating. The point of divergence occurs when the Confederate States of America wins the Battle of Gettysburg and subsequently declares victory in the "War of Southron Independence" on July 4, 1864 after the surrender of the United States of America. The novel takes place in the impoverished United States in the mid-20th century as war looms between the Confederacy and its rival, the German Union. History takes an unexpected turn when the protagonist Hodge Backmaker, a historian, decides to travel back in time and witness the moment when the South won the war.

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT by Mark Twain (1889)
This story is both a whimsical fantasy and a social satire chock-full of brilliant Twainisms. Hank Morgan, a 19th century American-a Connecticut Yankee-by a stroke of fate is sent back into time to 6th century England and ends up in Camelot and King Arthur's Court. Although of average intelligence, he finds himself with knowledge beyond any of those in the 6th century and uses it to become the king's right hand man, and to challenge Merlin as the court magician. Astounded at the way of life in Camelot, Hank does the only thing he can think of to do: change them. In his attempt to civilize medieval Camelot he experiences many challenges and misadventures.
THE DANCERS AT THE END OF TIME by Michael Moorcock (1974 onward)Enter a decaying far, far future society, a time when anything and everything is possible, where words like 'conscience' and 'morality' are meaningless, and where heartfelt love blossoms mysteriously between Mrs Amelia Underwood, an unwilling time traveller, and Jherek Carnelian, a bemused denizen of the End of Time. The Dancers at the End of Time is a brilliant homage to the 1890s. The series include the following novels: An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands and The End of All Songs.
GLIMPSES by Lewis Shiner (1993)
The first rock n roll time-travel novel! In the song "American Pie" Don McLean asked the question: "Can music save your mortal soul?" Glimpses answers that question with a resounding "YES!"
Ray Chackleford is an unstable, self-employed electronics repairman whose marriage is foundering and whose father has recently died. These unresolved relationships are complicated when Ray travels to the Mexican site of his father's death and promptly falls in love with a woman even more unstable than he. In the midst of this emotional turmoil, Ray--a rock drummer during his youth in the late Sixties--begins to hear in his head and manages to transfer to tape legendary unfinished recordings by Jim Morrison, Brian Wilson, and Jimi Hendrix. This music is accompanied by "journeys" into the troubled lives of these rock musicians. Shiner's appealing main character and his gripping style overcome the less believable aspects of his story.

If you love classic rock and roll, this is a must read!

THE GODS THEMSELVES by Issac Asimov (1972)

In the year 2100, mankind on Earth, settlers in a lunar colony and aliens from the para-universe, a strange universe parallel in time to our own, are faced with a race against time to prevent total destruction of the Earth. The invention of the Inter-Universe Electron Pump has threatened the rate of hydrogen fusion in the sun, leading, inevitably, to the possibilty of a vast explosion -- and the vapourization of the Earth exactly eight minutes later . . .
Asimov, is always, accurate and brilliant. The science is plausible.

THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS by Arthur C. Clark & Stephen Baxter (2000)

Two titans of hard SF--multiple award-winning British authors Clarke (Rendezvous with Rama) and Baxter (The Time Ships)--team up for a story of grand scientific and philosophical scope.
Ruthless Hiram Patterson, the self-styled "Bill Gates of the twenty-first century," brings about a communication revolution by using quantum wormholes to link distant points around Earth. Not content with his monopoly on the telecommunications industry, Patterson convinces his estranged son, David, a brilliant young physicist, to work for him. While humanity absorbs the depressing news that an enormous asteroid will hit Earth in 500 years, David develops the WormCam, which allows remote viewers to spy on anyone, anytime. The government steps in to direct WormCam use--but before long, privacy becomes a distant memory. Then David and his half-brother, Bobby, discover a way to use the WormCam to view the past, and the search for truth leads to disillusionment as well as knowledge.

Only by growing beyond the mores of the present can humanity hope to survive and to deal with the threats of the future, including that asteroid. The exciting extrapolation flows with only a few missteps, and the large-scale implications addressed are impressive indeed. For both authors the novel's conclusion takes place in familiar thematic territory, offering a final, hopeful transcendence for humanity.
THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF by David Gerrold (1973)
Daniel Eakins inherits a time machine and soon realizes that he has enormous power to shape the course of history. He can foil terrorists, prevent assassinations, or just make some fast money at the racetrack. And if he doesn't like the results of the change, he can simply go back in time and talk himself out of making it! But Dan soon finds that there are limits to his powers and forces beyond his control. A wild ride!

PASTWATCH: THE REDEMPTION OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS by Orson Scott Card (1996)

Tagiri and Hassan are members of Pastwatch, an academic organization that uses machines to see into the past and record it. Their project focuses on slavery and its dreadful effects, and gradually evolves into a study of Christopher Columbus.
They eventually marry and their daughter Diko joins them in their quest to discover what drove Columbus west. Columbus, with whom readers become acquainted through both images in the Pastwatch machines and personal narrative, is portrayed as a religious man with both strengths and weaknesses, a charismatic leader who sometimes rose above but often fell beneath the mores of his times. An entertaining and thoughtful history lesson.

REPLAY by Ken Grimwood (1986)
What if you could love your life over and over, and over again? Jeff Winston, a failing 43-year-old radio journalist, dies and wakes up in his 18-year-old body in 1963 with his memories of the next 25 years intact. He views the future from the perspective of naive 1963: "null-eyed punks in leather and chains . . . death-beams in orbit around the polluted, choking earth . . . his world sounded like the most nightmarish of science fiction."
Grimwood has transcended genre with this carefully observed, literate and original story. Jeff's knowledge soon becomes as much a curse as a blessing. After recovering from the shock (is the future a dream, or is it real life?), he plays out missed choices. In one life, for example, he falls in love with Pamela, a housewife who died nine minutes after Jeff; they try to warn the world of the disasters it faces, coming in conflict with the government and history. A third replayer turns out to be a serial killer, murdering the same people over and over. Jeff and Pamela are still searching for some missing part of their lives when they notice they are returning closer and closer to the time of their deaths, and realize that the replays and their times together may be coming to an end.

A brilliant book. An all-time classic.
SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut "Listen: Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time." After he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, Pilgrim's life unfolds in a display of plot-scrambling virtuosity, concentrating on his shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.

Okay, we've all read it. 'Nuff said.


TIME AND AGAIN by Jack Finny
Possibly the best of all time-travel novels. While it is written with an old-fashioned sensibility Finny (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) is a superb novelist and a master at creating paranoria.
Simon Morley, an artist with a premium on imagination, is chosen as a possible subject by a group operating on the theory that time is charted by a myriad of details and if surrounded by what appear to be the artifacts and events of an era, they might be able to project themselves into the actual time slot. For weeks Simon is secluded in an apartment in New York's famous landmark, the Dakota, where he dresses, eats, entertains himself and reads newspapers in tire style of the New York of 1894 and finally he walks out into the Central Park of that January. As Simon wanders and takes photos of the familiar-but-different New York landscape, he becomes involved in the lives of several of his 19th century acquaintances. And there is a mystery that Simon is determined to solve that has to do with a suicide and a cryptic letter that ends "the sending of this should cause the Destruction by Fire of the entire World."

TIMESCAPE by Gregory Benford (1980)

It's 1998, and a physicist in Cambridge, England, attempts to send a message backward in time. Earth is falling apart, and a government faction supports the project in hopes of diverting or avoiding the environmental disasters beginning to tear at the edges of civilization. It's 1962, and a physicist in California struggles with his new life on the West Coast, office politics, and the irregularities of data that plague his experiments. Then he receives an unusual message ...

TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG by Connie Willis

In 2057, Ned Henry, an Oxford expert in the 20th century, jumps back and forth from the 1940s to correct a loose screw in the works of the time continuum. A tongue-in-cheek raspberry to Victorian novels, the story unfolds with such madcap almost screwball intensity makes the pages burn your fingers as you read. This a fun ride!


UP THE LINE by Robert Silverberg (1969)
Being a Time Courier was one of the best jobs Judson Daniel Elliott III ever had. It was tricky, though, taking group after group of tourists back to the same historic event without meeting yourself coming or going. Trickier still was avoiding the temptation to become intimately involved with the past and interfere with events to come. The deterrents for any such actions were frighteningly effective. So Judson Daniel Elliott played by the book. Then he met a lusty Greek in Byzantium who showed him how rules were made to be broken...and set him on a family-history-go-round that would change his past and his future forever!

THE GREATEST LIVING WRITER

theBIBLIOfile-------------------------------------------

He has sold 170 million books. He is the only author to have five hardback titles debut #1 on the New York Times list in a single year ... which he's accomplished four times. He has had nineteen consecutive # 1 bestsellers. He's had 46 New York Times hardback bestsellers.

James Patterson is the greatest living American writer. After all numbers don't lie. If that doesn't prove his statue, let's look at his brilliant, often transcendent writing ...

• I'M A GIRL OF EXTREMES. When I love something, I'm like a puppy dog (without all the licking). When I'm cranky, I'm a wasp (like, a whole hive of 'em). And when I'm angry, I'm a mother bear with a predator after her cubs: dangerous.(From Fang)

• And then, as though God Himself had finally heard her calling, a cell phone rang inside the trunk. (From Swimsuit)

• Getting stuck on a bus in New York City, even under normal circumstances, is a lesson in frustration. But when the bus belongs to the NYPD Tactical Assistance Response Unit, and it’s parked at a barricade that’s swarming with cops, and you’re there because you’re the only person in the world who might have a chance at keeping several hostages from being killed, you can cancel your dinner plans. (From Run For Your Life)

Who can argue with Patterson's brilliance? If Patterson does not win the Nobel Prize for Literature it will be incontrovertible evidence that the Nobel committee is nothing more than a group of political hacks.
BIBLIO SAYS: Please check the date of this posting. Have a great day.

THE GIRL WHO CHASED THE MOON: A Review

Sarah Addison Allen has written three quirky small town Southern novels that mix gentle realism with magical fantasy. Her first book, Garden Spells, was a charming novel that set her template, which she followed to perfection in her second novel, The Sugar Queen.

Her most recent novel, The Girl Who Chased The Moon (which debuts at #10 on the New York Times list next week), has also been created out of the same blueprint and is also a winning fluffy concoction Here is what each book has in common:

• a small North Carolina town
• a couple of disjointed female characters with tragedy in their past
• a cast of quirky characters - some of whom seem to possess otherworldly abilities that center around food

In The Moon, after her mother's death, Emily Benedict came to Mullaby, NC hoping to solve some riddles surrounding her mother's life. Why did her mother suddenly and mysteriously leave town and why did she never mention any of her family? Emily is shocked to discover her grandfather is a gentle giant (literally, he is eight feet tall) and that the wallpaper in her mother's room changes patterns. Then there is the nightly mysterious light that appears in their backyard which her grandfather shoos away. Across the street a lonely woman named Julia bakes cakes which has a way of attracting a certain man who lives in town. Through a magical summer Emily discovers that in Mullaby riddles and mysteries seem to be a way of life.

Allen has the ability of balancing the precarious nature of this story realism versus enchanting magic. By this time, in her third book, she seems to have perfected it. The Moon is a short novel (around 65,000 words) but if it was any longer part of the charm would evaporate. It is much like Abraham Lincoln's comment about his legs - this novel is as long as it should be, long enough to get to the end of the story.

However, I am hoping that Allen soon moves away from this template. I'm sure her publisher is clamoring for more and more of the same because publishers have become infected with a Hollywood mentality - they only want what has sold before. I have no doubt Allen is capable of producing several more books from this template. But at the risk of becoming Dorthea Benton Frank.

Frank wrote one entertaining novel, her first - Sullivan's Island. Every book that followed Sullivan's Island has been a weaker knock-off until currently Frank is writing what amounts to a parody of her first success, embarrassing and pointless. Sarah Addison Allen may be approaching that abyss, but she has several things in her favor.

First of all, Allen is a much better writer than Frank, who at best is chatty and sappy. Allen has a real gift of developing characters and situations. Since she is a young woman, I can see a long literary career for Allen, somewhat like Maeve Binchy has created ... yes, Allen has that sort of talent. Here's hoping that Allen soon moves past this magical food realism story line and into meatier (pun intended) and more involved stories. I, for one, will be anxious to read them.

BIBLIO SAYS: Highly recommended.

Companion read: Choclat by Joanne Harris

JULIET, NAKED: A Review

I've always had trouble reading Nick Hornby novels. They sound like great ideas, and they usually are turned into good movies, but when you get within the pages something always seems to be flat. I'm happy to report with Juliet, Naked Hornby is in perfect form. The description of the book sounds fascinating, and by page 90 I was wondering what the hell happened.

In a dreary seaside English town Annie lives with Duncan. For fifteen years they have been together, an almost platonic domestic relationship of equal convenience and comfort. Duncan is obsessed with a Springsteen/Dylanesque American singer-songwriter named Tucker Crowe who mysteriously dropped out of sight twenty years ago. Duncan is active in a small (very small) Internet community of Crowe fanatics who endlessly discuss Crowe's music and life and speculate about where he is and what he is doing. Duncan has spent most of his adult life dissecting every word and note and sound from Crowe's masterpiece, Juliet, an angst-filled passionate collection of songs. Halfway during the Juliet tour, Crowe canceled the rest of the tour dates and disappeared. And for twenty years, silence.

Then, suddenly, Crowe's record company releases Juliet, Naked - an acoustic, stripped down version of the classic LP. Annie writes a negative review of the Naked version and posts it on the Internet. Imagine her surprise when Tucker Crowe himself replies and they begin an Internet relationship - two lonely people looking for more than what they've got.

The book is a jumbled collection of scenes, with random characters popping up and the resolution is ... well, abrupt. Like this review.

BIBLIO SAYS: Wait for the movie.

THE PROFESSIONAL: A Review & Parker eulogy

Robert B. Parker, who died in January 18, 2010, used to write one of the best private eye / detective series featuring Boston gumshoe Spenser. Unfortunately the good Spenser books stopped about fifteen years before Parker died. And the latest, The Professional, is no exception. What happened to the Spenser series has to qualify as one of the greatest literary drops in modern fiction (if you ignore Norman Mailer.)

When Spenser premiered in 1973 (The Godwulf Manuscript) it was standard P.I. fare - wise cracking detective who used to be former cop, you know the drill. Starting with the second novel, God Save the Child, you could see that Parker and Spenser were atypical. Spenser is hired to find a missing teenage boy, Kevin, but when he understands why the kid ran away (a family that was, at best, ambivalent) Spenser creates an unusual solution. That set the stage for the next dozen Spenser novels - he is often less concerned with solving a crime than seeing that some kind of justice served, be it criminal, emotional or both. Spenser has his own code and he often makes seat-of-the-pants decisions about what is right and wrong.

Unfortunately, God Save The Child also introduced a character, Susan Silverman, who was to become the ultimate downfall of the series. Silverman is the school counselor and during the course of the novel, she and Spenser work together to salvage Kevin and his family. Through the next series of books Susan becomes a minor recurring character (she goes to Harvard and gets her Ph.D) and slowly she and Spenser become a committed couple, culminating in A Catskill Eagle (1985.)

But leading up to Eagle, Parker and Spenser re-defined modern crime fiction in those ten novels. We get to meet a black hired gun/enforcer named Hawk who becomes an uneasy collaborator with Spenser. Hawk is the darker side of Spenser's character, the flip side of the same coin. Hawk is one of the all-time great characters in modern crime fiction - flippant, sarcastic, brilliantly observant and a stone cold killer. Whenever Hawk is on-stage, the Spenser books take a sharp turn toward greatness. Gradually, Spenser and Hawk realize their ethics code is similar, separated by a small gray area. Tracing the development of their relationship through violence, humor and ruminations on good and evil, is one of the joys of the early Spenser novels.

But all that changed in A Catskill Eagle, a disturbing book. In an effort to find herself (oh god!) Susan feels she must separate from Spenser and moves to the West Coast. Then, Spenser receives an enigmatic letter from Susan that she is in trouble. Her lover is a powerful, possessive man whose father is an illegal weapons manufacturer. Susan is being held in the family compound. Hawk and Spenser race to her rescue which results in the men being hired by the U.S. government as contract killers. Susan needs to find her self but instead, gets involved with a control freak and needs Spenser to save her. What a brilliant woman! The Spenser series goes downhill quickly after this book.

In his quest to re-define the genre, Parker pushed the envelope too much and by the mid-1990s, the books had become self-parody. As Spenser and Susan become more intimately intertwined each Spenser book is little more than a exercise in sophomoric psychobabble. A typical novel goes like this: Spenser gets hired for a case; at the end of each day of collecting information and bashing heads, he and Susan will discuss what he has uncovered and analyze his feelings. "How did you feel when you were beating shit out of the hoodlum?" Susan will ask. "I felt like shit," Spenser will answer. "Why do you think you felt like shit while you beating the shit out of him?" Susan will brilliantly ask. So much for the prestige of a Harvard degree!

And then, there's Pearl the Wonder dog, the annoying pooch that Susan and Spenser share custody of. Reading a Spenser book became a sado-masochistic experience ... like listening to Genesis after Peter Gabriel left - you know how good it used to be and now you're stuck with this drivel!

The Professional is just the most recent Spenser exercise in self-parody (and almost the last unless the estate goes the V.C. Andrews route - God help us). The story is more flimsy than a wet Kleenex. Susan and Spenser's so-called sexy repartee does not even reach the level of a middle-of-the-road TV sitcom. Hawk appears in the book because that is now his role in the Spenser books - give Spenser advise on his current case, drop some witty observations and flirt with whatever woman happens to be in the scene. Hawk has become nothing more than window dressing. What a shame!

You may be asking ... why the hell do you keep reading these books? Good question. Answer is: I'm still hoping that Parker has that last great Spenser book in him. Same reason I listened to Genesis for a while in 1980s until they did that Michelob commercial which convinced me it was never going to happen. Same with Parker's death. There will never be another great Spenser novel, but we do have the first eleven still in print.

BIBLIO SAYS: Ignore The Professional.

Instead, go read the first eleven Spenser novels, and enjoy: (my favorites in red)
The Godwulf Manuscipt, God Save The Child, Mortal Stakes, Promised Land, The Judas Goat, Looking For Rachel Wallace, Early Autumn, A Savage Place, The Widening Gyre, Valediction.

A TWISTED LADDER: A Review

With all the advance praise and recommendations from writers I love (F. Paul Wilson) imagine my dismay when I discovered this book is nothing more than a torrid mess.

• college-freshman level writing
• abrupt narrative changes
• southern gothic soap opera cliques

And for everyone on Amazon declaring that this book is "original and daring" you obviously need to read more. Check out Dan Simmons' Carrion Comfort or go watch the movie The Skeleton Key. Or better yet, go check out the 1948 novel by Josephine Pinckney called Great Mischief; it deals with another Southern city, Charleston, and a deal with the devil without resorting to Hollywood cliques and southern stereotypes.

Rhodi Hawk works too hard to create the southern atmosphere. Everything in this book seems forced, nothing is believable and often not very precise. Can we please have a novel about New Orleans that DOES NOT trot out the black voodoo queen? THAT would very original.

BIBLIO SAYS: Pass it by.

BONESHAKER: A Review

First of all, I enjoyed reading Boneshaker. Most of my complaints have nothing to do with the author or the story. More on that in a moment.

Boneshaker takes place in an alternate Seattle of the 1880s which includes zombies, gas masks, airships, pirates and an American Civil War that has lasted almost 20 years.

Briar Wilkes survived the zombie takeover that claimed most of Seattle. A rift in the earth released a noxious gas that killed thousands of people, and several days after their death, they arose and began to attack and feed upon the living. Seattle built a 200 foot high walled around most of downtown Seattle which imprisons the undead zombies. Briar has dedicated her life to providing for her teenage son Zeke in a very bleak life outside the wall. She works 15-hour days cleaning the air to make it less dangerous to breath.

But one day Zeke vanishes over the wall into the zombie-infested center of Seattle in an attempt to clear the family name. Zeke's father, and Briar's husband, may have created the disaster that destroyed Seattle, that ripped open the earth in which the noxious gas escape which created the undead zombies. Briar takes matters into her own hands, follows her son over the wall and confronts the horrific conditions inside. Along the way she starts to make peace with the demons of her past in the process. Briar is every inch a mother, but flawed, too. She reminds me of the character Ripley (from the Alien films) as she finds strength in surprising places and soldiers on, in spite of the mounting fear and horrors that surround her.

My complaints about this book have to do with the publisher, Tor. What genius decided to print the book in a faint brown type that made it a chore to struggle to read? The book industry is struggling in this economic age, so why would a publisher purposefully make the book difficult to read? Hopefully, someone at TOR will re-format the book when it goes into another printing.

BIBLIO SAYS: Recommended ... if you like to squint.

AN OLD CAPTIVITY: A Review

More than just an ordinary plane trip, first published in 1940, this novel is still a stand-out! Don Ross is hired to fly an ageing Oxford professor, Lockwood, to Greenland to prove an archeological theory - that around 1000 AD the Celts had explored and settled Greenland, leaving ruins. The first half of the book is pure Shute, painstakingly following Ross as he purchases an aeroplane and supplies for the trip. He lectures the professor on the rigors of the undertaking and tries to shed light on the harsh reality awaiting. Shute, an engineer, always has a great way of explaining technical details that are both interesting and simple for the layman to understand. We follow Ross as he quietly goes about the sheer overwhelming amount of preparation with determination and the classic British "stiff upper lip."
Accompanying Don and Lockwood is the professor's frumpish daughter, Alix, who is in fear for her father's health and mistrust's Don, thinking him out to bilk her father and rich uncle, who is funding the expedition. As they make the journey - England to Scotland, Scotland to Iceland, etc... - enduring simple hardships and delays, professor and daughter realize their initial idea of this being merely a simple journey was mistaken; their lives and safety are completely in Don's hands, who works himself eighteen hours a day ... becoming frail and weak.
Then, as the expedition reaches its destination, Don falls into a semi-coma of fatigue - and this is where Shute's not-so-modern sensibility shines through. Over halfway through the book, the simple adventure tale of survival becomes an almost metaphysical exploration of love, reincarnation and time travel, done with such a slight and clever hand that the reader barely is aware of what has happened.
Such is the genius of Nevil Shute. He has long been one of my favorite writers. I have also long trumpeted the fact that he is one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Even though in style he is very old-fashioned, he was always on the cutting edge of ideas. Many of his novels explore scientific theory that later was proved correct. A decade after this novel, archeologists began to excavate ruins in Greenland proving settlements more than a 1000 years old.

A slyly brilliant book. Part adventure, part romance, part mystical .... all Shute.


BIBLIO SAYS: Highly recommended!
Suggested other reading: In The Wet by Nevil Shute. Another metaphysical adventure story set in Australia's outback.

THE DEVIL'S PUNCHBOWL: A Review

Greg Iles is always dependable and The Devil's Punchbowl does not disappoint. It's another atmospheric thriller set in Natchez, Mississippi that explores on the creeping corruption from the riverboat casinos; a southern town becomes victim to the overwhelming torrent of money flooding in from the gambling, and becomes victim to a dark underworld of depravity. Mayor Penn Cage, a former prosecuting attorney (also featured in the previous novels, The Quiet Game and Turning Angel) finds his family in danger when he discovers one too many secrets.

Let me say this up front: I like Greg Iles' novels. I've read most of them and enjoyed them ... but not as much as much I could have. Let me explain. Iles has a very annoying habit in most of his novels: HE WRITES IN PRESENT TENSE!

I have never read a novel that has been improved by switching from the more traditional past tense ("Joe walked into the room and said, "Stop, or I'll shoot.") to the more annoying and less clear present tense ("Joe walks into the room and says, "Stop, or I'll shoot.") If you're like most readers, as you read your mind changes the prose from present to past tense. As a writer you are doing something you should NEVER do - giving the reader a reason to stop!

When I'm browsing books and I see a novel written in present tense, I put the book back on the shelf and move on. There are very few writers that I will give the benefit of that doubt, and Iles is one. I have read several of his books written in the more traditional method and know that he is a good and entertaining writer ... one whose books would warrant re-reading ... except for one annoying thing.

Come on, Mr. Iles, you're a better writer. Drop the look-at-me-writing-in-the- present-tense-I-can-be-modern attitude and just write good books - in past tense. Your public will thank you.

BIBLIO SAYS: Recommended ... with reservations.

MR. SHIVERS: A Review

This is a darkly creepy dust storm of a book, part Stephen King and part John Steinbeck -if Steinbeck lost most of his talent. It starts as a revenge story rooted in the harsh reality of the Dust Bowl days, and transforms into a heavy-handed examination of myth.
 

Marcus Connelly is a good man who begins a desperate trek through the ruins of 1930s American heartland on the trail of his child's murderer. As he tracks the elusive fiend the hobos call Mr. Shivers, Connelly discovers that he's not the only person whose life the killer has ruined. Connelly gathers around him a group of like-minded desperate lost souls, with each member of the group of vagabonds loosely based on some mythic figure in the literary past. As the Dust Bowl refugees pursue Shivers through a bleak and hopeless world, they gradually realize that he is the embodiment of an elemental force of destruction, and begin sacrificing their own humanity for the sake of vengeance.

The book starts off as slow as a locomotive climbing a mountain, and never reaches the top. However, for the most part Mr. Shivers is tightly written with a great economical style almost as sparse as the landscape, even though some of the symbolism is a bit forced. I'm not surprised to discover the author is a recent university graduate. His professors probably taught him that as a "serious" author, you must have literary pretensions.


BIBLIO SAYS: Recommended, with some reservations.

A DARK MATTER: A Review

If Stephen King is the Louis L'Amour of horror writers, then Peter Straub is the Henry James. King is the master of blue collar gruesome and Straub is expert in urbane psychological terror. When Straub is good, he is VERY good (Ghost Story, Mystery). When he's bad, he usually interesting (The Hellfire Club, The Throat). But with his new novel, A Dark Matter, Straub is not even interesting, he's almost incoherent.

First, the story: one evening in 1966 (damn, the 60s!) in Madison, Wisconsin, a group of students follow their guru into a meadow and perform some mysterious (and forbidden, of course) ritual. Eight people go into the meadow, six return. One body is left behind munched beyond recognition, and the second body just vanishes into the great netherworld. The leader, Spencer Mallon, is one of the phony Jim Morrison types who spout New Age nonsense to a group of wide-eyed innocent kids; he sleeps with the girls, mooches food, booze and drugs from the group - a typical 60s intellectual hack. After the "incident", he skips town, leaving the surviving kids to deal with the fallout. One goes insane, others become criminals, one becomes a writer (imagine that!) but all have deep emotional trauma that follows them into their middle years.

Through the annoying use of what critics and collegiate types like to call a Roshomon-style narrative (the same story told from different viewpoints) Straub assaults the reader with paragraphs of dense prose which any community college English 101 instructor would have slashed with red ink: "Too wordy! Be concise!"

By page 100 the reader is forced to read a fictional version of the event (by the author character) and within two pages we realize why it has remained unpublished - it's awful. So take heed and avoid this mishmash of supernatural silliness. The last thing you need is to spend time in the overrated hazy past of the 60s with a self-centered guru-on-the-make and a group of easily-fooled kids.

BILBIO SAYS: Stay away!
Alternate read: Ghost Story, by Peter Straub, a classic, and creepy horror novel.

CITY OF THE SILENT: A Review

Magnolia Cemetery is one of the greatest unknown treasures in Charleston, South Carolina. Hopefully, this book will help spread the word. For years, I've been hearing about this manuscript. People waxing enthusiastically about "this manuscript Ted has about Magnolia." They kept promising it was going to dig up some dirt of those buried there (pun intended). I even ran into a couple of people who had a copy of it and promised to let me read it ... to no avail.

I met Ted once in passing, through a mutual friend - it was a mere introduction, "hello", "how are you?" and it was over. That day, he was suffering some effects of the HIV that would ultimately be the cause of his demise. Within a year he was gone, so I never had the chance to discuss this work with him.

I have spent many pleasant hours wandering beneath the oaks and Spanish moss and taking hundreds of photos. Magnolia is thoroughly Southern (and soooo Charleston), filled with Gothic flourishes and amazing history is etched on the headstones. When tourists ask me what is the one thing to see in Charleston my answer is always "Magnolia Cemetery."

City of the Silent is a simple book - several hundred concise bios of some of the notables buried in the cemetery. If you're a Charleston history neophyte, you will learn some interesting stuff. There is a preponderance of Civil War figures (of course!), politicians, writers of questionable importance, society belles, gangsters, lawyers, and one madam. One. So much for the dirt.

If you're a Charleston history nut (guilty) ... you already know most of this stuff. So I was (and I am) a bit disappointed with the info contained within - most of it is already available in published form in one book or another.

However, the book is worth it's hefty cover price (well, almost) for the map of the cemetery and the locations of everyone mentioned. With this book in hand, and the map you can take a stroll and find the graves and read the stories. And that is what you should do with it. Read it, mark your favorite people (see my list below) and then take a trip to Magnolia Cemetery and spend an afternoon in the tranquil presence of history - scoundrels and heroines - and everything in between.



MY LIST OF FAVORITE PEOPLE IN MAGNOLIA CEMETERY

• Daisy Breaux Calhoun - real name: Margaret Rose Anthony Julia Josephine Catherine Cornelia Donovan O'Donovan Simonds Gummere Calhoun. (I'm not joking.)
• Langdon Cheves, Jr. - father of the Confederate Air Force.
• Susan Pringle Frost - patron saint of Charleston preservationists.
• Frank Hogan - bootlegger, murder victim.
• Leon Dunlap - bootlegger, acquitted murderer.
• The Crew of the H.L. Hunley - Confederate submariners.
• Tristam Tupper Hyde - Charleston mayor who enforced Prohibition. (served one term)
• Thomas McDow - doctor and murderer.
• Josephine Pinckney - the best Charleston writer and period - period! Two classics: Three O'Clock Dinner, a superb comedy of society manners and Great Mischief, a delicious little horror book where the entrance to hell is somewhere around the corner of King and Broad Streets.
• Robert Barnwell Rhett - Secessionist firebrand and newspaper editor.
• George Trenholm - Confederate financier, and model for Rhett Butler.
• Julius Waties and Elizabeth Waring - probably my all time favorite Charleston story. If you want to know the story ... buy this book, or pick up of my own modest books about Charleston, Wicked Charleston, Volume II: Prostitutes, Politics & Prohibition. The story of the judge and his second wife is covered in great detail.

BIBILO SAYS: 4. Worth having on your shelf.

WEREWOLF SMACKDOWN: A Review

In his latest adventure, Felix Gomez, private detective and vampire, arrives in Charleston, SC
to help thwart a werewolf civil war that threatens to expose The Secret to the world at large. The Secret being the existence of vampires, werewolves and other supernatural creatures. If you're familiar with Felix Gomez all this sounds perfectly plausible. If you're not ... then let's back up.

Felix Gomez went to Iraq as a soldier, returned as a vampire and became a private detective. His first case was to investigate the mysterious outbreak of nymphomania at the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, detailed in The Nymphos of Rocky Flats. His subsequent adventures -X-Rated Bloodsuckers, The Undead Kama Sutra and Jailbait Zombie - read like a combination of Ann Rice, Robert B. Parker and Carl Hiaasen.

Author Mario Acevedo served in the U.S. Army and flew helicopters. In civilian life he taught art, wrote hard-boiled detective novels and collected a stack of rejection slips. Finally, in a bit of desperation, Acevedo decided to write a novel "about the wackiest thing I could think of. " That idea was the outbreak of nymphomania and Felix Gomez, vampire detective, was created. Five books later, Acevedo looks to have created his own niche in the recent avalanche of paranormal fiction.

Werewolf Smackdown details the turf war between rival werewolf clans in the South Carolina low country. For history buffs, bet you didn't know that Charleston was the site of the first werewolf settlement in colonial America, and that werewolf regiments served on both sides of the War Between the States.

As in all the Gomez books, the pace is furious and the attitude is breezy with more than a bit of tongue-in-cheekiness. Within his first twenty-four hours in the Holy City, Felix survives three attempts on his life and mixes it up with ghosts, werewolves, vampire hit men and creates an uneasy truce with the local vampire leader, a ghetto kingpin named Gullah. Oh, and he has plenty of sexy women (human and otherwise) at his disposal.

The pages in Smackdown disappear in big gulps. Acevedo cleverly writes this series so it feels like a high concept, glossy TV show, which would not be a bad idea. Given the success of the HBO's soft porn True Blood (based on Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels), Felix could become an X-Files meets 24 style action show. I'd watch it.

Visit the author's web site: MarioAcevedo.com

Biblio Says: 4. A fun read.