Computer Crash

In my outrage at what I was reading last night about Governor Palin's young daughter I continued to follow link-to-link in an attempt to find out who was creating some of the lies and was most enthusiastic about the whole process of destroying a young woman's life that way. Well, I should have known better. When you go into a sewer you are going to smell bad when you come out of it.

That's what happened to me. My home computer system suddenly crashed and I have apparently picked up a bad enough virus that I will be lucky if the system survives it. I'm in the process of reformatting the hard drive right now, but you all know what that means: a computer with the original factory settings from three summers ago, no software, no internet connection, lots of garbage from AOL, Quicken, etc. to clear out.

I decided to reformat after everything else failed after more than 8 hours of trying for a fix. The bug even managed to disable my virus protection software so I have been unable to identify exactly what I picked up.

This is just a note to make you aware that I'm having a huge problem that will slow me down for a few days. I do have a laptop that might work to a degree if I can get it set up properly. But tonight I'm going to focus on the desktop to see if I can begin to get it back at least close to what it was before I picked up the virus I stepped in last night. (I only had three hours sleep last night and that, on top of a long day at the office, means I'm not felling real frisky at the moment, so I hope I don't make things worse - wish me luck.)

Mars Life

I haven't read a great deal of science fiction in recent years but I grew up on the novels of Heinlein, Asimov and Clarke, and Ben Bova's Mars Life reminds me a whole lot of the style used so successfully by those guys. Those writers were at their peaks in socially simpler times, when the dialogue of books and movies seldom reflected the harsh reality of street language and the raciest sex scenes described were of the relatively tame James Bond style. Their plots were seldom over-complicated, their character types rather predictable and their dialogue not always very realistic sounding. But, taken as a whole, the style worked, and today many of their books are considered to be science fiction classics. So the fact that Mars Life reads like a throwback to that science fiction era is not at all a bad thing.

This book is actually the third in Bova's Mars series but readers like me who have not read the first two books in the series will have no problem reading and enjoying it as a standalone novel. In fact, Mars Life is actually the sixteenth novel in Bova's "Grand Tour" series begun in 1993, which also includes a book of "Grand Tour" stories.

Navajo tribesman, Jamie Waterman, discovered Martian cliff dwellings on his first trip to Mars and has ever since that time dedicated his life to keeping the Mars exploration program focused and well-funded. Now, much to the dismay of Waterman and everyone associated with the program, both governmental and private funding is drying up and the existence of the program is threatened. Partially, that is because the United States government is facing the tremendously complicated and expensive prospect of relocating a substantial portion of its population due to all the flooding caused in recent years by global warming.

But even more importantly, a group of religious fundamentalists known as the New Morality has become so powerful that it can determine the outcome of elections at both the state and national levels by simply choosing whom to support. And New Morality leadership sees the archeological work being done on Mars as such a threat to its core religious beliefs that it wants the whole project shut down. Private donors have been intimidated into withdrawing their support from the Mars program, and the President and members of Congress told to do the same if they want to have any hope of being re-elected.

Mars Life is a race against the clock during which anthropologist Carter Carleton tries to uncover as much of the Martian village and cemetery discovered beneath the cliff dwellings as possible before everyone is forced to leave the planet and Waterman desperately searches for new sources of funding. It is also an intriguing look at what might happen if the clash between science and religion were to get so out of hand that extremists end up with the power to shut down scientific exploration any time that it threatens their shaky religious beliefs, something that seems more and more possible every day.

Rated at: 4.0

Stephenie Meyer's Next Book "on Hold Indefinitely"

I suspect that most writers consider the internet to be the most useful new tool for promoting their work to come around in the last half century. Via the net, authors can create virtual book tours that include interviews and conversations with readers that are of a much higher quality than is possible by physically traveling across the country - all at a tiny fraction of the cost. Word-of-mouth can be a wonderful thing when it comes to selling something, and the sheer number of reviews that are being written exclusively for the internet ensures that even obscure authors and books have a real shot at building an audience for themselves.

That's the good news, but there is also some bad news. Sometimes, still relatively rarely for written material, a new book will be leaked to the internet before its publication date by some thief who is totally unconcerned about the harm being done to the author. According to Jack Schofield of the Guardian, that is exactly what has recently happened to Stephenie Meyer and the theft is apparently going to have a serious consequence for her fans:

"I did not want my readers to experience Midnight Sun before it was completed, edited and published. I think it is important for everybody to understand that what happened was a huge violation of my rights as an author, not to mention me as a human being."

...

"My first feeling was that there was no way to continue. Writing isn't like math; in math, two plus two always equals four no matter what your mood is like. With writing, the way you feel changes everything. If I tried to write Midnight Sun now, in my current frame of mind, James [a vampire tracking Bella] would probably win and all the Cullens would die, which wouldn't dovetail too well with the original story.

"In any case, I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working on Midnight Sun, and so it is on hold indefinitely."

Schofield goes on to wonder whether Meyer's decision to put the book on hold might have been influenced by all the negative comments coming from readers regarding her most recently released book in the series. Maybe so, but if that's the case Meyer is making a big mistake by letting the criticism influence her to make such a drastic choice about her new book.

I can't resist noting Schofield's next-to-last sentence, "Well, the internet has no shortage of self-righteous assholes, as we know only too well." Nice, that. But he should keep in mind that the internet does not have an exclusive on that type and that the print medium has more than its share of the same folks. I stumble across some of them on a daily basis, in fact.

The Wolfman

Nicholas Pekearo’s debut novel, The Wolfman, breathes new life into one of the horror genre’s legendary characters, the werewolf, amazingly enough turning the monster into the sympathetic hero of the story. Sadly, it has to be mentioned that Mr. Pekearo lost his life while patrolling as an unarmed volunteer policeman in New York before publication of The Wolfman and that his hopes of turning this book into a series died with him.

Marlowe Higgins, a Viet Nam vet with a tainted military discharge, did not inherit much from his father. But unfortunately for Higgins, he did not come away completely empty-handed. Instead, upon his father’s passing Higgins found himself burdened by a curse that originated with his great-great-grandfather, one that turns him into a killing machine with the appearance of each month’s full moon.

To his credit, Marlowe is a man with a conscious and, for a time, he fought the monthly transition from human to werewolf with a determination that caused him tremendous physical and psychological pain. But, try as he might to avoid it, he was forced to make a kill each month, so he found a way to ease his feelings of guilt by killing only those who deserved to die, murderers and criminals who preyed on those weaker than themselves, especially those who targeted women and children.

If Marlowe wanted to stay under the radar of law enforcement authorities, he knew that had to live a drifter’s life, something he did until taking a break from the road and settling into the little town of Evelyn where he worked as a short-order cook. For the first time since returning from Viet Nam, Marlowe lived what passed for a relatively normal existence despite the curse which continued to plague him. But, sooner or later, all good things manage to come to an end. That end came for Marlowe’s lifestyle when a serial killer, who was to be known as the Rose Killer because of his habit of replacing the eyeballs of his victims with roses, came to Evelyn and decided to stay for a while.

The Wolfman so skillfully walks that fine line between reality and fantasy that Pekearo is able to transform a werewolf not only into a sympathetic character, but into a thoroughly believable one. The story is set in the dark little world of Evelyn, a town desperately in need of the protection of a superhero, if there ever was one, and one peopled by characters who would be right at home in the shadows and alleyways of the big city. Pekearo has skillfully combined the elements of several genres in a way that ensures the novel’s appeal to fans of each of them: horror, detective fiction, thriller, and American noire.

The book’s weak point is the relative ease with which most readers will determine the identity of the Rose Killer long before Marlowe manages it, something that diminishes some of the novel’s tension level. But in a novel that is as much fun as The Wolfman that is an easy thing to forgive.

Rated at: 4.0

Originally published at Curled Up with a Good Book

102-Year-Old Librarian Still on the Job

While most people dream of retiring from the job somewhere between the ages of 60 and 65, Martha Smith has continued working for about forty years beyond those ages. She still puts in her time every Sunday at the Vinland, Kansas, library that she first started working at in 1926. The Kansas City Star has her story:

Smith is 102 now. She wears a hearing aid and needs an oversized pair of magnifying goggles to read. She has to bend over so far to walk her eyes stare straight at the ground.

Others might have retired 30 years ago. Not Smith. She still shows up every Sunday to put in her hours at the 400-square-foot, one-room library 10 miles south of Lawrence.

Sure, she took a break in 1944 to raise her only son, Edwin. But she returned in 1956 and has been there ever since.

...

She has been there so long the Kansas Department of Human Resources honored her with an outstanding older worker award as the oldest female worker in Kansas.

That was six years ago.

Ray Wilbur, president of the Coal Creek Library Association, said Smith is one of a kind.

“She’s loyal, she’s diligent, she’s always optimistic and cheerful,” he said. “What’s not to like?”

The article is interesting, but even better is the video that the newspaper has attached to it. Take a look...it will make your day.

Sweetsmoke Review - A Correction

I've had a short conversation with David Fuller, author of Sweetsmoke over the last two or three days about his book and one of the comments I made about it in my August 21 review. I don't think that Mr. Fuller generally makes it a practice to respond to reviews so I appreciate his willingness to discuss mine with me and to, in fact, give me the opportunity to set the record straight on one of the points I raised.

I enjoyed the book and my review was generally a very positive one but I did question the believability of two aspects of the story. Mr. Fuller sent me an explanation of both my points and, in the first case, I find that I missed a key element of the story that explains away my doubts about the main character's ability to read and write at a rather sophisticated level.

From my review:

"The reader is asked to believe, for instance, that Cassius, a man who had just a few days in which to learn how to read and write, is able to do both so well that he is able to comprehend all the nuances of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar when he steals his master’s copy of the play and to forge the passes he needs to seemingly authorize his travel away from Sweetsmoke on his own."

Mr. Fuller's response ("bolding" added by me):

"In fact, Cassius begins to learn to read over a three week time period back in 1857. That was five years before the novel begins, and in the ensuing five years, Cassius continues his reading education with Emoline (you can find that information on page 48). I took liberties with the timing of Cassius coming into contact with the texts of THE ILIAD as well as JULIUS CAESAR. All writers learn to telescope time from Shakespeare, and I wanted to give the reader an opportunity to experience Cassius’s initial attempts to grapple with Alexander Pope’s translation of Homer, so I placed this within the context of the narrative. Realistically, he would have been likely to read THE ILIAD earlier, with Emoline’s assistance. But I took the liberty as I wanted the reader to experience Cassius’s first encounter with the god Apollo. Five years seems to me to be more than enough time to take on a first reading of Julius Caesar, as well as more than enough time to learn to forge passes."

I have gone back and re-read page 48 and I find that the detail concerning the number of years that Cassius studied with Emoline escaped me by the time I finished the book. That information completely invalidates the point I made in the review and I am pleased to correct the wrong impression that I inadvertently gave.

Mr. Fuller, over at the official Sweetsmoke website, comments on another point I made in the review and discusses some of the research upon which he based that aspect of the novel. If you're interested in more of Mr. Fuller's thoughts, just click on the link I've provided to that site. While you're there take a look at the rest of the site and you'll likely find yourself placing Sweetsmoke on your TBR list.