ENDLESS BLUE, by Wen Spencer

I wish this intriguing book weren't so exhausting due to its multiple themes. I counted at least twenty-eight. Even ANONYMOUS REX, a complex science fiction/noir detective combination reviewed earlier, has perhaps eight themes. FINAL CUT, the Charlie Salter detective novel just reviewed, has even fewer, about four. ENDLES BLUE has five or six gigantic themes, any one of which could almost be a book in itself.

MIKHAIL VOLKOV, an officer in the Novalya Rus, Russian derived union of worlds, investigates the strange appearance of a spaceship engine which returns to normal space without its ship and covered in coral. He desperately needs to find a weapon which can be used against the Nefrim, humanity's genocidal nemesis, and hopes the engine's origin may point the way.

VOLKOV's foster brother TURK, an officer on his ship, is a Red, one of several types of manufactured, "adapted" humans. Adapted humans provoke endless discussion about racism, slavery, sexual exploitation, finding love, etc.

When VOLVOV's ship jumps through a worm-hole, it crashes in a mysterious space ship graveyard world, the SARGASSO. It's an earth-like universe whose ecology is like the South Pacific, with startlingly different physics. PAIGE BAILEY, the captain of a fishing ship, rescues TURK, then struggles with her relationship with him. PAIGES's ability to communicate with multiple alien species is a vital thread in the book.

I really like the book, despite its many flaws. If the measure of success of a writer is the desire he creates to revisit his world, SPENCER succeeds in ENDLESS BLUE. Next time I'll bring a compass and a sextant.

Commentary:Books as comfort food and obsession. byCeeViews

Yesterday I added another book to my car books pile. A DYING LIGHT IN CORDUBA, is a Marcus Didius Falco Roman mystery by Lindsey Davis joined LOVE LIES BLEEDING, a China Bayles mystery, by Susan Wittig Albert, a young adults book, and several professional magazines. Oh, and a little book on obsessive compulsive disorder. These books met my criteria for a car book.

It should be no surprise that I also have purse books, a greater necessity than ones loose in the car.The current occupants are SF paperbacks by John Barnes, and by Wen Spencer, both authors new to me. I have two books because I'm close to finishing one and don't want to be caught bookless.


I got my love of reading from both my mother and my father. My mother read mainly popular books, mysteries, romances, books on the top ten list. She always settled down with a book in the evening. My father read less often, but his choices were more eclectic, including humor books, Shakespeare, and the old West.

I'm not sure when it became essential to have books with me at all time, or when the number began growing. This habit may be a tiny bit obsessive now, but I would never have become the person I am today without books as my friends.

FINAL CUT, by Eric Wright

FINAL CUT is a mystery featuring Staff Inspector Charlie Salter, of the Toronto Metropolitan police. Salter has an desirable odd-jobs position in the Special Affairs Center. In FINAL CUT he has a sweet assignment, baby-sitting an American-directed film set in Toronto, warmly depicted here. He gains the director's cut view of the craft behind the magic. The villain's escape may be unrealistic, while the contents of a grocery bag are precisely detailed.

The job looks a cinch until various acts of sabotage occur during the filming. After several occurrences, the screenwriter is killed. The pushy young star, the grouchy cinematographer, the unappreciated assistant director, the autocratic continuity manager, and all the others are suspects. Salter investigates with quiet competence, the complete opposite of the flashy car chases of the movie.

A subplot of the novel is Salter's relationship with his teenage son Seth, who wants to dance professionally. Salter is uncomfortable with this decision, though he keeps it from Seth. He wants better for the boy, and doesn't want others, including his police brethren, falsely stereotyping his son as gay. Salter gets Seth a chance to visit the set, where he's fascinated by meeting a famous actor, Henry Vigor. Vigor has made a career playing villains. He's a Nazi in this film, although he escaped from them in real life. Seth idolizes the old man, and by the end of the novel, may have a new career choice.

The noir detective has to walk alone; Salter has his wife and family. That's another reason I love this series. The family relationships are quite real, neither idolized nor demonized.

A CARNIVAL OF BUNCOMBE, by H.L. Mencken, non-fiction

H.L. Mencken was mentioned recently in Connie Willis' INSIDE JOB, and, honestly, I'd barely heard of him before. He wrote from 1899 until 1948, producing an estimated 5,000,000 words. He generated political articles, public health crusades for his beloved Baltimore, and a gigantic work on THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE.

A CARNIVAL OF BUNCOMBE collects 69 of the articles written for the Baltimore EVENING SUN newspaper. His editors caution that his "vivid violent style and...his droll fakery tend ...sometimes to obscure or crowd an astute observation."

In an August 25, 1924 column about the 1924 Presidential campaign, he says of Vice-President Davis, one of the candidates, "Is he in favor of shoving men into jail without jury trials or is he against it? No one knows." Imagine how Mencken would explode about the Patriot Act.

His next column, September 15, 1924, tears into Calvin Coolidge, "He is the favorite of all (Wall Street's) jackals. They believe they will be safe if he is elected, and they are right."

Continuing his slam against Davis and adding Calvin Coolidge "....The money changers greatly prefer a ductile ignoramus, eager for flattery...Dr. Coolidge has been tried (by flattery). And found satisfactory."

He ultimately states that he will vote for Senator Robert M. La Follette, widely hated because of his opposition to WWI. The Senator from Wisconsin had broken away from the Republicans (yes, the Republicans) to form a Progressive party endorsed by the Socialists.

Mencken admires La Folletee for sticking to his principles, but lambasts him. "La Follete (is) busy with his archaic visions of monopolies and his lamentable schemes to curse the country with more and more (political appointed) jobholders."

In a column just before the elections he says of La Follette,  " I shall vote for him unhesitating, for a plain reason: he is the best man in the running, as a man...There is no ring in his nose. Nobody owns him...Does it matter what his ideas are? Personally, I am against four-fifths of them, but what are the odds?"

I don't know of anyone today except possibly Jon Stewart who slams all sides. Even Stewart couldn't get away with Mencken's criticism of former President Warren G. Harding's writing. "He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges ... it reminds me of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights."

He goes on for three pages, not neglecting to slam Harding's target audience as "morons scarcely able to understand a word of more than two syllables."

And you thought the 21st century had produced great rants.

ANONYMOUS REX, by Eric Garcia

Raymond's Chandler's Simple Art of Murder. “But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.”
Or, down these means streets a dinosaur must go. In this quick-paced witty novel, Vincent Rubio is a noir-style California private eye with a bad herb habit. He's also a Velociraptor in disguise, one of the 16 species of dinosaurs which have survived the great extinction and insured their future existence by secretly moving into the human world. In a wildly complicated plot Rubio must avenge his dead partner and solve the murder of Raymond McBride, a prominent Carnatour entertainment mogul. There's a dame with secrets, lethal minions, forbidden love between different dinosaur species, and a terrible basil addiction to fight. Garcia has created a wonderful world about hiding and coming out, and the one regret is that he can sustain it in only three books.

WELLSTONE, by Wil McCarthy

In this space yarn, nanotechnology in the ubiquitous form of wellstone, a programmable material, creates everything from buildings to clothing. Fax machines provide instantaneous travel and convert matter into food, boats, or anything else desired.

The Prince of Tonga leads a colony of over-privileged boys, more Peter Pan than Lord of the Flies, to an escape from the summer camp planet where they've been exiled. They discover the raw edges of their universe, not in a Star Wars-like cantina, but a wood-faced coffee shop in Denver. When these rowdies mess up the cafe, the Queen and King of Tonga take note. The Queen of All Things sends them back to a harsh world where there are no flush toilets and their dorky uniforms can't be programmed into anything stylish. The locked fax machine thwarts any travel. It serves only s'mores and frank'n'beans, leaving them to climb the dangerous peach pie trees for any variety to their diet. The defiant Prince plots his next escape with passion but no practicality.

I'm not sure in what wild brainstorming session Wil McCarthy conceived his universe, but it's a splendid one with chuckling references to the cone of silence and adamantium. Youthful rebels dash across the solar system, while only Conrad Mursk, the prince's best friend, argues for reason. When the defiant teens fail to calculate the dangers of their journey, the trip turns deadly.

NINETEEN MINUTES, by Jodi Picoult

I usually take home grocery store books as comfort food. Rarely have I brought home those which are thoughtful and provocative, but “Entertainment Weekly” had given this one a short cover blurb. NINETEEN MINUTES is about the relationships illuminated and changed by a high school shooting spree. In this multi-viewpoint book, two pairs of mothers and children vibrate at the core.

Peter Houghton is the shooter at the school, a lonely bullied boy who strikes back viciously. Lacy Houghton, his midwife mom, is as horrified as anyone else at the shooting. She continuously struggles to understand her son's actions and second-guesses every minute she's ever spent with him. (Wouldn't you?) Alex Cormier is the judge who'll preside over Peter's trial. Lacy delivered her daughter, Josie, with whom the icy career woman has been estranged. Now Alex struggles to comfort her wounded daughter.

Josie and Peter used to be friends, until Josie rejected the always-awkward boy to join the popular crowd. When the detective investigating the shooting finds Peter's yearbook with his victim's faces circled, Josie's is the only one circled, then crossed out, with "Let Live" next to it.

Lacy's self-lacerating thoughts are especially compelling. Did she push him too much? Compare him too much to his golden brother? Not monitor his computer use enough? Leave him too much alone? When the shooting victims are evacuated, their foreheads are numbered with a Sharpie marker to aid in identification. There's no such mark for a killer, and anyone who's ever nervously watched a moody teen, or been one, will identify with that.

CIAO AMERICA, by Beppe Severgnini, Non- Fiction

Beppe Severgnini and his family lived in Washington, D.C. for a year in 1995, and he affectionately describes the America he found then. It seems such a long time ago in the post-9/11, post 2008 crash, world. But his observations still apply in the main, and we have a commentator here perhaps better than we even deserve.

He writes of our well-known shortcomings: we're fat, we can't spell, don't know any history, and share personal information too quickly. But he also describes the things he didn't expect. Deep, deep discounts on everything, to say nothing of outlet malls and free return policies, lure him.

We have 1-800 numbers which dispense detailed advice on repairs from computers to refrigerators, all free. In his Georgetown church, he notes the "choreography" in which each pew of worshipers goes down the center aisle to communion, and comes back up the side. They even stand politely, singing the last hymn, while the celebrant recesses. Italians apparently crowd the communion rail and bolt away.

We further delight him in the inventiveness of our language; we mash up letters and numbers for wonderful creations. I would not have thought that "K-9" for canine, and "want2CU" would have been that exciting, although a vanity plate such as L84AD8 does sound original. In a throwaway newspaper I read today, one company promised "2X UR tax return," while another said they'd keep your car Shine-N. I'm tickled to recognize how these neologisms pleased him.

In this cheerful account, Severgnini says he and his family were happy here. That's the best report card anyone could ever give.

HOW THE IRISH SAVED CIVILIZATION, by Thomas Cahill, Non-fiction

The author of this book is THOMAS Cahill, the scholar, not TIM Cahill, the humorous travel writer. The work would be much livelier if they had collaborated, but it's a great book anyway. Thomas Cahill postulates that Irish monks were spared the slaughter of the rest of the Roman empire because they lived in remote islands the barbarians didn't want. In these quiet and isolated locales, they continued the monastery tradition of creating wondrous illuminated manuscripts. Cahill discovered that, surprisingly, they not only copied holy works, but also pagan and secular ones. They recreated Roman and Greek writings, including plays, then spread these lost works back through medieval Europe hundreds of years later, when it was safe for Irish missionary monks to travel again. The re-emergence of these classics sparked the interests of a continent newly interested in enrichment and intellectual challenges.

Since it was St. Patrick who brought Christianity to Ireland, he's one of the heroes who kept our Western world from collapsing. Think about this on March 17 as you drink green beer and march in parades.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIVING SOMEONE ELSE'S LIFE, by Mil Millington

I first found Mil Millington's works through a link on cult humorist Christopher Moore's website, in which Moore lists authors to read while waiting for his next book. Mil Millington's writing has evolved from his hugely hilarious, though eventually repetitious, blog THINGS MY GIRLFRIENDS AND I HAVE ARGUED ABOUT to several novels. The first is titled after the blog, and has humorous but not very satisfying action built around blog-type arguments. In INSTRUCTIONS Millington has crafted a much richer story.

Chris is a advertising writer who's outstanding at his work, but despises it and everyone he works with. He plays pranks such as creating rude acrostics in his layouts, and giving child actors obscene foreign phrases to mouth unknowingly. He's planning to resign from his job, and gets roaringly drunk with his friends, in 1988. When he wakes up the next morning, he's in a strange bed, and it's later than he thinks. Eighteen years later. It's not a coming of age tale; it's a coming of sudden middle age tale. He's not quite sure what to do about the mystery woman living in his house, but that doesn't matter while he's got a gut to tame and a life to reclaim.

DAMAGE CONTROL, by J.A. Jance

A critic once pooh-poohed grocery store books, saying that he didn't want to purchase his reading the same place as he bought his laundry detergent, or words to that effect. Working mothers who pulled DAMAGE CONTROL from the shelf, however, knew exactly what they were getting—another chapter in the life of working mother Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady. The Arizona sheriff wrestles with several violent deaths which occur in one storm-ravaged weekend, while juggling the needs of her infant son, teenage daughter, and her supportive but wearying at-home spouse, Butch, whose writing career needs more time. I don't know why Jance always feels compelled to make at least one of the deaths in her books excessively violent, as she does here with that of a young woman. Her writing is strong enough to hold readers without this fillip of gruesomeness.

Male critics may scoff at scenes of hostage negotiations interspersed with those of laundry, new-parent sleep deprivation,and the joys of takeout pizza, but this is exactly where Jance connects with her readers. Brady seems at her most realistic here when she soft-pedals her day to her husband, not wanting the grimness to spill into her home sphere. As someone whose work has been at times grim and demanding, I'll take Joanna Brady as a role model anytime.

INSIDE JOB, by Connie Willis

In the novella *Inside Job,* Connie Willis effervesces with wit and humor. The tale of a professional skeptic, Rob, his beautiful researcher, Kildy, and the medium they hope to debunk illuminates the whole credulous Hollywood landscape which surges after each new psychic offering. Willis shines a light over the addictions of those false hopes, from aura cleansing to psychic liposuction to prior-life chiropractic (the present back pains are due to trauma suffered working at the Pyramids or Stonehenge, don't you know).

Rob spends his professional life battling these swindlers, and he offers amazing insights in the history of various forms of spiritualistic fraudulence. For example, Uri Geller, the 1970's psychic who could supposedly bend spoons with his mental powers, was exposed as a fraud--by Johnny Carson, on the Tonight Show. Carson had been a stage magician in his early career, which was something Geller forgot.

Then a funny thing happens on the way to debunk the medium--and it's a wry, intelligent twist negotiated with expertise and poignancy. The writing is as clear here as a stream in a Japanese garden, with each curve and stone placed so perfectly the effort is invisible. *Inside Job* has become an instant favorite of mine.

I wish the same could be said of Willis' *D.A.*, which seems to be a short story published alone in novella form, with the same dust jacket artist as *Inside Job.* *D.A.* is a mildly amusing little work which might elicit a smile in a short story collection while you thumbed over it for something better. The illustrations, which appear to all be drawings of Willis herself, are so cutesy they gag. I'm hoping she only wanted to take a little breather from her normally thoughtful, more serious output. This is the writer, after all, who took five years writing the dark novel *Doomsday Book,* about the Black Plague. But no one who ever met Willis through *D.A* would be compelled to seek any more of her writing. Back to the grindstone for you, Connie, and please create something special again, like *Inside Job.*

A Plus

To establish my gender prefence as female, after my last post I must comment that if I'd seen a movie-sized poster of the shirtless Matthew McConaughey throwing back his head in shame and agony from the scarlet letter carved on his chest, I don't think I'd have forgotten the Reverend Mr.Dimmesdale either.

GRENDEL, from BEOWULF

One of the greatest pleasures in reading is the Easter egg type in-joke, the subtly placed reference to another literary work. I'm always delighted by these, as I was a few days ago when re-reading GUARDS, GUARDS. A group of would-be heroes is studying the sign announcing the 50,000 dollar reward offered for the slaying of the Ankh-Morpork dragon, and bemoaning the city's cheapness. “You spend that much in nets,” when one comments on the generally poor qualities of quarries nowadays.

So quickly that I'm barely conscious of it, my mind decodes the next few lines. “And monsters is getting more uppity these days. A guy killed one and stuck its arm up over the hall.” What? Why not its head? Extremely odd. Isn't there something very faintly familiar about this?

The next speaker says: “Pour enco-ra-jay las ortas,” a horrid pidgin French. What does this mean? To encourage the other monsters to behave? As an example to them? This comment delays gratification and deepens the confusion. We're not in doubt long, however:

“And the the very next day its mum came down to the hall to complain. Its actual mum! I ask you.”

A flash picture, from a recent movie, of Angelina Jolie's back, her long braid whipping around like a tail, bangs through my brain as I catch the joke:
OHH! I know what this is! This is Grendel and Grendel's mother!
Terry Pratchett has neatly riffed on one of the literary ancients, BEOWULF, decades after the last time I'd thought of it. This almost justifies my having to study the epic poem in high school. But then, if we'd had Angelina Jolie's bare back to enco-ra-jay us, BEOWULF would never have been forgotten in the first place.

Character View: Carrot Ironfounderson, GUARDS,GUARDS, Terry Pratchett.

One of the best reasons to read Terry Pratchett is to experience his characters. One of my favorites is Carrot, the 2 meter tall adopted dwarf who debuts in GUARDS, GUARDS.

Carrot starts out as a naive young man who has to be told he's adopted by his dwarf parents. Rescued long ago when bandits attacked a cart near the mine, he's been clueless even though his dwarf name means 'Head-Banger.' His parents innocently send him to wicked Ankh-Morpork to become a watchman. Carrot has read all the "Laws and Ordinances of Ankh-Morpork" and is ready to enforce every one. For example, he actually arrests the head of the Thieves' Guild for thieving. But he quickly learns it's legally established, the better to collect taxes from, and protects the citizenry from filching for a small sum per annum. His sergeant saves him from disaster when he approaches the Patrician, supreme ruler of the city, about a vehicle violation.

He's appalled by the vicious world of dwarf bars, wades into the fighting, reminds them in Dwarfish them to think of their mothers, and brings the battlers to tears. Carrot also shares dwarfish tendencies to think literally, and doesn't understand metaphor. Woe betide the evil-doer when Captain Vimes finally tells Carrot to throw the book at him.

By the end of the book Carrot is rallying his cowardly NCO superiors to risk advances towards the dragon. He's strangely persuasive for one so young. It seems that everyone wants to follow Carrot. Maybe it has something to do with his crown-shaped birthmark, or the non-magical, but very powerful, sword he carries...

ROUTE 66 A.D.,HOW THE ROMANS INVENTED TOURISM, by Tony Perrottet, non-fiction

I referenced Tony Perrottet in my post on GUARDS, GUARDS, and realized that I hadn't written about this book. This is another quirky travel book which describes the Romans' love of travel, and their determination to write comments about their trips in ancient graffiti.They loved the Egyptian tombs--just see their writings, still to be seen below ancient hieroglyphs. Perrottet and his pregnant girlfriend, who sounds like a remarkably patient sort, retrace the Romans pathways from Greece to the Mideast to Egypt. Perrottet vividly recounts Roman experiences at the first Olympics--the Naked Olympics, expanded in greater detail in his book of that title.

Interestingly enough, Lindsey Davis describes these same paths of tourism in SEE DELPHI AND DIE, a Marcus Didius Falco Roman PI book. Davis is punctilious about her research, and the two books together illuminate this fascinating and previously unknown area of Roman life. It's astonishing the way that our choreographed and prissy Olympics have evolved from the vicious Grecian ones.

Quick Take: PLEASE PASS THE BUTTERWORMS,Tim Cahill. Nonfiction

Tim Cahill has made a career, he says, of remote journeys oddly rendered. He wanted to title his latest offbeat travel book something else, but his publisher insisted on another quirky title to go with JAGUARS RIPPED MY FLESH, A WOLVERINE IS EATING MY LEG, and PECKED TO DEATH BY DUCKS. His first chapter describes his horseback riding trip to Mongolia. His quest—bringing back hair to help researchers determine whether Mongols might be the original New Worlders. They'll compare the hair with ancient hair retrieved from archeology sites.

His insights on the Mongolian's horses fascinated me. Mongolians, he says, almost never name their ponies, the Mongolians being about as sentimental about their horses as Americans are about their cars. Plus, the ponies are never fed and are expected to forage, punching their hooves through ice in -60F weather. No wonder they're the toughest horses on earth.

Also by the same author: ROAD FEVER, an account of his record-breaking trip with a professional driver from the tip to top of the Pan-American Highway—Tierra del Fuego to Point Barrow, Alaska.

GUARDS, GUARDS, by Terry Pratchett

Writing a review of a Terry Pratchett book at this date is, as author Tony Perrottet observed on a similar occasion, like writing a restaurant review of that quaint little cafe with the golden arches. But some may not know the best-selling U.K. comedy fantasy writer, and GUARDS,GUARDS makes a good introduction to his Discworld series.

A group of hooded conspirators plots to reestablish the defunct kingship of Ankh-Morpork. They plan to summon a dragon by illegal magic, and to control it while their puppet king makes it disappear. But the dragon can't be so quickly banished and attacks the city, soon crowning itself king.

The bedraggled City Watch has dwindled to four-their drunken captain, Sam Vimes, crass sergeant Fred Colon, runty “Nobby” Nobbs, and new recruit, Carrot, the two meter tall adopted dwarf who is keen to arrest anyone. Vimes can barely rouse himself to care about anything until the dragon threatens the city.

The four watchmen form allies: the orangutan librarian of Unseen University, furious over the stolen book of magic used to summon the dragon, and Lady Sybil Ramkin, an Wagnerian-sized aristocrat who breeds three-foot long swamp dragons, distantly related to their great cousins. This unlikely group of champions unite to vanquish the dragon before it crisps the city. Terry Pratchett recounts it all with his ironic wit and humor.

TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG, by Connie Wills

Fifty years in the future, Ned Henry, an exhausted time travel researcher, desperately needs to escape obsessive billionaire heiress Lady Schrapnell. Ever since Lady Schrapnell discovered that her great-great-great-great grandmother “Tossie” Tocelyn Mering's life had been changed forever by a visit to Coventry Cathedral she has crusaded to rebuild it down to the smallest detail. The original Cathedral was destroyed by fire in a German bombing on November 14, 1940 In her relentless drive to recreate the immense structure, she donates millions of dollars to the time time research department of Oxford and then brutally co-opts the researchers into multiple time trips scouring history for the cathedrals' lost relics.

Ned gets sent to the Victorian era to recuperate briefly, but he doesn't get any rest. After a trip up the Thames in the Jerome K. Jerome manner, he rendezvous with another time-lagged researcher.. The pair endeavor to locate Lady Schrapnell's latest quarry, the bishop's bird stump. It's a hideous wrought-iron sculpture, but it's authentic, and Lady S. must have it.

. The search for the sculpture, making sure Tossie stays on the right path to meet her future husband, and incidentally preventing the collapse of the space-time continuum never overwhelm the increasingly sleep-deprived researchers. Lady S. has scheduled a huge consecration ceremony and the pair's window for return is closing.

Willis combines a time travel Victorian comedy of manners with a love story and mystery. Her powerful narration blends all these elements into a finely polished triumphant whole

JENNIFER GOVERNMENT,by Max Barry, concluded

This book finished well, although it tends to advance the plot like some hard-boiled detective tales: when things go slack, send someone rushing into the room with a gun. In this sardonic dystopia, the Police and the NRA are now publicly-traded security companies. When it has taken the contract, the NRA grimly protects Nike with all force necessary, airstrikes included. Not your cup of tea? Go back to TMIAB.

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