In the Morning of Time (1922) by Sir Charles G.D. Roberts

Huh.  Forgot I had a blog!  Mom reminded me the other day.

Guess that’s part of the unique charm of ADHD Book Reviews…

Here’s a new one.

Summary: Ah, ’tis the dawn of humanity, and we privileged readers get to watch from the prehistoric roughage as homo sapiens begin to emerge.

This is actually a 14-parter, originally printed as a serial, which explains the gratuitous lapses and somewhat disjointed segments.

The first chapter is called “The World Without Man,” and in some ways it was the best.  Nobody around to muck things up.

The next 13 chapters all start with sort of a “Previously… on LOST…” type of intro, to catch up new readers.  But it’s always different and never egregious.

Anyway, it’s fascinating – not to mention gratifying – to see modern human traits begin to emerge as selectively better than the other species and races.  We’re long-legged, graceful, thoughtful, introspective, creative… OF COURSE nature chose us!

Over what – the plodding diplodocus?  The brainless giant dragonflies?  The insanely bloodthirsty giant anteater?  The bestial and hopelessly slow and greedy “Bow Legs” tribe (who I imagine to be the last remnants of the Neanderthals)?

Particularly satisfying is the love story between our two protagonists.

Grôm and A-ya are grappling with the first feelings of what we, in this culture, consider love.  They’re the first two of their kind – or any kind – even inclined to tender feelings and monogamy.  And they manage to make a real go of it.

Also fascinating is watching wanderlusty Grôm first encounter fire (from a natural vent on the side of a volcano).

He’s scared of it, naturally, as is every other thinking and feeling beast ever.  But rather than turning tail, he sits and watches it and ponders it.  He eventually moves closer and closer.  He determines how close he must get to feel its heat.  He burns himself, of course.  He transfers it to a stick.  He finds its use as a weapon.  He transports it.  He begins to worship “The Shining One,” then bend it to his will and even master it.

GO US!

The author offers a very plausible set of events to explain how our young forebears – slightly retardedly – learn that meat tastes best cooked (at first when the carcass falls into the fire, they bawl, thinking the meat is RUINED), invent the bow and arrow, come up with the idea of a raft to avoid predators, learn how to paddle, etc.

The author was born in New Brunswick and obsessed with animals and the outdoors and all things maritime.  He also loved “the poetry” – which personally grosses me out – and came to be known as “The Father of Canadian Poetry,” an almost rancidly boring title.

Still, I adored this inventive tale and plan to read anything else he writes IN PROSE, so I give it the same WOW face I gave my beautiful sister Leigh when she first put on her gown on her wedding day.

Treasure Island (1883) by Robert Louis Stevenson

Summary: A slovenly, drunken old pirate named Billy Bones walks into the Hawkins family’s boarding house and proceeds to be drunken and slovenly and abusive and not pay his tab.  He’s clearly in great physical and emotional distress, at the end of his life, and in hiding from other pirates he has betrayed.  Bones soon dies from a nasty stroke.  He leaves among his possessions (which the Widowed Mrs. and her boy, Jim, feel inclined to garnish, and quite right) a treasure map.  Jim carries it to the only learned person he knows — a local doctor who once resuscitated Bones — and they join forces with a rich nobleman, outfit a ship, gain a crew, and set off in search of gold.  They find it, all right, along with mutiny, marooning, and cold-blooded murrrderrr… me hearties…

Two things to say about Treasure Island.

First. Jim Hawkins has got to be the bravest little dude ever.

We never learn his exact age, but this is a kid of no more than 10, facing down malaria, scurvy, starvation, muskets, and all-out war with some of the nastiest sea curs of all time.  Jim’s the one who uncovers the mutiny (planned by the ship’s cook, and Bones’ nemesis, Long John Silver) in the first place, on the trip out, thanks to a steadfast little heart and bold, clever thinking.  Also, an empty apple barrel.  And Silver’s own stupidity.

Kinda makes me want a bad-ass little son of my own…

Once they reach the island, Jim is absolutely fearless, first leaving the safety of the ship to spy on the mutineers during their first trip to shore, then hauling back to the ship — now sporting that sassy skull-and-crossbones flag — to wrest back control from the two pirates charged with guarding it.

Second. This is a 19th-century Scottish guy’s rather canny written impersonation of an 18th-century British child’s first adventure on the seas.

The result?  Some of the most uncertain phrasing ever.

Much of my understanding of what was happening was total guesswork or formulated only in retrospect, thanks to later context clues.  Like this sentence:

“The wind, serving us to a desire, now hauled into the west.”

So I ask myself, is the wind “serving up” their boat and their fragile little lives into the random direction of its own whims and desires?  Or is it that the “desire” is the sailors’, and the wind was serving them as its masters?

I believe I settled on the latter, because they seemed to get where they wanted to go — and fast.

But still!

Leslie and I give it our best “baffling but enjoyable” faces.

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896) by H.G. Wells

Summary: Just yer basic sci-fi classic.  Edward Prendick is shipwrecked on a tiny raft with two other guys.  They broach the topic (as only the British can) of who shall be eating whom, and his two raftmates end up battling to their mutual deaths — so we know right off the bat this Prendick’s a survivor.  A passing ship picks him up very near death.  He’s revived by a Dr. Montgomery and finds himself on a ship filled with various animal species and a strange half-dog-man with a slavering visage and a cowering demeanor.  Montgomery is reluctant to bring Prendick to the titular island of  his employ, but his pity (humanity) decides the course.  They arrive.  And that’s where things go down…

Pigpeople, dogpeople, little lambkids, hyenaswineguys, cheetahbearladies… you name it, Moreau has vivisected it and then abandoned it, a failure, in the woods.

Prendick freaks out on Moreau because he thinks these Beast Folk are people that have been mated with or somehow turned into animals — but vivisector extraordinaire Moreau talks him down from all that, saying, nah, son, they’re simply animals awakened to speech and self-awareness, imbued with certain aspects of humanity.

Like that’s so much better!

Moreau uses this point to justify treating them really badly.  They didn’t start out as humans; I just taught their bodies and minds to behave that way.  But how is an animal-cum-human any less human than a human-cum-animal?

Anyway, good story; simply gorgeous prose:

“The colourless clearness that comes after the sunset flush was darkling; the blue sky above grew momentarily deeper, and the little stars one by one pierced the attenuated light; the interspace of the trees, the gaps in the further vegetation, that had been hazy blue in the daylight, grew black and mysterious.”

However, Wells is entirely too keen on “incontinently,” a pretty hilarious adverb that I can only guess means “abruptly” and “in such a way that control was not used.”

Still, I liked it very much and have asked Leslie to give it his uniquely charming approval.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2002) by Stieg Larrson

Summary: Mikael is a financial investigative journalist in hot water for libeling a multifariously evil gangster of industry (turns out his “source” for the exposé was a set-up, courtesy of the gangster himself).  He sneaks away from his little magazine in Stockholm to let things cool down, only to get wrapped up in a decades-old murder mystery.  The victim’s great uncle, who’s also a former employer of Swedish Gangster Guy, promises to deliver the dirt on Gangster (the good stuff, on the record) if Mikael can deliver the truth about what happened to his darling niece.  But before hiring Mikael, Uncle had a high-tech young PI named Lisbeth check him out.  She’s a tiny, crazed hacker with a repulsively sad back story and a photographic memory and nerves of steel — eminently likable, if somewhat socio.  They meet in a dumb way and team up cutely to solve da case.

All in all, a pretty good translation (from Swedish) of a pretty darn terrific book.  Great layering and interweaving of stories.  Fantastic suspense and mysteriousness.  Entertainingly complex relationships.  Super compelling characters.

I’m not jonesing to read Nos. 2 or 3, mostly because my brother-in-law said they’re less good; plus, I find this kind of book un-put-down-able — not a desirable feature for me, a certifiable reading addict.  This one I read in 30 hours flat (with plenty of time off for sleeping, socializing, and skeet shooting).

Anyway, loved it.

But since I’m a critic… here are four things wrong with the book:

[1]  Too many sentences like this:  “She took the tunnelbana from Zinkensdamm to Östermalmstorg and walked down towards Strandvägen.”

[2]  Mikael is a total slut.  He’s forever being seduced and is unable to say no to any female.  Whether she’s married, old, ugly, vulnerable, crazy… he’s on it.

[3]  Coffee, coffee, coffee.  Anytime anyone buckles down to do a job, he or she pulls out the ol’ coffeemaker, grinds the beans, fills a thermos or two, and knocks back a few pots.  It’s irritating because, despite its omnipresence in the story, coffee does nothing whatever to drive the plot.  Also, it made me really want coffee.

[4]  The title is dumb.  Yes, Lisbeth has a dragon tattoo on her shoulder blade — one tattoo among half a dozen.  But the dragon doesn’t hold any clues or serve to identify her in some special way.  It doesn’t even hold that much meaning to her in the book.  If yer gonna choose important tattoo, make it one that’s relevant to the story; a more apt title would be The Girl With the Loop Tattoo Around Her Ankle So She’ll Never Forget the Time She Was Bound to A Bed and Anally Raped By Her Sicko Legal Guardian.

But actually, the original title (in Swedish) is Men Who Hate Women.  I’d even prefer that.

All in all, it earns Leslie’s *THRILLED* face.

I’m 20 Books Ahead of Myself

Sigh.

Eternity’s End (2001) by Jeffrey A. Carver

Summary: We begin with the pilot Legroeder’s bold escape from seven years of forced servitude with space pirates (the “Kyber,” just yer basic cyborgs with an affinity for theft and slavery).  He steals a spaceship and flies off into FAR WORSE danger. *wah-waaahhh*

His first stop: the nearest planet, where he’s thrown into jail on illogical charges and false evidence (he’s accused of intentionally turning his ship over to the pirates).  Legroeder begins to suspect the Kyber have infiltrated the planet’s government and police.  Yeah, he’s right.  Fortunately, a sweet old lady posts bail for him – because her grandson was with him on the ship that got jacked – and turns out to be a brilliant attorney with incredible resources and tenacity to devote to his case.  Thus begins a long and improbable journey that involves Legroeder teaming up with hostile aliens, breaking back into the pirates’ stronghold, and clearing his name by freeing the ghost ship (the “Flying Dutchman” of space) that lured him into captivity in the foist place.

Sound complicated, yet dumb?  Well, there you have it.

This book – actually a TREMENDOUSLY long four-parter – had some pretty sweet goods and some truly ghastly bads.

My only major grievance is that [a] the story didn’t seem to take off until well into the third book, and [b] the book came to an end just as the story was really starting to take off.

Here, I even made a Grievance Graph:

Apart from that, lemme break it down like this.

THE SCIENCE

Good:  “Riggers” climb into a ship’s “net” to “fly,” somehow using their emotional state to manipulate the “currents” and “streams” of the “flux.”  Carver, you’re oh-so-breezy with the terminology of this space travel you invented, and I’m sure it’s all very clear in your head…

Bad:  …but just because YOU get it doesn’t mean I do, too.  In fact, though your descriptions of this revolutionary method of space navigation take up many loooong portions of text, I was left unsatisfied and annoyed, with only an amorphous idea of how it works or even what it looks like.

THE LANGUAGE

Good:  Lots of interesting and believable titles of stuff.  Like the Narseil Rigging Institute, which just SOUNDS venerable.  Or the Spacing Authority.  Or Hizhonor Brown – a natural progression from “judge.”

Bad:  To describe one race’s belief that it should colonize the galaxy: Destiny Manifest.  Yeah, I see what you did there, Carver.  Same thing you did to the title.  So not cool.

Then there’s his use of the word “implants” to describe the subcutaneous chip enhancements used by the Kyber.  That made me giggle practically every time.  (I’m totally making “implants” a tag to get me some extra search juice.)  He occasionally called them “augments” instead, only slightly better.

THE PLOT

Good:  Plenty of sexual tension.

Bad:  Too many gd love interests!  There’s Maris, there’s Harriet, her daughter Morgan, Tracey-Ace/Alfa, and Janofer.  He seems to be in love with Tracey-Ace but admits that may have more to do with her “implants” and the enhanced love-makin’ they permit.

For so little intrigue per page, I give Eternity’s End my very best glarey face.

Marked (2010) by Elisabeth Naughton

Summary: Acacia (Casey) Simopolous is a human… mostly.  Her mysterious origins, misfit tendencies, and the birthmark on her booty (of an omega with wings) beg to differ.  And so do these beautiful hottie strangers who keep turning up to save her life.  Yep.  Turns out she’s also the daughter of the king of the Argonauts — immortal descendants of Jason’s hero-sailors that occupy another plane of existence but can pretty easily pop into our world to mess with us.  And alas, poor Acacia, things are about to get messy.

This was pretty creative, all told.  The plotting and writing had tinges of 15-year-old-girl-with-hormone-induced-insanity to ’em, sure.  But I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Also, it contained this bit of awesome:

Q: What’s the difference between a brown-noser and a total shithead?

A: Depth perception.

I dunno about you, but I got a good old-fashioned belly laugh out of that one.  It started out “PFffft!” — I was NOT expecting intelligent scatology from this book — and devolved into a series of satisfying “har-har-hars.”

Nice, Naughton!

The only bogus thing was how LAME the bad guys are.

1. The major enemy is Atalanta, a one-time Argonaut who sold her soul or something for more power or something.  She stands to lose her immortality or something if Casey reunites with her identically-marked half-sister.  She was sketchy and boring.  She’s got a little streak of ruthless going, but she NEVER mounts a direct threat to the good guys — only sends her goons after them, all like “AFTER THEM!”
2. Her goons are a pack of huge, ugly, wolfy “daemons.”  But they suck at fighting.  They attack one at a time, are, like, zombie-slow, and don’t use weapons of any kind.  Our hero Theron can take on three or four without breaking a sweat.  Oh, though they can regenerate, which is a little unsettling until you learn the strange, unusual, mystical secret that cutting off their heads — *golly, their heads, of all things!* — kills ’em for good.
3. Hades himself turns out to be a boring married dude.  He has a vague interest in human affairs and can pretty easily be bribed or even tricked if you don’t like where he’s going with something.  Terrifying sovereign of torment and suffering he is not.

Not a bad read here, if you’re a sucker for Greek mythology and sexy demi-gods and soul mates.  Which you doubtless are.

Hm.  I just noticed Marked was published by a company called “Love Spell.”  Am I being screwed with here?  Did I just enjoy a harlequin romance??

Whatev.  For single-read purposes, I loved it.  And here’s the happy Valerie face to prove it.

This Made My Day

Assuming I can download it for free somehow, this is getting READ.  IMMEDIATELY.

I love the cover quote:  “Totally original… I wish I’d had this idea.”

Yeah – golly – howEVER did it occur to the author to combine vampires… and pirates…?

All Things Impossible (2009) by Dalton Reed

Summary: In addition to the usual suspects – humans, elves, dwarves, ogres – this fantasy world boasts chemmen.  Bad little dudes with orange eyes and a eusocial, hive-like organization (like ants or bees or communists).  They were banished to, like, purgatory for a good, long while after collectively murdering a bunch of non-chemmen to gain immortality for their race.  But now they’re back.  And they’re maaad.

Lord, I had a hard time forcing this one down.  I read the last 20 pages or so in violent hiccups and burps – a sure sign I’m about to regurgitate splashes of half-digested plot everywhere.

The story was just so basic.

Chemmen return to kill the elfin royalty that thwarted and expelled them.  They slaughter the king and queen.  Two princes escape; much moping ensues.  A couple callow-but-charming human teens fall implausibly into the fray.  They meet the one “good” chemman in the whole race willing and able to turn rat and aid their cause (he has an annoying half-elf kid).  Toss in some dwarves to lighten the mood with Scottish-tinged jabbering about food and beards.  And wind it all up with the usual deus ex machina to clean up the unwinnable high-stakes showdown at a castle-fortress.

*Hiccup*

I can’t see that it added anything whatever to the fantasy genre.

Here’s the one fresh idea I found:  These elves believe – and won’t hesitate to argue – that because they are immortal (unless killed), their lives are more precious and their deaths more regrettable.

Pretty annoying of them…

But one elf makes a good point that immortals have no need for an afterlife, because they expect they’ll have their loved ones always.  So when they’re gone, they’re gone forever, along with any hope of reunion.

And the chemmen, while immortal, have the hive mentality, and so no regard for individual life.  So their immortal lives are meaningless.

And human life is right in the middle somewhere – short but meaningful.

But now let’s talk for just a moment about sentences:  Dalton Reed cannot write them.

There’s the badly written sentence:

• “She hit back awkwardly, and he laughably blocked anything she tried.” (Laughingly = done while laughing.  Laughably = done in a way that arouses laughter or scorn.)
• “Six bodies walked ungainly into the camp, issuing guttural, slurred noises.” (When adverbs and adjectives collide, eh?)
• “He narrowed his eyes at the prisoner, which were so deep blue they appeared black in the darkness.” (BASIC ENGLISH, BRO.)

There’s the just-didn’t-think-that-one-thru sentence:

• “The younger prince pried his lips open with his tongue.” (Welll… Pried… whose lips open?  His own?  The elder prince’s lips?  [Context does not help.]  And with whose… tongue?)
• “‘Right. No worries,'” Der said in a dry tone of voice that most certainly was not.” (WHAT?)
• “Jakkobb nodded quickly. He silently clapped his massive hands. ‘Time for lunch.'” (Silently clapped?  Son of a…)

And then there are these wholly unacceptable sentences:

• “Der made a disgusted face, as if she’d just eaten a dirty sock.” (Personally, I’m more likely to make a disgusted face just before I consume a dirty sock.  Or during.  If I’ve just eaten it, you can bet I’m lookin’ relieved.)
• “The tears on his face carried more water than a rainstorm.” (No.  Sorry.  They just didn’t.)
• “Once again, the Pallens sword flowed like sharpened silk at her command.” (Oh, GOOD one.)

Because I had a lot of fun looking for mutant sentences, I’ll give it my drunk-on-Dad’s-best-champagne face.

Alien Cradle (2009) by Jeff Inlo

Summary: A scientific council charged with the search for extra-terrestrial life decides to just go ahead and create some.  It’s either that, or lose face (and funding).  Spurred on by an domineering and unscrupulous jerklady named Dr. Sinclair, scientists splice together the DNA of a skink, a lizard, and a gorilla… instill it with the knowledge, language, and technology of a pre-industrial humanoid… and plant creature colonies onto a barren, lifeless planet called Fenrir.  And HEY, whaddyaknow, problems arise.

I found within this full-length book two original and interesting ideas.  That’s kinda shameful – one idea every 150 pages or so.

Here they are:

I. The council acts out of fear that its failure to turn up alien life will expose their work as fatuous and wasteful, such that religion will take over as the barometer of progress and worth in their society.

Just wow, science guys.

Remember the global warming kerfuffle back in January?  When the scientist behind a U.N. climate change report admitted he used erroneous data to create political pressure?  Aaaaand thereby gave dummies and fundamentalists enough “science is fraud” ammunition to last them through several raptures and apocalypses?

Fear is far more powerful than politics.  And here’s what interested me in Alien Cradle:  Fear of the power of faith (of all things, now!) may be strong enough to push a practitioner to knowingly subvert the very things (in this case, truth and ethics) that make her practice valuable.

So let’s all be aware of that, I guess.

And acknowledge that, maaan, a lie is a lie is a lie!  Falsification will only undermine your cause, even if it’s for a “good” one.

II. The scientists use gene manipulation (er somethin’) to speed up the species’ evolution.  Of course, THAT spins out of control in record time…  Like, within a matter of months, they’re perfecting nuclear weapons.

But it’s not just their hyper-mutation that lets the aliens develop and progress so rapidly – it’s their united front.  Some aliens have tails, and some don’t.  Yet they’re not hampered by tails, or by myth or religion or sociological variety or property or status or individuality. They ain’t got time for it.

They have a simple directive – I won’t get it into it bc it’s dumb – that they unite to pursue.  And they go FAR.  FAST.

Contrast the humans’ redundant government agencies, evil personal agendas, outrageous political infighting, and – well, it’s downright embarrassing.  Small wonder the story ends in genocide, eh, humanity?

Allowing that, now I would like to make two points that perhaps the author can learn from.  Not that I could write a book, but I am kind of a professional:

I. As a reader, I like my protagonists useless, unprincipled, and friendless.

Oh wait – NO I DON’T.

Our “hero” is a mercenary pilot who scouts distant planets for alien life and whatever gems he can haul away in his little ship.  He gets caught up in the plot when he illegally returns to Fenrir, after his initial recon expedition, to steal an extra load of sapphires.  But in the meantime, the council has planted an alien civilization on that planet.  So they hafta try to convince him he overlooked it.  He basically buys the story and jumps on the payroll to save his own thieving tail.

He comes equipped with neither family nor friend – he rats out his only friend, the gem-buyer – but plenty of churlish whining, airsickness, and propensity to flee.  And his name is Rath Scampion.  SO dumb.  (Tho not so bad as some of Inlo’s other heros – like Ryson Acumen.  Or hey, paging Dr. Jim Sagacity!  LOL)

II. My other point – and granted, the book was free – is that Inlo couldn’t pick the right preposition if it fell in off the sky from!

Check, e.g., these majestic sentences:

• “It was simply a matter of time as the landings would begin in earnest.”
• “Dr. Sinclair leaned back on her chair.”
• “Lar just buried his face toward the ground as he kept walking.”

Thus, my rating for this book is this really abashed shameface.

Frankly, Alien Cradle was so bad, I’m embarrassed for us all: you, me, the author, and especially the characters.