Reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 02/17/2006]

LOOKING FOR JAKE by China Miéville (ISBN 0-345-47607-7) is a collection of fourteen of his shorter works. I had hoped to find these more accessible than his novels, but I found almost all of them just as impenetrable. I can, however, recommend "'Tis the Season". In this short story (which appeared in "The Socialist Review"!), the worst fears of the Religious Right have come to pass, and the celebration of Christmas is prohibited. No parties, no holly, no mistletoe, no trees, .... But it is not political correctness gone wild. And it has nothing to do with the First Amendment and the separation of church and state (in part because Miéville is British, writing for a British audience). No, it's because all of these things have been trademarked and so you can't have a Christmas tree, you must have a Christmas Tree(tm) and pay a license fee for it. The same with Holly(tm), Mistletoe(tm), and so on. "It felt so forlorn, putting my newspaper-wrapped presents next to the aspidistra, but ever since YuleCo bought the right to coloured paper and under- tree storage, the inspectors had clamped down on Subarboreal Giftery." Frankly, Miéville's "nightmare future" seems far more likely to me than the nightmare future of Christmas being forbidden because of political correctness. After all, one cannot now sing "Happy Birthday to You" in public without owing royalties on it! Speaking of which, a good companion piece for this would be Frederik Pohl's "Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus" (written a half century ago and depressingly prescient). Both of these stories get added to "Newton's Mass" by Timothy Esaias in my mental list of stories that *I* would put in a Christmas anthology, were I ever to undertake such an unlikely task.

To order Looking for Jake from amazon.com, click here.

UN LUN DUN by China Miéville:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 09/21/2007]

UN LUN DUN is China Miéville's first YA (young adult) novel (ISBN-13 978-0-345-49516-7, ISBN-10 0-345-49516-0), and it is on my list of novels to nominate for the Hugo. Miéville takes the conventions and tropes of fantasy, and of literature, and turns them on their head. For example, reading this I got to a point where I suddenly decided that Miéville had been strongly influenced by the opening line of Charles Dickens's DAVID COPPERFIELD ("Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."). And it also seems as though he used Diana Wynne Jones's A TOUGH GUIDE TO FANTASYLAND as a cautionary work. In addition to these elements, there is a lot of wordplay--in addition to Un Lun Dun, we have Parisn't and Lost Angeles, and the river in Un Lun Dun is the Smeath. If the threat in the novel is a bit more topical than the usual evil wizard sort of stuff, well, that's okay too.

To order Un Lun Dun from amazon.com, click here.

MONSTERS by Roy Milano:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 12/08/2006]

MONSTERS, credited as by Universal Studios, but with text by Roy Milano (ISBN 0-345-48685-4) is a coffee-table book apparently designed to go with Universal Studio's "Legacy" packs. [Universal has released (almost) all of their series monster movie films from the 1930s and 1940s, calling these releases Legacy packs. This book could almost have been an extra feature given out if one bought multiple Legacy packs.--mrl] The book breaks out "The Bride of Frankenstein" from "Frankenstein", but otherwise has a one-to-one match of chapters with the Legacy packs. If you have the packs, there is not much reason to buy this; if you do not have the packs, you should spend your money on those instead. The book is mostly atmospheric publicity stills of the monsters, with brief essays on each film by people like Sara Karloff and Bela Lugosi, Jr. But most of these people were interviewed for the documentaries included with the movies, so there is not much new here.

To order Monsters from amazon.com, click here.

SELECTED MODERN ENGLISH ESSAYS edited by Humphrey Milford:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 10/03/2003]

While I was standing in line at Toronto, I was reading SELECTED MODERN ENGLISH ESSAYS edited by Humphrey Milford for the Oxford University Press in 1925. This is not because I am necessarily especially enamored of modern English essays (which aren't so modern any more), but because the book is small and light enough to be easily carried around in a pocket, while having enough content to last a while. Not all the essays were good, or even readable, but two stood out. One was Gilbert Norwood's "Too Many Books" in which he writes, "Week in, week out, a roaring torrent of novels, essays, plays, poems, books of travel, devotion, and philosophy, flows through the land--all good, all 'provocative of thought' or else 'in the best tradition of British humour'; and that is the mischief of it. And they are so huge. Look at 'The Forsyte Saga,' confessedly in itself a small library of fiction; 'The Challenge of Sirius' is four short novels stitched together; consider 'The Golden Bough,' how it grows." If one replaces "The Forsyte Saga" with "The Wheel of Time", "The Challenge of Sirius" with "The Book of Ash", and "The Golden Bough" with "Discworld", nothing else need be done to make it as true today as then, or to note that it was as true then as today. Norwood's modest proposal includes prohibiting t he writing of all novels for ten years, and even after that time prohibiting "those treating the following topics: (a the Great War, (b) girls dressed in salad and living beside lagoons, (c) imaginary kingdoms with regents called Black Boris, (d) any type of 'lure.'" Other aspects of his proposal are equally amusing.

The other essay was J. C. Squire's "On Destroying Books" (available at http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Best/ SquireDestroyBooks.htm [no carriage return in URL] or http://tinyurl.com/oy5e). Triggered by a report that a request for books to be sent to the troops during the Great War resulted in not only the usual novels and magazines, but also "magazines twenty years old, guides to the Lake District, Bradshaws, and back numbers of 'Whitaker's Almanack," Squire theorizes that these were because people didn't know how else to get rid of these old books, and describes his attempts to dispose of some "books of inferior minor verse." Certainly I can identify with the problem.

To order Selected Modern English Essays from amazon.com, click here.

THE RIVER OF DOUBT by Candice Millard:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 05/01/2009]

And speaking of large projects, THE RIVER OF DOUBT by Candice Millard (read by Richard Ferrone) (ISBN-13 978-0-7393-2303-8, ISBN-10 0-7393-2303-2; book ISBN-13 978-0-7679-1373-7, ISBN-10 0-7679-1373-6) is about yet another example of why accurate planning is important. After losing his bid for the Presidency in 1912, Roosevelt went to South America, supposedly to travel down a reasonably well-known river. The person organizing the expedition selected most of the principals without really thinking it through. For example, he chose as the quartermaster on the jungle trip a man whose only experience in exploration was an Arctic polar expedition--and a failed one at that!

And then when the expedition got to South America, they somehow decided to change their plan from a relatively safe river to the River of Doubt, a completely unknown river in a region supposedly inhabited by hostile tribes. To some extent, this decision was of the magnitude of the Donner party's decision to take the short cut.

I have already reviewed Roosevelt's account, THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS, of the Roosevelt-Rondon Expedition to map what was then called the "River of Doubt" (Rio da Duvida), was renamed Rio Roosevelt, and then later renamed Rio Teodoro. As I noted, "his descriptions of the land, the animals, and the plants are first- rate, but he does somewhat gloss over some of the hardships of the expedition, in specific the illnesses. I suppose perhaps it was considered 'unmanly' to complain of malaria, blood poisoning, and so on, but the result is a slightly incomplete picture of the expedition." Millard corrects these omissions, talking at length about Roosevelt's injuries and illnesses, including that he was so incapacitated at one point that he told the others to leave him behind with a vial of morphine he always carried on expeditions for just such a situation. (They didn't.)

This book is a good read on its own, but is even better when read in conjunction with THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS http://tinyurl.com/TR-brazil>. My review can be found at (at http://www.oocities.org/athens/4824/rev-r3.htm#brazilian>.

To order The River of Doubt from amazon.com, click here.

DARWIN FOR BEGINNERS by Jonathan Miller and Borin Van Loon:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 06/23/2006]

DARWIN FOR BEGINNERS by Jonathan Miller and Borin Van Loon (ISBN 0-679-72511-3) is one of a series that is competition in a way to the "Introducing" series I have previously written about. (And, yes, it is "Borin", not "Boris".) The "Beginners" series is usually somewhat more political, but this volume is less so than others, and it is written by Jonathan Miller, polymath. Miller is a physician, actor, writer, and director, so he understands both the science and the art of presenting it in an entertaining fashion. And Van Loon's illustrations are considerably more elaborate than most of what one finds in the "Introducing" series.

One of the techniques Van Loon uses is to represent the scientific approach is the inclusion in many of the illustrations of a pair of characters: one has (variously) a tartan cape, curved pipe, magnifying glass, deerstalker cap, and aquiline features. The other man has an average British face with a mustache. They are not named anywhere, but they are immediately identifiable.

I do have a small quibble with one illustration: a package sent in 1858 has a stamp on it saying "Malaysia"--it should be "Malaya".

Miller and Van Loon work together to explain why "obvious" theories take so long to be formulated. They compare people looking at the world to people looking at "optical illusions". For example, there is a classic drawing which, when looked at one way is a young woman, another way, an old hag. Or the drawing which is either two silhouettes facing each other, or a goblet. As long as you are used to seeing one of these one way, you may never see it the other way until it is pointed out. And then it seems obvious.

I recommend this book--even if you understand Darwin's theory, the illustrations are fascinating.

To order Darwin for Beginners from amazon.com, click here.

THE BRONTE MYTH by Lucasta Miller:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 08/11/2006]

THE BRONTE MYTH by Lucasta Miller (ISBN 0-375-41277-8) is not a book about the Brontes' works, or a book about the Brontes, but a book about the way the Brontes have been considered by critics and the public since their works first appeared. Miller examines how the misconceptions started in earnest with Elizabeth Gaskell's LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE (although the Brontes themselves worked at projecting a specific image from the time they started writing). Most of what the public "knows" about the Brontes (e.g., they had a deprived upbringing isolated on the moors by a strict and parsimonious cleric father) turns out to be false. Everyone involved--the various Brontes, Gaskell, reviewers, other biographies, and so on--had an agenda, and so what they wrote and said was as much controlled by that agenda as by the truth. Over the years the agenda has changed, and new documents have been discovered which have shed new light on the Brontes and required re-evaluations. This was apparently written this before Jasper Fforde made Jane Eyre a major character in his first Thursday Next novel, THE EYRE AFFAIR, or Miller probably would have included that book in her discussion of how Charlotte Bronte's novel has become part of popular culture. Even if you are unfamiliar with the lives (or myths) of the Brontes, this book is useful as a study of how political, social, and literary agendas can shape what "history" records.

To order The Bronte Myth from amazon.com, click here.

SAINT LEIBOWITZ AND THE WILD HORSE WOMAN

by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (Bantam, ISBN 0-553-10704-6, 1997, 448pp, hardback):

In 1961, Walter M. Miller's Canticle for Leibowitz won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. (Miller, by the way, shares with Octavia Butler of having the best "Hugo batting average": both have been nominated two times for Hugos and both won both times.) Now, thirty-six years later, comes a sequel, or rather, a coquel, since the action of Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman takes place between the second and third parts of the original novel. (Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman was written primarily by Miller before his death, and completed by Terry Bisson.)

A Canticle for Leibowitz is a great book. Part of what made it great was that it was fresh and new in its use of the Catholic Church as the lightbearer through the Dark Ages following the Flame Deluge. But Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman doesn't have that. As I read it, I found myself thinking, "Been there, done that." The story, of Brother Blacktooth's spiritual quest, is an acceptable post-holocaust story, but it isn't great. This is much more a story of politics and warfare than of theology or faith.

The other problem is not as obvious, and I needed Gary Wolfe to put words to it: what we're reading here is an alternate history in which the Flame Deluge occurred--in the early 1960s. The Catholicism here is pre-Vatican II, pre-liberation theology, and in general more the Catholicism of the past than the present. Having made his bed in 1959, Miller decided to lie in it rather than remake it (as Asimov attempted to do with his "Foundation" series, for example). But Miller has made some changes, with more emphasis on religious images and ideas apparently drawn from Native American religions.

Does Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman have flaws? Yes. Is it worth reading? Yes. Does it stand on its own? No, but then, A Canticle for Leibowitz is a classic in the field of science fiction that everyone should read.

(I find it interesting--and a bit depressing--that Bantam's cover blurb for Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman calls it "the sequel to the best-selling classic A Canticle for Leibowitz," making it sound as though A Canticle for Leibowitz is in the same category as Danielle Steel.)

To order Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman from amazon.com (starting February 2000), click here.

SHERLOCK HOLMES & THE RED DEMON by Larry Millett:

MURDER IN BAKER STREET edited by Martin H. Greenberg:

Not all the mysteries I read are old, but most seem to be set in an earlier time. For example, I follow the various Sherlock Holmes pastiches. The first in Larry Millett's "Holmes in Minnesota" series, SHERLOCK HOLMES & THE RED DEMON, was actually the third of the series I had read. (The other two were SHERLOCK HOLMES & THE ICE PALACE MURDERS and SHERLOCK HOLMES & THE RUNE STONE MYSTERY, and a fourth SHERLOCK HOLMES & THE SECRET ALLIANCE is now out and "in process" at my local library.) It was passable, though a tad too "modern" in terms of attitudes for me. Martin H. Greenberg's MURDER IN BAKER STREET is another original anthology of stories of varying quality, but certainly worth a read for Holmes fans.

To order Sherlock Holmes & the Red Demon from amazon.com, click here.

To order Murder in Baker Street from amazon.com, click here.

EXPLORERS OF THE NEW CENTURY by Magnus Mills:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 06/30/2006]

EXPLORERS OF THE NEW CENTURY by Magnus Mills (ISBN 0-15-603078-0) starts out as a straightforward exploration story, with two competing teams trying to reach the AFP ("Agreed Furthest Point"). The two groups land their ships on a desolate shore, unload their mules and their supplies, and start out. Some events seem almost pastiches of the Shackleton and other polar expeditions. (For example, Shackleton's ship was the Endurance; one in the book was the Perseverance.) However, as the groups progress, the similarities are fewer and various anomalies start to appear. (Actually, the changes are fairly predictable, assuming one does expect the book to eventually make its own way.) Even so, it is also a nicely compact story (at 184 pages), and I would recommend it.

To order Explorers of the New Century from amazon.com, click here.

CRAFTING THE VERY SHORT STORY edited by Mark Mills:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 08/03/2007]

It is difficult to recommend CRAFTING THE VERY SHORT STORY edited by Mark Mills (ISBN-10 0-130-86762-4, ISBN-13 978-0-130-86762-9), given that it is priced as a textbook, at $50.20. (Only a textbook would have such an oddball price!) But it does have a few items worth noting. In addition to Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas", it has useful essays by LeGuin on "Sentence Length and Complex Syntax" and "Points of View". And Naguib Mahfouz's "Half a Day" may be magical realism, or it may be fantasy, or it may be something else entirely. One might argue, however, that the inclusion of the story of the Prodigal Son (credited to "Luke" rather than "Saint Luke") is superfluous. I found the book at a used bookstore that normally charged half cover price, but they charged me less than a quarter of it. If you find it cheap enough, it is an interesting collection, interspersed with essays by the authors and others.

To order Crafting the Very Short Story from amazon.com, click here.

THE MOLECULAR CAFE from Mir Publications:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 05/02/2003]

There is also a late 1960s anthology of translated Russian science fiction, THE MOLECULAR CAFE, which seems a little more accessible than a lot of translated Russian science fiction. It still seems very different than English-language science fiction--I don't know if it's the translating, or whether the basic assumptions about story and structure are different.

To order The Molecular Cafe from amazon.com, click here.

"Finisterra by David Moles:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 07/11/2008]

"Finisterra" by David Moles (F&SF Dec) was another story that I just could not get into. I understand that for all the stories I say that about--or at least all the Hugo nominees--there are many people who disagree with me, but I have to call 'em as I see 'em.

BOOK ROW by Marvin Mondlin and Roy Meador:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 06/17/2005]

Marvin Mondlin and Roy Meador's BOOK ROW (ISBN 0-7867-1305-4) is described as "an anecdotal and pictorial history of the antiquarian book trade." Anecdotal, yes, but not really pictorial--except for the end papers and eight center pages there are no pictures. And as the title suggests, this is more specifically about the bookstores and booksellers of Fourth Avenue in New York than the broader subject of antiquarian book selling in general.

Mondlin and Meador focus on the personalities (and practices) of the booksellers, with fewer stories about particular books or events than I would have liked. But there are a few. One bookseller had a woman come from a Rolls-Royce, looking for a copy of Jared Smith's ARITHMETIC. It was an old book, and she knew it was a "trillion-to-one chance", but it was a book her father had written. The dealer went back and pulled out a leather-bound copy from 1860. But even more astonishing, it was her original book, with an inscription from her father!

Not all the stories are as heart-warming, at least to the authors. One is of two partners who are called to a hotel by the manager who wants to sell them a room full of books left by a tenant. All he wants is $75 (just to get rid of the books), but the partners spend so long looking at the marvelous treasures there that when they went to leave the manager said that the hotel's attorney had told him to wait and contact the heirs of the tenant first. The deal fell through and a year later the heirs sold just forty of the books at auction for $60,000. One gets the feeling that the authors sympathize with the distress of the partners, but I would say that they should have known that the hotel owner should contact the heirs. (In THE NINTH GATE, we have less sympathy for the people who are cheated by Depp because they seem greedy. In this real case, the heirs were not even aware of the books.)

Of all the booksellers described, the ones of most interest to me were Haskell and Ann Gruberger. They ran the Social Science Book Store, which for many years was a mail-order business only. In 1967 they opened a retail shop on Fourth Avenue, only to be faced with rising rents. A pair of events in 1969 (an offer to take over their space from one person, and an offer from McGill University to buy their stock) led them to close that store. But that did not leave the book-selling business. They moved to Northampton, and opened The Old Book Store, which they described as a "Supermarket of Old and New Books with Something for Everyone". And The Old Book Store is where Mark and I spent may happy hours (and many dollars, though the prices were quite reasonable) while we were in college in Amherst. And we still do--The Old Book Store is still there, in the basement of the building where it opened almost forty years ago.

To order Book Row from amazon.com, click here.

The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 05/01/2009]

Our discussion group read THE LAST CHINESE CHEF by Nicole Mones (ISBN-13 978-0-547-05373-8, ISBN-10 0-547-05373-8), with the plot about a woman who is investigating a claim about her deceased husband and meets a Chinese American who is the son and grandson of great Chinese chefs and is going to compete in a cooking contest. I found the long discussions of the philosophy and practice of Chinese food far more interesting than the mystery or romance plot, so for the benefit of those who want to read only those parts, they are on pages 26-28, 34-54, 63-69, 76-80, 95-99, 122-136, 148-150, 152-155, 165-170, 183-195, and 228-242.

To order The Last Chinese Chef from amazon.com, click here.

LETTERS BACK TO ANCIENT CHINA by Herbert Rosendorfer (translated by Michael Mitchell):

PERSIAN LETTERS by Montesquieu:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 09/22/2006]

In 1998, I read LETTERS BACK TO ANCIENT CHINA by Herbert Rosendorfer (translated by Michael Mitchell) (ISBN 1-873982-97-6). This consisted of a series of letters written to Dji-gu by Kao-tai, a Chinese mandarin from the tenth century who finds himself in twentieth century Munich. (Dji-gu is still in the tenth century.) At the time I did not realize it, but now I realize that this was probably a pastiche/homage to Montesquieu's PERSIAN LETTERS (1721, translated by C. J. Betts, 1973) (ISBN 0- 14-044281-2). (As often happens, I encountered the copy before the original, so could not entirely appreciate it. For example, I saw KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE before ENTER THE DRAGON.) PERSIAN LETTERS is a classic of literature and philosophy, and its form is a series of letters written between two Persian travelers to Europe (particularly Paris) and various people back in Ispahan. By using the reactions of outsiders to European society, Montesquieu was able to show its foibles more clearly. In this sense one might almost claim him as a forerunner of science fiction, which also uses the alien (either in space or time) to hold up a mirror to ourselves.

In Letter 85, for example, Uzbek writes that a plan to force all the Armenians in Persia to convert or leave was wisely abandoned, adding, "To have proscribed the Armenians would have meant wiping out in a single day all the businessmen and almost all the skilled workers in the kingdom, . . . and that in sending his most highly skilled subjects away to the Mongol and other Indian kings he would have felt as if he were presenting them with half his territory." This, of course, is just what Spain did in 1492, to her detriment and the advancement of Holland and other countries.

I will also note that the cover illustration of the Penguin edition from J. E. Liotard's "Turkish Woman and Her Slave". In this painting, there is a sink with a "mixer faucet" on it. Liotard lived in the 18th century, so these must have existed then, yet as recently as the 1980s, they seemed rare in Britain. And when we asked about why they were rare, we were told that people did not think the technology had really been worked out yet!

To order Letters Back to Ancient China from amazon.com, click here.

To order Persian Letters from amazon.com, click here.

THE SPEED OF DARK by Elizabeth Moon (Ballantine, 2003, ISBN 0-345-44755-7, 340pp):

Everyone is comparing this to FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON, and in a way that seems to miss the whole point. In FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON, the memorable parts are those in which Charley is less intelligent, and in reading how he interprets what is going on around him while we realize that he is wrong. But the whole point of THE SPEED OF DARK is that our autistic main character is *not* mentally slow but "differently abled." That phrase usually means "less abled," but Lou Arrendale is indeed differently abled, in that while he has difficulty with new situations and changes to his routine, he can also see patterns where others cannot and (we eventually discover) can learn as much neurology in a week as most medical students take a semester or more to do.

Of course, one similarity to FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON is that its science is entirely medical and psychological, which will lead some people to ask, "But what makes it science fiction?" It is, of course, science fiction in that the medical techniques which have allowed the curing of autism in all those who were born after Arrendale--and even the early training which has allowed him to function in society--do not exist at the present time.

Now, a book that just followed Arrendale around and saw the world from his point of view would be interesting enough. But because such an internal, interior sort of novel is not what science fiction publishers want (or perhaps what Moon wanted to write, of course). So there is a complication: Arrendale and his fellow autistic co-workers are given a choice by their new boss of "choosing" to take part in a medical experiment that will (probably) cure their autism. Of course, it has only been tested on chimpanzees and even that not observed very long.

This plot does raise some more interesting questions about identity, and so I would agree that this enhances and develops the character.

But then Moon adds yet another subplot involving a series of attacks which so far as I could tell does not add to the story. Yes, it provides another situations for Arrendale to assimilate and understand, but it seems like just a bit much.

Still, the book survives this addition because Moon does such a good job of putting us inside Arrendale's head. Part of this may be because Moon has an autistic son, and so is familiar with the manifestations in a way that most authors are not. She also has a degree in biology and considered going to medical school, so her background here is quite substantial.

But background is not enough, and Moon does the main job--writing an engaging and involving story--with real skill. I was unimpressed with her Hugo-nominated REMNANT POPULATION, but THE SPEED OF DARK is definitely Hugo-worthy material. [-ecl]

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 06/30/2006]

The regular book group this month read THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME by Mark Haddon (ISBN 1-400-03271-7); the science fiction group read THE SPEED OF DARK by Elizabeth Moon (ISBN 0-345-48139-9). I have already commented on both of these (THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME by Mark Haddon in the 04/23/04 issue of the MT VOID and THE SPEED OF DARK by Elizabeth Moon in the 03/28/03 issue), but I have to add that on second reading, the Haddon stands up much better than the Moon. One problem is that Moon's autistic characters have undergone a science-fictional treatment, "early intervention", which made them basically less "autistic" and more "normal". (Yes, I realize that the terms "autistic" and "normal" are both politically incorrect and medically inaccurate. But I am trying to keep this column short.) This treatment makes the story easier, but less interesting. Haddon's character is more authentic, which ultimately makes him more interesting. (I will note that other people thought the Moon was more interesting than the Haddon.) One thing everybody agreed on was that many of the symptoms displayed by the autistic characters in both books were characteristics of a lot of (presumably) non-autistic people that they knew. A lot of the discussion time, in fact, was spent discussing just what autism is and how one arrives at that diagnosis.

To order The Speed of Dark from amazon.com, click here.

"The Mystery of the Texas Twister" by Michael Moorcock:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 11/05/2004]

I recently read two novellas, L. Timmel Duchamp's "The Heloise Archive" and Michael Moorcock's "The Mystery of the Texas Twister", for the Sidewise Award. Both, alas, fell victim to political/social agendas.

Moorcock's "The Mystery of the Texas Twister" is part of his Moorcock's "Multiverse". (A previous one featuring the same characters was "Sir Seaton Begg, Metatemporal Detective", which appeared in Michael Chabon's MCSWEENEY'S MAMMOTH TREASURY OF THRILLING TALES. The first story in which Sir Seaton appeared was THE WAR HOUND AND THE WORLD'S PAIN.) This might have been better had Moorcock not decided to use it as a way to attack current American politics and political figures. (I am getting really tired of authors creating names of characters by spoonerizing the real names of the characters they are satirizing. Harry Turtledove did it in his novel IN THE PRESENCE OF MINE ENEMIES with "Kurt Haldweim", and Moorcock does it here with "Wolfy Paulowitz".) This novella appeared as part of issue one of the new "Argosy" magazine (which has a UPC of 0-74470-57968-7, but no ISBN I could find).

THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN by Alan Moore:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 07/18/2003]

I read Alan Moore's graphic novel THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN in preparation for seeing the movie. Of course, because of a combination of Readercon, reviews, and a frozen shoulder, I haven't actually seen it yet, but I do recommend the book. I have frequently found graphic novels confusing, with the art incomprehensible enough at times (to me, anyway) to obscure information needed to understand it, but that was not the case here.

To order The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen from amazon.com, click here.

V FOR VENDETTA by Alan Moore and Judy Groves:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 04/21/2006]

I wanted to read V FOR VENDETTA by Alan Moore and Judy Groves (ISBN 0-930289-52-8) to compare it with the movie. But I found it very difficult. Why? Well, although the font size is about the same as most books, the vertical spacing is much tighter, with almost twice as many lines per inch, and the font is an irregular sans serif type, rather than a standard serif type. I suspect it becomes harder to read as one's eyesight gets worse, which may be one reason that graphic novels are more popular among the young. (Similarly, magazines or web pages that use odd color combinations, such as purple letters on a black background, seem to be aimed at those with perfect eyesight.) I managed to read about two-thirds of it, but it was too much eyestrain for me to finish.

To order V for Vendetta from amazon.com, click here.

CATHOLICS by Brian Moore:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 10/20/2006]

CATHOLICS by Brian Moore (ISBN 0-829-42333-8) was made into a 1973 made-for-television movie. Back then, it was science fiction; now it is alternate history. The premise is that Vatican II was followed by Vatican III and Vatican IV (which changed the nature of the Mass and banned private confessions in favor of collective confession by the congregation). In particular, the rulings of Vatican II (the Mass in the vernacular, with priests facing the congregation, are being enforced. A monastery on an island off the coast of Ireland has persisted in saying the Mass in Latin and Rome has sent a representative (Martin Sheen in the movie) to deal with the problem. This is definitely a more philosophical (and theological) script than one usually finds in a made-for- television movie, and is recommended. (I found it on an EastWest double feature DVD for a dollar! I will note, however, that the music can at times be very obtrusive.) The movie does concentrate on the "Latin [Tridentine] mass" and only mentions the other aspects (confessions, ecumenicalism, etc.) in passing, while these figure more importantly in the book. Ironically, just a few days ago it was reported that the Pope is about to sign a document that would make it easier for priests to celebrate the Mass in Latin than it currently is.

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"No Woman Born" by C. L. Moore:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 09/01/2006]

"No Woman Born" by C. L. Moore is a novella about a woman who was turned into a cyborg. As an updating of the Frankenstein story, it has its merits, but it did not strike me as a classic in the same way that the novels that were chosen did. It is available in several anthologies; you can look up an up-to-date list at (a highly recommended site in general).

BRING THE JUBILEE by Ward Moore:

[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 12/02/2005]

BRING THE JUBILEE by Ward Moore (ISBN 0-345-40502-1, but more readily available in THE BEST ALTERNATE HISTORY STORIES OF THE 20TH CENTURY, edited by Harry Turtledove, ISBN 0-345-43990-2) is a classic alternate history story, and one of the first. Yes, there were quite a few before it, but considering that the field took off only in the last fifteen years, something from fifty years ago qualifies as a seminal story. Unfortunately, the alternate history aspect does not seem to be the main focus of the story; Moore seemed to be more interested in the utopian society that was set up, and in Barbara's personality (which none of us in the discussion group could quite understand).

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