Category: Blog

Book Review – River God

River God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt
by WIlbur Smith
Author’s website

Wow, this is two new authors in a row that I really like.

Wilbur Smith has been writing novels for a lot of years, and I guess he has quite a following, but he’s new to me.

Bottom line: I really like his writing and his storytelling.

This is a story set in the time of Egypt when the Hyksos invaded and conquered the country, introducing the chariot to the Egyptians. In doing a little googling, I was able to identify quite a number of folks who weren’t happy with Mr. Smith’s adherence to actual historical events. As a lover of historical fiction, I like it a lot when a story follows the line of known history pretty closely, but have to say that the fact that this one may have strayed quite a bit from accepted history doesn’t bother me much.

The major events that underpin the story seem sound to me. The Hyksos invaded and conquered Egypt, the Egyptians learned from them, Egyptian culture may have been weak and full of corruption at the time. From that, Mr, Smith weaves a wonderful tale in the voice of a highly respected slave and eunuch, one that is quite an inventor, politician, thinker, and leader.

His characters are really well formed and crafted, and it’s quite easy to fall into complete empathy and understanding of each of them as the story unfolds. This is one I listened to from Audible, and the narrator was really quite good as well.

His subsequent stories in this series haven’t been rated as highly as this one, but I loved this one enough that I’ll try the next one or two anyway.

I’d like to give this 4.5 stars, but will err on the high side since the narration was so good as well.

 

Midwest Book Review give Peace at the Edge of Uncertainty 5 Stars

Midwest Book Review Peace at the Edge of Uncertainty a 5-Star review in July.

Here’s the link, under the  Religion/Spirituality Shelf.

Here’s what they had to say:

“No one knows everything, and coming to terms with such a frightening aspect is key to finding peace. “Peace at the Edge of Uncertainty” is an inspirational spirituality book from Neil Hanson, states that not only is uncertainty not worth fearing, but it should be embraced. His wisdom speaks with some ideas that at first sight, aren’t clear, but he does well in clarifying and providing sound advice. “Peace at the Edge of Uncertainty” states that certainty is a myth, and makes for a thoughtful and uplifting read.”

Book Review – Chasing Francis

Chasing Francis
by Ian Cron
Author’s website

I’m not sure how I ended up downloading this book to my Kindle – I think it was a long-standing admiration I have for Francis of Assisi along with the description of the book. Whatever it was, I’m delighted it ended up on my Kindle, because I really enjoyed reading this story.

It’s fiction, written a bit like a long parable. It’s the story of a young evangelical preacher, and his crisis with faith.

Here’s the author’s (or publicist’s) description of the book:

Author, musician and speaker Ian Morgan Cron sheds new light on the legacy of St. Francis of Assisi, “the Last Christian.” Cron masterfully weaves actual accounts from the life of Saint Francis’ into the fictional story of Chase Falson, a New England minister on a pilgrimage to regain his faith. It’s an amazing story with profound implications for the contemporary church. Read the story, and then learn even more about St. Francis’ radical activism and theology in the robust forty-page study guide.

While at times the story is predictable and over-simplified, I don’t really find this as a fault within the context of this book and this story, as I think it makes the story more accessible for a broader audience.

The story itself is a wonderful one, connecting the church of several hundred years ago with the church of today, helping the reader to see the “unity” or “catholic” of western Christianity. It’s so easy for Protestants today to see ourselves as quite separate from the Catholic Church, but this story does a really good job of illuminating the sameness of both the bright spots and the blemishes. I also very much enjoyed the fact that the author stayed away from doctrine, and talked about the real heart of the Faith, drawing a line from Jesus to Francis, then extending it forward and wondering where it can be connected today.

In all fairness, I have to say that I suspect the author’s view of Christianity is similar to my own. When this happens, it’s always easier to find the good in a book. Notwithstanding this caveat, I do think this is an excellent first book by a young author. I suspect that folks who are firmly entrenched in a right-wing sort of fundamentalist, with no desire to hear a different point of view, won’t like the book. I also suspect that folks who are firmly anti-Christian for whatever reason, with no desire to hear a different point of view, won’t like this book. However, for that vast center of western Christianity – folks with good and legitimate questions who find themselves on the edge of faith crisis from time to time – folks who wonder why the Christianity we practice today seems so distant from the life Jesus led – I think those folks will find this book educational, entertaining, and inspiring.

I highly recommend it!

Book Review – People of the Book

People of the Book
by Geraldine Brooks
Author’s website

I’d never read anything by Geraldine Brooks, but the premise of the story intrigued me. I’d read no reviews, and had no idea what to expect. I started this story with low expectations and mentally prepared to bail on it and go to something else if it didn’t grab me pretty quickly.

It grabbed me quickly, and held on through the entire story.

The story is a most excellent one, and Brooks does a tremendous job of painting characters that you can believe in and identify with. She masterfully weaves her tale back and forth through history, intertwining it perfectly with the life of the main character. Brooks is high on my list as an author that I want to read more of – I REALLY like how she writes.

The story is a fabricated “what if” history of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah. While the reader knows that both the back story (history of the book) and the main character (a book conservator/restorer) are fictional, they’re so well crafted I found myself wanting them to be real. Ms Brooks outstanding research on the times and people of which she writes makes the history lesson in itself worth the read. Moreover, the voices she pulls from the story seem so authentic I found myself impressed over and over as the story unfolded.

This was an Audible book for me. Listening to books, it’s common to find an author and story I like, but have the story ruined by poor narration. What a delight to experience this recording though, as the actress who does the narration (Edwina Wren) is the perfect physical voice for this story, and does an absolutely wonderful job. Ms Wren enhances and improves the telling of the story with her outstanding narration. This was one of the rare occasions where – after completing the book – I actually did a search for other books that Ms Wren has narrated. The only complaint I have with her narration is that she isn’t all that good with accents (beyond British, Aussie, and American). It’s such a tiny thing within the context of her whole performance that I still give her 5 stars on the narration.

Truly a 5-star book and a 5-star narration.

Book Review – Fall of Giants

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett

This is solid 5-star book. It captures you from the first pages, and doesn’t release you until the end. It leaves you ready for the next one in the series, which I guess doesn’t come out for another year or so.

Character development is outstanding, storytelling is among the best I’ve read, and the historical aspects of the book are tremendous. As a reader, I felt pulled deeply into the heart and mind of many of the characters – even the ones I didn’t care much for as people. The story flows quite nicely, as the different threads come together as the storyline develops. Best of all, as a history nut, I LOVED the history lesson I got from this book. I really think this should be required reading for high school students as a lesson in how WW1 happened, and what it meant.

The only other Follett I’ve read is his first series of this sort – Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. In those two books, it was quite uncomfortable for me when he would make his characters endure deep, repeated, and unfair hardship. In this first of this new series, he is much more kind to his characters as he develops them into believable people.

Having now read 3 of his books, I’ve got to say Follett is surely one of the best historical fiction writers of our generation. I can’t wait to read the next in the series!

Book Review – Coming of the Storm

Coming of the Storm – Contact – The Battle For America – Book One

By Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear

This is the first book I’ve read by this husband and wife team, and I’ve gotta say I’ll be reading more.

I love historical fiction, and love reading about other cultures, so this book had a leg up. The writing style really intrigued me, and I found it quite enjoyable and engaging. In addition, the authors seem to have created an extremely believable world that sounds like it could be very true to the world that they write about.

The characters are well-developed and easy to fall into stride with and identify with. In particular, I like the joint effort, in that it allows characters to be developed from both a male and female perspective.

I’d recommend this book to anyone, but I’d particularly recommend it to folks who – like me – enjoy reading something that’s a bit like historical fiction.

Book Review – The Collectors

The Collectors by David Baldacci

The second in the “Camel Club” series, this is a fun read. Like the first one, I listened to this one, and think the narrator is good. The male actor could do a better job of differentiating between characters, but overall they did a good job with the audio, not taking away from what is (in my opinion) a good story. Personally, I like the narrator so well that I think the audio version would be better if they just let him do the whole thing, and skipped the actors, as they did in the first book in this series.

I suspect this book would have the greatest appeal to guys like me – past the mid-century mark in age – the age of the primary character. We love to be able to identify with a guy who’s “still got it” and does heroic things.

Hats off to this one, and I’ll be reading more for sure, though I won’t buy the next audiobook until they get the price down to reasonable – maybe the next one goes on the Kindle…

Book Review – The Mammoth Hunters by Jean M. Auel

I give up.

I tried hanging with these books, and after 3, I just can’t do it anymore. I hoped – after my last review, that things would improve, but they’re getting worse.

The author takes 50 pages of story, and packs it into hundreds and hundreds of pages. A good bit of these hundreds of pages is rehash of what we already know – both from within the current book and from previous books. Over and over and over again…

And frankly, the sex is just over the top. I’m no prude – I have no problem with explicit sex for the most part. It’s just that the way it’s presented here seems uncomfortable in this story. I don’t know how this isn’t classified as pornography.

So, after 3 in the series, I’m throwing in the towel. They’re getting worse not better. Which is too bad. If the editor would have helped the author winnow this down to the essential story, these first 3 books could have made a nice 200 to 300 page novel, and it would have been quite a good read. In those places where the author gets on with the story, she’s quite good. Her editor should be ashamed that this didn’t happen.

Review – Comanche Moon by Larry McMurtry

Comanche Moon was the fourth book to be written in the Lonesome Dove series, though it is chronologically the second part of the 4-part series.

While Comanche Moon is good, it’s not as good as Lonesome Dove. It could stand alone as a decent (not great) read, the fact that it’s meant to be a prequel to Lonesome Dove is actually a detractor.

First, there are storyline continuity details that don’t match between Comanche Moon and Lonesome Dove. I admit that I’m a bit of a compulsive weanie about this sort of thing, but these inconsistencies are significant enough that I suspect they’ll bother nearly anyone.

Second, while Lonesome Dove develops characters masterfully, Comanche Moon does a slightly less good job. In keeping with the storyline continuity issues mentioned above, the characters that appear in Lonesome Dove don’t always appear to be the matured version of the characters developed in Comanche Moon. In fact, they don’t appear to be EITHER matured versions of the characters developed in Dead Man’s Walk, OR younger versions of the characters developed in Lonesome Dove.

I did enjoy the characters as the author developed them in this book, in particular the interplay between Inish Scull, Famous Shoes, and Kicking Wolf. In fact, the development of the Comanche characters alone makes this a good read for western geeks like me.

As a critique of the entire series, the lack of continuity from one book to the next is truly astonishing to me. As a series, I’d probably have to rank it with 2 stars only. If you tackle this book, do so as a stand-alone novel, and I suspect you’ll be less frustrated and perturbed by how poorly the storyline across the series fits together, and how dramatically different the same character can be from one book to the next.

I’d recommend this book to western geeks like me, especially those fascinated (like me) with stories of the southern plains and the great Comanche nation. However, for the rest of the reading public, it probably doesn’t rise to the level of “highly recommended”.

Book Review – Clan of the Cave Bear series – Earth’s Children – by Jean M Auel

Having now gotten through 2 of these, I still have mixed feelings. The story is a really good one, and I love historical fiction and anthropological historical fiction like this, exploring how folks in the distant past may have lived. At the same time, I have to say there are many things about the style so far that are distracting to me.

It may be that the author is a woman, and she writes for a woman’s point of view, but I don’t think that’s all of it. In the second book, you could write an abridged version in about 10 pages or less, and it would be a good story to tell around the campfire. Auel expands that with tremendous detail about what’s happening within the story, but the detail doesn’t always contribute to or enhance the story. In many ways, I feel like she’s speaking in a voice meant for an adolescent girl.

While this is fine if you’re an adolescent girl, it’s distracting when you’re not. I think she could have developed a lot more story, and a lot more meat in the story, for the length of the book.

One disclaimer – there’s a good deal of sex in the story, and at times it’s a bit graphic. Since I’ve never read romance novels or stuff geared toward women, this could be common, but it seemed like quite a lot of emphasis to me, emphasis that didn’t necessarily improve the story (or detract from it). Just another example of something that felt too much like filler to me, and I would have liked more “meat and story”. If you’re the parent of an adolescent girl, you might want to read this before encouraging your daughter to read it. Personally, I have no problem with the way she wrote it as it relates to appropriateness for a 14 year-old daughter, but some parents might not agree with me.

I’ll keep reading these, because I so much like this sort of story. Her writing could mature as she goes through them – I’ll write another opinion after the 4th or 5th book. The bottom line, though, is that the story and the writing is good enough for me to keep reading them, despite the distractions!