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Things are sparse around this part of the internet because I feel a post-vacation rut. After days of new experiences, new places and new cultures, it’s back to earth. Although my exhaustion has vanished and I’m now basically caught up both at work and home, ambition is sorely lacking as routine life resumes and I realize my daughters will be heading off to school in the next couple weeks.
I could talk about the trip but don’t have the inspiration to do it justice right now. (Although it was quite fun to watch In Bruges, a gangster movie filmed amidst the medieval architecture of the Belgian city we were in only about 10 days before renting the DVD.) The fact War and Peace consumed my reading time has left me hungry for books but coincides with one of those moods where I just can’t settle on what to read. Therefore, I decided to embark on reading some of the books on the recently announced Man Booker longlist (I’ve already checked out one from the library and have holds on two more).
Speaking of books, it appears the demise of the LA Times book review and a related post at the Huffington Post seems to have reignited the book blogger v. traditional media tumult. My post-trip lack of inspiration contributes to not going into great detail, especially given the comments by Ed (in his inimitable style), the Literary Saloon, and Scott Esposito. Suffice it to say the post reflected a lack of familiarity with the book blogs and bloggers with whom I am most familiar — and who never claimed to be a replacement for mainstream book reviews.
In another random book segue, take some time to check out the British Library’s Turning The Pages site. It allows you to explore books hundreds of years old, including a personal notebook of Leonardo da Vinci and a “book” published in China in the 9th century. And it’s also nice to see hope that in the not too distant future I will be able to get my exercise while sitting in the chair reading.
Wouldn’t it be the best damn day if we all took time to breathe?
“Risen,” O.A.R., In Between Now and Then
My body is back from our Baltic cruise (and has been since about midnight Friday) but neither it nor my mind are fully readjusted. I am (blissfully) behind on much of anything that happened over the last couple weeks. Catching up with personal items, work and attending the excellent O.A.R. concert last night with my 17-year-old daughter took priority over updating things here.
For what it’s worth, a few random observations and comments from the trip:
- St. Petersburg were clearly the highlight. We did a three-day private tour with a couple from Australia, a couple from North Carolina and our top-notch guide Angie, a St. Petersburg native. For example, thanks to an early admission at the Winter Palace (part of the Hermitage), we were at times among very few (if not the only) people on the main staircase or in the large throne room.
- I read War and Peace on the trip, finishing it on the plane on the way back). I would have enjoyed it in any event but it certainly made various sites in St. Petersburg more interesting and relevant.
- Our love of St. Petersburg did not lessen the enjoyment of any of the other cities and regions we visited. Between historic sites, structures that are centuries old and seeing original works by artists such as da Vinci and Michaelangelo, the value truly was virtually priceless.
- I managed to lose my wallet/have it stolen in Helsinki about a week into the trip. It, of course, had the debit card and two credit cards, leading to hurried calls back to the US. Fortunately, we still had one of my wife’s credit cards to rely upon.
- For 95 percent of the trip the weather was absolutely gorgeous. The temps rarely got above 75 degrees so the local weather has been a shock.
- Between the value of the dollar (a real budget breaker in London and painful in countries using the Euro) and dealing with air travel, it may be a while before we head back overseas. The trip back was a killer: a 3:20 pm flight from Heathrow to O’Hare left before our 12:20 pm flight, we caught the last flight into Sioux Falls and sat on the tarmac at O’Hare for more than a hour and while we arrived, not a single piece of our luggage did.
- We only did organized tours in two of the 10 countries we visited, otherwise walking or relying on taxis or public transportation to get into the cities and explore on our own (with suggestions from various guide-books). Although “we’ve been lost here before” was heard a couple times, we never encountered any real difficulties.
- It was intriguing to see the heavy usage of bicycles and the dedicated bike lanes on the streets in many of the cities we visited. I’ve never seen as many bikes as I did in Amsterdam, including a packed multi-level bicycle parking ramp near the central train station. That and our use of public transportation reinforced just how far this country has to go in public and alternative transportation.
Wealth and poverty, fame and obscurity, power and subordination, strength and weakness, health and disease, culture and ignorance, work and leisure, repletion and hunger, virtue and vice, are only greater or lesser degrees of freedom.
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
The lights will largely be off around here for the next couple weeks. My wife and I are embarking on our long anticipated trip to the Baltic. (The sea, not the town north of Sioux Falls.)
I am going sans laptop not because of seizure concerns but because there will be much more interesting diversions. For example, our arrival in Tallinn, Estonia, on July 4 is in the midst of the annual Õllesummer (Beer Summer), one of the largest festivals in the Baltics. We will also spend three days in St. Petersburg so, given the amount of airplane and airport time that’s ahead (likely including experiences like my dear friend Opus), the trip’s primary reading selection is War and Peace.
Ooveedeemsya!
While abroad, the senses refuse to be burdened by the mundane.
Dave Bidini, Tropic of Hockey
Although normally cast in the future, science fiction still tends to be built upon current or relatively recent events and the state of the world. That’s certainly the case with The Mirrored Heavens, the debut novel by David J. Williams. Williams uses terrorist threats, political battles, military branch rivalries and East-West distrust and tension as tools for a tale that combines military-flavored SF with a heavy dose of cyberpunk.
The Mirrored Heavens is set in 2110 on an Earth decimated environmentally and still feeling the ramifications of a nuclear war in the Middle East. The dominant political powers are the U.S. and a Eurasian coalition of Slavic countries and China. Those powers and the neutral Western European states run by commerce-oriented “Euro Magnates” have isolated their information systems from each other, including firewalls sealing off their cyberspace “zones.” The book focuses on the hunt for Autumn Rain, a mysterious terrorist organization which has destroyed the Phoenix Space Elevator, a joint project of the United States and the Eurasian Coalition as part of the détente of the Second Cold War.
Williams approaches the tale with three different storylines involving different pairings of individuals. One is Claire Haskell and Jason Marlowe. Hearkening to some of the best cyberpunk tradition, Claire is a “razor,” physically modified and trained to immerse herself into zones, including hacking into an enemy’s. Jason is a “mechanic,” a heavily armed and armored agent who can physically carry out missions facilitated by a razor hacking into and undermining opponents in the zones. Another razor-mechanic pairing exists with the Operative and his razor, Lynx. They are in search of a former fellow agent who has retired to the moon. While these groups are hunting Autumn Rain, Lyle Spencer, a undercover agent, is being blackmailed into helping Linehan, a rogue trying to escape the United States.
Using the different storylines means The Mirrored Heavens has almost non-stop action. It seems as if at least one of the pairings is always engaged in blasting their way into or out of almost hopeless situations. As a result, the book seems the verbal equivalent of a first-person shooter video game. The action is hard-hitting, as well as highly destructive and widely fatal. It’s amazing the mechanics can carry as much ammo and explosives as they do. Of course, they need to given the fact they always are exceedingly outnumbered.
For those who love stories driven by descriptions of ferocious combat against great odds, The Mirrored Heavens is likely a success. The work also evokes some of the best of cyberpunk. It isn’t nearly as strong from other perspectives, though.
The characters are stiff and somewhat one-sided with their penchant for death and destruction. We see little of how the detailed future Williams has affected them other than in their official roles. Instead, that future often tends to be simply background and transition pieces for their battle royales. In addition, some of the lead characters occasionally speak in almost comic book terms with ponderous remarks like “Next stop Armageddon.”
Undoubtedly, the world of The Mirrored Heavens is vividly imagined. It is also explored in greater detail on the book’s website. Still, some of that wealth of information might have come in handy as background in the book itself. For example, a minor role player is the Jaguars, a terrorist organization in South America. It makes appearances here and there but is never really explored.
Finally, the infighting among and conspiratorial machinations of the various political and military players, as well as the individual characters, is convoluted. Often leaving the reader uncertain as to which side anybody is on or their ultimate goals, there are just too many wheels within wheels in the various plots and counterplots.
Still, given his splendid world creation, Williams has the ingredients for a long run of novels. He may reach a broader audience expanding the scope beyond the first-person shooter feel. Even if he sticks with nonstop action, there’s little doubt the state of the world and politics will be able to keep him fully supplied with potential storylines for his future Earth.
The sky’s been classified for fifty years now. Civilians can neither write nor film what they contain.
David J. Williams, The Mirrored Heavens
It’s kind of a puzzle. How does a book reviewer review a how to book on book reviewing? More than other reviews, the reader may judge the book solely by the review itself. After all, since the reviewer just get done reading about writing book reviews doesn’t the quality of the review reflect the value of the book?
Underlying that question is the insurmountable obstacle faced by Mayra Calvani and Anne K. Edwards in their The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing. Any user’s manual can tell you the steps involved in an art, craft or hobby. Yet the end result ultimately hinges on how skillfully the tools are used, something beyond the control of the author of the user’s manual. That said, Calvani and Edwards provide a worthwhile reference and resource tool for those interested in book reviewing.
The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing is appropriately titled. As Calvani and Edwards observe throughout the book, reviewing can be a slippery slope. A desire to please or to remain on a publicist’s or publisher’s mailing list are a couple of the items that can impact the objectivity of any review. And Calvani and Edwards stress that there’s only one way off that slope: honesty.
This theme is reflected in the very first paragraph of the section of the book captioned “How to Write a Book Review.” It says simply, “First, read the book.” Particularly with the proliferation of blog and internet-based reviews, there are a number of reviews that repeat verbatim or with slight variation the publicity material sent out with the book. It seems to reflect an ethic, to use the term lightly, that getting a free book is more important than being honest with the reader of the review.
One of the best aspects of The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing is the emphasis on honesty and ethics in various issues that book reviewers can face. Yet that is far from all that Calvani and Edwards provide. The basics are there. Their five keys to book reviewing point out the crucial difference between bias and objectivity. They also outline the key components of critical reading and analysis. To the extent the book attempts to “teach” book reviewing, their use of sample reviews is a laudable approach, particularly when those samples are then compared to actually published reviews. They touch briefly on the print v. blogging review dust up and their extensive list of resources for getting reviews published may alone be worth the price of admission.
The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing may be a near-essential tool for someone thinking about or just starting to review books. Yet it can also serve as a handy reference and reminder for already published reviewers. As with all user’s manuals, though, the ultimate worth of book and the tools and tips it provides will hinge on the skills and talents of the individual user.
Honesty is what defines a reviewer’s trade.
Mayra Calvani and Anne K. Edwards, The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing
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Disclaimer 
Additionally, some links on this blog go to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. There is no additional cost to you. Contact me You can e-mail me at prairieprogressive at gmaildotcom.
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