Blindfolded: a Free Book review

I did not think I'd like Earle Ashley Walcott's Blindfolded when it showed up on LibriVox. The description sounds a bit like an early version of Little Miss Marker. But it was one of Roger Melin's contributions, so I tried it anyway.

To begin with, I'll add to Melin's description. The kid doesn't tag along in typical adorable waif style. That's a relief, anyway. And our hero, Giles Dudley, is soon treated to a box seat at a murder. As a special added extra, he gets a good look at the murderer's face. He turns to the police and gets nowhere: they aren't about to go after the guy he saw.

So he vows vengeance, only to find himself swept up in someone else's scheme under another identity--one he can neither maintain perfectly nor dispose of without danger. Who is behind the scheme? What is it about? Why does the owner of the face he saw at the murder apparently want him to act as his confidential agent in stock manipulations? Who can he trust? We're all in the dark with him.

The plot twists sound as though they should be frustrating, especially when he picks up a romantic interest he cannot pursue and various people realize he isn't who he's supposed to be. But this is a well-plotted and paced story, and the maze does eventually resolve.

I like the story. It's not specifically Christian, though it is generally moral and ethical (moreso than some modern Christian fiction). There's an unexpected scene near the end that is very effective and scary--a kind of reverse deathbed conversion--that points in a Christian direction. And against the prejudices of its day, there's a pointed exposition of the fact that Asians do not all look alike--it's part of an overarching theme very important to the story, but that point aside, it's quite well done and a good counterpoint to a prejudice that still lingers to this day in some quarters.

I should mention that there is a fair amount of violence. It isn't particularly graphic or gory, but it is plentiful. There's a lot of action in general and suspense, too.

The scenes of stock market operations in the late 1800s are informative--you can trace the development of modern practices without much trouble. Also, the depiction of China Town in that era, though brief, is fairly well done.

All in all, it's worth a look, and Melin's audio version makes the text proper even more accessible for busy people.

The Uttermost Farthing: a Free Book review

The Uttermost Farthing (free audiobook here) by R. Austin Freeman is not a Dr. Thorndyke novel; quite the opposite. It's more nearly what you might get if Thorndyke turned vigilante.

A word of warning: this story is somewhat ghoulish. It isn't particularly graphic, but the concept is rather gross. I won't explain it: just read the first chapter, and you'll know basically what's going on. If it grosses you out, drop the whole idea.

You may ask why I stuck it out. Well, there is a certain grim fascination to the idea, in part because Humphrey Challoner is so different from Thorndyke in some ways.

In any case, this is the setup:

Years before the story opens, Challoner is a happily married man. He's also an anatomist with a small private museum specializing in skeletal remains, especially of animals with deformities. His hobby turns out to have more staying power than his marriage, however, when a burglar decides to arrest Mrs. Challoner's vital functions with a bullet.

As they say in the action-hero genre, Big Mistake.

Even stunned by his sudden change of marital status, Challoner is a lot smarter than the cops. He notices that the murderer left behind finger prints (this was the late 1800s, before the cops were as fixated with latent prints as they were in The Red Thumb Mark). There's also a bit of hair--and not ordinary hair; it's ringed hair, unusual enough to help identify the culprit even without the finger prints. Armed with this evidence, the best physique and training money can buy, and a heapin' helpin' of vigilante spirit, Challoner's going to remove some bad guys from the gene pool.

Did I mention that this is before the story opens? Well, let's open the story, already.

As the story begins, Humphrey Challoner is an old man on the way out. He likes his doctor, a guy named Wharton, who is more like Jervis than Thorndyke. Challoner has shown Dr. Wharton around the private museum at times. He tells the doctor about his personal tragedy and bequeaths the place--especially the museum--to the doctor, including a unique collection no one else even knows exists. Dr. Wharton also gets a secret stash of notes detailing the provenance of all the more interesting specimens. The bulk of the story is Wharton's edited version of those notes.

It should be clear that Challoner's new hobby doesn't bear imitating, though he does set things up (generally) so that he's acting in self defense. Still, the story has points of interest as Dr. Wharton mulls over the moral and philosophical issues. The main mystery here, however, is why no one has made a major movie out of this so far.

The Czar's Spy

The Czar's Spy by William Le Queux is a novel of personal cussedness versus political intrigue. It begins with the putative owners of a luxury yacht getting into a fix in Leghorn, Italy. (A foghorn was not involved, nor were any chickens harmed.) They are so grateful for the locals' help that they ask Our Hero and Narrator, writer Gordon Gregg, famous for writing novels in shorthand for speed-readers, to help them write a thank-you note in Italian. Gregg is filling in for the real British Vice-Consul of Leghorn, so while he is being entertained aboard the yacht, someone decides to raid the consular office. Hard luck: he has already drunk the good booze and smoked the best cigars. Still, they ransack the place.

Gregg, meanwhile, has encountered aboard the yacht the hastily shredded photo of a Mysterious and Beautiful Woman, whose visage (when he reassembles the picture) immediately burns itself on his brain for keeps. This proves handy later on.

Mystery follows mystery in a frankly infuriating fashion. Gordon becomes more or less used to two phenomena: people trying to kill him and people telling him that he is at the edge of an Amazing Mystery, and they could sure give him an earful if only they dared. The killers are more fun. I found myself fantasizing about a more satisfying response to one of these mystery-mongers:

Mystery-Monger: If you could only penetrate the mystery of this matter, you would find that you had uncovered a plot beyond the dreams of the National Enquirer! Of course, I have Important Secret Information that I'm not about to divulge, though I'll sure rabbit on about how much I know.

Gordon Gregg: Fair enough. Then I shall thrash you until you tell me whatever you do know. That shouldn't take long.

MM: But I'm a lady!

GG: Righto! The thrashing shouldn't take long, either, then.

It's pretty much a cheat anyway: most of them don't really know that much, and the only one who knows it all, a lady with an unforgettable face, has been the subject of a fiendish experiment to transform her into a mime. Gordon Gregg gallivants all over in search of the truth, or failing that, a hot date: England, Scotland, Finland, Russia--in palaces and dungeons, meeting the Arch Anarchist, the Strangler of Finland (not to be confused with the Wedgie King of France), and The Face.

Anyway--self-importance aside, it's not a bad yarn, though I found it odd that a couple of lethal devices seemed like practical jokes gone wrong. Still, the suspense and mystery aren't bad, especially when a dead man turns up alive and the narrator gets to fight his way out of a Finnish Bastille and bluff his way out of certain death.

The Czar's Spy is available as a free e-book and as a free audiobook.

Mohamed's Moon 3: Weak points and conclusion

So what are the weak points of Keith Clemons's Mohamed's Moon?

Layla. Just as Mohamed is the strong character, Layla is the weak one. As Mohamed and Matthew were squaring off, I was reminded of the old Popeye cartoons where Popeye and Bluto would get into a smackfest over a female who helped promote celibacy in everyone else who saw her. Layla's better looking, yes; but she makes a point early on of letting Matthew know she thinks he's been lying to her from the beginning (and she is terribly hurt, of course). He isn't lying, but she never considers an apology. There's a turn-on. She makes it clear she's in love with someone else (unless Matthew is lying, anyway). She's self-centered, manipulative, and shrewish. Run from such people, especially on a date. And remember that they aren't all women, either.

Sayyid. Sayyid is a bit obvious for a modern villain. I kept waiting for him to twirl his mustache and threaten to bisect his bride-to-be in his sawmill unless she gave him the deed to the ranch. Now, it's true that vice tends to uglify those who practice it, but this still seemed a bit overdone.

The ending. Specifically, the amazing dénouement and its aftermath. There's some goofy stuff about explosives that wouldn't really work and a dramatic deed that would actually make matters worse by practically ensuring the survival of some hostile witnesses. Also, remember that in spite of Hollywood physics, you can't outrun an explosion unless you're faster than a speeding bullet.

On the other hand, the business with Layla struck me as hopeful. If she had gone the other way, I probably wouldn't have liked the story.

Conclusion. I did like it, though, largely for the reasons mentioned yesterday. I think the ending would've been better if Matthew and Mohamed had downed some spinach and beaten up all the bad guys and kicked soccer balls toward Uncle Omar's Terrorist Academy so hard they would've leveled the place. But the modern world is too wimpy for Popeye Diplomacy, I guess.

Purchase Mohamed's Moon at Barnes and Noble or Amazon.

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Mohamed's Moon 2: Good points

Time for the good points of Keith Clemons's Mohamed's Moon.

Culture. Muslim culture, that is. Clemons does a good job explicating the Muslim viewpoint for Americans, and he's not altogether unsympathetic in some cases. American degeneracy is a major excuse for extremists, and though it's exaggerated in the media, Christians share the Muslims' concerns if not their solution.

Balance. I was bothered at first by the statistical improbability of all the Muslim terrorists: most Muslims are at most sympathetic to terrorists. Yet Clemons makes this point himself as the story progresses; if anything, his average Muslims are less supportive of terror than real-world models suggest. Still, it's helpful to counterbalance the "Muslim = terrorist" idea that Christians can pick up.

Mohamed. The would-be terrorist is a surprisingly sympathetic character, though initially somewhat odious, and his development pretty much is the story. Although Matthew and Layla do have their own sections, it's Mohamed who gets the larger and more memorable parts, which is as it should be: he's really the strongest character.

Reality check. One feature that I did not like but admit is likely true involves Christians in Muslim lands. Clemons doesn't portray them as super-saints; they flee a lot, and they may decide to hole up and save their own necks now and then instead of doing the heroic thing. I prefer giving role models, but Clemons's picture is quite probable, annoying as I find it.

Tune in tomorrow for the weak points of Mohamed's Moon.

Purchase Mohamed's Moon at Barnes and Noble or Amazon.

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Mohamed's Moon 1: Intro

This month, CFRB presents Mohamed's Moon by Keith Clemons. The book is rather like A Tale of Two Cities, except where it isn't. (Don't expect spoilers here.)

Our story opens with a snookered schnook seeking entrance into Paradise the fast and anti-social way. Little does he know, well, much anything, really, being general-purpose ignorant, the kind of Renaissance Dolt extremely helpful to terrorists and other ne'er-do-wells.

But the important bit of ignorance has to do with his evil brother's designs on his wife. Currently Sayyid, the brother, just has her penciled in, but he means to go over it in ink and a steamroller. Take care of her for his about-to-be-late brother? Why, soit'n'y, as the Prophet said.

But wait! There's more! Incidentally, the widow/bride happens to be a Christian, which is Extremely Rude in that culture. She also doesn't like her prospective husband, and not just because of his looks. (He disproves the "you are what you eat" notion by eating kosher, so to speak, yet still looking like a two-ton porker in a turban.)

No, the problem is that he would be a bad influence on her curiously unnamed son, who isn't a Christian as yet. He does have a girlfriend of sorts, Layla, who is a Christian. Remember that. Anyway, Layla's about to flee with her family, and the widow and her son are about to follow suit.

Don't answer yet! Call now, and you'll get two... Twelve years later, Mohamed El Taher literally runs into his doppelganger, Matthew Mulberry, who inexplicably is not a Marvel superhero despite his name. Matthew is attempting to get engaged to a girl named Layla, who insists that she knew him before, back in Egypt. He denies it, she gets psychotic, and the stage is set for a charming apprentice terrorist to usher in a menagerie à trois as well as an apocalypse.

Yup, it's twins, all right, and it doesn't take much imagination to figure out which is the evil one. They're both time bombs, one medical and the other the old-fashioned kind, and we get to wonder who'll blow up first. Will Matthew survive? (That's the main question for him; he's kind of an underachiever.) Will Mohamed realize that Terrorism Isn't Nice? Will he get saved? Is he fated to expose his backside so the title will make sense? Will Layla drive one or both of them completely insane with her shrewish psychoses?

Tune in tomorrow for the good points of Mohamed's Moon.

Purchase Mohamed's Moon at Barnes and Noble or Amazon.

Operators are sitting on their enormous duffs; they're certainly not going to stand around waiting for you.

Check out these other member blogs this week for more info.

Beyond the Reflection’s Edge 3: Weak Points

Bryan Davis’s Beyond the Reflection’s Edge does have a weak point or two. I'll consider a few I doubt anyone else will have, except for my opener, which is downright obvious.

Confusion. Everyone's a triplet, and they aren't properly tagged:
"Bwa-ha-ha! I am Gordon Blue!"
"I'm Simon Red!"
"I'm Kelly Green!"
"Leave me alone, man--I'm colorblind."

Theology. As a rule, the theology is good, but there's at least one exception: the story idea itself. My late grandmother, a former Pentecostal minister, liked sci-fi. We discussed the idea of parallel worlds, and she considered them unworkable based on Heb 9:27 ("Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment"). In other words, you only go around once, not several times, once per universe. I'm not sure about that precise point, but the overall question is worthwhile: if there are people out there who are effectively clones, what's the point? In the story, it's possible (within limits, apparently) for counterparts to differ: Gordon Red observes that his Blue version has "a profiteering mindset" (p. 342) and says, "This troubled me greatly, because I had theorized that genetic duplicates would make identical decisions when presented with identical information" (ibid.). This has the amusing wrinkle that they are only materially, not spiritually, identical. So while they may have similar predispositions, they are individuals.

Okay, that's one in the eye for materialists: apparently there's more to people than their physical composition, suggesting a spiritual component. But if some people vary, given a few billion people over a few thousand years, anyway, how can the worlds remain so similar? While most of the divergences will be minor, they can't all be unimportant. So these should be like probability worlds: generally similar, but not identical. In fact, they wouldn't quite be probability worlds, even: most of those differ on some major point, such as who won some war. These three worlds should differ by an accretion of minor discrepancies.

But if that's so, what's the point? An atheist can have things happen by chance, but not a Christian--especially at this level. If there are three nearly identical worlds, it's because God created them that way. But why? It's not like God would hit the three button instead of the one button during creation. I won't call this issue insurmountable, but it does need to be addressed. Perhaps it will come up in a sequel.

Limited options. I think one reason I don't handle thrillers well is the same problem I have with interactive fiction--the text-based adventures that were popular back in the late seventies and early eighties. It wasn't enough to find a solution; you had to find one the author thought of, or it wouldn't work. There are sometimes solutions that seem obvious, but the character doesn't try them. This is a genre problem, not a flaw in this particular book.

But as a case in point, early in the story, Nathan clocks Mictar with a bat. Now, I think if I were in Nathan's place, I'd take an extra couple of seconds to finish the job.

I can practically hear the screams: it would be murder! Not at all: Mictar had already shown himself to be a homicidal loony, and worse yet, one with superhuman powers. So I'll follow up my shocking suggestion with another: this is the humbler alternative.

You see, there's a certain arrogance, even hubris, to the idea that you can keep on slapping the villain around without an innocent bystander paying for it. It's like realizing that someone's determined to shoot up a public facility and refusing to do more than play tag.

Now, I'll admit that my own characters rarely run into homicidal maniacs, so they generally avoid lethal force. Here, I don't see the option. Mictar is going to kill innocent people, and the only way to stop him is to remove him from the game permanently. Similarly with Gordon Blue, though incapacitation my be possible there. You can't expect to hold them off indefinitely. This is called recognizing your limitations.

[Addendum: Mr. Davis pointed out that Nathan attacked Mictar with a violin, while Nathan's tutor Clara appropriately wielded the bat. Another problem with writing a post after an eighteen-plus hour day, but sometimes I've no choice.

I should also mention that Mictar is a special case, both for me and for the book. He comes across as not particularly human for one thing. Indeed, after Mictar's self-described "brother" turned up, I began to doubt that Mictar could be killed by normal means. Also, while I do think there are places where Nathan should've incapacitated Gordon Blue, I don't think killing would be justified there. GB is merely a pawn; Mictar is the actual villain.]

Conclusion. I'll admit that these are rather esoteric points. So for the reasons I mentioned in my post yesterday, I do recommend this book highly. It's the beginning of a series, after all; there's plenty of time to resolve some of these matters.

Check out the other members of the CSFF tour:
Brandon Barr
Jennifer Bogart
Justin Boyer
Keanan Brand
Kathy Brasby
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
Courtney
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Shane Deal
Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Marcus Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Joleen Howell
Jason Joyner
Kait
Mike Lynch
Magma
Terri Main
Margaret
Rachel Marks
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Eve Nielsen
Nissa
John W. Otte
Ashley Rutherford
Mirtika or Mir's Here
Chawna Schroeder
Greg Slade
James Somers
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Jason Waguespac
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise

Beyond the Reflection’s Edge 2: Good Points

Let's look at the stengths of Bryan Davis’s Beyond the Reflection’s Edge. There are a lot of them, but a few seemed to stand out:

Faith. I mean this in a broad sense. This really is Christian speculative fiction: the story wouldn't make sense at various points without the Christian outlook and just the relationship with God held by various characters. Also, the theology involved is generally accurate, though I'll ding him on a theological point tomorrow. At a time when discouragement is all around me, especially in the form of Christians who have conformed to worldly views, I am delighted to say that some writers bother to push hard against the current.

In fact, the result is what I have sometimes called "Literary Lifestyle Evangelism": instead of thinly disguising a sermon or evangelistic tract as a story, Davis puts a Christian in an unusual situation and shows how he lives out his faith. You can blow off a sermon, but you'll pay attention to a well-written example. Such things can capture not just the intellectual imagination but the moral imagination, and there's too little of that these days.

Thus, the fact that Nathan is sexually pure is presented as a good thing, and I think a reader will gain a biblical view of the matter. There are reasons for God's rules, and the way Nathan acts should put them on even a very neglected moral radar.

Ease. Purely for want of a better term, I use this for ease of reading and for the fluency of writing that allows Davis to introduce various topics without boring the reader. He doesn't always pursue them quite as far as I might like, but he at least suggests answers on some theological points. For example, since the different versions of Earth aren't synchronized, a trip to the one that's furthest behind amounts to a trip back in time, so in one case Nathan is given a chance to prevent a fatal accident. Are the people involved predestined to die? What is Nathan's duty--to try to save the people or bow to the will of God, if indeed it is his will? The question is more complex than most people would imagine, and Davis does not trivialize it.

Culture. Not to be elitist, but the feel of the story is intelligent and refined. It's good to be reminded occasionally that until recently, Western culture was Christian culture. When God moved among the lower classes, especially in America, the usual suspicion of the elite led to rejection of culture. It wasn't really a religious thing, though some paint Evangelicals as hostile to culture. Rather, it was sociological, and unfortunately we didn't resist the current. Again, the story helps set that straight. Perhaps we can reclaim what is actually part of our Christian heritage.

Tomorrow I'll have a post that will probably cause some readers' heads to explode, as I'll not only explore a theological issue but give an alternative that will probably tick off a lot of people.

In the meantime, check out the other members of the CSFF tour:
Brandon Barr
Jennifer Bogart
Justin Boyer
Keanan Brand
Kathy Brasby
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
Courtney
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Shane Deal
Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Marcus Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Joleen Howell
Jason Joyner
Kait
Mike Lynch
Magma
Terri Main
Margaret
Rachel Marks
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Eve Nielsen
Nissa
John W. Otte
Ashley Rutherford
Mirtika or Mir's Here
Chawna Schroeder
Greg Slade
James Somers
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Jason Waguespac
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise

Beyond the Reflection’s Edge 1: Intro

Bryan Davis’s book Beyond the Reflection’s Edge is the first installment in his "Echoes from the Edge" series.

What's it about?

1. It's about 390 pages.

2. It's about Nathan Shepherd, a young karate violinist whose parents are brutally murdered by minions of a guy named Mictar (hobby: killing people by burning the eyeballs out of their heads with his bare hand). Mictar's ticked off because he thinks he's a pharmaceutical, but no one's buying. It's probably the eyeball-burning side effect.

3. It's about interfinity, which involves parallel earths and confused readers. There's a Blue Earth, where everyone's depressed, a Yellow Earth, where everyone's cowardly, and a Red Earth, where everyone's embarrassed (and I'm ashamed to say why). No, really, they're separate Earths that haven't synchronized their watches. Why they're color-coded like that is an open question. I suspect that there's another Earth that's purple, thus matching the whole setup to Oz. (This is further supported by a tornado scene in the book.)

4. It's about music, light, and mirrors. Specifically, there are Quattro mirrors, "quattro" being Italian for four--and if you're a lousy speller with no ear for consonant length, as one character is, it's also Spanish for four. In any case, if you combine music, light, and not-so-happy thoughts, a Quattro mirror can bounce you into an Earth of another color.

Sound confusing? Actually, it's not that bad most of the time, though on a few rare occasions it's worse. The problem is that there are three sets of practically everybody, and sometimes that makes for an evil triplet. Worse, nobody's actually color-coded, so it's hard to follow orders such as "Trust Gordon Red, not Gordon Blue. Trust Simon Red. Unsure of Simon Blue." (p. 245) Some indelible paint would come in handy. (Actually, I have another strategy for simplifying matters that I'll mention in a later post.)

Anyway--tomorrow, as usual, I'll cover the good points of the story. (There are several. Really.) Then I'll have some really unusual items for the final post, even invoking my late grandmother's theological wisdom.

In the meantime, check out the other members of the CSFF tour:
Brandon Barr
Jennifer Bogart
Justin Boyer
Keanan Brand
Kathy Brasby
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
Courtney
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Shane Deal
Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Marcus Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Joleen Howell
Jason Joyner
Kait
Mike Lynch
Magma
Terri Main
Margaret
Rachel Marks
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Eve Nielsen
Nissa
John W. Otte
Ashley Rutherford
Mirtika or Mir's Here
Chawna Schroeder
Greg Slade
James Somers
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Jason Waguespac
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise