"Demon" by John Varley

 

Publisher:    Berkley

Copyright:   1984

ISBN:           0399129456

It has taken me a long time to get around to reading the third book in this trilogy. The reason for this hesitation was that I wasn't overly impressed with the second one (Wizard), but felt that I should at least try to finish the series despite my misgivings.

The first few pages of Demon were rather odd to say the least, but it began to get better as the story progressed (unfortunately this was but a brief respite). It wasn't as good as Titan (The first book in the trilogy), which had a well defined plot arc. Contrarily both Wizard and Demon seem to be books that didn't really need to be written, and you get the feeling they were simply done to fulfill the contract (or at least I did). Whether this is true or not I don't know, but it sure seems that way because they both ramble, and Demon rambles even more than Wizard.

In any case, it has been about 20 years since the end of Wizard, and in this book Gaea seems to be represented by a gigantic version of Marilyn Monroe. The Titandes are still around even though it seemed as if they were doomed at the end of Wizard. Robin the witch is back after leading the coven for a good portion of the 20 years, she is low disgraced. Her daughter is with her, and she seems to be ready to blame anything and everything for her misfortune.  Gaby is also back (from the dead?) But seems to be more of a ghost anything else.

To be honest I wasn't even able to finish this book, in fact I only got about a third of the way through it before I gave it up.

Sorry, Varley fans. Definitely not one of his best.

"Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation!" by Lynn Truss

 

Publisher: New York : Gotham Books

Copyright: 2003

ISBN: 9781592400874 

This book gives the reader a very good overview of grammar and punctuation (you know that stuff you were supposed to have learned about in English class). Now, while this might sound like a fairly dull subject. It isn’t, as Lynne Truss does it with a great sense of humour, and wonderful examples that will keep you enthralled (and laughing) to the very end.

Some of the examples cited in the text are ones you will commonly see now-a-days. I’m not sure why this is, as to the best of my knowledge English is still a core subject in school. The rules for grammar and punctuation are basically quite simple, but can seem difficult if you aren’t properly trained in them.

So go ahead, read this book, it’ll open your eyes and definitely give you something to think about.

Enjoy, and watch your commas.

"Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000" by L. Ron Hubbard (1911-1986)

 

Publisher: Bridge Publications, Inc.

Copyright: 1982

ISBN: 0884041557

There's absolutely no doubt that this book is a saga, as it is 1066 pages long. But even though it is extremely long the story is quite interesting, thorough and well written. It is also the only book of Mr. Hubbard's that I have ever finished.

My apologies to all the L. Ron Hubbard fans out there, but I honestly did try to read the "Mission Earth" series a long time ago, but didn't even make it through the first quarter of the first book which if I remember correctly was called "The Invaders Plan" (there are 10 in the series) but it was so mind numbingly boring I gave up. I have however not read any of his other works.

In any case "Battlefield Earth" is not like that series as it is a very good story that definitely keeps you in suspense with some very good twists and turns in the plotting. The characters themselves are memorable, some of them are very good people and a couple are really despicable. The culture of the Psychlos, is well portrayed and detailed which makes it quite interesting to read. In addition the Psychlos themselves seem to be quite well designed as well.

The story itself revolves around a small band of humans, led by Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. Legends tell of monsters who live on the plains, and following the death of his father, Johnnie decides to investigate if the rumours are true, in hopes that he can move the people of his village to someplace healthier, as they are slowly wasting away.

The monsters however turn out to be true, and Johnny is captured by one of them, an alien by the name of Terl. Later after learning more about Terl's plans Jonni, and another band of humans decide to fight back and retake the planet from the Psychlos.

While it is a long book, it is well worth the read, especially for the well developed world building, and characters.

On the other hand, they made a movie of this book in 2000 that was produced and starred John Travolta. It had the honour of being one of the worst movies that Hollywood has ever produced and was given such bad reviews by virtually every critic that is even hard to find the DVD in a library. The estimated budget was $73 million, and it made $8.25 Million, but who knows where it went?

While I've never actually seen the movie (something which I'm grateful for) after seeing some of the stills on IMDb, and reading some of the information on that same service it is obvious that good ol' Hollywood once again goofed, which seems pretty typical.

"Don't Put That In There: And 69 Other Sex Myths Debunked" by Dr. Aaron E. Carroll and Dr. Rachel C. Vreeman

 

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Copyright: 2014

ISBN: 9781250042262

There are lots of books, websites, television shows and so on devoted to debunking myths, but myths about sex are probably one of the most critical, but also some of the most humourous to read.

A lot of it possibly comes from parent and child miscommunication (assuming of course there was any communication in the first place). But while the origin of some of these myths might be able to be explained to a point, a great deal of it is can be classified under 'absolutely beyond comprehension' as to how people come up with these silly ideas.

Examples of some of the topics covered in these little essays (average about 1 to 2 pages each) are: Part 1 (Men): Does penis size matter, racial penis profiling, whether you should have sex before the big game, Foreskin myths; Part 2 (Women): Women don’t really want sex, the bush vs. Brazilian, G-spots, Douching; Part 3 (Sex): aphrodisiacs, sex and exercise, piercing, television making you over sexed, watching porn, premature ejaculation, masturbation myths; Part 4 (Getting Pregnant): sex during menstruation, rape, birth control pills vs. antibiotics, IUDs; Part 5 (STDs): Condoms, Human-papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine, HPV vaccine making girls want to have sex, and HIV. This is just a selection from the table of contents, but as you can see the scope is wide ranging.

This book goes a long way to dispelling a lot of these myths, and it does it in a very well written, humorous, and intelligent way. This would be a great books for every teacher, school councillor, school nurse, and many others to have on their book shelf.

I also enjoyed Drs. Carrol & Vreeman's other book "Don't Swallow You Gum: Myths, half-truths, and out right lies about your body and health" which I reviewed back in November 2020. I also reviewed Dr. Carrol's book "The Bad Food Bible: How and Why to Eat Sinfully" back in March 2020.

Enjoy.