"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.

Murder At The ABA: A puzzle in four days and sixty scenes" by Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)

Publisher: Doubleday & Company

Copyright: 1976

ISBN: 0385113056

This is a very interesting book that is well written, that I enjoyed a lot. It is a first person account of a semi-successful writer attending the 75th ABA (American Booksellers Association) Conference in 1975. He, Darius Just, discovers the body of another writer whom he knows very well. Just is convinced that his friend was murdered, and to assuage his guilty conscience as he failed to do something for him he makes it his goal to prove it, when nobody else believes him.

Darius Just is the narrator, and we are taken on a journey as we discover through his thoughts and actions how he determines who killed his friend. We meet a number of other people at the conference, including Isaac Asimov, (who was actually there) and get a bit of a taste of what a booksellers conference might be like.

While it isn't a long novel, the plot is very well thought out--as is typical with all of Dr. Asimov's novels--and it keeps you in suspense to the very end.

One interesting little fact is that Isaac Asimov was actually contracted to write a story by his publisher entitled "Murder At The ABA", and while all the characters (except himself) and actions in the novel are fictitious it is an enjoyable to read.

"T-Rex and the Crater of Doom" by Walter Alvarez

 

Publisher: Princeton University press

Copyright: 1997

ISBN: 9780691169668

I have been working in the field of palaeontology for 10 years now, and even prior to that likely since I first heard about it in the 1980s, I have always excepted the fact that a meteor or a comet had spelled the end of the era of dinosaurs (otherwise known as the Cretaceous), and that it had hit on what we now know as the Yucatán Peninsula.

I was unaware however of all the research, and the years it took for Walter Alvarez, his father Luis Alvarez, and scores of other scientists to prove that this had actually occurred. This book takes you on an absolutely enthralling journey of how the discovery was made.

The first chapter takes you back to a world 65 Million years ago, just before the Cretaceous era was about to abruptly end. It describes in detail what must have happened on that fateful day when either a comet or meteor approximately 10 kilometres across slammed into the Yucatán Peninsula. There was no warning as it was travelling at an estimated 30 kilometres per second (about 150 times faster than your typical airliner).

Between the time it first touched the Earth's atmosphere and it hit the ground, only 1 second had elapsed.

Dr. Alvarez'sstyle of writing makes this a very easy book to read, and provides the reader with a close look at exactly how the scientific method works, and should be required reading for anyone interested in the scientific method regardless of their discipline, as a great many people don't really seem to realize all the work that has to go in to actually examining a hypothesis, and subsequently proving a theory, or the amount of time it can take to do it.

A great book, I'm kind of sorry it took me so long to getting around to reading it.

"To Sail Beyond the Sunset: The Life and Loves of Maureen Johnson (Being the Memoirs of a Somewhat Irregular Lady)" by Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)

Publisher: Ace Books, New York
Copyright: 1988
ISBN: 0441748600

"To Sail Beyond the Sunset" is the fifth and last book in the world as myth series. It is written in the style of a memoir of Maureen Johnson who is one of the members of the Howard Families, and Lazarus Long's mother.

If you haven't read the other four books in the series then seriously consider picking them up and reading them in order otherwise this book will not make a whole lot of sense, as it builds directly on the last book "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls", and before that “The Number of the Beast", "Time Enough for Love", and “Methuselah's Children". Pixel (the Cat) however is better featured in this book even though he is the title character of "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls".

As mentioned this book is written in the format of a memoir dictated by Maureen Johnson/Smith while she is in jail awaiting trial and possible execution by a rather mysterious group of people, after waking up in a strange hotel room with a corpse beside her.

Outside of this, this novel is primarily about sex. There is no other real theme to the book as it details Maureen's life, her loves, her children, their lives, and fills in a whole lot of the backstory of the Howard families. Which is a good thing because the previous books do leave a number of questions unanswered.

This was also to the best of my knowledge Robert Heinlein's last novel, as he died in 1988. Mr. Heinlein's views on gender relations, sex, religion, marriage, and many other social topics come through very clearly. But this is not necessarily a bad thing (even though it will likely offend some of the more puritanical readers-Mind you they probably wouldn't be reading this book anyways), as the rather odd relationship that various cultures today have towards these topics can easily be accounted for as the characters live some 2000 years in our future, and the chances of our customs not changing in that time is zero.

All in all it was a very good series, but you do have to read it in order for it to make sense. 

Happy reading.

"Don't Swallow You Gum: Myths, half-truths, and out right lies about your body and health" by Dr. Aaron E. Carroll and Dr. Rachel C. Vreeman

Publishers: St. Martin’s Griffin

Copyright: 2009

ISBN: 9780312533878

This is the second book of Dr. Carroll's I've reviewed. The first "Bad Food Bible: How and Why to Eat Sinfully" was very good as well.

In this book he is joined by Dr. Rachel Vreeman, and it is a collection that reviews 62 health related myths about your body. It is separated into six sections entitled: Myths About Your Body, Myths About How We Contract and Treat Diseases, Myths About Sex and Pregnancy, Myths About Babies and Children, Myths About What We Eat and Drink, and finally Myths That Sparked Controversy and Debate.

The book itself is very well written and should be easy to understand for people of any educational background. Both the authors are practising paediatricians, and did extensive literature based research in working on this book. All of the 62 myths that are debunked are nice and short and to the point.

Some of the myths that are debunked include: only using 10% of your brain, ruining your eyesight if you read in the dark, you can beat a breathalyzer test, Cold and wet weather making you sick, a dogs mouth is cleaner than humans, flu shots can cause the flu, losing most of your body heat through your head, singles having better sex than marry people, not being able to get pregnant using the withdrawal method, prediction of gender, baby Einstein making your baby smarter, alcohol consumption by breast-feeding women, sugar making kids hyper, the good old five second rule, chewing gum is better than brushing your teeth, double dipping, poisoning and Hallowe'en candy, newer drugs are always better, and vaccines causing autism. All of which were debunked!

This book also has extensive citations, and references for those who want to check up and read more about the various subjects.

Highly recommended as a very good book, looking forward to reading Drs. Carroll and Vreeman's next book.