“Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas” by James Patterson (Little Brown, 2001)

Looking for a change, Patterson has laid down the calculating mind of Alex Cross, and set aside the fabulous foursome of 1st to Die, delivering his first romance, Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas.  Although coming off as often corny and sometimes just unbelievable, near the end the book picks up and Patterson delivers some of his more familiar “tricks.”

The book is a love story about a woman, Kate Wilkinson, who has found the man of her dreams, Matt.  On the night that she is about to give him some great news, he tells her he can no longer see her and leaves.  A few days later she received a package from him: a diary written by his wife, Suzanne, to their son Nicholas.  Katie finally builds up the courage to read the diary and delves into the lives she never knew.  Instead of being angry at this Suzanne, Katie begins to like her and finally understands why Matt did what he did.

There are pints in the diary where Suzanne talks of going off and having sex with Matt, though not in so many blunt words, yet this is clear not something you would tell your son!  Nevertheless, Patterson does deliver two shocking twists, and in the end the reader is brought to their emotional edge.  But this is a love story, so it all ends happily.

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Originally published on October 15th 2001.

Originally published in the Long Beach Union.

“Libraries in the Ancient World” by Lionel Casson (Yale University Press, 2001)

Libraries of Yore

Before Patience and Fortitude, those familiar lions, gazed from New York’s Public Library, what was there?  And what was there before the printing press and the wonderfully doctored paper each of us use every day?

Questions that no doubt many people have asked, and have not been able to find the answers to.  Libraries in the Ancient World answers all these questions and more, from a professor’s perspective, ergo in immense detail that is unrivaled.

Crossing a long spectrum, from the early days of Babylonia, into ancient Egypt and its papyrus, crossing over to ancient Greece and Rome, looking into the early Middle Ages and how monks continued the flourishing art of bookkeeping.

Lionel Casson has written a book that is short and to the point, not filled with fluff and boring verbiage, just details, both colorful and immensely interesting.

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Originally published on October 15th 2001

Originally published in the Long Beach Union.

“Snow Mountain Passage” by James D. Houston (Knopf, 2001)

Donner Lake is a Misnomer

Anyone who took high school American history is familiar with the Donner party and the great tragedy that befell them when they attempted the monumental crossing from Illinois to California; they got snowed-in in the Sierra Nevadas and had to resort to cannibalism to survive starvation.

Everyone is familiar with the grisly details of this doomed journey.  In James D. Houston’s Snow Mountain Passage, new insights are brought to life, and the reader is taken on a journey quite different from the one they learned about in American history 101.

“I gaze down from the summit at the icy ring of Truckee Lake, the one they now call Donner,” recounts Patty Reed, one of the survivors, in her diary some 75 years after that cruel winter, “an it’s odd to think that neither George nor Jacob ever got anywhere near the lake that is named for them . . . It tells you something about the way things get remembered.”

Our main family is not the Donners but the Reeds, our narrator is Jim Reed (and Patty Reed through her diary), who is forced to leave the party after an erratic act of promoted violence that leaves one of the 80-member party dead.  Ahead he goes and makes it to the wonderful land of California, which is currently – in 1846 – in turmoil.  There are the Californians, who are the natives, the Mexicans, who still hold rights to the country, and then there are the Americans trying to take California from the Mexicans.

Jim Reed is thrown headfirst into this tumultuous struggle, while at the same time his very soul aches to take out a rescue party and help those in need, stranded in the icy mountains.

Meanwhile, the reader is given an alternate view, through Patty Reed’s diary, of how helpless the party is in in the mountains, with little food left to keep them alive.  They now have to resort to boiling animal skins and scraping the resulting gray gelatin and using it as sustenance.

Hunger is the poignant metaphor in this book that is never forgotten: hunger for those who have nothing to eat; hunger for those who wish to rescue them; hunger for those who wish for land in California, and intend to fight for it; hunger for those who wish for independence, be they American, California, or Mexican; and hunger for those who wish to make it to the soft warm hinterlands and finally settle down.

At some points Houston takes the read on too deep a journey into the fight for freedom taking place between the different peoples of California; nevertheless it serves as an interesting history lesson, letting the reader know such ditties as why San Francisco and Truckee received the names they did.  (One was named after an Indian chief, and the other was named after the large bay, which was in turn named after Saint Francis of Assisi.)

The book serves as an interesting and most illustrative dark chapter in California’s history, not dwelling on the gory details, but still revealing them in a factual sense that abhors the reader – from the story but not from the book.  Snow Mountain Passage stands as a useful history book on any shelf, even though it is a work of fiction.

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Originally published on October 8th 2001

Originally published in the Long Beach Union.

“The Cassandra Compact” by Robert Ludlum and Philip Shelby (St. Martin’s Press, 2001)

In the second in the “Covert-One” series (after The Hades Factor), renowned author Robert Ludlum (The Prometheus Deception and The Icarus Agenda) teams up with author/screenwriter Philip Shelby (Days of Drums and The Gatekeeper).  Once again the world is in imminent danger.

The last case of smallpox was cured in the ‘70s; only two samples remain: one in Atlanta at the CDC and one in Russia.  A group of unknown terrorists have a plan to capture one of these samples, transform it into a much more vehement strain, and use it as the ultimate germ warfare weapon.  Jon Smith, Covert-One’s best member, is on the case to stop them, nevertheless the elusive terrorists remain one step ahead.  Ultimately, it will come down to a detrimental finale, where the entire world is at risk; the question is how many people will have to die before Jon Smith can save the day.

Sadly, Robert Ludlum died earlier this year, so The Cassandra Compact’s value is double-fold, since it is his last book.  The Covert-One series may not be much of a series after all, but The Cassandra Compact serves as a clear-cut example why, even though the Cold War is over, everything is not A-OK.

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Originally published on October 8th 2001

Originally published in the Long Beach Union.

“The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade: The 11 1/2 Anniversary Edition” by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik (Del Rey, 2010)

Approximately 11 ½ years ago, two four-eyed nerds decided to start a web-comic about video games.  They met in high school, in journalism class: Jerry Holkins had a penchant for putting words together, while Mike Krahulik liked to doodle.  They found common ground in their nerdage and enjoyment of video games.  After a couple of comic book attempts, they settled on a web-comic involving two guys talking, bitching, ridiculing, and loving video games, video game systems, and the whole world of video gaming.  What began as something fun eventually turned into a voice for the fan to fight back again a terrible game or badly created system.  Over a decade later, Penny Arcade is now one of the most popular and longest running comics on the Internet.

When asked why they didn’t do a 10^th anniversary book like everyone else, their excuse was they simply didn’t have time, because Jerry and Mike are very busy guys.  In addition to churning out a webcomic three times a week – as well as copious blog entries – there is Child’s Play: a children’s charity that donates video games, video game systems, and toys to hospitals; started in 2003, it has gone on to generate millions of dollars in toy donations for hospitals worldwide.  Then there’s PAX, the Penny Arcade Expo, which began as an intended small gaming convention in Seattle, and brought in over three thousand people the first year.  It has since gone on to become one of the largest conventions in the county, and in 2010 for the first time there will be a PAX East taking place in Boston.  And then there is the Penny Arcade podcast, as well as PAX TV, showing you behind the scenes of Penny Arcade.

The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade is a great compendium of all things Penny Arcade, as you learn about and hear the stories from Jerry and Mike about how they first became friends, how Penny Arcade started, and the many blunders and pitfalls they’ve made along the way.  You also get to hear from the people who work with and for them, who do their everyday jobs so Jerry and Mike get to play video games and make comics for a living.  The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade is a required book for any fan, to go right next to the collected Penny Arcade comic books.

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Originally written on March 25th 2010 ©Alex C. Telander.