If you’re looking for an introduction to Robert A. Heinlein’s vast corpus of fantastic science fiction, don’t read Sixth Column, read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. If you’re a Heinlein junkie who’s read all his other stuff and you want a quick, fun read covering the typical Heinlein themes (the able man, war, gee whiz technology, “long live democracy”), then you’ll definitely want to pick up this book.

The basic premise is: the USA has been invaded by “PanAsians,” and the government effectively destroyed. Having subjugated India, the “PanAsians” know how to tie down the USA–lots of labor camps, citizen registration and public executions as punishment for any rebellion. But they also have learned not to interfere with their subjects’ religion(s). One small military base, a research laboratory, has escaped destruction; luckily the plucky soldiers have an able commander and lots of technology the invaders simply can’t match.

From there, it’s just a matter of time. The reader gets to watch how these men build a movement, screw with the “PanAsian” leadership, and eventually free the USA. Of course the technology is hokey and the dialog can be a bit offensive, but it’s realistic (yeah, I think slurs are allowable if they’re marching your family off to the labor camps). This book was written in 1949 and reflects some of the paranoia that Heinlein later gave voice to in Expanded Universe.

But, it’s a fun, quick read and if you like Heinlein, you’ll probably like it. It’s no classic, but not every book can be.

Well, I’ve figured out how Bill Bryson writes his hugely amusing tomes. Yup, I sussed out the formula:

1. pick a topic of interest that folks don’t know much about

2. research it well, finding both fundamental facts and interesting tidbits

3. present the research in a conversational manner, dropping witticisms left and right.

Let’s see how this applies to the latest Bryson book I’ve read: The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way.

Point 1: Not many folks, least of all in America, know much about our language. This is kind of astonishing, given that it’s our primary means of communicating (trust me, I spent several weeks in small Swiss towns, and I can tell you from experience that language is the main method of communicating. Charades isn’t as fun when you want something to eat). But, other than the most common word (the) and letter (e), and the fact that English doesn’t have gendered words, I didn’t know much about English.

Point 2: This book shines here. Did you know that the word tits hasn’tchanged since the 10th century (page 215)? Or that Japan buys as many copies of the Oxford English Dictionary as the USA, and more than Britain (page 195)? Or that one sound (yi) in the Pekinese dialect of Mandarin stands for 215 words (page 86)? To support these sometimes absurd sounding claims, we get some footnotes and an eight page bibliography.

Point 3: As always, Bryson is prepared to take a pot shot at any ludicrous statement or proposition, and the English language provides plenty of those. Some of my favorites:

1. “…It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the British have such distinctive place-names not because they just accidentally evolved, but rather because the British secretly like living in places with names like Lower Slaughter and Great Snoring” (page 205).

2. Quoth a congressman, “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for me” (page 195). Bryson doesn’t even bother to comment on this, letting the absurdity scream for itself.

3. When examining the dictionary of Samuel Johnson, Bryson points out that Johnson defines “oats as a grain that sustained horses in England and people in Scotland” (page 153). He lets several of Johnson’s tart remarks speak for themselves, but he also examines why this English dictionary (which wasn’t the first) had such an impact.

Just the names of the chapters gives you and idea of the scope of this book. From “The World’s Language” to “Spelling” to “Names” to “Swearing,” Bryson leaves little out. Even the discussion of cross word puzzles and palindromes (hardly exciting stuff), in the “Wordplay” chapter, doesn’t bore.

Sure, it’s a formulaic book, but a damn good one.

This book, by Paulo Coelho, is, like all fables, written on many levels. Ostensibly the story of a shepard in Spain who, unlike so many people, follows his dreams. He does get a little help from the supernatural, but many of the stories most interesting thoughts come from his musings on nature. His travels take him across the Mediteranean into Africa, where he meets several archetypal characters (the Man Afraid of Change, the Waiting Woman, the Wise Shaman, the Warrior Chief, the Cynical Fool), learns about himself and his dreams, and finds his destiny.

An interesting way to look at this story is to ask the question: who is the title character? Alchemy is such a potent idea–the changing of one element into another has had a grasp on the human mind for as long as we have known about elements. But, of course, alchemy has secondary meanings–an alchemist transforms. Is the boy an alchemist, for transforming himself and the lives of those around him? Is God the alchemist, for transforming the destinies of humanity? Is the reader the alchemist, for taking the fable and transforming its words into something personally meaningful?

My favorite part about this book was its gritty reality. I like epics, but there were no sweeping vistas and no ubermensch heros in this book. Everything the boy does (and we never learn his name) is something you and I could do. I guess that’s the point of the book.

Update: As ihath commented you do learn the boy’s name. It’s revealed on the first page. But, as I remember, it’s not used much throughout the book, maintaining the everyman nature of the story.

“The Alchemist” at Amazon.

Updated 2/25/2007: Added amazon link.

Douglas Adams is amazingly whimsical. If the Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy didn’t convince you of that, the Dirk Gently novels will. Gently is a detective, but no Sherlock Holmes. No, rather than ruling out the impossible to leave only the improbable, Gently prefers to believe the impossible, because it makes so much more sense than the improbable. He solves his case through ingenuity, luck, and a belief in the interconnectedness of all things.

A highlight for me is Dirk’s method of finding directions. He just follows someone who looks like they know where they are going. This, he says, doesn’t always get him to where he wanted to go, but almost always gets him to where he needs to be. If only we all had such faith!

This book is the second of two about the private eye. I don’t want to give away too much of the story, as it is definitely a mystery, but it covers some of the same ground as American Gods in a much less sinister manner. Everything has a reason and a rhyme in this book, even if at first encounter, an event makes no sense, neither to the characters nor the reader. While the ending is a bit abrupt for my taste, if you like whimsy, you’ll get an ample helping with this book.

Link to this book on Amazon.

Updated 2/25/2007: Added amazon link.

Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics, by Martin Ewans, is a fantastic book. This fascinating account of this plucky country was chock full of facts that have immediate relevance. Covering from ancient times to 2002, this book provides a traditional history–no stories of the working classes or women. But it covers the byzantine regime changes of Afghanistan very well. It als does a fine job of explaining how the Afghanistan state was in constant tension between the local tribal powers and the more modern central authority of the king. The foreign situation was also an exercise in balance, with the Afghans depending on money, guns and expertise from British India to fend off the Russian Empire. However, the relationship with the Brits wasn’t entirely golden, as the three Anglo-Afghan wars suggest.

While the history was intensely interesting, the last chapters of the book, which cover the politics and battles of the last two decades which have left Afghanistan such a mess, were the most relevant for me. If you want to know how mcuh the CIA spent supporting the Taliban, it’s in there. If you want to know which external nations supported which of the warring factions, it’s in there. If you want to know why Afghanistan grows the majority of the world’s opium, it’s in there.

I won’t say this book was easy to get through. The writing is quite dense. The frequent re-appearance of characters was at times confusing, but I fear that is more a feature of Afghan history than a shortcoming of the book. For a concise political history of a nation that we’re becoming more and more involved with, check it out.

Link to the book on Amazon.

I just finished ‘A Farce to Be Reckoned With’ by Roger Zelazny and Robert Sheckley. I’ve read a fair bit of Zelazny–the Amber novels and Lord Of Light and some others. This book looked more light hearted, but I figured I’d give it a try.

I was sorely disappointed. There’s no plot. Or, rather, there is a plot, but it makes no sense. Plot turns are introduced (like the Greek gods getting free) and then dropped, willy nilly. There’s a character called Peter Westfall who gets Pandora’s Box at the beginning, but we never hear from him again. And at the end, we have a fight scene that is a total deus ex machina–the end of the book comes with no explanations.

Normally, you expect characters to have reasons for things they do. They can do weird things, but they should justify it to themselves, and have the actions be a natural outgrowth of their past. This is called characterization. Characters in this book have one sentence justifications for absurd actions. We have a nun who decides to deal with the devil, and an angel who is ordered to spy. There’s a set of religious pilgrims headed toward Venice during the Middle Ages. A demon joins them, proves himself to be a demon, and they don’t even run from him.

The dialog is wretched. Everyone converses in a stilted manner. The description is campy; the authors apparently decided to focus on the clothing of women–there are attractive wimples and red low cut blouses galore.

It feels like this book has been subjected to random editing. Or perhaps worse than random, as I feel that there may have been malicious intent at confusing the reader. Characters pop up, disappear for a while, then pop up again with no explanation (an example is the young lady named Priscilla [or Puss]).

But you know what? All of the above flaws could have been forgiven if there had been any scene, any scene at all, that was funny. I wanted to forgive the flaws–I wanted to laugh–I read the entire book, didn’t I? But I didn’t even crack a smile the entire book. There were times I put it down and thought to myself, ‘Why are you wasting your time?’ I will admit, I finished the book (I think for the same reasons that folks slow down to look at a wreck on the highway).

Don’t buy this book. If you want some funny fantasy, read ‘A Night in the Lonesome October’ (which is great!) or anything by Blaylock. Don’t buy this book.

I recently re-read The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card. This book really matters to me, on a number of different levels. It’s not his most touching novel and by no means does it have the best characters. But it examines the nature of morality in a direct, simple manner that I’ve not found in too many other books.

The premise is that, due to genetics, a race of super beings exists, and they’ve saved humankind from all pain–they watch over everyone else. No more physical injuries–if you cut off your hand, they can heal it from afar. No more mental anguish–if your parent dies, they make it seem as though it was a year ago. No more social problems–bastards are prevented in the womb, and similar actions have no consequences.

And that’s the fundamental issue. What does it mean to be an adult human being when actions have no consequences? Without choice, what is morality? These are issues that religions and philosophers have struggled with for thousands and thousands of years, but I like Card’s answer.

In addition to the main novella, the book also contains a set of short stories that ‘back up’ the main one. Just as the Silmarillion, while not a fantastic read, enhances your appreciation of Middle Earth, these backing stories add depth to the Worthing universe. It’s not often that you get a chance to read this underlying material, and that’s another thing that makes this book unique.

It’s also fantastic to see Orson Scott Card evolve as a writer. He was able to pick and choose the best of these short stories, but even so, you can still see him pay homage to the writers he read (as he mentions in the preface) as well as develop ideas of his own.

It’s a great book, and I highly recommend it.