The Long Earth

 

By Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

Another story about the multiverse, this time with an infinity of Earths to choose from, ranging from very slightly different to majorly different, including at least one where there is no Earth at all, just black space.

A man invents a device that allows people to flip a switch and travel instantly to the nearest version of Earth. To get to the next version, they have to toggle the switch again. So traveling to the further versions can take weeks, months and even years. Especially since iron metal doesn't transfer which means no equipment or machines made with iron and iron components. Also no livestock such as oxen and horses can be brought across. (Weird conditions the authors set up to make things more challenging and interesting, I guess.)

Oddly, none of these alternate Earths have their own naturally occurring populations of humans and are pristine wildernesses waiting to be exploited. Because of course that is what we do. Masses of people flee our planet to try their luck in a new world of their very own. I must admit it does sound appealing, but of course it is not as wonderful as it seems at first. Trying to carve a living out of a virgin wilderness is hard work.

It also turns out that there are some people who don't need a device to "step" as it is called in the story. It is an innate ability in some humans, most of whom are not at first aware they have that ability. But one who does is a young orphan being raised by the nuns in a childrens home, Joshua Valiente. 

The man who invented the stepping device released the blue print online without telling people what it does. Of course, people start building their own copy of it, just to see what it does, especially since it is intriguing powered by a potato battery. Who could resist that? It turns out that most definitely the kids in Joshua's local area can't and, when they flip the switch, they end up lost in a strange wilderness. But Joshua is not one of the disorientated kids when he steps and helps rescue the lost and frightened kids and discovers, in the process, that he doesn't need the device to step. He also doesn't suffer the debilitating side effects most people experience when they step.

Joshua's heroism creates interest in the public and he finds the attention unwelcome and uses his newfound skill to escape the scrutiny. Eventually he comes to the attention of a major multinational corporation and they make him an offer he decides not to refuse: a voyage of discovery using an amazing flying blimp to transit the earths effortlessly. He will be accompanied by an artificial human linked to a supercomputer that claims to be a reincarnated Tibetan motorcycle repair man. So the adventure into the plethora of alternate Earths begins.

The story is mainly about the voyage, with a few encounters with some creatures and beings, but not much else happens. Joshua and Lobsang encounter beings that they decide to call trolls because the beings are large and hairy. And beings they call elves because they are small and extremely vicious. Both trolls and elves have the stepping ability and have probably visited human Earth in the past. There is some mystery about why none of the Earths have native humans. There is also a mystery about why the trolls and elves are suddenly on the move, stepping from Earth to Earth. A further mystery is the presence that Joshua has sensed haunting his brain since he was a kid. And it also turns out that some people, a few, do not possess the ability to step, whether inborn or using the stepping device. This has created a natural resentment that has matured into a rebellion against the steppers. 

This book was a struggle to read because I found it so boring. Most of the story is centered on the voyage of Joshua and Lobsang in the blimp. They had one violent encounter with the elves but other than that, not much happens. At one point, they pick up a passenger, a woman who turns out to be the daughter of the man who invented the stepping device. There was some mystery in the story about that man and how he came to invent the device.

But I trudged through the book to the ending and it seemed pretty clear to me that The Long Earth is the first in a series. Also, unrelated though, Terry Pratchett is the coauthor of the book which is strange because it is lacking in the whimsy and humor that is what I was expecting from a Pratchett book. All in all, it was disappointing. And way too long, over 400 pages in paperback form. 

Despite this, it had a couple of passages that I did enjoy a lot. The first when Joshua is checking in at an airport to board a plane sent for him by a very important corporation:

"Once the clerk had entered his booking reference he went very quiet, and picked up the phone, and Joshua began to realize what it meant to have a friend in Lobsang, as he was whisked away from the lines of passengers and led along corridors with the politeness you might observe when dealing with a politician belonging to a country that had nuclear weapons and a carefree approach to their deployment."

And where the story is speaking of how various nations decided to rule their equivalent territories in the other Earths, some amusing words on how the French decided to handle it:

"The French, for example, declared that all the French footprints [territories] were available for colonization by anybody who wanted to be French, and was prepared to accept a carefully put together document which outlined what being French meant. It was a brave idea, slightly let down by the fact that despite a nationwide debate it appeared that no two Frenchmen could agree exactly on what being French did mean." 

Here is a review of the novel by Kirkus Reviews.

 

A Knight In Shining Armor

 

By Jude Deveraux

Dougless (the female main character) has traveled to England with her boyfriend and his teen daughter to get to know the daughter better. But it has not been going well and after an angry confrontation, boyfriend and daughter have left and abandoned her in the graveyard of an ancient church. 

Feeling like an absolute failure at life, her tears call forth a knight in shining armor, Sir Nicholas Stafford, Earl of Thornwyck, who died back in the 1500s. Apparently he was buried in his armor, along with jewel encrusted weapons, he is a walking fortune in gold and gems. Which is a good thing, it turns out, because boyfriend's teen daughter has stolen Doug's purse. (What a strange name Dougless is for a heroine in a romance novel.)

Nick is a bit upset that some witch has called him forth from his grave and wants to be released from her summons. But Doug has no clue how she did it nor how to undo it. So together the two must figure out how to survive in modern day Britain, Doug with no money and no ID and Nick lost in a time 180 degrees different from what he knows. Good thing Nick was buried with a small bag of coins from his time that are worth so much the coin expert they visit eye's probably nearly bug out of his head.

The first part of the book is the best, I think, with Doug helping Nick live in the modern world. The second part has Doug back in Nick's time. Unfortunately, that Nick has forgotten all the time they spent together in the future, leaving Doug in a rather precarious position and existing on the good graces of his very mercenary mother. Doug's mission in the past is to save Nick's life. He will become the victim of the insidious plot of an dangerously ambitious woman and an angry cuckolded husband. 

I didn't find the second part as interesting as the first. Mainly I think because Doug found herself quite at home and happy in the past, coping well without all the modern comforts and conveniences. When I think about the state of medical care back then and of women's rights, I find it nearly impossible to believe any modern woman would be happy to be back in those primitive times. Which is why I really liked the ending of the story, it made a lot of sense to me, well, as much as a ridiculous fantasy love story can make sense.

Here is a review of the novel from the website Dear Author by contributor The Fallen Professor. 

Why Not Me?

 

By Mindy Kaling

Kaling's memoir of her life after The Office. She talks a lot about her comedy series The Mindy Project. And about her ambitions and, to a lesser degree, her personal life. 

Book is an OK read, probably more interesting if the reader is already a fan. I knew she was in The Office, but I didn't have cable and never saw her in The Mindy Project.  I found the book to be a tad disappointing because I was thinking it was going to be really funny but it isn't, just mildly humorous. Not to say it's a bad read, because it isn't. Just wasn't what I was looking for. 

What's New, B.C.?

 

By Johnny Hart

Daily comics from copyright 1962, 1963, 1968.

Hart was at the top of his game at this time, so funny!!

Belshazzar

 

By Chaim Bermant

This is Belshazzar's own story as told by him. It starts out fairly nice, Bel living with a family and having a good life. But he gets into trouble and is sent to live with an elderly couple. 

Things are OK at first and he is rather spoiled by the old people and he gets a bit chubby. But then the old lady dies and the old man's daughter moves into her dad's house to take care of him. The daughter and her boy friend don't like cats and don't take good care of Bel. It goes from bad to worse when the old man gets put in a nursing home. Bel ends up homeless and in desperate circumstances when he is rediscovered by the family who gave him away in the first place. They bring him back to their house, presumably to live out his final days in a loving home. 

This was an OK read. It is a very short novel, only 64 pages long. It really points out how thoughtlessly cruel humans are to the animals that depend on us for their lives. And how hard it is for domesticated animals to survive on their own when we abandon them to forage for themselves.

Listen for the Lie

 

By Amy Tintera

So, back when she was twenty-four, Lucy Chase was found one morning, wandering, covered in blood and with a wound to her head. She had no memory of the night before.

Shortly after Lucy was found, her best friend, Savvy was also found, dead, with her head bashed in. At first, it was assumed that the two women were both the victims of assault. But when Savvy's blood was found on Lucy and her skin under Lucy's fingernails, the truth of what happened that night was not clear. The case was never brought to trial because of lack of evidence.

The local townsfolk, for the most part, decided that Lucy had killed her friend and that she was pretending to have amnesia. Savvy's family was among that group. Included were Lucy's own mother and father, although they kept their doubts to themselves. 

The hostility was so toxic for Lucy, that she moved to California. For five years, she never returned home. Until her grandmother talked Lucy into coming home for the grandmother's birthday. At which point, the grandmother told her that a famous podcaster had arrived in town to do a program about the murder in hopes of figuring out who actually killed Savvy. The grandmother even talked Lucy into letting the podcaster interview Lucy. 

In the five years since Savvy's death, Lucy has never been able to remember what happened that night. She agrees to the interview because she wants to know the truth. She hopes that she will finally be able to recover her memory, even if it means she is guilty of the murder of her best friend.

This was an OK read. Actually, I found it a bit boring. I never really got that interested in Lucy and her story. Lucy is supposed to be a hard case, but she doesn't live up to that reputation throughout the story. She comes across as a bit of a wimp, I think. 

Everyone in this little Texas town is getting plenty of action, including Lucy's parents, who have been busy outside of their marriage for years and years. Even Lucy's eighty-something grandmother has several men friends. And apparently, back before the day of the murder, the now-dead best friend was getting plenty of action, as was Lucy herself and her now-ex husband. Overall, the whole town comes off as something out of a daytime soap opera, everybody boinking everybody else and everybody seemingly knowing it. Including Lucy herself, who soon hooks up with the podcaster fellow who is supposed to be interviewing her. This book is like an audition for a melodramatic series on TV or on streaming. 

Guess I'm not the only one who thought this book was meant for video. Apparently it is going to be turned into a series for TV by Universal. Here's a link to an article in the LA Times. I didn't know about this when I wrote above that the book is like an audition for a TV show. 

Hurray For B.C.

 

By Johnny Hart

Selected cartoons from The Sunday Best of B.C. from cartoons published in 1958 to 1963.

Even though these cartoons are more than sixty ago, they are still very charming and very funny. Love it!

Spy x Family 1

 

By Tatsuya Endo

This graphic manga novel is the first in a series starring Loid Forger aka Twilight, Yor Forger nee Bond, and Anya Forger, an orphan girl that Loid adopted.

Loid is a spy who works for the fictional country of Westalis. Neighboring country Ostania is the main enemy of Westalis. Loid has a new spy assignment, find a wife and a child of school age and enroll the child in the prestigious Eden academy in order to get close to the son of an important man in Ostanian politics. This where Yor and Anya come in.

Yor Bond is an assassin. Her day job is working for City Hall. The people she works with don't know she is an assassin. She became an assassin as a way to earn money to support herself and her brother when they were younger. 

Westalis is a rather traditional country and Yor has been getting some flack at work about not being married. Unmarried women are viewed suspiciously so Yor realizes she needs to find a husband or at least a boyfriend in order to smooth things over at her day job.

Anya is a telepath and this ability gives her a rather uncanny air and has resulted in several foster families returning her to the orphanage. So when Loid shows up at the orphanage looking for a child to adopt in order to fulfil his mission, Anya has all the answers for his requirements. She is small and claims to be six years old, but possibly she is younger. 

Loid finds out he needs a wife because Eden Academy doesn't accept children of single parents. He encounters Yor while shopping for clothes for newly adopted Anya. They get to chatting and Yor learns he is a single parent and she asks him to attend an office party with her, posing as her boyfriend. In his turn, Loid asks Yor to pose as his wife and Anya's mother for an interview with the Eden Academy admissions committee. 

The office party is first on the list and Loid is late at arriving, leaving Yor subject to the teasing of her coworkers. He shows up late and rather beat up and bruised from a spy operation and tells everyone he is Yor's husband and that he is a psychiatrist and that one of his patients got violent. 

After the party is over, Loid is driving Yor home and the gang from the spy operation attacks Loid. He tells Yor the gangsters are all his patients. When Loid has to bash one of the gang on the head, he tells Yor it's a new, cutting edge treatment called concussive therapy.  While fleeing from the gangsters, Yor asks Loid to marry her. Since this is what he wants too, he quickly agrees and uses the pin from a grenade as an engagement ring and they make quick promises to each other and declare themselves married. And Yor soon moves into Loid and Anya's apartment, much to Anya's delight. Because her fondest desire is to have a loving mother and father. And she will do everything possible to make that happen.

Next step in Loid's mission is getting Anya enrolled at Eden. Which will require jumping through a lot of hoops to get her accepted into the school.

I enjoyed this graphic novel. The art style looks pretty typical of manga. Although I am no judge of that, having very little experience with manga. The story is quirky and amusing at times and I want to find out what happens to this odd little family. I am planning to get the second volume in the series.

The Romance Readers' Book Club

 

By Julie L. Cannon

Fifteen-year-old Tammi lives with religious fanatic Granny Elco. Granny works Tammi hard and keeps a tight rein on the girl. Tammi tries to live up to Granny's expectation but at fifteen she is starting to think for herself and is secretly rebellious against all Granny's rules, to a limited extent.

Granny is trying to raise Tammi in the faith just like she raised her daughters. Oddly, though, her daughters grew up to live their own lives without much concern for their mother's rules and restrictions. One daughter, Nanette, ended up married to a unfaithful alcoholic and living in Las Vegas. The other daughter, Minna, lives near her mother but dresses as she pleases with short skirts, heels, makeup. Poor Tammi has to wear the dowdy, churchy clothes Granny chooses for her. 

One day, while out trick-or-treating with her Uncle Orr, they stopped by one house but the woman who lived there didn't have any Halloween treats to give out. Instead she filled their sack with trashy romance novels.

This was a new world of reading for Tammi and reading these semi-explicit stories got her teenage juices flowing. She shared the stories with Orr, but he was just confused by them. (He is mentally slow.) She told Granny's daughter Minna about the books and together they started the Romance Reader's book club, which consisted of Minna, Tammi, Orr, LaDonna (a schoolmate of Tammi's) and LaDonna's cousin Parks.

Nannette comes home from Vegas for Christmas with her teenage son, Leon. Leon is a couple of years older than Tammi and gorgeous. But he seems indifferent to Tammi's charms and she is determined to win him, just like the girls in the romance books she and the book club have been reading (minus Orr because the stories got him too upset and they had to continue the readings without him). 

Meanwhile, the state of Georgia is experiencing an extended drought and the local minister is haranguing his congregation that the Lord is withholding the rain as a punishment for the people's sins and that they need to get right with God and give up their sinful ways. Young and inexperienced Tammi takes this warning to heart and decides that her reading of suggestive romance novels is what is keeping the life-giving rain away. And so she ends the book club. But the temptation is too great and she falls back into sin. She just can't resist these books. And she just can't tame her passion for the unresponsive Leon and starts her campaign to win him based on the plots of the romance novels she is reading. But he remains elusive. Turns out he has decided to dedicate his life to God and saving souls from eternal damnation. Poor Tammi. 

This was an OK read. Everybody caves to religion at the end including Tammi who fails to see through the nonsense. Disappointing read. 

Normally I wouldn't read a book about religious people. But the blurbs on the book fooled me. The blurbs hinted that Tammi finds her way out of the religious nonsense. I did look at the publisher before reading it to see if it was by a religious publisher but it is Penguin/Plume publishing and that is not a publisher that focuses on religious books.

Just for fun, here is an example of the "steamy" sections of the books the club is reading:

"Running Bear emerged from the Atawah River, his biceps bulging and glistening beneath his lovely red skin. Nekoosa, crouched behind a pine, was keeping her eyes on the small indents at his waist. They begged for the caress of her lips. She would never forget his scent—elusive, musky, laced with traces of the river. Nor could she forget their wild, abandoned love in the shadowed forest. Without a sound, she crept out, her soft mound aching as she remembered all too well how he brought her to the point of ecstasy many times.

She approached him, her tightened nipples pointing the way, desire so strong it was as if she'd lived only for the moment when they would be united in the flesh again, until his hardness pressed against her with a savagery all its own."

Yeah, pretty dorky stuff. 😃

Here is a review of the novel by the All About Romance website.

Bet Your Bottom Dollar

 By Karin Gillespie

First book in the Bottom Dollar Girls series.

Elizabeth works in a dollar store in a small town in South Carolina. She doesn't expect much from life and views herself as very ordinary. She is also recovering from being dumped by her fiancé who left her for another woman. 

A friend introduces Elizabeth to her grandson, Timothy Hollingsworth, who has come home to run the family business, a paper company. The friend talks Elizabeth into giving Timothy a chance and they start dating. At first, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere and Elizabeth is getting discouraged. She enjoys being with Timothy but can't figure out why he doesn't seem like he wants a more intimate relationship. Turns out that he is a bit on the shy side and it isn't much longer before he pops the question and the two of them have a quickie wedding and are married. 

Problems arise because of questions about both of their pasts. For instance, why does Elizabeth look so much like Timothy's grandmother when she was a young woman? Who was the mysterious man Elizabeth's mother was involved with before she married Elizabeth's father, a man she only refers to in her diary as B? And why did Timothy's parents treat him so coldly that he feels so disconnected to both his mother and his father, who is no longer alive? 

Meanwhile, the man who dumped Elizabeth is back trying to win her over again, claiming that he made a terrible mistake and he never stopped loving her.

This was an OK read. This one was also supposed to be funny but wasn't. I did enjoy reading it and I enjoyed the mystery but it just never seemed to be the "delight" the blurbs promised. Or that I would "laugh myself sick" reading it. Neither of those things happened. It was fine. But not interesting enough to entice to read the other two books in the series.

Kirkus Reviews has a review of the novel.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

 

By Marina Lewycka

Nikolai is 84 years old and in love with a 36 year old Ukrainian woman named Valentina. Nikolai is also Ukrainian but he immigrated to the UK after WW II. 

Nikolai has two middle aged daughters, Nadezhda and Vera. Not surprisingly, the two daughters are strongly opposed to Nikolai's involvement with Valentina. They try to reason with their father, pointing out that the woman is just looking to establishing a residence in Britain by marrying a British citizen. He doesn't listen. Valentina is a very attractive sexy woman and he has fallen under her spell.

Nikolai does marry her and it soon become clear that she wants whatever she can get out of him. It also becomes clear that she married him believing he had way more money than he really has. She is constantly after him for more money, more things, more access to his savings. It also becomes clear that Nikolai is not the only man she has dangling after her. And that she was probably a prostitute back in Ukraine. Nikolai remains smitten and spends too much money trying to satisfy her many demands. 

His two daughters intervene and convince him to file for a divorce. He is reluctant but agrees to file. He continues to waffle on going through with it though. When Valentina was with him, he could fool himself about himself. This cannot last, though, because she comes pushy and angry and threatens him. She eventually leaves his house, along with her teenage son. Though she no longer lives with Nikolai, she still pops in and out of his house and his life, trying to squeeze more money out of him, even trying to gain possession of his house. He is lucky that he has two daughters who do what it takes to protect their vulnerable father from the predacious Valentina.

This was an OK read. The four of them, the father, the two daughters and Valentina struggle against each other, first one is on top and then the other is on top and always there is Nikolai's indecision. He just liked thinking of himself as the manly 84 year old with the sexy young wife, the envy of all the other men. Never mind her selfishness and greed and bad character. It isn't even about the sex, which doesn't go much beyond the fondling stage. 

My main problem with the story, other than that it was way too long, is that it is not funny. The reviews said it was funny. The blurbs on the cover said it was funny. It wasn't. I wanted funny.

Back to B.C.

 

By Johnny Hart

Excerpts from Hart's daily comic strip, B.C. from the late 1950s to early 1960s. Second book in this series.

Hart's B.C. comic strip is charming, funny, innocent and the humor holds up more than sixty years later. A pleasure to visit this collection again. 

I Still Dream About You

 

By Fannie Flagg

Margaret Fortenberry is a beautiful woman. She was so pretty that she had a real chance to be crowned Miss America. But unfortunately, she was Miss Alabama at the time of the civil rights struggle and the state of Alabama did not welcome the reforms. And so the judges of the Miss America pageant decided picking Miss Alabama would be too controversial. And so Maggie missed her chance at big time success. Truth is, beyond being staggeringly good looking, she really didn't have much to offer the world. She wasn't particularly talented or smart and, even though beautiful, she was too short to make in the world of high fashion modelling. And so, she ended back in her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, selling real estate. She never married and she never had children, she lives alone without even a pet to keep her company. And now in her early sixties, she is seriously planning to kill herself.

But daily life keeps getting in the way of Maggie executing her plan. She keeps having to put it off to handle the problems that just refuse to stop popping up and getting in her way. Until finally, things calm down enough for her to put the plan in motion. Her clothing has been donated, credit cards paid off, utilities cancelled, bank account closed, key hidden under the doormat and a goodbye letter left on the table in her apartment. Nothing and no one to stop her. 

Maggie's sorrow and disappointment with the mistakes of the past and with the loneliness of her declining years are understandable. I suppose most people in their later years look back and regret wrong decisions, I know I do. For one, I wish that I'd finished college. Maggie has her regrets too, mainly that she turned the hometown boy down when he proposed to her, instead heading off to New York to make it in the big city. Part of her depression is rooted the death of the woman she worked for at the real estate office who died very suddenly and unexpectedly. This woman, Hazel, was successful, driven, and, at the same time, kind and considerate of her fellow humans and of the people who worked for her. Her death left a painful void in Maggie's life and without her leadership, the company is struggling. 

So, although I did understand Maggie's suicidal depression, [SPOILER] I have read several Fannie Flagg novels over the years and I really doubted she would end up dead. She was the perfect heroine of a Fannie Flagg story, beautiful, kind, good natured. There was no way Fannie was going to let her kill herself. I did find it a bit amusing how fate keeps Maggie from going through with her plan. 

It was a good story even if Maggie seems a bit clueless throughout the novel. She's a sweet lady and she certainly got her happy ending. In spades!

Kirkus Reviews has a review of this novel.