Stephen L. Carter. The Emperor of Ocean Park. Vintage, 2002.

For a shorter review see: The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Emperor of Ocean Park is one of the best written contemporary novels I have read. The author knows how to write well—and tell a story. I have known about Professor Carter from his nonfiction work, but this, his first novel, is also a gem.

The story grabs the reader right away. Unlike most novels, it is written in the present tense, but this is not an affectation. It is written mostly from the point of view of Talcott Garland, a professor at a stand-in for Yale Law School, where Carter actually teaches. Much of the story is set in Elm Harbor, Connecticut. New Haven is nicknamed the Elm City, and Haven means “harbor.”

On one level The Emperor of Ocean Park is a mystery. It is a complicated one, but a mystery nevertheless. Talcott’s father was a Federal judge and in the running for a Supreme Court position. However, his college roommate was Jack Ziegler, “Uncle Jack” to Talcott and his brother and two sisters. Though never convicted of a crime, Ziegler was associated with known criminal organizations, and when a former clerk of Judge Talcott—even his own kids call him the Judge—testified of his relationship with Ziegler during the Judge’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, his nomination was withdrawn.

When the Judge dies, Ziegler shows up at the burial service and asks Talcott about his father’s “arrangements.” It is clear he was not talking about his will and how his estate would be distributed. Other people ask Talcott, and his brother and sister the same thing. His brother Addison, a womanizing talk-show host, and sister Mariah, a happy and wealthy suburban mother, both prefer not to know anything about this, but Talcott has to find out.

The Talcott family belongs to the black elite. Ocean Park is a section of Martha’s Vineyard where the family has a summer home. Growing up, they lived in Washington, D.C., in an upscale neighborhood and attended Sidwell Friends School. Readers may recognize that the children of a number of American Presidents attended that school, and that former President Obama owns property on Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the Massachusetts coast.

For readers from other parts of the country who make no association about the Vineyard, Talcott drops names when describing one island hangout: Bill Clinton, Jackie O, Spike Lee, and Ellen Holly, “the pioneering black actress.”

While all the active characters in this novel are fictional, we are reminded from time to time of different political events because of the Judge’s stature and residence in the national capital. One of the strengths of this book is the social and political commentary that accompanies it. Different characters, of course, have different views of the law and society, so their comments make for interesting reading.

Because most of the main characters are black, the novel gives the reader an idea of how black people think and feel about America. Since they are the black elite—professors, judges, bankers—they can be said to have achieved the American Dream. Still, they are aware that they are a distinctive group. The Judge called them the darker nation and white people the paler nation.

But the commentary is not simply about racial identity. There is much on law and on law schools. The novel does a good job in illustrating the politics of campus personnel—gossip, rivalries, and so on. Chapter nine begins with a long single-sentence paragraph describing his “under-educated but deeply committed Phi Beta Kappa ideologues” who make up the student body of his elite law school.

Not only are there several different people besides Uncle Jack curious about the judge’s arrangements, whatever they are, but there is also plenty of family drama. His sister Abby was killed by a hit-and-run driver when she was a teenager. It took a few years for the Judge to get over her death.

Talcott also suspects his wife has been unfaithful. Still, the Professor recognizes the importance of the family as the building block for society.

Two parents who actually love each other might be an interesting and radical beginning, but the mere suggestion that the traditional household might be good for children offends so many different constituencies that hardly anyone is willing to raise it any longer. Which further suggests, as George Orwell knew, that within a generation or two nobody will think it either. What survives is only what we are able to communicate. Moral knowledge that remains secret eventually ceases to be knowledge. (228)

Two people whom Talcott trusts are both Christian people. One is a clergyman who counsels him. Another becomes involved in a plot he dreams up. He teases her about the fundamentalist Methodist church she attends.

Carter (or Garland) can also be ironic when describing cultural scenes. He describes the culture’s “lurch” from integration, to “ethnic tribalism to diversity to multiculturalism to whatever it is we call the unbridled celebration of self…”(311).

Professor Garland would, for reasons I am not going to spoil, becomes momentarily famous and so is asked to speak at his law school’s graduation. If you read nothing else in this book, read his speech (pp. 582-583). While it is primarily about the legal profession, it applies to all of us.

One could say the same thing about the whole book. I sense that Professor Carter bled while writing this novel. The heart comes through. It is a terrific legal thriller, but it is something more. It is work of literature that deserves staying around. Thanks for writing this one, Professor.

M. C. Beaton. Death of a Glutton. St. Martin’s, 1993.
_____. Death of a Poison Pen. Warner, 2004.

As many readers can guess from the author and titles, these are two Hamish Macbeth mysteries. Beaton takes two different approaches in telling these mysteries.

Death of a Glutton is an earlier Macbeth tale. It was number eight in the series. From the title we know who is going to be killed from nearly the first page. Peta Gore is an extreme overeater. She loves food and cannot get enough. And her manners are gross. From the title we know she is going to get knocked off, but it does not happen until about halfway through the book.

This is at its heart a closed room mystery. In this case Maria Worth runs a upper-class dating agency. Peta is her wealthy silent partner. However, recently Peta has invited herself on the service’s excursions, and her manners have ruined the gatherings. Maria decides to secretly take a group to an obscure location to avoid Peta. She chooses the Tommel Castle Hotel in Lochdubh.

So we meet the eight clients on this trip, four men and four women, all sufficiently wealthy and all single. Peta somehow finds out about the trip and shows up in Lochdubh after all. So half the book shows how she offends every one of those eight customers, Maria, and the hotel’s cook. By the time she is killed—in a manner appropriate for a glutton—there are many suspects.

Hamish, of course, will have to solve the mystery with the usual collection of human obstacles like ex-fiancée Priscilla, who is back in town to help out at the hotel run by her father and, of course, Inspector Blair, Hamish’s superior from Strathbane who is looking for a way to discredit Hamish. The caricatures in this one make it a lot of fun.

One interesting detail from this episode: we briefly meet Willie Lamont for the first time. He will become a regular in the Macbeth stories as he marries the daughter of the owner of the Italian restaurant in town, but that happens much later.

Death of a Poison Pen, twentieth in the series, is different. Two murders happen as the story begins. Blair ends up being a problem here as well. He wants to write off the first as a suicide, but Hamish explains how the facts do not measure up. The medical examiner’s discovery of drugs in the victim’s body vindicates Hamish and irritates Blair. The murders and much of the action take place in nearby Braikie rather than Lochdubh.

Someone has been sending poison pen letters to many of the people in Braikie. Indeed, one of those letters was found with the body of the popular postmistress. Hamish has collected many of the letters. Most of the letters are lies but they carry insinuations that might affect people’s reputations.

Soon after, a second woman in town is stabbed to death in bed. Clearly this is no suicide. It turns out the victim was the author of those nasty letters. And then when the senior center in town is having a movie night, someone send the center a video tape of the first victim in her death throes.

This is a very different kind of investigation. It includes many of the people in town from the teachers in the local school, boys who spend too much time on the street, and nearly everyone else. After all, everyone in town knew the teacher and the postmistress. Who had grudges against them? While the teacher was pretty heavy-handed, everyone seems to have liked the postmistress. Were the murders even related, or was it just a coincidence that a letter written by victim #2 was found next to victim #1?

There are a couple of enjoyable subplots. News reporter Elspeth is assigned a very ambitious intern to tutor, but Mallone wants all the glory to himself so he can get a job with a big-city paper. Priscilla’s London roommate Jenny Ogilve has heard so much about Hamish, Priscilla’s ex-fiancé, that she decides to take a vacation to Lochdubh to meet this interesting character. Let’s just say that it gets complicated.

In this mystery Hamish has Lugs. In the earlier one, his dog was still Towser. Sonsie was not yet part of the picture in either. Both are entertaining stories as much as they are mysteries.

I have to mention a discovery I made. I was curious about other Hamish Macbeth titles I had not read so I did a web search. I found an absolutely compulsive web site that lists all the books in hundreds of book series from Sherlock Holmes to Alex Cross. It is called Book Series in Order. It has them all, including Hamish. I had to check out Sherlock Holmes and Tarzan and others by Burroughs like John Carter of Mars.

Without a doubt in my mind, the series with the most books is the Hardy Boys. They have been cranking them out, several a year, since 1927. I wondered how Hamish could live through all the changes of seasons described in his books and still only be in his thirties. But one really has to ask how Frank and Joe Hardy could have solved over 500 mysteries (some with Tom Swift, others with Nancy Drew) and still be boys! Anyway, to have some fun, check out the lists at Book Series in Order.

Zane Grey. The Call of the Canyon. 1921; Black, 1952.

Many years ago we read Riders of the Purple Sage and thoroughly enjoyed it. On vacation, we came across an old copy of another Zane Grey book that had gone through a number of editions and decided to read it. It was fun to read, and like Riders, it was quite pointed.

The Call of the Canyon is set immediately after World War I. Many soldiers in that war, including a number of Americans, suffered from life-altering injuries, lingering effects of poison gas, and shell shock—now known as PTSD. Glenn Kilbourne was a young New Yorker and veteran of the war who was dealing with shell shock.

His fiancée from home remained faithful to him, and they continued to correspond, but when he returned with his PTSD, neither he nor his betrothed, Carley Burch, knew how to respond. While they did not break the engagement, Glenn thought it better if he go west to try to heal on his own. They continued to correspond, but as he wrote about life in the Arizona wilderness, they both realized that he had changed. He healed, but he also saw things a lot differently from what he did before the war as city boy.

Grey narrates the entire story from Carley’s point of view. She does try to understand the new Glenn and the American West, but wants to see things for herself. She is independently wealthy. She has an aunt who is the closest thing to a mentor and parent, and she has numerous friends, mostly socialites from the urban upper classes of the 1920s. There is indeed a Fitzgerald-style character to many of them, more The Beautiful and Damned than Gatsby. In other words, Carley and her set have already arrived.

Carley has to face a truly existential question. What is really important in life? She goes west by train and ends up in the canyon staying with a family that lives near Glenn. Glenn works for a sheep rancher and also raises hogs on his own. As he and Carley become reacquainted, he tells her how he recovered and how he discovered what is really important—work, family, and children.

Carley is what we would today call a first generation feminist. Of course, women now had the vote when the war ended, so they begin to see “liberation” as freer lifestyles, freer clothing styles, and freedom from housekeeping. In other words, it is something that the upper classes can live with, but which brings disorder to the lives of ordinary people, just as shell shock brought disorder to ordinary American men.

Among other things, Glenn asks what does it mean to be American? For him, the answer is not in New York City but in the West. The American government who recruited and drafted all the soldiers and sailors in the war did very little to help them after the war. For the most part they were on their own. Grey highlights the stories of a few other war veterans including a friend of Glenn’s whom Carley meets in a New York hospital and a sailor who marries one of Carley’s friends.

While this has elements of a Western—typical Zane Grey—and even elements of a romance—there is another woman in the story—at its heart The Call of the Canyon is a social satire. It takes on a very different sensibility from Fitzgerald or Hemingway, but it is as much a part of the literary period as those two writers.

Grey also is quite literate here. Carley and Glenn are both well educated. We see allusions to the Bible, Shakespeare, and various other writers and poets just as we would in other novels from the jazz age. The end may be a tad tidier than others from the period, but Grey is making a strong point. There are still many Carleys and her ilk today. And not a few Glenns. What does it really mean to be a man or a woman? Or an American? How can we make peace with ourselves and with the natural world?

Lisa Scottoline. Loyalty. Putnam, 2023.

For a shorter review see: Loyalty by Lisa Scottoline
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Lisa Scottoline is known for her legal suspense novels. I have heard her called a female Grisham. Loyalty is slightly different. Yes, one of the main characters is a lawyer, and the novel focuses on various instances of injustice, but the story is neither contemporary nor American.

Loyalty is set in nineteenth century Sicily, the first part in 1810, the second, fifteen years later. We follow in particular the story threads of five people. Their stories are separate and only slightly converge towards the end, but each is an important part of the whole.

We meet young Dante, five or six years old, and son of a prosperous middle class family in Palermo. He is kidnapped and taken to an insane asylum. The family and neighbors are afraid to say anything about it in fear that the child will be killed before a ransom is paid. Except that no one apparently ever asks for a ransom, and the boy grows into a man among the inmates of the asylum. The wardens at the asylum call him Monster, so he begins to believe that is what he is.

Gaetano is probably the most interesting and sympathetic character. He is a lawyer who learns of the abduction of Dante and some other young boys, and begins to wonder if the kidnappings are connected. In his spare time, he begins to investigate these disappearances. The local corrupt police are uninterested and give him a hard time for trying to solve the mysteries.

Gaetano is a member of the Beati Paoli, or society of St. Paul, an informal lay religious order dedicated to the study of and devotion to St. Paul. From time to time different members will quote from Paul’s epistles. According to notes from the author, the Beati Paoli was a secret society in Sicily but we know little about it today because of its secrecy.

At the time of the Reformation, there was an order in Italy known as the Order of St. Paul that, while remaining Catholic, sympathized with the Pauline message of salvation by faith, but they are not apparently related to this Sicilian group. Other members of the Beati Paoli also help with the investigation until Gaetano is imprisoned—possibly for getting too close to the truth.

We also meet the widower cheesemaker Alfredo. We learn that he is secret Jew. In 1492 Sicily was ruled by Spain, so when the Jews were expelled from Spain, they were also expelled from Sicily.

Those who remained either had to convert to Christianity or somehow mask their identity. As far as he knows, he is the only Jew on the whole island. Some of his customers in town claim they were miraculously healed by eating his cheese. Other vendors at the farmers’ market become jealous, so he is forced to go out of business.

Malfada gives birth to an albino baby girl. No one has ever seen such a person before, so virtually everyone thinks the baby is some kind of inhuman creature. Malfada’s husband kicks her out of the house, and she is forced to forage for a living for her and her daughter Lucia to survive.

And then there are the twin brothers Franco and Roberto. They work for one of the aristocratic landowners who raises delicious lemons. They figure that they should be making more money since they are doing all the work. Franco develops a protection racket and gains some followers among other farm workers.

This is seen as the beginning of the Mafia. The Sicilian word mafioso means “manly.” They take a loyalty oath to each other. We see a contrast between the oath taken by the mafiosos and the oath taken by the members of the Beati Paoli.

In each case there is a question of injustice and loyalty.

Dante’s kidnapping and incarceration is most clearly unjust. Gaetano tries to help and is himself treated unjustly. It is not until near the end of the book when the plots begin to overlap do we discover who was behind Dante’s fate and why.

Alfredo’s ancestors were treated unjustly, but so was he. He tries to convince everyone his cheese just ordinary goat cheese, but they won’t listen. Either he is a miracle-worker or a wizard.

Of course, today we can understand the superstitious accusations against Lucia and her mother are baseless. They manage to survive on the fringes of society, keeping Lucia out of sight.

One way or another all these people with the possible exception of Franco and Roberto have one way or another become outcasts through no fault of their own. Franco and Roberto, on the other hand, become prominent and wealthy because of their fierceness. For example, Franco learns that a certain Baron has become bankrupt and must sell his luxurious villa. Franco is told by another Baron that he would not be allowed to even bid on the property because he is not upper class. Let’s just say Franco ends up being the only bidder and getting it for a song.

Franco in some ways has succeeded. He becomes prominent and respected and feared. At the same time everyone seems to know that he has committed some crimes and gotten away with them. Can he be trusted? Is he telling the truth?

Franco and Roberto have things to hide. Lucia and her mother end up hiding from people in general. Dante and Gaetano are imprisoned in some manner. Alfredo also lives on the fringes after he loses nearly everything.

Still, the theme and title of the tale is Loyalty. We discover that Gaetano remains loyal to his cause. Dante develops some kind of relationship with the other inmates. Alfredo remains loyal to his religion as best he can.

Franco and Roberto, well, they have many loyal followers. Today we might call them a gang or cartel. They all expect loyalty from each other. In other Mafia stories we read of omertà, the vow of silence. The root of that word is the Latin for man—homo. Silence about one’s associates also suggests manliness just as the word mafioso did.

But who are the real men? The real humans?

While this is fiction, Scottoline tells in the afterword that the Mafia actually did start among workers in Sicilian lemon groves, that the asylum (inferno?) that Dante was taken to did exist, and that, generally, Sicily is a distinct place with its own culture. The book’s epigraph is from Goethe. He tells us, “Sicily is the clue to everything.”

N. Jack “Dusty” Kleiss and Timothy and Laura Orr. Never Call Me a Hero. Harper, 2017.

Never Call Me a Hero is an articulate and personal gem. Its subtitle is A Legendary American Dive-Bomber Pilot Remembers the Battle of Midway. It is more than that, but the story does focus on that key battle in the Pacific War.

Kleiss relates what amounts to a naval autobiography. He tells of his family and upbringing and of his marriage, but the focus is on his life in the U. S. Navy prior to and during World War II. We get a good sense of what it was like to attend the Naval Academy. Kleiss always wanted to fly, but back then recently commissioned officers had to wait two years before going to flight school. Kleiss did get some good experience and learned some clear lessons while an officer in the surface fleet, but his goal was always flight.

He became a dive-bomber pilot and was assigned to the aircraft carrier Enterprise in May of 1941. The Enterprise was out to sea during the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but Kleiss got to see the devastation that attack caused. We get a good sense of what the Japanese strategy was at the time, and how the American Pacific command was trying to counter it.

Kleiss would be involved in attacks on the Marshall Islands, Wake Island after the Japanese took it over, and the Japanese base on Marcus Island. He received a medal for his flying in the Marshalls, but he felt like they could have done more damage.

There are a couple of recurring themes. None of the Allies really understood the potential for naval air power, at least not until Pearl Harbor, and even then there was ambivalence. Some of that ambivalence might have been warranted. Another theme was simply that the American torpedoes stunk. Until some time in 1943, missions with torpedo planes were suicide missions. Kleiss would lose some comrades including his best friend who flew torpedo bombers.

The book, though, focuses on the Battle of Midway. Kleiss admits that he knew nothing about how the Americans had cracked the Japanese radio code so that by the end of May 1942, the Americans knew the Japanese were up to something in the Northern Pacific. At about the same time they launched their attack on Midway Island, they attacked the Aleutians. Their plan was apparently to put a naval barrier to approaching the homeland of Japan. Some would say they this was the next step before attacking North American mainland to control the entire Pacific.

Kleiss effectively disputes the common assumption that the Americans were lucky. Yes, in any air engagement there may be individual cases of luck. Kleiss notes that during the Battle of Midway it seemed that more Japanese planes attacked other planes rather than his. But the overall battle was more than luck.

As already mentioned, codebreakers had an idea of what Japanese plans were and where the Japanese fleet was headed. When planes from American carriers did not locate any Japanese vessels where Intelligence predicted, they began a typical search sequence until they were located. (From my own experience in the Coast Guard, a similar sequence is followed in search and rescue.)

The once the Japanese convoy was found, the bombers did their job. Four aircraft carriers were sunk or permanently disabled. Japan only had eight during the entire war. Many men lost their lives. Some because they were hit by Japanese antiaircraft or fighter plane fire. Some ran out of fuel before they could make it back to their carriers. At least three airmen were captured and executed by the Japanese. (Japan, of course, would become notorious for disregarding any prisoner of war conventions.)

Kleiss and his two-man plane would actually make two attacks during the three-day battle. He had confirmed hits himself on three different vessels including two carriers. He gives us a thrilling blow by blow account. Here we note that the husband and wife team of co-authors are well known military history writers (mostly the American Civil War). Together with Kleiss, they keep the interest going.

In so many cases, the perspective of wars we get is from the leaders, the generals and high ranking officers and officials. While Kleiss, as an officer, did interact with Captains and Admirals, he was here one of the fighters, one of the men on the front lines, so to speak. He could tell what things were really like. While he certainly commends most of the military leaders, he also notes where they may have missed things. If nothing else, the Battle of Midway demonstrated that naval power would become in a large part air power.

Yes, even in the 1930s they trained on biplanes, but airplanes had developed a lot since World War I, and would continue to develop in the course of World War II. While Kleiss may have criticized the lousy torpedoes, he commends the designers at Douglas Aircraft for the SDB class airplanes that really were state of the art back then.

Kleiss also, like many of his generation, believed that God had a purpose for everyone’s life. For many years he seldom spoke of his experiences. People knew he had received some medals for what he did at Midway, but until he read a report about two friends of his who were captured and executed by the Japanese he said little. After reading that report which made it sounds like the two men were traitors, he felt he had to set the record straight. (One, a gunner by the name of Gaido, Kleiss sometimes flew with and had reason to respect his judgment.)

Kleiss lived to be one hundred. He was the last survivor of Midway. The book actually did not come out till about a year after he died. But he believed the Lord was not finished with him until he told his story. And what an exciting and delightful and sober story it is.

Aila Tasse and Dave Coles. Cabbages in the Desert. Beyond, 2024.

For a shorter review, see Cabbages in the Desert: How God Transformed a Devout Muslim and Catalyzed Disciple Making Movements among Unreached Peoples by Aila Tasse
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Christians everywhere look forward to the time when Jesus returns. However, Matthew 24:14 and Mark 13:10 tell us that that will not happen until everyone in the world has had a chance to hear the Gospel. Cabbages in the Desert shows us how this can become a reality.

The author shares his own experience and the experiences of numerous other men and women in Africa who have led disciple making movements (DMMs). This book perhaps more than some others give an idea of how these can have the Gospel shared. In North America many such groups would be called house churches, but this book has some examples of how leaders of more traditional churches began to use the same principles to expand their outreach and the message of salvation through Jesus.

Jesus did not tell his followers to make converts or proselytes. He said to “make disciples of every nation.” Cabbages in the Desert shows us how this can be done.

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We have reviewed three books with Dave Coles in the credits. All three are worth reading, especially, dare I suggest, for church leaders. Coles coauthored Bhojpuri Breakthrough, a record of the recent move of God in India, detailing the methodology that the believers in that region used to win people to the Lord. Cabbages in the Desert is similar, except that it details a similar move of God in East Africa.

The main author, Aila Tasse, pioneered a movement similar to that in the other book starting in Kenya and reaching other adjacent and nearby countries. After describing the basics of the CPM (Church Planting Movement) or DMM (Disciple-Making Movement) and Tasse’s own experiences, most of the book’s chapters describe the origins and spread of DMMs as told by various men and women who were leaders in the movements. As was true in Bhojpuri Breakthrough, some of the names have been changed to protect the identities of people working in sensitive locations.

The true emphasis of the book is that Jesus did not tell His people to make converts, but to make disciples. Jesus in the Great Commission did not say “convert people to my religion.” No, He said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” (Matthew 28:19). That means people who are actively following Jesus in their lives.

If you read or have read our review of Bhojpuri Breakthrough, you understand the basic method described here. Differences are that there is more cross-cultural ministry, though even with that people go to a related culture—one with a similar language and practices, and they make disciples. The point of the book is that disciples make other disciples. As with the practice in India, some groups have made disciples to over twenty “generations.”

Indeed, the language of Cabbages in the Desert often uses the language of reproduction. Frequently the book speaks of the DNA of the DMMs. The books explains:

Many disciple makers use this term [DNA] metaphorically to describe the factors that enable generational reproduction of disciples and churches. (356 n.25)

The techniques are very similar to those used in India. In Africa, there is more likely to be a cross-cultural ministry. Also the circumstances are a bit different. Not only are the dominant religions different (Muslim, Christian, and Tribal), the testimonies are a bit different, too.

Mr. Tasse himself had a Muslim background. The idea of churches and church buildings are nearly anathema in Muslim cultures, so the meetings tend to be what in the West we call house churches or home Bible studies. He also notes that the “person of peace” does not always come to faith in Jesus, “but they always open the way for others to hear the gospel and come to faith” (356 n.26)

Testimonies here let the reader know that in most cases, even when there is persecution, people who know the disciples virtually always note a change in their character for the better.

We read two testimonies of men who were bishops in established denominations. One confessed that he liked the pomp and status of the office, but neither he nor his church were making disciples.

Because of the location of some of the movements, they are connected with established churches. In other cases, churches were reluctant to join with the new churches, but most recognize the new movements as fellow followers of Jesus.

While the methods and approach to discipleship described here are very similar to Bhojpuri Breakthrough, Cabbages in the Desert may be more accessible to readers in the West. In other words, more established churches could learn from this.

Christian believers all over the world speak of the hope of Jesus’ return. But it is not going to happen until everyone in the world has had a chance to hear the Gospel (see Matthew 24:14, Mark 13:10). Cabbages in the Desert give us an idea of how this could come about.

Willamette Sutta. Adamant in Dust. Solid Glory Writs, 2024.

For a shorter review, see Adamant in Dust by Willamette Sutta
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Adamant in Dust is the first installment of what looks like will be a fantasy story with some scope. Without giving too much away, there is a complicated dynastic plot, a mythical beast, a quest, and a “dark lord” type. While some things have become almost stereotypes in fantasy, Adamant in Dust has a bit of an oriental twist to it.

While many of the main characters are royalty, or royal wannabes, we really take note of Fu Ma (Chinese for “noble mother”), an ageless wise woman with martial skills. She comes from Meiwen, this novel’s orient (“beautiful justice” in Chinese) but she is helping out the more occidental kingdoms of Pennith and Bertingold.

Part of the story involves a quest over a mountain range a little reminiscent of the Chinese classic novel Journey to the West. In that medieval fantasy, the small band of adventurers travel through the Himalayas on their way to India. It seems every mountain has a demon that they have to fight. It is not quite the same in Adamant in Dust, but there are echoes.

In one of the other medieval Chinese romances, The Tale of the Three Kingdoms, there are a series of foreign invaders who attack from the north. So it seems here as well. These foreigners in the Three Kingdoms look really alien—some have yellow eyes, some have eyes with two pupils. So some of the invaders here have yellow eyes as well. (When I was a kid, there was a western novel called Yellow Eyes, but it was about a mountain lion.)

Adamant in Dust contains both contemporary politics and ancient prophecies that the main characters have to deal with. The King of Bertingold has two daughters and no sons. The King of neighboring Pennith has a son Teyrnon, his only heir. Both kings would like their offspring to marry. This would strengthen both kingdoms, maybe like when James of Scotland became King of England. But there is also an ancient prophecy (Fu Ma seems to understand these better than most) that promises a kind of golden age when a marriage between the two kingdoms takes place.

Such things are never easily accomplished. Princess Peregrine, the older of the two sisters, simply is not attracted to Teyrnan. Sadira, the younger of the two princesses, says she is willing to marry Teyrnan, but then she elopes or is abducted by the handsome knight Sir Launfal. (Did Helen of Troy go willingly with Paris? Depends on whom you read…) Oh, yeah, Launfal sometimes rides a wyvern.

Such creatures are the creation of Malchor, the evil ancient ruler in this tale. He lives in the frozen far north and has kept somewhat to himself for a number of generations, but seems intent to not only thwart the plans of the two kingdoms, but to begin a conquest of the other lands in the world of Miran, the continent or planet where our story takes place.

An enchanted Silmaril-like stone gives Malchor some of his power. Each king had such a stone, and so did Malchor. If someone could combine the power of all the stones (there were at least four), he or she could have true supernatural authority. Some of the stones had been broken, and fragments apparently show up from time to time. Others seem to have disappeared.

How much does Fu Ma know? What are Launfal’s motives? Will the prince marry at all? These remain to be discovered. Once we get past the introductory material, there is a lot of action. The battles are described clearly and strategies are planned out plainly, even if they do not always work. (The fog of war is real here.)

Fantasy readers will get a kick out of this, and Adamant in Dust may even pick up a few fans of historical romance. There are certainly some reminders of Lt. Wickham in Sir Launfal. Whether Teyrnan finds true love remains to be seen. Peregrine seems more impressed with Adlaren, the prince’s clever and courageous bodyguard.

The author has kindly included a Glossary of Characters at the end. Unfortunately, I did not know this until I had finished the book because I was reading on a Kindle. There are a myriad of names—though only about a dozen are really important. For Kindle readers, I recommend finding the glossary and bookmarking it so that you can consult it if necessary. For those with a paper pages, leaf through the book to locate the glossary. Most readers will find it comes in handy.

Geoffrey Bache Smith. A Spring Harvest. 1918; Edited by J. R. R. Tolkien, Project Gutenberg, 2015.
C. S. Lewis. Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics. 1919; Project Gutenberg, 2013.

Trick question: What is the first book published by J. R. R. Tolkien? By 1918 Tolkien had published some essays and articles—and had already begun keeping notes on what would become Middle Earth. However, the first book he had published was not of his own writings, but a collection of poems by his friend Geoffrey Bache Smith, who was killed in World War I.

Similarly, C. S. Lewis’s first book was a collection of his own poems, many inspired (or perhaps motivated is a better word) by his own experiences in the war. This was before his conversion to Christianity, but we already see things in his content that would appear in different ways in his later writings.

Bache’s A Spring Harvest contains a number of very good poems. This reviewer can see why someone would want to have these poems published. Today, Bache is more of a literary footnote for two reasons: (1) as already noted, he was a skilled writer associated with Tolkien, and (2) he was one of many “war poets” who was lost in the Great War. I confess that I only found out about him when I recently read A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War.

A number of poems in Smith’s collection have Arthurian themes. It seems as though he was seeking noble character even in the horrors of war—a theme of that book just mentioned. Yes, The Lord of the Rings trilogy contains that, but so do many of the King Arthur stories.

One can see how poems like “Glastonbury” could appeal to a medievalist and fantasist like Tolkien. The actual style is very reminiscent of Tennyson. Indeed, many of his poems, both lyric and narrative sound like they could have been written by Tennyson or be taken from something like Idylls of the King.

Other lyrics such as “A Study” have echoes of Keats with their rich imagery and sensory appeal. Indeed, it has been said that Tennyson is the Victorian Keats. At the same time, the poems also suggest a longing for legendary times in the past. We can almost imagine Tolkien himself being inspired by lines from “The House of Eld”:

Now the old winds are wild about the house,
And the old ghosts cry to me from the air
Of a far isle set in the western sea,
And of the evening sunlight lingering there. (41)

One can almost imagine an elf or human bard singing of the Grey Havens or Numenor…

It does make one wonder what might have been if Smith had survived the war.

Lewis’s Spirits in Bondage has a different tone. Many of these are clearly war poems. There are bloody horrors in some of them, and many have a bitter tone. The first section is titled “The Prison House,” which perhaps alludes to a narrow trench but in many ways describes the whole fallen world.

The first poem in that section is “Satan Speaks.” There is a sense in many of the first poems that there could not be a God because a good God would not allow such evil happen, but there could be devils and bloody pagan gods like Baal and Molech because of what we see around us. His “De Profundis” ends with an appeal to God (if there is one): “Thou art not Lord while there are Men on earth.” (201) Bitter? Maybe, but also an honest reckoning of human nature.

If I were going to compare Lewis’s poems to anyone, it would probably be Longfellow. Yes, Longfellow was definitely more upbeat in most of his poetry, but he also was didactic, and so is Lewis. There is not just an image or a story, but there is a lesson in most of these poems.

The other thing that strikes the reader, especially in the third and final part entitled “The Escape,” there is much about looking or longing for some other world. Unlike Smith (or maybe Tolkien himself) it is not a longing for a legendary English heroic past, but a literal different world such as the one that we read about in fairy tales. The third section in particular, if it reads like any other poet, it is Yeats.

Lewis writes in “Hesitation”:

Out of the toiling sea arose
Many a face and form of those
Thin, elemental people dear
Who live beyond our heavy sphere.
And all at once from far and near,
They all held out their arms to me
Crying in their melody
“Leap in! Leap in and take thy fill
Of all the cosmic good and ill,
Be as the Living one that know
Enormous joy, enormous woe…(436)

This has echoes of Yeats’ “The Stolen Child”:

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

As I read these poems I could not help but think that we consider Lewis an Englishman. He wrote in English and taught at Oxford and Cambridge. You cannot get more English than that. Yet he grew up in Northern Ireland. Many of his poems do suggest a Celtic sensibility, one that perhaps we see especially in his Narnia stories, as British as they may seem on the surface.

While these poems are instructive and were worth publishing, most are not as memorable as his prose. It is interesting to note that in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, Lewis notes that many mythologies, especially the Celtic and Norse, appealed to him; however; he describes the story of Jesus in the Gospels as a myth, but one that happens to be true. As Ecclesiastes 3:11, tells us, God has put eternity into man’s heart.

Because these books are of poems—lyrics and short narratives, and not novels or nonfiction—they do not take a long time to read. They are instructive certainly to give us an idea of where both Tolkien and Lewis came from, as well letting us meet Geoffrey Bache Smith and wonder about what we may have missed by his untimely death in battle.

N. B. The references to Lewis are Kindle locations, not page numbers.

Gordon Korman. Slugfest. Balzer + Bray, 2024.

For a shorter review see:Slugfest by Gordon Korman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Slugfest is another Gordon Korman funfest. Like many of his novels such as Ungifted, it is a fish out of water story, and much of the humor stems from that.

Summer school at Robinette Middle School is for the people who have problems with their subject. A new state law requires that all students pass eighth grade physical education to enter high school in the fall. The students who did not pass gym class, then, have to take phys ed for summer school. if they want to go on to high school.

Now, this does include some of the usual suspects: Kaden, the brainy, but uncoordinated victim of teasing; Arabella, who proudly has skipped gym for three years; the Fidelio twins, Stuart and Sarah, who spent so much time fighting each other in class that they lost credit for not participating; and practical joker Jesse, who flunked after a prank of his flooded the locker room. The middle schoolers call the summer PE students the slugs: stereotyped as slow and lazy and lacking strength.

But the class also includes two athletes. Cleo broke her foot in a skiing accident and missed too many gym classes while she was in rehab. Because of the seriousness of her injury, she has sworn off sports. And then there is Arnold Yashenko. “Yash” was a star quarterback for the high school junior varsity team. If anything, he did more athletics than most of his classmates, but in order to make it to football practice at the high school, he was allowed to miss his last period class. Guess what his last period class was?

There is a great sense of injustice or unfairness among the slugs, especially with the new state requirement. Arabella signs up for an extra credit summer class in journalism. The teacher is a local television reporter who became famous in the town for exposing a car wash that cut corners. Arabella wants to somehow expose unfairness in the summer school program. And she thinks she may have the goods on Mrs. Finnerty, the retired second grade and home economics teacher who is doing the summer gym class.

Her problem is that everyone likes Mrs. Finnerty. Yes, she does have them do elementary school games like duck-duck-goose sometimes, but she is really sweet and every day she brings delicious desserts. Even Arabella likes her, she just does not think taking the class is fair.

Meanwhile, prankster Jesse has developed some fake news regarding toilets. For his journalism project, he wants to see if his social media posting gets any traction.

Things get complicated for Yash. Sure, he does fine in the gym class, but while he is taking summer school, the rest of next fall’s J.V. football team is practicing. Even though he played for the coach last fall, the coach refuses to let him come late to practice. He learns that there is a new kid in town who is every bit as good a quarterback as he is. That newcomer already has a nickname, Nitro Nate. Even Yash’s two best friends on the team become more distant as Nate’s speed and skills impress the whole team.

As with so many of Korman’s stories, the mixed ensemble cast provides a lot of humor and conflict. At the same time, the kids each in their own way try to make the best of a bad situation. But it takes time. And they have a lot to teach each other. Slugfest is a lot of fun.

What will Arabella do about her research on Nate and Mrs. Finnerty? Will Jesse’s big prank work this time and give him credit in the journalism class? Watch how Yash learns to play the twins off each other to get them to play football. And Kaden really is a poor athlete, but he can instruct Yash on the best trajectory for a football pass.

And there is a big climax that affects everyone. It may not be the same as a truckload of Vuvuzelas floating down the river as in The Unteachables, but it is fun with a purpose. Gordon Korman has crazily creative mind.