11/22/63 Alternate Ending

I recently read the book 11/22/63 and found it extraordinary. It's rare that I find fiction that is as enthralling as this was, so much so that I went back and reread most of it within a week. That being said, the ending left me cold. As a result, I went back and created my own ending. While I may not have the experience with prose that King does, I gave it my best shot. I combined a lot of his prose and mannerisms and  interspersed it with original text to move the story forward quickly. It still maintains ambiguity, but I've not always been a fan of bittersweet endings - I prefer ambiguously happy. I hope you enjoy it! (red text is mine, black is King's)

I opened my eyes. The stink of the dirty abandoned restroom had been replaced by the stink of a textile mill operating full bore in a year when the Environmental Protection Agency did not exist. There was cracked cement under my feet instead of peeling linoleum. To my left were the big metal bins filled with fabric remnants and covered with burlap. To my right was the drying shed. It was eleven fifty-eight on the morning of September ninth, 1958.

Harry Dunning was once more a little boy. Carolyn Poulin was in period five at LHS, perhaps listening to the teacher, perhaps daydreaming about some boy or how she would go hunting with her father in a couple of months. Sadie Dunhill, not yet married to Mr. Have Broom Will Travel, was living in Georgia. Lee Harvey Oswald was in the South China Sea with his Marine unit. And John F. Kennedy was the junior senator from Massachusetts, dreaming presidential dreams. I was back.

6

I didn’t walk to the chain this time, but instead stood there for what felt like an eternity as I rehearsed what I was going to do. I had plenty of time here in 1958, but only a few hours in 2011 before Al’s death would padlock the diner and eliminate access to the rabbit hole forever. I stepped back into the rabbit hole, going slowly up the steps. With each passing step, I felt the atmosphere change, with the loud shat-HOOSH shat-HOOSH of the weaving flats fading away. I bumped my head against the ceiling of Al’s pantry. As I stepped out of the pantry, I looked around Al’s Diner. It looked like my 2011 again, as much as any 2011 could be mine any more. Spending 5 years of your life in a different era will have that effect. As I exited the diner, I checked Al’s Town Wall of Celebrity.  Hanging on the wall was the picture of Harry Dunning and I holding Harry’s diploma, with his tie slightly askew.

I knew my time was short, so I raced back to my house, tripping over Elmore in the process. I never had a cat in the Land of Ago and forgot that I had one here in the Land of Ahead. It was still just midnight, giving me 6 hours to prepare for my final trip back to 1958.

7

I got on the net—my heart beating so hard it sent dots flashing across my field of vision—and called up the Dallas Morning News website. After punching in my credit card number (a process that took several retries because of my shaking fingers), I was able to access the archives. The story about an unknown assailant taking a shot at Edwin Walker was there on April 11 of 1963, but nothing about Sadie on April 12. Nothing the following week, or the week after that. I kept hunting. I found the story I was looking for in the issue for April 30.

MENTAL PATIENT SLASHES EX-WIFE, COMMITS SUICIDE

By Ernie Calvert (JODIE)

67-year-old Deacon “Deke” Simmons and Denholm Consolidated School District Principal Ellen Dockerty arrived too late on Sunday night to save Sadie Dunhill from being seriously hurt, but things could have been much worse for the popular 30-year-old school librarian.

According to Douglas Reems, the Jodie town constable, “If Deke and Ellie hadn’t arrived when they did, Miss Dunhill almost certainly would have been killed.”

The two educators had come with a tuna casserole and a bread pudding. Neither wanted to talk about their heroic intervention. Simmons would only say, “I wish we’d gotten there sooner.”

According to Constable Reems, Simmons overpowered the much younger John Clayton, of Savannah, Georgia, after Miss Dockerty threw the casserole at him, distracting him. Simmons wrestled away a small revolver. Clayton then produced the knife with which he had cut his ex-wife’s face and used it to slash his own throat. Simmons and Miss Dockerty tried to stop the bleeding to no avail. Clayton was pronounced dead at the scene.

Miss Dockerty told Constable Reems that Clayton may have been stalking his ex-wife for months. The staff at Denholm Consolidated had been alerted that Miss Dunhill’s ex-husband might be dangerous, and Miss Dunhill herself had provided a photograph of Clayton, but Principal Dockerty said he had disguised his appearance.

Miss Dunhill was transported by ambulance to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, where her condition is listed as fair.

Though I was never a crying man, I fought back tears. If Sadie had died in Clayton’s attack, I couldn’t go back to save her. Because she survived, I can return. I forced myself back to the task at hand.

Alive.

Sadie was alive.

Alive, alive, alive.

8

I spent the rest of the night finding ways to make my last trip to the Land of Ago safe. No more bookies, no more betting. I needed safe, reliable money that would last for as long as I had. While Al never bothered with the stock market, it was the best way for a man from the future to turn the small amount of money he had into a fortune. It had the added benefit of letting me avoid the Fratis, Eduardo Gutierrez, and Greenville Avenue for the rest of my life.

In order for me to feel good about staying in the Land of Ago, I had to know what was caused by me and what wasn’t. Because the past works to protect itself, I felt confident that I would know if I were causing too many problems. On my last trip, the bigger the change I made, the more that the past fought it. It never fought my time with Sadie, so I felt confident I wouldn’t make too many ripples.

Nevertheless, from my conversation with Zach Lang and the alternate future Harry, the primary way you can tell seemed to be earthquakes. I searched out the main earthquakes between 1958 and now – from Alaska in 1964 to Japan in 2011 – and wrote them down. If the earth started to deviate from its course, I could always come back to the rabbit hole and return to now. Scratch that…I only have until 1990 when Al moves his restaurant down from Auburn. Once it moves on top of the bubble, it probably becomes a one-way trip.

The last thing I needed was enough knowledge of the early 1960s to convince Sadie that I was a time traveler. There will come a time where Sadie will want to remove the broom between us and I can’t allow the Rolling Stones to pop out of my mouth again and ruin everything. The timing will have to be right, and the only way she will think I’m not a mental patient is if I can prove what will happen.

Once I had everything I needed, I turned off my computer and headed to Al’s Restaurant. It was 5:45 in the morning. Time enough for me to go back to 1958 and live life with Sadie. As I walked into Al’s pantry for the last time, all I could think was that she might not want to have anything to do with me. We’re no longer going to be thirty-five and twenty-eight; this time I’d be forty and I look even older. But I believe in love, you know; love is a uniquely portable magic. I don’t think it’s in the stars, but I do believe that blood calls to blood and mind calls to mind and heart to heart.

9

I opened my eyes after my feet hit cracked cement. It was once again eleven fifty-eight on the morning of September ninth, 1958.

I walked to the chain and ducked under it. On the other side I stood perfectly still for a moment, rehearsing what I was going to do. Then I walked to the end of the drying shed. Around the corner, leaning against it, was the Green Card Man. Only Zack Lang’s card was no longer green. It had turned a muddy chartreuse shade, halfway between green and yellow. His out-of-season overcoat was dusty, and his formerly snappy fedora had a battered, somehow defeated look. His cheeks, previously clean-shaven, were now stubbled . . . and some of that stubble was white. His eyes were bloodshot. He wasn’t on the booze yet—at least I couldn’t smell any—but I thought he might be soon. The greenfront was, after all, within his small circle of operation, and holding all those time-strings in your head has to hurt. Multiple pasts were bad enough, but when you added multiple futures? Anyone would turn to drink, if drink were available. I had spent an hour in 2011. Maybe a little more. How long had it been for him? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know.

“Thank God,” he said . . . just as he had before. But when he once more reached to take my hand in both of his, I drew back. His nails were now long and black with dirt. The fingers shook. They were the hands—and the coat, and the hat, and the card in the brim of the hat—of a wino-in-waiting.

“You have to go back,” he said.

“I know that’s what you want me to do.”

“Want has nothing to do with it. You have to go back one last time. If all is well, you’ll come out in the diner. Soon it will be taken away, and when that happens, the bubble that has caused all this madness will burst. It’s a miracle that it’s stayed as long as it has. You have to close the circle.”

He reached for me again. This time I did more than draw back; I turned and ran for the parking lot. He sprinted after me. Because of my bad knee, it was closer than it would have been otherwise. I could hear him right behind me as I passed the Plymouth Fury that was the double of the car I’d seen and dismissed one night in the courtyard of the Candlewood Bungalows. Then I was at the intersection of Main and the Old Lewiston Road. On the other side, the eternal rockabilly rebel stood with one boot cocked against the siding of the Fruit.

I ran across the train tracks, afraid that my bad leg would betray me on the cinders, but Lang was the one who stumbled and fell. I heard him cry out—a desperate, lonely caw—and felt an instant of pity for him. Hard duty, the man had. But I didn’t let pity slow me down. The imperatives of love are cruel.

The Lewiston Express bus was coming. I lurched across the intersection and the bus driver blared his horn at me. I thought of another bus, crowded with people who were going to see the president. And the president’s lady, of course, the one in the pink suit. Roses laid between them on the seat. Not yellow but red.

“Jimla, come back!”

That was right. I was the Jimla after all, the monster in Rosette Templeton’s bad dream. I limped past the Kennebec Fruit, well ahead of the Chartreuse Card Man now. This was a race I was going to win. I was Jake Epping, high school teacher; I was George Amberson, aspiring novelist; I was the Jimla, who was endangering the whole world with every step he took.

Yet I ran on.

I thought of Sadie, tall and cool and beautiful, and I ran on. Sadie who was accident-prone and was going to stumble over a bad man named John Clayton. On him she would bruise more than her shins. The world well lost for love—was that Dryden or Pope?

I stopped by Titus Chevron, panting. Across the street, the beatnik proprietor of the Jolly White Elephant was smoking his pipe and watching me. The Chartreuse Card Man stood at the mouth of the alley behind the Kennebec Fruit. It was apparently as far as he could go in that direction.

He held out his hands to me, which was bad. Then he fell on his knees and clasped his hands in front of him, which was ever so much worse. “Please don’t do this! You must know the cost!”

I knew it and still hurried on. A telephone booth stood at the intersection just beyond St. Joseph’s Church. I shut myself inside it, consulted the phone book, and dropped a dime.

When the cab came, the driver was smoking Luckies and his radio was tuned to WJAB.

History repeats itself.

10

I spent a few days in the Tamarack Motor Lodge, Unit 7 before I made my way back to Lisbon Falls. I bought my Ford Sunliner from Bill Titus for $300 and made my way to Greenwich, Connecticut. I arrived on October 1.

In Derry, the Dunning kids are looking forward to Halloween and already planning their costumes. Ellen, that little red-haired kut-up kutie, plans to go as Princess Summerfall Winterspring. She’ll never get the chance. If I went to Derry today, I could kill Frank Dunning and save her Halloween, but I won’t. And I won’t go to Durham to save Carolyn Poulin from Andy Cullum’s errant shot.

There is only one thing that I have to do, and that is to make my way to Jodie and to Sadie.

After getting my degree from the United College of Oklahoma, I was able to get on as a substitute at Greenwich High, even though the school year had already started. I used my spare time to go back and forth to New York City and build my stock portfolio. It grew slowly at first, but within the first 6 months I had more than enough to make my broker jealous and make my way south to Sarasota.

11

I’m going to jump forward in the narrative again. You’ve heard the story already. I substituted a year in Sarasota, leaving at the end of the school year. Fortunately I didn’t have to leave town in the middle of the night this time to avoid being char-broiled in my rental house.

I made my way to Jodie via Dallas, arriving on the same day as I did five years ago. I passed the billboard proclaiming that the Denholm Lions have JIM POWER at the corner of Highway 77 and Route 109.

One day this billboard would scream a reminder that I am still a visitor here who should be in the Land of Ahead.

I stopped at Al’s Diner to have a Prongburger and discuss Catcher in the Rye with Miz Mimi and Deke.

Sure, there were things that I did slightly differently. I never made another bet, but I made sure to get vaccination records and build a better history for myself. I didn’t know if it would get me past Ellie’s review at the end of my first year teaching, but I figured that having it beats not having it.

I ended up back at Parkway Memorial Hospital during my first year in Jodie to get a vasectomy. I knew from my memories of the Chartreuse Card Man that if I had any hope of making this work, I had to minimize the ripples I created as much as possible.

Unfortunately for both Sadie and me that meant not having any kids.

While I was there, I also had them clean up the lingering mess in my knee. It wasn’t as good as it would have been in 2011, but that couldn’t be helped. I hoped that it would be enough to dance the Hellzapoppin at Sadie Hawkins in a few years.

I became a substitute at Denholm Consolidated High School in the English department, and I even rewrote The Murder Place.  I finished it this time, but it was an exercise in keeping busy. I still directed Of Mice and Men and changed Mike Coslaw’s future, but some things were meant to be.

At the end of the year Miz Mimi and Deke Simmons made plans to marry and retire to Mexico. As before, I was standing by the bandstand watching Doug Sahm, beer in my hand, when history repeated itself.

“George? Come here and meet someone, would you?” I turned. Mimi was coming down the slope of the lawn with Sadie in tow.

My mind flashed forward (or was it backwards?).

I saw Sadie dancing the Madison, color high in her cheeks, laughing.

Sadie telling me to lick her mouth again.

Sadie asking if I’d like to come in and have poundcake.

One man and one woman. Is that too much to ask?

I don’t know, I don’t know.

But I know I have to try.

Thoughts on Forgiveness

I just finished reading Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, and this post will discuss it in some depth, so if you haven't read it but want to without spoilers, feel free to do so now.

I've read quite a few POW books and quite a few World War II books, and it seemed like Unbroken would be the same kind of story...average joe (well, usually they are more than average - they had some sort of popularity before the war) who is thrust into atrocious circumstances and survives despite the odds.  For the first while, that's how it was.  Louie Zamperini was a world class runner who ended up crashing in the ocean.  After spending some 40 days on a raft going 2000 miles across the Pacific (see below), he
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was captured by the Japanese on Kwajalein Atoll and then sent to Ofuna camp (Kamakura area), followed by 2 tours (one at Omori - in Tokyo Bay, just north of Haneda airport and one at Naoetsu, on the Sea of Japan) under one of the most sadistic camp guards in the Japanese system - Mutsuhiro Watanabe, aka The Bird.  He was so bad that he ended up being a Class A war criminal, right up there with Tojo.  He was irrepressibly brutal to the POWs, beating them on a daily basis, debasing them, and doing everything he could to make life miserable.  Life in the camps wasn't exactly like staying in a Hilton, it wasn't even as good as life in the Hanoi Hilton.  After the defeat of the Japanese empire, Zamperini went home, but couldn't bring himself to forgive his captors.
This inability to forgive didn't help Louie get over the war.  Instead, night after night, he had nightmares where The Bird was trying to kill him and he was trying to kill The Bird.  As Hillenbrand said, Louie was the captive of The Bird even after he returned from the war.  This spilled over into his personal life, ruining relationships and driving him ever deeper into alcoholism.  Finally, as his wife was about to leave him, he found religion and forgave his captors.
How do we apply this to us?  The first thing that struck me was how the principle of forgiveness has been misunderstood.  We assume that it's for the other person - the one who has wronged us.  We get wrapped up in whether they deserve forgiveness or not.  Instead, it's not about them - it's about us.  We are required to forgive everybody because ultimately it hurts us if we don't.  The Bird went about his life and made millions, never knowing or caring whether Louie forgave him or not.  Louie couldn't move on until he had forgiven The Bird.
I know that there are people who have done horrific things to others in this life, should they be forgiven?  I think this is a bit of where the problem comes in.  If they do something to me, I should forgive them...whether they should be forgiven or not for their sins is up to God and God alone.  However, as long as we continue to harbor ill feelings towards them, we are in their power whether they know it or not.  As we decide to forgive and forget, we are set free from the prison of hatred and despair that keeps us bound to the past and can move on with our lives, free with the knowledge that God is just and that He will return good for good and evil for evil.  He is a perfect judge and will do what is best for everyone.  Stephen Covey says "it isn't the poisonous snake bite that does the harm.  It's chasing the snake that drives the venom to the heart," and that's what not forgiving someone does - it eats at us day by day until we finally stop and rest from our obsession and allow the cleansing power of the atonement into our lives, and with it, the peace that forgiveness and letting go can give us.
One of the big things that I've been learning is the power of letting go.  We can't control everything and if we try, I think it slowly drives us crazy.  Not in the institutional sense, but stress wise it pulls us tighter and tighter as we try to balance everything in our lives.  As we get pulled tighter, little things that may otherwise not be an issue can cause us to snap.  By letting go of some of these things, we can acknowledge the reality that we can't do everything ourselves and let grace take a role in our lives.  It's an eternal paradox that by giving up control of some things, we gain control of all things.

Book Reviews: The Mitch Rapp Series

I haven't finished reading them all yet, but I'm going to do a quick review on a series of books by Vince Flynn. They've been the most compelling new series of fiction books that I've read in a while. Part of that is because of the writing style. I'll say it's Tom Clancy meets Jack Bauer meets Dan Brown. It's Dan Brown in chapter structure - bite sized chapters that aren't much more than 5 pages on average. I know that some people condemn that as just another manifestation of the short attention spans of people, but for me it gives me manageable chunks to read. When you have a full time job, 2 kids, have time intensive church callings, and do political stuff, you don't have a ton of spare time (although apparently enough to regularly blog). By setting it up in small chapters, I can read a few pages and be done if that's all the time I have instead of stopping in the middle of a chapter. I love that. At any rate, that's one of the big draws. The other is that he does a good job of telling the story. Some of the characters are certainly thinner than the paper they're printed on, but I'm not looking for Dostoevsky or Hemingway, I just want a good page turner that keeps me entertained. The villains are almost always people from the Middle East and they manage to do all kinds of nasty things from assassinations, to work on nuclear bombs, to kidnapping people, and they all get what they deserve from SuperJack Bauer, aka Mitch Rapp. Mitch is clearly the most incredible person ever - he gets results and he's very well trained. Really, even Jack would get the crap kicked out of him if he went up against Mitch. He is a higher up version, and he'll get all kinds of revenge and torture people within an inch of their lives without a care in the world. Really, it's pretty cool as it's a story. I don't think the Rapp Technique would work nearly so well in real life, but again, it's as entertaining as a story gets. Check these out for a little airplane reading or for some here a little, there a little reading.

Term Limits (haven't read yet)
Transfer of Power (haven't read yet)
The Third Option (haven't read yet)
Separation of Power (haven't read yet)
Executive Power
Memorial Day
Consent to Kill
Act of Treason
Protect and Defend

Book Review: Downfall

Author:Richard B Frank
484 pages
I have a lot of books to review as it's been quite some time since I last posted some reviews and was thinking that I'd just do a mega, mega review, but that's never going to happen as it's just too much writing at once. I'm going to start the reviews with one of Downfall. I think that this should be required reading for anybody who is willing to start up the argument for or against using atomic weapons on Japan. It's been thoroughly researched and showed the impact of each successive US plan on Japan on both the population of the country and on the leaders. It was abundantly clear that it wasn't the Soviets that caused Japan to capitulate - they were ready to take Ketsu-go to the US forces and they would have absolutely crushed resolve in the States to move forward. While the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor and drawn us into World War II to begin with, Germany was seen as the main attraction. If the insistence on unconditional surrender started costing too many US casualties, there would have been enormous pressure on Truman to give in to Japanese demands, which were essentially "give us the Treaty of Versailles." Such a surrender wouldn't have produced the amazing results that unconditional surrender did. On top of that, US forces would have been overwhelmed by the firepower and ferocity of the Japanese counterattack. They were preparing all their forces and civilians to fight to the last in order to protect the view of the people that the Emperor could do no wrong. The only thing that weakened this resolve was the bomb, and regardless of how many people it killed, Frank makes it abundantly clear that it was worth every casualty. If you are a student of World War II, you absolutely have to read this book.

Multi Review Fiesta 3

I'm back, as promised, with my last 2 reviews:

The Bourne Supremacy

Robert Ludlum

Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad book, but it seems like the success of The Bourne Identity demanded a sequel from Ludlum even though the first book wrapped itself up with what I consider one of the better endings of an airplane novel. As such, it takes an awful lot of somewhat contrived narrative to actually get him to a point where he's in the story and propelling the narrative. The necessity of giving Bourne an ending where you feel like Ludlum absolutely ruined the first novel for you means that to some degree Marie is put in unnatural amounts of danger to keep her busy until she needs to be pulled out to help out Bourne. To some degree I liked the movie better than the book. I liked the style of writing and I did like the story in general, but it really felt like if there was to be a sequel to The Bourne Identity it needed to revolve around Carlos the Jackal's threats against Bourne. As such I picked up The Bourne Ultimatum but am waiting to read it to watch the third film first.

Map of Bones

James Rollins

I picked this up on a recommendation from a friend who knew that I loved The DaVinci Code. The end result of it was that it's not Dan Brown, but it was excellent. The characters in the book have a much more paramilitary bent than Robert Langdon, and the book plays towards that strength. It's not the most amazing piece of literature in the world, but it's well worth picking up a copy and reading it. Some of the technology described seems a bit out of this world, beyond the typical central crux of the story, but I probably wouldn't be saying that in a few years from now.

Multi-Review Fiesta 2

One of the things that being alone on a business trip allows me to do is catch up on my reading. Also, flying to Europe without my daughter will do the same. As such, I have a ton of books that I've read in the past month.

The Roads to Sata
Alan Booth

This was an interesting book. I certainly wouldn't consider that it's something for everybody. It's the story of a guy who walks from one end of Japan to the other. He does it the back way, going along the Sea of Japan instead of along the Pacific Ocean, where he would have gone through Tokyo, Nagoya, and all the other really big cities on his trip. I found it fascinating because I lived there, but it might not be everybody's cup of tea. The prose is lively though and I do like the different stories about peoples' reactions towards him, particularly the person who said that they couldn't sell him a room that evening because he didn't speak Japanese when he was there speaking Japanese to them. If you're interested in Japan absolutely get it. Even though it's more than 20 years ago when he walked, it's a great account of the country.

Memoirs of a Geisha
Arthur Golden

This was a very fast read. It's not my normal style of book, that's for sure. However, in my quest for all things Japan, I picked it up a bit ago and got around to reading it on my last flight. The way that Golden writes it, it seems like it's being told to you. I wouldn't call it a page turner, because it's not got the edge-of-your-seat action that I would expect from a good page turner, but it does have a nice compelling narrative. One thing to note however is that if you've seen the movie, you've seen the book in general. The movie was one of the most faithful adaptations of a book that I've ever seen. It doesn't mean it's not worth it, but due to the detail to costuming and location in the movie it really colored how I saw the book.


The Bourne Identity
Robert Ludlum

Really, if there's only one Ludlum book you ever read, it has to be The Bourne Identity. I'd read this before but I picked up The Bourne Supremacy before we went to Europe and I had to re-read Identity to get back into the groove of things. I read this before I saw the movie and as a result, even though people loved the movie, I hated it. The character in the book is far different from Matt Damon and the book is better for it. Sure, there's no Clive Owen in the book, but I like the character of Marie St Jaques better in the book as well as the villain. I realize that the director of the movie had a tall order trying to rejigger it as Carlos the Jackal has been in prison for well over a decade, and changing the villain to the CIA and whatever other groups created Treadstone wasn't a good idea in my opinion. It would have been better to create a new terrorist and villainize him. The end result was unsatisfactory, at least for me. I should have expected disappointment as that's the end result of most movie adaptations (Jurassic Park and Clear and Present Danger, I'm looking in your direction), but you can always hope. At any rate, Ludlum does a fantastic job with the characters and the plot moves along at a breakneck pace with the requisite twists and turns that you have to have in any good book like this. I've read quite a few of his books but I have to say that this is where he is at the absolute peak of his game. My wife picked it up after I was done and blew through it too with a lot of the same results, even though she is not a fan of the genre. I can't recommend this enough.

Tomorrow: The reviewage continues!

Multi Review Fiesta

I've read quite a few books between my last book review and now and if I make them separate posts, I doubt I'll end up reviewing them all. Therefore, I'm going to try mini-book reviews to get things back under control, followed by going back to normal. Without further ado, on to the reviews!

The Godfather. What needs to be said about this book. While it has been made famous because of the movie, the book is just as good. It has more details about the periods in general as well as more references to the sexual prowess of Sonny (that's a bad thing). It just covers the time during The Godfather without really going into The Godfather Part II. I think it's one of those ultra-rare situations where the movie and the book are on the same level. The biggest difference for me as a result of seeing the movie before reading the book is that I pictured Al Pacino, James Caan, Marlon Brando, and so on as the characters in the novel even if Puzo's descriptions weren't exactly those actors. Such is the inherent problem with movie novels and so on. Nevertheless, it didn't distract from the book at all. If you can handle all the talk about Sonny during his time in the novel, pick this one up. It was a nonstop read for me - I started somewhere over the Atlantic and was about done when I arrived in Salt Lake, and this was with a 6 month old in my lap most of the time.

Ah Tom Clancy, how awesome a novelist you are. I think it's pretty safe to say that if there was only one author that I could read for the remainder of my days, it'd be Tom Clancy. I love my nonfiction and my Dan Brown and all, but Tom Clancy is the best. It had been a while since I last read his books, mainly because he hasn't written a novel for several years now, and I picked this off my shelf and flew through it. I'm in the middle of Red Rabbit right now, which is good, but not this good, and it's reminded me just how amazing vintage Clancy is. His characters pop, his writing crackles, and his Rice Krispies pop. I think that a lot of non-Irish/British people have forgotten just how heated "the troubles" were, but this is a blast from the past. It was realistic to have a splinter group of the IRA attack Prince Charles and Princess Di back in the day and it was also realistic that Charles wasn't a laughingstock and Di wasn't dead (admittedly, a bit of a low blow) but that they were instead a happy and heroic addition to the British royal family. I was hooked on this book from the opening page and lost quite a bit of sleep getting to the end. Because of the nature of Clancy's books, I would venture to say that this is the most action-packed book he's made (well, maybe not including Red Storm Rising). I'm rambling here, but if you're giving Clancy a try, read this first.

I have very mixed feelings about The Cobra Event. On the one hand, it's compellingly written and a pretty good mix of thriller, non-fiction, and prophetic semi-warning. On the other hand, it's extremely disturbing. The long and the short of it is that there's a madman who wants to wipe out a good part of humanity using a bio-engineered virus that is pretty darn gruesome. It replicates the effects of Lesch-Nyhan syndrome in the infected people. Some things seem somewhat tacked on, like a good solid token romance, pivotal in all novels for some reason or another, but there's some solid historical research that serves to put the present of the novel in context with our actual past. While the vast majority of the novel isn't too disturbing, once you get past the fact that people eat themselves, there is one section that really kind of sent me over the edge, and that has to do with something (and I don't want to truly spoil it here) involving an autopsy. It still sends chills down my spine just thinking about it. Take a gander if you like a good read and won't suffer from the glavin! reflex.

Sweet x Awesome

I'm particularly proud of my latest purchase:

If that shows up as an empty box, my purchase is U2 By U2, a monster biography of the world's greatest band. Yeah, I know that a lot of people don't like Bono's pontificating or they think that The Beatles were clearly superior (they're not. Exhibit A: "Love Me Do"), but you can't deny that they have had a ton of success. The really amazing thing isn't that they've managed to stay both relevant and popular for nigh unto 25 years, but that it's the same band that entire time. I could say that no other band has ever been both popular and stable like this in the history of music and I would probably be right. It was 21 bucks at Costco, and when you see a discount like that on a book like this, you have to get it. It has all kinds of pictures, tales of the band and the music, and so forth. I have to say that if you are a U2 fan, this is a must purchase, even more than U2 At the End of the World (which I didn't think could be surpassed - and can't as a narrative of life with the band). I haven't read the whole thing, and I've got other books in the queue, but I recommend this sucker more highly than almost anything else.

Book Review: The Sword of Lincoln

576 pages
History

The Sword of Lincoln is not a hard book to read. I know that a lot of historical non-fiction is, and I've trudged through my fair share of them as a history buff and political science graduate. This is a very lucid, easy to read account of the formation and life of the Army of the Potomac. There are thousands of Civil War accounts out there, so what makes this different? I think that one of the things that it tries to explain is the link between the army and its generals. Because of the political pressure on the army to take care of the South and do it quickly, the Army of the Potomac was always under pressure to do something. This led to the undoing of a whole host of generals, the most notable of whom was William McLellan.
There are times when The Sword of Lincoln can get confusing, mainly because it doesn't have a nice set of maps to follow the battleground strategy. There are some in there, but as with any war book, you really need to have good maps to be able to tell what maneuvers are being done and why they are. Nevertheless, that doesn't prevent the book from being a fascinating read and really making the history of this army more accessible. I highly recommend it.

Book Review: Angels and Demons

Author: Dan Brown
592 pp

This is the second time I've read Angels and Demons, and it's as quick a read as ever. There's nothing quite like a Dan Brown novel to pass the time. They're a lot of fun and they're tough to put down. In general, it's got a great plot. The 24esque countdown, the twists, the turns, and the rapid-fire dialogue combine to make one of the most enjoyable books out there. I know there are a lot of people who think that Dan Brown is a literary Twinkie, and those people would be right. Nevertheless, who doesn't enjoy eating a tasty Twinkie every now and again? Okay, Twinkie might not be the best example of something that is empty calories and yet strangely enjoyable. Perhaps Sour Patch Watermelons are a better example. The Twinkie Experiments turned me off of Twinkies a long time ago. Anyway, it's a rollicking good ride, however there are a few plot twists that seemed a little out of place, most notably those that lead to the climax at the end of the book. I didn't agree with it at all. Brown had set everything up so that it was going along logically, taking the reader down a surprising, but still well choreographed path. Then, he suddenly tosses in a twist that didn't ever really end up flying. The rest of the book was still enjoyable, but it just didn't end with the same power and sense of cohesion that it could have if it weren't for that final twist. It's tough to discuss without giving it away, so I'll end here, but even with that caveat, if you haven't read Angels and Demons, give it a chance. You'll be glad you did (especially before the movie comes out here in a couple of years).

Book Review: Manhunt

Genre: US History
Length: 464 pp
Amazon Link
This has been one of the hot non-fiction books of the spring, and it's easy to see why. Swanson has an incredible writing style and the story is an incredible one. What most of us have heard about John Wilkes Booth is that he killed Lincoln, jumped from Lincoln's box at Ford's Theatre, and must have gotten caught because that's pretty much all we know.
The real story is much different. Booth nearly got away with it. He broke his leg in the fall and led the authorities on a chase through Washington, Maryland, and Virginia in a time where Rebel armies were still marching abroad. Sure, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had surrendered at Appomattox, but Jefferson Davis was still on the run and the Army of Tennesee and the Army of the West hadn't surrendered yet. The South was still a dangerous place for the Union troops who followed the trail of Booth and the book vividly portrays that. Add in the little known comedy of errors (some errors not very comic) that accompanied his plot to kill Andrew Johnson and William Seward (Secretary of State), and this book is the definitive reference to the 12 days surrounding Lincoln's death. One thing that Swanson brings up that can't be underestimated is that perhaps Lincoln wouldn't be nearly as great of a president if he hadn't been killed. With Booth martyring him, he became untouchable as the first president to be assassinated and who brought the Union back together. If he had been in Andrew Johnson's place instead, it might have been very different for him. I can't recommend this book more highly. It is well written, informative, and crackles along like very few non-fiction books can. If it wasn't demonstratably true, it would sound like something out of a modern day crime novel, and the prose fits that well. Get this book!

Book Review: The Templar Legacy

Genre: Dan Brown Fiction
496 pages
What to say about this book? It was a turn away from my recent non-fiction binge, and I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it was a well written book along the lines of The Da Vinci Code. On the other hand, Berry used some characters (well, the whole book) to set forth a plotline that I had telegraphed about 100 pages before, as the sympathetic Muslim character (as opposed to some of the more bloodthirsty Christian characters) had essentially told me what would end up happening. It wasn't what I had hoped for. I don't want to give away the ending in case some of the readers here decide to give it a read, so I'll try and be careful.
While people were angry with Dan Brown for his portrayal of a married Christ (if you haven't read Da Vinci by now, I'm sorry, but you will just have to deal with the revelation. Just like with The Sixth Sense and the whole dead Bruce Willis thing, the statute of limitations has long expired. In fact, I hereby place a 1 year grace period on any shocking twists in a book or movie. If you haven't seen or read it by that time, you don't care enough to beat me if I spoil something), I think they'll be far more angry with the "revelations" in this book. Likewise, if you thought Brown stretched things a bit far, you'll think that Berry stretched them even further. In the end it was a relatively good book, but not one that is worth owning. Perhaps a library would be the best place for it in the end. Read if you want.

Book Review: 1776

Category: American History
294pp
I don't know if I can even add something to the discussion here. 1776 is the non-fiction book of last year, you know, the one that everybody talks about and therefore is a huge bestseller. As the title implies, it is about the year 1776. The main thing that people know about it is that's when the Declaration of Independence was signed, and that is the case. However, this book is more about the battles that were fought in Boston, New York, and New Jersey. This was a trying time for George Washington, and you can see how ineffectual he was at times as a field general - splitting his troops up, waffling on where to keep them - in Brooklyn or in New York, and so forth. However, McCullough does a great job showing Washington's strengths too, mainly in inspiring and leading his army. He may not have been the best strategist or military mind in our nation's history, but he was the only one who could have kept the army together amid scuffles in between states and the Tory v. Patriot intrastate battles. Several times you can see Divine Providence in the escapes of the Continental Army - a fog that rolled over New York Harbor during the escape from Brooklyn, unseasonable winds that kept the British Navy from cutting off the army from escape routes, and so on. There definitely was a divine hand in the founding of the United States, but it wasn't going to all be up to God - we had to help it happen. For a quick understanding of the year, this is a very readable and thorougly enjoyable view of one of the defining years in our nation's history. Highly recommended.

Book Review: Pity the Nation

Genre: Recent Middle Eastern History
Author: Robert Fisk
643 pages

I just finished Pity the Nation, and it's as comprehensive a history of the Lebanese Civil War as you'll be able to find anywhere. I've been interested in it for years, ever since I saw the Chuck Norris movie The Delta Force as a pre-teen back in the 80s. For those who didn't have the pleasure to watch it, an American airliner (I don't think they identified it as TWA, but they may have) is taken by terrorists who land in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War and proceed to get their butts handed to them by Chuck Norris and company. I wanted to know what was happening there, why was Beirut a hub of terrorism, and what can I do to get my hands on Chuck Norris' magic motorcycle.
This didn't lead anywhere for a while, but movies like Navy SEALS and Spy Game kept my interest in Lebanon and Beirut alive. I finally did something about it other than looking up stuff on the internet, and Fisk's book is excellent in every regard. It's well written, clear, and personal. Fisk was a correspondant for The Times and The Independent and spent the entire war in Lebanon. I think the most enlightening thing about the book was being able to see the separate phases of the war. It started with Christians killing Palestinians and Muslims, then both groups striking back, and so on until the Syrians intervened and invaded the country to stop it from tearing itself apart. This lasted for a time until the Palestine Liberation Organization attacked Israel enough to cause the Israelis to invade Lebanon, setting off another round of fighting even more destructive than before. After some embarassments, the Israelis withdrew to the south of the country from Beirut and a multinational force of US, Italian, French, and British moved in. They were driven out by the rise of Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad in Lebanon in the early 1980s and that led to the final phase of the war where once again Christian and Muslim elements attacked each other.
These phases were interspersed with ceasefires that led to rebuilding of war-torn areas, followed by the next phase of fighting. Fisk chronicled the rise of Hezbollah and IJ as a result of a couple of factors - the Israeli invasion and the Iranian revolution that overthrew the Shah. This radicalized the Muslim population of Lebanon and led to the most famous images of the Lebanon Civil War - the hijacking of a TWA jet and the kidnapping of Terry Anderson.

I could go on, but there's over 600 pages of information in the book, and I don't have time or space to go into that kind of detail. My nitpicks with the book are mainly that Fisk tends to put more of the blame on Western powers than with the PLO. Sure, they were the victims of some brutal massacres (Chatila and Sabra being the most notable), but they were constantly the ones that destabilized the situation. They did the same thing in Jordan before they were booted out to Beirut in the 1970s. He wears his political affiliations on his sleeve and he's not afraid to say that he disagrees with everything that Israeli PM Begin and Ronald Reagan did in Lebanon. I think that we made some mistakes (notably underestimating the opposition), but it was well-intentioned and not strong enough. The Marine Barracks bombing of 1983 was the kicker that got the US out, but it also was the first step in a long road towards September 11.
Ultimately this book was a great read and it really helped me to understand more about this relatively unrecognized war (at least in this day and age) that laid the foundations for everything that came thereafter in the Middle East. Highly recommended.