Arkadi & Boris Strugatski: MONDAY BEGINS ON SATURDAY

There seems to be something of a general rule that Russian and Slavic fantastic literature is among the most fantastic out there, and the Strugatski brothers' Monday Begins on Saturday is no exception. Three closely-linked stories, all unreliably narrated by the same computer programmer, introduce readers to S.R.I.T.S., the secret Soviet facility for research into magic, sorcery and the extra/para/supernormal. It's staffed by a variety of characters from Russian and other European myths and legends, whose cooperation and/or lack thereof drive the story along (for the most part, its narrator, whose name I cannot recall, is a fairly passive observer). Of the three tales included in this book, the third is the most interesting and absorbing by far. It details a number of researchers' and technicians' investigation into the mystery of the two identical S.R.I.T.S. supervisors, who appear and do not appear to be precisely the same person (the solution at which they arrive is enough to turn anyone's head). What makes these stories interesting is the playful manner in which the Strugatskis--themselves Soviet scientists--mix and mingle science, technology, folklore and magic in the most lively and unexpected ways. Overall, I'd say Monday Begins on Saturday deserves a B or B+, but no higher: interesting though it was, I wasn't enamored by the writing (although, to be fair, that could be more of a translational problem than anything else).

Aleister Crowley: LIBER AL VEL LEGIS (THE BOOK OF THE LAW)

Just so any potential readers of Liber al vel Legis are aware: the Master Therion is indeed Aleister Crowley himself, making this book, yes, just a very wordy and draped-in-all-the-trappings-of-outlandish-spiritualism infomercial. Supposedly, the whole thing is about the law--only, the law is only, "Do what thou wilt," so the other, I don't know, hundred pages or so seem quite unnecessary. And if you look at it that way, they are. In fact, any way you look at it, they are. Those extra hundred pages exist only to:
1.) Build up the book's credibility, largely through loudly exclaiming, over and over again, "This book has a lot of credibility!"
2.) Build up enrollment in any and all classes taught by Crowley, because nobody but the Master Therion really understands the Law, and trying to implement it all on your own would only lead to disaster
3.) Feed Crowley's massive ego.
There. Now that all of that is out there...I don't know. There's not much more to say. This book was a present for a friend, who really wanted it (I'd suggested the Aleister Crowley reader as being the way to go, but I'm not going to dictate what presents somebody can or cannot choose after I've offered to let them do so). Did the Liber al vel Legis ignite in me any burning desire to go out and purchase the reader? No, not at all. In fact, I've just about run out of things to say about this book. I found it probably as uninspired as you're finding this review, and no, that's not just coincidence.

Stanislaw Lem: THE INVESTIGATION

According to Stanislaw Lem, most English language science fiction is too-too dull and unoriginal; compared to Stanislaw Lem, most English language science fiction is. I don't know if The Investigation should even be considered science fiction, really--but I will, if only because I don't know what else to call it, either. There are shades of Kafka here, and shades of The X-Files, but then there's something else...Monty Python, perhaps, or maybe even Rocky and Bullwinkle. Lem's writing isn't mind-blowing in the same was as Philip K. Dick's or Harlan Ellison's is, but I'd argue that it's even more creative than either of their work. The Investigation is, literally, the story of a Scotland Yard investigation, led by the young Lieutenant Gregory, into a series of unexplained body disappearances across the south of England. In the course of the novel, the disappearances never really are explained--or, they're explained far too many times, in far too many conflicting ways, none of which really stand up to all that much scrutiny. It's also the story of the brilliant but tortured statistician Sciss, and his (d)evolving relationship with the impulsive but confused Gregory. Overall, I'm left with no choice but to give it an A+; for a story that didn't make too much sense, it makes a lot of sense. And on top of that, it's a sterling example of what the most creative mind in all western sci-fi can do at his best.

Thomas Parrish: TO KEEP THE BRITISH ISLES AFLOAT- FDR'S MEN IN CHURCHILL'S LONDON

I don't necessarily read a lot of history, and in particular not a lot of military history, so I was somewhat skeptical when I picked this book up. It's not that I dislike history--I always performed well in the subject while in school, even going so far as to take a couple of history electives my senior year of college, just for the fun of it (one of them, coincidentally, happened to be British history from 1815-present, thus encompassing the events contained in this book). On top of that, I've always admired Franklin Delano Roosevelt. So, it wasn't as if I was totally uninterested in the subject matter, I just...well, let me back up and tell you what the subject matter was, how about that? Thomas Parrish's To Keep the British Isles Afloat draws its title from a command FDR made to one of its two protagonists, Harry Hopkins and Averell Harriman. Hopkins and Harriman were Roosevelt's special envoys to Britain and to Winston Churchill in particular, and later the administrators and largely the shapers of the lend-lease program that constituted America's policy towards war involvement in the period immediately preceding our entry into World War II. Ostensibly, that's what the book is about, but what I read it for and enjoyed it for were the portraits it painted of Hopkins and Harriman. They were both really quite interesting and exciting guys, and Parrish manages to bring their grand adventures in Britain to life pretty well. So as far as I'm concerned, this is an easy B+. It held me, when I wasn't so sure I was going to be held. And in doing so, it provided me with a small and pleasant surprise, in addition to a far greater level of knowledge about lend-lease than I ever thought I'd have. Thank you, Mr. Parrish, for both of those things.

Matt Miller: THE TYRANNY OF DEAD IDEAS

Remember those ruts I talked about, way back when? Those tiresome reading ruts I tend to get stuck in? We're not out of it, yet--Kingsley Amis was an aberration, not the beginning of a new rut (darkly humorous postwar British lit?), as my immediately deciding to read Clinton-administration adviser Matt Miller's The Tyranny of Dead Ideas more than adequately indicates (there's a subtitle about unleashing a new era of prosperity or something along those lines, but I don't have the book here with me and can't recall exactly what it said). Anyway, enough about me, let's talk about the book. It was definitely OK, but I won't give it any more than that. It was a quick read, an interesting read, the sort of economics/current affairs reading I like to do right about now, but it wasn't anything groundbreaking and it wasn't anything particularly well-written. It was the right book for the moment, for me, without its being the right book for me or anybody else in any other sense. Which sounds extraordinarily harsh, but let me (try to) explain. I'm not going to recommend this book to you here, because I can't really, because there are so many other, better books like this out there. But at the same time, I am going to recommend it to you if you're looking for a book like this and have read a lot of those others, because in that way it's kind of interesting. So I'm going to give this book a C+, whereas this entry gets an F for totally sucking. I mean honestly, it's probably the worst I've written yet, and I've reviewed comic books, for chrissakes. Let's just move on, please!

P.S.-The picture attached to this entry actually comes from Mr. Miller's own website, suggesting that he really likes the way his book looks when it's slightly angled. I found this to be at least as interesting as anything it contained, and it made me like him a lot more.

Loose ends...

It's come time for me to remark on a couple of things. In fact, I'll try to limit it to exactly a couple, so as not to wear your patience too thin. Here goes:

THING #1: After months upon months of complaining about the state of young people's employment in this country, I've finally secured some of it for myself, and thus will need to stop complaining about that in particular (at least until I've figured out a different way in which to do so). No, I'm not changing my party registration to Republican or abandoning my social democratic principles--but I might start reading a little bit less (although I can't say that for sure), and thus posting reviews somewhat less often. I hope not, you hope not, but let's not get our hopes up too much, eh? Better to be pleasantly surprised than to have them dashed (finding work, by the way, means replacing the job search with the graduate school search. I'd appreciate suggestions on what I should study and where, as I'll be spending the next couple years conducting that search [as well, presumably, as one of my innermost soul, in order to determine exactly what I should be studying] in tremendous and exacting detail. I'm not rushing this, and don't see any reason why I should).

THING #2: By now, I should by all accounts have posted here a review of DC Comics' 52, a year-long weekly book describing an otherwise missing year in the DCU. Only...I can't. I've only read 75% of the issues, and can't get a hold of the last 25%. Why is this? Because I don't own them, the Free Library of Philadelphia does. And the FLP has suspended all holds and branch transfer requests indefinitely, since it might very well be shutting down at the beginning of October. "What?!" you exclaim. "The middle of the school year, and Philadelphia's public library system shutting down? But why?! What an outrage, this!" Well, you're right, you're 100% right, but it's not their fault, it's not Mayor Nutter's fault, it's not our fault. Blame, as always, the Pennsylvania legislature (Motto: Political gamesmanship trumps public service...always). What can you do about this? Well, I won't bother going into it in too much detail, but you should tell somebody who CAN do something to do it, and fast. The FLP has more to say, and a letter of support I'd highly recommend mailing to your state representative, here: http://www.library.phila.gov/about/actionnow.htm. If we don't do something about this, I may NEVER read that last volume of 52, and where would we be, then?

Kingsley Amis: ONE FAT ENGLISHMAN

I happen to possess a fairly early American edition of Kingsley Amis's One Fat Englishman, an early-1960s paperback published when Amis was just a promising young Briton, long before he became enshrined as potentially one of the UK's more important twentieth-century writers (and it only cost me $2.50!). I say this not to brag, because it's actually in rather sub-par condition, but because it meant that this particular edition lacked the forward-packed-with-literary-analysis-and-appreciation that my well-worn copy of the fabulous Lucky Jim possesses (read Lucky Jim by the way--please, please, please read Lucky Jim). I didn't assume, going into the reading process, that this would matter exceptionally--after all, I figured, half the time I just skip over the things anyway. Well, I was wrong. I found One Fat Englishman, while still as well-written as anything by Amis, to be rather, well, unlikable. In that, I soon found, I was not alone. David Lodge, a talented author in his own right and one of the earliest to spot Amis's literary value (also the author of the forward to my copy of Lucky Jim), wrote in The Guardian that this is the "least likable novel" penned by Amis, and went on to tell us why. Upon initially reading O.F.E., Lodge remarked, he was as unimpressed as I was. Upon rereading it years later, however, he realized that the disgustingly dislikable antihero Roger Micheldene was as much of an Amis stand-in as Lucky Jim had earlier been. Amis had noticed himself becoming more and more conservative, more and more boorish, more and more...well, fat. And hated that part of himself (although he couldn't do anything to avert its eventual dominance). So he wrote a book about it, a book imbued with an almost palpable sense of self-loathing. Does it make this C-grade book easier to read? No, not at all. But it does make one appreciate that One Fat Englishman actually does possess a certain measure of literary and personal merit, and is an appropriate cap to Amis's early period. It's not as much fun as Lucky Jim, no, but it's got its own place, and it belongs there. Thank you, David Lodge--I probably won't skip any more of your forwards.

Keith Devlin: THE UNFINISHED GAME- PASCAL, FERMAT AND THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY LETTER THAT MADE THE WORLD MODERN

Every so often, I read a book about math. I couldn't really tell you why--call it a strange and inexplicable desire to understand how the world works on a level I don't spend much time on anymore (one semester of college calculus was enough for this liberal arts major, thank you very much), or call it pretension to a much broader intellect than I actually possess. I'm not sure, and I'm not willing to submit to analysis in order to find out. But the fact remains: a couple times a year, maybe, I read a book about math. And this time, it was Keith Devlin's The Unfinished Game, a decidedly not-for-mathematicians account of the roots and early development of probability theory. As math books go, it was in my opinion a particularly interesting one, taking as its basic unit of analysis and discussion a seventeenth century letter written by Blaise Pascal to Pierre de Fermat. Devlin's story doesn't stop there, of course (the book wouldn't have been too interesting if it had), but actually goes on to describe where probability went from there, and how it wound up even approximating the variety we're offhandedly familiar with today. Devlin alleges that this letter essentially marks a transformational point in man's evolution, at which s/he began to view the world in an entirely different and modern way. Prior to probability, Devlin alleges, the future was completely uncontrollable, entirely the realm of chance; afterward, it could be prepared for in certain ways, even predicted to a small extent. Without going into tremendous detail, I'll note that Devlin never had me entirely convinced, but was operating with a limited amount of text and without any extensive knowledge on my part of thought/behavior patterns of the 1600s, so I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Did this book inspire in me the desire to actually develop an extensive knowledge of those patterns? Well, no. But it did teach me a lot about the genesis of modern probability theory that I didn't know--knowledge that may eventually come in handy at a bar quiz, especially pretentious dinner party, or some other occasion. So a B+ to you, Mr. Devlin, and a thank-you for making this math particularly readable.

Zbigniew Brzezinski & Brent Scowcroft: AMERICA AND THE WORLD- CONVERSATIONS ON THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY (Moderated by David Ignatius)

Some might claim--and I don't know that I could really argue with them--that I tend to get stuck in ruts when it comes to reading material (it's unarguably true that I tend to get stuck in ruts under plenty of other circumstances, so I don't know if I'm even inclined to dispute this allegation). For a while there, I was only reading comic books; then only mid-20th century American noir; now, nonfiction books I checked out of the Free Library of Philadelphia (more on that later, by the way). To be fair, this has happened before, and I can account for it to a certain degree: it's not so much that I get stuck in a rut, as I finish a book and then, riding on the mood that it's put me in, select another book very much in the same vein to read next. It's perfectly logical, perfectly natural, but manifests itself in patterns that might appear to be all too unnatural. Anyway: the long and short of it is, I've started reading nonfiction books I found at the library (it's just down the street, now!), and can't say for certain when I'll stop. But you'll be sure to know when I do. Anyway... I must say, having read many nonfiction library books, that America and the World was particularly interesting. It's a series of conversations, moderated by Washington Post veteran reporter David Ignatius (who, it must be said, seems way out of his league [but whom is far closer to being in the right league than I would be, I'll be just as honest about that] in these discussions), between two of the late-Cold War's preeminent strategists. Former National Security Advisers Zbigniew Brzezinksi (Carter presidency...and we'll just call him Zbig from here on out) and Brent Scowcroft (George H.W. Bush [that's the first one] presidency) ostensibly approach the problems posed by Ignatius (and these problems touch on just about every continent's travails except Antarctica...and, to be honest, a fair portion of oft-forgotten Africa) from different ends of the political spectrum, but neither demonstrates the willful ignorance of fact that both major party platforms seem to generate among the political faithful. As a liberal progressive/social democrat myself, I expected to find myself agreeing with the Democrat Zbig far more than I did--but honestly, Scowcroft's arguments occasionally carried the day (largely because they're completely unreflective of the current state of diplomatic discourse in the Republican Party. More Scowcroft's, and the GOP might actually start presenting us with a legitimate alternative to wishy-washy Democratic foreign policy prescriptions). Most shocking of all, though, was how often the two alleged adversaries wound up agreeing, or dissenting in minor detail only. Simply because it's a reflection of the most thoughtful bipartisan discussion of foreign policy I've encountered in quite some time (and because it didn't devolve into the same manner of excessive parenthesization as this entry), I'm going to hand out an A for this one. Nice work, gentlemen.

Theodore Sturgeon: THE NAIL AND THE ORACLE (Volume XI of the Complete Stories...)

Theodore Sturgeon, in my opinion, was one of the five-or-so best short story writers of the twentieth century, in English or any other language (I'd be hard pressed to spout off the other five, but I felt that calling him "the best" might be pushing it a little bit, and added them mostly for show). The Nail and the Oracle: Volume XI of the Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon doesn't happen to contain any of his very best work, but it does contain a lot of his better work, and is well worth reading for that reason alone (I told you, he's good). This isn't where I would start, had I never read Sturgeon before but was inclined to listen to my own advice about where to start reading Sturgeon (the previous conundrum may have contained a couple impossibilities, but let's forget them for a second, the way Sturgeon would've--forgotten them, or found a way around them. He was so damned creative, you see...). As an avowed Sturgeon fan, however (...and so magical, so original, so willing to take an idea and run with it, only it'd be an idea you'd've never had in the first place. Yes, that's it, he'd take ideas you never would've had in the first place to places you would've never thought to go with them), I thoroughly enjoyed myself. And while, interestingly enough, most of the actual writing in this post has been metadiscourse (the actual review [I give this book an A] has been largely contained within parentheses), I'd like to advance my opinion of it right now: The Nail and the Oracle contains second-rate work by a writer whose second-rate sails far above and beyond most people's first-rate. Theodore Sturgeon was a giant, a king of the short story, and remains one today. Reading his work is, for me, an act of love (still...no A+ for this volume. That A will have to do).

Arnold Drake: THE DOOM PATROL ARCHIVES, VOL. I

There are, to my mind, only two manifestations of the unique superhero team known as the Doom Patrol that really matter. Obviously, there's the original DP, the one created for "My Greatest Adventure" by Arnold Drake in 1963, killed off by Drake five years later, and whose earliest exploits are chronicled in this book, The Doom Patrol Archives, Vol. I. Then there's Grant Morrison's wind-warping late-80s version, the only one Drake has certified as legit. Now, we're not going to discuss Morrison's version of the DP, although I'd love to, because I was reading Drake's. While Drake's stories do seem a bit campy by the standards of today's darker, more serious comics, they also just seem really weird--which is their appeal, in the end. The Doom Patrol is not your ordinary band of superheroes; they're freaks, rejected by the rest of human society because they just don't fit in. Elasti-Girl, a former movie star who can grow or shrink on command. Negative Man, the negative spirit that inhabits the body of former pilot Larry Trainor and can only leave for 60 seconds, tops. And Robotman, the human brain of daredevil Cliff Steele, inside a marvelous robot body. They take their orders from the mysterious Chief, a wheelchair-bound supergenius/millionaire. They are, in short, the X-Men, before the X-Men existed, and twice as weird. They are awesome, and so are their enemies: General Immortus, the Brotherhood of Evil (in Morrison's incarnation of the DP, they become the Brotherhood of Dada), Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man, countless other weirdos. Why read these comics? Because they're everything comics are supposed to be, that's why. Grade A material.

Fredric Brown: PARDON MY GHOULISH LAUGHTER

Two things about Fredric Brown, author of (amongst many other things) the short-story collection Pardon My Ghoulish Laughter: he was quite possibly the most creative writer of the twentieth century, and undoubtedly one of its best titlers--right up there, I would hazard, with the great editor Maxwell Perkins (you thought Hemingway thought up "The Sun Also Rises" all by himself?). This particular short story collection makes the latter fairly obvious; and the former, too, once you've sat down to read it. My favorite? The story in which an otherwise-convinced skeptic decides that it's worth the one-in-a-million chance of success to create a wax voodoo doll of Adolf Hitler. Brown, like Robert Bloch and a number of other pulp writers, mastered the twist ending. In fact, rarely if ever can even the smartest reader anticipate a Brown ending (sometimes this is because he's a genius, sometimes it's because he was also a hack who occasionally held out on some important detail until the very last second...but hey, he was writing to live, so let's give it to him). These stories, which should be awfully dated by now, read about as fresh as they must've in 1940-whenever, when they were initially published. If that's not reason enough to give Fredric Brown a try (this and his totally mind-bending science fiction; my favorite Brown works are the detective story Night of the Jabberwock and the sci-fi mindfuck What Mad Universe?), then perhaps the A+ I assign this book will be.