Author: Brian J. Noggle

I recognized the author’s name, and when I Noggled him, I remembered that I his other book that I read.

But this book is different; it does not take the snark summary view. Instead, it gives a couple hundred words on individual events such as The Murderer from the Mayflower, the First Kamikaze, H-Day in Sweden, the Man Who Walked Around the World, and more. It’s like a Damn Interesting collection. (Are those guys still around? It would seem so.)

At any rate, a much better read than The Lowbrow Guide to World History, and I’m envious. I almost wish I could gather the steam to put out a collection like this. Maybe I will sometime. I still have like 3 ISBN to fill.

Books mentioned in this review:

In my grim tour of the recently deceased (starting with Elmore Leonard), of course I would pick up a book by Frederick Pohl since he passed away earlier this month. This book isn’t the first of Pohl’s work I’ve read, though. I’ve even reported on Man Plus eight years ago.

At any rate.

This book is set in the future about a hundred years. After a nuclear exchange has wiped most of the Soviet Union and the United States out, China and India have split what remains of the world. The former United States are now republics and collectives in the Chinese mold. One young man, denied the opportunity to study at the University, is a farm laborer until he finds a part of a murder victim in his rice paddy. This red herring puts him into contact with an attractive Han police inspector, and his testimony at the trial brings him into contact with a surgically schizophrenified professor at the University and in the know about the alien ship approaching Earth and asking to speak to the President of the United States. Faster than you can say “Jack Ryan,” the lad is the president for presentation sake and he’s on his way out into space to meet the visitors….

You know, I could go on, and I have when recounting it for my beautiful wife who thinks it sounds interesting enough that she might read it. And she doesn’t tend to science fiction.

It ends a bit abruptly, but it goes in such directions. It builds the world, and then things happen to shake that all up, and…. Well, it reminds me (again) how untethered (in a good way) science fiction from those years could be. Almost anything could happen. I haven’t read much contemporary sci fi, but I get the sense that it falls neatly into subgenres–Military sci-fi, urban fantasy, fantasy, and whatnot–that makes it less wonderful and imaginary.

Of course, I’ll drop back into my paperback suspense fiction, but once in a while, science fiction is good to make me just wonder.

Books mentioned in this review:

I’ve owned a couple of Elmore Leonard books for a while, but I hadn’t read one until now. Mr. Leonard’s recent passing prompted me to pick up this book.

I have seen the film, of course, because for some strange reason in the waning years of the twentieth century, I saw George Clooney movies. In the cinema. Huh. That was a weird time.

At any rate, it read pretty well, too. Of course, seeing the movie before reading the book means I had in my head the appearances of the main characters, so I’m not sure how well Leonard described them. The action is punchy, the situations different and amusing.

I have one or two more Elmore Leonard books scattered amongst my stacks. When I stumble across them, I’ll pick them up.

It’s neat to find an author new to me that I enjoy. I know, it’s not like I lacked indicators that Leonard’s books were good. But sometimes it takes a little push to get me to read something.

Books mentioned in this review:

I’ve already read one Matt Helm book this year (The Ambushers and another book by Donald Hamilton (Murder Twice Told), so I guess it’s not a change of pace at all that I picked up this book.

Within it, Matt Helm gets involved in solving the disappearance of several boaters in the Bermuda Triangle area. He’s under the thumb of a rich Texan whose fiance is among the missing and who pulls some strings in Washington to get an agent on it. Helm is also running ahead of some assassins who are targeting him and from a former associate and lover who wants him dead–and whose help he needs to unravel the conspiracy.

It’s an interesting bit of thriller, a bit slower than The Mordida Man, but there really is a bit of a cut over somewhere there in the 1970s where the paperbacks become more punchy.

I enjoyed it, and I think I’m about out of Matt Helm books. I’ll have to hope for some luck at the autumn book sales.

Books mentioned in this review:

It’s been over a year since I read a Ross Thomas paperback (The Pork Choppers in November 2011), and I’ve been mostly reading paperbacks this year, so I picked up this book for a change-of-pace from my normal paperback haunts.

Unlike The Pork Choppers, this book is a straight ahead thriller. The plot stems around a secretive group that snatches the leader of a terrorist cell close to the ruling leader in Libya (a different colonel, as Khaddafy is overthrown in the near future of this 1981 novel). The Libyans think the CIA took him, so they snatch the president’s brother and hope to exchange the two; unfortunately, the terrorist died in the snatch, and it wasn’t the Americans. While the CIA muddles about trying to figure out who and where, a fixer summons the Mordida Man, a veteran and one-term Congressman known for getting important people out of the clutches of Mexican drug lords.

The book is fascinating: It’s a pretty good read, thirty-two years on, if you can relate to the olden days before cell phones and the Internet. It’s strange how undated elements of it are: the non-US vs. Soviet spymastering, for example, and that the bad guys are still bad guys 30 years later (contrast this for the extra suspension of disbelief you need for WWII thrillers: by the 1970s, our former enemies were our allies). There’s one bit of dated technology, though: the automatic garage door opener makes its appearance twice, including one where it’s sort of marvelled at.

But the book mixes up the good guys and the bad guys and has a third side playing against both that adds a dimension. Given the intra-side fighting, and you get an exciting read coupled with enough brutality that you realize that anyone is expendable in pursuit of the plot and the story.

Wikipedia says he was a well-respected thriller writer of his day, and I believe it.

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I bought this book from a book review in the Wall Street Journal. So that review was pretty compelling, and it sounded like it would be a fun book. And so it was.

Mark Edward talks about his life and times as a psychic. Well, he thinks of himself more as a mentalist, a showman who might have some gift but who mostly entertains people and sometimes helps them with their problems as a sort of counselor and storyteller. He doesn’t take himself too seriously, and he knows the business is some level charlatan and yet he’s hopeful he is making something good of it. Of course, he would, being the author of the book and trying to present himself in the best light. It makes for a very complex narrative voice that really pulls one along.

And what a story he tells. Edward has worked for the Psychic Friends Hotline, has done radio, has done infomercials, has worked the party circuit, and has done private readings for a fee.

So he’s earnest, and he’s self-aggrandizing, but he doesn’t take the business or himself very seriously, so the book was a joy to read.

Books mentioned in this review: