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Book Reviews - Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction - By an Adult for Adults

The Scourge of the Swastika – Nazi Horrors by Edward Russell

April 4, 2020 by Kathy Leave a Comment

The Scourge of the Swastika is a hard book to read and hard to review. Author Lord Russell of Liverpool served in the British war crimes trials held after WW2.

The theme of this book is that we can attribute the Nazi horrors directly to the “Master Race” theory, and further to National Socialism’s subsumption of individuals to the state. The Nazi regime treated harshly any Germans who stepped out of line; was it any wonder they treated people from “inferior races” or “subhumans” with no care whatsoever? People deported from occupied countries for slave labor were treated so as to extract maximum work at minimum expenditure, i.e., worked to death.

Lord Russell makes his point by starting from conditions in Germany, the totalitarians at the country, district, county and down to the city block level who ran everything, controlled everything, and restricted speech, property rights, religion. As Russel notes, “It is only when one recalls what was done in Germany between 1933 and 1939 that one can see…the crimes committed during the war in occupied territories.” Hitler used Germany as a test run for the rest of Europe.

From here Lord Russell shows the crimes against prisoners of war, naval crimes such as torpedoing neutral passenger-carrying ships. Until I read this I knew that Germans did not obey the Geneva convention with Russian POWs and had carried on unrestricted submarine warfare, but had not realized the extent of either. The German leadership ordered naval captains to not rescue any passengers or crew who escaped sinking vessels, and later to shoot helpless crew in lifeboats.

The next parts, covering the occupied countries, slave labor, concentration camps and Holocaust, are more familiar to any who have read about WW2. Russell shows the occupiers treated the people in the conquered countries as basically worthless, murdering entire villages, killing 10 or 100 random civilians in reprisals, starving the population. He makes it clear that the Germans knew that these actions were illegal and immoral – or would be viewed that way by impartial outsiders – because they took care to do many of the killings out of sight or to obfuscate the number of dead.

The book includes quotations from Hitler and others that clearly direct these horrors. Hans Franck in charge of Poland saw his duty as to turn Poland’s “economic, cultural and political structure into a heap of rubble”, and that Hitler would commend him if he “annihilated another 150,000 Poles.” Hitler wanted to free his people from “the humiliating restrictions imposed by the chimera of conscience and morality”, and it’s obvious that he succeeded with all too many, and those people found places in the SS and other units.

The British government tried to suppress The Scourge of the Swastika, to keep it from being published. I found comments that it was unbecoming for Lord Russell to make money from work he had done in while in service, but the more telling comments make it clear the British wanted to quell some of the anti-German feeling and re-incorporate West Germany into the European family. This was in 1954 when the Cold War was freezing over.

I would recommend this to anyone interested in how National Socialism operated inside and outside Germany or in totalitarian rule and how it descends into barbarism. If you wonder how a country so cultured as to bring us Beethoven can bring us Nazism, then read this. Read this but do not expect entertainment.

5 Stars

Filed Under: Non Fiction Tagged With: History, Nazis, Totalitarianism, WW2 German Behavior

The Alien Diaries by Glenn Devlin – The Revolutionary War, Aliens, Modern Suspense

July 22, 2018 by Kathy 1 Comment

The Alien Diaries takes a refreshingly different look at alien contact with a story that jumps seamlessly from today back to 1781, during the tail end of the Revolutionary War in Virginia.  Asher hires widower bookseller Colin to catalog the collection in the Dibble estate that date back to the late 1700s, and sends him a couple first editions and a few pages of a diary to whet his appetite for the work.  Colin realizes the assignment is odd – for one thing Asher paid off the mortgages on his home and business as a gift – but does not realize exactly how odd, or how dangerous.

Asher insists that Colin and his nominal supervisor Maddy wear 18th century clothing at all times and hide any evidence of modern equipment.  They are both intrigued by the anomalies on the estate:  Running water, electric lights, rudimentary air conditioning and central heating, indoor plumbing, refrigeration, but Maddy acts the hard-nosed supervisor and forbids from exploring and investigating until he finishes cataloging the book collection.

The diary from Kate Dibble, Mary and Dibble’s adopted daughter, gives the framework for the 1781 story.  An enslaved alien sought refuge with the Dibbles, his owners hunted him down.  Now, in 2018, the owners have returned and still hunt their escapee.  Colin and Maddy face terrifying events; they are unable to leave the estate and no one can see or hear them.

Good Points

Plot is intriguing, unusual and the story is self-contained, with a beginning, middle and solid end.

Characters are well done, especially those from 1781.  The modern pair of are somewhat less developed but we see enough to like.  We suspect the two will end up together but the romance is secondary.

Author Glenn Devlin does an excellent job moving between times.  We are not confused as to which group we are with and the events of the past clearly define the events today.

So-So Points

There are plot holes.  Couple examples:

  • How does James communicate with the aliens in our modern time to arrange the 2018 events?
  • Why have the winged aliens not attacked Earth?  We would be pushovers and clearly they have known about us for at least 2500 years.

There are editing problems, missing words, so on.  Also, does not anyone use the irregular past tense anymore for shine/shone or dive/dove?

The biggest problem with the novel is it bogs down about the 40% mark.  I kept reading because I was curious what was going on with the mysterious Dibbles, but the book itself crept along.  There is a comment on Amazon that Alien Diaries “was a finalist during Amazon’s monthly screenwriting competition” so perhaps what felt like doldrums in a novel would be more lively in a movie.

Overall

I liked the novel and read to the end and appreciated the skill with which author Devlin mixed the 1780s into 2018.  It’s not quite 4 stars, perhaps 3 1/2.

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Filed Under: Space and Aliens Tagged With: Book Review, History, Science Fiction

The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell, Edited by Christopher Hibbert

March 25, 2018 by Kathy Leave a Comment

Boswell’s Life of Johnson has been on my must-eventually-read-this list forever and finally I finished it this evening.  Boswell writes well, using anecdotes and quotes to show his revered Samuel Johnson, and his circle of eminent friends.  Johnson lived in the 1700s, dying in 1784, and was a man of words, written and spoken.  Johnson viewed conversation and wit as great arts and took great pride in his skill talking about almost anything and winning discussions on any topic.

Johnson saw nothing whatsoever to love about Scotland or America, yet his great friend Boswell is Scottish and he willingly would discourse with Americans when they were polite and showed him reverence.  Boswell was obsequious; what we would call brown nosing, Boswell felt was simply showing the immense respect that Johnson deserved.

Today we don’t read much of Johnson’s writings, although we still use some of his sayings, e.g.,  “When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight it concentrates his mind wonderfully”.  Boswell wrote travel books but his only enduring success is this, the Life of Johnson.

Boswell writes well and uses anecdotes and remembered conversations to show us himself, Johnson, and 1700s London.  Editor Christopher Hibbert noted that his edits removed direct excerpts from Johnson’s writings.

I doubt I’ll ever read anything by Johnson or Boswell but this was interesting and I’m glad to have finally read it.

Filed Under: Non Fiction Tagged With: 3 Stars, Biography, Book Review, History

No Time Like the Past: The Chronicles of St. Mary’s Book Five – Breakneck Pace

March 4, 2018 by Kathy Leave a Comment

Wow.  No Time Like the Past has plot, plot and plot.  Our fearless Max does:

  • Travels back to St. Mary’s during the Cromwell revolt, saves 3 people and discovers why Markham sees a ghost;
  • Rescues people from the fire at St. Paul’s cathedral and nearly ends up dead;
  • Organizes Open Day with plenty of excitement and nearly ends up dead;
  • Re-structures the entire training program and enjoys the kind Mrs. Shaw as her temporary PA;
  • Travels back to rescue Botticelli paintings and nearly ends up dead
  • Witnesses the Spartans holding off the Persians at Thermopylae and gets wet on by one of the Spartans
  • Makes her first ever serious emotional commitment (and does not end up dead).

In addition we have the usual explosions and faux pas and near-catastrophes.

No Time Like the Past is fun to read and reread, and I guarantee each time you read it you’ll find something new to laugh at.  Author Jodi Taylor has a gift for vivid descriptions that make us feel like we are perched above the Spartans holding the Hot Gates, feeling the terror of a cathedral exploding in flames.  She brings the vivid imagery to life with wit and wry observations that make us feel like we are inside Max’s head.  The novel is successful at making history come alive.

There is character development in the sense that we get to know Peterson and Markham and Helen Foster better.  It is as though these are acquaintances whom we now are traveling with, learning about, becoming friends.  None of the characters undergoes any Eureka moments or has major emotional growth, but that’s not the point.  Taylor makes us feel like we work at St. Mary’s and all these people are real colleagues and friends.

My only real complaint with No Time Like the Past is that it is very hard to recall all Max’s adventures and accurately assign them to the right novel.  Since the books move one to the next, and all at the speed of light, the whole great cacophony gets bundled up my mind and the individual novels blur.  It makes it hard to write reviews!

4 Stars

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Filed Under: Action and Adventure Tagged With: 4 Stars Pretty Good, Book Review, Fantasy, History, Loved It!

Time Travel for Historians 2 – A Symphony of Echoes – Jodi Taylor Chronicles of St. Mary’s

February 18, 2018 by Kathy Leave a Comment

Jodi Taylor continues her frantic race up and down Time while Max struggles with an emotional seesaw in her second book, A Symphony of Echoes, in her Chronicles of St. Mary’s.  We start off with Max and best friend Kal jaunting off to late Victorian London to see Jack the Ripper.  Unfortunately they find Jack.  And worse, bring it back with them.

Plot

Max deals with Jack for the first quarter of the novel, followed immediately by: Max rescues Leon from dastards who kidnap and bring him to a future St. Mary’s where they also take over and kill most of the personnel (reason hinted at but not really explained), then Max takes over as temporary director of this future unit, visits Mauritius to abscond with some dodos as a works outing, returns home, witnesses Thomas Beckett’s assassination, gets incandescently angry with Leon, wrecks his car and drives it into the lake (necessitating tens of thousands worth of repairs),  gets stranded in Nineveh, gets rescued, reconciles with Leon, shoves Mary Queen of Scots into a locked room with Bothwell, and ends with her learning the next mission is to Troy.

Yes, the plot truly is this busy.  The emotional highs and lows go along in parallel with the action as Taylor shows us what Max is doing and we see how she reacts to and feels about Leon and her friends.  This is a book you read for the plot more than for the people.

There are plot weak spots.  For example, why would someone select Jack the Ripper/Victorian London when they can choose any time or place?

And why would Ronan and accomplices want to capture Max so badly that they first kidnap Leon and leave coordinates on the mirror in the men’s room?  I understand one villain hates Max but really, there should be easier ways to get her alone and vulnerable than to go through the fuss of getting Leon.

Max speculates the villains want to control a St. Mary’s point in time in order to have a base of operations; that makes sense but also invalidates kidnapping Leon.  They would have to know that the original St. Mary’s wouldn’t abandon Leon without a fight.

Characters

While Taylor shows us Max as a person with emotional depth she leaves most of the other characters less finished.  She tells us that Tim Peterson is calm and solid, warm and caring, but we see Tim in relationship to Max, through Max’s eyes.  We don’t get to know Tim.  We get more acquainted with Leon, but he too remains a bit vague.  Taylor concentrates on her plot and Max and everyone else is something more than backdrop and less than a full person.

Max’s reaction when Leon spurns her is overwrought.  Max and Leon have gone through some rough spots before but this time she goes up like a rocket and simply cannot stop being angry.  Max gives in to temper and severs relations with Leon in the first three books in the series and I think it’s flaw that the author corrects in the later novels.  I get tired of Max acting like a kid.

Overall

A Symphony of Echoes is very good, enjoyable, and a very fast read.  Don’t budget more than an evening for this despite the length.  The story moves so fast that I got caught up in the plot and, to some extent, the characters.  The book is plot-heavy, not so much driven by characters as it drives the characters and us readers.

I’ve read all of Jodi Taylor’s novels and this is one of the weaker ones, plot heavy and character light.  Mind you I still loved it despite the flaws.

4 Stars (3 Stars if it weren’t so entertaining)

 

 

 

Filed Under: Action and Adventure Tagged With: 3 Stars, Book Review, Fantasy, History, Science Fiction

The First Global Collapse: 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric Cline

August 18, 2017 by Kathy Leave a Comment

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Turning Points in Ancient History) by Eric Cline is both readable and scholarly, a difficult combination for any author.  Cline looks at the 300-500 years before 1177 BC and shows how ancient peoples interacted before several kingdoms mysteriously faded or collapsed around 1177 BC.

For example, he has an interesting chart showing the different individuals that Pharaohs and ancient rulers communicated with – based on actual letters kept in royal archives.  It is eye-opening to see Egyptians talking to Mitanni (northern Mesopotamia) and Cretans and Mycenaean (Greece) and Hittites (Turkey) and Canaanites (Israel, Syrian).  The different rulers addressed each other as “brother” if they were about the same rank, or as “father” or “son” if unequal.  It is fascinating to see who equated themselves with whom!

Rulers were not the only ones who communicated.  Traders sent vessels from the Ageaen to Egypt with luxury goods and even food and prosaic items, and used land routes to get tin from the Afghan mountains for bronze, the essential metal in these cultures.  Archaeology shows Egyptian walls painted with Cretan frescoes; finds Mycenaean beakers in the Near East; unearths Cypriot trading goods across the arc stretching from eastern Italy to the Babylonian cities.

I especially enjoyed Cline’s coverage of this Late Bronze Age culture that occurred about 1500 to 1200 BC.  He used this to show the backdrop for the collapse that occurred sometime around 1177 BC, the year the Egyptian pharaoh writes of the Sea People incursion.  Cline offers several theories for the fall of this interconnected civilization – after first showing that it was indeed a fall – and suggests that the barbarians were not the only cause.  He doesn’t land on any one reason and stresses that it is unreasonable to think Sea People invaders would be responsible equally for wrecking civilizations far inland such as the Kassite empire in Babylonia as for ruining Mycenaea and Ugarit (Syrian coast).

Climate change, drought, famine occurred around this time, but kingdoms had recovered from those before.  Invaders came before, but people had recovered.  Earthquakes happened before but people had recovered.  Yet something happened that caused about a dozen civilizations to contract and some even to collapse over a 10-30 year period.  Cline examines each possible reason for the collapse and rules each of them out as the sole cause.

Instead he posits that the sheer interconnectedness – the early globalization – of the late Bronze Age was part of its downfall.  Once one or two states fell into disarray then trade routes were hurt, possibly even cut completely, and the occasional drought and famine were exacerbated.  It is an interesting idea and one that implies we today need to be careful as we are even more globalized.

I highly recommend that you read the physical book and not the E version so you can flip between text and maps.

5 Stars

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Filed Under: Non Fiction Tagged With: 5 Stars, Book Review, History

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