The Blessing Papers

This post apocalyptic trilogy which consists of The Blessing Papers, Imram, and The Sigma Curve is set around 100 years after the fall of society. Turly is a young man who appears destined to find the mysterious Blessing Papers that hold the key to helping humanity regain it's sense of direction.

The trilogy starts off strong, and has a number of rather interesting twists that I haven't come across before. As the series progressed I found myself enjoying the books, and the arguments about predestination. On the whole though, I found the storytelling somewhat flat, and could never really get past that in a 100 years the past could be so completely buried. I'll give the author credit, his premise for the "fall" was unique. It just wasn't all that believable.

Songs of Earth and Power (©1992)

©1984 The Infinity Concerto ©1986 The Serpent Mage

This is a strange and disturbing book. Originally published as two novels, the single omnibus is the only way to experience the story. In some ways it’s yet another “Man transported to another world” stories, but there are enough twists here to make Chubby Checkers smile like an idiot. Without going into a long drawn out synopsis our young hero finds himself transported to another land, and before long finds himself in the midst of a battle for nothing less than the fate of humanity.

This is a very creative story, and one I enjoyed immensely.

Reviewed March 17, 2005

As on a Darkling Plain (©1972)

There are mysterious machines on Titan. They've been running for generations, and no one knows what they do, who built them, and there's no off switch. Enter Sidney Lee, a paranoid scientist who after surviving a breakdown manages to get on the crew of a deep space mission to look for the builders of the mysterious widgets.

Along the way our hero meets equally mysterious men, who happen (spoiler alert skip ahead) to be Neanderthals. Of course Sidney causes a paleontological furor on earth. So logically he gets himself shipped back to Titan to once again pit himself against the silent machines.

Oh, and there's a girl, and an equally mysterious ex-boyfriend ...

This is a pretty fair read, I didn't think it was anything overly mind blowing, but it was a fun and entertaining read on the train over a couple of days.

Reviewed July 30, 2003

The Martian Chronicles (©2001)

It's odd that I'd not read this until now. Of all the classic writers, it's Mister Bradbury that I've not read much of. This edition is an updated revision, and I'm guessing that in places more than just dates were changed. Oh well. This is the version I got, and I loved it. This isn't about science fiction, or the future - they're tales of the imagination.

Considering this is over half a century old, I'm pretty sure it's on its way to being deemed a classic. The stories are braided together and over the course of the book the story weaves itself together. It's a story that is at times haunting, beautiful, and tragic. A pretty remarkable feat.

Do Martians exist? Who knows.

Reviewed January 8, 2008

Fly Boys (©2003)

For those of you who thought was the movie adaptation of Flyboys, I'll bet this was a hell of a surprise. James Bradley brings to light the story of eight forgotten pilots including a young George Bush, and in the process tells a gripping tale about the horrors of war, and the impact it has on those who fought, or lived through W.W.II.

It's no surprise that history is written by the victorious, and that war criminals are those on the losing side. Mister Bradley is about as subtle as a priest with tourette's syndrome at a funeral at times, but he's trying to tell a complicated story, and do so without coming across as a bad John Wayne movie. The first hundred pages or so of the book give a condensed history of the rapid industrialization of Japan, and America's manifest destiny. He seems to enjoy the juxtaposition of the two histories, and highlights the common elements where atrocities are not the sole dominion of the loser.

Still, as heavy handed as Mister Bradley is, he's also written a compelling story about honour, survival, and the brutal nature of war. Something the average person will never understand. The sheer magnitude of destruction Japan was subjected to, and Japan's will to fight to the last man, are disturbing, and hard to believe at times. It's surreal at times.

The story isn't all jingoistic flag waving, and the author isn't above describing the disturbing tactics employed by Americans to win the war. Bradley quotes General William Chase, "We used to say in Tokyo that the U.S. had better not lose the next war, or our generals and admirals would all be shot at sunrise without a hearing of any sort."

There are those who will simply dismiss this as a revisionist history, and anti-American. But I'd argue that this is a story of the horrors of war, and people will do extraordinary things - both heroic, and debased. But within all of us there is forgiveness, healing, and hopefully lessons to be learned from the past.

Reviewed February 18, 2008

Credo

Beautiful, and challenging. This is not a page burner, and it took a while to plow through. The payoff was worth the wait. Set in the Dark Ages, this is tragic love story, and a tale of faith. The story is about Bega (later St Bega) and Padric (fictional). Intertwined within the story are a host of early Christian Saints. St Hilda, St Cuthbert, St Wilfred and others. Mr Bragg does a wonderful job of bringing the characters to life. The characters are at times pious, pathetic, and self righteous.

Not an easy read, but it is engaging, and very thought provoking. It made me look at how I define faith.

Reviewed July 16, 2000

The Postman

Never saw the movie, don't really want to.  The book however was a great read.  Some basic and obvious flaws, but hey, it's a book!  It kept me entertained all the way through. I have a weakness for the post apocalyptic stuff. Man alone against the world and all that crap.

The Sword of Shannara Trilogy
The Sword of Shannara ©1977 / The Elfstones of Shannara ©1982 / The Wishsong of Shannara ©1985

Once upon a time … and so it goes for over eleventy hundred pages. Don’t get me wrong, on the whole these were enjoyable and solid books, but they just sort of plodded along, and after the third book it was more than a little repetitive. This may be in part due to the fact that I think my appetite for the stock and trade fantasy stuff just might be sated, either that or I just couldn’t find the spark to propel me through these books.

But enough of being a dumbass, I’ll be as charitable as I can be, and in all honestly there’s a lot more to enjoy here, than there is to pick on. The first book is probably the best of the lot. We meet with Shea and Flick Ohmsford, one an elf one not, but they’re brothers after a fashion. We meet up with a dark mysterious stranger with magical powers who goes by the name Allanon, and attends the meetings every other Friday. Okay, that last bit isn’t in the book, but I couldn’t resist.

The Sword of Shannara is a stock in trade quest tale, of which we get two. We meet up with a host of weird baddies, gnomes, trolls, and dwarfs. All of whom are handled outside of the usual stereotypes with was cool. Of course there is the climactic battle, and all that stuff. In short the story was fun in the fun places, and exciting where it should have been.

The Elfstones of Shannara picks again on the Ohmsford clan, this time going to young Wil, who is the grandson of Shea and Flick. Once again the Druid Allanon pops up, and announces that a new and most terrible evil is upon the land. Which when read backwards sounds like “The sky is falling, the sky is falling.” So once again we are witness to a great quest, and off they go. The Elfstones of Shannara is in many ways a superior story to that of The Sword of Shannara, but the “this feels familiar” aspects to the story telling get in the way of a very creative and interesting story. It didn’t read like a house on fire, but the familiarity of the characters, in particular Allanon, and the world Brooks has created become strangely engaging (yes, I know it’s contradictory to what I said earlier). The pay off is good and although the ending wasn’t a surprise it was cool.

The Wishsong of Shannara picks up with everyone’s favourite Druid Allanon recruiting Wil’s kid’s to combat the most evilest evil ever, and this time he really means it, really. Of course when he comes a knocking, Wil is out of town, and thereby avoids having to be in more than one story. By this time the how many times can I read a quest story with the same characters from different generations remains unanswered, there are more books so I can only assume there are lots more. But, the story is interesting and the telling has moments of genuine excitement. The power of the Wishsong as manifested in Brin and Jair Ohmsford is clever if not fully exploited.

In all, yes it gets a bit tiring at times, but overall it was engaging stuff and over time the world was fleshed out in a way that gave it more meat and staying power than I had expected. Heck I have another omnibus on my shelf waiting for the right time to see what the heck the crazy Ohmsfords have been up to. I can only assume Mister Brooks keeps picking at the same bones.

Reviewed January 19, 2004