Alien Abduction: Joe4 a Novella by Salem

Joe4 is a novella by Salem that continues the author's story from his novel Black Hole Butterfly (BHB). Both books describe restricted life in a futuristic New York City. In BHB, the Naranja solar empire fought opposing special interest forces to corner the market on physical energy in the City and manipulate psychological energy to control the thoughts and behavior of the citizens. Detective Rook Black attempted to solve crimes in the city and because of his detecting methods, became the eye of the storm of characters competing for control of the City. He was a "psychonaut" able to enter dream states that allowed him to experience parallel realities, escaping the artificial feedback loop of time controlled by Dr. Naranja that kept other citizens in an artificial reality.

Joe4 is an employee of Dr. Naranja. He is an engineer who analyzes the effects of acoustical vibrations on solar satellites that are used in the Naranja empire to generate the artificial energy source "sunjuice." But, like Rook Black, Joe4 is able to enter a dream state in which he escapes the physical and psychological domination of the Naranja solar empire. He receives "alien" messages in the form of visual/acoustic "dark music" that he can transcribe with pen and ink in his journal into classic reality tunes. Presented on radio stations by pop star, DJU, most of Joe4's compositions rise on the music charts to top ten positions. He is offered a contract to produce music full time if he can resign from his position with the paranoiac Naranja empire, not an easy task.

Dr. Naranja has a team of agents who look for spies within the organization. Usually, a person can come to the solar energy manufacturer but not leave. Dr. Naranja decides that Joe4 is an unusual threat to him and allows him to resign with the plan of spying on him and secretly discovering Joe4's alien source of musical inspiration. Rook Black was drawn by an alien impulse to the desert to live for a year and attempt to solve his mystery cases. Joe4 is also drawn for a year to the desert to work on his grand opus. He arrives at the Four Corners area of the United States that is historically the site of extraterrestrial alien activity. With his dog, Aoede (named after the Muse of Song and Voice), Joe4 sets out to find his source of power that makes him the tuning fork of an alien communication code (444) that came to him in a dream state.

Joe4 is a very good stand-alone novella that can be read and enjoyed without exploring the connections with Black Hole Butterfly. But, BHB allows the reader to understand the complicated alien source of power for both Rook Black and Joe4 (father and son?). Both books make it possible for us readers to go beyond our daily limitations of artificial reality. By reading the books, we may be able to tune in to a pirate radio station narrow casting information about space, time, and existence and join Joe4 in his abduction.

Deadly Exercise in Tact: Jade Dragon Mountain a novel by Elsa Hart

Jade Dragon Mountain is the first novel of Elsa Hart, and I hope to read more of her novels in the future. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the story of Li Du, a librarian of the Forbidden City in China exiled for his friendship with traitors.

In the early 18th Century, after almost five years of travel as a destitute scholar, Li Du walks into the city of Dayan in the hinterlands of southwestern China. He must get papers authorizing his travel through a pass over Jade Dragon Mountain in order to leave China and explore lands to the west.

Li Du’s biggest challenge as he enters the city is to have an audience with the Magistrate of Dayan, his cousin who is ashamed of Li Du for the disgrace the exile brought to the family. Li Du finds the city crowded with people from all over the region preparing for a festival in honor of the Emperor of China who will visit Dayan in six more days.

Lisa Hart has described the setting of Li Du’s story with details that immerse the reader in the exciting turmoil of people anticipating the event of their lifetime in a rural district of China. Every scene is like a Chinese painting with lyrical prose similar to the brushstrokes of master artisans of the era. The reader is never distracted by the beautiful descriptions of the settings of scenes because they are essential to the story involving the interactions of the characters.

The main characters are diverse, interesting, and well-developed. Li Du, an intelligent and observant man, is the focus of interaction with Jesuit Priests, East India Trading Company representatives, courtesans, imposters, entertainers, spies, librarians, outsiders, and Dynasty royalty. Mystery, pageantry, and intrigue are themes evenly distributed between divisions of days before the Emperor’s visit. I think the ending was a bit rushed with some add-on pages to give an incomplete closure to the novel. But, I believe the purpose of these pages is to set the stage for future adventures of Li Du (I hope!).

This is an excellent novel, very entertaining and informative. I put it in my category of favorite recent novels of China: Old Town by Lin Zhe; The Long March Home by Zoe S. Roy; and even Shifu, You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh by Mo Yan.

Metamorphorses: To the Top of the Mountain, an Intercrime novel by Arne Dahl

To the Top of the Mountain is volume 3 of an Intercrime mystery series by Swedish writer Arne Dahl. The elite 7 detective A-Unit is reconstructed in Stockholm to investigate violent international crime after being disbanded due to major errors made in prior cases. This novel can be read by itself, and only a skeleton history of prior cases is presented in the story. Often in other crime series, the reader must wade through details of prior installments to understand later episodes. The story was so good that I want to get volumes 1 and 2 published in English as The Blinded Man and Bad Blood.

This 390 page novel is exciting but not fast-paced. It begins in a popular sports bar in Stockholm that caters to soccer fans. An international cast of characters representing ethnic, political, and criminal groups gather in the bar and noisy tension is high. A criminal event occurs that has ramifications for separate investigations involving members of the disbanded A-Unit who are still involved in police work but have been re-assigned to other detective divisions.

The A-Unit comes together when their detective assignments show a common thread. The former leader, Detective Superintendent Jan-Olav Hultin, who was forced into retirement, is visited at his lake-side house by the Head of Division from the National Police Board. Jan-Olav is offered the opportunity to bring his A-Unit back to life and follow the thread that involves cases of murder, international drug dealing, sub rosa internet pornography, violent pedophilia, neo-Nazi gang activity, Bosnian activism, violence in prison, and an individual detective’s criminal cross-over. The characters involved in these cases are fascinating involving implications about the current social situation in Sweden.

The A-Unit detectives are interesting, and Arne Dahl describes their backgrounds and motivations in a way that integrates personal historical information into the mystery story. A separate tale linked to the revived A-Unit activity emerges involving a young man and woman whose life together gains mythical proportions.

To the Top of the Mountain is a very good mystery/crime novel that is challenging to the reader to understand the intricacies of the plot. The excellent translation by Alice Menzes from Swedish to English facilitates the reader's understanding.  It is an example of an author imagining the  experience of characters in a culture that is both appealing in its geography and social history and disturbing in its description of violent interaction of ideological subgroups.

The Art of the Possible: Finale A Novel of the Reagan Years by Thomas Mallon

Finale, A Novel of the Reagan Years by Thomas Mallon, is a fact/fiction combination of historical sketches and imagined experience. The story begins in 1976 and ends in 1996 covering events that preceded Ronald Reagan’s election as president until his increasing decline related to dementia. The span of 20 years seems short in the historical scope of American politics, but the detailed description of daily maneuvering and decision making illustrates the stress on the man who would be president and the players and “mice” who inhabit the District of Columbia arena.

The list of people in the novel is so extensive that a cast of characters is presented before the first chapter. People are listed and identified as historical figures and fictional characters. There are only nine fictional men and women listed, but they play a vital role connecting the people and advancing the story. 

It is the connection of the characters that is the force that drives the reader through the detailed interactions, direct and remote, with Ronald Reagan that affect the moods of his consistently dissociative personality and his public thoughts and statements. The constant daily attempts to influence the course of American history by people of various talents and motivations impinge on Reagan’s movements and decisions. This is a confirmation of George W. Bush’s statement during an interview while he was in office that the President has very limited personal power to determine the course of government domestically or on the international stage. Whether Reagan and his acolytes are campaigning to retain control of congress, trying to make advances in the war on drugs, attempting to legislate control of the AIDS epidemic, engaging in the battle of translated words in the Cold War, seeking nuclear arms control offensively (developing “Star Wars”) or defensively (bargaining with Gorbachev in Reykjavik), pushing for international human rights, competing with China for trade, there is not very much that can be accomplished by the titular head of our country within the limits of our Constitution. 

This fascinating novel is a great story of minions and movers attempting to make sense and profit from political events. They try to meet their individual needs and desires, as they influence world history at various levels related to their direct and remote connections with Ronald Reagan and by implication other heads of state. The historical record shows that the rest of us really do not have a good or accurate understanding of the art of the possible, and we form opinions and take actions (vote) based on very limited and always skewed information. The novel reveals the one common denominator of the people who seek to engage in politics at the national level is their full living engagement and passion in the process of politics.

Social Determinism: All That Followed a novel by Gabriel Urza

All That Followed by Gabriel Urza is a historical novel about Basque residents of the small town of Muriga. Like small towns around the world, citizens of the town in Northern Spain know each others' business and foibles even if they do not have close social relationships. Even in the small town, the politics of Spain in the post Franco era determine in a predictable and irreversible way the thoughts and behaviors of individuals in Muriga.

It is interesting that people cannot abide the peaceful life in a quiet town and will seek a way out via behaviors that may disturb the peace and cannot be dealt with locally. The novel focuses on the remnants of Basque traditions and language affecting generations of residents and a few ex-patriots passing time with limited ambitions.

The early short chapters describe life in Muriga, past and present, like a rowboat on a lake with storm clouds on the horizon. Narrators shift from Joni, a 50 year resident ex-pat American teacher, to Mariana, wife of a pro-government Basque Councilman, to Iker a teenager with minor rebellious political attitudes and vague academic ambitions. The metaphor of a rowboat carrying them on a placid lake plays out with the storm steadily approaching. There is some effort of the three to row to shore, but the storm of fate gains and overwhelms them. Joni’s sensitive and mentally disturbed partner, Amaia, states with an inappropriate smile that there is no use rowing when the storm is already here.

Amaia’s severe depression, Iker’s increasing revolutionary actions, Mariana’s emotional disengagement from her socialist Councilman husband, and Joni’s ineffectual intervention with these people, allow the storm of events to overwhelm their peace in Muriga. The personal stories of the individual characters recapitulate the separatist history of the Basque region.

But, the storm will devastate then pass and the Basque culture will endure, significantly more detached from tradition and language with each successive generation.

I enjoyed the history, character development, narration, depiction of the passage of time, and low-key resilience of the players. All That Follows is a very good first novel by Gabriel Urza, a graduate with an MFA from Ohio State University and a Notre Dame trained lawyer.

Looking for Lost Time: Sweet Forgiveness a novel by Lori Nelson Spielman

Sweet Forgiveness is a good second novel by Lori Nelson Spielman. The 355 page novel is the story of Hannah Farr, a TV personality for 10 years in New Orleans, who is getting pressure from a station manager and her producer to buck up her ratings. Hannah has a firm base of viewers, but the unrelenting push for increased media revenue does not allow for complacency. Hannah has a few ideas to grow her audience and continue with her successful interview style to which she is accustomed. She is not too worried in the beginning of the push, but becomes increasingly concerned.

The never-married early 30’s attractive woman is more worried about her public dating relationship with the politically ambitious mayor of New Orleans and her dream of marrying the widower. Hannah reads an article about the book tour of an old nemesis from her private school days, an older girl who bullied her mercilessly in school. The attorney author, Fiona Knowles, has written a self-help book called, The Forgiveness Stones. The book is already popular, focusing on shame, guilt, and anger and an apparently simple method of getting rid of these negative emotions via forgiveness rituals.

Hannah feels pushed to invite Fiona to be a guest on her show and demonstrate by personal example the value of forgiveness. The story develops with many interesting characters becoming involved in dredging up old social/family wounds and using Forgiveness Stones to reach resolution and redemption. The settings vary from New Orleans to Chicago to upper Michigan as Hannah discovers that redemption is almost always a two sided street involving forgiveness and apology.

The writing in this novel is very interesting to me because it helped me to see the importance of editing of an author’s work. In the Acknowledgements section at the end of her book, Lori mentions her “extraordinary” editor, Denise Roy. Although she does not provide details, I appreciated the not seamless but rather perfectly stitched seams that structure the novel. Short and long sections of chapters of Sweet Forgiveness are presented in a professional way that engage the reader without any breaks in interest in the story from start to finish. I had little identification with Hannah and the other characters in Chapter 1, but became emotionally attached to them reading page after page with no boring down time sections.
I highly recommend Sweet Forgiveness as an entertaining and interesting novel that is very well written and edited. I may have to forgive a few people (including myself) as a result of reading the book.

Degrees of Freedom: The Angel Court Affair a novel by Anne Perry

The Angel Court Affair is the 28th novel in the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt historical fiction mystery series by Anne Perry. The story takes place in Victorian Great Britain at the turn of the 20th Century, a time of threatening international conflict. Throughout the world, because of booming industrialization, nations are making it possible for traditionally lower class citizens to rise up from their station in life and demand more of the resulting economic gains of their countries. Leaders of these countries are capitalizing on the energy of the citizens to expand markets and aggressively compete with other nations.

Thomas Pitt’s job with the Special Branch is to protect the British government from subversion and attack by other countries. In this case, Spain is in conflict with the United States and British politicians are fearful of becoming involved in a European war. In this era of great tension, Sophia Delacruz, born in Britain but married to a wealthy Spanish man, visits her home country on a religious mission. She is driven to preach a vision of Christianity that is inclusionary, open to all people rich or poor good or evil, with the assumption that God has made a world in which every individual has the free will to evolve toward good work in society.

Sophia’s message seems to be a positive challenge across religious beliefs with the goal of reformation from exclusionary to inclusionary practices. This revolutionary thought is disturbing to believers who cling to their somewhat meaningless but unchanging religious rites adding to the unrest of the fin de siècle of the era. Sophia is in danger and Pitt must prevent harm coming to her that would trigger aggressive action against Britain by Spain. Pitt's wife Charlotte gives him insight into the reaction of women to Sophia's speeches that reflects their moving toward independence and freedom in British society.

Anne Perry describes her method of writing in this mystery series as taking a contemporary idea and moving it back to the Victorian era. Perry has created a scenario that illustrates that a war between countries may be started by a relatively minor incident given the context of exclusionary ideologies and the drive toward individual development and identity. The Angel Court Affair may be another contemporary warning to us all that when religious beliefs have no degrees of freedom, are not free to evolve with changes in economic and political life, personal and societal violence is only one incident away.

This is a very good historical mystery novel and I will read other Charlotte and Pitt novels in the series. This novel can be read as a stand alone volume in the series. Anne Perry’s writing may be considered Victorian, and I was still adjusting to the old-fashioned sentence structure as I finished reading the novel. Part of the enjoyment of reading the book was to feel like a stranger in a strange land having to learn the language of the time.