Mr.Wonderful Writes:

Recall the big hub-bub about President Bush nominating John Bolton as U.N. ambassador? This manufactured imbroglio was wheeled out simply because many Left-leaning senators posited for the unknowing American public that the 'bullying' Ambassador Bolton would turn members of that august body against America. In this 2005 work, author and ten year U.N. veteran Pedro A. Sanjuan, makes it clear that two nations are universally despised, discounted and denigrated by virtually all of the member states. These two nations are Israel and the United States of America. Mr. Sanjuan exposes the rampant and undisguised anti-semitism and anti-Americanism that crowds the hallways of the United Nations building. If a country officially requests a citizen to be installed as a lower level employee at the U.N., the request is automatically granted. That is, for any of the 192 member governments ... other than the U.S. or Israel. As a matter of fact, Tel Aviv has yet to be allowed to fill its quota of sixteen Jewish Iraelis. But this is only the reader's introduction to the corruption endemic at the U.N. For, if you should find yourself in the basement garage area, you must be careful not to pay too much atttention at the suitcases full of currency and of illegal drugs being transferred from open limousine trunk to open limousine trunk. Have you ever pondered why the Cold War Soviet fighters looked identical to the U.S. versions? That's because the U.N. library, at the time populated entirely by U.S.S.R. KGB agents, in doing investigations for  the United Nations, simply requested blueprints of any U.S. manufactured equipment, blueprints which were duly supplied. Now that the Cold War has ended, the fundamentalist Muslims have taken over where the U.S.S.R. left off. Their largest source of information to be used against the United States is easily un-earthed likewise, under the guise of doing research  for the United Nations. Author Sanjuan tells us of dozens of Muslims meeting on a regular basis in the Delegates Lounge from 11am until 3pm in order to coordinate their activities against the entire infidel Western World and especially the Little Satan (Israel) and Big Satan (United States). On September 11, 2001, Mr. Sanjuan reports of fundamentalist Muslims quietly rejoicing as thousands of fellow New Yorkers were burnt to death or suffocated or crushed or dove out windows to avoid a certain and slow demise. He also questions if anyone can believe that less than two dozen young Middle-Eastern fanatics and a mere $200,000 brought down the Twin Towers. Speaking of money, it's apparently easy money being a U.N. employee, where one arrives at 10am, with a harried lunch beginning at 12 Noon and ending at 3:00pm. In order to beat the traffic, at 4:30pm, most 'workers' leave. Knowing that American taxpayers cough-up two-thirds of the U.N. budget, any U.S. citizen who can read The UN Gang without getting madder than Jesus in the Temple, is either a mook, a fundamentalist Muslim or a moron.

Begun: 08/22/2006   Finished: 08/26/2006 Purchased: Nov. 21, 2005
Where: barnesandnoble.com
B&N Net Rank: 13,452

"Life in America a generation from now isn't much different from today: The drugs are better, the daily grind is worse. The gap between the rich and the poor has widened to a chasm. You can store the world's legal knowledge on a chip in your little finger, while the Supreme Court has decreed that constitutional rights don't apply to any individual who challenges the system. Justice is swiftly delivered by automated courts, so the prison industry is booming. And while the media declare racism is dead, word on the street is that even in a colorless society, it's a crime to be black."

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

Normally I avoid short story collections, but since Futureland was a gift, I felt obliged to read it. Nine easy-to-read short stories, all written by Walter Mosley; from an unbelievably intelligent little boy who talks to God, to a prison whose inmates are used as slave-labor, watched over by a single guard and controlled by a bicep attached chemical dispensing computer controlled snakepack. But the real fun part of this collection is that characters from one story may make appearances in later stories. Sadly the book violates one of my SciFi rules in that it contains more than a few explicit sexual encounters, both heterosexual and homosexual. (I simply don't understand that with real-world S.T.D.'s closing in on four hundred dangerous varieties, why, in the imagined future, sexual intercourse is as common, and means about as much, as a cough.) As I was reading author Mosley's effortless prose, I noticed that many sentences used a handful of easily understood words. This is a good collection of coherent SciFi stories to keep handy for those moments when you don't have the time to get involved in a full-length novel. I can highly recommend Futureland.

Begun: 08/15/2006   Finished: 08/22/2006 Purchased: July 2006
Where: Half-Priced Books
B&N Net Rank: 188,429

"Written in 1921, We is set in the One State, where all live for the collective good and individual freedom does not exist. The novel takes the form of the diary of mathematician D-503, who, to his shock, experiences the most disruptive emotion imaginable: love. At once satirical and sobering - and now available in a powerful new translation - We is both a rediscovered classic and a work of tremendous relevance to our own times."

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

Be certain to read both the Forward  and the Introduction  to WE as these will help you better understand this book translated from the writings of the 20th Century author, Russian Yevgeny Zamyatin.

Begun: 08/12/2006   Finished: 08/15/2006 Purchased: August 2006
Where: Powells.com
B&N Net Rank: 18,256

"Counting Heads is David Marusek's extraordinary launch as an SF novelist: The year is 2134, and the Information Age has given rise to the Boutique Economy in which mass production and mass consumption are rendered obsolete. Life extension therapies have increased the human lifespan by centuries. Loyal mentars (artificial intelligence) and robots do most of society's work. The Boutique Economy has made redundant ninety-nine percent of the world's fifteen billion human inhabitants. The world would be a much better place if they all simply went away. Eleanor K. Starke, one of the world's leading citizens is assassinated, and her daughter, Ellen, is mortally wounded. Only Ellen, the heir to her mother's financial empire, is capable of saving Earth from complete domination plotted by the cynical, selfish, immortal rich, if she, herself, survives. Her cryonically frozen head is in the hands of her family's enemies. A ragtag ensemble of unlikely heroes join forces to rescue Ellen's head, all for their own purposes."

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

Of course, incredible hype alone does not make an incredible SciFi adventure. As long as I kept plowing ahead and did not attempt to recall the type-names and job classifications of all the different clone-people, the color codes of the different charter communities or contemplate on what the hell the 'Outrage' of the 2060s was all about, this 336-paged hardback was easy to read. The saga is too intricate and had far too many details for my tequila-addled brain (much like Mel Gibson's) to track and fully comprehend. I looked forward to cracking it open every night, but yet had a difficult time developing a closeness to the protagonist who had been rendered a "stinker" by technology gone bad. A stinker no longer was capable of living virtually forever and smells so horrible only a pair of nostril clogging noseplug-filters can begin to overcome the odoriferous olfactory fog cloaking him. What was outstanding was author's David Marusek's ability to foresee inventions and believable future social scenarios. (I'm currently listening to an audio book written in 1949, that is set 1,000 years from now and find they are still using teletypes and cathode ray tubes.) In Counting Heads among many other wonders we witness slugs that crawl the enclosed cities and sample all living creatures for signs of NASTIES infestation, stupendous space ships that carry hundreds of thousands of pilgrims for a thousand years, mentars (artificial intelligence with super-Google search capabilities) insect-sized surveillance robots and flying cars. We also have crash helmets that, Ted Williams-like, neatly slice off the occupant's head should it detect an imminent fatal collision. From this preserved skull 22nd Century science can re-grow, over a period of months and at immense expense, the entire person. I think author Marusek erred in not making Eleanor Starke more loved by the reader before she perishes. I think he erred in making the protagonist Samson Harger impossible to love and creating a story with too many characters, too many details and simply too much going on.

Begun: 08/01/2006   Finished: 08/12/2006 Purchased: June 2006
Where: zooba.com
B&N Net Rank: 37,478

"Few objects in history tell a tale that can match this one coin's for drama and sheer improbability. Stolen from the U.S. Mint in the depths of the Great Depression, shipped via diplomatic pouch to Egypt, hidden for forty years, seized in a 1996 government sting at the Waldorf-Astoria, and finally sold in a record-setting auction…. One coin, for years the only known 1933 twenty-dollar Double Eagle in the world, has inspired the passions of thieves and collectors, lawyers and charlatans. Its extraordinary story winds across seventy years and three continents, linking an almost unbelievable cast of characters: Theodore Roosevelt and a Philadelphia gold dealer with underworld connections; Egypt's King Farouk and an apple-cheeked Secret Service agent; London's most successful coin dealer and a retired trucker from Amarillo."

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

I know what you're thinking, "A book about a coin? Who cares?" I finished this three-hundred paged book, including eighteen pages of footnotes, within two days. And even though eight of those hours were on-the-clock, that alone does not explain my reading speed. Double Eagle is an exciting and fascinating book about the last known 1933 U.S. twenty dollar gold piece in circulation. Illegally. For us 'Baby Boomers' born in the early 1950s, Double Eagle discloses the gentleman whose promotion drove so many of us kids to become bright-eyed coin collectors searching through our change at the corner grocery store and our mother's coin purses. And then making long bicycle rides in the summer vacation heat to the nearest bank in order to exchange our rolls of gone-through pennies for fresh red-rolled cents. The eighteen pages of footnotes were sometimes used, but as I read further I believe are put there mainly to prevent the thought of lawsuit from any of the individuals exposed by author Alison Frankel's meticulous research. One of the gripes I have with the book is that sometimes there is far too much detail, while at the same time I also yearned for pictures of some of the other often-mentioned coins. Speaking of the eight pages of black and white photos, if you wish to pursue the story as the real life suspense mystery it chronicles, leave the photos for last, because their captions reveal too much of the story in too little words. Through about chapter eight or nine the reading is virtually as exciting and compelling as a Michael Chricton thriller, only this story is pure golden fact. This is a book I could not put down and an adventure that doesn't end until the last two pages of the Epilogue.

Begun: 08/09/2006   Finished: 08/10/2006 Purchased: May 2006
Where: Powells.com
B&N Net Rank: 29,749

"Everyone and anyone can learn how to turn their love of writing into a moneymaking business. Clausen's friendly, funny style--a cross between a pep rally, a writer's workshop, stand-up comedy, and good old-fashioned storytelling--will get readers prepared and keep them inspired, enabling them to live their dream and succeed. Clausen shows how a person's life experiences, friends, hobbies, and skills all come into play to make a career in freelance writing. Too Lazy to Work, Too Nervous to Steal takes writers through the process of becoming a freelancer one step at a time, from getting organized and getting an attitude to finding and keeping an "anchor client," earning an honest buck, spending it smartly and overcoming unexpected challenges ... "

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

Don't know why it took me so long to finish this 207-paged hardback. Maybe it was the tiny font or the unattractive cover? Or maybe because this book could remove from my mouth any remaining excuses to become a full-time paid writer? Author John Clausen has come out with a plan for making a living wage by using your writing skills. The book never gets boring because he follows a chapter of his thoughts on writing with brief and interesting biographies of other successful writers from all fields. One of the things I really appreciated was that Mr. Clausen actually recommends dollar amounts on what to bill for your writing time. He also admonishes, again and again, to always be sure to charge enough, rather than cut prices to get the job. I heartily endorse that approach to the business of writing. For anyone considering the thought of depending on their writing skills to earn a living, this is an excellent book to read.

Begun: 07/10/2006   Finished: 08/08/2006 Purchased: January 2006
Where: HamiltonBook.com
B&N Net Rank: NA

"Bernard Malamud's second novel, originally published in 1957, is the story of Morris Bober, a grocer in postwar Brooklyn, who "wants better" for himself and his family. First two robbers appear and hold him up; then things take a turn for the better when broken-nosed Frank Alpine becomes his assistant. But there are complications: Frank, whose reaction to Jews is ambivalent, falls in love with Helen Bober; at the same time he begins to steal from the store."

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

I'm classifying this disturbing two hundred and ninety-seven paged paperback book as my second Naturalistic novel read. This is because it is along the lines of Frank Norris' story of the self-educated dentist in McTeague. Like McTeague, The Assistant drew me in and kept me reading, but I was seldom comforted by its story and my reader's anticipation for any positive outcomes never rose higher than a pile of spilled salt on a dinner table. No question that for Jewish author Bernard Malamud to keep this gentile reading such a sad book, the writing had to be excellent. This is the story of the Jew, Morris Bober, who at age fifty-five owned and ran a grocery store much like the one Mr.Wonderful frequented as a young boy in the late 1950s. (I recall our neighborhood grocer, bending down and reaching into his white enamel meat case and handing us bloody and raw beef liver he had expertly wrapped in butcher paper, so that my brother and I might go catfish hunting in the cottonwood lined irrigation canals that seemed to border every street in post World War II Phoenix, Arizona.) This was the 1950s when three pennies could purchase a fresh bagel. The assistant in the title is Frank Alpine, a bum, who, alone, aided by circumstance, hard labor and long hours, works the counter and the customers and triples the income of the Bober grocery store. For many months, except for his food and a tiny unheated upstairs room, Frank did this all without pay. But he paid himself. Out of the till. Frank falls for Morris's beautiful unmarried daughter Helen (who at 23 years old is facing becoming an old maid) but the romantic feelings are anything but mutual. The Assistant, while engrossing, well-written and never at all boring, is so sad that had I not already been gulping prescription anti-depressants prior to picking it up, I certainly would have after shelving it.

Typos:
Page 240 " '... and you stole from me a dollar and put in   in your pocket'."

Begun: 07/25/2006   Finished: 08/01/2006 Purchased: June 2006
Where: Friends of the Phoenix Public Library
B&N Net Rank: 25,266

"Part love story, part spiritual search, and a totally delightful reading experience, Coyote Blue is a novel of amazing freshness, reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut or Douglas Adams or Tom Robbins, with more than a hint of Carlos Castaneda. Sam Hunter is a very successful thirty-five-year-old insurance salesman. His life is more or less complete: he's got a new Mercedes, a great condo, a 52-inch television - but no girlfriend. Then he sees Calliope, the most gorgeous creature he has ever encountered. She's exactly the kind of woman he has always wanted in his life but never had the courage even to approach. Enter Coyote, an ancient Indian god famous for his abilities as a trickster, wise in many ways, in others a total fool."

Mr. Wonderful Writes:

Changing his Crow name from Samson Hunts Alone to Samuel Hunter, our protagonist flees the reservation to become a prosperous Santa Barbara, California insurance salesman. But then the trickster, a primordial Indian god known by the name of Coyote, forces him on an adventure filled journey of life and love. Coyote Blue is an easy to read and entertaining story of Sam Hunter's life turned topsy turvy, both on and off the reservation. Christopher Moore has again written a whacky, unpredictable and grin evoking novel. Coyote Blue is only a dim reflection of Moore's monumental and thought-provoking work, Lamb, and I cannot shake the sad feeling that author Moore is writing books just as fast as he can.

Begun: 07/09/2006   Finished: 07/25/2006 Purchased: June 18, 2006
Where: Half-Priced Books
B&N Net Rank: 4,681

"NOBODY DOES IT BETTER THAN NIVEN AND POURNELLE.
I LOVED IT!" -- Tom Clancy

Mr. Wonderful Writes:

Over a period of six weeks, this 581-paged paperback easily managed to hold my attention. That says something as to how well written, interesting and coherent it is. This is my second time through Footfall, as I also read it when it first came out in paperback in May of 1986, almost twenty years to the day prior to my re-reading of it in the 21st Century. Footfall is simply a delightful and thrilling old-fashioned science fiction novel. For what can be more genuine SciFi than aliens attacking our Earth? The front of the work thoughtfully lists a four page Dramatis Personae, but it is really not needed. And, the book does violate the writer's-law of assigning the aliens unpronounceable names, such as Herdmaster Pastempeh-keph  and K'turfookeph   his mate. But what names are baby-elephant-looking aliens from the vicinity of Alpha Centauri going to use? Bruce and Doris? Beginning in November of 1980, when the town-sized spacecraft is discovered amongst the rings of Saturn, the action builds to a edge-of-the-seat climax. The Footfall  title refers to the ability of the Fithp  to be able to accurately fling huge space rocks at planet Earth, the Foot  itself, being by far the largest of many. The invading pachyderms are also armed with 'elephant guns' (go figure) that rip orange-sized holes in whatever they hit, humans being their favorite destination. Orbiting digit-ships are also capable of directing with pinpoint accuracy death beams anywhere on the planet. There are sexual encounters, but since they are exposed within one or two sentences, I found them acceptable. Along our journey, we meet farmers and National Guard troops, Russians and survivalists, dinner plates used as land mines and enough atomic explosions to satisfy North Korean fatboy KIM Jong Il. And, in a self-serving twist, author's Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, in order that the Presidential administration and the military might discover the mind-set of the aliens, have NORAD sequester a group of top science fiction writers inside Cheyenne Mountain. (Speaking of locations, I found it heart warming that so much of the book centers around Bellingham, in the state of Washington, in than that is where my belovéd older survivalist brother isolated himself in the early 1970s after he came home from the Vietnam War. Which he served entirely in England. In a hospital.) All in all Footfall is a great Science Fiction shoot-em-up that I highly recommend.

Begun: 05/21/2006   Finished: 07/09/2006 Purchased: Oct. 31, 2005
Where: Half-Priced Books
B&N Net Rank: 45,532

"Vanity Fair is the story of Becky Sharp, one of the most beautiful, willful, and resourcefully charming pleasure-seekers in literature. With finishing-school credentials and proper connections, Becky begins as a governess, wins the hearts of the moneyed young and old, and, in the light of presentation at court and calculated scandals, emerges a full-fledged courtesan on the Continent, living surprisingly well beyond her means. Thackeray's greatest novel is a moral tapestry of early nineteenth-century English manners, and his persistent theme is the folly of the good-at-heart, the evil of those endowed with grace and wit."

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

What can I write about an eight hundred and sixty-two paged paperback including its fifty-one pages of footnotes? Reading this monster of a book, over four months time, now strains my memory to remember exactly what it was about. The above "From the Publisher" statement pretty much sums it up. What helps to explain its prodigious length was that it was issued in monthly parts over a period of one year and literate people had no other entertainments other than plays and reading. This sixty-one-chaptered, almost two-inch thick tome, inked in microscopic-sized font, and published in 1848, will most likely be both the longest paged and oldest book I'll have ever read. Some of my reader's may think I purchased this title because a movie was recently made with the same name, but no, I bought the book because it was on sale. There is a no way that a less than twelve hour movie could adequately could convey the story contained in Vanity Fair. A story that really doesn't pick up steam until around page five hundred or so and then the steam isn't even enough to propel a pissant much more than an inch an hour. A 21st Century reader faces two major challenges reading this chronicle of 17th Century behavior. One is that Thackeray refers to the same person by using so many different titles, monikers, and filial relationships that it is very hard to know whom he is talking about. This requires much backtracking. This is one book that certainly could use a 'List of Characters' in the beginning pages. The other obstacle facing the reader daring enough to attempt to read this Bible-sized story, is that, in order to understand what the heck the author is writing about, one must absolutely and constantly flip to the back of the book in order to refer to the footnotes, of which some chapters had as many as thirty-one. I ran across so many instances demonstrating that how we treat each other has changed little over the past three centuries and I end my review with them:

"Her roses faded out of her cheeks, and the pretty freshness left her figure after the birth of a couple of children, and she became a mere machine in her husband's house, of no more use than the late Lady Crawley's grand piano."

"Do you suppose I have no feeling of self-respect, because I am poor and friendless, and because rich people have none?"

"To how many people can one tell all? Who will be open where there is no sympathy, or has call to speak to those who can never understand?"

"Women only know how to wound so. There is a poison on the tips of their little shafts, which stings a thousand times more than a man's blunter weapon."

"Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children; and here was one who was worshiping a stone!"

"For this was all that was left after more than seventy years of cunning and struggling, and drinking and scheming, and sin and selfishness -- a whimpering old idiot put in and out of bed and cleaned and fed like a baby."

"Oh, be humble my brother, in your prosperity! Be gentle with those who are less lucky, if not more deserving. Think, what right have you to be scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success may be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor's accident, whose prosperity is very likely satire."

"Which, I wonder, brother reader, is the better lot, to die prosperous and famous, or poor and disappointed? To have, and to be forced to yield; or to sink out of life, having played and lost the game? That must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes, and we say, 'To-morrow, success or failure won't matter much: and the sun will rise, and all the myriad of mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but I shall be out of the turmoil' "

Typos:
Page 63 " ... treading on Miss Sharp's foot, caused her to fall hack  with a little shriek into the arms of ... "

Begun: 01/02/2006   Finished: 05/14/2006 Purchased: June 2005
Where: Borders Books Music & Cafe
B&N Net Rank: 32,871