Manifestations

Manifestations:
The Red Horseman
by D. C. Wilson
(iUniverse / 1-440-14183-5 / 978-1-440-14183-6 / June 2009 / 280 pages / $17.95 / Kindle $9.95)

Reviewed by Dianne Salerni for PODBRAM

Strange events are happening in Brockton Falls, California – dark events that link to ancient wars and trace their history back to the arrival of Christopher Columbus on this continent. Ten year-old Eric Jessing, his younger brother Kevin, and their father Matt find themselves at the center of a terrifying paranormal adventure after their house is infected by strange, foul insects and all the mirrors in their possession turn mysteriously black. Turning to the assistance of psychic Carmen Fenwick and her daughter Pamela, the Jessing family discovers that they are gifted (or cursed) with a special ability. Their souls have the ability to reflect dark matter, the source of all evil in the world. People with this ability, called Charges, provide protection to everyone around them, but they are also vulnerable to special attack by dark forces.

After they are threatened in their own home, the Jessings seek the further advice of an antique book collector, Harker Jefferies, who sends the two young brothers on a quest to an ancient graveyard in England. It seems that the Jessing boys have been singled out by an entity called Moniades, a once human Charge now possessed by a demon and sometimes referred to as The Red Horseman of the Apocalypse.

Author D.C. Wilson certainly knows how to bring the creep factor into his writing and make his readers’ skin crawl. Insect infestations, gruesome murders, blackened mirrors, and an invisible presence in the basement caught my attention immediately and drew me into a frightening paranormal world. In fact, in spite of the age of the protagonists, I would not put this book on the shelf of my fifth grade classroom, due to some of its more graphic imagery. Manifestations is appropriate for teens, however, who won’t be bothered by autopsies and cadavers and who probably have enough background in science to appreciate how the author links dark matter physics to the paranormal elements in the book.

A good, suspenseful novel will take readers on a fast-paced ride where the events are unpredictable and yet inevitable. Although readers might not be able to see where the author is going, they should understand how and why they arrived at the destination once he gets them there. I felt that Manifestations provides this continuity to a point – but the scene that ought to have been the climax does not actually end the book. The story continues seventy-five pages past the logical climax, and the groundwork is not laid in the earlier part of the book for the events that happen afterward. The reader finds out new information that doesn’t match the old; new characters are suddenly introduced, and I felt a bit lost.

There are a few editing bumps along the way – an inconsistent use of heading to identify place and time, and occasional mistakes such as labeling a day Sunday and also Monday within the same section. D.C. Wilson has a knack for writing chilling scenes, and more novels with these characters are obviously planned. The potential for a great paranormal series is here, if the logical sequence of the plot were better maintained in the next installment.

See Also: The High Spirits Review
The Manifestations B&N Page

Southcrop Forest

Southcrop Forest
by Lorne Rothman
(iUniverse / 0-595-49588-5 / 978-0-595-49588-7 / June 2008 / 184 pages / Ages 9-12 / $13.95)

Reviewed by Donna Nordmark Aviles for PODBRAM

Auja, a young red oak tree, has discovered an amazing creature nibbling on her broadleaves – a collective of tent caterpillars that can actually speak to her! With Southcrop Forest in danger of extinction at the hands of the hewmen and their rollers, the collective – known as Fur – is the only being that can save the trees from certain doom. But doing so will mean a long and arduous journey through dangerous terrain to gather a secret gift that will save Southcrop Vision (the trees’ ability to communicate with one another through their roots, soil and leaves) and the forests themselves. With constant encouragement from his new friend Auja, little Fur takes on the challenge, devoting his entire short life in a quest to save the trees.

Zoologist Lorne Rothman, has delivered in Southcrop Forest a unique combination of science and fantasy designed, I believe, to spark the reader’s imagination as well as one’s conscience to the ecological dangers of over-cutting in our forests. Additionally, there is such an abundance of educational information intertwined throughout the story, as well as in the author’s end notes, that the book could easily be used as a classroom tool. Determining the proper age group for the book, however, might prove to be a challenge. Some of the well researched science and language is quite advanced while portions of the dialog and general story are more appropriate for a younger reader. The target audience might fall somewhere between 10 and 15 year olds, with careful oversight and discussion given to the younger end of that range to ensure that they fully comprehend the story and the science.

The book ends with an intriguing final sentence that leaves me thinking that perhaps this is only the beginning of Mr. Rothman’s eco-fantasy adventures!

See Also: Lorne Rothman's Biography

PODBRAM Technical Update

A few days ago I updated the template of PODBRAM to match the newer design of my other blogs. Several new features are now at the disposal of Captain Curmudgeon to enhance the PODBRAM experience. If you look carefully at the homepage format, you will see these changes, and I am sure that new and regular readers will enjoy utilizing all these new tools.

Here are the changes, listed from top to bottom:

The Search feature in the blue band in the upper left hand corner can be used in several ways, but its capabilities are somewhat limited. The best use of this search box is to enter the name of your favorite PODBRAM reviewer, click Search Blog, and then bookmark the URL that pops up. This search feature works great for doing this, but not much else.

The next thing down the page is Search PODBRAM in Detail. This search box has been set up to search for reviewers, authors, titles, or keywords within the context of the many pages of PODBRAM. Although this search feature will not take you to outside links, I think this is probably the most efficient use of this particular feature. You can always click any of the links in the link lists at the bottom of any post or in the left column of the home page to follow a particular subject outside the internal realm of PODBRAM.

As on my other blogs, I have now added a revolving poll question box to PODBRAM.

The new system alphabetizes the links automatically in a manner it chooses, so I can no longer plug in each new book reviewed wherever I want it in the link list using the HTML code. The only change effected by this is that you will find the alphabetical list in a new order, and the new pattern will continue into the future as more titles are added. This means any title beginning with The or A will be listed according to those letters, not in the traditional manner of listing book titles alphabetically.

The Blog Archive by month and year has now been moved to a point near the bottom of the page. This section was left near the top of the old format because you could not create a direct link to any post title from the title in the old system. You needed to click the title listed at the top of the Blog Archive to do that. The new system allows you to simply click the title of any post to open the comments on that post and create a URL that you can bookmark.

The Followers section is listed next. I encourage any of our regular readers to join us as an official Follower.

The last change, going down the page, is that the Live Traffic Feed now displays the site from which a visitor arrived, rather than how long ago he or she arrived at PODBRAM.

The new format allows me a little more control over appearance and arrangement features, too, but you may not have noticed the few changes I have made so far because they are very subtle. I may make more such changes in the future if a new idea comes my way. The main one that bugs me is that the creator of this Harbor design that I like to use for all my blogs has not allowed for easy changes to the link colors. If I figure out a better color scheme that I can use, I may change this in the future. On my monitor at least, I can barely discern the presence of any unclicked link contained in any PODBRAM post.

Something that I have been mulling over for a while now is the development of an index by author. I may consider setting this up in the future. The process will be quite time consuming, so I want to be certain of the details before undertaking such a task. Adept use of the two search features will accomplish most of the same process in the meantime. Thank you to all of our fans for supporting PODBRAM.

The Caliphate

The Caliphate
by Jack Stewart
(Non Sequitur Press / 0-981-26990-7 / 978-0-981-26990-0 / May 2009 / 322 pages / $9.95 / Kindle $.99)

Reviewed by Lloyd Lofthouse for PODBRAM

The Caliphate, a political thriller by Jack Stewart has action, conspiracy, politics, and both economic and Islamic terrorism mixed with family values delivered in 316 pages. This thriller sends a chilling message made more frightening due to al-Qaida's goals to bring back the Caliphate that existed after Mohammed's death in 632 AD.

If the Caliphate were to return today, one man would rule all Islam's 1.2 billion believers representing about 22% of the world's population spread across more than fifty Muslim countries. Consider the consequences if someone like Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or the leader of the Taliban ruled all Islam. Does it matter of he were a Shiite or a Sunni?

The story starts when the antihero, Trent Lambert, a greedy Wall Street currency trader and CEO of the multi-billion dollar Lambert Fund, manipulates the currency of Indonesia to increase his wealth. Unknown to Trent, his actions are being closely watched by one of his investors, a Saudi Prince with plans to lead the next Caliphate. This scenario seems even more frightening considering the fragile economic situation in the world today that started in the United States due to similar greedy goals.

Like Howard Hughes, Lambert has a phobia for germs and viruses and lives almost isolated in a sterile environment. At one time, Lambert was mentally healthier, and he had a wife and a son. When his son, Eric, is kidnapped by Islamic terrorists to be used as leverage to gain Lambert's currency trader expertise to bring down the American economy, Trent is reunited with his wife in a mutual attempt to save their son. What happens after that is like James Bond and Mission Impossible in one package.

Unlike many thrillers, The Caliphate offers a balanced view of Islam through Indonesian pirates, Harmina, her son Ando, and father Datuk. Without the help of Islamic pirates, Lambert and his wife do not stand a chance to get their son back and thwart the plans of the Saudi Prince and his allies, the Jemaah Islamiyah, one of the world's most dangerous terrorist groups, and save their son while keeping America and its allies from economic collapse.

The Caliphate is a feasible, well-plotted story that kept my attention even though the unconventional formatting with block paragraphs separated by blank lines was distracting at first.

See Also: The Caliphate at Mobipocket

Crossing the Wake

It's been quite a while since I posted an update article to PODBRAM. I even missed the Third Anniversary of PODBRAM exactly one month ago today. A Third Anniversary post had, of course, been planned long ago, but there was just too much on my mind to put together into a coherent post back on 7/12/09, but things have settled down considerably since then.

The photo is of a 1960 Kettenberg Sweet Sixteen. Produced during the early days of fiberglass ski boats, this unusual classic has a wood deck placed on a fiberglass hull. The motor is a Mercury inline six of unknown power and vintage. There are many reasons why I have been relatively quiet these past few months, but this is the main one. I am working on a 2010 edition of my powerboat book, Ker-Splash, and it is quite a massive project.

The PODBRAM Review Team has already reviewed more than 160 books, and many more reviews are in the works. I have been considering adding a link index by author, and maybe one by reviewer, too, and if I find the time, I may add those at some later date. I don't think I shall ever rejoin The Team as a reviewer. My many projects, including the management of PODBRAM and two more blogs, will surely absorb all the time I have in the future, as it has for this past year.

When you drive a boat across the wake of another boat, you have to be careful to cross as close to a ninety-degree angle as is feasible, particularly when you are piloting a small boat following a big cruiser. A big wave can capsize a small boat trying to slide through at a less than oblique angle. PODBRAM is definitely a small boat following in the wakes of much larger vessels. There is an inevitable quandary in which PODBRAM is trapped within its own integrity. We can never grow into one of those larger vessels without doing as they do, charging the authors for a ride. PODBRAM can only remain a tiny little personal hobby of mine, and I do not see any way out of this dilemma. I have not been a happy camper these past silent months, watching sadly as the madness grows and swirls all around me. We cannot charge for reviews at PODBRAM without throwing our scruples to the shifting winds. We could increase the number of reviewers, and therefore accept and post more reviews, but we have already reached critical mass. If I had to manage and edit more reviewers, Ker-Splash 2 would never be completed. As someone has already suggested, I could set up PODBRAM for reviewers to post directly, but with apologies to my distinguished review team, I can imagine in advance that that plan would not meet my high standards. The organizational and editing efforts I put into the site are just too extensive for this level of quality to be coordinated continuously with more than one captain at the helm.

From the number of review requests that have been coming in, I doubt that many of you have gone to The POD Review Ring Chart to see that submissions have been officially closed at PODBRAM since 7/16/09. That's okay, because I did not really expect many of you to see it. I could easily have made a Submissions Closed statement to accompany the change to the chart, but I chose not to do so. Many of you have received replies from me that PODBRAM is not currently accepting submissions, and a few of you have even been sent later notifications that an opening for your book has appeared. As with most free review blogs, a lot depends on the timing of your request, whether or not you catch the reviewers at a time when they are not overwhelmed with books to read and reviews to write.

Speaking of free review sites, we seem to be diminishing in number quite steadily. You may have noticed a few changes in the link listings of other review sites as well as changes in the Ring Chart. Mark McGinty's The Boogle has been the only positive recent addition! The Self-Publishing Review is becoming an embarrassment to anyone interested in tasteful discourse. I have yet to understand what sort of P. T. Barnum sucker wants to be summarily trashed in public by someone who hides behind relentless anonymity, but there surely do seem to be a fair number of such authors out there! Her Odyssey hasn't posted a review since April 23rd! POD People (the only one older than PODBRAM) is still recommended, but with only three reviewers, only some of whom are active, I am sure their backlog must be as big as a house! The only real shining light among this sad state of affairs is LLBR. The LL (formerly Lulu) Book Review is the only site that currently should allow the word gangbusters in the same sentence. Shannon Yarbrough's LLBR has already surpassed the 100-review mark, and I highly recommend his site for authors looking for reviews. Shannon accepts only Lulu and CreateSpace books for review, so the rest of you are pretty much out of luck. I do know a place just down the street from me, however, that will be more than happy to review your POD book. For only $75 they will be glad to write a review and post it on Amazon with the rest of their paid reviews. I hope that by now everyone who reads PODBRAM regularly can spot one of these shams a mile away!

There have been other recent disappointments, too. As I feared and stated to many of you long ago, both The Kindle Boards and IAG have fallen victim to The Popeilians. Surely you must be kidding yourself if you really think you have been discovering any useful discourse lately at either of these message boards. If you are too young to remember Ron Popeil, he is the one who invented the Veg-o-Matic, the Pocket Fisherman, and other products that he hawked relentlessly in late-night television commercials. Dan Akroyd's Bass-o-Matic was a scream, but the original ads were simply annoying and disgusting. So are the advertising sideshow tents that these once encouraging websites have become. I have to tip my hat to First Mate Al Past for coming up with the Popeilian moniker. It's almost as good as his Dunking Tank!

Call me a snob if you will. I've been called that and worse before. PODBRAM by its very nature must be the Studio 54 of POD review sites. We have to keep the riff-raff out because we have time to read and review only so many books, and we want these to be the best we can find, and we want to write the most professional, accurate, helpful reviews possible. We are here for the readers just as much as for the authors. Of course we understand that most of our readership are also authors, but when we review a book, we want it to be as much like a real, old-school review as we can make it. We tell your potential readers whether or not they may want to read your book and why. A book review is not supposed to be a writers' workshop critique, although that is exactly what many of the online review sites produce. We are not here to tell you all about the plot details of a book, as many of the moronic Amazon reviewers do, or blow heavenly smoke up your butt about the limitless high quality of your average genre novel, as even more of them do so voraciously. We are here to invite you onto our dance floor and then tell you and your readers if you can really dance or not. We won't be catty and criticize your outfit or your hairdo, but we will glance under your skirt when you do the twirl.

Another issue I have been watching and researching carefully lately is the Kindle phenomenon. I think the boom has peaked. I could say it a lot of different ways, but this is the bottom line. It's like we have been hearing on the news lately that the recession is no longer in freefall. It's still falling, but at a slower pace. Invert the curve and that's what I think is happening with the Kindle. Kindle readers, for the most part, will always be obsessive, high-volume readers of genre fiction. Earlier this year I had hoped that the Kindle would open a new market up for otherwise grossly overpriced POD books, but that market has already exploded and fizzled like a damp firecracker. Yes, the market is there for everyone's positive gain in the future, but the excitement of the fad is already over. How long will it take for all the new Kindle owners to actually read all the free and low-priced books they have downloaded just because they could when their excitement level over a new toy was fresh? I rest my case.

Back in 1999 iUniverse was almost as good at unleashing a monster as John McCain! We can all try to deny that that's what they unleashed when they rattled the cages of thousands of authors who wanted to become instantly rich and famous. We can all say, You talkin' 'bout me? We can all deny that we want recognition, but we cannot deny that the cage door has been left open and there are far, far too many of us!

I cannot answer with any absolute accuracy what the future of PODBRAM holds. The beast has yanked me up and down an emotional roller coaster for the last three years. Just when I get disgusted with the lack of quality submissions or the lack of growth in the legitimate, free review blog universe, somebody sends me a heartfelt thank you for the work we do, and the coaster goes right up that next hill. I have considered increasing the number of reviewers on the team, but at least for now, I need to sit on that idea simply because I don't have time to increase my involvement with PODBRAM and finish Ker-Splash 2 on schedule. The incoming requests from publicity firms are being immediately thrown into an e-mail folder for now, and I may never give any of those a shot at our dance floor. We have more than enough direct requests to keep us busy without dealing with arrangements with authors that have proven to be something less than reliable. As of today, I am officially closing all submissions for children's books. We have enough more serious literary dance partners to keep entertained, and it takes as much of my time to run a kids' book through the system as it does a more deserving adult author who has invested considerably more time in his project. At what reader age bracket will the cutoff point be? I have not decided yet. Will we ever charge for reviews, post less than three stars at Amazon, or simply blow you off and never actually read and review your book? No, no, and no.

PODBRAM will continue to cruise the waters of small inland lakes. We shall never be rich or famous, but we shall never rip you off, either. We don't want to be the big fish in any pond. We want to be the tastiest catch. We want to be the Alaskan King Crab swimming among the canned tuna fish from Wally-World. We want to be the Maine Lobster served on Murder, She Wrote. Happy Third Anniversary from The PODBRAM Team and Captain Curmudgeon!

Strange Future

Strange Future:
A 23rd Century Guide for the 21st Century Cynicby Josh Smith
(CreateSpace / 1-448-61549-6 / 978-1-448-61549-0 / June 2009 / 190 pages / $9.99 / Kindle $1.99)

Reviewed by Dianne Salerni for PODBRAM

Thomas Gordon doesn’t have much satisfaction in his life. He has no living relatives, and he has never been in a meaningful relationship. His dead-end job as personal assistant to a demanding boss has just ended abruptly and unfairly. He is “fed up” with his life, with the city, and with the whole world. So when the opportunity arises to take a trip to the future via cryogenic preservation, he doesn’t think about it very long before agreeing. The future has to be better, right?

Thomas and his companions, Doug and Vera, are cryogenically frozen by a groundbreaking new invention in a place known as “the lab”. Their needs are cared for by pairs of employees carefully selected over two centuries, and eventually the three time travelers are awakened in the 23rd Century by Darin and Lyla, who have been selected to introduce them to the new world.

I have no complaints about the technical writing style and editing in Strange Future, and the narrative is sometimes amusing. However, the reader has to suspend a lot of disbelief in order to accept the new technology, and the plot structure is rather flat, without rising action or substantial climax. None of the three volunteers – Thomas, Doug, or Vera – really has a compelling reason to risk their lives by being frozen, no traumatic life change or disappointment to make them want to take such a drastic step. They are just unhappy and cynical about the human race, which makes it strange that they would think the future would be any better. Indeed, the first thing they do upon awakening is to complain about most of the things they find. The remainder of the novel follows the trio as they learn about the world of the 23rd Century. Once they arrive in the future, there is no central problem to be resolved or mystery to be uncovered. A budding relationship between Thomas and Lyla happens more off-stage than on, with dialogue used to point out the cool (and not so cool) aspects of the future rather than provide needed character development. Overall, the vision of the future in this novel could not sustain my interest due to the lack of a compelling adventure to hold it all together.

See Also: The Author's Website

The Dawn of Saudi

The Dawn of Saudi:
In Search for Freedom, a Contemporary Romantic Mystery
by Homa Pourasgari
(Linbrook Press / 0-977-97801-X / 978-0-977-97801-4 / June 2009 / 352 pages / $15.95 / Amazon $14.35)

Reviewed by Malcolm R. Campbell for PODBRAM

The Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia says that, “as documented by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Freedom House and even the US Department of State, Saudi women are among the most oppressed and marginalized citizens in Arab and Muslim countries.” In an author’s note at the end of her novel, Homa Pourasgari describes the social and legal environment in Saudi Arabia more directly: “Women have no rights and are considered the property of a man.”

Pourasgari’s powerful romantic mystery The Dawn of Saudi focuses on the lives of two young women who meet while attending college in Barcelona, Sahar Al-Hijazi of Saudi Arabia and Dawn Parnell of the United States. Sahar, whose travels have given her a taste of freedom, fights her family’s attempts to force her into a loveless marriage with Husam. Dawn, however, doesn’t heed her best friend’s warnings and marries a Saudi man whom she believes is a progressive thinker and finds herself trapped instead within a hopeless world.

“They buried her in an unmarked grave,” the novel begins. “Only in death did Saudi women and men receive equal treatment.” On the next page readers learn that Sahar collapsed on her wedding night, went into a coma, and died within an hour of an aneurysm.

In California, Jason Crawford worries over the news of Sahar’s death because he has business ties to the families involved and doesn’t want to see a pending merger with Crawford Enterprises jeopardized.

Subsequently, Dawn Parnell begins work as a housekeeper at the grand Crawford estate. While the house has a large staff, Dawn catches Jason’s attention even though she’s definitely not the eye-candy type of woman he usually dates and discards. Among other things, he notices that her intelligence, skills and interests greatly exceed those normally expected in a maid placed by an employment agency. How, for example, can she be an expert skier and horsewoman? Since Dawn won’t talk about her past, Jason can only wonder what she is hiding and why she hides it so fiercely.

Pourasgari’s inventive plot and strong characters not only open a wide window onto Saudi oppression of women, but make for a very strong story with the poignant moments of well-told romance and the twists and turns of page-turning mystery. Both the oppression and the fear associated with it are aptly shown from a woman’s perspective through Dawn and Sahar. Jason’s silver-spoon lifestyle and love-them-and-leave-them approach to women stands out in stark contrast to Dawn’s and Sahar’s experiences, and this adds greatly to the depth of the story.

The story’s pacing is disrupted in several sections due to the need to convey a large amount of background information to readers and to other characters about Saudi culture and conservative Islamic law through dialogue and narrative. A longer preface with basic Saudi facts might have reduced the strain on the story. An over-abundance of detail gives an intrusive travelogue flavor to a trip to a resort and a disruptive interior designer’s guidebook tone to walks through the Crawford mansion.

That said, The Dawn of Saudi remains a very satisfying novel with unforgettable characters who must fight through a labyrinth of Western apathy and frightening conservative Islamic beliefs in a search for freedom. The novel is both an education and an oasis for the human spirit.

See Also: The Author's Website
Malcolm's Review at Amazon UK
Malcolm's Review at Powell's Books
Malcolm's March of Books Review

North from Calcutta

North from Calcutta
by Duane Evans
(Pecos Moon LLC / 0-981-94540-6 / 978-0-981-94540-8 / May 2009 / 360 pages / $24.95 hardcover / $18.21 Amazon)

Reviewed by Jack Dixon for PODBRAM

A time bomb is ticking. It has been so for centuries, but the ticking has suddenly grown louder. Tension in Kashmir is about to explode in yet one more, perhaps final, international episode.

Tarek Durrani has always been driven toward what he considers to be the greater good. He has met unsought challenges with determination, and successfully balanced his humanity with the brutality of his life. From his early days as an anti-Soviet mujahedeen in Afghanistan, to his current position as an officer of Pakistani intelligence, Durrani has sought only to do that which his conscience can reconcile.

Durrani is a loyal man. His intelligence-gathering mission for the Pakistani government seems, at first, inconsequential. But he begins to suspect that it is part of a larger, more sinister plot to upset the fragile balance of two vehemently opposed two nuclear powers, India and Pakistan. He suspects that he may have become involved in an attempt to precipitate war over the long-contested control of Kashmir.

Durrani’s mission takes him on a journey of espionage and subterfuge, discovery and enlightenment, violence and love. While the dedication and allegiance of men like Durrani may be exploited by the opposing forces of volatile governments, Durrani’s integrity could turn out to be the Achilles’ heel of those who would exploit him.

While this novel neatly fits a long-established spy thriller formula, its setting is fresh and unique. It weaves a timely tale of extremist politics and terrorist plots with the insight of one who knows the field, and purely from the cultural perspectives of the characters involved. I was impressed by the author’s ability to tell the story from an authentically cultural perspective, rather than from a western point of view. I was occasionally distracted by editorial oversights, but on the whole the story is well-structured, and it flows nicely. I especially appreciated the cover art, as it accurately captures the essence of the story. North from Calcutta is a strong offering from a new author; I had to look twice to confirm that this was in fact his first novel.

See Also: The Author's Website

Ghost Notes

Ghost Notes by Art Edwards
(Defunct Press / 0-979-90661-X / 978-0-979-90661-9 / March 2008 / 212 pages / $14.95 / Kindle $7.99)

Reviewed by Celia Hayes for PODBRAM

For all the stories told, or perhaps just implied, this book could have been several times longer in the hands of a less disciplined writer. The plot is simple but intricately told through the brief lives of working musicians, hangers-on to the music scene, wanna-be musicians, roadies, agents and a whole constellation of lovers, wives, ex-lovers, ex-wives and absentee fathers. The thread that binds it all together is music and the life of Josh Hotle, also known as Hote, a bass player in a once mega-successful band, but now on a grueling tour schedule, and on the downside of the fame that he was looking for in the author’s first essay into the musician’s life “Stuck in Phoenix.” Now, that Josh has caught the brass ring, everything that he got into music for is turning hollow, routine, and savorless. Or maybe he has just – at long last – grown up enough to look at his life with a coolly analytical eye, and decide what he really wants out of it. He walks out on the band, mid-tour, leaving them short a bass player before their next gig. Josh is so burnt-out, and in shock that his wife has confessed to being unfaithful to him, that he doesn’t really care. He wants to go camping, and get away from it all, but he can never get away from people, or his own past.

There are a lot of characters in Ghost Notes, and a lot of back-story, but the writer has done an incredible job of delineating them, with just enough detail to flesh them out, make them real and sympathetic. The personal and professional world of Josh Hotle is dense, detailed and believable, without overwhelming the reader and bogging the narrative down in unnecessary verbiage. Each chapter or character sketch is a complete short story in itself; it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the author is also a musician and songwriter, expert in using just the precise word and phrase and not a syllable more.

See Also: Celia's BNN Review
The Author's Website

Murder and the Masquerade

Murder and the Masquerade:
Book 1 of the Dorothy Phaire Romantic Mystery Series
by Dorothy Phaire
(iUniverse / 0-595-44787-2 / 978-0-595-44787-9 / September 2007 / 316 pages / $18.95)

Reviewed by Dianne Salerni for PODBRAM

Dr. Renee Hayes is a married, 40+ Black psychologist working in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area who becomes embroiled in a murder case when a frantic phone call from a patient puts her right in the middle of a crime scene. Doctor-patient confidentiality issues are only one of Renee’s worries when the police arrive on the scene— because the homicide detective investigating the case is her lover.

Murder and the Masquerade, the first in a planned series by Dorothy Phaire, stems from a novel written by Ms. Phaire almost a decade ago that was later pulled from the market and revised to create this new romance/mystery novel. Phaire’s years of work on this novel have produced vibrant, believable characters facing the various personal and professional crises of Black professionals in the modern world. I found Renee Hayes, a successful doctor with an unsatisfying marriage and a desire for motherhood to be highly believable, as was Detective Degas Hamilton, a man a dozen years her junior who was drawn to her maturity and gentleness. Another major player in this cast is Veda Simms, a woman who has thrown away a husband and a daughter in pursuit of a love affair with a high-powered attorney, only to reach a breaking point five years later. Murder and the Masquerade is filled also with a cast of fascinating supporting characters that provides a rich backdrop for drama and romance, as well as contributing to the overall depth of the main characters.

Unfortunately, after a stunning prologue and a promising beginning in which the weeks previous to the murder are fleshed out, the central mystery fails to deliver. There are several plot holes, including important clues that are never explained and inconsistencies in the chronology of events. Toward the end of the novel, I felt the characters did not continue to act and respond as they did earlier in the book, and overall the solution to the crime did not satisfy. Nevertheless, this is a promising piece of work that should appeal to a savvy publisher. With a primarily Black cast, a complex and conflicted central female character, and an interesting premise for future sequels, I believe there is a target audience just waiting for a book like this. A good editor could clear up the inconsistencies, as well as the minor editing errors that appear throughout.
Murder and the Masquerade shows a great deal of promise, and I hope that we will see more from this author in the future.

See Also: The High Spirits Review
Dorothy Phaire's Authors Den Page
The Author's Website
Almost Out of Love by Dorothy Phaire
Reviews of Blind Delusion by Dorothy Phaire

Calling Out Your Name

Calling Out Your Name
by Ned White
(CreateSpace / 1-442-13242-6 / 978-1-442-13242-9 / April 2009 / 206 pages / $14.95)

Reviewed by Donna Nordmark Aviles for PODBRAM

Woody Elmont of Ogamesh, Georgia, has more on his plate, and on his mind, than most sixteen-year-olds. His father abandoned the family when his mother was pregnant with Woody’s younger brother. His mom later died leaving her two sons in the care of their Aunt Zee. By the time the story opens, the tables have turned and the aging Aunt Zee is the one who needs to be cared for as her mind and body begin to fail. To complicate things, Woody’s younger brother, Tick, is mildly developmentally disabled with little understanding of right and wrong. Woody tries to be the man of the house and handle all these circumstances, but when Tick is sent to a juvenile home for shoplifting, Woody has a guilty sense of relief that at least one burden is in someone else’s hands. When Tick disappears from St. Anselm’s after a questionable fire at the facility, Woody feels it’s his responsibility to bring his “zoo headed brother” back home before he finds himself in even more trouble.

Calling Out Your Name by Ned White is an exciting and adventuresome tale of one boy’s journey toward adulthood as he makes his way across the country seeking to find and save his brother. The story is chocked full of well developed, believable characters who each, in his own way, teaches Woody meaningful life lessons. A unique and surprising twist at the end of Woody’s journey helps him to fully understand earlier events in his life and leaves the reader with a satisfying ending. Mr. White writes with an authentic southern voice, placing the reader in the center of the action, thus making for an engaging, enjoyable read. Technically, this book is professionally presented with only a few errors – nothing that causes the reader to become distracted.

Although billed as a “novel for young adults”, Calling Out Your Name is a story that will be enjoyed by both young and old alike. Mr. White is a talented writer – this is the second of his books that I have reviewed – and I look forward to reading more.

See Also: Donna's Review of Place
Ned White's Authors Den Page

The Red Fog

The Red Fog
by Nicole Tanner
(CreateSpace / 1-442-14111-5 / 978-1-442-14111-7 / June 2009 / 168 pages / $9.99 / Kindle $5.99)

Reviewed by Dianne Salerni for PODBRAM

It’s 2am and nearly zero degrees outside. The streets are deserted, and a young woman is behind the wheel of a car. While she waits at a stoplight, a man crosses the street in front of her, and she realizes with horror that it is the same man who raped her at knifepoint some months previously. He spots her and leers at her, tauntingly displaying his switchblade. What does she do?

What Deana Simmons does and the consequences of her action are the focal point of The Red Fog, a psychological thriller by professional journalist Nicole Tanner. The protagonist of this short, suspenseful novel is a wounded, haunted art student at a small town college in Ohio. Her inability to emotionally connect with others stems from her past as an emotionally and physically abused child, as well as from a traumatic sexual assault in her first year of college. Suppressed memories trickle to the surface through her art, and an act of rage and vengeance triggers a nightmarish descent into vigilante justice, self-destructive violence, and madness.

The Red Fog opens with a violent act and a memorable first chapter, then retreats into a slow, suspenseful, unfolding of events as Deana’s sanity begins to collapse under the weight of her guilt and her triumph. Although I did not find every event in this novel believable and the secrets of Deana’s past were sometimes predictable, I can also say that I couldn’t stop reading the book. I had to know what Deana would and would not do next! Readers should be aware that the book contains scenes of graphic sex and violence, sometimes mixed together, but considering the theme and plot of the book, they were skillfully done. There are only a handful of editing errors, primarily missing words, which shouldn’t interfere with the reader’s enjoyment of the book. The Red Fog is recommended for fans of horror and psychological thrillers.

See Also: Nicole Tanner's Website

Winter Ghost

Winter Ghost by Don Meyer
(Booklocker / 1-601-45820-7 / 978-1-601-45820-9 / May 2009 / 332 pages / $16.95)

Reviewed by Dr. Al Past for PODBRAM

Start with a frozen naked woman "looking" in the window of a vacation home, hands on the glass. Call it an accidental death. Add in reports of an unknown woman visiting the home on subsequent weekends. Season with two more couples dying after visiting the home, a sheriff (Tom Monason), new to the small nearby town, several deputies, and a bar owner, and you have, in addition to a ghost story, the makings of a murder mystery.

Winter Ghost attempts such a recipe, and a promising one it is. I have some experience with the mystery genre, yet I cannot think of another example to compare it to. As the story is carried out, however, it never seized my interest. Beyond a few personal quirks, the characters were thinly developed, the setting was generic (beyond snow, a small town, and a bar), and the ultimately simple story line was strewn with stylistic infelicities.

That's a shame, because Mr. Meyer's other book reviewed on this site, The Protected Will Never Know, the memoir of a soldier during the Vietnam conflict, was excellent. Narrated through the eyes of an unprepared, naive young soldier, the style fit perfectly: the reader is able to see between the lines to share the frustrations and terrors of a pointless war. As a memoir it was not entirely fiction, and that was its strong point. Pure fiction must create the reality the reader needs to be fully at home in a story, and Winter Ghost did not adequately do this for me. For the general reader, The Protected Will Never Know gets my vote as the more definitely recommended of the two.

See Also: Don Meyer's Website

The Second Date

The Second Date:
Love Italian-American Style
by Mary Lydon Simonsen
(CreateSpace / 1-442-15721-6 / 978-1-442-15721-7 / June 2009 / 170 pages / $11.95)

Reviewed by Dianne Salerni for PODBRAM

Talk to any person in my generation with an Italian-American heritage, and you will find certain common characteristics. When they were growing up, they almost certainly had a room in their house where no one dared enter – the formal living room where the carpets bore no trace of footprints and the only visitor important enough to use it was the priest. Their mothers probably used wooden spoons as weapons. Dating a non-Italian was bad, a non-Catholic worse, and bringing home a Jewish date who didn’t even believe in Christ was a crisis of soap-opera proportions. Funerals were like Greek tragedies, and let’s not get started on Thanksgiving dinner.

The Second Date is, in part, a comedy romance revolving around the dating adventures of Sonia Amundsen (very Italian, in spite of her half-Norwegian heritage), but it is also an endearing web of family stories that traces several generations of an Italian-American family. As Sonia nears her thirtieth birthday, helpful friends and relatives set her up on a series of blind dates, which Sonia views as excellent fodder for the novels she writes, but not a likely source of romance for herself. In fact, Sonia has never gone on a second date with any of her blind dates and now views The Second Date almost superstitiously as the hallmark of Mr. Right.

Mary Simonsen’s narrative wends its way through Sonia’s family history, diverting occasionally into the stories of neighbors and friends. You’ll meet Aunt Gina and Aunt Angie, rival sisters always striving to outdo each other in histrionics. You’ll meet Sonia’s father, Lars Amundsen, an “adopted” Italian with eyes like boiled marbles whose calm and thoughtful nature has made him the neighborhood sage. The cast is rounded out with brothers, sisters-in-law, old boyfriends, blind dates, and a charming man who’d like to break Sonia’s no-second date curse.

My copy of the book was an unedited proof copy, but even so it was remarkably clean and a smooth read. I have no doubt the final version will be up to professional standards. The Second Date is a slim book, just over 160 pages. Like a good antipasto, it’s colorful, flavorful, and full of tantalizing little nuggets that aren’t too filling – an excellent summer read, in fact, for fans of light romance, or anyone who grew up Italian-American in the 80’s.

See Also: The High Spirits Review
Mary Simonsen's Authors Den Page
Mary Simonsen's Website
Mary Simonsen's Blog
Searching for Pemberley

Kindle Formatting

Kindle Formatting:
The Complete Guide
by Joshua Tallent
(CreateSpace / 1-440-48888-6 / 978-1-440-48888-7 / January 2009 / 158 pages / $19.95 / Kindle $9.99)

Let’s just jump right into the deep end of the pool and mention that Joshua Tallent’s Kindle Formatting: The Complete Guide has a couple of very small negatives. There are about ten common proofreading errors in the relatively small amount of text. I did not actually verify this number with a running count, and that should tell you how insignificant this issue is in this particular book. All of these are contained in the simple text portions of the book. None affect the technically significant portions, which brings us to the second weakness of Kindle Formatting. This is not a very helpful book for those novice authors who freak out at the sight of HTML, however, I did not expect it to be. That is precisely why I reviewed Michael Hicks’ how-to-Kindle book first in The Kindle Report. For the prospective Kindle author who is somewhat more advanced in the field of computers in general and HTML coding in particular, this is an excellent guide for you.

Joshua Tallent is obviously far more the mathematician and programming nerd than is the average POD author who just wants to cash in from Kindle sales. If you just want to convert the Word document version of your Mr. Average Novel into DTP, then you have several options that may be more efficient for you than following the instructions contained in this book. These options include, in no particular order of significance: uploading your book directly from Word into the Amazon DTP system; running your document through the Smashwords Meatgrinder; downloading and utilizing Mobipocket Creator; or paying Joshua Tallent directly to format your book perfectly for you, a service he offers from his website. If you have a very complex book containing varied text layout or a lot of photos or other graphics, and you want it all to look as perfect as possible in the Kindle version, then hiring Mr. Tallent’s services is probably your best bet. If you and/or your book fall between the cracks of some of these scenarios, then Kindle Formatting: The Complete Guide may be the best solution.

Kindle formatting is an exact science with a lot of human loopholes. Most of us write our books in Microsoft Word, but there are many other options that may be applicable. The Kindle DTP system chokes up like Powder Puff with a furball when it is fed a PDF document. The translation of a PDF to DTP should only be handled by a pro like Joshua or an experienced HTML wrangler with Joshua’s book next to his keyboard. There are so many delicate little decisions that go into the design of Dead Tree Books, as the Kindle fans like to call them, that we all take for granted. Most of these commonly printed elements of a book must be dealt with in a manner specific to themselves when converting the paper to DTP. There are countless things that might never enter your mind until you actually saw your book on a Kindle, and these are the same things that all PDF documents of printed books contain. If you are only a pseudo-nerd like me, you read blissfully through book after book without ever giving all those hidden little HTML codes a second thought. If you are a genuine nerd like Joshua, you may be fully aware of their existence, but you could certainly use a book like Kindle Formatting to speed up the complex process of making the Kindle version of your book look as perfectly professional as the paperback, or in Kindlese, DTB = DTP.

Is Joshua’s thin book worth $20 to you, or $10 if you have a Kindle? If you barely understood how to send your simple Word document to iUniverse, letting them design your cover while you contributed very little to your book’s design, then Kindle Formatting probably offers a lot more than you care to know. If you are somewhat more experienced, particularly with HTML programming, and you do not want to pay Joshua directly to do the job for you, but you want to produce a DTP version of your work that is somewhat more perfect than the result offered by the simpler methods, this will be money extremely well spent. Joshua will show you all the little so that’s how you do it! HTML coding tricks to make your Kindle book look like an escapee from your local Barnes & Noble. If you own a Kindle, you can get even more benefit from Joshua’s book because you can see the details of your efforts in perfect translation. One of my favorite issues covered in Kindle Formatting is that Joshua explains in text and screenshots actual differences between the Kindle and the Kindle 2. The book was released prior to the DX: maybe Joshua will update the material at some time in the future? Representing the most advanced installment of The Kindle Report, Joshua Tallent’s Kindle Formatting will take the experienced author exactly where he wants to go.

See Also: The BNN Review
Joshua Tallent's Website

Wai-nani

Wai-nani: High Chiefess of Hawai’i
- Her Epic Journey
by Linda Ballou
(Star Publish / 1-932-99388-6 / 978-1-932-99388-2 / May 2008 / 280 pages / $17.95 / Amazon $15.80)

Reviewed by Lloyd Lofthouse for PODBRAM

I met Linda Ballou at the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Festival. Later, in an e-mail, she told me it took her twenty years to do the research for this historical fiction and to get it out of the drawer and into the streets. The time Ballou spent on this work shows in the rich details that flow like lava from two of the earth’s largest volcanoes found on the island of Hawaii.

Wai-nani is rich with ancient Hawaiian culture and lore. The main character may be fictional but she is a reflection of Ka’ahumanu, King Kamehameha’s favorite wife, at one time the most powerful person in the Hawaiian Islands.

Today, the Hawaiian Islands may be an incredible tourist destination, but in the 18th century, they weren’t. When the islands were more or less isolated from the rest of the world, the Hawaiian people were often at war with each other and women were second-class citizens who could be executed for daring to eat a meal on the same mat or in the same room as a man. Men could take more than one wife and the rules were strict with death often being the punishment for breaking them. Ka’ahumanu, as represented by Wai-nani in Ballou’s novel, was an early feminist and helped bring about changes that elevated women to be equal with men.

Do not be surprised when you find Wai-nani making friends with a family of dolphins. Some readers may have trouble believing this part of the novel, but I didn’t. Before Christ, the Greeks recorded incidents of dolphins helping and befriending sailors lost at sea when their ships sunk. There are recorded incidents of dolphins still doing this in modern times. There have been stories of dolphins driving fish onto beaches to help feed starving African natives. Therefore, it was easy reading about Wai-nani swimming with her dolphin friends in the ocean.

Wai-nani also chronicles the clash between cultures when Captain Cook arrives in 1779, along with the same European diseases that devastated and killed so many North and South American Indians. When Europeans started to spread across the globe, their viruses and germs went with them and did most of the killing, making it easier for the land grabs that happened later. That tragedy is part of this story, too.

The Hawaiian culture, the characters and the setting are richly detailed. I have never visited Hawaii. It would be nice one day if I had that chance, but if that doesn’t happen, at least I have had the pleasure of being taken to this Polynesian paradise by reading this heavily detailed story.

See Also: Linda Ballou's Website
Linda Ballou's Authors Den Page

Moussaka to My Ears

Moussaka to My Ears
by John Manuel
(Otherwise Known as “Feta Compli 2!”)
Further Rambling from Rhodes and Other Diverse Parts of Greece
(Lulu.com / 1-409-26732-6 / 978-1-409-26732-4 / February 2009 / 312 pages / $21.31)

Reviewed by Celia Hayes for PODBRAM

This is a lively and enchanting account of living in Greece, on the island of Rhodes, written by a long-time expatriate. In his first book, Feta Accompli, John Manuel told a rambling story of how he came to fall in love with his wife, Yvonne-Marie – and the country of her birth, of how they drove all across Europe with their worldly goods to settle into half of a half-finished duplex on a raw building site of new properties. The sequel is a much more polished account, and even better, ornamented with pictures of some of the places and situations and characters which John and Yvonne-Marie encountered over the years. These included the German photographer with his roll of carpet, the man who sold botanical concoctions and his tiny second-floor workshop, poor Lady, the stray dog who charmed them all during her sadly brief life, and their indestructible neighbor Manolis, the 6-Million Drachma man … all of that and more. Greece is a place that visitors fall in love with at once and as irrationally as love always is. Some fall abruptly out of love upon encountering some of Greece’s more wayward and exasperating qualities: truly horrible drivers, the sort of winter weather that doesn’t feature in the tourist literature, a very utilitarian and un-sentimental view of animals as useful tools rather than pets, a certain carelessness about fire safety in times of drought, truly awful customer service when it comes to government offices and retail establishments. All of that tends to breed disillusion. But others fall even farther into love with Greece’s considerable charm: the look of the sky on a clear summer day, the smell of ripe figs, the feeling of having put in a good round of work at bringing in the olive harvest, and dancing at a taverna until the wee hours, and the kindliness and courtesy of the people. That minority will develop such a deep and knowledgeable love of Greece and the Greek people that it will carry them over those rough spots – cheerfully acknowledging such imperfections and moving on to the good stuff. This book explores all of that in loving detail, and what it is like to live there, slightly on the outside and viewing its foibles with a keenly observing eye. All in all, Moussaka to My Ears is a lovely evocation of a place and a people.

See Also: John Manuel's Website
Celia's BNN Review

Sappho Sings

Sappho Sings
by Peggy Ullman Bell
(CreateSpace / 1-438-21431-6 / 978-1-438-21431-3 / May 2008 / 350 pages / $15.95 / Kindle $3.99)

Reviewed by Celia Hayes for PODBRAM

Out of a mere handful of facts known about the life of a lyric poet so famous in her lifetime (or shortly after it) that she was known as the 10th Muse, and from the bare thousand or so lines left to us out of nine volumes of collected works, Peggy Ullman Bell has distilled an appropriately lyrical novel of the life of the woman known as The Poetess (as Homer was known simply as The Poet).

Like certain modern celebrities, Sappho has barely the single title and name: her writing was vivid, deeply personal – and beloved universally, seemingly acknowledged in her lifetime as a woman possessed of an incredible gift for language and music … or at least, when the universe seemed to encompass those Greek city states of the 6th century BC. She was of a wealthy and prominent family on her home island of Lesbos, she had three brothers, was sent into exile by a political enemy, married a rich merchant of Syracuse, had a daughter and was either a priestess of a cult ministering to women, or ran a finishing-school for upper-crust girls – possibly both – and may have indeed been small, dark and unbeautiful. She seems to have thought of herself as that, although that may be the poet’s elevated sense of self-drama and cultivated insecurity speaking out. Perhaps she preferred women as lovers; later Christian ecclesiastics certainly thought so, which may be why no great effort was undertaken to preserve her works. And she may have died, after a long, and eventful life, from falling off a cliff. Out of those sparse threads, the author has woven a brightly colored, and intensely-felt silken web of a tale, bejeweled with description and trimmed with poetical lace.

With a great deal of care, the author has reconstructed that world of Classical Greece: cultured, intellectual and wealthy, a world where skill in rhetoric and music was as valued as skill in war and in mercantile pursuits, where the gods were always just out of sight in the waves of a stormy sea or speaking through the mouths of oracles, and their deeds having left a print on the world around, a world familiar to us in some sense, and yet not. The language is archaic, yet not enough to seem unwieldy or inaccessible, in writing conversation. It is very clear in some respects that the author has not fallen into the sin of “presentism” – that is, presenting a modern world, with characters and concepts just a little dressed up in period garb and accessories. Sappho and her friends, her protectors and fellow poets, her family and her lovers are all vividly from a different world, and the details and the visual sense (as well as auditory and olfactory sense) are detailed, vivid and ultimately convincing. Sappho Sings is well worth the read, a little rich for reading all at once, as a box of very expensive chocolate would be, but a lovely treat for now and again, just for the beauty of description.

See Also: Peggy Ullman Bell's Website
Dianne Salerni's Review of Fixin' Things
Peggy Ullman Bell's Authors Den Page
Celia's BNN review

Six-Hundred Hours of a Life

Six-Hundred Hours of a Life
by Craig Lancaster
(CreateSpace / 1-441-45893-X / 978-1-441-45893-3 / February 2009 / 260 pages / $14.95 / Kindle $9.99)

Reviewed by Lloyd Lofthouse for PODBRAM

Most books are like seashells, lovely to look at but there are so many seashells that they are easily forgotten. Only a few are like gold. Six-Hundred Hours of a Life is one of those few.

Edward Stanton, the main character in this novel, is thirty-nine and a virgin. He lives alone in a small house in Billings, Montana. His life is ‘very’ routine, and he likes it that way.

I regret one thing after reading Six-Hundred Hours of a Life. Why did I give so many other books five stars on Amazon.com when this book was the only one that really deserves them? Maybe it was because I found those other books entertaining. Sad! Now I know that five stars should be reserved for books that go beyond entertaining.

In my defense, I can say that over the decades, I have read thousands of books and less than a handful stick around. Like so many things in this packaged, plastic world, most books are disposable even to our memories. However, a few novels achieve a depth of intimacy that are priceless. The last time I read a book like that was in the early 1980s. That was This House of Sky by Ivan Doig. That book was nominated for the National Book Award.

Now, I want to digress to make a point. I am going to complain about a book that did not invite me in. This book was from a Nobel Prize winning author. In fact, that book evicted me. While I was working toward an MFA in the 1980s, I ‘had’ to read and do an oral examination on Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. That book numbed my mind. I had to struggle to stay awake. I had to read passages repeatedly and still couldn’t stay focused. When Faulkner wrote that book, he entered the mind of Benjy, a mentally retarded man with the maturity of a five-year-old. Benjy lived in the past, the present and the future at the same time. His thoughts were an endless run-on sentence.

On the other hand, with Six-Hundred Hours of a Life, I had no problem joining Edward in his disturbed world. In fact, I did not want to leave. I gladly went. At times, I found myself laughing and was occasionally misty eyed. I was captivated.

Edward Stanton is mentally challenged similar to but different from Faulkner’s Benjy. Edward has a severe case of obsessive-compulsive disorder along with Asperger’s Syndrome. To maintain a semblance of control, Edward takes 80 mg of fluexitine (Prozac) daily. It doesn’t help that his father, Ted Stanton, abuses Edward physically and mentally making Edward’s slight grasp on sanity that much more difficult to hold onto. To cope, Edward has weekly sessions with Dr. Buckley, who helps him develop skills to stay in control of his well-ordered life. However, Edward is going to be challenged. He is about to meet a troubled neighbor with a young son, who needs a friend.

Edward’s world is regulated by repetition where he watches Dragnet daily and loves every episode. ‘It was one of my favorites’ he often says. When he drives to the market, he prefers right turns to left turns because right turns are safer. When he wakes up, the first thing he does is to record the time and temperature and the weather. He loves the Dallas Cowboys. Some of his favorite memories are going to games with his father. He eats the same frozen pizzas and loves spaghetti made a certain way. Edward's life is like a broken record but a fascinating one. Strange, when I finished reading, I thought Edward was the only sane person on this earth, and I identified with him.

If I cannot give Six-Hundred Hours of a Life the six stars it deserves when I post a review on Amazon.com, I shall do it here. I offered to give Six-Hundred Hours of a Life to someone else, so he could also enjoy it. I have decided not to. Instead, I’m going to put it on my bookshelf next to This House of Sky by Ivan Doig. Buy your own copy.

Editor's Note: This book has been re-released as 600 Hours of Edward.

See Also: Craig Lancaster's Website
Craig Lancaster's Blog
Craig Lancaster's Authors Den Page
Re-release title at Amazon: 600 Hours of Edward