Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein

From The Week of February 28, 2010

We've all, no doubt, read our fair share of investigative pieces, the brave journalist submerging himself into the dark and scummy underbelly of society to expose a grievous wrong. They may not be dime a dozen -- not that a dime will buy you much these days --, but they are plentiful. And though each brings an important subject matter into the light, there's a certain fatigue that comes with having your sympathy tugged and your empathy awakened one too many times. Three quarters of Mr. Adelstein's tale falls prey to this sin of unoriginality, pages taken up with the experiences of an American journalist working the crime beat at a Tokyo daily, prying just a bit too deeply into the affairs of the Yakuza. But then something happens.

With about fifty pages left to his tale, Mr. Adelstein experiences a moment of such exquisite brutality that I do not have a name for it. Had what happened to Mr. Adelstein happened to me, I could not have born it. Nor could I have looked in the eye the man who had done it. There are some things in this life that simply cannot be endured. Being even indirectly responsible for pain befalling someone else? That is one of those things.

Tokyo Vice is an interesting piece of journalism utterly transformed, by tragedy, into a work of art. The reader is given a naked glimpse of what real criminals are like. There are no Tony Sopranos here; there are no thieves with hearts of gold. There is just the darkness that consumes those capable of wielding the sharp knife of brutality. Tokyo Vice concludes with a kick to the unmentionables I will never forget. And for that, I am at least mostly grateful. Read this and then forward your psychiatrist's bill onto Mr. Adelstein. It's his fault for putting to paper a shattering story of real life crime with real life consequences. This gets five stars on the last 50 pages alone. (5/5 Stars)

Canticle: Psalms Of Isaak 02 by Ken Scholes

From The Week of February 28, 2010

Though Mr. Scholes must, by now, recognize that he is sitting upon a goldmine in the Psalms of Isaak series, he does not commit the crime, as many before him have done, of slowing down the pace of his series in order to sell more books. If anything, Mr. Scholes has thrown the throttle wide open on this second, apocalyptic offering from a future Earth swathed in desert and darkness.

All the sharply drawn characters from Lamentation are back, save for the ones who died, but don't rule them out completely. In a world where songs can be made into weapons of war, and where mechanical birds can snuff out the light of knowledge, not even the barrier of death can hold entirely firm. One gets the sense that, before Mr. Scholes is through, some of those characters will wish for death, for, sometimes, that is preferable to knowledge in an unforgiving world.

Canticle is as pacy as it is well-plotted, but the pathos is what sets this series apart from other fantasy offerings. The taste of bitterness lingers on every page. Mr. Scholes is exquisite with emotion, for, even the victories his characters achieve seem to come through sorrowful self-discovery. This is not a perfect book, but if you liked Lamentation's unique blend of politics and fantasy, set on a post-apocalyptic Earth, then Canticle will not disappoint. (4/5 Stars)

The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

From The Week of February 28, 2010

Every so often, I stumble across a book whose subject is so startling, so bewildering, that I find myself almost breathless as I read its most riveting sections. The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks is the latest installment in this rare line of unexpected delights. Ms. Skloot, a freelance writer on science, skillfully entwines two narrative strains to create an edifying and exciting tale of discovery and injustice that I won't soon forget.

Henrietta Lacks had a difficult life. An African American woman, living in the first half of the 20th century, she did not escape the poverty of her upbringing which continued to plague her family after her death. Though much of her life appears to have been lived without an overabundance of happiness, she is described as an even-tempered, kind person who should have been better served by those who claimed to be her societal superiors. Diagnosed with cervical cancer, Ms. Lacks was treated at Johns Hopkins. However, like many others afflicted with her illness, the treatment was unsuccessful and, only months later, she died at the age of 31, leaving her children to be raised under less than pleasant circumstances. Though, for the scientific community, this is where Ms. Lacks' story ends and their journey begins, Ms. Skloot is not so dismissive of the woman science forgot. She befriends Ms. Lacks' family and exposes, here, a life, a family, and some of the ugly secrets of 20th century medicine its practitioners would like to forget.

Hela. That is the name science gave to what researchers found in Ms. Lacks' tumor. Unlike anything they had seen before, these cells were somehow alive. In fact, sixty years on, they are alive still and have been utilized in what Ms. Skloot estimates to be something like 60,000 scientific experiments. Though the process is still not entirely understood, Ms. Skloot describes in detail the evolutionary end-around Ms. Lacks' cancer cells performed to achieve immortality. Infinite division, infinite repair, infinite cancer. The immortality of Ms. lacks cancer cells did not save her, but they have contributed to saving millions of lives since.

connecting the life of Henrietta Lacks with her remarkable cells, Ms. Skloot creates a story that should have been told decades ago. But sometimes, those of us who consider ourselves educated have the largest egos. And the most enduring barrier to truth is ego, is it not? The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks rights a grievous wrong and, in doing so, teaches us about life, science and humility. An excellent read. (4/5 Stars)

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

From The Week of February 28, 2010

It may be that many of you have seen the famous film which was based on this infamous 1962 novel by Mr. Burgess. If not, and if you're not familiar with the book either, then strap in and hold on. You're about to embark upon a difficult and disturbing journey into the lives and minds of four disaffected youths, living in a future, dystopian Britain rife with nihilism and the degradation of society.

Alex, our main eyes and ears on this journey -- it is impossible to call the vile thug a protagonist --, seems to live, moment to moment, experience to experience. In an effort to stave off boredom, and to maintain his status as head of his little gang of youths, he leads them to acts of brutality which are as mindless as they are cruel. There's literally no level to which Alex and his crew will not stoop. And so, when the gang is busted up and Alex apprehended by the authorities, the reader feels a certain sense of satisfaction, that the world is being set right. But of course, this is where the true nightmare begins. Alex is subjected to a kind of cruel brainwashing which distorts his sense of pleasure and pain. But not only does the brainwashing de-claw him, it makes painful his one, true, innocent pleasure in life, music.

Though Mr. Burgess' plot is moving and disturbing, the extent to which he's able to seize our anger at Alex, twist it up and use it against us is the genius of the piece. The dialect Alex uses to narrate the tale is clever and affecting as well, but there was something powerful in feeling pity for such a vile creature. It takes a special kind of skill to pull off such a feat. Foulness aside -- and I do not think this book could've been any longer than its slim 190 pages without making me want to swallow razorblades --, I salute Mr. Burgess' literary craft. This is a difficult job done well. (3/5 Stars)

Push by Sapphire

From The Week of February 28, 2010

After hearing that the film was receiving Oscar attention, I found myself curious about its source material, this provocative, 1996 novel from Sapphire which, while something of an exercise in emotional masochism, heartens as much as it horrifies. Push is the story of a 16-year-old, African American woman from Harlem, New York. Though the main thrust of the story is taken up with a single year of her life, 1987, details of her horrific childhood provide the context necessary to understand why Precious is the illiterate, depressed mother of two children she did not consent to have. Thank heavens this is fiction.

But this is perhaps Push's strength. Though the ugliness that retards Precious' development is nothing more than fiction, there are surely people in the world who suffer as Precious does. And is there anything more heinous than a child who is crushed before he or she ever gets a fair chance at life? Push challenges our prejudices by forcing us to see into the lives of those we're so quick to judge. And though many real-life survivors of abuse may not be as brave as fictional Precious, they all deserve our support, not to mention the full protection of the laws we hold so dear.

For all the foulness, this is an uplifting book. More than its message though, its literary significance is noteworthy. It is written in stream of consciousness, with many of the words spelled phonetically. In the beginning of the novel, Precious can barely think in a way capable of communicating with her readers. But as she develops, her voice improves, not only in diction but in her ability to utilizes metaphor and nuance. It's not an original technique, to use the words on the page to reflect a character's development, but Sapphire puts it to skillful and effective use here. (3/5 Stars)

Red Orchestra by Anne Nelson

From The Week of February 28, 2010

It fascinates us, I think, to look back on periods in our history which exhibit all the symptoms of mass insanity. How did that happen, we ask in bewilderment. That would never happen now, we sagely reassure ourselves. The Nazis are the perfect case study for this phenomenon. All but the most pessimistic among us will agree that the average soul is a good soul. But if that's true, how do we explain the Nazis? How can so many ordinary people, good people, sane people, participate in a regime so heinous as to defy description?

Though Ms. Nelson does not directly speak to this most strange of human phenomenons, she does, in Red Orchestra, put a sizeable hole in the notion that opposition to Hitler and his cronies was non-existent. She, here, lifts the curtain of history upon a troop of brave, young men and women, educators, artists, performers, thinkers, who, upon witnessing Hitler's rise to power, try to do something about it. Swimming as they did in similar social circles, these allies were able to exchange messages, plan sedition, and pass on secrets to Allied governments, all in an effort to destabilize Hitler's regime and bring about a change for the better, for the sane. But as with most well-run, totalitarian regimes, their efforts were uprooted, unmasked and paraded scornfully before the people with a good lie or two thrown in just to make sure everyone knew who deserved the devil's horns. Some of them were executed by shamefully packed German courts while others escaped harm, but the outcome is not the objective of Ms. Nelson's tale. Hers is a lesson in conscience, conscience in the face of what people know to be wrong. It is a story about being overmatched, out-manned and out-gunned and going ahead anyway. Because right is not conditional. It's not dependent upon whether or not someone is going to take your head off for saying what is true. Right is right, no matter what the consequences are. This group of friends understood that and acted accordingly. Examples of greater courage are few and far between. (3/5 Stars)

The Steel Remains: A Land Fit For Heroes 01 by Richard K. Morgan

From The Week of February 21, 2010

Before you cast open the cover of one of the best books you'll ever read, you must do one thing. You must rid yourself of any notion of sweetness and light, of innocence and nobility. CThese are nothing but a bard's fictions, nice, little lies people tell each other to make the hard world seem softer. We all know better, don't we? That selfishness and cruelty don't even break a sweat as they stomp chivalry and beauty into the dust.

There you go. That feels better, doesn't it? Now you're ready to take a ride into darkness the likes of which you've not experienced. For Mr. Morgan gathers up every cliche of fantasy fiction and knifes them open just to see what might pour out. The result? A gloriously funny, exquisitely savage, and relentlessly confrontational piece of dark-as-sin, fantasy fiction that will have you scream in terror or elation, depending upon the strength of your stomach. All lyricism aside, Mr. Morgan has written the perfect book which even his considerable talents will find difficult to top. For we have here a combination of genre-busting characters tested by the tightest and darkest of plots rife with petty gods, zealot priests and indulgent emperors who, together, govern a corrupted world and its many beleaguered races.

Only an Englishman could write a book like this. Only he could bless it with the kind of dark humor that keeps the tale from tipping over into pure viciousness. And that is how this seductress charms, hilarity. Even in the thickness of battle, when the blood is splattering each page, there's a kind of maniac glee that cannot but infect the riveted reader. An unmatched tale of three antiheroes banding together for one, last kick at the can of glory, this time, against all odds, and all this in a land fit only for sadists. There are not enough stars in the sky for this book. (5/5 Stars)

PS: Please, blame me for ruining it for you if, on my recommendation you buy this and hate it. For I'm the one who skewed your expectations. I read this book cold, with only the vaguest idea of what it was about and the Prologue about blew the top of my head off. I couldn't help but slobber all over this review. My apologies if that messed up the bar for you. There was never a hope in Hell that this review would be even close to impartial.

The Rise And Fall Of Alexandria by Justin Pollard

From The Week of February 28, 2010

How do we know what we know about the past? Since the advent of modern technology, the sum total of human knowledge has been spread over a dizzying array of computer systems, databases, and library archives, all of which are difficult to destroy. And so we can feel fairly confident that our descendants will have a pretty clear picture of who we are and what we did. There's too much data for uncertainty. But stretch back before European Enlightenment and we have a much different picture of history. Literacy is confined to a tiny, privileged minority which means that, in the absence of a strong, oral history to pass on the knowledge of the common folk, what we do know of the past is determined by those rich enough, or religious enough, to have had the time and or the passion to write down and preserve, for posterity, the events of their times. Take a moment and grasp this notion. How much of what we know is skewed by bias, by false testimony, by deliberate deception? Not only that, what giants of history have come and gone, their accounts lost to us through misfortune? Because a book didn't get translated, or a church decided the story was inappropriate, or a fire burned off the material with which we could have constructed a history. Everything we know is filtered through a few thousand accounts of events we can barely relate to, but it didn't have to be this way.

Alexandria, the center of human knowledge. Named after the great conquerer, it was popularized by Ptolemy, an Alexandrian general with aspirations of greatness, to follow in his master's footsteps. And though he was somewhat successful in his goal, creating a line of kings and queens that lasted for centuries, his greater gift, at least to those who came after him, was his capital city, to which scholars, philosophers, mathematicians and dreamers all flocked. We know from modern day examples that places of knowledge have a kind of magnetism, that they draw in talent from far and wide. Look no further than the some 80 colleges ringed about Boston, Massachusetts for proof of that. Alexandria was no exception. At the height of the city's power, its library alone may have held tens of thousands of books procured from ships that would come into Alexandria's port, or bought at book fairs from all over the learned world. It is perhaps the gravest human travesty that the library burned, no doubt taking with it heroes now forever lost to us.

Knowledge may well be the most powerful human force, making the shaping of knowledge a close second. This is a theme that runs clear through Mr. Pollard's biography of Alexandria: the city, its rulers, its thinkers, and its great library. It chronicles the city's rise to prominence, which seems almost a beacon of knowledge in the night of ignorance, and its fall, an event which might well have plunged the western world into centuries of intellectual stagnation. This book is as thought provoking as it is edifying, asking us to wonder how our world might have been different had the light of knowledge been allowed to burn for awhile longer. Well told and with some fascinating, historical figures I'd never heard of. (4/5 Stars)

Alexander The Great And His Time by Agnis Sevill

From The Week of February 21, 2010

He is the most celebrated conquerer and hero in human history, the great unifier of seemingly half the world, Alexander, who spent his adult life in a saddle, leading an army of conquest and consolidation. Ms. Sevill's account of the great hero's life is forced into guesswork far more often than we'd like, but then there's much about the enigmatic Alexander that we do not know. And so gaps are filled in, suppositions made, avenues of thought explored, knowing all the while that only some of his deeds have come down to us through the turbulence of history.

Though Ms. Sevill does spent most of her time on Alexander's life, his birth to a fractious court, his difficult relationship with his mother, his thirst for knowledge, his heroic tutors, his stunning tactics, she leaves off her account with a rumination on the man's legacy. For while few will argue the claim at the top of this review, can the title of greatest conquerer and hero truly be claimed by one who died so young and whose reputation far outstripped his actual legacy? His empire fell apart almost immediately upon his death. And though his name thunders through history, does that not have to be weighed against his lack of planning for his own death, the event of which caused widespread chaos and strife? In this, he strikes me as not unlike Genghis Khan, a great man of his time who believed that he could forge a lasting legacy through strength of will alone, not thinking that, without his spirit to maintain the order he created with the edge of his sword, all would fall quickly into disarray.

What is greatness? Is it military genius? Or is it having the clarity of mind to imagine the next step, the next chapter, and plan for it? If it is the former, then Alexander is the unchallenged head of the pantheon of heroes. But if it is the latter, then I'm far from certain he rates above a particularly wise farmer.

In any event, a well-told history, insofar as we know it to be. (3/5 Stars)

Up In The Air by Walter Kern

From The Week of February 21, 2010

I love quirky novels. Though I do not always enjoy them, they have an oddly potent energy and passion I find fascinating. Up In The Air does not disappoint in its strangeness. Far from it. Any piece of fiction about a lonely man's obsessive quest to earn a million frequent flyer miles has surely earned its weirdness credibility a million times over.

Ryan Bingham, our disturbed protagonist, loves to fly. He seems to love everything about it: the chance to talk to anyone from any line of work, the sensation of freedom that comes from being 30,000 feet up, the ability to be anywhere in only a few hours. He loves rental cars and hotel rooms as well. They allow him never to leave any part of himself behind, no footprint, no signature. This kind of impermanence is a fetish for Mr. Bingham who is madly trying to complete his quest before his boss realizes he has left his job and retaliates by cancelling the credit card Mr. Bingham is using to accrue his points.

The novel takes a decidedly dark turn when Mr. Bingham starts to believe that someone is stealing his frequent flyer miles to take flights to places he's never been. Or has he been to those places, those towns and simply forgot? How would he know if he was? Mr. Kern's has written a story that hinges almost entirely on one character, Ryan Bingham, which is a gamble, but a gamble he successfully pulls off. There's a disquiet the reader experiences while watching Mr. Bingham's deterioration, a kind of anxiety I can only equate to watching the deranged unravel before our very eyes. And yet, rather than come off as ridiculous, Bingham is a clever allegory for our dislocated times in which nothing that we have, nothing that we own, is permanent, is lasting. Everything comes and goes, replaced by something new, just like Mr. Bingham, just like this keyboard I type on.

A thoughtful and powerful read. It reminds me of the not-so-quiet desperation exemplified in films like American Beauty. There's a franticness about the protagonist that is urgent and worrisome. Highly recommended if, like me, you like pieces that are some ways off the beaten path. (4/5 Stars)

Freedom For The Thought That We Hate by Anthony Lewis

From The Week of February 14, 2010

Freedom For The Thought That We Hate is a biography of the First Amendment, it's enshrinement in the American Constitution, its initial, conservative interpretation, and then, finally, its rise to unfettered dominance in the 20th century. Mr. Lewis sites Oliver Holmes as one of its most vigorous champions while covering other famous cases in which it played a preeminent role.

Freedom of Speech is a universally recognized right among enlightened nations, but that particularly unfettered strain of free speech practiced by Americans is comparatively rare. Most other nations, particularly those to have come out of the British Commonwealth, practice a more modest form of free speech which takes into account the greater good of society. If the speech is harmful to a great many people, then it can be justifiably censured. The manner in which such a system could be abused by government is obvious, but it seems to me that the American strain of free speech is not without its own flaws, for instance the Westboro Baptist church which pickets military funerals as a protest against the relatively permissive (for them) stance American society has taken towards homosexuality. This is considered protected speech because all speech is protected speech, but as Mr. Lewis points out, speech today has taken on a different meaning than the one originally intended for it. More over, an organization such as the Westboro Baptist church would have been unthinkable in the time when the American Constitution enshrined their first and least alienable amendment.

The debate will rage on which strain of free speech is better, safer, andfairer. However, that we can even have the debate is a sign that we possess the very right that the Founders thought so important. In writing this, I am practicing free speech, as was Mr. Lewis when he wrote his lovely book. A good biography of a difficult subject, least of all because it cannot defend itself. But that's well enough because millions stand ready, the world over, to defend it to the death. (4/5 Stars)

Switching Time by Richard K. Baer

From The Week of February 14, 2010

For those of us blessed with mental health, and though we may sometimes take it for granted, it is difficult to imagine a worse torment than the loss of ones mind. And yet that torment must be as nothing compared to what the sufferers of Multiple Personality Disorder are forced to endure. What would it be like to lose whole stretches of time and to not know why? What would it be like to realize that you've been acting during your lost hours, relating with other people, in situations utterly foreign to you? What would you do? What would you be willing to sacrifice to regain your sanity?

Dr. Baer relates, in Switching Time his experiences with one of his patients, a relationship that lasted many years and survived many trials. As he patiently assists the woman in piecing her life back together, we learn that her condition is caused by childhood trauma so dark, so awful, that it will not be discussed here. Suffice it to say that it is no wonder that the woman's mind broke under the strain of what she was forced to endure at the hands of those she ought to have trusted most.

Though the medicine practiced here is fascinating, the human story overwhelms the procedure. How many undiagnosed sufferers of MPD are out there, even now, survivors of unspeakable events, not knowing why they are losing time? Losing their lives... A stunning read and a must-consume for anyone even mildly interested in the plight of the mentally ill. (4/5 Stars)

Titan by Stephen Baxter

From The Week of February 14, 2010

There is but one group of readers who will be satisfied with Mr. Baxter's Titan, those readers who think, as he does, that science fiction is nothing more than orgiastic expressions of geekdom. Titan is an idea and nothing more. It doesn't have a purpose. Its characters barely grow. Hell, its villains, such as they are, have utterly incomprehensible motives until the reader realizes that the story has to be advanced forward somehow and that this monumental lifting has to fall to someone. This is geekdom, plain and simple, a quality idea dredged up from the mind of a scientist and put to paper with little thought of what to wrap around it; a hotdog with no bun. For those of you still interested in such plain fare...

In a near future America on the march towards religious zealotry -- because that's original! --, funding is being cut from the space program. In a last ditch effort to explore the solar system, a collection of astronauts and scientists hatch a plan to cannibalize the remaining extraorbital craft to build a single ship that will travel a select group of them to Saturn's moon, Titan, where they will live out their days, exploring and researching, knowing they cannot return home. Though there's an admirable kind of scientific existentialism about this one-way mission, and though some may find the human relations among the crew of some note, the story runs out of legs once the mission reaches Titan. Mr. Baxter's tale concludes with a coda so ridiculous, so disconnected from the main thrust of his story, that it's not worth detailing here.

A story must be animated by something more than an idea. It has to be inflated by characters and their personalities. It has to be alive. And unfortunately, Mr. Baxter has only simulated life in Titan. There is no true genesis. (1/5 Stars)

Dirt by Neil Strauss

From The Week of February 07, 2010

Dirt is an appropriate title for one of the filthiest works of non-fiction ever penned. There are surely other works which contain more salacious details of a group of men and their depraved exploits, but Mr. Strauss has them beat on the sheer variety of filth represented. Of course, when your subject is the infamous Motley Crue, getting dirty is far from difficult.

Fans of titillating tell-alls will be disappointed by the absence of serious graphic detail which goes wanting in favor of a sweeping portrayal of a band, its members, and their antics. And though triumph and tragedy feature prominently, there's plenty of time to zoom in on the details, capturing cancelled shows, foolish fights, petty squabbles and a dizzying array of tours which prove too numerous and various to follow. And lest we forget, the women, a veritable flurry of models who rotate through the tale as girlfriends, wives, ex-wives and friends of ex-wives. For all this, the most memorable scene is stolen by Ozzy Osbourne who, in one spectacular display of disgustitude, manages to combine about four of the foulest human activities into one, indescribable event. Just one hint... It involves ants.

For all of Motley Crue's extravagance, for all their grudges, disputes, and battles, there's an admirably captured sense of camaraderie here that lingers throughout. It and money are no doubt the only redeeming virtues for the schedules these men have kept over the years. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that the whole affair would be unbearable without them. And too, beneath the noise, there are touching moments, one death in particular that will stay with me for some time. Mr. Strauss strikes a good balance between the depravity and the humanity and leaves the reader satisfied that he has some sense of rock's last, real, riotous band. (4/5 Stars)

Game Change by John Heilemann And Mark Halperin

From The Week of February 07, 2010

Politics is such an ugly business, populated as it is with labyrinthine agendas and ideological entrenchment. If it weren't for the obscene amount of public power wielded by the victors of the various elections, no sane person would bother with it.

Yet, somehow, politics has become a spectator sport, particularly in the United States where the polarization of the two major parties establishes a kind of red-team versus blue-team mentality that fits the sports analogy perfectly. Who's up? Who's down? Who's about to rally and whose about to take their ball and go home? This is the talk of bars and coffee shops.

So it should not surprise, in the least, that the fortunes of politicians are covered with the same zeal and the same loose, ethical standards found in sportswriting. For make no mistake, Game Change cannot pretend to have any journalistic credibility. It is an eminently entertaining recount of the 2008 Presidential race which draws wonderfully acidic portraits of all the major participants from Barack Obama to Sarah Palin, but there's hardly any attribution anywhere, especially in the most juicy moments. Compare this to the book by Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson which covered the same topic but kept itself from the kind of backroom speculation Game Change devolves to.

There's room in our culture for Game Change. After all, there's room in our culture for gossip pages at magazines, but we should not assume that this has any more credibility than that. Perhaps Mr. Halperin and Mr. Heilemann nail every point, properly paint every character portrait, but without attribution we can't know that. Without attribution, this is just particularly well-researched gossip.

That said, it is a delightful read. The portrait of Elizabeth Edwards is devastating and memorable, as is the extent to which the McCain/Palin campaign seemed doomed from the start. But enjoyable isn't credible and so I must walk away from Game Change unsure of what's true and what's old-fashioned score-settling. (3/5 Stars)

The Third Claw Of God: Andrea Cort 02 by Adam-Troy Castro

From The Week of February 07, 2010

Having lost the novelty of the first tale which won our affections, sequels must invariably have superior plots to their progenitors in order to avoid disappointment. For not only do readers come to them armed with hopes unfairly elevated by the first book in a given series, authors are often the last to know when they've milked too much of a good thing and turned it sour with repetition. Not so with The Third Claw Of God which is every bit as good as the book that gave it life.

While Emissaries From The Dead emphasized the science fiction over the mystery, The Third Claw of God takes the opposite approach, providing a science fiction setting for a fascinating, if old-school, detective story. En-route to execute another in a long line of repugnant tasks, handed down to her by her extortive masters in the judicial branch of this future, human civilization, Andrea Cort, diplomat extraordinaire, and her two companions are trapped aboard a stricken transport ferrying them to the surface of their destination, a planet become personal fiefdom for one of the most rapacious families in the known worlds. Somehow, during the accident, a murder was committed, a murder which could have only been carried out by someone still aboard the lavish and now crippled ferry. Being as how everyone on the transport is trapped for the next few hours, there's no reason for Ms. Cort not to bring her considerable powers to bear upon the unsolved crime.

Mr. Castro has intentionally restricted the scenery of his book down to the transport and little else. So unlike with Emissaries, he cannot rely upon his creative scenery to carry the story. He turns instead to a cast of fascinating characters, spiteful, greedy, vindictive, jealous, and murderous, to propel the story along. And they give him admirable service, animating an excellent second effort from Mr. Castro that will have me reading the third when it comes out. The Third Claw Of God showed real range, given how much it varied from Emissaries. Impressive work. (4/5 Stars)

Emissaries From The Dead: Andrea Cort 01 by Adam-Troy Castro

From The Week of February 07, 2010

Weird is a specialty of Science Fiction. In no other genre of literature is a good story more dependent upon the author unfettering his imagination from the bounds of social custom and the laws of the universe. In such an inventive environment, weirdness is almost an inevitability. Mr. Castro's first novel in a series based on his heroine, Andrea Cort, troubled diplomat, is not only no exception to this weirdness rule, it celebrates its freakishness in ways alternately enjoyable and frightening.

Centuries into the future, humanity has spread across the stars, populating not only planets and moons but artificial habitats which float, fully formed , in deepest space. Humans have not only discovered that they are far from alone in the universe, they've grown comfortable living on already occupied worlds, co-mingling with alien species and even depending upon alien habitats for their own survival. Andrea Cort is, herself, an experiment of interspecies relations. The half-mad product of a social experiment between humans and aliens which went horribly, horribly wrong, she has grown into, to all outward appearances, a powerful, domineering diplomat attached to what we might think of as the judicial branch of human government. Internally, however, Ms. Cort is a roil of uncertainty and confusion, tumultuous emotions which are the legacy of a nightmarish childhood. She is an indentured worker of the state, paying off debts both actual and spiritual. And the latest installment she must pay off? Solving a murder on a dangerous, alien habitat, rife with rivalries, secrets and species no human has begun to understand.

Mr. Castro's biography doesn't exactly inspire confidence; one does not expect great, imaginative fiction from a man who has written Spiderman novels. Shame on me for judging him. This is an excellent piece of science fiction, exactly as it should be: creative, expansive, thrilling, risque and bizarre. I have particular admiration for the sexual relationships Mr. Castro has generated here. Ms. Cort's intimacies with a pair of humans who've chosen to live together telepathically, as a kind of sibling pair, is fascinating and titillating. A well-rounded effort. (4/5 Stars)