Nothing to Hang Your Cowboy Hat On

Book Review: Sierra Skullduggery by Jerry S. Drake

I find that writing a three star review is the most difficult of any as a reviewer. It is much easier to write either really positive reviews, or really negative ones - the strong emotions that the book has provoked make the words flow effortlessly. I find myself at a loss when the book hasn't touched a chord in me. What do I say?

There is nothing inherently wrong with "Sierra Skullduggery". Author Jerry S. Drake is an able enough craftsman to keep the story moving, literally and figuratively. As a native Californian, I enjoyed the staging of the story in the historic Gold Country in the western Sierras. For the most part Drake is accurate in his details, and since this is a novel that is more than enough. There is sufficient action, and the characters have some depth.

There is just something missing from "Sierra Skullduggery". Being a fan of Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey, maybe I set the bar too high. I really wanted to like this book. I even re-read it, thinking I must have overlooked some key point.

Finally, it occurred to me: I couldn't FEEL the story. If I closed my eyes and tried to envision the main characters, it was mostly a blank. The hero is "tall and lean", his wife is "a pretty blond woman." No clear picture evolves in the course of the story. I have spent time in the Sierras, but the scenery I know doesn't come across in "Skullduggery". Instead I see a sort of generic Western landscape that doesn't do the real setting or the story any justice. When you read a Louis L'Amour story you can smell the creosote bushes, and you can taste the dust of the trail. It's the difference between a Western movie filmed on location, and one that was shot on a sound stage. It's a matter of atmosphere.

"Sierra Skullduggery" is a good enough story on the face of it, but a Western is more than just a tall, lean man wearing a six-shooter. With some minor changes this story could be happening in Los Angeles, or Chicago, or Timbuktu, in a variety of time periods. A painless way to kill an afternoon, but not much more than that.

Steven Martin's Pipe Dream?

Book Review: Opium Fiend: A 21st Century Slave to a 19th Century Addiction by Steven Martin

While I have no doubt that Steven Martin is an expert in opium smoking paraphernalia, after reading Opium Fiend I have serious misgivings on his experience with smoking it himself.

While it may be romantic to picture oneself as a "21st Century Slave to a 19th Century Addiction", our picture of addiction in the 21st century is anything but romantic. Martin's descriptions of the effects of smoking opium (and of withdrawing from it) are sufficiently realistic - but also very close to those of the references he cites throughout the book. Compared to the loving and detailed descriptions of his pipes and accouterments, the portrayal of his actual smoking activities are so much dross. The devil is in the details, and a lot of them are missing.

Martin admits to researching his subject thoroughly in old books and on the Web, and he quotes them frequently. Well, what of that? Well, there is this passage:

"I had spent the previous week ... using the Internet to update as much of the 'Rough Guide to Cambodia' as possible. My submission was way overdue ... Just a few years before it would have been impossible to get reliable information solely from the Net, but coverage of Cambodia had expanded and it was no longer absolutely necessary to visit in person. Of course this wasn't something I'd be telling my editors ..."

Is Opium Fiend a genuine collectible textile, or is it whole cloth, another Internet research project? It struck me as being like an American opium den in the 1800s, a pastiche of vaguely Oriental elements, a 21st century interpretation of a 19th century addiction which it wasn't necessary to visit in person. Like a brass bell, this just didn't ring genuine to me.

The Truth About Managers

Book Review: The Truth About Managing People by Stephen P. Robbins

If we are to judge by books about management, what managers truly need is a course in time management. Apparently the average manager does not have the time to read more than a two-page distillation of how to hire the right people or how to discipline an employee. One-minute management techniques yield exactly the results you would expect - a quick and dirty "fix" that isn't going to be able to bear the test of time.

Or is it that managers simply don't have the attention span necessary to absorb more information than that at a time?

The tone of books on management really hasn't changed over the last two decades, and The Truth About Managing People follows tried and true tracks. Not tried and true management methods, but tried and true methods of selling books on management. Short, pithy summaries of common management pitfalls and the "true" way of dealing with them.

I have been managing people for the last three decades, and the first and only truth I have learned for certain is that formulaic methods of dealing with your employees and your organization will yield mediocre results, uninspired employees, and low job satisfaction. But in the right organization it will get you made a vice president.

Blind as a Bat

Book Review: Flying Blind: One Man's Adventures Battling Buckthorn, Making Peace with Authority, and Creating a Home for Endangered Bats by Don Mitchell

As human beings, we like to think that the course of our lives is linear, logical, and to a certain extent, predictable. In other words, we want desperately to believe that our lives make sense, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

I live in an area where there is a resident bat population. On summer nights, shortly after dusk, I have watched them darting across the night sky as they forage. Their apparently random movements are the antithesis of linear, logical, and predictable behavior. At least so it appears to our unperceptive human eyes.

Like the flight of a bat, Flying Blind dips and swerves, but not without purpose. Cutting down trees requires a chainsaw, the resulting piles of wood require an ATV to haul them out of the forest. These side trips are not extraneous; they are part of the process that is needed to get from point A to point B; "... bouncing from here to there, from one topic to the next without advance warning. Much of life is lived that way, looked at from a certain angle." The bat is not zig-zagging through the sky aimlessly - it is getting dinner. We're simply looking at the bat's behavior from the wrong angle.

Mitchell begins to see the trees within the forest, individuals that are both distinct and yet cogs in a larger system. The trees, the invasive weeds, and the bats themselves each have their own niche. As Mitchell becomes immersed in the interaction of these interdependent parts, he begins to wonder how he fits into the grand scheme; what is Don Mitchell's niche? "Maybe there was a light at the end of this tunnel; maybe my efforts would eventually help the bats." Life is NOT linear, logical, or predictable; our insistence that it is leaves us all flying blind.

Flying Blind is author Don Mitchell's journey to epiphany; a story that begins with him trying to find a way to reduce the property tax burden on his Vermont farm and ending with the realization of his own place in the world.

I Loved It ... I Hated It

Book Review: The Harm in Asking: My Clumsy Encounters with the Human Race by Sara Barron

Sara Barron's The Harm in Asking is a particularly balanced piece of humor writing: half funny, half not. If a book had a personality, this one would be bi-polar.

Admittedly, as a 60+ year old hetero male, I am sure I was not in the target audience that Ms. Barron had in mind when she wrote this. I am equally sure that the 20-something metrosexuals that she IS targeting would agree that some middle-aged guy is no way hip enough to understand; just too old to GET IT.

Well, maybe so. Or maybe not. I am a firm believer that you shouldn't just read books you know you will like, so I set aside my initial reluctance and dove in. And found myself laughing out loud. Repeatedly.
And then I turned the page.

I have been around the literary block a time or two. I was not shocked. I was not offended. It was not funny. When I was 12 I loved Mad Magazine; I thought it was hilarious. It can still get a smile out of me, but it's certainly not as funny as I once thought it was. Fart jokes lost their shine about four decades ago. They have been done - over and over and OVER.

Reading The Harm in Asking is a constant battle between humor and boredom. At times I fought to stifle my laughter, the rest of the time I struggled to keep reading, fighting the urge to put it down and never come back. Sara Barron writes intelligently, concisely, and directly - all good things. I enjoyed half of the book immensely. Bodily functions don't offend me; at my age I'm pretty used to them, but I stopped laughing about them a long time ago.