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.

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.

A Great Beginning

Book Review: Creative Character Design by Bryan Tillman

Bryan Tillman's Creative Character Design is a good beginner's guide for creating graphic or even literary characters. He emphasizes the importance of "the story", the history of the character and how that will affect the appearance and development of the character. This is an important rule for authors as well as artists.

Tillman also approaches the role of archetypes in character creation. Archetypes appear in every facet of human storytelling, from pre-literate cave paintings to the modern day, and the creative artist ignores them at their peril. He breaks down and the most common archetypes and illustrates how they can interact and even overlap.

Tillman utilizes a light tone in his lessons which may strike some as a trifle un-professional -- but that I think is well suited to the topic and level of the lessons. It isn't physics, it's art, and beginning level at that; I think the pop and zing of his narrative style work just fine. The artwork is not overwhelming, but what beginner wants that thrown in his face? The art and text is completely at home for the target audience (Tillman talks about that too!)

My only grievance would be that the book stops too soon; I wanted more. It helps lay a good foundation, and I wanted to start building walls. A great beginning!

A Page-turner of a Funeral

Book Review: A Burial at Sea (Charles Lenox Mysteries) by Charles Finch

Being a fan of both history and mystery, it is a wonder that I managed to go so long without discovering the Charles Lenox historical mystery series by author Charles Finch. A Burial at Sea, fifth book in the series, served as my introduction to Victorian detective Lenox and it was an enjoyable voyage clear through.

Finch's writing is clear and direct, and he manages to inject just the right amount of nautical terminology into the early chapters - describing it through the eyes of the non-seafaring Lenox so that the landlubbers among us don't confuse our bowsprits with our mizzens. He also lays the historical groundwork with easy facility, describing the politics of the English navy and how the class distinctions on land extended onto the seas. This supplies the undercurrent for the murders that Lenox must solve.

And in solving them, Lenox is at times as baffled as we are. After some time in Parliament, his skills are a little rusty, and without his usual experts at hand, he must work with what he has. The cast of characters that Finch lays out for us (and Lenox) are varied in background and personality, and Finch keeps them believable in their different aspects.

As the murder is solved and the ship arrives in port, we are returned to the mission that was the original purpose of Lenox's voyage. The story shifts scene but sails ahead on land, moving the characters into a more exotic locale that is no less threatening, and as fast-paced. My only dissatisfaction with the ending of the story was that there was no more to read.

If Jackson Pollock Could Write

Book Review: Big Lonesome by Joseph Scapellato

The artist Jackson Pollock was famous for his "action paintings", in which he would tack a large canvas to the floor and drip, splatter, and smear paint across it's entire surface. It was the act of painting that was important, not what (if anything) the painting showed.

His work was performance art, using paint as a medium. He even went to the extent of titling his paintings by number, rather than assigning names, to avoid preconceptions by the viewer.

There are people that can look at a Jackson Pollock painting and see something, who are able to coalesce the random spattering of paint into a theme or a concept or even a scene. Personally I believe this is more a function of their own consciousness, not the intent of the artist. For Pollock, the activity of painting was more important than what was being painted.

Joseph Scapellato's collection of short stories, Big Lonesome, swings between episodes of the real ("Immigrants", "Company"), to random gatherings of words, dripped onto pages apparently left lying on the floor ("Horseman Cowboy"). In the first case, the object is clear to anyone that reads it. In the second case, the reader's ability to discern a message may rely more on wishful thinking and a desire to see something where nothing exists. The mere act of putting words (or paint) on paper does not automatically make it art, or provide it with meaning.

At its best, Big Lonesome provides us with a montage of dispirited characters, coping with the small, individual loneliness that is human existence, and he manages to do it in a distinctive and incisive manner. The "surreal" bits in between intrude into this fabric, but without the redeeming quality of providing a counterpoint. They seem to exist simply to create a perception of artistic merit, but instead appear more like 'Magic Eye' paintings that have been hung among the Masters in an art gallery. If you squint your eyes and tilt your head just right, you may see something, but in the end it diverts and distracts rather than enlightens.