Flintlock by Jason Manning

Good summer fun!

Originally published in 1994.

Flintlock is the frontier nickname of Nathaniel Jones, a deadeye shot on the Kentucky frontier. The book is ostensibly about Aaron Burr and his attempt to break the American West away from the rest of the United States in the early 1800s. For those of you not familiar with Burr, he was the former Vice President (Jefferson's first term) who killed America's first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton (the guy on your $10 bill) in a duel. This ruined his political career and he was accused of conspiring to turn the US territory East of the Mississippi and west of the Appalachians into a personal dictatorship.

Aaron Burr
(1756-1836)

The book has a rather large prologue (almost 1/2 of the book) that concerns young Flintlock's exploits as a teen in the Revolutionary War on the Virginia/Kentucky frontier. To be honest, that is the only complaint that I have with the book - its back cover does not accurately describe its contents. It's a fun summertime book, a quick read with lots of action and lots of historical background thrown in. Is it a great work of fiction, able to stand with Melville and Hemingway? No, but it is a fun little book that does all that it was ever intended to do - entertain a lot and educate a little.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Flintlock.

Reviewed in 2004.

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

Holds up well

Originally published in 1951.

The Day of the Triffids is a classic end-of-the-world sci-fi novel set in England. 

Two bizarre things happen at the beginning of the novel to create disaster. Number 1: Science "discovers" walking plants that are named Triffids that can communicate among themselves. Our narrator, Bill Masen, believes that they are the result of Russian military testing, possibly meant to be a weapon, but they quickly spread all over the world. The Triffid is harmless enough until it grows to be man-sized. Then, it is able to walk by using its branches to swing its trunk, similar to the way a man on crutches walks. Once it walks, it is also able to hunt with this long whip-like tentacle with a poisoned tip. The Triffids like to eat putrid, rotting meat, much like a Venus Flytrap. It tears the meat loose with its tentacle.

The Triffids are more of a curiosity to the world, though until bizarre thing #2 happens: There is a meteor shower one night - it is very bright and people all over the world watch it because it goes on all night. The next day, everyone who saw any part of the shower goes blind. Our narrator, however, is not blind because he had hospitalized for eye surgery and his eyes had been bandaged the night of the shower. Masen believes the meteor shower was not a natural occurrence, but rather it was all a mistaken attack by an American or Russian satellite with a space-based radiation weapon.

The rest of the book concerns Masen and his struggle to survive. Everything collapses when 95% of the population goes blind. The whole of England becomes a Mad Max environment and different types of communities are formed to attempt to deal with the blind survivors, the Triffids and the threat from other sighted survivors.

All in all, it's a good read and it holds up well, considering it's age. Wyndham did a great job of predicting the Cold War and the buildup of weapons and the push to harness science for military applications. I would assume that this book had been read by the creators of Mad Max because they share a lot of the same images. However, don't get this book confused with the constant violence of the Mad Max movie The Road Warrior. Those scenes are rare, even if the settings are similar. This is a much more philosophical work, with lots of discussion about the nature of man.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham.

Reviwed in 2004.

Murder One (Ben Kincaid #10) by William Bernhardt

Not as good as the others in the series

Published in 2001.

William Bernhardt has a whole collection of books he has written concerning small-time lawyer Ben Kincaid and his (mis)adventures and legal maneuverings. Most of the books feature Ben and his ragtag office staff going against well-funded corporate lawyers or the District Attorney's office and somehow coming up with a win.

Murder One is no different, except that it is not as good a book as the others he has written. In fact, I would not have reviewed this book for this forum at all except for the review quote on the cover that says, "...You never see the end coming." In today's over-hyped marketplace I've seen a lot of quotes like this, but this time it was true. I did not see it coming and that (and the accurate quote) deserves recognition.

This book, however, only rates a "3 stars" from me - it did not stay true to the strong character development that was present in the other books and I thought Ben Kincaid strayed from the character that has been built throughout the rest of the books.

I do, however, recommend any of his very early books - they are fun and well-written.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Murder One (Ben Kincaid series Book 10)

Reviewed in August of 2004.

The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin, Jr.

Originally published in 1978.

Winner of the National Book Award

The Book of the Dun Cow is a simple fable of Chauntecleer, a rooster. He is in charge of a small animal kingdom and is confronted by the evil Cockatrice, a half snake/half rooster who is the son of the devil, an evil serpent that is trapped beneath the surface of the earth but is trying to get out to destroy God's creation. The book revolves around the efforts of the animals to come together to confront the evil threat and the costs that such action entails. It also has much deeper themes such as the nature of love and forgiveness.

I really was not looking forward to reading this book - in fact, I only picked it out of my pile of books because I thought that I had remembered a friend had read it while we were in high school. Much to my surprise, however, I loved it. It was well-paced and the main characters had depth. I recommend this book enthusiastically.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Book of the Dun Cow.

Reviewed in August of 2004.

Letters To A Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens

Originally published in 2001

Letters To A Young Contrarian is supposed to be a book for young people - I'm assuming by young they mean late high school or college.

I am a high school teacher and I can tell you that Hitchens' repeated use of foreign phrases without translations (such as "saeva indignatio" - p. 8 and "dei sacrificium intellectus" - p. 23 and "cette 'fugutive du camp des vainqueurs'" - pp. 91-2) and his continual references to the 60s and the Cold War without any background will lose nearly every young person who attempts to read it.

If by young, they meant 36 years old, than this 36 year old found the text to be interesting and challenging. However, I have to give it a poor score because he will fail to hit the stated target audience - and he will miss by a long shot.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Letters to a Young Contrarian.

Reviewed on August 21, 2004.

This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War by James McPherson

A "Must" for All Students of the Civil War

Published in 2009 by Oxford University Press.

This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War is a collection of 16 essays by well-known historian James McPherson on a number of Civil War-related topics. Some of the essays are brand new, but most have been published before but have been re-worked for this book.

The essays fall into five broad categories:

1) Slavery and the Coming of War; 

2) The Lost Cause Revisited; 

3) Architects of Victory; 

4) Home Front and Battle Front; 

5) Lincoln.

McPherson discusses the causes of the war in the first essay - a brilliant essay entitled "And The War Came." McPherson directly confronts those that insist that slavery had no part in causing the war. Please, read this essay if you are one of those people before you make that argument again (if you don't want to buy the book for fear of supporting someone who skewers your particular point of view, get it at your library, read it in the coffee shop at Barnes and Noble - just read it!)

Essay number 4 is called "Was the Best Defense a Good Offense? Jefferson Davis and Confederate Strategies." I liked this one because I spent a lot of time as a young person playing a Civil War board game called Battle Cry and it was always a challenge to figure out how to defend the Mississippi River valley in the Confederacy so I could sympathize with Jefferson Davis's quandary. Turns out that I analyzed things about like Davis did most times.

"The Last Rebel: Jesse James" was an interesting look at what really was a tiny little slice of the Civil War that spawned one of America's most famous criminals. Fascinating stuff.

"Brahmans At War" was an essay I was prepared to blow off - who really cares about the Boston elite, Harvard grads, and their experience in the war? Wow, was I wrong. A great essay about fantastic men who led from the front and gave more than their share. I was awestruck by the tale of Captain John Kelliher who lost his arm, lower jaw, a shoulder blade, two ribs and a clavicle at Spotsylvania. He not only survived - he returned to the front to assume command of the regiment!

Great set of essays. Well-written, a master historian at the top of his game.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War by James McPherson.

Reviewed on August 4, 2010.

Mr. Adams's Last Crusade: John Quincy Adams's Extraordinary Post-Presidential Life In Congress by Joseph Wheelan

I have found a new hero from history

Published in 2008.

I've known about John Quincy Adams's post-Presidential career ever since I read Profiles In Courage by JFK many, many years ago. However, what I most remember about that description of him was that that he argued against slavery in the Congress when he could have just coasted along in a comfortable political semi-retirement.

In the well-written Mr. Adams's Last Crusade, Joseph Wheelan does us all a favor by elaborating on John Quincy Adams's amazing career. Wheelan briefly covers John Quincy Adams's early career in the first 65 pages. As a teenager, John Quincy Adams was an assistant to his father while he was an ambassador to Europe during the Revolutionary War. He served as ambassador to several European countries after the War and also as Secretary of State (the Monroe Doctrine is as much his as Monroe's) and finally President.

Oddly enough, that amazing career was only a prelude to his post-Presidential career as a Representative from Massachusetts in the U.S. Congress. He reports to Congress at age 64. Adams was vaguely opposed to slavery but was very much in favor of the rights to free speech and petition. The Congress was avoiding any discussion of the topic of slavery, including ignoring all petitions to end slavery in Washington, D.C. (Congress administers the District of Columbia so it could have outlawed slavery within it by simple passage of a law).

Adams was indignant that a basic part of the Bill of Rights was being ignored so he began to read the petitions on the floor. He was told to stand down but he kept on reading. He was shouted it, threatened and shunned but he kept on reading. He began to investigate slavery, discovered he loathed it and was motivated to read even more petitions. In fact, the conservative "Adams had become the de facto chief spokesman for many of those denied a voice in government - abolitionists silenced by the Gag Rule, slaves, Indians and finally, women." (p. 150)

Finally, after years of these struggles, Adams was censured by Congress for treason for presenting "a petition espousing the dissolution of the United States because of the 'peculiar institution' that the South so desperately wished not to discuss." (p. 196) Adams was previously known to be a poor public speaker but in this cause he found his voice. He was put on trial in the Congress and he defended himself for nine days. He spoke with soaring words, withering sarcasm, humor and anger. Ralph Waldo Emerson described him as a "bruiser" (p. 197) when discussing his political speech-making skills and he was not wrong. The charges were dropped but Adams's speeches destroyed the political careers of some of those who brought the charges of treason against him. He found his voice and he used it to full effect everywhere he went.

A daguerreotype of Adams (1767-1848) taken  in 1843

The unpopular president who could not seem to connect with the common man on any level became a sort of folk hero - the man who stands against the crowd and fights the fight that he knows is right despite the odds - and wins!

Adams's role in the establishment of the Smithsonian is also well-covered in the text as well as plenty of details about his personal life.

Adams was sitting at his seat in the House when he suddenly collapsed. Two days later he died in the Capitol building. His funeral procession was the most elaborate until Lincoln's 17 years later. with his death, most felt that their last living connection with the Revolutionary War era had ended - the youngest of that generation had passed.

Well-written, informative, and inspiring - this book is highly recommended.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Mr. Adams's Last Crusade.

Reviewed on January 16, 2010.