The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag by Robert A. Heinlein

Creepy Change of Pace for Heinlein

Originally published in 1942 in "Unknown Worlds" magazine.
Published by Blackstone Audio in 2009.

Read by Tom Weiner

Duration: 3 hours, 54 minutes.

Unabridged

Multiple Hugo Award winning author Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) changes his tone with the novella The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag.

This audiobook seems much more like a Philip K. Dick story than a Heinlein story since it features none of the themes that Heinlein is well known for, like space travel, alien contact or time travel. Instead, we get an extra helping of creepy with a surprise ending that truly demonstrates Heinlein’s ability to master a variety of styles.

First published under a pseudonym in the now-defunct magazine Unknown Worlds in 1942, The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag features Ted and Cynthia Randall, a husband and wife private detective team based in Chicago. They are approached by a fastidious little man with a topcoat and silk gloves named Jonathan Hoag. He has an odd proposition – he offers them a preposterously large retainer to help him figure out what he does for a living. Mr. Hoag knows that he has a well-paying job that pays him cash, but he does not have the faintest idea what that job is. The crisis began while he was at a dinner party and another guest commented on the reddish stains under his fingernails and asked what he did for a living to leave such a residue behind. He was very bothered to find that he did not know.

Ted and Cynthia agree to help him and find that this may not be as easy as they thought.  They find that everything about Mr. Hoag seems to be a mystery and the more they interact with him, the more they doubt their own eyes and ears. Soon enough they discover that “the whole world might be just a fraud and an illusion.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)

The story suffers a bit from age, which is to be expected. After all, this story is nearly 70 years old. Some of the expressions that are used may have been very hip and stylish in 1942 but they sound a bit clunky to the ear nowadays. Also, some aspects of the story such as elevator operators and doctors making house calls may be totally foreign concepts to some listeners. That being said, the underlying story overcomes all of that window dressing. Rumor has it that a movie version of this story is in the works as well.

Award-winning narrator Tom Weiner skillfully handles a variety of different voices throughout. He voices Mr. Hoag perfectly, catching his prissy, fussy nature throughout, but adding a different tone once we discover his true profession. His characterization of the story’s bad guys (I am intentionally not describing them so as not to ruin their scenes) has the perfect amount of menace and mystery.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag.

Note: I received a free copy of this audiobook from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Reviewed on September 3, 2011.

NPR American Chronicles: World War II (audiobook)

Absolutely Fantastic

Original Radio Broadcast by NPR
Duration: 3 hours
Published 2011 by HighBridge Audio

NPR's American Chronicles: World War II is a 3 hour collection of 27 stories broadcast over the radio network from 1982 to 2010 around the topic of World War II.

This collection is not designed to introduce the reader to the war or to its causes - it assumes the listener has a basic grasp of the facts. But, what it does do is delve deeply into certain topics that are associated with the war, such as the life of Londoners during the Blitz, the story of a young Japanese man who was in an internment camp, the Doolittle Raid, Bill Millin - the "Mad Piper" who played the bagpipe for his Scottish regiment as they landed at Normandy (because tradition demanded it), women on the home front, artists who may have used their skills to help the Americans to trick the Germans, and an interview with one of the pilots of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki.

The atomic mushroom cloud over Nagasaki

This is an exceptionally strong collection - even the worst stories are quite good. My favorite is the story of Tuskegee Airman Alexander Jefferson who tells his story with a lot of zest and hauntingly tells of visiting the death camp at Dachau and noting that the ovens used to cremate the victims were still warm. The reports are well narrated and  include lots of music from the era and bits of radio reports to give the listener more of a feel for the time.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: NPR American Chronicles: World War II.

This audiobook was sent to me for free by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Reviewed on November 18, 2011.

The Boat of a Million Years (audiobook) by Poul Anderson

Ambitious idea but it tends to drag.

Read by Tom Weiner.

Duration: 20 hours, 16 minutes.

Published by Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Unabridged.

Multiple award winner and science fiction legend Poul Anderson’s The Boat of a Million Years did something that science fiction all-too-rarely does when it was published in 1989 – it got the attention of the mainstream literature critics. The New York Times named it a “New York Times Notable Book.” Besides mainstream recognition, it was also nominated for multiple science fiction awards as well.

The Boat of Million Years follows a group of immortal people through their lives. These are regular people in every respect except that they never age. They were not all born at the same time – some were born earlier (as early as 5,000 years ago), some later but there seems to be no pattern that explains their immortality. Their ancestors are not necessarily long-lived, their descendents do not inherit their immortality. They recover quickly from injury (their teeth grow back, for example) but they can be killed by accidents, disease and battle.

Poul Anderson (1926-2001)

The book is not a traditional novel. Rather, it is a series of vignettes – snapshots of these characters at some moment in time, usually a time of great change or opportunity. We follow characters as they explore new trade routes with the Ancient Greeks, or narrowly escape being lynched for being a witch or have a meeting with Cardinal Richelieu (a rarity – the book mostly avoids the temptation of having these characters meet celebrities throughout time).

There are themes and patterns that Anderson develops throughout the book. The immortals are lonely. This is understandable since there are not many of them (and they rarely encounter another one – and if they do, how can you be sure? There is inherent danger in revealing oneself) and the people they grow up with and live with all age and die while they look like they are still 25 years old. Their children and their grandchildren grow old while they remain young. Anderson reminds us of this loneliness over and over again with every character. Anderson does not have these characters come up with much in the way of Great Truths. Yes, they have lots of experience, but are not necessarily wise.

While ambitious, nearly every vignette drags. Perhaps it was the audio format that made certain qualities of Anderson’s writing style leap to the forefront but I quickly grew tired of his frequent descriptions of landscapes by way of lists. I kept imagining bullet points on a PowerPoint presentation rather than the landscapes themselves. The writing is often clunky, almost like everyone is participating in a low budget drive in movie gladiator movie from the 1950s. Tom Weiner’s narration is solid – he does a lot with multiple accents, for example - but he can do little to breathe life into this audiobook. 

I rate this audiobook 1 star out of 5.

This audiobook can be purchased on Amazon.com here: The Boat of a Million Years.

Note: I was sent a free copy of this audiobook by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Reviewed on September 18, 2011.

Tribe by James Bruno

Power plays in Afghanistan and in D.C.

Published in 2011.

When I first picked up the book Tribe, I assumed that the title referred to the complicated loyalties of local Afghan politics that create the hard-to-decipher undercurrents that permeate Afghan politics. After all, the cover photo features the silhouette of what looks to be a mujaheddin soldier brandishing an assault rifle. My assumption was wrong on multiple levels.

If I were more adept with my weapons identification skills, I would have known right away that the soldier was brandishing an American M16, not the omnipresent AK47 favored in Afghanistan - which is a clue to the direction of the book. While wild and hairy adventures in Afghanistan and Yemen exist in the book, this is not really a book about American adventurism in the Muslim world. Instead, the tribe referred to is the brotherhood of intelligence agents - Russian, Afghan, American who do the secret work of their governments but really have more in common with one another than they do with the people who issue their orders.

Bruno would know something about this, having served in the diplomatic corps and as a military intelligence officer for many years. In Tribe we see that ground level CIA operatives and their bosses at the top of the political food chain in Washington, D.C. live in two different worlds with different sets of goals and neither may be quite based in reality.

CIA officer Harry Brennan has a game-changing operation that is about ready to swing into action in Afghanistan - a plan that might very well destroy the Taliban. Suddenly, his superiors pull the plug on his operation and his decision to go ahead with it on his own has spectacular but mixed results that result in his being called back to D.C. and put on a very short leash. But, political winds shift and Brennan becomes involved with major elite power players - the kind that craft grand  policies. Through Brennan we see policy created and implemented from the White House level on down to the dusty mountain roads of Afghanistan - we see operatives that are unaware of larger issues and top level officials that create grand plans for Central Asia that have no basis in ground-level realities.

Brennan is a likeable character with an admirable devotion to his daughter, even if he has a wandering eye for the ladies. His network of friends and a (mostly) constant devotion to his own standards of what is right make this an enjoyable trip through the jumbled world that produces American foreign policy. Throw is some behind-the-scenes look at the world of spies and spying and some well-written adventure and you have a solid book.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Tribe by James Bruno.

Reviewed on November 5, 2011.

Following Atticus: Forty-Eight High Peaks, One Little Dog, and an Extraordinary Friendship (audiobook)by Tom Ryan

A story of a man and his dog and so much more

Read by the author, Tom Ryan
Duration: 9 and 1/2 hours.
Published: 2011 by Harper Audio
Unabridged

At first glance, Following Atticus is a simple book: A man gets a dog and the dog changes his life. This is true, but this book is so much more than that. Tom Ryan has written a deep, thoughtful book about a man and his dog, but also about a man and his work, fathers and sons, the relationship between man and nature and men and women. In short, this book about a little dog and a lot of hikes in the woods is also a book about life itself.



Tom Ryan is the editor of the upstart newspaper the Undertoad in Newburyport, Massachusetts. He has a full life with plenty of friends, a fulfilling job and all of the challenges of a small business. An exceptional elderly dog comes into his life and he realizes he has been missing some things, especially companionship and love. When that dog passes away, Ryan quickly buys another and he and his new dog, Atticus M. Finch, quickly bond. They literally go everywhere together - board meetings, restaurants, nature walks, business meetings.

Those nature walks grow into full blown hikes up to the peaks of New Hampshire's 48 4,000 foot tall peaks. Tom and Atticus become consumed by the desire to climb all 48 of them and they quickly become the least likely pair to ever accomplish this feat: a middle aged overweight man with no experience and his 20 pound miniature schnauzer. Tom and Atticus roam these mountain peaks seeking the solitude of his thoughts and an escape from the pressures of running his newspaper.

Sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes profoundly sad, Tom Ryan's memoir of their adventures is more than just the tale of their adventures - it is also the tale of his difficult relationship with his father, the difficulties of loosing friends to cancer, the joys of nature, and a running commentary on many of New England's most famous authors and their thoughts on the natural world. I literally knew nothing about New Hampshire's 48 peaks (or schnauzers - I am a beagle man myself, although we currently have a Jack Russell terrier/beagle mix) and I really don't have a lot in common with Tom Ryan. But, he took me into a whole new world and made it alive for me as I drove back and forth across my city this week and for that, I have to thank him. It makes for a fascinating book and one that I am pleased to recommend to all readers (or listeners), not just dog lovers.

Tom Ryan narrated the book and I am glad that he choose to read it himself rather than hiring a professional reader. Usually, the author-as-narrator is, at best, a mixed bag. In this case, Ryan's New England accent made the story work all the better (I love regional accents!) and he is quite adept at portraying the emotions of the moment in his voice. I cannot imagine how it could have been performed any better by a professional and I recommend the audiobook version over the printed version because of his performance and what it adds.

Tom Ryan updates the world on his adventures with Atticus on his blog "The Adventures of Tom and Atticus."

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: 
Following Atticus: Forty-Eight High Peaks, One Little Dog, and an Extraordinary Friendship


Reviewed on October 29, 2011.

Tomb of the Ten Thousand Dead (audiobook) by L. Ron Hubbard

Three solid adventure stories

Multicast Performance with music and sound effects

Duration: 2 hours, 2 minutes.

Published by Galaxy Press

Tomb of the Ten Thousand Dead is part of a large series of books and stories that are being re-published by Galaxy Press as part of their Golden Age Stories series. In reality, they are a collection of L. Ron Hubbard's early works that were published in magazines and as pulp fiction books. Hubbard was a prolific writer and he wrote a lot of action stories that translate quite well into the multicast performance audiobook format.



This edition features 3 short stories. The first is Tomb of the Ten Thousand Dead, the story of a team of freelance archaeologists that are searching for a lost treasure of Alexander the Great in what is now southern Pakistan. When a down on his luck pilot and a local guide find the map, well, who knows what they will find?

The second story, Price of a Hat, is the weakest. It is set in Siberia at the end of World War I when the major powers invaded in an attempt to weaken the new Communist government. The story features a distinctive Russian hat that everyone is searching for.

The third story was my favorite. Starch and Stripes is set in the heyday of America's Gunboat Diplomacy period. The U.S. Marines are involved in a pacification campaign against a local warlord. Just when they think they have the perfect trap for him, several Senators and a general are on their way for an inspection tour that threatens the entire operation.

The multicast aspect makes these stories very entertaining - very much like the old-time radio shows that were popular when these stories were written. Makes for very compelling listening.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Tomb of the Ten Thousand Dead.

Reviewed on October 23, 2011.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe (audiobook) by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

A glimpse behind the veil in Taliban-held Afghanistan

Read by Sarah Zimmerman
Duration: 6 hours, 16 minutes
Publisher: Harper Audio, 2011

Unabridged.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon had an interest in how women survive in male-dominated war zones. In the modern world, the war zone is, all too often, not a distant battlefield, but instead includes cities, small towns and plenty of women and children. She was interested in the types of businesses women might open in order to feed their families and she was given the name of Kamila Sidiqi, a college-educated woman who lived through the Taliban invasion of Kabul.

Kamila Sidiqi (right)

Kamila Sidiqi considered fleeing to Pakistan or Iran but decided that she would stay in Kabul with most of her family. Women were mostly confined to their homes, unless accompanied by a male "minder" to do the shopping. They were certainly not supposed to attend school, have a job or own a business. Kamila Sidiqi does all of these things during the Taliban occupation, and of course her dressmaking business is the true topic of the book. Through a combination of prudence, grit and diplomacy she is able to open a dressmaking business and add employee after employee in her home-based factory. She is the CEO, the head salesman and a quiet spokesperson for women's rights in an environment that treats women more like cattle than equals.

Kamila Sidiqi's story is inspiring, even if Lemmon's telling of it is understated. Sarah Zimmerman's narration adds a surprising depth to the story, invoking a sense of warmth as she reads.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Dressmaker of Khair Khana. 

Reviewed on October 22, 2011