Covenant of War (Lion of War Series #2) by Cliff Graham

Published by Zondervan in March of 2012
348 pages.

There have been plenty of historical fiction books written about ancient wars as of late. Stephen Pressfield's Gates of Fire about the Battle of Thermopylae  or Conn Iggulden's Emperor Series about Julius Caesar come to mind. Bible-based historical fiction about war is pretty rare, however. Cliff Graham has chosen to write about the Old Testament's most complicated and best-documented warrior, David in the Lion of War Series.

In Covenant of War, David has just become King of Israel after the deaths of Saul and Jonathan. The kingdom is still quite torn and David's control of some areas is in name only. While he is still consolidating his power, the Philistines invade, yet again.



Graham has written the book based on the warriors described in 2 Samuel 23 and 1 Chronicles 11. The texts are hardly true histories in the sense that they tell a complete story and there is a lot of detail to fill in to make a full-fledged novel out of the material provided. Graham has done a solid job of providing a coherent story. The story focuses on the thirty leaders mentioned in the text, especially the three mentioned as "David's mighty warriors" is 2 Samuel 23:8. There is intrigue aplenty as David defends his people from the Philistines.

Graham fleshes out those warriors pretty well, but David is pictured as an erratic, capricious ruler throughout the book. I never got a feel for David throughout the book. It made the whole book seem rather difficult to read because the motivations of David are hidden. The battle scenes, however, are quite vivid (and bloody).

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Covenant of War.

Reviewed on June 4, 2012

The Gods of War: Book IV of the Emperor Series (audiobook) by Conn Iggulden

Published April of 2012 by AudioGo.
Narrated by Paul Blake
Duration: 15 hours, 23 minutes

Unabridged.

I did not read or listen to the other three installments of Conn Iggulden's Emperor Series, but I was already familiar with the last few years of Julius Caesar's life so it was not difficult to join in here at the end.

Book IV of the Emperor Series starts with Caesar's decision to cross the Rubicon River with his army when he was ordered home from Gaul. This actions begins a civil war, with Caesar leading one faction and Pompey leading the other. From there we get the other highlights - Caesar's triumphal entry into Rome, the defeat of Pompey's army in Greece, the pursuit of Pompey into Egypt, the romance of Caesar and Cleopatra, the return to Rome and Caesar's murder by the Senate.

Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.)

It's all standard issue history textbook stuff but Iggulden makes it a story that demands to be listened to. To be sure, he has fiddled with the historical record a bit but his revisions flow very smoothly with the betrayal of the Republic by Pompey and Caesar, Caesar's mastery of the symbolic gestures, the intrigues in the Egyptian court and, most of all, Brutus. Brutus steals the show as the man who betrayed Caesar twice. His brooding, angry nature, his pride and his ego burn in the background of every scene and eventually destroy Caesar.

Iggulden notes at the end of the book that he is considering extending the series to tell the story of the aftermath of Caesar's assassination. I hope he does.

The book was read by Paul Blake. To say that Blake read the book or even narrated it is to understate it. He performed it. You can hear the dangers of night attacks, intrigue and the open battlefield in his voice. He also made Brutus seethe, Cleopatra scheme and made the listener hear the physical weakness that made Pompey such a poor general at the end. Top notch!

I rate this novel 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: The Gods of War: Book IV of the Emperor Series by Conn Iggulden.

Reviewed on June 3, 2012.

One Step at a Time: A Young Marine's Story of Courage, Hope and a New Life in the NFL by Josh Bleill with Mark Tabb

Published in 2010 by Triumph Books

In a sentence, this book is about a 27 year-old Hoosier Marine who lost his leg due to an explosion in Iraq, re-built his life and got a job with the Indianapolis Colts as a community spokesman.

All true but the book is so much  more than that because Bleill makes his story resonate with the reader.

Josh Bleill joined the Marines at age 26. He never quite finished college. He never quite got serious with his girlfriend. He never quite got serious about his career. He just never quite going with much of anything until he decided to join the Marines, much to the surprise of his family (and to the dismay of his mother).

Bleill tells the story of his experiences in basic training and the special training he received for Iraq with a lot of humor and gives the reader a sense of how difficult this training can be. Bleill takes us to Iraq and tells of his "one bad day" - the day he lost his legs and two of his friends when his Humvee drove over the top of an Improvised Explosive Device (IED).

The tale of his immediate recovery and the struggle to learn how to use his prosthetic legs take up the great majority of the book. Bleill and his fellow Marines comfort and encourage one another in these struggles and the camaraderie they demonstrate throughout to be very uplifting. The support Bleill received from his family back in Indiana and the community he grew up in was simply amazing. Bleill practically became his own PX as he received hundreds and hundreds of DVDs and dozens of portable DVD players that he handed out all over Walter Reed Medical Center is a testament in and of itself.

All of that being said, Bleill's difficulty with getting his prosthetic legs to fit properly, his survivor's guilt when he thinks about his friends that died in the attack on the Humvee and his initial anger at being stared at when he enters a room makes Bleill all the more human and understandable.

When the Super Bowl Champion Colts visit Walter Reed he and Jim Irsay, the Colts owner hit it off and Irsay tells him that to come see him about a job when he returns to Indianapolis. And, Bleill does. He is a community spokesman for the Colts - and they work him a lot. Here is a great passage that tells a lot about Bleill and the Colts:

     "'Now, don't misundertand me,' he (Tom Zupancic) said, 'I am thankful for what you've done, but I'm not going to feel sorry for you in the least. I know you've lost your legs, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to push you hard every day.'
     This was music to my ears." (p. 189)

Bleill is a spokesman for the Colts. Many years ago I saw a rookie Colt speak to an eager group of parents at the middle school I taught at for 10 uncomfortable minutes. I can only imagine that having a professional help out with some of the public relations duties is a positive for the audience and the players.

By the way, Bleill keeps his sense of humor, gets the girl and gets the job of his dreams. Sometimes, nice guys do finish first - but reading about this nice guy's journey is worth your time and effort.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: 
One Step at a Time: A Young Marine's Story of Courage, Hope and a New Life in the NFL
 
Reviewed on June 2, 2012.

Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again by Frank Miller

It drew me in, but it was not as good as The Dark Knight Returns

Published by D.C. Comics in 2004

It's hard to be critical of a graphic novel that sucks you in, entertains, fascinates and makes you wish there was another volume in the series, but I am going to criticize anyway.

For me, The Dark Knight Returns was an awesome addition to and reinterpretation of the Batman Saga. The simplicity of the dichotomy between the "sell-out" Superman and the embittered-but-still-fighting Batman powered the story. I am a casual comic book fan so I was easily able to follow along since every casual fan knows the basics of both Batman and Superman.

The Dark Knight Strikes Again, however, has so many characters and so many sub-plots going on that it actually gets confusing unless one backs up and re-reads a bit. Many of the characters are relatively minor when compared to The Dark Knight Returns' focus on Superman, Batman, Robin and the Joker.

Another strength of The Dark Knight Returns was that it primarily focused on an aging Batman who is appalled at what has become of the world that he voluntarily (well, sort of...) retired from protecting. Batman becomes the tool that Miller uses to criticize modern society and what we have done to ourselves. Strikes Again has so many characters that Batman often becomes just a part of the crowd. In the second volume, Superman is the focus - we get to see him re-born into something new after he sacrifices himself. In fact, the series deals so much with Superman, it would not have been inappropriate to have re-worked it a bit and called it "Superman Returns". However, that name has already been used so perhaps "The Blue Knight Returns".

It also would have been better to have slowed it down and made it a 10 volume series rather than forcing everything in to a 3 volume set. The third volume seems awfully rushed - too many things with too many characters going on in too few pages.

Perhaps most disappointing was the presence of Lex Luthor. I have no problem with Luthor vs. Batman. What disappointed me was that all of the ills that Batman is fighting against are not the ills of humankind's very nature (as implied in Batman Returns). No, they are the product of the skillful manipulations of a master criminal. Batman's Quixotic struggle agains the built-in evils of the human race is transformed into a standard plot that could have been stolen from Adam West's Batman TV show (Holy holograms, Batman! The President has been replaced by a computer generated image controlled by that Evil Lex Luthor! Pow! Bam! Oof!)

All that being said, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. It was a fun dip into the mind of Frank Miller. I don't agree with many of Miller's political stances, but I do enjoy the presentation of his arguments. The sloppy style that many have criticized was part of its strength - the reader has to closely look at the pictures to see what is going on. Miller hides lots of fun stuff in his art so it is worth a closer look. I especially enjoyed the touch of having Superman's "S" logo changing as he changed - it went from the oversized block style "S" of the 80's and 90's Superman to the more informal "S" that Superman started with in the 30's as Superman's worldview began to change.

So, final thoughts: Despite the deep, deep flaws in this series, I have to give it a grade of 4 stars.

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again

Reviewed on October 26, 2006.

Murder at the National Cathedral (audiobook) (abridged) by Margaret Truman

Tedious at best

Originally published as a traditional in 1990
Audiobook published in 1993 by Random House Audio
Read by Rene Auberjonois
Duration: approximately 3 hours.

Abridged.

I have read a number of Margaret Truman's murder mysteries and was pleased to find this one as an audiobook so that I could enjoy it on my drive to work. However, this one was a true departure from her other works that I have read and approached what I was afraid that all of her books would be like when I first started reading them: the pretentious writings of a Washington insider. The murder mystery in and of itself is very simplistic. Truman brings in a vague ecumenical movement called "Word of Peace" and has everyone in the Episcopal/Anglican Church hierarchy express their doubts and fears about the group without going into detail why they should be afraid of it. Truman seems to think that an ongoing, out-in-the-open sexual relationship by an unmarried Bishop is not a big deal - and she would be wrong in that assertion.

Truman's descriptions of church activities and goings on have no natural feel - which is unfortunate because her other books were so much better and somehow managed to "feel" right.

My audiobook version was read by Emmy award-winning actor Rene Auberjonois (from Benson and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). he did a remarkable job with the many accents required. His female voices even sound like they were read by females! A+ for the reading.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Murder at the National Cathedral.

Overall score for the audiobook: 2 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on October 25, 2006.

Exogene (The Subterrene War, Book 2) by T.C. McCarthy

Published by Orbit in March of 2012

I approach this review with some trepidation. This is a hell of a science fiction novel but to call it a sci-fi novel is to undersell it. It is a hell of a war novel, but to call it a war novel is also underselling it. It really is the story of a woman finding out what it is to love, to be loved and to know where one stands with God - in short, to be human, but that seriously undersells this book and makes a violent tale of war, genetic mutation and out-of-controls science sound like some piece of warm and fuzzy chick lit. Exogene is certainly not that.

So, what is Exogene?

First things first - Exogene is the second book in a series by T.C. McCarthy. Read the first book, Germline, for the background necessary for this book. Germline (see my review by clicking here) explores a future war for trace metals in Kazakhstan between the Russians and the Americans. In Germline a group of cloned teenaged female warriors are introduced to the front line (males are not used because they lost control and became too violent). Exogene is the story of one of those warriors.

The clones are supposed to fight for two years and then they begin to break down mentally and physically and are rounded up to be killed. While they are maturing, they are indoctrinated into a culture of violence and death. Their universe is ruled by a god that rewards killing, rewards dying in battle and despises fear and mercy. In short, these teenaged girls are bred and trained to be pitiless fighting machines.

T.C. McCarthy

Except, they are not machines.

Deep down, they are people...and Exogene is the story of Catherine, a clone soldier that decides she does not want to die when her two years have expired. She questions everything - her religion, the orders she receives and especially the expectation that she is to give up and die because her two years are up.

Exogene takes the reader far from the battlefields of Kazakhstan into Russia, into North and South Korea and beyond. The world of Exogene is seriously screwed up - damaged by nuclear war, cloning soldiers, experimenting with human/robot hybrids and through it all Catherine pushes along: experiencing, thinking and learning what it is to be human.

A remarkable novel. I rate it 5 out of 5 stars.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Exogene (The Subterrene War)

Reviewed on June 1, 2012.

No, They Can't: Why Government Fails - But Individuals Succeed (audiobook) by John Stossel

Libertarianism thought delivered painlessly by nice guy Stossel

Published April 10, 2012 by Simon and Schuster Audio.
Read by the author, John Stossel
Duration: 9 hours, 14 minutes

The title of this audiobook, No, They Can't,  is a play on the 2008 campaign slogan of then-candidate Obama, "Yes We Can!" Stossel, of course, is the TV consumer reporter turned anchor of ABC's 20/20 who now hosts a weekly show of Fox Business News and a series on one-hour specials on Fox News. He has won nineteen Emmy Awards. He begins his book with an explanation of why he left ABC after more than 20 years and how the culture of ABC made it very uncomfortable for him to explore stories in any way except the tried and true politically correct way.

The premise of the this audiobook is that the entire thought process behind that campaign slogan is wrong  - the government cannot do a lot of the things that people want it to do, and even if everyone agreed it should give those things a try, it would do a very poor job of them because government is inefficient at almost everything it does.

Stossel is an outspoken but soft-spoken Libertarian and he makes a very thoughtful presentation of Libertarian thought on a variety of topics. He generally starts with a variation on this phrase: "Intuition tells me...but reality has taught me..." and presents a commonly held belief (like minimum wage laws helping younger workers) and then presents research that shows that that belief is incorrect (many have no skills and having to pay them more than they are worth means they are unlikely to be hired in the first place).

Stossel covers a variety of topics including free trade, how federal regulations can help the businesses they are intended to regulate, food police, government-provided health insurance, the "nanny state" government, gun control and lots more. The strength of the audiobook is not the ideas (they are fairly standard Libertarian fare) but the way that Stossel presents them. Stossel is inherently likable and he has done a lot of thinking and research to present his arguments in clear, everyday language. His "Intuition tells me...but reality has taught me..." format acknowledges the logic of people that disagree with him and then he lays out his arguments with his nice guy style.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. it can be found on Amazon.com here: No They Can't: Why Government Fails - But Individuals Succeed by John Stossel.

Reviewed on May 30, 2012.