| 1. Borderline - Nevada Barr - My
first read of the year is another Nevada Barr Anna Pigeon
novel. I didn't read anything in Jan 2023 because I was busy
working on projects. This story was about Anna and her
husband Paul taking a vacation in Big Bend National Park in
Texas. During their time there they and a group of college
friends take a rafting trip on the Rio Grand during normally
the off season. They come across a starving cow along the
river so of course Anna has to try and save it. They climb
the steep canyon walls and finally convince the cow
they are there to rescue it. They get the cow down to the
river and secure it to their raft but didn't notice the
river had risen really high since it was raining a lot
in the mountains. When they restart their journey their boat
gets caught up on a rack and everyone and everything spills
out. Luckily no one was injured and while they were
gathering as many of their possessions, they find a Hispanic
women tangled in a bunch of broken branches. They fish her
out of the water and find she is still barely alive but
notice she is terminally pregnant. Anna, being a trained
park ranger, performs a C section to save the baby because
the woman died. They attempt to use cell phones to call for
help but they couldn't find any signal. The river guide
retrieves her satellite phone and climbs the canyon to try
to call out. In the process she is shot from across the
river and dies. The whole group now decides to try and climb
out and two more of them are killed. In the mean time, there
is a conference at the park having to do with whether or not
the border between the US and Mexico should be opened again
in the park as it had been for hundreds of years. The mayor
of Huston attends as she is a rising star in politics and
wants to make her position about keeping the border closed
and building a wall known. Anna develops a strong attachment
to the baby she saved but it becomes apparent that someone
wants the baby dead so Anna almost dies numerous times.
Turns out the mayor's husband tells her he wants a divorce
and wanted to marry the dead woman pulled out of the river
and that the child Anna rescued was his. In the end the
mayor tries to kill Anna and the baby but is fatally shot by
her own head of security. The motive was the mayor's husband
would be able to inherent a large estate the mayor believed
was hers for the taking. This was not a bad read as Barr has
a way of capturing your attention and keeping it to the very
end of the story. |
| 2. Time Travel a History -
James Gleick - I've read other Gleick books (Chaos and
Genius) and found them interesting and informative but this
book to me was neither. It traces the concepts of time and
time travel from antiquity to the present. Maybe I am not
deep enough to follow the narrative but the information is
presented in a rambling, psycho babel like circular fashion
which seems more to highlight the authors literary depth
than to convey anything useful to the reader. I spent days
reading this book only to come away with basically nothing
for my effort. I was hoping for a science based read but was
presented with a philosophical one instead. My bad. |
| 3. Hiking Colorado's
Geology - Ralf and Lindy Hopkins - This was a good
book because it not only described a lot of neat hiking
trails in Colorado but also discussed the geology you will
see along the hikes. I read about quite a few hikes that I
would like to do but are probably out of the question at
Heather and my age. The authors did describe a few hikes
that we have done which was kind of cool. I found it
interesting that the authors didn't discuss the Paint mines
as they are a very unique geologic area that has easy
access. What I wasn't aware of was the massive amounts of
volcanic activity that Colorado has experienced in the past.
The San Juan mountains and the surrounding area was one of
the largest volcanic regions in the world. Another
interesting fact that I found amazing was that Castlewood
Canyon north of Colorado Springs has ash and rocks from a
volcanic eruption in South Park. That it a long way for
rocks to travel. Must have been a huge explosion. All in all
this was an enjoyable book to read and as an added bonus I
learned some things along the way. Cheers to the authors for
a job well done. |
| 4. When Humans Nearly
Vanished - Donald R. Prothero - The story of the
explosion of the Mount Toba super volcano, the Earth's
largest volcanic eruption in the last 28 million years.
Mount Toba is in Sumatra, Indonesia but the eruption was
only identified in the 1980's when groups of scientists from
different disciplines came together to try and figure out
why there were large disruptions in their data. Scientists
who study ice cores in Greenland, ocean cores in the
Pacific, ancient human populations, bacteria in human
digestive systems, animal and plant populations all saw
disjoint data points that all occurred around 74,000 years
ago and were without explanation. As these teams of
scientists studied this time period more closely they
determined the cause was large fluctuations in carbon
dioxide and sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere. After
considering many different scenarios they finally came to
the conclusion that only a huge volcanic eruption could
explain what they were seeing in their data but there was no
record of a large eruption in this time period. So a
scientist that studies the chemical composition and dating
of lavas put out a request to field volcanologists around
the world to send in samples so he might figure out which
volcano might have been responsible. This went on for over a
year with no match found until a scientist studying lava
around a little known Mount Toba lake in Sumatra sent in
samples he had collected. These samples matched the time
period of interest so the volcanic culprit was
located. Extensive study of Mount Toba since that time
have determined the severity of the eruption as that of the
biggest in the last 28 million years. It is estimated that
when the mountain blew its top off it sent possibly 1000
cubic miles of debris into the atmosphere which is a mind
boggling quantity. In addition Toba spewed thousands of tons
of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide into the air which
explained the disjoint data in all the different
disciplines. Volcanologists and other scientists also
determined that Toba's eruption probably affected Earth's
weather for over 1000 years. This was a great story pointing out the success of scientific research to explain something that happened 74,000 years ago. The book had a lot of interesting facts about the eruption and the author went into great depth on how plant and animal DNA were affected although I was not that interested in that aspect of the event. All in all a good read and one where I learned some new things which I always consider a bonus. |
| 5. A Superior Death -
Nevada Barr - One of the early Barr books where she
was still refining her writing style. In this story Anna is
a ranger in Isla Royal on Lake Superior. She had just
transferred there from the desert of Texas and we having a
somewhat hard time adjusting to the change in climate. In
her new post everything is green and wet totally opposite
from where she came from. While she was writing up a dive
request for a sunken ship called the Kamaloops she saw some
photographs of the ship and the people who went down with
her. Anna had heard the stories about the number of people
who were still entombed on the ship but in the photo she
saw, there was one extra, new person as well. This started a
murder investigation as the corpse was dressed in an old
time sailors outfit so the death was not caused by a diving
accident. Anna was still getting to know the people around
the lake and there were some seemingly normal people and
some flakes. She uses her investigative skills to dig up
info about the newly dead man and it gets her into trouble
and she almost looses her life. Turns out the owner and
proprietor of the local lodge who is a small woman with
expensive tastes had found out that multiple cases of wine
that had gone missing for decades was hidden away on the
ship. This wine would fetch over 10 grand a bottle so she
dove to the wreck to steal it. In the process she was caught
by a fellow diver that was going to turn her in for stealing
from the wreck (which is illegal on Lake Superior) so she
killed him. Anna was having trouble putting all of the facts
she had uncovered together to figure out who done it but in
the end she did and when she dove to the wreck to confront
the murder she tried to kill Anna by keeping her in the deep
water so long she got the bends. Anna of course survived and
even feeling the effects of the bends confronts the woman on
her boat where Anna was slashed with a fish gaffing
pole. Luckily other rangers came to Anna aid and got
her to a decompression chamber in time to purge her blood of
nitrogen. Of course the murderer was caught as well and
taken into custody. Anna survived to tell another tell in
another book. |
| 6. Snow Crash - Neal
Stephenson - A dystopian story published in 1992 that
takes place in the 21st century after a complete economic
collapse. At this time the Federal government of the US has
lost all power and corporations have taken over all aspects
of society and commerce is everything to everyone. Various
franchises control most of the commerce including the Mafia,
religious organizations and of course the Chinese. There is
no mail service anymore so all correspondence is carried out
by messengers who ride high tech skateboards. The main
characters are Hero Protagonist who is a computer programmer
and the "best samurai swordsmen in the world" and Y.T the
skateboard messenger who is a 15 year old beauty with an
attitude. A religious organization run by L. Bob Rife knows
of a mind virus that is carried in most everyone's DNA and
he is trying to reanimate it so he can control people's
lives. He further spreads the virus via blood exchange and
as an secret adjunct to vaccines for various diseases. He is
infecting thousands of people and attempting to bring them
to the US in vast armadas of boats, called the Raft, all
tied together with cables and ropes. Rife has purchased the
nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the Enterprise, which is
the core of the Raft and his command center. He wants to
unleash these infected third world people on the US so they
can infect everyone, giving him more power. People at this time exist both in Reality and in the Metaverse as avatars (Stephenson is credited with coining the term avatar as a representation of a person or object in virtual reality). Hero is in fact one of the programmer creators of the Metaverse so he knows ways around some of the rules governing conduct. So the story goes in and out of Reality continuously and is sometimes confusing for this reason. In the end, Hero puts an end to L. Bob Rife's plan and frees all of the Raft people from his mind control. Hero also hooks up again with his old girl friend Juanita so life is good. I cannot say this was a good or a bad story; it is just a story. It is interesting that a lot of things that were described in the story have echos in the current time. Initially Snow Crash was meant to be a digital presentation instead of a textual one but that didn't happen in the end. Stephenson has since said he spent more time writing computer code for the digital presentation then he did writing the story but all that was for naught. I don't know whether I will read another Stephenson book in the future but time will tell. |
| 7. Death In A Strange
Country - Donna Leon - Heather and I have watched a
detective / mystery series on MHz called Brunetti and really
enjoyed it. It takes place in Venice, Italy and shows a lot
of scenery and local culture. The Brunetti books are written
by Donna Leon and American X-pat who has lived in Venice for
numerous decades. I decided to read this book after Heather
said she has enjoyed many of them. In this book a child experiences a major burn on his arm after playing in a forest during a family picnic. The American doctor from an American base in Italy who treated him and her lover are then mysteriously killed after she tried to contact Brunetti about her suspicions of illegal chemical dumping causing the burn. At the same time Brunetti gets involved in an art theft case which he believed was actually an attempted insurance fraud. Brunetti's boss, Patta, wants to keep the rich art patron (with connections) out of legal trouble even though Brunetti knows the theft was a fraud. After hearing of the doctors mysterious death Brunetti decides to go back the place the child was burned and finds an illegal waste dump tied back to the American base. Brunetti talks to his father in law (who is also a sketchy Italian businessman) and all of the sudden the dump is cleaned up. The art patron was then killed by the mother of one of his employees after her son (who stole the paintings for the patron) was killed when he tried to contact Brunetti to turn himself in. The story ended quiet abruptly but was all in all a good read. If this book is any indication, the made for TV Brunetti movies seem to adhere to the the books' story lines very well. In addition, all of the characters that we have enjoyed on screen appear in this book and have the same likeable personalities. |
| 8. So Shall You Reap -
Donna Leon - My 2nd Brunetti novel. This story is
about the murder of a Sri Lankian man who worked for a rich
professor and lived in a shack on his estate. The man was
found floating in a canal in Venice and Brunetti and
Vianello were assigned to the case. The story winds around
until Brunetti finally proves the professor killed the man
because he had found the dead body of the man the professor
had killed and had buried on his estate. |
| 9. Rocks, Gems and
Minerals of the Southwest - Garret Romaine - Needed a
geology fix so I got this book out of the library. Although
the presentation towards the end of the book seemed a little
scrambled, I did learn some things from this book. I did
find it interesting the author didn't include Colorado in
the "southwest" but oh well. What I did learn was that many
of the terms I have heard used to described various rocks
turn out to indicate various levels of metamorphosis. That
is, the amount of heat and pressure the rocks have endured
results in the different terms used to describe them. This
was a decent book on geology and a fast read. |
| 10. Plate
Tectonics, Earthquakes and Volcanoes - Britannica
Educational Publishing - This, I think, was a book
intended for educating educators on these geologic topics.
This book was definitely not formatted correctly for my
tablet as it said it was 101 pages long but the book stopped
at page 38. There was nothing new to learn from this book
for me personally but it would be helpful to teachers who
aren't that familiar with the subject matter. |
| 11. The God Equation -
Michio Kaku - This was a short but interesting book
about the quest for the "Theory of Everything". Kaku goes
through the history of the major science breakthroughs and
what they meant to the world and how each was based on
breakthroughs from the past. He talked about Newton, Planck,
Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein, Feynman, Hawkins and others and
how each made substantial contributions to the goal of
finding the Theory of Everything. He also talked about their
frustrations in this pursuit. Finally he talks about string
theory and how if one contemplates ten or eleven dimensions
one can describe all physical phenomena regarding gravity,
the weak and the strong nuclear forces, electromagnetic,
light, etc. It was obvious from the discussion of string
theory that Kaku is a real proponent and has contributed to
the science himself. Like all of his books I have read, he
did a good job of making the complex science somewhat
understandable to the lay person. |
| 12. Prisoner's Gold -
Chris Kuzneski - I hadn't read a Kuzneski book for a
while so I picked this one up. This, I found out, is one of
his "hunter series" which describes a group of highly
trained/qualified treasure hunters who go all over the world
looking for treasures. In this story they are looking for
Marco Polo's treasure that he supposedly hid away in Sri
Lanka. Of course they travel all over the world gathering
clues while at the same time are pursued by a group of
Chinese nationalist called the Fists that try to prevent any
Chinese artifacts from leaving the county and to protect
China from Western influences. These people believe the
treasure belongs to China even though it was found in Sri
Lanka. This is kind of a departure from other Kuzneski books
I have read in the past as here the focus is on the journey
and the battles and not the actual historic treasure. Not a
bad read but not one of his best in my opinion. |
| 13. The
Plantation - Chris Kuzneski - This is the first novel
that Kuzneski wrote and it was almost the end of his writing
career or should I say it almost prevented him having a
career in writing novels. He talked in the introduction
about how he wrote this story and shopped it around but no
one was buying. He seriously considered quitting writing and
getting a real job but he wasn't sure what he would be
qualified to do. He then talked to other struggling authors
who suggested he should self publish using print on demand
technology because he couldn't afford to purchase a
production run of books. He said it started slowly but he
started to sell lots of his book this way and then finally
found a publisher that decided to take him on. The rest is
history. This was an interesting story because it flipped the idea of slavery on its head. All the bad guys in this book were black and they started kidnapping white families and were sending them back to Africa to be white slaves to the rich. Some of the bad guys were in this scheme for money but others were doing it to punish the modern families of white slave owners who had enslaved their ancestors. They made their captives work in the fields in the brutal sun and live in small, crowded cabins with little food or water and when anyone complained they were severely punished or killed in front of all of the other captives to keep them in line. Their mistake was to kidnap Jonathon Payne's (of course, beautiful) girlfriend Ariane with the intent to take her to Africa to be sold into slavery. Payne and D. J . (David aka David Jones) his black associate find clues about the abductors and head to Louisiana to try and rescue her. Their they find the Plantation where all of this is going on. Payne connects up with an acquaintance of his who was a former NFL player who was injured which ended his career. This turned out to be a big mistake as his "acquaintance" turned out to be involved in the Plantation. With the help of the football player Payne and Jones are tied up and taken to the Plantation as part of their rescue plan. They immediately find out that they have been duped and end up like the rest of the future slaves. Of course Payne and Jones escaped their captivity and find an arsenal on the Plantation and get all of the weapons they need to raise hell. After killing most of the guards and rescuing many of the captives, the ring leaders escape along with Payne's girlfriend to Africa where they intend to sell her for big bucks. Of course Payne and Jones never give up and find out where in Africa the slave trade is being managed and off they go. Payne and Jones team up with other members of the MANIACS and raid the compound and kill just about everyone. In the end Ariane is saved and the white slave trade is stopped. There were a lot of really gruesome scenes early in this story which almost made me return the book to the library but I am glad I didn't. This was an engaging rescue story that I have a hard time putting down. In addition, this first book of Kuzneski's introduced Payne and Jones who are the main characters in many of Kuzneski's books I have read so I got to see how all this started. |
| 14.
The Skeleton Key - James Rollins - A short story from
James Rollins. In this story Seichan wakes up in a fancy
hotel that she has no recollection of entering. She is
rather dazed and confused and realizes she was drugged last
night after meeting with a historian who promised her
information on the leaders of the Guild, the organization
she has escaped from and that is out to kill her. She
notices all of her weapons are arranged on a side table and
that she has a shock collar around her neck. She then
receives a call from the historian telling her she was lured
to Paris to find the historian's son and if she didn't the
shock collar would explode and kill her. He also gave her a
very short time frame because the cult his son was lured
into said they were going to reek havoc on Paris is a couple
of hours to full fill their biblical prophecy and his son
would probably be killed in the process. He told Seichan
that he had the information about the Guild she was after
and would give it to her if she was successful. She takes
off into the catacombs below Paris where the cult was
planning to blow up all of the supports which would cause
Paris to collapse. Of course she is successful and rescues
the son which she placed in the trunk of a car. What the
historian didn't know is that Seichan didn't really trust
him so she put the explosive collar on the son in the trunk.
She then met with the historian and showed him his son and
he gave her the papers she was after. After they parted ways
her suspicions were confirmed as the car with the historian
and his son exploded. The historian was trying to clean up
this mess by getting rid of Seichan but it didn't work out
for him. |
| 15. The Obsidian Chamber - Preston and Child - I read this thinking I hadn't read it before but I was wrong, I had. Interestingly, I didn't remember the plot at all since I read it long ago. It is the story of the two Pendergast brothers, Aloysius, the good one who is an FBI agent and Diogenes, the bad one who is just plain crazy and Constance Green who is kidnapped by Diogenes who professes his love for her and takes her to an island in the deep south so they can live forever. Diogenes has devised a formula for long, if not eternal life, that must be prepared from human sacrifices and gives it to Constance to show his love. Aloysius is presumed dead for the majority of the story but shows up at the end to save Constance and to spare the life of his crazy brother. An OK read I guess. |
| 16. The End of Everything
- Katie Mack - The author is an astrophysicist who
studies theories about how the universe might end. By end,
she means complete obliteration of everything, with no
survivors. This includes all life, planets, galaxies, etc.
There are numerous theories of how this will happen but the
good news is that only one of the theories could take place
at any time. The other possible deaths are probably billions
of years in the future. In fact the theory of Higgs field
collapse could already have started and could be on its way
to us at the light speed. In any case, if it gets here we
will have no warning so we don't have to worry or stress
about it. This was an interesting, if sometimes head
spinning, read in which the author explained each theory
without resorting to complex equations. To be sure there is
no universal acceptance of any one theory and there is very
little possibility that any of these theories can be
scientifically validated. She also discussed dark energy and
dark matter and how they figure into each of the doomsday
predictions and how scientists are just beginning to be able
to detect them. |
| 17. A Song for Selma -
Kurt Vonnegut - A poignant story of three high schools
kids and a music teacher and how each of their self esteems'
took a hard turn towards the positive. This was a very short
story which I read in minutes and I am glad I did. It was a
good story with deep implications. |
| 18. Frankenstein - Mary
Shelley - I thought it was about time that I read this
classic Sci-Fi novel. It turned out much different than I
had anticipated and was deeply depressing at times. The
story starts out with an arctic expedition were Dr.
Frankenstein is befriended by a researcher who was in need
of a friend. As time went on Dr. Frankenstein's story came
out to the amazement of the researcher. He was told the
story of how Frankenstein had created a hideous monster and
how his creation ruined his life. The poor monster had
dreams of having friends and loved ones but his deformity
prevented any from accepting him. The monster once realizing
his fate became hateful and bitter but approached his
creator and made a deal that if Dr. Frankenstein would
create another being of the opposite sex that they would go
off into the mountains of South America and would never
again be seen by humans. Dr. Frankenstein stressed over this
bargain. He knew he owed the monster something for creating
him and causing his pain and predicament but was worried
that an newly created monster might not agree to the bargain
and might just kill for killing sake. In fact the female
monster might be repelled by the sight of the male monster.
So after almost completing the female monster he destroyed
it. When Frankenstein (the monster) learned of this he flew
into a rage and let Dr Frankenstein know that life as he
knew it was over and that everything and everybody he loved
would be destroyed. And the monster did as he
threatened. As a result of the lose of everyone he
loved Dr. Frankenstein set out to track down the monster and
kill him or be killed the process. This brought Dr
Frankenstein to the arctic where he met the researcher. The
rigors of the arctic voyage proved too much for Dr.
Frankenstein in his weakened state and he passed away. The
monster came to the ship where Frankenstein lay and
confessed his admiration for the deceased Dr. With Dr
Frankenstein dead the monster had no reason to live so he
decided to leave the ship and to build a pyre to end his
life in flames. This story was interesting because you continually got to see both sides of the issue argued in very convincing terms. The monster having love and companionship in his heart but having no one to share it with being a total outcast from civilization caused him great anger resulting in his murderous ways. The Dr understood this but could not risk unleashing another monster on the human race even if it would have stopped the monster Frankenstein from killing everything and everybody he loved. Quite the tragedy. |
| 19. How The Mountains (of
North America) Grew - John Dvorak, PHD - A
pretty incredible book on the geology of North America and
the rise and fall of the mountains. The author has run a
large telescope on Mauna Kea for the University of Hawaii
for the past 20 years. The author definitely knows his stuff
and demonstrates it in the thoroughness of the text. One
gripe I did have is there are a bunch of misspelled words,
missing words and wrong words in some of the sentences which
might have been the result of automatic word spelling during
the editing process. I did learn some new things about geology from this book that I hadn't known before. For example that the best place to find evidence of the meteorite that struck the Earth off of the Yucatan peninsula is outside of Trinidad, Colorado. Who knew. He also talked about plate tectonics in detail which changed my thoughts on how they worked. All in all a good book filled with facts though longer than the books I usually read at 853 pages. It was, however, worth the time spent. |
| 20. Death at La
Fenice - Donna Leon - A Donna Leon story about a
genius musician and conductor who dies in the middle of an
opera performance he was conducting. Commissario Brunetti
investigates the death by traveling all over Venice (which
he refers to as the most beautiful city in the world) to
find people who knew the conductor, Maestro Helmut Wellauer.
In the end we find out that the conductor's wife had been
giving him a drug that permanently impacted his hearing
which made him unable to conduct which was his love in life.
As a result he took cyanide which killed him during the
opera's intermission. The supposed murder turned out to be a
suicide. The wife gave the love of her life the drug because
she caught him sexually assaulting their daughter. Turns out this is the first book ever written by Donna Leon and hence the first Commissario Brunetti story. |
| 21. Trace Elements - Donna Leon - A
story about murder and intentional pollution. Brunetti is
summoned to an old woman in hospice care where she says her
husband was murdered and that he used bad money to pay for
her care. Brunetti was actually present when the woman
died and was part of a team effort to save her, but to no
avail. This weighed on him to the point where he decided to
investigate even though no crime had not been reported. As a
result of the investigation he found out that the woman
husband was murdered by a spurned woman and that a firm
contracted to test water quality in the Venice area was
being paid to ignore pollution levels in the water when
floods occurred which allowed a company to dump pollutants
into a river which was the source of drinking water for many
people. In the end Brunetti knew two crimes had been
committed but had to choose only one for prosecution. He had
to let the scientist who was allowing the pollution to be
hidden go to get the evidence of the murder. The scientist
promised he would stop ignoring the illegal activity and
retire as a condition he would not be prosecuted. Brunetti,
in his mind, picked the lesser of two evils. It is interesting that the Leon stories I have read to this point all end abruptly. There doesn't seem to be telling of what happens after Brunetti solves the case, just that he did. |
| 22. Ill Wind - Nevada Barr - This time
Anna Pigeon is back at Mesa Verde as a ranger. She just
barely moves in when there are a series of murders and
mysterious deaths she is tasked with solving. The first clue
is some people who were on a specific tour of the ruins have
severe asthma attacks and some died. The next clue was a
friend of Anna's is found dead in a kiva with no apparent
cause. Besides Anna, the FBI is called in to investigate.
The agent is someone Anna has worked with before on murders
elsewhere. Among the rangers and the interpreters there is a
lot going on with partying, sexual activities and stocking
so Anna has to filter out the facts pertinent to the case
from the noise. To complicate matters, a gas pipeline is
being dug across the national park and this has many of the
natives and some of the staff up in arms. Turns out the
contractor working on the pipeline project is going broke so
he augments his income by dumping arsenic laden chemicals
deep in the park where the winds carry the fumes up to the
portion of the park where visitors are getting sick. Anna
confronts the contractor and is almost killed directly by
him and also by the chemical laden mud she gets drenched
with. Luckily the FBI agent shoots the contractor right
before he bashes Anna's head in and the mystery is solved.
After her cuts, bruises and poisoning are attended to and
after a couple bottles of wine, Anna is back and ready for
another adventure. |
| 23. 101 Amazing Facts About Volcanoes -
Jack Goldstein - A fast read about volcanoes
though I didn't learn a thing I didn't already know. |
| 24. The Lost Continent - Edgar Rice
Burroughs - Another fast read considered a
classic. I had always thought this story would take place on
some lost island in the South Pacific but I was wrong. The
lost continents were Great Britain and Europe. The story
which takes place in 2167 is that the East and Western
Hemispheres had divided over a great war and communication
and/or travel between the blocks was strictly forbidden for
over 200 years. In fact it was a crime in the Western block.
A young 21 year old captain of a broken down air/water ship
experienced technical problems and his ship was blown past
the dividing line between the blocks and he and some of his
men were stranded in a skiff and saw their air/water boat
repaired and headed home without them. The young captain was
well read and thought the closest land was England so they
headed there. What they found was the land was overridden by
lions and tigers and the people were primitive barbarians
with little knowledge of history. The captain found a tribe
that proclaimed they were the decedents of the royal line
and that a young beautiful woman named Victory was in line
to be the next Queen. The captain and Victory and the other
men take off for Europe and find that it is being ruled by a
race of black people who used white people as slaves and
both the captain and Victory were captured. After years of
service as a slave the captain was made somewhat a partner
to his black master and therefore had much more freedom than
other slaves. Then the black kingdom was overran by a
Chinese army and the Captain and Victory were sent to China
which still had a modern society. From there they were
rescued by a ship from the Western block and returned to the
western hemisphere where they were married. Shortly
afterwards they planed a return to Great Britain where they
would try and reestablish the previous greatness of the
English empire which would have Victory as their Queen. |
| 25. Cascade - Janice Boekhoff -
Another new author for me. I found this book in the library
under geology so I thought I would give it a read. Its a
story about a woman volcanologist, Lenaia, who is sent to Mt
Rainier to investigate some of the tilt sensors that seem to
be malfunctioning. Lenaia is part of a geology contracting
firm and was sent because the government was closed down and
so USGS people were unavailable. She had been at Mt. Rainier
before as a geologist but had to leave because of
relationship problems. Unfortunately the people who had
caused the problems still lived in the area and Lenaia was
forced to interact with them. The only government geologist
that was still working was resentful of Lenaia when she
arrived because he thought he had everything under control.
Come to find out, this guy Griffin Wall, was a badly damaged
person who wanted to wipe out the entire town below the
mountain because of what some people had done to his Mother
in the past. While Griffin was busy taking core samples of
the glaciers on the mountain he was also placing explosives
into each drilled hole so he could trigger a lahar and wipe
out the town. As the story goes on multiple people are
killed and Lenaia wanted to get to the bottom of it all. She
ends up being kidnapped by Griffin and taken to an ice cave
on the mountain where he planed to kill her after he blew up
the town. Luckily an old lover of Lenaia tracked them up the
mountain and assists in rescuing her but was seriously
injured. Griffin is killed in the process but he still set
off the explosives and wipes out the town. In the end the
mystery is solved and Lenaia then returns to her boyfriend
and starts to heal. This was not a bad read so I'll see what the library has of Boekhoff's other books. |
| 26. Gem Hunter - Janice Boekhoff -
This is a story about a young woman prospector, Alyna, who
finds a wooden box on her claim while searching for
aquamarine on Mt. Antero in Colorado. The box is filled with
exquisite gem specimens, a knife with a gem handle and a USB
drive. She thinks she has really scored until two brothers
fresh out of prison come looking for it. One brother, Jared,
is a psycho, who has killed 3 people and the other brother
Ruger, who is trying to find out what happened to their
mother. Turns out the box contained evidence of Jared's
crimes and he is willing to kill anyone who gets in his way
to recover it, including his own father. Ruger kidnaps Alyna
to help him in his quest to find and stop his brother. Over
time Alyna and Ruger fall in love and are both hurt in
trying to stop Jared. In the final showdown, Jared is
lured into a trap of Alyna's making and is caught up in a
net from which he cannot escape. Jared is taken to jail and
Ruger and Alyna recover in the hospital with the hint that
they live happily ever after. In both of the Boekhoff I have read there is a beautiful young woman as the main character and a hunky man who comes to her rescue. In addition it is obvious that Boekhoff is a deeply religious person and former geologists because God and Jesus come into the narrative often. I will read another of her books to see if the pattern is maintained. |
| 27. Crevice - Janice Boekhoff -
Another interesting geologic story centered around the Lost
Dutchman Mine in the Superstition Mountains in Arizona. This
is dear to my heart because my Father and my Uncle did some
searching for this mine themselves. Though like everyone
else who has searched, they came up empty and sunburned.
This novel tells the story of the greed that takes over
people when Gold is concerned. Seemingly normal people can
go over the edge (and murder other people) when they
envision riches in their future. Elery, the owner of a
played out mine, has to deal with guilt after a cave in
killed one of her workers. Initially the cave in was thought
be due to old equipment but she finds out later one of her
other workers, Ron, sabotaged the equipment to kill someone
else who was searching for the Lost Dutchman Mine, thereby
eliminating some of his competition. Ron, turns out to be a
very bad guy who would stop at nothing to find the mine.
Elery gets hooked up with the brother of the man killed in
the cave in and finds out he is a wonderful person who
doesn't hold her responsible for his brother's death. At the
same time Elery's brother head out to look for the mine and
becomes trapped in a crevice (hence the title of the book)
and is found barely alive by Elery and Lucan. Of course many
of the books other characters get killed off in the process
and Elery escapes death multiple times. Like the other Boekhoff books I have read the same themes are repeated here. A beautiful heroine, Elery, gets mixed up with a beautiful man, Lucan, and they both fall in love while catastrophic events are unfolding around them. In the end they are together and inseparable. The other repeated theme is that God is with them and he allows them to survive this terrible tale. The religious aspect does not impact the story and it is something in all of her books. There are more of her books in the library so I will probably read another since I like the geologic aspect to her writing. |