My review of Space by James Michener

   It’s remarkable how downright prophetic this book has shown itself to be. It’s a brick, giving a detailed, partly fictionalized description of the early days of the Space exploration.

  A parallel story, however, explores the evolution of knowledge and science itself, and this is just as important as the main story. Lots of time is given to a typical evangelical, science-denial and plain fact-denial hustler. Seeing how extensive that worldview has grown today, Michener was certainly ahead of his time.

  Even literacy is criticized today for opening people to communism. «My grandfather was illiterate, and he remained anti-communist his entire life».

  Michener chooses a theme or a geographic area or similar, and writes a brick of a story about that, spending years in research, and he does it well. His style may feel a little dry, but it works. His storytelling is detailed without being boring. The paperback version is a brick with over a thousand pages, and even has small fonts. Each page is a story.

  Right wingers will detest the book. Openminded people will find it very interesting.

Review: Fury by John Coyne

   This novel starts off as one thing, and end as something completely different. I love those.

  It’s pretty much advertised as a horror story, but it isn’t, really. I would say it’s one more story not fitting into any genre, which is great. I prefer those.

  Jennifer Winters is a more or less average, no-nonsense modern businesswoman. She is frustrated beneath the polished surface, though, and doesn’t know why. When an old friend makes an attempt to pull her onto a new path, she rejects it out of hand as ridiculous.

  Later and shocking events she cannot ignore forces her out of her comfort zone, pulls her so far off the straight and narrow that she can hardly see the path ahead of her anymore, and there’s no way back to her dull, ordinary existence.

  The story begins right away. Very little of significance has happened before the first line, and there is no explanation, even though the Shirley MacLaine quote gives one possible clue for those of us knowing one crucial fact about her. We need to actually read the story for the explanation. Another good thing. We’re privy to Jennifer’s thoughts, and we experience the events through her, including her growing incredulity and fear as the story progresses. She has no idea what’s truly happening, and we don’t have either.

  The story does progress at an excellent pace. We’re slowly given more information, even though that doesn’t help much at first. The necessary confusion prevails, without the story becoming convoluted. There is a great balance to it. We’re torn between doubt and certainty in just the right way.

  The end is satisfying, and for most people it would feel a little strange, but also right, a natural progression of the story we’ve read. I liked it. I can’t claim to actually be enthusiastic, but the ending was still a great payoff. Everything makes sense to Jennifer, and to us at the end, even though it was far from the ending we expected. It made sense because it wasn’t the ending we expected.

  Recommended.

Review: Your Own Fate by Amos Keppler

   This came to my attention ten years ago, through a review at Amazon. I had read a few of Amos Keppler’s novels, like The Defenseless and Dreams Belong to the Night before that. It was an easy sell. I feared my expectations were too high, that I was bound to be disappointed, but I wasn’t.

  It starts off with a bang, and works itself up from there.

  Jeremy Zahn, a hunter of men and former British policeman, arrives in Los Angeles after a long, exhausting hunt of Timothy Joyce, an international fugitive that has become his archenemy. Zahn is a driven man, obsessive in his zeal, frustrated by his incomprehension of what’s going on, unable to understand the motivation and often baffling actions of his enemy.

  The story begins in Los Angeles, but also in London years before, successfully moving back and forth between the present and the past. Zahn is pretty much a typical, dull lawman during that time in London, one that hasn’t really pondered the hidden depths of the world. He’s forced to do that repeatedly during the three years of the hunt. Joyce seems to be his superior in all important ways, but Zahn refuses to be give up, following the other like a bloodhound never letting go of the scent.

  Who is really the prey and who is the hunter is open to interpretation, though.

  This is Amos Keppler’s shortest novel, but it feels much longer because it’s packed with details. You need to catch every one of them, or you might miss an important clue to what is actually happening. I didn’t realize what that was until the last few pages. It was still a great payoff, or perhaps a great payoff because I didn’t know. But when I read the book for the second time, and knew the basic story, I still loved it.

  It’s a complex story to end all complex stories, a tales of the unexpected to end everything unexpected. I predict you will be as stunned as I was when you’re done reading it.

 

Reclaim nature

«Make a little room on the crippled Earth!
 Depopulate it so the grass may grow again,
 and woods, meadows, heather, stream and moor
 return to this world of dust and concrete».
Hermann Hesse - Steppenwolf

The sorry current state of mankind

  Most people clearly prefer the choice on the right, since that is by far the most common these days and has been for a long time.
  It says a lot about the sorry current state of mankind.

«Life», existence in the twenty-first century

  «When you grow up, your heart dies» - Ally Sheedy, The Breakfast Club.

  I've mentioned earlier the survey where children using the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking were shown to become less creative the older they get. I can attest to that and more.

  My childhood is very clear to me. I can easily recall events and see patterns of development.

  My friends then were pretty okay for a long time, but then, as they became adolescents and adults I noticed distinct changes. It wasn't just that they became less imaginative, but also that they were less prone to be critical and open, and less the great, exciting creatures they once had been. And they turned less friendly towards those breaking free from the mold. Modern existence… got to them. It got to me, too, I know that, but not to the same extent. We drifted apart, and I have hardly any contact at all with them anymore, and worse: every time I meet them, they look at me as if I am a leper or something, as if there is something wrong with me. I've learned well to recognize that look behind the polite exterior. There is nothing there anymore, no spark, only the force-fed information, the propaganda of that before mentioned modern society.

  Like most people they have become functions of expediency and practicality and hardly anything more. I shudder in horror.

  No horror film has ever scared me much and the reason is clear: we exist in one, one much scarier than any fiction.

  Something needs fixing and it is not children.

  «Dreams can’t die, but they belong to the night» - Amos Keppler, Dreams Belong to the Night.

Kindred souls

  When I hear some of my friends speak, when I listen to their mundane, unimaginative talk I feel even more lonely, but most of all I despair over how little even fairly intelligent people like them have truly grasped of the world. They are, I’m sad to admit usually fooled by the most common and transparent propaganda, and don’t feel the need to break out of their confines to search for the true freedom awaiting them beyond the thin veil of the oppressive society. When they don’t understand the world, they don’t understand me and without that understanding and simple awareness there can be little common ground and true friendship.

  It is said you don’t choose your friends and I guess that’s true. Most friendships grow more out of circumstances than from choice, and true friends are rare. It isn’t sufficient merely to spend a lot of time in someone’s company. You do need to have a somewhat similar view of the world and yearn for the same things.

  I agree with Marylyn French: Loneliness isn’t a search for company, but a longing for kindred souls.

Dreams of the Human Being

«Dreams can’t die, but they belong to the night».

This is the most thoroughly radical book I’ve ever read, and I’ve read quite a few. I would say, until anybody convinces me otherwise that it is the most radical novel ever written. I know others have compared it to the Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey, but that one doesn’t quite measure up, either.

Dreams Belong to the Night by Amos Keppler is a novel all true activists & radicals should read.

Everybody should read it, because very important issues are discussed there, but those that truly want to change society should definitely read it. It’s a book for advanced rebels, about rebellion in the true sense of the word.

In most stories about rebellion I’ve read and movies I’ve watched people stumble into it. They don’t have true awareness of their situation or the subjects involved. In short, they’re usually described as weak-minded idiots, which is clearly a part of the ongoing deception.

The people in the revolutionary movement the Green Rose make deliberate decisions to break away, to go to war against society. This is a kind of book I’ve wanted to read for a long time.

It’s a great story and well written, very intense and engaging. You can’t help caring about the characters and their issues.

Do we feel anything anymore? Is there any humanity left in us? Are we alive or no more than organic machines fit for the slaughter?

The book follows a group of beyond radical activists, from their first, initial conflict with the oppressive society to the beyond powerful, explosive peak. To say it is a great ride doesn’t feel in any way adequate.

I enjoy the pace, enjoy the slow-moving train of the story, how it’s slowly picking up speed and momentum, how the characters and the story itself are dominating the stage.


One thing among many I find great about this book is the casual way it portrays homosexuals. This isn’t a story about homosexual or bisexual activism, though, which is perfectly all right. The three, of about a dozen main characters are described as people, pure and simple, which is rare. I have personally struggled with society’s distorted view of bisexuality throughout my teens and feel this is one of the few books I’ve read without prejudice on the subject.

All in all, many controversial or perceived controversial subjects are touched upon and the story doesn’t shy away from asking any important question or challenging any grave imposition modern humans is subjected to. Yes, this is a book of books.

I can’t help fearing it will be overlooked, like so many great stories are in this day and age.

It will most certainly be condemned if it ever sees the light of day of public and official opinion. In case you’re wondering: that’s a strength, not a weakness.

It should be acknowledged, should become a part of humanity’s public consciousness, because in a way it already is. Dreams Belong to the Night is an underground publication to end all underground publications, roaming the subconscious web of humanity like an intense fire burning in the gray, sordid light that is the modern existence.

The book of books

I want to write a book, non-fiction or a film, a documentary, describing in detail, from the ground up the building blocks of the current society, how everything, every single detail is flawed, is fundamentally wrong.

The wrongness reveals itself to me piece by piece, blocks by blocks, like a slow-marching band. I want to reveal it all, from the ground up. It’s easy, really, since you notice it everywhere. The book or the film becomes a matter of logistics, not fact-finding. Those with open eyes have no trouble finding facts.

I want to interview people all over the world, both «experts» and people, about both the decline in the environment and in human society as a whole. There is no lack of illustrations looking at it from either angle. Food, health, green areas and life itself are fading away, slowly, quick as lightning, like the dew before the sun in the morning. There are those claiming the current human society, civilization itself has become a ravenous machine gobbling up everything of true value, leaving nothing but destruction, disintegration in its wake. That’s a more than a true observation.

From the smallest of truths to the big issue we know the truth.