Neanderthals by John Darnton is a mixed bag.

Written by a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, it's one of his many best-sellers (he started publishing fiction fairly late in his life). It is admittedly something of a page turner, so props for that.

As an adventure story in which you set your willing suspension of disbelief to ten and switch off your critical sense, it works. It has the pacing and the general feel of a summer action movie based on some scientific headline. You have to enjoy it for what it is.

Where it fails is... where, to be fair, where every summer action movie based on some scientific headline fails. Although the book was apparently critically read by a few scientists before publication, its science is so wrong as to be infuriating; this is made worse by having the bad science spouted in a very smug way by characters who are supposed to be experts. The dialogs between "biologists" sound as fake and expository as Star Trek engine room discussions.

The characters are not particularly sympathetic; relationships seem defined by some kind of "how to write an action novel" checklist. The romantic bits are perfunctory and would sometimes be seen as assault were the book published today. Coincidences are so frequent as to be farcical, and characters often act in very stupid ways. "Oh, come ON!" is not how I like to react to chapters in a book.

The plot is about Neanderthals having survived in a lost valley in Tajikistan, and about Russian and American efforts to harness their telepathic abilities. A few hapless scientists are brought into the mix under false pretence and hilarity does not ensue, as part of the cavemen are peaceful hippies but others are homicidal maniacs.

As a novel to read when stuck at an airport terminal, it's okay. In the genre, however, there are many others that I would rate more highly.

Fletch And The Man Who by Gregory McDonald

Fletch finds himself the new press secretary for a Presidential candidate in the heat of decisive primaries.  And, Fletch being Fletch, he finds himself with a string of murders on his hands.  

I had been pretty disappointed in the last few books by McDonald I had read.  Both in the Fletch series and the second Flynn book.  So I was about ready to give up if this one was a continuation of the weak sauce I'd been reading from McDonald.  Luckily this was pretty good.  Not by any means as good as the first two Fletch books or the first Flynn book, but leaps and bounds better than the ensuing efforts.  It's not without its issues.  The identity of the killer was pretty evident fairly early on, despite a red herring.  And the title and the use of "The Man Who" as an identifier for the Governor/candidate as stupid as all hell.  But it was compellingly readable (I killed it in two decent reading sessions).  And Fletch was almost back to being his funny witty self.  It bought McDonald a couple more reads to avoid me giving up.  

Red Eye of Betelgeuse (Perry Rhodan #40)
Clark Darlton

Perry's big plan is revealed... sending the Springers to Betelgeuse was just part of it... apparently he's hoping to trick them into destroying the 3rd planet and assuming Earth is no more! That will give the New Power time to build a fleet.

Perry and Reggie sit this one out... the minor characters are generally not very developed, but here we get a bit of Maj Deringhouse being curios while McClears wanted to follow the plan. It's not much, but it was something.

They find alot more than they bargained for in Betelgeuse, setting up what should be a very interesting battle next installment.

'Cosmos' continues to be pretty random, but this one about some aliens on Nepture was pretty good as a stand alone. One of the shock shorts about a Galactic Counterfeiter was cute too... better extra material than the last few for sure.

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

Just as an initial aside, I haven't seen the film Oppenheimer yet.  I just haven't gotten around to it.  And I knew that I had this book in the wings coming up.  Having studied political science with an emphasis on international relations as an undergrad, at a point where the Cold War was fairly warm, I was familiar with Dr. Oppenheimer, the Los Alamos project and the Red Scare.  But not by any means in this depth.  

This is a comprehensive look at Oppenheimer's life.  His privileged childhood.  His education.  His time as a teacher and physicist and a left-leaning intellectual.  His work at Los Alamos.  Oppenheimer...the Father of the Atomic Bomb, Director of the Institute For Advanced Study and chairman of the General Advisory Committee to the Atomic Energy Commission.  And the hearing (kangaroo court) that revoked his security clearance and made him a scientific martyr to the second Red Scare.  

Oppenheimer was a complex individual.  Apparently an almost mesmerizing speaker one-on-one, in small groups and in front of a crowd.  He was a renaissance man, well read in poetry, history, literature and the sciences. His work in physics was important.  His work predicted the discovery of the neutron, mesons and neutron stars.  He did early work that presaged the concept of quantum tunneling.  His 1939 paper with Hartland Snyder predicted the existence of black holes.  But his greatest strength as a physicist was as a catalyst for others theories and ideas.  It was this ability to reject ideas, to synthesize disparate ideas, to make leaps in logic that really was what made him the perfect person to head up the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos.  He wasn't an Einstein or a Niels Bohr.  But that's not what was needed there...what was needed was an Oppenheimer.  

For all that he was brilliant, he was also human.  And the authors show that with all the foibles that make us human.  He made mistakes that came back to haunt him whether they should have or not.  This isn't a hagiography...though it verges on one at times.  Oppenheimer was a complicated man in complicated times that wanted simple answers in black and white.  

This is an exhaustively researched book...but I never found it exhausting.  It has its heroes and its villains...and the villains are numerous.  Some rightly so; J. Edgar Hoover and Lewis Strauss.  Some, more situationally (Edward Teller).  Harry Truman comes off very badly rightly or wrongly is a little more difficult to say.  

Ultimately this is an excellent biography of an important man in an important time.  Well deserving of its Pulizer Prize.  Well worth the time commitment.  

The Drawing of the Dark
Tim Powers, 1979

Sometime before Easter in 1529, a down-and-out Irish mercenary named Brian Duffy – one of the few survivors of the Battle of Mohacs three years prior – gets accosted by three young men in the streets of Venice. He is observed easily dispatching them with a bit of swordplay by a mysterious old man named Aurelianus, who offers him a job in Vienna: to basically serve as the bouncer in a brewery and inn he now owns, known as the Herzwesten – which has a reputation for making arguably the finest beer in the world at the time. Duffy agrees because, among other things, Aurelianus offers a princely sum for such a mundane job, and he’s finds himself eager to return to Vienna for personal reasons. However, already on the trip there, Duffy finds that he’s attracting the attention of some shady characters who apparently want him dead, as well as some supernatural beings mainly intent on protecting him, and this trend continues once he arrives in the Habsburg capital, as the weird occurrences escalate, as does the political/military backdrop leading into to the (first) siege of Vienna by the Ottomans in October.
This is Powers’ third novel, and I have to say, it does seem like he hadn’t quite found his footing as a writer here. There are many of the elements that come to the fore in his later novels, i.e., lots of attention to the historical setting and real-life events mixed in with figures from myths and legends and the supernatural; in this case, the story is heavily steeped in Norse mythology and the Arthurian legends, including the Fisher King (a well that Powers would dip into quite heavily in first and last books in his Fault Lines trilogy – I reviewed the third one earlier this year), although a few figures from Greek, Arab/Middle Eastern and even East Asian mythology and history make appearances. However, at places the story seems to meander, and there is an odd tonal shift about two-thirds of the way through – when there is also a disconcerting jump ahead in time, i.e., from around early spring to October. Some additional criticisms I would make is that the setting of the Ottoman attack on Vienna is fit into the story’s overriding theme of a deeper, mystic West vs. East dichotomy, which I found uncomfortably Orientalist at times. Also, one character got in particular got treated really badly, like over and over again, to the point that it just kind of stuck in my craw.
By the way, the title is not a reference to an illustration of some dimly-lit place or thing, but rather to the tapping of dark beer from a vat, as the Herzwesten brew is a crucial background element of the story (as its very name indicates).

I unabashedly love Toby Peters.  A lot of it is because Kaminsky gave him a great supporting cast.  

The Sorceror's Ship
Hannes Bok



This was an interesting one... the intro by Lin Carter really paints the picture of the author.. he seemed very well loved (at least by the writer) and is described as just the type of quirk personality one wants to picture a fantast writer as. Bok was mainly an artist (though the cover is not his art for some reason), but did write a couple novels and finish a few fragments written by A. Merritt (who he was a big fan of).

This book very much resembles the A Merritt books I've read.. a regular person gets sucked into a fantasy world and has to be the hero and get the girl.

This particular world has two countries, poor but Democratic Nanich and rich powerful Koph. Our hero (a clerk from New York named Gene) of course stumbles about the Democratic country, and falls in love with its Princess and tries to save her.

Much like Ship of Ishtar, it starts on a ship.. there's a quest, and a big battle.. it goes pretty much exactly as you would expect. It's quite fairy tale-like, in fact.

It was pretty interesting how competent the Princess was.. that's definitely not typical of the time.. she is arguably her own hero with Gene sort of just coming along for the ride. There are some great visuals that maybe me think of a Miyazaki movie.