The Athenian Murders by Jose Carlos Somoza

The Athenian Murders by Jose Carlos Somoza
On one level, The Athenian Murders is an historical mystery set in ancient Athens. The body of student of Plato’s Academy has been found, his body mauled by wolves. A tutor at the academy hires Hercules Pontor, known as the decipherer of enigmas, to find out what really happened. Pontor is drawn into a web of murder and secrets as he tries to find out what really went happened. The historical detail is good, as is the philosophical discussion.

But there are more levels to this novel than that. The Athenian Murders is actually a book within a book, an ancient manuscript that is being translated as we go along. The translator uses footnotes to communicate with the readers. These footnotes start by explaining what he is doing as he translates the novel. Early on, he discovers that the novel is an eidetic text – one with hidden images in the text. These images seem to have some meaning, and the translator is drawn in. But soon the borders between fiction and reality begin to blur. At times, the text begins to refer to the “translator” in ways that reflect what our translator is doing. And as things go on, the characters in the book at times seem to react to the eidetic symbols and, once, to the translator. What started as one mystery turns into two: the story of the Athenian murder plus the story of the translator. Likewise, what started out on one level as a standard historical mystery also becomes a book about how fiction works, how we respond to fiction, and the relationship between fiction and life.

So, as readers we are left with three overriding questions. How well does the base mystery work? How well does the second meta-fiction layer work? And how do they work together as a whole. The answer to all three is “pretty well,” though in all three cases I thought it could have been better. To be fair, the author attempted something pretty ambitious, and the fact that he mostly succeeded is actually an accomplishment. But I did think that the base mystery came to a conclusion that wasn’t as satisfactory as I would have liked (though perhaps I’m guilty here of judging the book based on where I wanted it to go, rather than just judging it for what it is). The story of the narrator got very strange and even frayed at points, but it in some ways came to a more interesting conclusion than the base mystery (though, here, it’s perhaps because I had different expectations). I also admit that I’m fan of fiction that plays with and explores the nature of fiction – from Eco to Fforde – so I was drawn into this story in many ways more than I was to the underlying mystery. Finally, the two parts do indeed play well off of one another, and some of the strongest, most intense points in the book are those points where the two layers are interacting most strongly.

In the midst of all this, there is also a lot of interesting philosophy related to Plato’s views of reality and our understanding of it. (In fact, the original Spanish title of the book was apparently The Cave of Ideas.) It’s pretty well done, and not just thrown in for discussion but actually and essential part of what the book is, what the hidden eidetic symbols mean, and, in the end, the underlying thrust of the book.

So, in the end, I thought it was a good book, though one that could have been better had the underlying mystery held together a bit better in the end.

The Best of the Spirit

The Best of the Spirit by Will Eisner
Somehow, during all the comics reading I did when I was younger, I never really connected with the Spirit. But I’ve read a lot about Will Eisner’s contributions to the genre, so when DC recently issued a full-color The Best of the Spirit collection, I decided to give it a try. Within about 20 pages, I was hooked and soon wondering how I’d missed this for all these years. Though to be fair, when I was a kid, I probably wouldn’t have appreciated the humor of some of the stories and in fact – being a “serious” comics reader – would probably have been a bit impatient with them. But now … It’s enough to make me contemplate investing in the Spirit archives (the complete run of the Spirit) that DC is publishing.

The Spirit is a crime fighter in the more in the mold of the great pulp characters like the Shadow than like the super-powered heroes of most comics. He was a policeman who was “killed” – actually put into a deathlike state – by a poison gas. He was presumed dead, but comes back, puts on a mask, and fights crime. Sounds somewhat mundane, but the stories are anything but.
The Spirit stories – or at least all of the ones in this volume –are all seven pages long. Yet each is packed with as much creativity, action, adventure, humor, and what have you as most 20-page comics. The styles, point of view, artistic approach, and so on very from story to story. Eisner was often blazing new trails, ones that would only much later be followed by other comics artists.

The first two stories are perhaps ordinary – if by “ordinary” one means merely “quite good.” One tells the origin of the Sprit, the next of his encounter with a couple of international criminals. They are well told, but stylistically only contain hints of what is to follow. Much of what is to follow is, in fact, extraordinary.
Take, for example, “The Killer,” where several of the panels are from within a character, literally looking out through his eyes. Or “Wild Rice,” which starts out with narrow panels interspersed with wider columns of text – a technique many would associate with recent graphic novels but used by Eisner in the 1940s.

“The Story of Gerhard Shnobble” adopts a more cartoonish style than Eisner used in many of his other stories. If you just thumb quickly through it, you might assume that this is a more light hearted Spirit. Instead, Eisner actually plays the artistic style off against one of the sadder storylines in the book.

“Two Lives,” on the other hand, is humorous. Eisner uses irony masterfully to contrast the lives of man in prison and a man stuck in a bad marriage. The story-telling style is also new, as Eisner, in several parts, uses parallel pages with in the page to contrast and compare the lives of the two men.

“The Christmas Spirit” is a touching Christmas story, but also another vehicle for Eisner’s artistic innovation, as he again breaks the model of simple sequences of panels on pages, and instead uses central panels with other action wrapped around them.

“Rat-Tat the Toy Machine Gun” uses yet another style; the story is told in strips down the pages, with no gaps between the “panels.” The tone and narration meanwhile is reminiscent of a children’s story, as is the art. Yet it tells quite a good Sprit crime story.

“The Embezzler” contains perhaps the most tension of any story in the book. It tells the story of a man who is losing his vision – which, incidentally, gives Eisner yet more room to try different artistic styles – who is accused of embezzling money from his company. The scenes in which he’s stalked by the real embezzler are actually tenser than many a movie, and again the whole thing is very well done.

As impressive as all the individual stories are, the overall effect is wonderful. It’s a pleasure to start another short story and find yet a new style and be surprised by yet a new twist. From story to story, there’s something new and fascinating. Even all these years after their original publication, these stories seem fresh and new. One can only speculate on what it must have been like at the time, when Eisner really was doing this sort of thing for the very first time as he helped invent and expand a new medium.

The Bibliophile's Dictionary by Miles Westley

The Bibliophile’s Dictionary by Miles Westley
A few days ago, while browsing in Barnes and Noble, I ran into The Bibliophile’s Dictionary. This is a dictionary aimed at booklovers. There are not only definitions for a bit over 2,000 words and phrases – the author doesn’t define everyday words, but rather those likely to be of interest to someone looking up details as he/she reads – but most of the definitions are accompanied by quotes from books. The author reads widely, since these quotes range from Robert A. Howard to Poul Anderson, from Fydor Dostoyevsky to Dan Brown, and even includes quotes from newspapers, histories, and so on.
It’s divided into fifteen sections, and most of these sections themselves have subsections. For example, a section on “Knowledge, Language, and Philosophy” contains sections on figures of speech as well as on writing, logic, and knowledge. A section on “the Lowly and Corrupt” includes sections called “Lustful,” “The Mob,” “Cowards and Moral Weaklings,” and so on. There are sections on writing, on drama, on religion and mythology, on architecture, and other interesting areas. It’s a lot of fun just to browse through, reading things at random.
It’s nicely designed and features some good illustrations. If you are a book lover who also likes reference books, pick up a copy.

Current SF TV plus some non-SF

Current SF TV – plus some non-SF
For all the complaints about the quality of TV, there is a lot of good stuff on TV – so much so that I have deliberately kept away from shows that I’m sure I’d like based on what people have told me (CSI is a good example) because the half dozen shows I do watch cut into my reading time. It is certainly a great time for SF TV, as two of the very best shows on the air (as picked by mainstream critics, not just by SF fans like me) are SF: Battlestar Galactica and Lost. Meanwhile, Stargate SG-1 is having the most interesting season it’s had in several years, and Stargate Atlantis, while not up to the level of its parent show, is still an enjoyable interlude between Galactica and SG-1. And, of course, on top of this, American viewers will soon get to see the new Dr. Who, which is the best Dr. Who ever done.
Battlestar Galactic, which had a very good first season, is having an even better second one. This came as a complete surprise to me, since the original show wasn’t very good, I didn’t hold out much hope for the new series. The pilot was interesting, but a bit overlong, but the show picked up steam.
Galactica continues to seriously examine important issues, ranging from the balance between civilian and military power in times of war to how prisoners should be treated. The high point of the season so far has been the three part return of the Battlestar Pegasus. This basic plot device was used in the original TV series, but since I haven’t seen that show in 25 years, I don’t remember many details. The new series takes a much darker look at the return of the Pegasus, and uses it to really delve into some key issues and developments for the show. At the start of the first of the three parts, Pegasus’s arrival sparks celebration, but this soon turns to dismay as it becomes apparent that Admiral Cain, the commander of the Pegasus – who outranks Adama – assumes that her powers in time of war are unconditional. Moreover, she is one of those management types who, without bothering to determine how well an existing organization is working, begins shuffling things about to have it her way. Things come to a head when she sends over an interrogation team to question the Cylon prisoner Galactica is holding, and it becomes apparent that their idea of questioning involves brutality and even sexual assault. When two Galactica officers try to stop it, the head interrogator is killed. Admiral Cain’s response is to order the prisoners to be executed without trail, and Adama has to threaten force to stop it.
The portrayal of Cain (played by Michelle Forbes) is frightening. She is contemptuous of civilian authority and her only concern is fighting the Cylons, no matter what the cost, and with essentially no moral compass that rules out any amount of brutality to do so – including abandoning or even killing civilians. She is contrasted with the Galactica’s Adama, who initially showed similar (though less extreme) impulses in the first season, However, Adama’s impulses are always tempered both by his concern for the civilians under his care and by the basic desire to do what is right and abide by the laws of his civilization. This contrast, of course, gives us a mirror that we can use to look at our own civilization. I continue to watch Galactica each week, looking forward to seeing where the creators will take the show next.
The start to the new season of Stargate SG-1 wasn’t really promising. I enjoyed Ben Browder in Farscape, but he’s not as good an actor as Richard Dean Anderson, who he was replacing. And the early part of the season had several episodes that, while enjoyable, weren’t up to the best of Stargate. But that soon changed, with the introduction of a new menace, one even more frightening than the Ga’old, the chief villains of earlier seasons. Previous seasons had established that the original intelligent beings in the galaxy, the ancients, had “ascended” – evolved to another form of existence, in which they are no longer concerned with what goes on in the galaxy. In the new season, we discover that some ancients, who now call themselves the Ori, did not want to leave the galaxy behind when they ascended. Instead, they wanted to control and be worshiped. The Goa’uld wanted the same thing, but the Goa’uld were the nasty Gods of Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian, etc. mythology: very powerful, but certainly not the level of power that most contemporary religions attribute to a God. Moreover, the trappings of the Goa’uodl were the trappings of mythology, and that affected the way viewers perceived them. The Ori and their emissaries the Priors have the trappings of religions we are familiar with – the Priors often look like Christian pilgrims in the middle ages – and the Ori have powers closer to what we would consider God-like. Moreover, while the Goa’uld wanted obedience (belief was secondary), the Ori demand belief and worship, and wipe out those who disobey. This combination of power combined with undertones that resonate more with the viewers make the Ori a truly frightening adversary.
SG-1 is doing a fine job of setting up the conflict with the new villains. In addition, the show continues to have good production values, generally good writing, and good acting, led by Michael Shanks and Amanda Tapping. Beau Bridges is also doing a good job as the new commanding general.
Meanwhile, Lost is having another interesting season, with the backgrounds of yet another group of people to explore. The mystery of what’s really going on here is still unfolding, and I just hope that Abrams and the production team can pull it off, that they really do know what’s going on. (As opposed to Chris Carter, who, it became clear as the X-Files reached it’s fourth season or so, was making up the “mythology” as he went along.)
What else do I watch? As I said above, I watch Stargate Atlantis, which is enjoyable, has good characters, and sometimes good situations, but isn’t up to SG-1.  For one thing, their adversaries, the Wraith, look and act like rejects from B-grade horror movies, which takes something away from what is otherwise a well-done show.
I started watching House because I’ve been a Hugh Laurie since his portrayal of Bertie Wooster in Jeeves and Wooster. Here, he plays a bad tempered, crotchety, but brilliant doctor, very different from what I’d seen him do before (and with a convincing American accent). The first half of the first season tended to repeat the same basic plot structure, and the show at that point was mostly interesting for its characters, but it’s gotten better.
Finally, I sometimes watch Numbers, a drama in which a math professor is called in by his brother, and FBI agent, to help solve crimes. I was drawn to a show that showed complicated equations in the credits and often included the professor (David Crumholtz, who played Mr. Universe in Serenity) often giving short math lectures to the FBI agents. The show is frustrating in that it alternates between weeks where the math really is an integral part of the plot (using statistical analysis of various sorts to narrow down the area where a killer might strike next, for example) with weeks in which it’s a real stretch to work in a math element. But when it’s good, it’s a lot of fun. And the geeky element goes to show that not all TV is aimed at the lowest common denominator.
And I’ll also note that I watch two animated shows: The Simpson, still reasonable after all these years, and Justice League, which has established itself as one of the best superhero renditions ever done.
So, overall it’s a good time for TV – perhaps too good. I like to read more than I like to watch TV, so I can only make room for a limited number of TV shows.

Rubicon by Tom Holland

Rubicon by Tom Holland
Some pundits as well as numerous writers of letters to the editor love to use the Fall of Roman Empire as a lesson for today. Pointing to “bread and circuses” is a particular favorite. Yet, the Roman Empire is not a good example for the US. By the time Rome was ruled by an emperor – particularly the emperors such folks like to point to – it was too late to really compare accurately to the US.  A better example to look toward – certainly the one that our Founding Fathers looked toward – was the Roman Republic. Despite its flaws – it was very misogynistic, for example, and also reliant on slavery, especially in the late Republic – the Republic at its best (at least in its ideals) provided an example of freedom and governance. People of all classes felt they were basically free, that they could speak their minds, that they were subject to the whims of a king. Citizenship was important, and citizens defined themselves based on their relationships to their city and fellow citizens and aspired to public service.
The Roman Republic lasted for hundreds of years, yet it fell. The reasons for this fall were complex, but many were embedded in the very nature of the Republic and its citizens. Roman life was very competitive; Romans aspired to beat out their fellows in honor and position. Most Romans understood, and took steps to protect against, where this could lead to – excessive control by one man, who placed his own aspirations above that of the Republic itself. Yet, in the first century BC, all of these safeguards and all the best intentions of many who wanted to stop it from happening broke down and the Republic fell and Rome, which hadn’t had a king for centuries, again had a “king” (even if he called himself an emperor).
The reasons for this were many, and included the fact that Rome became far more involved in her overseas empire (which was growing by leaps and bounds), part was that, in parts of the empire, the amount of money involved grew to a great degree (this is tied to the previous point), and, growing from these two points, politics became nastier and more divisive. (This is saying a lot, because Roman politics puts even the current nasty divisiveness in the US to shame.)  Moreover, special interests and jockeying for position became more pronounced. This lead to first one breakdown (which lead to the rise of the dictator Sulla). After Sulla the Republic was restored, but the example was there, a line had been crossed, and that made it easier for the line to be crossed again.
Tom Holland’s Rubicon is a detailed, but very readable account of the last days of the Republic, from the time of Sulla through the rise of Augustus. He does a good job of both explaining all the forces at work within the empire – with enough background so that those not familiar with the setup of the Republic can understand what’s going on – as well as the diverse cast of characters, ranging from Sulla to Cicero. (His portrait of Cicero is well balanced. Not the unhesitant praise that some apply to him, but not the negative portrayal that Steven Saylor gives in his Roma Sub Rosa novels.)
This is a book that’s worth reading, both by those who know something already about that period but want yet another perspective on it as well as those who know little about the late Republic. Holland is yet another fine writer of popular history (in the best sense of the term). (We in fact seem to be going through a golden age of good history books. Thirty years ago, there were some, but not to the degree that they are now available.)
Recommended.

Declare by Tim Powers

Declare by Tim Powers
I’ll admit right off that one part of the SF genre that I’m particularly fond of are secret histories – SF or fantasy books that tell of the “hidden” parts of real history. A thriving part of this area involves secret, usually government organizations that are dealing with the supernatural in some fashion. The Indiana Jones movies are one example, though they don’t really delve as deeply as many. Charles Stross’s wonderful The Atrocity Archives is one great recent example. Mike Mignola’s Hellboy and B.P.R.D (Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense) graphic novels (and the movie) are another. But the best example to date remains Tim Power’s superb novel Declare. Published in 2001, it is Power’s best novel and is one of the best fantasy novels of the last decade.
Powers has the remarkable ability to look at disparate parts of real history, examine these bits for where things are quite explained or are just about strange, and weave a compelling “secret history” of what was really going on. It’s impressive not only in that he does it in a way which seems consistent with the real history we know, but in a way in which we accept – at least as we read – the supernatural underpinnings he creates. Moreover, science fiction and fantasy fans are prone to talk of sense of wonder and the feeling it invokes: Powers manages to take often rather mundane history – in the case of the history in Declare, rather squalid and nasty history – and overlay it with remarkable moments of sense of wonder.
Declare weaves together a number of parts of our own history. Lawrence of Arabia’s mysterious death; the career of Kim Philby, the British double agent/Russian spy; the history of the Soviet Union and why it was so brutal while it lasted but at the same time why it fell; the spy networks in World War II and afterwards; and more. Some of this can be summed up with one quote, spoken by one key character to another:
What sort of personage did your Lawrence of Arabia learn of, in the brontologion scroll he found at the Qumran Wadi in 1917? Why did the American President Wilson suffer a stroke immediately upon returning to America from the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, where he had reluctantly agreed to take the League of Nations mandate to occupy eastern Turkey, in spite of the advice of the experts – experts on ancient Persian languages and the Crusade! – in his secret Inquiry group? Why did Lenin suffer the strokes that killed him in ’22 and ’23, after the Red Army had recaptured and then lost the Kars and Van districts in eastern Turkey?
Powers is a fan of John le Carre, and much of the book reflects le Carre’s writing – not only the details, but in some ways style and even attitude. Its characters are all agents, first in the Second World War, then in the Cold War. Nominally working for their governments’ chief espionage agency, they are actually in most cases working for secret agencies within those agencies – ones that deal with the supernatural. But Powers reveals what’s going on only a bit at a time. Part of the joy of the book is the way the real story of what is going on is slowly revealed as the book unfolds. Thus, I won’t give many of the details here. But suffice to say that this is a universe in which fallen angels inhabit the earth – often in the form of what men would call Djinn, and often in fantastical shapes. In fact, the Djinn manifest their thoughts physically, so they take many shapes – whirlwinds, swarms of birds, and so on. A number of these Djinn live on Mount Arrarat and one has been captured by the Russians and has become the “guardian angel” of the Soviet Union.
Andrew Hale was born in Palestine to an ex-nun; he doesn’t know who his father is. But on the day of his first communion, his mother takes him to London and introduces him to the British secret service. For some reason that he doesn’t understand, he’s special and they want to use him – first simply as a radio operator in occupied France, later as an agent in a mission to Mount Ararat – one that fails miserably. Along the way, he has sign cant interactions with Kim Philby – who also seems to have a strange connection to the supernatural goings on. This is all in the past of the main story – much told by chapters set in the past – while the main story focuses on a second mission to Ararat. The suspense builds up very nicely, and all the diverse pieces fit together by novel’s end.
It’s worth noting that the spy-story parts of this are very well done in their own right and would have been worthy of le Carre. Powers works in a lot of convincing details of the workings of the British, Soviet, and French secret services, and also effectively portrays how nasty such organizations can be.
But of course weaved in seamlessly with this realistic spy fiction is a detailed, consistent supernatural (and religious) underpinning. Several times along the way, we encounter djinn, who are fallen angels. They are very alien and very awe-inspiring. One is trapped in pool, imprisoned their thousands of years before by King Solomon, who had power over the djinn. Others are manifest in sandstorms or swirling in the air. All are nasty – some in a completely amoral way, in that they don’t seem to notice or care what happens around them, others – like Russia’s bloodthirsty guardian angel, are frighteningly evil.
This is a wonderful book. Looking back at it, the only reason that it probably wasn’t nominated for a Hugo award was that it came out in a limited edition that many didn’t see the year before it came out in a regular hardcover edition, and thus many readers didn’t see it in time to nominate it (I certainly didn’t). It’s definitely worth reading.