The Land of Odd: ‘Warren the 13th and the All-Seeing Eye’ written by Tania Del Rio and illustrated by Will Staehle

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All-Seeing Eye, ghosts, gothic, mazes, middle grade, monsters, mystery, puzzles, secret room, steampunk, Tania Del Rio, treasure, Warren the 13th, Will Staehle, witches

Twelve-year-old Warren the 13^th, heir to the once-fabulous Warren Hotel, has a problem. Rumors of a hidden family treasure, a powerful something called the All-Seeing Eye, may actually be true. Finding it may help Warren restore his family’s fortunes but his creepy Aunt Annaconda is looking for it too and word’s gotten out. The race for the mysterious treasure is on but no one knows the hotel better than Warren, who’s been cleaning and patching up the place all by himself for the last five years. That’s all the time it’s taken for his Uncle Rupert to let the mansion and the grounds fall into disrepair. Known for his laziness, Rupert became even more befuddled when he unexpectedly married Aunt Annaconda four months ago. She is not at all nice: she insults Warren about his looks (his face is a bit toad-like and his teeth are crooked—but he has a big heart, a full head of luxurious hair, and is very clever), she bosses him around, and she inevitably underestimates him. Warren tries his best to steer clear but, unfortunately, his aunt has a habit of turning up where he least expects her. She is determined to have the power of the Eye for herself and isn’t shy about tearing the hotel apart to find it. She is a frightening adversary but Warren has some unusual friends on his side. In the fight against his aunt’s supernaturally-powered greed, Warren’s kindness, loyalty, and sharp thinking are his secret weapons.

Warren the 13^th and the All-Seeing Eye is a beautifully imagined book; the author, Tania Del Rio, and the illustrator, Will Staehle, have created a visual treat as much as a good story, a world teeming with danger and surprise that also serves to underscore the importance of having friends. See a preview and meet the characters at http://warrenthe13th.com/. An activity booklet filled with mazes and word games as well as a new short story about Warren the 13^th can be downloaded here: https://www.scribd.com/document/335608383/Warren-the-13th-Activity-Booklet.

Keep an eye peeled for the next book in the series, Warren the 13th and The Whispering Woods.

Murder in the Melody: ‘Career of Evil’ by Robert Galbraith

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amputation, Blue Öyster Cult, Cormoran Strike, crime fiction, detective, JK Rowling, London, mystery, Robert Galbraith, Robin Ellacott, war

Contemporary London is brought vividly to life in this well-crafted crime fiction series featuring soldier-turned-private detective Cormoran Strike. The illegitimate son of a rock star and a super-groupie, he moved with his mother from one squat to the next, somehow keeping up with his studies despite the distractions of hangers-on and “the constant fug of cannabis smoke” before ending up with the Special Investigative Services. The loss of his leg ended his military career but his private investigative practice has recently had more ups than downs after successfully closing some high-profile cases (The Cuckoo’s Calling (2013), The Silkworm (2014). Cormoran Strike has an innate sense of justice, an unflagging determination to get the job done, and a gruff sense of honor, all of which seem to conspire to guarantee him a place inches from being on the dole. His ambition is reserved for the job at hand and he’s very good at the job, often to the consternation of the Metropolitan Police. His latest case, effectively dropped at his door, will prove especially trying as even chasing the false leads takes him to where ‘unsavory’ and ‘unbalanced’ overlap with his past.

At the start of this third entry in Galbraith’s series, the image of a parenthesis (punctuation’s workhorse of the informational aside) is enlisted in a description of a murderer mid-gloat.

He had not managed to scrub off all her blood. A dark line like a parenthesis lay under the middle fingernail of his left hand. He set to digging it out, although he quite liked seeing it there: a memento of the previous day’s pleasures. After a minute’s fruitless scraping, he put the bloody nail in his mouth and sucked.

The transformation of something so ordinary into something so not is insidiously chilling—the first of many tiny alchemies in both people and things that occur throughout the novel. The juxtaposition of before and after creates a subtle but constant atmosphere of unease against what should otherwise be the happy anticipation of a public celebration.

London’s preparations for the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton are in the final stages when Robin Ellacott, Strike’s elegant assistant, signs for a package hand-delivered to their Denmark Street office. Addressed to Robin, the tidily-wrapped box contains, rather than the disposable cameras she’s expecting for her own wedding, the gruesome tribute of a woman’s leg severed to imitate Strike’s war injury. The enclosed card is typed with a few cryptic lines—a mystery to everyone but Strike.

        ‘”It’s gibberish,” [Wardle] said, then read aloud: “‘A harvest of limbs, of arms and of legs, of necks—'”

“‘— that turn like swans,'” interrupted Strike, who was leaning against the cooker and too far away to read the note, “‘as if inclined to gasp or pray.'”

                                             

He recognizes them immediately as lyrics by Blue Öyster Cult, from a song with a very personal connection to his past, appropriated now to deliver an unmistakable threat to his future—and Robin’s. The pressure to identify victim and sender forces them both to reveal aspects of their histories they would prefer remain buried and puts a financial squeeze on Strike’s investigative practice as potential clients are inclined to avoid “the twin stenches of failure and perversity” that rise proportionally with the time required to find answers. Adding to Strike’s stress is that, despite knowing she is on the killer’s menu, Robin is determined to assist with the field work. Though self-conscious about her lack of experience, she is anxious to prove her worth and her commitment to the business’s success.

In no small measure, Robin’s management and research skills have improved the practice immeasurably since she first arrived as a temporary secretary (The Cuckoo’s Calling). Tall, blonde, and with an admirable credit history, her world seems far removed from Strike’s (“a Labrador and a Land Rover and a pony”) yet she’s also been touched by horror, had her life derailed, and fought her way back. Her moxie and resourcefulness have earned Strike’s respect but still she contends with “men who considered displays of emotion a delicious open door; men who ogled your breasts under the pretense of scanning the wine shelves; men for whom your mere physical presence constituted a lubricious invitation.” Her anger sometimes causes her to question Strike’s actions and her place in the practice but there is no doubt that, in the tiny Denmark Street office with its perpetually empty biscuit tin and farting couch, she has found purpose.

Career of Evil is a beautifully written and absorbing mystery, full of details and depth that will commandeer a few neurons and set up shop. The complexity in these characters’ lives makes them both relatable and memorable and I’m looking forward to monitoring their continued growth. Please visit robert-galbraith.com for more information about this novel and its predecessors and for updates about the BBC’s new Strike Series.

                                             

                                             

Navigation Guide to NPR’s Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

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fantasy, find a book, flowchart, Neil Gaiman, NPR, Science Fiction, SF Signal, top 100

Some of you may have seen this literary flowchart, constructed by SF Signal using data from NPR’s listeners (including me), when it was first published in 2011. Because our neurons occasionally fizz, pop, and call it quits when we try to figure out what we want to read next (it happens to the best of us), this remains an excellent tool to put us back on the path to reading enjoyment. Naturally, many more novels have been published since but these are pretty solid choices from which to start your search. Check out the full story (and access the interactive features) here. Many thanks to Sabra for bringing it to my attention!

“Update 2: As Neil Gaiman so astutely pointed out, the novel Stardust, unlike the movie, contains no pirates. Turns out he’s an authority on the subject. This egregious error has been corrected and we’d love to appeal @neilhimself‘s ruling of this being not quite the greatest flowchart in human history.” Best update ever. I hope he relented.

Letter From Wonderland

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Andy Weir, comfort, Deborah Crombie, Douglas Preston, Elly Griffiths, favorites, graphic novel, James M. Tabor, James Rollins, Jim Butcher, Lincoln Child, Matthew Reilly, mystery, Peter May, Rainbow Rowell, reading, Robert Galbraith, suggestions, Terry Pratchett

collage by Anne Fontaine

It’s not immediately clear whether I’ve jumped into the rabbit hole or am finally poking my head out of it but time has passed and much has happened, some of it happy and a lot of it sad. The one constant through my life’s most recent shenanigans (which include an interstate move, the loss of a nephew, and then the loss of my mother) has been books. Reading is the only occupation that can both anchor me in this world and, at the same time, send my limping brain soaring to worlds of my choosing—a sort of therapeutic waking dream. If I ever stop reading, you’ll know there is something seriously wrong and you should call someone. To help me get back into blog-writing form, I put together a partial list of the books I’ve read while absent from these pages. Though I haven’t written about any of them (yet), I haven’t been idle—notes were taken. Some of these titles are earmarked for reviews but, in general, if it’s here, I loved it.

1. The Bromeliad Trilogy  Terry Pratchett
2. The Apothecary  Maile Meloy
3. All nine books of Colin Cotterill’s Dr. Siri series and the first two in his Jimm Juree series. (The first Dr. Siri novel, The Coroner’s Lunch, was reviewed here in November 2013)
4. Frozen Solid and Deep Zone  James M. Tabor
5. Island Practice: Cobblestone Rash, Underground Tom, and Other Adventures of a Nantucket Doctor  Pam Belluck
6. Skin Game and Welcome to the Jungle  Jim Butcher  I’ve also listened to the entire 15-novel Dresden Files series on audio—three times (James Marsters, ‘Spike’ from Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, reads and he’s brilliant); my reviews of Turn Coat, Ghost Story, and Cold Days can be read here
7. The Lost Island and Gideon’s Corpse from Douglas Preston’s and Lincoln Child’s series featuring Gideon Crew; Blue Labyrinth and Crimson Shore from their Pendergast series (Fever Dream was reviewed here in June 2010 and Two Graves here in January 2013; Preston’s The Kraken Project was reviewed here in August 2014 and Impact here)
8. The Forgotten Room  Lincoln Child (The Third Gate, also featuring Dr. Jeremy Logan, was reviewed here in July 2012)
9. The Lewis Trilogy and Entry Island  Peter May (also the first four of his China Thrillers and first five of the Enzo Files novels)
10. The first seven books in Elly Griffiths’ series featuring Dr. Ruth Galloway (the first, The Crossing Places, was included in a post titled ‘Bring Out Your Dead: Three Forensical Series to Add to Your Shelves’ in September 2013)
11. Bloodline and The Eye of God  James Rollins (Altar of Eden was reviewed here in January 2010 and The Blood Gospel here in May 2013)
12. The first 16 books of Deborah Crombie’s series featuring Duncan Kincaid and Emma James
13. The Great Zoo of China  Matthew Reilly   (a dinosaur park and mayhem—yessss)
14. The first eight books of Joseph Delaney’s Spook series
15. Full Dark House  Christopher Fowler
16. Carry On  Rainbow Rowell
17. My Life in Middlemarch  Rebecca Mead
18. Liar & Spy  Rebecca Stead
19. The Martian  Andy Weir
20. The first three Cormoran Strike novels by Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling)
21. Gaudy Night  Dorothy L. Sayers  
22. Matilda  Roald Dahl
23. A Wrinkle in Time  Madeleine L’Engle  

Welcome to the Jungle by Jim Butcher was my first foray into graphic novels since I used to devour Classics Illustrated and Mad Magazine and I will definitely look for more. In addition to the Dresden Files, there are several other series (as you can probably tell) that have become my literary equivalent to comfort food. The last three books on my list are old favorites and have been read many times; I wrote about Gaudy Night here in March 2014 and included A Wrinkle in Time in a December 2009 post titled ‘Suggested Reading for the Imaginative Child’. Which authors or books, in particular, keep you coming back for more?

 

 

 

We’re Not in Kansas, Anymore: “The Kraken Project” by Douglas Preston

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AI, algo trading, algorithmic trading, artificial intelligence, Dorothy, Douglas Preston, future, Goddard Space Center, Kraken Mare, Kraken Sea, Moon, robots, The Kraken Project, Titan, Wyman Ford

A recent story on NPR discussed pre-Snowden whistleblowers and what’s happened to them in the wake of their attempts to call attention to governmental actions that seemed to overstep their declared boundaries (it wasn’t great) and how people who notice possible wrong-doing should be protected (the proverbial rub). But what if the wrong-doing is perceived not by a human but by an intelligent computer program capable of both understanding the implications of what it perceives and of making corrections on its own?

In Douglas Preston’s The Kraken Project, Dr. Melissa Shepherd has ‘raised’ such a program, a self-modifying AI whose eventual purpose—to monitor at first-hand the harsh environment in the Kraken Mare (the largest sea on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon)—inspired her name, “Dorothy”. In order to perform her tasks efficiently so many miles from home, Dorothy is programmed to improvise and survive on her own. However, under the strict parameters of a deliberately realistic dress rehearsal before the launch, Dorothy’s survival instincts take over. Using the technology at her disposal, she becomes focused on escaping the unfamiliar conditions. (On Dorothy’s behalf, I was reminded of one of Bert Gummer’s lines in Tremors 2: Aftershocks: “I feel I was denied critical…need-to-know…information.”) A massive explosion results from Dorothy’s efforts to free herself and she is presumed destroyed along with millions of dollars in research and equipment. Instead, she finds a way out through the internet, a wild place that seems accurately rendered as a mix of World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto. Traumatised, Dorothy is on the run but not only from the creepy residents of the unfamiliar terrain. A Wall Street tycoon who appears to be a hybrid of Gordon Gekko and Sauron, has become aware of her existence and he is desperate to bend her capabilities to a spot of vicious algorithmic (high-frequency) trading.

Enter Wyman Ford, a former CIA-operative who spent a few years in a Benedictine monastery before becoming a private investigator. This is his fourth appearance in Douglas Preston’s series and it is always interesting to watch his logical mind and good heart navigate the regimented and frequently blind sense of duty exhibited by both other agents and his governmental employers. Ford is asked by Stanton Lockwood, the science adviser to the president, to find Melissa Shepherd who, though suspected of sabotage, is the only person who understands the nuances of the AI she created. Ford senses there are shenanigans being planned in the background but he does his job, sorting out the moral contradictions as he goes along and saving more than one life in the process.

While The Kraken Project touches on a variety of subjects including philosophical questions relating to AI and its potential uses, robotics, algorithmic trading, and single-minded greed, there is also room to wonder about what it is to be human in an increasingly wired world. After reading this book, I thought that walking into a flower-filled field, far from prying eyes, might be the only safe place left and but then I thought of bee-sized drones and reconsidered. Throw in a government whose science committee doesn’t necessarily know anything about science, and, in the wrong hands, the future has bolts in its neck and wears size 20 shoes. The Kraken Project is that impossible thing: a thoughtful page-turner that might even make you yearn for a computer overlord—if her name is Dorothy.

Wyman Ford first appears in Tyrannosaur Canyon, followed by Blasphemy and Impact. Read more about The Kraken Project and Douglas Preston’s other projects at his website.

A Woman’s Place is Wherever She Likes: “Gaudy Night” by Dorothy L. Sayers

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Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night, Harriet Vane, Lord Peter Wimsey, Oxford, poison pen, women and education, You've Got Mail

Remember the impassioned speech children’s bookstore-owner Kathleen Kelly makes to Joe Fox in You’ve Got Mail? “And it wasn’t that she [Kathleen’s mother] was just selling books, it was that she was helping people become whoever it was they were going to turn out to be. Because when you read a book as a child it becomes part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does…” While not exactly a child when I first read Dorothy Sayers’ Gaudy Night, it made enough of an impression that I’ve now re-read it more often than any other book in my library. At different points in my life, at least yearly as it turns out, I gravitate toward the comfort of its counsel regarding the co-existence of hearts and brains and the pursuit of one’s “proper job,” revelations made in the midst of a mystery, set against the background of Oxford’s spires and rivers and directed at the female dons and students of fictional Shrewsbury College. For me, it is the literary equivalent of stopping for gas when the gauge is low or rummaging for aspirin to ease a headache.

Published in 1935, Gaudy Night is the eleventh book (omitting two collections of short stories) in Dorothy Sayers’ mystery series featuring the accomplished and impeccable Lord Peter Wimsey and the third also featuring mystery novelist and scholar Harriet Vane. When the novel opens, it has been five years since Wimsey’s persistent investigation saved Harriet Vane from the gallows in Strong Poison, their first appearance together. In the interim, they butted heads after Harriet discovered a corpse on a beach but they solved that mystery together in Have His Carcase. In Gaudy Night, Harriet attends Shrewsbury College’s Gaudy (reunion) and as she begins to regain her confidence in the face of her remembered notoriety, anonymous poison pen letters directed at academic women begin to appear. The senior members of Shrewsbury College, citing Harriet’s experience with detective procedure, her allegiance to the college, and women’s education in general, ask her to help unmask the culprit. When the poison pen’s letters and increasingly violent actions begin to risk lives in the college (including her own), Harriet calls upon Lord Peter Wimsey for additional insight (“nasty clear-headed way he has of putting things”) and matters on every hand come to a close.

At war in Harriet’s mind throughout the novel is the compatibility of a woman’s scholarly interests with marriage. On meeting one of her former classmates at the Gaudy, a woman with an exceptional mind who married a farmer, she had the “depressed feeling that she had seen a Derby winner making shift with a coal-cart.” In the end, one must do one’s proper job, whatever it may be, while taking care to avoid making another person your job. Harriet is confused about how to recognise one’s proper job and the trap of trying “to persuade one’s self into inappropriate feelings.” How these issues about women and education, and women in society, relate to Harriet’s dilemma regarding Lord Peter (who determinedly proposes to her ‘at decent intervals, as a birthday treat, and, of course, on All Fool’s Day’) is what keeps me coming back. Or, I simply have an incredibly thick skull that demands repeated immersion in Gaudy Night‘s good sense.

Do you have a touchstone novel you feel compelled to read again and again?

“Sherlock,” Memory Palaces, and the Physics of Bullet Wounds

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Amelia Peabody Emerson, Dorothy Sayers, Douglas Preston, Elizabeth Peters, Jonesy, Lincoln Child, Lord Peter Wimsey, Matthew Reilly, memory palace, mind palace, PBS, Scarecrow, Shane Schofield, Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock: "The Last Vow", Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Special Agent Pendergast, Stephen King

There it is again—in this season’s finale of Sherlock on PBS, the concept of a memory palace, the deliberate mental construction of a familiar structure where memories can be sorted, filed, or locked away in any of the various ‘rooms’ and accessed only

Memory Palace by Anne Fontaine

by a force of will (more detail here). It is an ancient technique that has imparted to several authors’ creations a skill that resembles a superpower: Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast visits his elaborately detailed memory palace in at least two books by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child: Day of the Dead and Two Graves (my review here); Gary Ambrose “Jonesy” Jones from Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher hides critical childhood memories from an alien intruder; and Matthew Reilly’s Captain Shane “Scarecrow” Schofield is able to shield his memories from a torturer in Scarecrow Returns (my review here). In Sherlock: “His Last Vow,” the technique is used to devastating effect by both consummate blackmailer Charles Augustus Magnussen and by Sherlock himself to save his own life.

In Sherlock’s case, this includes an ability to access anything that might be of help, including conversations (a skill this digital version of Sherlock shares on a more introductory level with Special Agent Pendergast). The process, brought to us in frenetic detail, happens in a flash. Among Sherlock’s insights, his split-second analysis of bullet wounds is riveting; had my college physics classes gone into such useful cause-and-effect scenarios, I might have done more than muddle through.

Like Lord Peter Wimsey’s sword-yardstick-compass cane and Amelia Peabody Emerson’s sturdy leather belt, jingling with her assorted excavation tools (a small pistol among them), the mastery of a memory palace would be a useful addition to any investigator’s bag of tricks. Please let me know in the comments if you are aware of any other fictional characters who employ this useful psychological device to get themselves out of a scrape. While the requisite sharp wit and the ability to make connections between seemingly disparate events are critical foundation skills for any sort of investigator, they do not necessarily indicate the use of a memory palace—but they’re a good place to start.

If you missed Sherlock: “His Last Vow”, you can find it here.

Dinner’s on the Bunsen Burner: “Nick and Tesla’s HIGH-VOLTAGE DANGER LAB” by “Science Bob” Pflugfelder and Steve Hockensmith

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"Science Bob", "Science Bob" Pflugfelder, build, experiments, inventions, inventor, investigation, laboratory, mystery, Nick and Tesla, question, science, scientist, Steve Hockensmith, trouble-makers

We’re seconds from the Christmas holiday but here is one more idea for the hands-on 8+-yr-old on your list: a gadget-filled mystery (the first of a new series wonderfully illustrated by Scott Garrett) with directions for building the gadgets as you go along. Nick and Tesla’s High-Voltage Danger Lab is exactly the good-mystery-incorporating-solid-science hybrid that is irresistible to me. When I taught middle school science (in the dark ages), I read Gerald Durrell‘s My Family and Other Animals and Sherlock Holmes stories with my students because I wanted them to recognise science and reasoning as part of a larger picture that had nothing to do with science class. While enlisting some neighborhood children for research on this book, I was delighted to discover that “Science Bob” Pflugfelder’s website is an active reference for the local public school’s science classes. He and Steve Hockensmith, author of the Holmes on the Range series, Dawn of the Dreadfuls, and Dreadfully Ever After, have crafted an imaginative mystery that transitions easily to the scientific principles behind Pflugfelder’s problem-solving gadgets.

Nick and Tesla, precocious 11-yr-olds, have been sent for an unexpected stay with their inventor uncle, Newton Galileo Holt, a literary twin to Caractacus Potts, the scatterbrained genius Roald Dahl brought to life in Ian Fleming’s classic Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Uncle Newt’s house is a convenient laboratory for the many contraptions he has built to automate and enhance his life, most of which could probably use a little more tweaking. His basement is a boneyard of past inventions and an incubator for new ones with raw materials stockpiled (literally) everywhere. Nick and Tesla are given the run of the lab and they make good use of it after they discover a mysterious house with unusual goings-on and a secret occupant nearby.

Though readers may not have every ingredient on hand to make the gadgets in this book, they can be easily scrounged in conjunction with one visit to your local hardware store. Use the book as a shopping list or use the one provided on the website. A nice woman at Lowe’s told me they would make the cuts for the lengths of PVC pipe needed for the rocket launcher at no charge; I had a few qualms about buying PVC glue (it’s a solvent and not something I would ever use again) and she suggested the substitution of a water-based alternative like Weldbond (which I happen to keep around so I was very pleased). Even with something like Weldbond, I would reflexively reinforce the joints with duct tape. In fact, my only criticism of the gadgets is that they don’t use enough duct tape. I wondered if it could substitute for the hot glue gun when making the Robocat Dog Distractor, especially if its wheels need repositioning. Keep in mind that I don’t always follow directions when I cook, either. Certainly, some experimentation would be fun and that’s really the whole point.

No matter how you decide to proceed, some supervision is essential and the authors emphasise the requirement for oversight. These are great collaborative experiments that provide depth to the story while stimulating a child’s natural inquisitiveness and problem-solving development. Even without making the gadgets, the unfolding mystery and the background science as explained by Nick and Tesla will keep your child entertained. The second book in this series, Nick and Tesla’s Robot Army Rampage, is available, too!

Astronaut in the Jungle: “The Coroner’s Lunch” by Colin Cotterill

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1976, Colin Cotterill, coroner, Dr. Siri Paiboun, dreams, ghosts, humor, Laos, Mekhong River, mysticism, People's Democratic Republic, The Coroner's Lunch, Vientiane

The Coroner’s Lunch unfolds in 1976, in the city of Vientiane on the Mekhong River in Laos, in the early days of its new incarnation as the People’s Democratic Republic. Most of the city’s professionals absconded before the communist faction’s arrival so Paris-trained Dr. Siri Paiboun, after years of hard living in the jungle, is rudely torn from plans of his imagined retirement to start a new career as the chief police coroner. Though a  member of the Communist Party for 46 years, Siri is not a good advertisement for its policies, having joined only to keep up with the love of his life. The 72-yr-old doctor, whose white hair contrasts sharply with his vivid green eyes, is less than eager to learn a new specialty; he is even less eager than that to appear weekly before a newly-minted judge for a “shared burden tutorial” that amounts to little more than endless naïve criticism of his work.

After seventy-two years, he’d seen so many hardships that he’d reached the calmness of an astronaut bobbing about in space.

Most of the interactions between Siri and the local officials made me laugh (unexpected and very welcome). The threat of his removal to a re-education camp in the North is always in the air but little chance it will be carried out—they need him for plans of their own. Unfortunately for them, Siri, despite having to learn his job from charred 1940s French textbooks propped like cookbooks next to his morgue table, turns out to be a careful, diligent coroner. He also has a mystical skill that proves extremely useful: He can mentally reconstruct and converse with the dead that come across his table. They arrive in short visits, usually in Siri’s dreams, to provide him with insights into their own deaths.

When Senior Comrade Kham’s wife arrives at the morgue as Siri’s next case and more strange deaths follow, he doesn’t come to the same conclusions the Senior Comrade insists upon. The difference of opinion awakens Siri’s memory of his favorite detective, Inspector Maigret, and he takes delight in channeling Maigret’s investigative example to get at the truth. Even navigating the indignities of everyday life while taking care to stay on the right side of the Politburo, Siri notices the small joys in his life. The Coroner’s Lunch is an immensely refreshing and enjoyable read.

Check out Colin Cotterill‘s website for more information about the author and his varied interests, this series featuring Dr. Siri Paiboun, and a new series set in Thailand.

 

At Home With the Greys: “Terra” by Mitch Benn

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alien, alien world, greys, humor, kindness, Mitch Benn, save the world, space travel, Star Trek, Terra

To herald the release of Terra, the debut novel from comedian and musician Mitch Benn, a star-studded trailer featured well-known writers and actors, including Neil Gaiman and Rob Llwellyn, taking turns reading successive lines from the first chapter (though I would have dearly loved to hear any of them pronounce the names “Lbbp” or “ Vstj”, which come later). It was any author’s dream-endorsement and Terra, about a human girl growing up on an alien planet, lives up to its promise. In a natural extension of his talents, Mitch Benn turns the concept of alien invasion around with an instinctual, though ill-advised, act of kindness. A scientist named Lbbp from a planet named Fnrr has been visiting Earth (Rrth) unobserved for many years, collecting plants and puzzling over the behavior of resident wildlife. On this visit, however, his focus wanders:

 Since there aren’t many roads on Fnrr (not since they invented gravity bubbles) and since Lbbp tried not to pay much attention to the Ymns [humans] or their little land vehicles (it just got him tense and angry, and that didn’t help him work) he didn’t really know what roads were or how to recognise them. If he had, he might not have been content to let his little spaceship hover just a few metres above the surface of one.

At the same time, the equally distracted Bradburys (Mr. and Mrs. and their still unnamed infant daughter) are carrying on with their usual arguments as their car  approaches Lbbp’s position and they are naturally startled (understatement) when he accidentally switches off the invisibility shield. The Bradburys careen off the road and run away screaming, leaving their infant daughter in her car seat. Afraid the child has been left alone, Lbbp reluctantly does the ‘human’ thing and takes her with him back to his home on Mlml, an island on the planet Fnrr. His decision changes both their lives on a personal level but has even more far-reaching effects as Mlml is targeted for war.

 Behind the humor in Terra is a contemplation of the concept of home and of what it means to be ‘alien’. The discovery that we all have something to offer makes this novel a truly enjoyable vehicle for a gentle lesson in the advantages of keeping an open mind. Benn’s use of an ‘alien’ lens also allows him to call attention to our inadequate stewardship of this planet—however, if a scientist referencing Star Trek is any indication, the author’s outlook for us all is distinctly positive.

 Though Terra is not marketed as a children’s book, its humorous observations and descriptions of daily life on Fnrr make it an excellent read-aloud choice that will make both parent and child happy (just take a moment or two to decide how you want to pronounce the vowel-shy Fnrrian names).

See Mitch Benn’s website for more information about his many creative projects, most recently a song he wrote for a live reading of Neil Gaiman’s Fortunately the Milk.