My God!  Joel Rosenberg is absolutely incredible.  His books and characters suck you in and thrash you until you don’t have any life left in you to read and then you keep reading.  Because you have to know what happens.  What I really enjoy is that his series of books is basically Tom Clancy crossed with The Left Behind series.  The geopolitical consequences of the end times is absolutely fascinating and incredibly gripping…especially when his novels seem to foretell the future (his first novel, written before 9/11, depicts an attempted presidential assassination via hijacked airplane and his second novel predicted the assassination/death of Yasser Arafat).

Having seen the paths of all the other original characters through the “Wicked” lens, Maguire now focuses his lens on The Cowardly Lion formally known as Brrr in order to re-examine the life and time of Elphaba and her descendants. Having already revolutionized him as a fop having his curls twirled by Nick Chopper the Tin Woodsman, Maguire now takes us through the life of Brr after he escaped from captivity as he wanders through life just trying to get by and always being discouraged.

As always, a delightful incursion into fancy and an interesting twist in silver shoes.

Just as brilliant as last time, Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen continue to draw us in to their active history to analyze great military commanders and the men they commanded.

Picking up where Pearl Harbor left off (with General Yamamoto ordering a catastrophic third strike on Pearl Harbor that decimates the dry dock), we see a battle of wits between Admiral Halsey and Yamamoto as they try to find each other and end the war.

I appreciated this book, not just as an exciting historical thriller (akin to Da Vinci Code and it’s many spawn), but for taking the issues of faith and religion a step further in this book.  Unlike Da Vinci Code, here we have a character who is a member of the faith the supposed Templar secret could tear asunder.  A character who expresses an outrage akin to what I felt when I read Da Vinci Code and it dropped its supposed “truth” on me about Jesus.  And I really appreciated that.Or maybe it’s because I’ve already coped with the supposed “truths” that Da Vinci Code claims, or I’ve grown and matured or I’m just crazy.

This is a really exciting book and an excellent read.

Joel Rosenberg so perfectly combines the style of Tom Clancy, Dan Brown and La Haye/Jenkins that it is absolutely irresistible. The characters are so familiar and comfortable, the plot is terse and believable, and the book is great fun. He is one of the few authors (K. A. Applegate and Eoin Colfer being others) that I have trouble putting down at 2 am (no trouble at 3 am). The books are actually detrimental to my productivity!

And it’s got a tie-in to church! The Sunday after finishing the book, my pastor mentioned a teaching style of Jesus and other rabbi’s of 30 A.D. called remez. The principle is to read passages of the Old Testament in parts without explaining what was missing. It assumes that the audience of the sermon/lecture knows the Old Testament well enough to know what was missing and THAT was the thrust of the lecture/sermon. While not mentioned by name, this concept played heavily into the book and it was awesome to see such immaculate detail in Rosenberg’s research.

There were two very intriguing religious ideas that I was particularly drawn to.  The first concerned the Antichrist and the End Times.  Essentially, the devil doesn’t know when Jesus is coming back, so he has had an Antichrist ready to fulfill prophesy in every era (page 156).  The second was a compelling heart-to-heart conversation between a Jew and a Christian about what it’s like to follow God, where if you don’t become a true follower and learn to speak His language, you’ll completely miss what he’s saying (page 288).  It was just a really interesting way of putting it and I was absolutely fascinated.

Finished on September 4th, 2008

Who is the more admirable character, the actress Laura Keene or the assassin’s sister, Asia Booth Clarke?

Before reading this book, I would have had no idea how to answer this question, but now I know all this and more and am very glad to have read this book.

I first heard about the book as a potential film project that Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford were looking at, but didn’t pick up the book until a couple of months ago. It reads very easily and is the exciting and compelling true life mystery of the hunt for John Wilkes Booth after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Packed full of history and an incredibly petty and sordid supporting cast (especially on the Union side), this book was absolutely delightful.

What was especially nice in my edition of the book was the interview with the author and the questions in the back like the one above. In my opinion, Asia Booth Clarke is more admirable than Laura Keene. Laura Keene wove her way into the assassination legacy by resting Lincoln’s head in her lap shortly after the assassination (despite advice to the contrary from doctors on the scene, just to get Lincoln’s brain matter on her dress). Asia Booth Clarke (Wilkes’ sister) spent her lifetime trying to redeem her brother…not for the act he committed, but as a true Christian hating the sin (the assassination) and not the sinner (her misguided brother).

The other interesting question was: Is Thomas Jones, the rebel river ghost, to be admired for his code of honor or condemned for his aid to the assassin?

And like a true Republican Southerner, I once again side with the South on this question. I think Thomas Jones, who risked his life to get Wilkes across the Potomac from Maryland to Virginia, is to be admired for maintaining his Southern code of honor and protecting Wilkes not because of his crime (even in spite of it), but because Wilkes was a Southern patriot and true believer in the cause (even if it is misguided, sticking to your belief is an admirable and respectable quality).

I just can’t stop reading! I was absolutely riveted and completely drawn in by Eoin Colfer’s fascinating and technological revamp of the Fair Folk and teenage genius Artemis Fowl.

I haven’t devoured pint-sized novels like this since my love of K. A. Applegate’s Animorphs.

The latest addition to Gideon Defoe’s masterful works continues the exciting and exhilarating romps through Europe with the witlessly brave Pirate Captain and his crew. The trouble starts when the Pirate Captain is mistaken for Karl Marx, but the adventure escalates as the Pirate Captain and his crew scour Paris to try and figure out why everyone hates communists.  A brilliant comedic adventure that is a wonderful addition to Defoe’s other pirate adventures.  Highly recommended.

It’s hard to review this book without a) giving away too much of the plot and b) finding enough different words to describe just how enjoyable the book is. It is a rollicking good time that presents an amusing take on the lives of pirates as they follow their devoted Captain around America searching for money to get out of debt with. I enjoyed this book very, VERY much and would highly recommend it to anyone, pirate fan or otherwise.