A Randy & Random View of the Planet

RANDOM ACTS OF TRAVEL: Featuring Trepidation, Hammocks and Spitting,  by Dean Johnston
REVIEW BY ANNE CARLISLE
Like the man says in his title, this book is random. It has no obvious pattern of organization and  no unifying style outside relentless wise-cracking as Johnston shares a compilation of observations gathered from his wanderings around the planet for twelve years. Instead, the book resembles a series of essays that might appear in, say, Mad Magazine or Playboy.

It is long on pages and short on  substantial/ sophisticated coverage of travel basics (like cities).  But, first and foremost, the book is  terrifically, almost fiendishly, funny. I often laughed out loud, though  I sometimes wished he'd drop the banter and write something that would make me want to pack my bag. There are moments when the descriptions really take you there (for better or worse)--on the Ilala ferry in Malawi, for instance.

The author falls into two questionable practices: one that an English professor of mine called the "imitative fallacy," where the writer  twists  the style to mimic what's going on in the material. The other is an annoying tendency to talk up his sleeve. The  "best and worst of___"  lists are some of the worst offenders in this regard. The material is riffy and arcane rather than entertaining and useful.

Bottom line, if you're put off by scatalogical, randy, punsterish, puckish, and sometimes tortuous prose, this isn't the book for you; there are lots of polite, densely detailed travel guides you'd prefer. But, if you're a fan of Dave Barry, and/or your idea of great travel is a knapsack and making do with rice krispies or kicking back in Lago de Atitlan, Guatemala (Ultimate Travel Experience #6) , you'll probably want to check out this book.  Johnston  writes he and his wife  travel in spite of the food, not for the food, and in this case, he's not kidding.  "Snickers, everywhere," he advises. 

Review of New Fantasy Novel

REVIEW BY ANNE CARLISLE (also on Goodreads)

CUSTODIAN OF THE LUIMA LEGACY by Gabrielle Poplar

First  up, elements that I like in the book. The simplistic writing style works well for fable. The opening scene of the novel successfully creates a suspenseful premise-- a struggle over the transfer of power.  the theme of taking on custodial responsibility is also strong and layered in quickly, when a key character walks into a gruesome situation. 
I realize writing a book which  posits an original world requires nomenclature, but  I'm not sure that the made-up words here  always add value. The word "Luima," for example, is just close enough to "Lima" to be confusing. I find myself wanting to call  "Ilona"  a name I'm familiar with, "Iona."  But that may just be a personal reaction. 
Two deaths, including a queen killed by a prince, are big events to take in at the outset. Perhaps if they were combined with fuller characterization, the opening would seem less sketchy. Also, to my eye, the dialogue is sometimes stilted, and the prose is not as tightly edited as it could be. The word "startled" is used twice within a few sentences.  "Confidante" is written as "confidant" throughout. More than a few sentences  need whittling. Here's an example:  "The soldiers escorting them flanked the convoy of carriages on either side." "Flanked" means on either side, and we already know they are carriages. Finally, expressions such as "the dead of night" will be regarded by some readers as too cliche.
As the book progresses, it gets stronger and  better. It is a plot-driven fantasy and a good read for those who enjoy following the trials and tribulations, the codes of honor and conduct, that pertain to knights and royalty of a faraway realm.

"Ramblings in Ireland" a Charming Sojourn

I'm going to open my review of Kerry Dwyer's Ramblings in Ireland by quoting  Kerry's self-commentary. I couldn't possibly improve on this bit for pinpointing the charm of her travelogue-plus book, which she describes as "a memoir of sorts": 

"There is a lovely French expression 'il ne perd pas le nord.'  Literally this means 'he doesn't lose the north.' It means someone who knows exactly what they want and where they are going.  They are focused on their target and don't lose track of it.

"That doesn't describe me at all."

I laughed  out loud, partly because  I'm one of those people fixed on the goal. But focus doesn't  help one be a more sensitive partner or a more observant traveler, which is often required where cultural differences come into play--she's British, her husband is French, and they're rambling through Ireland.  The book is a memoir primarily because it is more than the sum of its walking tours, which sometimes end in disaster.  The bittersweet experience of going off track is the point of Kerry's work and also the nature of the experience one has  in reading it. 

I haven't been to Ireland, so I don't know whether  the descriptions are perfectly apt or not.  I can say I found them enjoyable to read.  It's not fiction, so I don't have to judge the plausibility of theme and characters.  However,  some themes  emerge, as do well-rounded characters, principally the author and her husband, who come to know one another much better for their wander.  The dialogue is sometimes over-used, but it helps to establish the reader's bond with the characters.  

There are nine chapters with brief titles (such as Underwear and Walkingsticks ).  These derive, cunningly,  from a list she jots down before the trip of "things I didn't want to forget."  I found the first couple of chapters a bit slow--airports and bags don't interest me.  Chapters I particularly liked were "Walking Boots," which includes a useful  bit on the difference between a full English and a full Irish breakfast; "Maps," which delves into the way accents both join and separate people; and "Underwear," which has some truly beautiful nature descriptions.  Though the book remains primarily personal and doesn't rise to the level of great literary travel writers or diarists,  it's worth reading.  

 

 

 

Hollywood Potential for "D-E-D, Dead"

REVIEW of Larry "Animal" Garner's D-E-D, Dead by Anne Carlisle, author of HOME SCHOOLING: The Fire Night Ball

Larry "Animal" Garner's "D-E-D, Dead" is a thriller and expose of motorcycle clubs operating like organized crime, set in 1990. It has a compelling sense of immediacy --the first person, present tense pov does the trick--and a great deal of detail. Even before chapter one, I chuckle at the "Acknowledgement" to "all the crazy bastards I know who inspired this book." Throughout, it has a vividness and authenticity in its use of the language that are bed-rock.

However, D-E-D is also, sometimes painfully, S-L-O. It's a book that needs a radical paring down. If I were Larry's editor or a film agent, I'd say cut the thing in half and then you'll really have something. The action takes place over a couple of weeks, but it takes 600 pages to get through it. As a frequent customer of the Green Parrot Bar, I'm delighted it ends there. I would be just as glad, however, to see many other scenes and locales cut. For instance, we're treated to literally hundreds of diner meals. Order details give a homey feel--once or twice--but there are way, way, way too many. Each day is grindingly chronicled. Two words: Occam's Razor. When it's cut back, the talent will shine forth.

I would also suggest certain things about it aren't entirely credible. The hero's willingness to wait until the end of the book to bed the willing woman he has the hots for is a questionable choice. We're talking a biker guy here, not Sir Galahad. I prefer the tension when the hero and his pal both love the same gal. There's a sappy, sentimental tinge to the friendship that strikes me as not quite on-the-nose. I guess I'm looking for that "Treasure of Sierra Madre" complexity, where the money makes for interesting difficulties.

Speaking of the money, the hero(on the lam from busting his gang's meth labs )blunders upon 5 million dollars while playing the Good Samaritan. The money is handed out to the growing gang members at the end, but this is anticlimactic. The money is never used to good theatrical effect. This is a gang with a heart--perhaps too much so-- rescuing young girls from meth addiction and prostitution, caring about a guy's sister who has lupus. The bad guys are bad, but the "good" guys, despite Hammer describing himself as a "criminal," sometimes come off as goody-two-shoes. There's not a lot of friction in that formula. Though violence is perpetrated, sometimes suspense is lacking. However, there are some scenes that are riveting, such as the bloody Polly-versus-Judy scene in a cafe men's room.

All in all, it's a four-star presentation with an editing problem, which brings it to a three-star. Plus a tip of the hat to a writer who knows how to write sentences in the Hemingway style--spare, physical, and real. Nice work!

 

 

For more information on Anne Carlisle and her book: http://www.annehcarlislephd.com

Contact me at annecarlisle115@gmail.com 

4-star Review for Home Schooling: The Fire Night Ball

By Lucinda Elliot, Author, Wales, UK                                                                        

Four Stars: Packed with Vivid Characters and Lively Humour

This story features a heroine I took to at once  - it’s she who makes the jokes, she’s stunning, sensual, ambitious, charming, clever – it’s outrageous that she’s had the misfortune to be besotted by a prize philandering cad, the brutally insensitive and sex obsessed Harry Drake for years, and she’s about to find out that her birth control has failed as well....

Never mind, Marlena Mae Bellum isn’t a woman given to despair or seeing herself as a victim – even though, or perhaps because – at times it seems as though she’s the late twentieth century reincarnation of her enchantress ancestor Cassandra Vye, the one time scourage of a small town in Wyoming, who was also the recipient of a curse supposedly to blight the lives of generations of descendants.

This book is an intriguing read which through earthy humour and a cast of vivid and recognisable characters transforms a classic story – a curse destined to cut across and link the lives of generations of a family – into something new and intriguing.

Like many good stories, it isn’t one that is easy to define. Roughly it can be called a ‘Paranormal Romance with a Historical slant’ but that hardly does it justice.
The supernatural elements in this book are subtly depicted; though undoubtedly there, they are brought into play through a series of synchronicities. Prosaic corruption in corporate business over land use is subtly connected to a past resounding with a tragedy which draws in the characters, cutting across time, individual personalities, plans and  desires with a tangled skein of peculiar co-incidences.

This, the first volume of the series, isn’t a simple story. Neither, as in real life, can the solutions which the characters use to try and resolve their problems wholly satisfactory; but I was constantly struck by how strong the female characters in this story are – whether it’s Marlena herself, her hidebound, strictly religious mother or her dispassionate, cerebral psychiatrist older cousin.  Then , there are the machinations of that wonderful siren,  Lila.

There are so many funny scenes and so much throwaway humour in this that I find it hard to make a choice for a quote. The put down given to the lecherous Harry Drake by gay woman  Stretch, ‘Keep it in your pants, buster. I’m batting for the other side’ is my favourite.

Then there’s Chloe’s reflections on Harry Drake: ‘Poor Harry, always one day late and a dollar short in the when it came to emotional commitments’.

I was very impressed by this vivid writing and lively characterisation and shall look out for the rest of the series. I recommend it to anyone looking for a story which contains the spine chilling, the ridiculous and the moving all seamlessly combined.

(Note: buy links for HOME SCHOOLING: THE FIRE NIGHT BALL are on Anne Carlisle's webpage):

http://www.annehcarlislephd.com

 

4-Star Review of Home Schooling: The Fire Night Ball

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Perfect Read for the Season October 23, 2012

By feams8

Format:Paperback

Marlena Bellum's family history of being cursed real or imagine in the mind of Letty Brown-Hawker, was a questionable distraction to the young woman.

Marlena finds strength and comfort from her family and friends, when she is faced with a life changing decision.
She finds the there is a difference between genuine love and obsessive love; one is true and the other striving after the wind.

Marlena Bellum also learns the responsibility of her actions and uncovering sometimes love comes from unsuspecting alliances.
Her courage serves her faithfully as she encounters a setback only to come out stronger with better insight into the nature of the people in her life.

The climax to the story boils to fever pitch as everyone in town anticipates Chloe Vye's annual Christmas Fire Night Ball, and it doesn't disappoint. The many twist and turns will leave you gasping and laughing.

Home Schooling: The Fire Night Ball, kudos to the author on a fine job.- EK Ellis

 

4-Star Review on Goodreads (Battle of Chibi)

Review by Anne Carlisle on Goodreads, October 15, 2012

What makes The Battle of Chibi by Hock G. Tjoa such a worthwhile read  is a feeling of global impact. Here is a mythos/history of ancient China worth absorbing.  The world view of the most populous nation on earth and one that retains much of its ancient heritage should interest us, yet Western readers know little of its evolution.  In this fascinating novel, which is part history, part fiction, part drama, and part poetry, Hock G. Tjoa ably takes on the mantle of translator and literary interpreter for  a battle along a river that determined four hundred years of  ancient Chinese history.  

Tjoa does an excellent job at meeting his goal of providing the original in a more  "readable and lively language as well as internal consistency."   It's a worthwhile though not an easy read.  As a boy in the book says, "I cannot remember all the names."

At the outset, the author provides useful background.  The historical events were originally recounted in a classic Ming novel , Romance of the Three Kingdoms, written in 1400 by Luo Guanzhong.  In turn the Romance was a compilation of work by  writers living in the third and fourth centuries AD.   (The Arthurian legend immediately comes to mind.)   Luo's  version is in four volumes of 120 scenes/chapters,  the first 80 of which is about the decline of the Han Dynasty and the rise of three kingdoms,  a period of transition from 184 to 280 AD. Tjoa characterizes the divergence  as one  "between imperial unity and fragmentation." 

The selections chosen from the Romance center on the Battle of Chibi (Red Cliffs), dated 208AD, which Tjoa points out was "the tipping point" between the Han and Three Kingdoms periods.  One of the three realms, the Shu,  was  led by Han loyalist Liu Bei.  A second,  the Wei,  was led by Cao Cao the Usurper.  Cao's plan was to become the new unifier of China, but his ambitions disqualified him in the eyes of the other two leaders.  A third realm, the Wu led by Sun Quan, lay on the fringe of what was called All under Heaven, a name, says Tjoa, that equates to a Greco-Roman term, "the whole known civiilized world." 

An interesting pattern emerges in the novel's three-part structure.   To my eye, a dialectic of  thesis, antithesis, and synthesis  unifies the diversity of the  structural components as well as underlining the clash of cultures.  The dynasty's decline is vividly characterized by its eunuchs,  warlords, and rebels.  I became engaged in the story of the new order through the vivid, careful characterization; the spare, dramatically staged dialogue; and the pleasing literary elements.  The title of  Chapter 8 ("Like Fish Seeking Water") is one  example of how metaphor and poetry are used to illustrate what is going on. Here's another: "Screens, decorated with feathers,/Divide the space inside/Bamboo fences and fragrant flowers/Define the space outside."  

A new eye on the world emerges from the divisiveness,  and though the country is no longer unified ,  neither is it so insularly focused.  At the end of the day, Tjoa's work is historical romance  in the most classic sense of the term.  It would certainly lend itself to screen adaptation.