Book Review: G.I. Butler: An Honest but Misunderstood Church Leader by Denis Fortin

G.I. Butler: An Honest but Misunderstood Church Leader by Denis Fortin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In Adventist history, he is known as the man who from a distance influenced opposition to a new understanding of righteousness by faith within the Seventh-day Adventist Church, but this General Conference president’s opposition was misunderstood. Denis Fortin’s G.I. Butler: An Honest but Misunderstood Church Leader gives added context to the events of 1888 and later the breech with John Harvey Kellogg in the 1900s.

Fortin’s biography of George Butler is only the second written about the two-time General Conference president, and unlike the first that the author references this one tries to add context to the biggest controversy of Butler’s tenure the 1888 General Conference session in Minneapolis. Yet while that is the literal heart of this volume, Fortin reveals that this wasn’t the first “controversy” of Butler’s time in office, nor would it be the last in his long career in service of the denomination. As this is the first book published in the Adventist Pioneer Series in four years, Fortin readily referenced previous biographies to contrast his findings and interpretations of Butler’s actions and activities to previous research. Through the 680 might appear daunting for some, the last 60 pages are a bibliography of Butler’s writings and an index, yet the remaining 620 pages of text includes several pages at the end of each page of notes thus giving the reader assurance of a thoroughly researched subject. Personally, I came into this biography intrigued given the way Butler has been colored by previous historians and came away impressed while also seeing the controversial events Butler is associated with in a fuller context.

To the average Seventh-day Adventist that knows that name of George I. Butler, the initial thought might not be positive. However, after reading Denis Fortin’s well researched and thorough biography one will have a better understanding of the man and his perspective of events that he is seen in a negative light.

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Book Review: Themes in the Gospel of John by E. Edward Zinke

Themes in the Gospel of John by E. Edward Zinke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The last gospel to be written is different from its predecessors, speaking from a different perspective and for a different goal to communicate to all believers than the other three. Themes in the Gospel of John is the supplemental book of the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide (4th Quarter 2024) by E. Edward Zinke reveals God the Creator in human flesh, walking, teaching, and healing to all He met while on Earth. Over 128 pages and 13 chapters, Zinke with John Reeve, Bill Knott, Kiersten Zinke, Jiri Moskala, and Anthony Kent bring out points from the like of Christ that John wanted to emphasize to his readers of his time and us today. However, the fact that there was six different authors in this book is what made it read a bit internally incoherent unlike other supplemental book and is my major issue with it, but saying that doesn’t mean what was written wasn’t good just jarring from chapter to chapter.

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Book Review: The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson

The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The world of Scadrial doesn’t know it’s under attack by a god from another world that has multiple plans to take control from the planet’s sole god. The Lost Metal is the seventh Mistborn novel in Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere which sees Waxillium “Wax” Ladrian, Wayne, and Marasi Colms travel to the city of Bilming to confront the Set and save the world.

Over the course of almost 750 pages, Sanderson weaves three interconnected story arcs focused on Wax and Wayne, Marasi, and Steris each doing what they can to stop or mitigate a disaster put into motion by the Set led by Wax’s sister who is the avatar of the god Autonomy looking extending her reach beyond her home domain. This culmination of a four-book series not only completes the arcs of the character’s mentioned but also shows how over the course of less than a decade in the timeline the planet went from late 19th Century/early 20th Century technology to the verge of Scadrial’s version of an “atomic” and early Cold War era rocket technology all while including the magical system first introduced in the original trilogy making interesting stories to read. This last installment of this Second Era finds the greater Cosmere truly impacting Scadrial as well as having vibrations across the rest of the Cosmere as a result given the reveal of a certain character in the epilogues. Overall, this was a very good read that brought things to a satisfying conclusion while also making me interested in how Scadrial will develop in two planned future trilogies.

The Lost Metal concludes the Second Era of the Mistborn series in satisfying fashion, once again showing Brandon Sanderson knows how to construct a multi-volume story.

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Book Review: The Corsican Shadow by Dirk Cussler

Clive Cussler The Corsican Shadow by Dirk Cussler
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

To protect the spirit of France from the Germans in the summer of 1940, a secret mission is launched to save the nation’s greatest citizen from the hands of its eternal enemy with a nice shiny bonus. The Corsican Shadow is the twenty-seventh installment of the Dirk Pitt series and the second that Dirk Cussler has written exclusively to continue this father’s creation.

Dirk Cussler wrote a tight, engaging narrative in which the protagonists, though separated from one another, interacted with two factions of the same antagonists. Though Cussler tried to hide the fact that the body of Napoleon was the big treasure with diamonds, the book’s title—though a character was included as a misdirection—and the size of the crate basically gave things away. Another nitpick was that fact that the antagonists didn’t kill any of the protagonists instead of just tying them up to be blown up and having one of the antagonists thinking this same thing before deciding to blow Summer Pitt up, while addressing the issue it just highlighted it even more. Yet, this was a page-turner of a novel that overall had very good writing and followed one of the series’ good adventures.

The Corsican Shadow is another good installment written by Dirk Cussler to continue the Dirk Pitt series begun by his father.

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Book Review: The Age of Napoleon by Will & Ariel Durant

The Age of Napoleon by Will Durant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After spending over 40 years writing a prelude to your major work on Napoleon Bonaparte, you finish what you believe that last book you’ll be able to complete before you die but when the reaper doesn’t show up what do you do? The Age of Napoleon is the concluding volume of The Story of Civilization series written by Will & Ariel Durant not only detailing the life and career of the titular historical personage along with his place and roll in the history of the times but also the cultural history of Europe during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.

Unlike any of the previous volumes of the series that featured a person in the title—Louis XIV, Voltaire, or Rousseau—the life and actions of Napoleon Bonaparte felt like it was central to all the historical, cultural, and other events during the quarter century is covered. To be clear this was not a biography of Napoleon, as for nearly a third of the book he is only a shadow looming over other areas of Europe or just out of vision as a threat or inspiration depending on the individual. Yet as Napoleon dominates politically and militarily, the Durants sweep of cultural history features the dominance of Beethoven in music, the beginning dominance of German philosophers but mainly focusing on Hegel, and the variety of English poetry from Wordsworth and Coleridge with Southey on one end of the spectrum to Bryon and Shelley on the other. The 80 odd pages of the volume goes over Napoleon’s fall, but even though the reader knows how it ends the Durants write so engagingly that one keeps on turning the page. As a historical synopsis of a hectic quarter century that set the stage for the modern world, this book is a worthy concluding volume to an over 3000-year long biography of Western—i.e. European—civilization.

The Age of Napoleon features as the Durants’ put it a “once in a millennium” individual that showcases the “power and limits of the human mind”, it is up to the reader to determine if a great man shapes history or if events produce a great man.

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Book Review: Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection by Brandon Sanderson

Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This collection of short shorties and novellas ventures to various locations within Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere. Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection contains nine pieces of varying lengths that add to various worldbuilding of several series or introduce new worlds in Sanderson’s shared universe.

Of the nine stories featured in this collection, I had read three already due to being published novellas (The Emperor’s Soul, Mistborn: Secret History, and Edgedancer), so the other six pieces were my focus in reading this book. While the short “The Hope of Elantris” is a nice additional scene that takes place during the climax of the novel and the prose draft of “White Sand” of the prologue and chapter 1 of Volume One of the graphic novels, these are both the weakest pieces in the collection. The other four are simply fantastic parts of the overall Cosmere from how Kelsier’s crusade began in “The Eleventh Metal”, to a funny pulp adventure in Mistborn’s Second Era with Allomancer Jak, and introduces two new worlds in Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell and Sixth of the Dusk. Also included before the stories for each planetary system are essays about said system written by Kriss of White Sand fame and to one’s overall knowledge of how the Cosmere physically exists.

Overall, Arcanum Unbounded is a very good book for any Brandon Sanderson fan who wants to collect all the stories taking place in this vast universe.

The Emperor’s Soul (5/5)
The Hope of Elantris (3.5/5)
The Eleventh Metal (4/5)
Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltantia, Episodes Twenty-Eight Through Thirty (5/5)
Mistborn: Secret History (3.5/5)
White Sand (3.5/5)
Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell (4.5/5)
Sixth of the Dusk (4/5)
Edgedancer (5/5)

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Book Review: A New Age Now Begins (Volume Two) by Page Smith

A New Age Now Begins: A People's History of the American Revolution, Vol 2 by Page Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The six years between the Battles of Trenton and Princeton to the concluding Treaty of Peace to end the War of American Independence were trying times not only for Americans but the British and many other as egos needed to be checked. A New Age Now Begins: A People’s History of the American Revolution Volume Two is the second half of Page Smith’s historical look at the American Revolution and the second installment of his A People’s History series.

Given this book began continuing the page count from the first installment, thus representing that Smith’s original manuscript was very long, the historical narrative continues in the aftermath of Continental Army’s 1776-77 Winter Campaign. Smith continued his critical look at British political leadership whose fumbling since the Stamp Act and now during the war brought the most powerful country on the edge for revolt, with the only thing saving them the patriotic feeling against France and Spain. Also highlighted were the failures of the Continental and later Confederation Congress when it came to financing anything and everything then later the ineptitude of instructing its diplomats who decided to what was best for the nation not the French alliance. To Smith, the French military alliance came to nothing save for the French navy in the Chesapeake during the Yorktown campaign. In fact, to Smith Washington only became the “Deliverer” of his country because of the campaign—he believes history would have given that title to Nathaniel Greene (who was a better tactical general than Washington to be sure) due to his campaign in the South after the failures of three different generals before him—after almost three years of inactivity in which his keeping the Continental Army together and creating a sense of national union which he came to embody as seen in the march to the Virginia but only was enhanced by the victory. Of everything in this book the biggest criticism, which honestly makes me looking questioningly back at Volume One, was Smith’s look at the war on the western frontier against and with the various Native American nations or to be exact his total butchering of who did and didn’t belong to the Iroquois Confederacy because the War of American Independence resulted in a Iroquois civil war that damaged it for generations and even in 1976 there is no excuse for Smith to bungle to badly. Even with that major issue, Smith’s perspective on what he believed the actual American Revolution was—not the unwinnable war the British fought to keep American dependent—and seeing the War of American Independence as revealing to the population the need to unite for a greater whole was very informative and thought-provoking.

A New Age Now Begins (Volume Two) is the second of a double volume history of the American Revolution that details the final six years of the War for Independence that revealed the need for the new American states to unite to form a new nation and complete the formation of a new type of people.

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