Book Review: What If? edited by Robert Cowley

What If?: The World's Foremost Historians Imagine What Might Have Been by Robert Cowley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The path untrodden, counterfactual reality, or simply alternate history. Twenty of the late 20th Century’s eminent historians look might have been in the essay anthology What If? edited by contributor Robert Cowley.

The twenty essays range from 701 B.C. Assyrian siege of Jerusalem to Berlin and China early in the Cold War in the middle of the 20th Century, some deal with one event but some deal with several scenarios (i.e., the American Revolution, American Civil War, the beginning of World War I, and the early Cold War in/around Berlin). In addition to the essays were 14 sidebars from other contributors. Of the single scenario essays among the best was Ross Hassig’s “The Immolation of Hernan Cortes” and James M. McPherson’s “If the Lost Order Hadn’t Been Lost” while the two worst were Victor Davis Hanson’s “No Glory That Was Greece” and close second was Lewis H. Lapham “Furor Teutonicus: The Teutoburg Forest, A.D. 9”.

What If?: The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been is an good collection of counterfactual historical events and what the alternate history would have been for the world.

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Book Review: Deuteronomy: The Book of Love by Jiri Moskala

Deuteronomy: The Book of Love by Jiří Moskala
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The final book of the Pentateuch finds Israel on the border of The Promise Land listening to Moses’ final messages before he passes away. Deuteronomy: The Book of Love, the supplemental book for the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide (4th Quarter, 2021) by Jiri Moskala, shows the book as a organized manual of faith for God’s people both on the verge of crossing the Jordan and for His people on the verge of his Second Coming. Through 128 pages, that includes an appendix featuring the literary structure of the book, Moskala reveals God’s love for His people in all ages and how the book is Moses’ inspired magnum opus as the greatest prophet until the arrival of Christ.

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Book Review: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Over the last century plus, the affect of combat on its participants has changed in the perception of the population at large and popular culture but the view of anti-war literature seems to change depending on the wider political viewpoint. So it goes. Slaughterhouse-Five is Kurt Vonnegut anti-war magnum opus that not only focuses on the affect of war on its participants but also its crimes against noncombatants.

Billy Pilgrim survived the Battle of the Bulge becoming a prisoner of war and then surviving the firebombing of Dresden, survived a plane crash in Vermont, and was finally abducted by aliens who view time in a different way which helps Pilgrim because he has become “unstuck in time”. Vonnegut writes a layered story with shifting chronological perspective of the protagonist to write an anti-war novel without the text coming out explicitly to say it is an anti-war story. Not only is the anti-war theme present so is the affect of combat on its participants with Pilgrim’s—as a stand in for Vonnegut—PTSD from his time in the Ardennes through being a prisoner to the firebombing of Dresden, which affect everyone differently. A superficial read would say that Pilgrim’s head injury in the plane crash obviously resulted in brain trauma the created his alien delusions and exacerbated his war-related PTSD with more PTSD from the plane crash, but this shows Vonnegut’s writing mastery as there appears to be a simple explanation but doesn’t discount the fact that Pilgrim could still have been abducted by aliens. So it goes.

Slaughterhouse-Five is highly praised, but also can be divisive because of how Kurt Vonnegut wrote it. However, whether the reader turns out liking it or disliking it, this book is a must read. So it goes.

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Book Review: J.N. Andrews: Mission Pioneer, Evangelist, and Thought Leader by Gilbert M. Valentine

J.N. Andrews: Mission Pioneer, Evangelist, and Thought Leader by Gilbert M. Valentine
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While Joseph Bates, James and Ellen White were the founding triumvirate of what became the Seventh-day Adventist Church, it was the fourth person to join the inner circle of leadership that would systematize the emerging Sabbatarian Advent movement. Gilbert M. Valentine’s J.N. Andrews: Mission Pioneer, Evangelist, and Thought Leader is the first major biography of one of the early Adventism’s most important figures.

Valentine approached Andrews’ biography in a chronological fashion with a few chapters set aside dedicated to Andrews the Sabbath historian and Andrews the theologian. As the longest book within the Adventist Pioneer Series at over 720 pages, one might have assumed that there was a lot to learn of Andrews life, however as Valentine stated in his introduction this book would also focus on James and Ellen White’s leadership in the fledging Sabbatarian Adventist movement. While Valentine’s biographical narrative of Andrews life was very well-written, at times his decision to make this book a secondary biography of essentially James White would effectively sideline Andrews which ironically mirrored real-life events—whether this was intentional on Valentine’s part I can’t guess. The analysis of Andrews as Sabbath historian and theologian were highlights of the book especially the praise Andrews received from Seventh Day Baptists both during his lifetime and today.

The life and scholarship of John Nevins Andrews were not only important during the early history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church but as Gilbert M. Valentine was able to show significant even today.

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Book Review: Odessa Sea by Clive Cussler & Dirk Cussler

Odessa Sea by Clive Cussler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three eras of Russian history in the last century converge in a dangerous combination of treasure, war, personal greed, and personal vengeance that affect four nations in various ways. Odessa Sea is the twenty-fourth book in Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt series and the seventh cowritten with his son Dirk.

After three consecutive books that had fun narratives but were weighed down by tired tropes compared, the Cusslers wrote a book on par with their first three collaborative efforts. The backdrop of the still ongoing, even in 2021, Russo-Ukrainian war and an apparently duplicitous industrialist that appears to be selling weapons to both sides but with an agenda quite different was a great twist at the end of the book. The black-market smugglers-salvagers that the elder Pitt deals with throughout the book’s main subplot were competent villains, one half of which were stopped by Pitt and Giordino doing their thing while the other half were taken out by the antagonist of the second subplot. Dirk and Summer’s battle with a Russian spy to find missing Romanov gold was a fun mystery—that once again took them to London which is becoming a trope now—which featured the antagonist-antagonist battle and Summer for once not being a damsel-in-distress but showing she had the Pitt genes to take care of herself.

Odessa Sea is the penultimate collaboration between Clive and Dirk Cussler, but of the seven it probably is the best overall book featuring two intriguing subplots that interact in interesting ways without being weighed down by the tired tropes that hampered their previous three efforts.

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Book Review: The Phantom Menace by Terry Brooks

Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace by Terry Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The novelization of The Phantom Menace, the first in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, was written based off the script of film by famed fantasy author Terry Brooks.

Brooks generally follows the script of the film, but importantly adds several scenes that help give background to several key characters. The chief beneficiary of the added scenes was Anakin Skywalker, who unknowingly has been using the Force his entire life to do amazing things as a 9-year-old especially as a podracer. Unlike the film where the identity of Darth Sidious is quickly known, Brooks effectively hides Padme Amidala’s dual identity through there clues are subtle enough for someone who has never watched the film. Though Jar Jar Binks can get on the reader’s nerves, Brooks is able to write him to be not so annoying as in the film and seeing things from his perspective is interesting. While Brooks can’t completely change the dialogue from the screenplay, he’s able to make it more palatable.

The Phantom Menace is a novelization that improves upon the film in various ways, which says something about the film itself and the quality of writing by Terry Brooks.

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