The Fo'c'sle Door

Les Cribb
iUniverse, 666 pages, (paperback) $32.95, 9781475984644
(Reviewed: July, 2013)

The cliché about not judging a book by its cover holds true with The Fo’c’sle Door. With its uninviting title, and simple pencil drawing on the cover, it doesn’t exactly scream “bestseller” — and yet readers will find a gripping epic adventure within its pages.

The story begins when Canadian police are called to a scene where two men have died and witnesses are acting strangely. The story then flashes back two months earlier to the characters who end up at the bizarre scene. One is headed to England for a wedding at a tiny fishing village, Ryeport.

It’s a confusing start, but soon author Les Cribbs gets to the heart of the story, when the town’s present day vicar begins reading from the journal of the vicar who built Ryeport’s famous church centuries ago. From here, the story becomes all-consuming.

The tale focuses on dandy Rodney McDowd, whose father disinherits him and sends him into the priesthood to improve himself. McDowd ends up in Ryeport and acts the part of the town’s spiritual leader to please his father. But over time, he begins to care for the townsfolk and conceives of a church that doubles as a lighthouse in order to help local fishermen navigate Ryeport’s dangerous shores. He also becomes part of a smuggling ring — initially to help protect his parishioners who are involved. The town's criminal undertow leads to a run-in with a violent sea captain and later a mysterious Haitian who seeks revenge from the captain for his daughter’s death — even if it takes generations and a supernatural twist to accomplish.

While a copyeditor could have eliminated the many errant commas and apostrophes, Cribb’s characters are likable, his dialogue convincing and his knowledge of English history and ships impressive, adding to the main story’s realism. He deftly progresses the narrative until the end, when the book returns to the present. The paranormal denouement works (although some may feel the story of McDowd and Ryeport’s past is more entertaining than the ending’s artificiality). Overall, this is an entertaining, satisfying novel delivered by a talented storyteller.

Also available in hardcover.

Author’s Current Residence
Ontario, Canada

Source: BlueInk Review

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The Sixty Seconds

Ted Jackson
iUniverse, 101 pages, (paperback) $10.95, 9781475976595
(Reviewed: July, 2013)

Ted Jackson’s novel The Sixty Seconds falls loosely into the time travel genre. The book’s main character, Jason Bricker, loses his job as a software engineer and discovers, on the same day as his termination, that he can go back in time in 60-second increments.

Driven by the need for financial security, Jason convinces his family that he should use his ability to manipulate time at the gaming tables in Las Vegas. He plays a variety of games, from roulette to blackjack to Texas Hold ’Em, and wins a substantial amount of money. He also forms a friendship with an attorney from Arizona who convinces Jason to move his family there from Colorado.

They restart their lives in Arizona, and Jason gets a new job. Everything proceeds normally until he uses his time-manipulation for less selfish and more risky purposes. The novel closes with Jason explaining his special power to government authorities, giving the reader the feeling that a sequel will follow with Jason using his “gift” as an agent for the United States.

The plot moves right along, but The Sixty Seconds offers little else to attract the reader. Jackson’s descriptions are minimal and fail to create a world that the reader can visualize. Jason, for instance, buys a house in Arizona, but the reader is told nothing about it except that it has a central air unit and a swimming pool.

Jackson also fails to develop his characters sufficiently. The protagonist’s wife and sons are so poorly realized that they serve only as ghostly backdrops to the plot. To make his novel more appealing, the author would do well to flesh out the narrative with some vivid descriptions and more three-dimensional characters.

Also available as an ebook.

Author’s Current Residence
Bountiful, Utah

Source: BlueInk Review

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The New Testament

The Common Bible, Inc
iUniverse, 338 pages, (paperback) $22.95, 9781475979817
(Reviewed: July, 2013)

There are dozens of different translations of the Bible available on the market, targeting a wide range of denominations, from Lutheran to Baptist to Catholics to Universalists. With so many versions out there do we need another?

The editor of The New Testament: Majority English Bible thinks we do, and his edition, a labor of love and dedication 24 years in the making strives to take the best of the best of existing English translations and create a Bible that is faithful to the source material and easy to understand for the masses. His translation philosophy “centers around three concepts: literal, traditional, and modern. It is to be as literal as possible to the original Greek, traditional in its familiar cadence and format, and modern in its writing.”

The MEB is simply designed with two columns of text per page (sometimes the type in a Bible can be near microscopic, but the MEB is easy to read). The text itself is friendly and accessible. Dense passages from the letters of St. Paul to the Book of Revelation are open and light, and familiar stories, such as the parables and the exploits of the apostles seem, well, familiar — and that’s a good thing because the text can feel somewhat like you’re talking to an old friend.

The preface to the MEB contains a few small syntactical errors, which unfortunately act like scratches on the side panel of new car; it doesn’t affect the car’s power or purpose, but it’s a blemish nonetheless.

But all in all, the MEB is a readable translation. Scholars will have to debate its accuracy, but most readers will find this to be an approachable edition of a sometimes-daunting text.

Also available in hardcover and ebook.

Author’s Current Residence
Jeffersonville, Indiana

Source: BlueInk Review

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Broken Glass and Other Stories

Herbert Spohn
iUniverse, 202 pages, (paperback) $14.95, 9780595377053
(Reviewed: July, 2013)

In this collection, Herbert Spohn draws on his experience of becoming an American after fleeing Nazi Germany as a boy, his observational skills honed as a mental health professional, and a deft hand for writing to deliver a short story anthology that is both assured and engrossing. While the 12 pieces that comprise Broken Glass and Other Stories can each stand alone, taken together, they make up a particularly satisfying volume.

Spohn’s stories generally move from specific observations to larger understanding and sometimes deliver moments of epiphany. A case in point is the title story, “Broken Glass,” in which a psychiatrist who senses that there is something sensible about a homeless man’s shard collecting dares to accompany the vagrant to a subway-tunnel hideaway. There, he finds that his witnessing of the man’s work is an act that gives the troubled man’s life some real meaning.

Finding meaning in human behavior also underlies the action in the rest of the book. For instance, in “Diary of a Blind Man,” a man must understand why he is sightless when doctors say he may be physically capable of seeing. Other stories examine the experience of fighting in a war against citizens of one’s own birth nation, coming to terms with workaholism, and more. A particularly clever short-short story is written in the form of a clinical report about “hyperempathy,” a state in which a person experiences overwhelming awareness of the emotions of others.

Arranged in an order that displays a range of mood and with smart, engaging dialogue, the stories amount to much more than the sum of their parts. With the exception of “Drunks” – which has a conclusion that “tells” rather than deftly “shows” the story’s mission – this is an accomplished anthology from start to finish.

Also available as an ebook.

Author’s Current Residence
Topeka, Kansas

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Path to a Better World

James S. Albus

iUniverse, 178 pages, (paperback) $16.95, 9781462035328

(Reviewed: July, 2013)

In Path to a Better World, the late James S. Albus, a well-known expert in the world of robotics and intelligent systems, presents a new economic system that adjusts for the negative effects of greater technology-based productivity. (The book was published in 2011, the same year Albus, then in his 70s, passed away.)

Albus’s primary contention is that, in light of increasing mechanization in the workplace, eventually there will not be enough demand for human workers in order to provide jobs for all those who need an income. His solution is a new form of capitalism in which individuals are granted credit by the government and required to invest that money in capital assets that can be expected to produce an income. He compares the program to 401(k)s, in that people would be given approved investment choices to pick from. This is not socialism under another name—there would still be the very rich at the top, but, as Albus puts it, “there would also be a rising floor at the bottom that would prevent anyone from sinking into poverty.”

Before detailing his preferred vision of the future, Albus explains the current version of capitalism, its defects, and the historical effects of technology on economies and workers. Albus references over 100 different sources, from government publications to his own academic papers, and the book is well-written, if a bit dry and repetitive at times.

As with most books that involve a radical rethinking of the status quo, it’s easy to come up with potential flaws: for example, Albus seems to believe that as long as poverty is eliminated, everything will go smoothly, but he admits that disparities between rich and poor may continue to grow, which seems like an alternate path to the very lord-and-serf system he wishes to avoid. Still, Albus presents bold, interesting, understandable ideas to what could be a significant problem in the 21st century economy.

Also available in hardcover and ebook.

Author’s Current Residence
Kensington, Maryland

Source: BlueInk Review

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True Successor

Joseph H. Levie
iUniverse, 235 pages, (paperback) $16.95, 9781475970692
(Reviewed: July, 2013)

True Successor is a work of alternate history, the genre that combines historical fact with broad speculation. In this case, the question is: what would have happened if the Roman Empire had survived instead of collapsing? The answers are numerous.

Set in 1812, the story opens in Sapoda, a town sandwiched between New Rome and the Mongol Empire. Mikhail de Reuter is a low-level officer stopping in to see his girlfriend when an abrupt change in fortune finds him serving the Emperor of New Rome while dodging a group of Mongols bent on his capture. Along the way, there are battlefield adventures, moments of political intrigue, and a few romances as well.

Author Joseph Levie creates a plausible world that gives historical fiction fans plenty to explore. Readers with little to no knowledge of Roman history may struggle to follow the plot, for fear of missing some of the imagined changes in the historical landscape, but the characters and setting will keep them engaged.

General-interest readers are likely to gravitate toward the few chapters that look at day-to-day life in New Rome, from commerce to community festivals; they're among the book's best, along with some well-choreographed battles. When the town is crowded, for example, “The rich do more than shop. Deals are done. Money changes hands. Backs are scratched and often knifed.” In passages such as this, Levie brings a sly humor to the story that keeps the high-stakes battles from overwhelming the novel as a whole.

There are a handful of sentences left unfinished in a way that suggests printer error rather than grammatical oversight, but they don't detract mightily from the story. Levie balances a complex plot with enough well-wrought description to ground readers in his vision, making True Successor a nice addition to a genre that artfully re-imagines reality.

Also available in hardcover.

Author’s Current Residence
New York, New York

Source: BlueInk Review

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Essential Writings: A Journey Through Time, 2nd and Revised Edition

Helmut Schwab
iUniverse, 145 pages, (paperback) $14.95, 9781475960259
(Reviewed: July, 2013)

Helmut Schwab’s Essential Writings: A Journey through Time aims to distill the author’s previous essays on topics as diverse as the origin of the universe, human evolution, consciousness, and the search for spiritual meaning. The subtitle, “A modern ‘De Rerum Natura’” is a reference to Lucretius’s work of the same name, which spanned topics within the sciences as well as speculations about mind and soul.

Essential Writings emulates Lucretius’s approach from a time when science and religion were seen as simply branches of philosophy. The project is broad, aiming to explain many of the mysteries of existence and the human condition from the dawn of time into the future, and Schwab is skilled at synthesizing neuroscience, biochemistry, psychology, and philosophy of mind in a way that is accessible to a wider audience. Particularly notable is his economical explanation of the debate on free will.

Schwab’s treatment of politics and religion is nuanced and complex. He shares compelling arguments for agnosticism, if not atheism, but he finds relevant guidance in the moral teachings of religious traditions. His morality is grounded in virtues of personal fulfillment, service to others, and aesthetic appreciation. Readers may object to his implication that violence is endemic to (but certainly not exclusive to) Islam, yet he also demonstrates empathy for the plight of Palestinians.

Essential Writings is a niche book, with primary appeal for academics in philosophy or similar fields. It is overly ambitious in seeking to describe and justify a worldview about so much of our existence in so short a format, and the passages are too brief to be as effective as they could be. (Note: Schwab’s longer essays are available on his website.) In addition, it occasionally feels as if the author added threads of thought, ad hoc, to unrelated topics.

Despite such drawbacks, this project has commendable moments of real success grappling with complicated ideas that will interest its specific audience.

Also available in hardcover and ebook.

Author’s Current Residence
Princeton, New Jersey

Source: BlueInk Review

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The Hunted

iUniverse, 306 pages, (paperback) $18.95, 9781475980653
(Reviewed: July, 2013)

The Hunted is a brilliantly understated fusion of anthropological mystery, apocalyptic science fiction, and ecological thriller. Stellar character development, a fascinating storyline, and vivid description make this a stay-up-all-night-until-your-eyes-bleed kind of read.

It all begins in the Amazon where the last remnants of an indigenous tribe (called the Ipanao) that has remained separate from the civilized world for thousands of years is discovered by a geological survey team — and almost all members killed. The survivors, all of whom have coffee-colored skin and jet-black hair, are brought to a medical facility and forced to undergo a series of tests. The results are mind-boggling: their DNA is radically different than that of modern humans.

Two Brazilian cultural anthropologists, David and Cecelia Goncalves, are brought in to assess the situation. Cecelia, seven months pregnant, falls in love with the orphaned Ipanao infant girl called Suyape. She quickly realizes there is something unusual about the baby, who seems to be able to communicate telepathically, but she keeps the information secret to save the child from further harm.

Fast-forward 17 years. David and Cecelia live in Brunswick, Maine, with their two daughters, Fabia and Suyape, whom the couple adopted before leaving Brazil. Suyape is a high school senior and actively promotes awareness of “non-contacteds,” people who live in tribes on the edge of civilization. By all outward appearances, she is a normal teenaged girl, until she begins experiencing bizarre visions and embarks on a journey of self-discovery that will take her back to her native jungles.

The beauty of this novel is that it works simultaneously as a Da Vinci Codesque suspense, a science fiction thriller, and an anthropology-powered mystery — and beneath it all is the monumentally significant issue of environmental degradation and looming ecological collapse. This is a compelling and powerful read.

(The only criticism is the ill-conceived cover art, which inexplicably depicts a light-skinned, blue-eyed girl and is completely unrelated to the storyline.)

Also available in hardcover and ebook.

Author’s Current Residence
Haverhill, Massachusetts

Source: BlueInk Review

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Atom

Stephen C. Sutcliffe
iUniverse.com, 173 pages, (e-book) $3.99, 9781469772769
(Reviewed: July, 2013)

Stephen C. Sutcliffe’s ambitious first novel covers a lot of territory. Negotiating its wide-ranging landscape, readers will be hard-pressed to peg a specific genre. Is it an action-packed adventure? Psychedelic mysticism? An apocalyptic manifesto? ATOM aspires to be all of these, with limited success.

The story is that of Michael Brethren and his buddies, privileged kids enjoying a parent-funded prolonged adolescence, and yet obsessed with the specter of nuclear war. They wonder, “What is it like to grow up in a world that can’t annihilate itself in a matter of days or hours?” The group, known as The Children of Atom, counter-intuitively decides it will make way for a more peaceful world in the most violent way possible: setting off a nuclear bomb at a public event.

It’s a curious idea, that the world must suffer one final nuclear explosion before choosing to shun such weapons forever. These characters don’t question themselves, however, and rather nonchalantly embark on a violent drug heist, which they accomplish with unbelievable efficiency, little remorse, and an excess of film-worthy explosions.

Sutcliffe attempts to mark an emotional evolution in Michael as events unfold ---he has many dramatic moments of doubt---but Michael ultimately decides it’s “too late to dwell on right and wrong.” As the fate of 150,000 people hangs in the balance, readers might disagree.

Mired in melodramatic descriptions ranging from the cliché (a rainbow dancing in the mist) to the murky (“calliopes of manifold dissonance”) the action moves forward sporadically. Michael takes several unrelated side trips to play guitar, see a girl, and score some cocaine. Sutcliffe compounds the feeling of detachment by using the passive voice even in action scenes. Michael doesn’t crash into a lamp fixture while searching a drug lord’s study, but instead feels “his actions arrested by his collision with the faulty lamp.”

ATOM puts forth an intriguing idea, but ultimately fails to fully engage either its characters or its audience.

Source: BlueInk Review

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In the Frightened Heart of Me: Tennessee Williams's Last Year

Tony Narducci
iUniverse, 302 pages, (paperback) $21.95, 9781475965940
(Reviewed: July, 2013)

Tony Narducci had idolized Tennessee Williams for two decades when they met at a gay Key West disco in February 1982. Narducci offered his arm after having seen Williams stumble on the stairs. That simple act — the playwright stumbling, the young man propping him up — became the template for a complex and challenging friendship that lasted until Williams’s death almost exactly a year later.

Narducci was 34 to Williams’s 71, too young to put aside his own dreams and become Williams’s live-in companion as the writer exhorts him to do. Instead, the two travel and spend time together, in Narducci’s hometown of Chicago as well as Boston, New York and Key West.

Narducci’s poignant, well-written memoir (the title taken from Williams’s The Night of the Iguana), is based on his journal from that time, along with letters the two men exchanged. His description of a show staged by Williams and Vanessa Redgrave (in which Williams reads an essay with a loose denture bridge garbling some of his words) enlivens the narrative, as do cameo appearances by Mike Wallace and Andy Warhol, among others.

Narducci portrays his literary hero as alternately needy and lascivious, gracious and demanding; a pill-popping, wine-guzzling, emotional wreck prone to tears over his fear of dying loveless and alone. It’s a sympathetic portrait of a highly complex man, a man the author describes as an amalgam of Williams’s own fictional characters: “He was always protean: wise like Big Daddy, fragile like Laura, gentile like Blanche, persistent like Maggie, and fickle like Alexandra.”

Along with the last year of Williams’s life, Narducci’s memoir paints an indelible portrait of gay life on the brink of the AIDS epidemic, before the emerging “gay plague” is linked to unprotected sex. His bittersweet memoir is sure to captivate readers with an interest in Williams or in gay life on either side of the Great Divide that was AIDS.

Also available in hardcover.

Author’s Current Residence
Chicago, Illinois

Source: BlueInk Review

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Long Journey Home

“Beautifully told, an amazing story of a family’s endurance and survival through the eyes of a young girl ”

“It is also a story of hope and of the strength of the human spirit

“She writes in an ‘it-is-what-it-is’ style that makes it very readable ”

“This simple, but amazingly moving and riveting book took me back”

iUniverse Long Journey Home getting rave reviews

Above are just a few readers’ comments from the many excellent reviews that this iUniverse Editor’s Choice Award book, Long Journey Home, has been receiving; and below is a 5 star review from Amazon that sums up the general feeling about this memoir of the Holocaust. iUniverse also recommends that you read our recent blog article, Lest We Forget, that covers more of our titles concerning these horrendous events.

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Rescuing Hope

iUniverse author and campaigner for the victims of sex trafficking across the nation has been receiving deserved media and reader attention for “Rescuing Hope” the novel that Susan published to highlight the prevalence of this wicked activity within our borders. From Goodreads to Amazon to our own iUniverse Bookstore, “Rescuing Hope” has received a plethora of 5 star reviews. Here are just a few, but click on the links to see more:-


Amazon Books

“I couldn’t put it down and my heart broke throughout the story for both Hope and all the girls who are actually living out her story in real life. ” Mandi

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Inspector Paws and the Wonders of Europe

iUniverse Publishing has just received an extremely positive review from BlueInk Reviews for Inspector Paws and the Wonders of Europe by self-published author Rosemary Budd. This is icing on the cake to add to the 5 star ratings the book has been getting from readers.

Readers Views

“Very well written funny mystery from the view of the cat. A first novel but I’m sure there will be many sequels coming about Inspector Paws and his adventures.”

Michael J. Hyland Amazon Books

“This is an amazing book. It is well written and one of the less gruesome mystery book for teens.”

Seana Collins iUniverse Bookstore

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Be a Millionaire Shopkeeper

iUniverse Publishing has an author, Joanna Bradshaw whose book, Be a Millionaire Shopkeeper, has been attracting a lot of media attention recently. The reasons being the book provides the ammunition for independent retailers to compete against the big retail chains and it is written by an acknowledged industry guru, Joanna Bradshaw, whose track record in the industry is second to none. Her 45 year career as a senior executive with giants Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, coupled with her entrepreneurial experiences as co-founder and president of HØME Ltd, bears witness that Jody, as she prefers to be known, has a matchless perspective of the retailing world.

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I’ve Got Some Lovin’ To Do

“I’ve Got Some Lovin’ To Do: The Diaries of a Roaring Twenties Teen (1925-1926)” by iUniverse published author Julia Park Tracey has recently won two book awards from The San Francisco Book Festival and the 2013 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Also she has received a Rising Star Award from iUniverse Publishing. This earns it a special place in the iUniverse Book Reviews website. “I’ve Got Some Lovin’ To Do: The Diaries of a Roaring Twenties Teen (1925-1926)” is available at the iUniverse Bookstore.

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Becoming Alice

According to the iUniverse overview:

“Six-year-old Ilse watches Nazi soldiers march down her street in Vienna, Austria. It is the beginning of an odyssey that will take her to Riga, Latvia, and finally to Portland, Oregon. “Becoming Alice” chronicles her Jewish family’s harrowing escape and struggle as immigrants to fit into the American landscape. The added problems of growing up within a troubled family cloud her childhood and adolescence.”

"Strongly recommended a deftly written memoir that will hold the reader’s rapt attention from beginning to end.”

-Midwest Book Review

“Her ability to authentically capture the bewilderment and pain of dislocation through a child’s eyes – including the disharmony in her immediate family – makes for engaging reading that will resonate with young adults everywhere.”

-Beth B. Cohen, Ph.D., author of Case Closed: Holocaust Survivors in America, 1946-1954

“Becoming Alice”, by iUniverse published author Alice Rene, received four stars from the Clarion Review. It also received an Editor’s Choice Award and a Star Award from iUniverse Publishing. This earns it a special place in the iUniverse Book Reviews website. “Becoming Alice” is available at the iUniverse Bookstore.

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Black Warriors, Buffalo Soldiers of W W II

According to the overview:

“In Black Warriors: The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II”, iUniverse author Ivan J. Houston recounts his experiences, when, as a nineteen-year-old California college student, he entered the US Army and served with the 3rd Battalion, 370th Infantry Regiment, 92nd Division of the US Fifth Army from 1943 to 1945.”

“Black Warriors: The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II”, by iUniverse published author Ivan J. Houston, received five stars from the Clarion Review. It also received an Editor’s Choice Award and a Star Award from iUniverse Publishing. This has earned it a special place in the iUniverse Book Reviews website. “Black Warriors: The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II” is available at the iUniverse Bookstore.

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Two Chai Day

iUniverse published author Irene McGoldrick has written an excellent book about dealing with grief. In "Two Chai Day", she describes her husband’s battle with cancer and how it affected her family. The Clarion Book Review gave this book five stars which earns it a place in the iUniverse Book Reviews website. "Two Chai Day" is available at the iUniverse Bookstore.

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Aged to Perfection

According to the overview of iUniverse Publishing “Aged to Perfection”:-

“Recently widowed Hannah Lowenstein leaves New York to live with her daughter in the Midwest, where she faces the problems of aging for herself and for a friend who is stuck in a woefully mismanaged and possibly corrupt nursing home.

Is her friend right to fear for her life or is she just imagining things? Is her friend’s son taking advantage of his mother or is he genuinely concerned for her well-being?”

“Aged to Perfection”, by iUniverse published author Joyce Henricks, received five stars from the Clarion Review. This earns it a special place in the iUniverse Book Reviews website. ”Aged to Perfection” is available at the iUniverse Bookstore.

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More Things in Heaven – Coincidence?

In the overview of “More Things in Heaven – Coincidence?”, iUniverse published author Bill Bosworth says:-

“Things that I never dreamed possible have been occurring in my life largely as a result of four trips to India where I explored the teachings, practices, and writings of several great spiritual leaders. I have”More Things in Heaven – Coincidence?” seen miracles and experienced them within my own body for which I have no logical explanation. This book is about them and about the feeling of expansive love that accompanied them.”

“More Things in Heaven – Coincidence?”received four stars from the Clarion Review. This has earned it a spot in the iUniverse Book Review website. “More Things in Heaven – Coincidence?” is available at the iUniverse Bookstore.

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Right to Kill A Brooklyn Tale

In his debut iUniverse novel “Right to Kill: A Brooklyn Tale”, Jim McGinty paints a picture of New York in the 60’s.

Jim McGinty is well positioned to write a novel based in Brooklyn, as he grew up there, plus he personally experienced the social turmoil of the late 1960s from the battle front to the home front. In his first work of fiction, “Right to Kill A Brooklyn Tale”, the author provides a new point of view about the people who lived through this difficult period.

“Drawing from his own life experiences, Jim McGinty has artfully created an excellent debut novel,” said Alan Bower, director of Channel Book Sales at Author Solutions, Inc. “We are proud to name ‘Right To Kill’ as an iUniverse Rising Star.”

“Right to Kill: A Brooklyn Tale” is about a Marine Lieutenant’s noble journey gone badly, and the epic moral struggle that ensues. It features street-smart characters, loyalty, romance, gritty combat, murder and a touch of humor. The novel appeals to a broad spectrum of audiences, including New Yorkers, Vietnam Veterans, Marines and historical fiction buffs.”

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