A Tale of Two Novels

I recently finished two novels that I was surprised had some significant similarities but yet wildly different takes.  I thought it might be good to talk a little about the two, and in particular, to warn against one of them.

The two novels in question are M.R. Leonard’s Pilgrims and Douglas Preston and Aletheia Preston’s Paradox.  Both are the debut novels for an author (Leonard and Aletheia, the daughter of Douglas).  Both have connections with the question about life on other planets.  Both have connections to the Catholic Church.  Everything else, past this paragraph is major spoilers, because that is the only way to discuss them further.  So, if you’re interested in reading them, but don’t want to be spoiled, stop at this paragraph.  I will just say this summation: I have already recommended Pilgrims to others; I will never recommend Paradox to anyone.

In Pilgrims, humanity has been preparing for an alien invasion for 5 years, since the first sign of them approaching Earth.  The main character is a Latin teacher, Austin DeSantis, who loses his job and is desperate for money.  When the aliens arriving, hovering in ships over major cities, the world is shocked when they start speaking in Latin.  The government forces Austin to act as an interpreter, or face death for being an accomplice to murder.

The aliens, it turns out, are Catholic, hence the Latin.  Austin becomes a pawn of the US government, who want to use him to infiltrate the aliens, gain their friendship, then bring them down.  He, reluctantly, becomes friends with one of the aliens and a Catholic priest-astronomer who has also been chosen to visit the alien spaceship.

Why do the aliens speak Latin?  Why are they Catholic?  Thousands of years ago, through their intellect they came to know that there was a God, but they didn’t know Him until they visited Earth and witnessed Jesus’ Passion, death, Resurrection, and ascension.  When they share their “videos” with the world as proof, Muslims nuke the Vatican, killing the pope.  In retaliation, the aliens completely wipeout every non-Christian in Saudi Arabia.  In an attempt to stop the aliens, the priest agrees to celebrate Mass on the spaceship, allowing them to receive Jesus.

Lots more happens, but in the end, the world is saved, and Austin is on the path to conversion.  It’s a compelling story, and deeply Catholic.  My minor qualms come down to how the priest celebrates Mass on the spaceship.  I’m also not entirely convinced that it is a “sci-fi retelling of Augustine’s Confessions.”  It is much more of a “thinking” sci-fi, with not much action.  But for what it is, it is interesting, it keeps the reader engaged, and, as I said, I have already recommended it to others.  (An aside: a non-Catholic actually recommended it to me, which was interesting)

 

The other novel I just finished reading is Paradox, a sequel to Extinction, which I read last year.  Extinction was not quite the updated Jurassic Park that some reviewers claimed, but I still found it interesting and I wanted to see what happened next with the Neanderthals on the loose.

 

There’s a lot going on in Paradox, but the “Neanders” are nowhere to be found, except as an occasional reference to the previous book.  Essentially, an exobiologist breaks into a church in Rome, steals part of the skull of St. John the Baptist, and an Irish monk is sent to America to bring it back.  Meanwhile, an eccentric prospector and UFO conspiracy theorist is found murdered in his cabin in Colorado (which brings in the main characters, Cash and Colcord, from Extinction).

Where do I begin with how this novel upset me?  First, there is the “trans” reporter who is referred to as “they/them,” making it almost impossible to follow scenes with her because of the stupid plural referring to singular.  So, it’s woke.  Second, there is the problem with the Catholic Church.  The murderers use Inquisition torture methods, because of course the Inquisition is evil.  They also kill two of the characters who are Catholic by stuffing them with the Eucharist, you know, as Viaticum (oh, and by the way, at the end of the book a female character performs the “Last Rites,” because the authors didn’t bother to actually research anything).  Then there is the small-town priest who is portrayed as evil because he prefers the Latin Mass and says that people misunderstand the Inquisition.  Never mind that, in the end, he helps save Cash and Colcord, he still is seen as a crazy person not to be trusted.

Then there is the realization at the end of the novel that “upends everything people think they know about religion.”  You see, Jesus and his apostles (which apparently include John the Baptist?) were all aliens.  So, he wasn’t really God, just an alien with super powers.  I’m all for science fiction and interesting stories, but I draw the line at blasphemy.  In an Afterword, the authors try to explain it all as a fun little theory that some people have, but they also scoff at such theories being a threat to the Church.  It’s all a fiction account, after all, no harm done.  I’m glad it makes it easy for me to say I will never read another book from Douglas Preston again.

52 in 25: #50 - 58 Minutes

I followed up the book that “inspired” Die Hard with its sequel.  No, not the books’ sequel, but the novel that “inspired” Die Hard 2.  This was 58 Minutes by Walter Wager.

This is a very, very loose interpretation of “inspired” (or as the cover says: “basis”).  About the only thing that this novel and the movie have in common is that terrorists takeover an airport.  In this, case, it is JFK Airport in New York, along with the others in the area.  They demand the release of seven political prisoners.  On the case is airport officials, the FAA, and the NYPD chief terrorist captain, Frank Malone, who just happens to be there because his daughter is flying in.  The plane she is on will run out of fuel in 58 minutes, hence the title.

It's fine, as these thrillers go.  It’s not necessarily a “page turner” but it’s not boring.  There are quite a few conveniences to make the plot happen.  One of my biggest pet peeves is that, at the end of the story, Malone is convinced that there was an inside person who helped it all happen, he and the others say they need to figure out who it is, and then they all live happily ever after.  Did the author not know who it was?  You can’t just leave that important piece dangling.  Maybe the author was an early influence on J.J. Abrams?

52 in 25: #49 - Nothing Lasts Forever

Next was a book I have been wanting to read for a while.  I finally got it early this year, but was waiting to read it until December.  The book is titled Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp, published in 1979.  Doesn’t sound familiar?  It does when you realize it was the “basis” for one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time.

This novel is told from the perspective of a retired police officer named Joseph Leland, and is the sequel to a novel called The Detective, which was made into a movie starring Frank Sinatra in 1968.  Leland flies to LA on Christmas Eve to be with his daughter Stephanie Gennaro and her children.  He meets up with her at her companies Christmas party, taking place in their 40-story skyscraper.  During the party, terrorist led by Anton Gruber take the building hostage in an attempt to steal $6 million dollars that the company, Klaxon, received in a deal with the corrupt government of Chile.  Leland then takes part in a one-man war to stop the terrorists and save his daughter.

 

Sound familiar?  Of course, this was the basis for Die Hard.  This is one case where the movie is significantly better than the source material.  The book isn’t bad.  It can be hard to follow at times.  There’s certainly some conveniences.  I didn’t really like the main character.  Or any of the characters.  In that way, it’s very 70s.  I guess in the end I would say, stick with the movie unless you really want to hunt down a decent action novel.

52 in 25: #40 - Jungle Tales of Tarzan

I had started this a bit ago, but decided to finish it before the weather got too cold.  I’m talking about the next entrance in the Tarzan canon, book #6: Jungle Tales of Tarzan.  The stories ran as monthly additions in Blue Book magazine from September 1916 through August 1917, and were published together as a book in 1919.

 

This one is a bit of a departure from the others for two reasons.  It is a collection of short stories, and it takes place when Tarzan is younger, before he meets Jane.  On the one hand, it is interesting because we get to engage with the more primal Tarzan.  On the other hand, the short stories vary in effectiveness from “what the heck am I reading?” (“Tarzan’s First Love”) to “that’s pretty cool” (“The End of Bukawai”).  Overall, it’s definitely on the lower end of Tarzan books.  Read it for completion’s sake, but don’t expect to be all that excited about it.  I think the biggest problem is that the short story format takes away one of the great strengths of Burroughs’ writing: 3-4 concurrent stories that come together in the end in a satisfying way.

52 in 25: #39 - The Apollo Murders

Uh oh, I have fallen behind pace…

 

My latest completed read is The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield.  I was intrigued by this book because it had good reviews and it was written by a real-life (Canadian) astronaut.

 

It’s long, but it’s a page-turner.  This is squarely in the “historical fiction” genre.  NASA is preparing to launch Apollo 18, the final mission to the moon, this time with purely military astronauts.  They have realized that a new Soviet space station in orbit has the ability to spy on the United States, uncovering major military secrets, so they divert the mission to go deal with the station. (Major spoilers) Once there, they find out the hard way that the station is already manned, and armed, and the Soviets are prepared to protect it.  One astronaut dies, as well as one cosmonaut, and as the space station is destroyed, the final cosmonaut finds her (yes, her) way on board the Apollo capsule and ends up getting a surprise ride to the moon.

 

There’s a good bit of action, and even more intrigue.  My main issue with the story is that I don’t completely buy the (in my opinion not fully fleshed out) motivation of the commander of the mission, who is a last-minute replacement due to the death (murder?) of the original commander.  That being said, the basis in real history (there really was a military mission planned, there really was a Soviet space station and Soviet rover on the moon, many of the people were real) makes it that much more interesting and believable.  Recommended for space history nerds as well as science fiction fans.  Just don’t expect, despite what might be read into the title, a mystery story.

52 in 25: #37 - Falling

During my road trip, I read a recent novel by T.J. Newman, Falling.  I was intrigued because I heard that the movie rights were purchased and that it was exciting.  I also read that she was heavily influenced by Michael Crichton, so I expected something like his writing.

 

Well, I was disappointed.  Of course, as a debut novel trying to live up to Crichton, that’s a lot to ask for.  It’s not that it was necessarily bad, just that it wasn’t that good.

 

Essentially, a plane is hijacked by terrorists.  But it’s not like any other hijacking.  One terrorist kidnaps the pilot’s family and threatens to kill them if he doesn’t crash the plane.  He also is told that he cannot contact anyone and that there is someone on board watching him.  Sounds interesting.  Fairly original.  Unfortunately, the payoff does not live up to the concept.  The good guys are all overly heroic (no surprise that the flight attendant author makes the flight attendants as the real heroes) and (spoiler) of course don’t die.  The bad guys are killed.  Major disaster is averted.  Kind of boring and predictable in the end.

 

Again, it’s not bad.  It kept me reading.  But it is no Crichton, even Crichton-light.  I would say that even his “pulp” novels written under pseudonym (at least the ones that I have read) were better.  It is incredibly forgettable.  Not every book has to be great, but they should at least be memorable in some way.

52 in 25: #33 - Congo

No, I have not stopped reading, nor have I forgotten about this.  Basically, I started one book, then decided I really wanted to read something from Michael Crichton, but I’m doing my best to not read Jurassic Park this year, so I picked up Congo for a reread.  So I've been splitting time between two (actually more) books.

Crichton is my favorite author because, for me, he brings the perfect mix of the old-school serial thriller with “techno-thriller” updates.  I love how “real” he makes his novels, by including all kinds of scientific explanations, real and fictional.  You can tell that he has heavily researched whatever topic(s) he is approaching in that particular novel.  He also is not a luddite, but at the same time he warns about the use, or overuse, of technology.

Congo, published in 1980, was his fifth novel.  Or it’s his 15^th if you include his novels published as John Lange or other aliases.  It is heavily influenced by other stories like King Solomon’s Mines of the lost city in the darkest Africa.  In this case, it centers around a technology company out of Houston ERTS searching for blue diamonds at the lost city of Zinj which will change the course of computing for decades to come.  The expedition is led by Charles Munro, the top mercenary in Africa, and Karen Ross, the representative from ERTS.  Along for the ride are Peter Elliot, a scientist from Berkely, and his gorilla Amy.  While the trek through the jungle, and the circuitous route to get there, are exciting, the real fun starts when the get to Zinj and are confronted by a lost species of grey gorillas who had been trained by the inhabitants of Zinj as an army.  Oh, and meanwhile there is a civil war in Zaire, pygmies and cannibals, and a second consortium from Japan and Germany racing to get the diamonds first.

 

Congo is exciting, though not all that original.  In Crichton’s bibliography, I would probably put it in the lower middle, which means it’s better than a lot of other authors, but not one of his best.  That being said, it is significantly better than the dreadful movie adaptation.

52 in 25: #32 - Tyrannosaur Canyon

I was really wanting to read some Tom Clancy, one of my favorite authors, so I started to reread Cardinal in the Kremlin, which I haven’t read in a while, but then I realized it is not summer reading.  I want “summer reading.”  So I put it down and will probably pick it up again in the winter.

 

Instead, I returned to Douglas Preston, whose Extinction is #16.  I turned to another “dinosaur” themed book in Tyrannosaur Canyon.  I’ll cut to the chase, there is a dinosaur in it, but barely.

 

It actually starts with the Apollo 17 lunar landing in 1972.  Ok, I’m listening.  Something mysterious happens.  Jump to present day, where a “treasure hunter” in the badlands of New Mexico is murdered.  Before the bad guy can get to his body (he was shot from the top of the canyon), the hero, Tom Broadbent, heard the shots and finds the body.  Before the man dies, he hands Tom a diary and tells him to give it to his daughter Robbie.  Being a man of honor, he has to honor the man’s last request, and so he does not take it to the authorities.  Thus begins a race to find out what the treasure is and where it’s buried.  Along the way, Tom befriends a former CIA agent-turned-monk Wyman Ford.  I mention that because this is the second Tom Broadbent novel (I haven’t read the first The Codex, but it’s basically spoiled in this book) and the first of the Wyman Ford series of books).

 

Where does the dinosaur come in?  Spoilers.  The “treasure” is a basically fully intact T-Rex, including skin and everything, which turns out to have died during the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs but, twist, it actually died from an alien organism that was attached to the asteroid, was also found on the moon, and could become a dangerous weapon.  Basically, you have a little bit of a treasure hunt, a little bit of a detective story, a little bit of a conspiracy story, and a little bit of Andromeda Strain.

 

Overall, it was enjoyable.  I definitely realized that I really like the “serial” type of novel, from Dumas to Burroughs and Crichton (sort of) to now Preston.  He reminds me quite a bit of Crichton, but with a lot fewer scientific details to lend it more credibility.  In the end, he writes a fun, engaging thriller that keeps you coming back to find out what’s happening to the different convergent story lines.  That being said, I will no longer assume that a book with a dinosaur or other extinct animal on its cover features dinosaurs or other extinct animals.  As a man once said, "fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me...you can't get fooled again."

52 in 25: #30 - Riders of the Purple Sage

I love Western movies.  It’s long been one of my favorite genres.  So it’s somewhat unusual that I have only read 2 or 3 Western novels.  I decided to venture into the Western with what is considered one of the best, if not the best, ever written.  That is, Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage.

Written in 1912, it takes place in 1870s Utah.  There are two main interlocking stories.  First is Jane Withersteen, a wealthy single Mormon woman who is battling between her faith and her longing for freedom, and Jim Lassiter, a gunfighter known for killing Mormons looking for the man who killed his sister.  The second main story surrounds Bern Venters, a rider, and Bess, the mysterious Masked Rider he almost killed but nurses back to life.  This second story, which becomes “Adam and Eve in Eden” is far less interesting than the intrigue of Jane, Lassiter, and the Mormon hierarchy trying to wear them down.

 

I really wanted to like it.  I liked parts of it, but there were also parts that got under my skin.  One thing that bothered me to no end was the chapter titles which often spoiled what was going to happen.  At least I could sympathize with the authors clear dislike of Mormonism.  I might someday read the sequel, The Rainbow Trail, but not likely too soon.

52 in 25: #28 - Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar

The problem with Tarzan is you can’t read just one.  So I continued on with the next book, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar.  I was particularly wanting to read this because I can remember really liking Tarzan going to Opar, but I quickly realized I was thinking of his first excursion there in The Return of Tarzan.

This is the fifth Tarzan book, originally appearing in a weekly in 1916 and published as a book in 1918.  Lord and Lady Greystoke (Tarzan and Jane) are hurting for money, so Tarzan decides to return to Opar to bring back gold that he had seen there before.  He is followed by an outlaw Belgian army office, Albert Werper, who is working with an Arab, Achmet Zek, to try to destroy Tarzan.  While recovering the gold, an earthquake strikes, and Tarzan is buried in the treasure room.  Worse, he is hit in the head by falling debris and loses his memory.  While he is away, Achmet Zek destroys the Greystoke farm and kidnaps Jane.  The adventure goes from there.  Tarzan eventually regains his memory, largely by coming across Jane, and they live happily ever after (sort of) while the bad guys get their comeuppance.

The memory loss gimmick is basically a way to revert Tarzan to his more beastly form, and to help the story go on a bit longer (it would have been much shorter if he knew who he was and how to resolve the kidnapping).  Opar and the Oparians are barely in it (La, the high priestess in love with Tarzan, returns), the title refers to some jewels that Tarzan came across and they become a secondary device for the characters to fight over.  In the end, it’s another solid story in the Tarzan line.  Part of me wants to keep going, but I will be going elsewhere for my next book(s).

52 in 25: #27 - Son of Tarzan

When I was a teenager, I read a bunch of the Tarzan books.  I loved them.  Edgar Rice Burroughs has a great way of having multiple stories occurring concurrently and in the end they all come together.  A couple of years ago I started to reread them, but then put them down to read others things.  I decided I wanted to tread back into Tarzan.

The next up for me was Son of Tarzan, which I know I read before, but I didn’t remember at all.  This was the 4^th of the 24 Tarzan books, published in 1915.  Of course, the funny thing of wanting to return to Tarzan is that I picked up with the only novel where he is not the main character.

Essentially, one of the apes from the previous story, Akut, is brought to London and Tarzan’s son Jack (who is around 11) befriends him.  He helps Akut escape to Africa, and then reluctantly joins Akut in the jungles of Africa until he becomes Korak, or The Killer.  Then, the story really gets going when he rescues a young Arab girl named Meriem.  By the end of the story, Korak has been in the jungle for 5-6 years.

While the story is fun, my biggest problem with it is that Tarzan and Jane (we find out towards the end of the story) have been in Africa for years but never went looking for their son.  I have a hard time believing, knowing his character, that Tarzan would not have hunted him down relatively early on.  But it has to be that way for the story to happen, so you just kind of have to go with it.

It's not the best of the Tarzan novels, but it’s still pretty good.  It definitely keeps the reader engaged and is fun, which is what it’s supposed to do.  Tarzan isn’t for everyone, but for those who like Burroughs, it’s hard to go wrong.

52 in 25: #16 - Extinction

Next up was a novel I heard about not too long ago, and I had to read it because it was compared to Jurassic Park.  This was Extinction by Douglas Preston, published just last year in 2024.  I was actually going to wait for this as summer reading, but the last stinker pushed it further up my list. 

I read it fairly quickly because it is a page-turner.  I have to give him credit; he definitely kept me interested.  It was hard to put down at points.  In that way, he is Crichton-esque.

The book ended up being something a bit different from another Jurassic Park (which he references a few times).  It sucks you in with a cover similar to Jurassic, a park with ancient “de-extinct” beasts similar to Jurassic, and some interesting science.  But soon, I realized it is much more of a detective novel than anything else.  It wasn’t bad, just not what I was expecting.

Essentially, a couple mysteriously dies at a resort with ancient Pleistocene mammals in Colorado.  Law enforcement officials arrive to investigate.  It quickly escalates into chaos.  I don’t want to give anything more away, because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who might read it (or watch the inevitable movie that will be made from it).  In the end, the message is clear (again, like Jurassic), just because science can do something doesn’t mean it should.  Or, as one of the characters says: “If something can be done, it will be done—no matter how dangerous.”  We actually are closer to this technology than we may want to acknowledge, but we should stay far away.

Overall, it was a good, fun, read.  Calling it “Crichton-esque” is big praise from me.  I recommend it for any fans of Crichton or detective stories.  I will be reading more from Preston.

52 in 25: #10 - N or M?

I decided to head back to Agatha Christie and Tommy and Tuppence for their next novel, N or M?  Apparently, the title comes from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer which asks your Christian name, “Answer N. or M.” which is supposed to stand for “name or names.”

 

This is a different Christie novel, not really about a murder but about the German Fifth Column in England during World War II.  Tommy and Tuppence are “too old” to help with the war effort, but they work their way into this spy work, going undercover trying to find the male and female head of the Fifth Column, who are known as “N.” and “M.” 

 

Not sure if it was just my mood recently, but I wasn’t really into it.  It’s probably at the bottom of my list of Christie novels that I have read.  I will say that towards the end I was looking up what others thought about it, to see if others agreed with me (they don’t) and noticed for the first time it was written in 1941, which made it a bit more interesting for me knowing that they really did have this fear at the time and did not know the eventual result of WWII.  Still, for me, it wasn’t up to the usual high caliber that I expect from Christie.

52 in 25: #8 - The Three Musketeers

 It’s been a bit because it’s taken me awhile to get through all 600 pages of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers.  This is one of those classic novels that I’ve been meaning to read for awhile and finally decided to pick up.  I will add that I read the Jacques Le Clercq translation, so I’m not sure how faithful it is.

 

I grew up with the movies and “knowing” the story.  When I was young, it was the 1948 Gene Kelly version, which I never really liked because I thought it was a bit too goofy (I recently rewatched it, and still feel the same, and apparently the screenwriter agreed).  Of course, then there was the 1993 Disney movie, which I always liked.  I’ve seen a few others, none of which are worth mentioning.  None of them, as expected, are close to the fully story.

 

Overall, I liked it.  It is long.  It was written as a serial, so it’s a different type of writing, with some kind of big thing at the end of each chapter to make you keep wanting to read the next installment.  Sometimes the writing is ponderous, but sometimes it’s brilliant (Athos to D’Artagnan: “Friend, be a man! Women weep for the dead; men avenge them!”).  I also appreciated how historical it was, giving a more detailed idea of life at that time (with the movies, you never would know how important the servants were).  Probably my favorite parts were when they were being overly pompous, particularly The Bastion Saint-Gervais.  Milady was an especially evil villain, and there is some satisfaction in the end.  I will also give credit for the somewhat surprising death of Constance, which I feel with today’s American audience would not be allowed to happen (D’Artagnan has to have a happy ending!).

 

There are some things I wasn’t fond of.  I was surprised how much of it dealt with mistresses, like that was a normal thing (to that end, I have a hard time with a mistress being known as “pure” and “chaste”).  I also thought the characters (especially secondary ones) were sometimes inconsistent, acting in ways that didn’t make sense to me.  I especially didn’t like how easily the “Puritan” Felton was seduced by Milady, just to drive the plot (and skew historical events).  There’s also some inconsistency, at least in my mind, when a few paragraphs after the above quotation Athos says, “Weep, heart full of love, alive with youth, and pulsing with life! Would I too could weep!”

 

It's not for everyone.  Those who like classics will appreciate it much more than those who can only read more modern novels.  I guess, if you’re interested in the time period, or the movies of the musketeers, it’s worth a read.