Ancient Heavens by Robert E. Vardeman

First published in 1989; published digitally by Venture Press on March 26, 2017

Ancient Heavens begins in 2055. A Shi’ite Empire dominates Eurasia, systematically wiping out followers of all other faiths. A resistance group, the Church of Lost Eden, plans a journey to the stars where they can found a new Eden and practice their pacifist religion without fear of oppression. The plan calls for terraforming a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, giving half the planet to the corporation that will do the terraforming.

Things don’t work out quite as planned for the religious folk, causing them to need the planet before it is ready to inhabit. In the grand tradition of science fiction, the story becomes one of scientists concocting brainy schemes to save the bacon of nonscientists. There is a fair amount of hard science in Ancient Heavens and, not being a scientist, about all I can say is that it sounded plausible to me. I assume that real scientists will appreciate the cleverness of the fictional scientists more than I did, but I followed the basic concepts well enough to appreciate that the solutions are, in fact, clever.

Richard Drake is in charge of the terraforming. He’s consumed by the immensity of the task, which causes his pregnant wife to become more than a little dramatic. She wants a successful husband but she doesn’t want to deal with the demands of the career that made him a success. Relationship drama aside, the novel’s value lies in the appreciation it instills of how technically difficult it would be and how long it would take to make an uninhabitable planet inhabitable to humans.

By 2138, the plot takes on even more qualities of a soap opera. Richard has been frozen and thawed and his life on or near the terraformed Nerth has moved in unexpected directions, as has the Church of Lost Eden. The suggestion is that churches manipulate their followers, but they can also be manipulated by their leaders. The novel also illustrates the tendency of religions to condemn and oppress everyone who follows a different religion, or none at all. The pacifist religion, having been oppressed, has become an oppressive religion, again illlustrating a reality that is all too common in the real world.

In 2189, near the end of the novel, Richard learns what transpired on Earth after his departure. It isn’t pretty, but it is an imaginative projection from trends that existed when the novel was written. One of those trends is that corporations continue to gain rights and power, as if they are the equivalent of (or superior to) living organisms.

The family drama is sometimes difficult to believe, but it allows the plot to evolve its themes of power and treachery. The novel ends with a tale of corporate evil that threatens to wipe out human life on Nerth. The novel follows the science fiction tradition of demonstrating how resilient humans — scientists, in particular — can overcome all barriers, whether they are posed by the forces of nature and physics or by other humans. While I didn’t quite buy all of the relationship drama, some of which seemed unduly contrived, I enjoyed the novel as a whole.

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The Memory Agent by Matthew B.J. Delaney

Published by 47North on July 18, 2017

The Memory Agent is entertaining, but it struggles to find its identity. The novel starts as an adventure story with an Indiana Jones feel, then it becomes a science fiction prison break novel, then a section has a post-apocalyptic Mad Max feel, and yes, there is sort of a zombie story, because if you’re going to mash up a bunch of subgenres, why not include zombies? And then there’s a killer minotaur, so I guess The Memory Agent is also a horror novel. The writing is sufficiently strong to sustain interest as the story meanders, provided the reader has an even greater willingness to suspend disbelief than science fiction usually requires.

In Cairo 1933, an expedition is formed to find a lost city, supposedly discovered by a tribesman who produces a journal by one of Napoleon’s soldiers describing a lost city of glass and steel, as well as a copy of the New York Times from 2017. The expedition does, in fact, find the mysterious city, thanks to a subway that takes the members there as they flee from an angry mob. The future Manhattan is empty (mostly), although it conveys the impression of a lingering presence.

Eventually, after the novel jumps around a few times, the reader learns the secret to the (mostly) empty city. And eventually the reader learns the whole truth, in a series of surprising revelations as the novel nears its end. Some of the revelations seem contrived, or perhaps it is their cumulative weight that makes them all seem contrived, but they also seem fitting given the story that precedes them.

Some nice moments of humor contribute to the story’s fun factor. I like the effect the song “Thriller” has on the quasi-zombies. On the whole, though, there’s a bit too much going on in this confusion of genres. I got the impression that Matthew Delaney had an idea for a novel but wasn’t sure how to flesh it out, so he made seemingly random choices to fill the pages. Again, the prose is good and the story is usually interesting, although I had trouble staying motivated after the Minotaur showed up. A sharper focus would have improved the presentation. The Memory Agent might have worked better as a novella, perhaps turning a couple of other sections into short stories. But on the whole, the entertainment factor is strong enough to earn my recommendation.

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The Golden House by Salman Rushdie

Published by Random House on September 5, 2017

Salman Rushdie explores multiple themes in The Golden House, including “the nature of goodness”. The concept is elusive, but he finds it in “unshakable love” and happiness, for as long as it exists until it is replaced by unhappiness. Goodness is always at war with its opposite, and Rushdie also explores the potential for both good and evil that resides in every person. Evil in the novel is most often represented by betrayal.

The nature of change, its inevitability and whether it is possible to change the soul, is another theme. An aristocratic man who calls himself Nero Golden has come to New York, leaving India and his Muslim heritage behind, because America is “the land of the self-made self” where it is possible “to move beyond memory and roots and language and race,” to “step away from yesterday and start tomorrow as if it isn’t part of the same week.” He has erased his part and started anew — or so he thinks. Eventually his sins of the past are revealed, as are their consequences.

Nero Golden’s story of entitlement is narrated by his young neighbor René, a Manhattan resident of Belgian heritage who fancies himself a filmmaker or at least a screenwriter. René’s parents are among the few who have discovered the true reason for Golden’s flight from India. René looks to Nero Golden for screenplay inspiration, as he looks to a woman named Suchitra for love.

Nero Golden has three sons, two (Petya and Apu) from the same woman and the third (D.) from another. Their familial ties might be strengthened when a new woman enters their father’s life, perhaps threatening their inheritance, but the children are divided in their response to Vasilisa Arsenyeva.

The first half of the novel sets up the characters and their relationships. The second half begins with René coming to live in the Golden household and all too wittingly getting caught up in a scheme that Vasilisa has hatched, a scheme that will cause him to betray his friend Nero and his lover Suchitra. In addition, Apu returns to India and discovers that the sins of the father are inherited by the son.

The story of “unshakable love” involves a woman named Riya Z and her improbable love for D (Suchitra’s love of René, on the other hand, gets a good shaking). Some early chapters are devoted to D’s gender identity issues, while some later chapters focus on Petya’s intolerance of those issues. Petya, a high-functioning autistic, is equally intolerant of Abu’s political beliefs, an animosity that Abu reciprocates, giving Rushdie an opportunity to present a microcosm of divided America. But betrayal is a pervasive theme in The Golden House, and one of the novel’s first betrayals occurs when Apu steals the affections of a beautiful Somali sculptor from Petya.

Divided America is, in fact, a recurring theme as, toward the novel’s end, the Joker defeats Batgirl in the presidential election. Some of Rushdie’s strongest writing dissects the belief (firmly held by voters who “brought the horror to power”) that “knowing things is elite and they hate elitists” so that “education, art, music, film, becomes a reason for being loathed.” Readers who might be scorned as “elitists” can find refuge in Rushdie’s pages, which presume a broad level of knowledge or at least enough intellectual curiosity to Google an unfamiliar name. Knowledge is not power, Rushdie writes; “knowledge is beauty.” And the only answer to the Joker, Rushdie tells us, is Humanity.

Rushdie packs so much into sentences that if they were water, a reader could walk on top of them. As is typical of Rushdie, the novel is packed with allusions and references to current affairs, history, politics, mythology, poetry, literature, film, and pop culture. Classics and the contemporary reside comfortably alongside each other, sometimes in the same sentence. This gives the book a cluttered feel, and while a book is supposed to be a messy house, it is difficult to journey through the rooms of The Golden House without tripping over the furniture. Still, even when he rambles, or especially when he rambles, Rushdie is interesting and enlightening.

As is also typical of Rushdie, the novel touches upon important social issues: the intersection of politics and religion; the tendency of oppressors to treat human life as expendable; “the modern obsession with identity” and its counterpart, the denial of racial heritage; the transformation of sexual identity; the gun culture; the ease with which a large percentage of the voting public can be conned, simply because they want to be conned; and the fact that an even larger percentage of the voting public care so little about their country that they don’t bother to vote. Well, look what that gets you.

Occasionally, amidst all the clutter and social observation, things happen, a plot develops, telling the tragic story of the Golden family. While generally relating that story in the first person from René’s perspective, Rushdie sometimes changes up the text with the techniques of screenplay writing and with a monologue imagined as a “collage” of conversations from which René has been edited out. As is often true in a Rushdie novel, there might be too much going on, as Rushdie’s mighty display of erudition sometimes gets in the way of telling a compelling story. But compelling or not, the story is fun and it offers enough moments of insight to make its reading a serious intellectual pleasure, although perhaps not a strong emotional pleasure.

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The Cuban Affair by Nelson DeMille

Published by Simon & Schuster on September 19, 2017

Daniel Graham “Mac” MacCormick owns a charter boat in Key West. A fellow named Carlos wants to hire Mac to take him to Cuba for a government-sanctioned fishing tournament. There may be more to it than fishing, and while Mac likes to run a clean operation, the offer of $2 million for ten days’ work gets his attention.

The actual mission involves not fishing, but spiriting some of the past out of Cuba and into the United States. To that end, Mac goes to Cuba, accompanied by the lovely Sara Ortega. Of course, they wind up in bed, not only as part of their cover story, but because they enjoy it. Meanwhile, Mac’s first mate, Vietnam vet Jack Colby, keeps Mac’s fishing boat ready for a quick getaway . . . if Mac and Jack can find a way to get to the boat. I can’t say much else about the plot without spoiling the fun, so I will say only that the story takes some unexpected turns and provides the mix of adventure and suspense that Nelson DeMille consistently delivers.

DeMille’s protagonists always have a wry sense of humor. Mac’s pointed remarks about Cuba’s oppressive government would be funny if they weren’t so accurate. Mac is also a typical DeMille protagonist in that he is tough, capable, decent, unselfish, and skeptical. He isn’t politically correct, but he isn’t an in-your-face jerk about it. I don’t mind fictional characters (or real people, for that matter) having opinions that differ from mine, as long as they aren’t haters or just plain stupid, and Mac’s observations — sharp but never mean — might enhance the novel for readers who share his outlook. In any event, the ending is politically astute, regardless of where the reader falls on the political spectrum.

Mac also suffers from raging hormones. The novel’s love story struck me as unlikely, given the speed with which Mac moved from “I want to get laid” to “I love you,” but high-speed romance is standard in a thriller. The love story adds another complication to Mac’s life, particularly when a competing suitor arrives on the scene. That’s all part of the shifting plot that catches the reader off guard, if not the imperturbable Mac.

Apart from entertaining characters, atmosphere is the key to the novel’s success. This is a Cuba that appears to come from personal experience rather than a travel guide.

Despite the danger the characters face as the story moves along, The Cuban Affair is a little more laid back and a little less gripping than DeMille’s John Corey novels, but those novels set a pretty high standard. The Cuban Affair moves quickly and delivers credible action scenes, particularly when things heat up toward the novel’s end. This isn't DeMille's best work, but it's better than most thriller writers manage.

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Spoils by Brian Van Reet

Published by Little, Brown & Co./Lee Boudreaux Books on April 18, 2017

Spoils tells a war story (Iraq 2003) from three intersecting points of view. Two narrators are Americans and the third is an Egyptian emir whose belief in jihad has taken him to Chechnya, Afghanistan, and (somewhat reluctantly) Iraq.

The emir, Abu al-Hool, is training jihadist volunteers in Afghanistan when he learns of Osama bin Laden’s success on 9/11. He is troubled because he does not believe that killing women and children is the right path. But he also knows that innocents die in war (Hiroshima being a profound example). Americans set the tone with the dismissive phrase “collateral damage," providing at least partial justification, he thinks, for the killing of non-combatants. He also belives that “great men tend to inhabit the extremes of thought, and that is one reason for their greatness.”

The most interesting chapters follow Abu al-Hool through his political struggles. He is astonished that Bush was so easily goaded to invade Iraq, playing into bin Laden’s hands. Having grown old, having lost his son in Chechnya, Abu al-Hool has no desire to take jihad to Iraq, but the choice is not his.

Abu al-Hool considers himself a freedom fighter, which is what Reagan called fighters in Afghanistan who resisted Soviet invaders, using the same techniques that now earns them the label “Islamofascists” and “terrorists.” Abu al-Hool still approves of the ancient and time-honored technique of beheading enemies, but he is no longer sure that his colleagues are employing the technique in a just way.

Other chapters follow Cassandra Wigheard, who starts the novel with mortars rain down on her Humvee. During the first half of the novel, the story jumps around in time, providing Cassandra’s background (from Kansas to Kuwait) as well as Abu al-Hool’s. Eventually she is in a position to fear becoming a propaganda tool for the jihadists.

A third point of view appears in the second half. After Wigheard and two other soldiers are taken prisoner, Sleed is among the soldiers assigned to look for them. He is also among the soldiers who, through dereliction of duty, is partially responsible for causing the problem.

Bad judgment is basically the story of America’s incursion into Iraq, along with killing innocent civilians. Those are both on display in a novel that makes no attempt to disguise the bleak reality of the environment in which the story is set. Bad judgment drives all sides of the conflict.

Spoils is notable for refusing to portray characters in a simplistic light. All people fall on a continuum of good to bad, often occupying shifting points along that continuum, and that is true of the characters in Spoils. A reader won’t necessarily sympathize with Abu al-Hool, but Brian van Reet makes it possible to understand his conflict, and to view him in a more positive light than terrorists who engage in jihad with no regard for the moral teachings of their religion. It is much easier to feel sympathy for other key characters, including a young boy who does the bidding of the jihadists and the American soldiers who, despite their imperfections, are fighting a senseless war not because they are evil, but because their president put them there.

The story is powerful, gritty, believable, and insightful. It establishes a vivid sense of place, portraying Iraq in multiple dimensions from a variety of senses. The voices that tell the story are genuine; the reader rarely  has the sense of an author lurking in the background, manipulating the scene or the characters. I haven’t seen any other novel that captures so well the swirling entanglement of good and bad in the American conflict with Iraq. As all war literature should do, Spoils illuminates that conflict in all its glorious idiocy.

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