December 2022's Burgoine Reviews & Pearl Rule Reviews

Author 'Nathan Burgoine posted this simple, direct method of not getting paralyzed by the prospect of having to write reviews. The Three-Sentence Review is, as he notes, very helpful and also simple to achieve. I get completely unmanned at the idea of saying something trenchant about each book I read, when there often just isn't that much to say...now I can use this structure to say what I think is the most important idea I took away from the read and not try to dig for more.

Think about using it yourselves!

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A New World by Steven Popkes

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: On his first voyage seeking the Far East, Columbus finds a new world occupied by intelligent dinosaurs.

The expedition does not go as planned.

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Steven Popkes lives in Massachusetts on two acres where he and his wife raise bananas, persimmons and turtles.

He works in aerospace making sure rockets continue to go where they are pointed. He insists he is not a rocket scientist.

He is a rocket engineer.

I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER. THANK YOU.

My Review: A shortish read, novella length, about the very best possible outcome of Almirante Cristóbal Colón's disastrous voyage to the New World: An enemy worthy and capable of resisting the scumdog religious nuts instead of normal people susceptible to diseases the evil bastards miasmically transmitted to them.

It's a lovely thought.

Told from several points of view in its fewer-than-100 pages, it doesn't linger on details or travel down intriguing side paths. That's understandable but regrettable. The presence of a Marrano on the voyage is, I think, allohistorical...but I can't prove that. I enjoyed the different outcome of first contact...not everything going the Spaniards' way...and relished very deeply the hints of complexity in the New World's radically new social structure. I think this is plausible since the asteroid hit the Yucatán in our own timeline by accident; as little as ten minutes earlier or later, the entire history of the planet would certainly have been different.

Would dinosaurs have survived? Would humans have evolved if they had? Sure, why not, this is a story! And a fun one, perfect for #Booksgiving. To yourself, or to others.

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Why Bad Governments Happen to Good People by Danny Katch

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The election of Donald Trump has sent U.S. and the world into uncharted waters, with a bigoted, petty man-child at the head of the planet’s most powerful empire. Danny Katch indicts the hollowness of U.S. political system which led to Trump’s rise and puts forward a vision for a real alternative, a democracy that works for the people.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I'm decidedly a leftist in my political stances. I would never, ever, ever vote for 45...not even for his execution.

I'm in sympathy with this book, then. Why would I only give it three-and-a-half stars? Because it's a humorous look at how the oligarchy got to control the political landscape...Obama would've been a Rockefeller Republican in the rational politics of my youth...that's short on ideas for what to do to replace the consensus.

Taking shit away from people is satisfying on a personal, vengeful level..."look! LOOK what your gullibility and stupidity have cost actual, real human beings!"...but look to the Soviet revolution for what happens when all you do is take away things with no plan for what to replace them with. Stalin. Putin. All the awful abusive cruelties and murderous outrages those men got away with by stepping into a void and saying, "obey me and I will protect you."

We got 45. And deserved him. The issue I take with this book isn't that it's wrong, it's that it's naïve and almost willfully unrealistic about what it will take to change the course of modern politics.

Explaining the problem ain't anything like enough anymore. The entrenched scream machine bellowing idiotic ideas into otherwise thoughtless heads isn't going to crank down on its own. It needs to be made unprofitable. And it needs to have a palatable-to-decent-people alternative to shove Them towards or it will fail and that catastrophe is what we're living through.

Real change for the better, please. No more cleverly insulting analyses, please.

A Kindle copy will only set you back $1.99 if you need a laugh at the yokels. (non-affiliate Amazon link)

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The Conscience Economy: How a Mass Movement for Good Is Great for Business by Steven Overman

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: A generation of people around the world, from Boston to Bangkok, from New York to New Delhi, are making everyday choices in ways that defy traditional logic. They are judging where and how their clothes were made, not just how they fit. They are thinking global but buying local. They are spending their money and their time, forming loyalties, casting votes and even enjoying entertainment based increasingly upon their desire to make a positive impact on others and the world around them. This new generation believes they can and must make the world better, and they expect business and government to get with the program.

The implications of the Conscience Economy are not “soft.” Ignore it, and your consumer or voter base will rebel, using a host of free tools and cheap connectivity to spread their rejection to peers around the world in real time. Leverage it, and Conscience Culture is a wellspring of financial upside.

The Conscience Economy is the must-read guide to this unprecedented shift in human motivation and behavior. Author Steven Overman, Chief Marketing Officer for Kodak, provides context, inspiration and some basic tools to help readers reframe how they evolve and grow whatever it is they lead—whether it’s a community, a business, a product, or a marketing campaign. From the boardroom to the startup loft, from the State Department to the pulsing marketplaces of the developing world, The Conscience Economy will help international leaders, influencers, investors and decision-makers to manage, innovate and thrive in a new world where “doing good” matters as much as “doing well.”

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Exactly what it says on the tin. A corporate exec is talking to his fellows in front of us, making the point that there's lotsa money out there chasing Doing Good projects and products. This is news we don't hear that much...like the very real progress made on slowing down climate change in under a decade...that we could *just*maybe* not lose everything as Earth shrugs her shoulders to dislodge the fleas and ticks that we resemble.

Lower rating for using the corpocratic speechifyin' tone mixed with self-aggrandizement, but not the citations and suchlike gubbins one would expect to back it up.

Rentable for three weeks for $8.26, which ain't no bargain but beats $31.95 to buy it. (non-affiliate Amazon link)

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It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics by David Faris

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: It's time for Democrats to strike while the iron is hot...

The American electoral system is clearly falling apart--more than one recent presidential race has resulted in the clear winner of the popular vote losing the electoral college vote, and Trump's refusal to concede in 2020 broke with all precedents...at least for now. Practical solutions need to be implemented as soon as possible. And so in It's Time to Fight Dirty, political scientist David Faris outlines accessible, actionable strategies for American institutional reform which don't require a constitutional amendment, and would have a lasting impact on our future.

With equal amounts of playful irreverence and persuasive reasoning, Faris describes how the Constitution's deep democratic flaws constantly put progressives at a disadvantage, and lays out strategies for "fighting dirty" though obstructionism and procedural warfare: establishing statehood for DC and Puerto Rico; breaking California into several states; creating a larger House of Representatives; passing a new voting rights act; and expanding the Supreme Court.

The Constitution may be the world's most difficult document to amend, but Faris argues that many of America's democratic failures can be fixed within its rigid confines—and, at a time when the stakes have never been higher, he outlines a path for long-term, progressive change in the United States so that the electoral gains of 2020 aren't lost again.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Too late. Even with the clear and ringing message of 2022's midterms in their ears, the Democrats...comme d'habitude...aren't taking action to protect, and extend, voting-rights legislation or moving to curb the lunatic right-wing majority on the Supreme Court's power.

So Faris's arguments are hot air blowing in the wind. He's correct. His prescriptions would work. But laddies and gentlewomen, there's no political will to do the sensible, morally correct thing among the oinking grafthogs battening on the dark-money dollars of contemptible scum.

A Kindlebook costs $9.99. (non-affiliate Amazon link)

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The Téuta's Child by S. G. Ullman

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Once upon a time in the Téuta, the ground shook. The cliff fell, and boulders came tumbling down, crushing everything and everyone in their path. The surviving villagers blamed Welo, the nightmare giant, for the disaster.

When little blind Kaikos notices mysterious spiritual activity on the ground, she must keep it a secret. The villagers will not hesitate to sacrifice Welo's cursed granddaughter if it stops the earth from shaking again.

With the fragile line between love and hate erased by fear, Kaikos must brave growing darkness to survive.

The Téuta's Child is a gripping tale of loss and redemption, set in neolithic times.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I think you need to be in the proper mood for this story to work its magic on you. This week of all weeks of the year, it's the time to read about the fates of those Different and what simply living their lives can demand of them.

It's not like there's a lack of evidence that we're responding the same ways now as we did then.

Author Ullman tells his tale at a deliberate pace. There's not a single moment that he shorts its proper attention. And that is, in this story, a strength. He's making a world for us that isn't like the one outside. The people, now...they're always just people. But in response to stresses and pressures that we don't really experience the same way in the modern world, they use the same tools out of the same toolbox that we do.

This isn't a knock on the author's choices, it's a compliment...I'm noting for you the best thing a read can do: Make the Other into a familiar figure by taking us, the readers, outside our little compartments of mind. Among the pleasures of fiction is this one, this shock of the novel tempered into explorations of the nature of novelty. I recommend this for a long, comfortable reading in the Solstice's cold days.

At $5.99, a Kindle edition won't break the bank (non-affiliate Amazon link).

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This space is dedicated to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50, or "the Pearl Rule" as I've always called it. After realizing five times in December 2021 alone that I'd already Pearl-Ruled a book I picked up on a whim, I realized how close my Half-heimer's is getting to the full-on article. Hence my decision to track my Pearls!

As she says:

People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,” which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books. If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit.

So this space will be each month's listing of Pearl-Ruled books. Earlier Pearl-Rule posts will be linked below the current month's crop.

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All Are Welcome by Liz Parker

PEARL RULED: 18%

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A darkly funny novel from a fresh new voice in fiction about brides, lovers, friends, and family, and all the secrets that come with them.

Tiny McAllister never thought she’d get married. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she didn’t think girls from Connecticut married other girls. Yet here she is with Caroline, the love of her life, at their destination wedding on the Bermuda coast. In attendance—their respective families and a few choice friends. The conflict-phobic Tiny hopes for a beautiful weekend with her bride-to-be. But as the weekend unfolds, it starts to feel like there’s a skeleton in every closet of the resort.

From Tiny’s family members, who find the world is changing at an uncomfortable speed, to Caroline’s parents, who are engaged in conspiratorial whispers, to their friends, who packed secrets of their own—nobody seems entirely forthcoming. Not to mention the conspicuous no-show and a tempting visit from the past. What the celebration really needs now is a monsoon to help stir up all the long-held secrets, simmering discontent, and hidden agendas.

All Tiny wanted was to get married, but if she can make it through this squall of a wedding, she might just leave with more than a wife.

I CHECKED A COPY OUT FROM PRIME LENDING LIBRARY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Ineffectual Dick musing, "If Robbie didn't come home, it meant Dick couldn't disappoint him," drove the final nail in the coffin of my increasingly decaying readerly corpse. I was ready for this to be dark, and funny; instead it was sad, and sarcastic.

This had the ideas of an episode of Schitt's Creek, which was blessed with an amazing alchemical miracle of writers and actors and producers and directors. This is the story that didn't make the cut, got flensed in the writer's room and worked over by the showrunner, and now washes up here in front of me, homophobia and clueless rich privileged assholes *galore* sitting in the same seats.

If I'd paid for it, I'd be spittin' mad. As it is, I won't get those eyeblinks back but it was at the very least a cashless transaction. I don't recommend it to you.

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End of the Roadie (A Mystery for D.I. Costello #3) by Elizabeth Flynn

PEARL RULED: 30%

Rating: 2* of five

The Publisher Says: Brendan Phelan, rock star, is playing in a stage show that includes guns and whips. As it reaches its climax, a shot rings out—but it's not part of the show. The body of Oliver Joplin, one of the road crew, lies lifeless outside the stage door. Detective Inspector Angela Costello and her team investigate, but they quickly discover that several stage hands, and Phelan himself, are adept with firearms—and that Joplin was widely disliked and distrusted. So why had Phelan kept him on, despite the reservations of his crew? Joplin's emails reveal the presence of a shadowy figure stalking the dead man. Who might profit from Joplin's death?

Little by little, Costello unpicks the web of lies. But unless one key person opens up, she can't crack the case. And that is not going to happen.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: When the production manager of the rock star's road show takes six lines to say "the star added the dead guy to the staff, not me, I hated the bastard," I realized I wasn't going to finish this story.

Gay is hilarious, you see, thinking a famous rock star might be gay can cause a room full of his sycophants to clutch their sides in laughter, and the fact that he's accused of having sex with a fourteen-year-old girl elicits a flurry of justifications like "plenty of girls that age are sexually active" (with middle-aged men? that's a problem, folks) and "how was he to know?" (maybe keep it zipped while on the road? just spitballin' some thoughts here).

The sleuth and her team follow procedures, I suppose, but I couldn't tell you what those were. I'm spoiled by Ann Cleeves and her ilk in this regard: The say what the procedures are. Anyway. It comes down to "I do not like this book or the characters in it so I am exercising my readerly right to bugger off now."

I do not recommend this read to you.

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The Steam Man of the Prairies by Edward S. Ellis

PEARL RULED: 51%

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: One of the earliest examples of steampunk literature, this 1868 tale was also among the first American science-fiction novels and the very first literary instance of a mechanical man.

Extremely popular and much imitated in its day, the story concerns a teenage inventor who constructs an automaton to help him explore the American prairie.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: "...and with not a single Indian in sight!" reads the cliff-hanger to chapter 11 of this early science fiction story. It was then that my last nerve, frayed by racism and the passage of 150-plus years, snapped.

I can't do it. I can overlook and explain away with the best of 'em if I'm gettin' somethin' for it. I was not only not gettin' nothin' for it, I was puttin' in a damn sight more effort than I care to put in for a pleasure this attenuated. I tried three separate times, before and during the pandemic, and now ~after(?) it. I think that's more than fair, and I've never made it past this point.