"The Adventure of English"

The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language (Melvyn Bragg)

I was a little let down about this book; I'm not sure what I was expecting, but this seems more like a book for a middle school student. I didn't really learn much; Bragg's writing keeps things moving briskly, perhaps too briskly. At times I felt like a passenger on a train going too fast past some interesting landscape I wanted to stop and check out. This is easy to recommend if you're just starting with this subject, but I had the sinking feeling that I knew more than the author about the subject through most of the book.

Grade: C+

"The Klingon Art of War"

The Klingon Art of War (Keith R.A. DeCandido)

A look into the culture and backstory of the Klingons from Star Trek, this book is presented in-universe as an ancient collections of precepts for how to live an honorable life, annotated with commentary by a modern Klingon.
And it's pretty good! I always appreciate when a group like the Klingons that can too frequently be boiled down to "angry" and "hits stuff" gets fleshed out, and they're in capable hands here; I guess it helps the book's readability that the Klingons are a culture that values conflict as a way to better themselves, so it's rare to go more than a few pages without something interesting happening. You don't need to be much of a Trek fan to enjoy this book, but if you are, you'll be rewarded with a few "I remember that!" moments from the TV shows.

Grade: B

"Fordlandia"

Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Jungle City (Greg Grandin)

This is a bit of an odd duck. The author uses the history of the titular Fordlandia plantation in Brazil to explore more general thoughts on the unfulfilled promise of Ford's hope that industrialization would lead to a economically friendly, quasi-socalist, peaceful future. This is interesting stuff, but it doesn't quite mesh with a history of the Fordlandia plantation; I also found it a little brief (years are skipped outright towards the end). This is an interesting little book, but not really that easy to recommend; approach it as a curiosity and I think you'll do fine.

Grade: B-

"The Boxer Rebellion"

The Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story of China's War on Foreigners that Shook the World in the Summer of 1900 (Diana Preston)

I'm a little torn on this book; it's well written (major bonus points for not throwing out untranslated French like many history books do), but the book has a major problem the author herself brings up on page 335: "... most of the available diaries and accounts were written by Westerners." I don't think the author quotes a single non-Western source; it's great to have Western primary sources, of course, but having all the primary sources be Western diaries tilts the book, possibly fatally. If you want the Western view of the rebellion, this is an easy recommend; otherwise, keep looking.

Grade: B-

"Cartoons of World War 2"

Cartoons of World War 2 (Tony Husband)

I don't have much to say about this book; this is one of the ones you can judge from the cover. I liked it well enough, and I got my fill for the $8 I paid, but the book could stand to be a little bit bigger; it's more of a sampler than a thorough exploration of the material. Fun to flip through if someone leaves it out in the bathroom, but that's about as glowing as my recommendation gets.

Grade: B

"Star Trek: Destiny"

Star Trek: Destiny (David Mack)
Review by N. Web

As I said in my review of The Good that Men Do, one of my biggest
problems with the Star Trek literary universe is that its status as
canon is questionable at best.  Perhaps this is either good or bad,
because having a bad, ridiculous story as part of official canon can
lead to serious problems.  But, at the same time it can also lead to
authors not taking much of a risk for fear of disrupting established TV
and movie canon.  Which, as "These are the Voyages..." shows, sometimes
probably deserves to be disrupted.  Star Trek Destiny is a huge risk, as
far as I'm concerned.  But one that ultimately succeeds.

Star Trek Destiny also tackles one of the biggest problems in the
established canon, that being the Borg.  Much has been made over the
years of the "nerf"-ing of the Borg in Star Trek.  It seems as though
the Borg were always meant to have been seen as indestructible, and
indeed in "The Best of Both Worlds", they were only defeated through a
fluke.  Over the years in canon, the Borg seemed to lose their
unbeatable quality and in Star Trek Voyager pretty much became relegated
to Monster of the Week status.  Even the crew of the NX-01 Enterprise
had a turn at the tee.  So, how does an author manage to make the Borg
seem threatening again?  This radical of a solution doesn't seem like it
could possibly work, but in the end I was ultimately left more satisfied
than I have been with any Borg story since at least "Endgame" (the
against-all-odds inexplicably good series finale to Voyager), and maybe
even since "The Best of Both Worlds."   Massive spoilers to follow,
perhaps you don't want to read before finishing the book.

Verdict:  Highly recommended.




*** spoiler space ***


For David Mack, it seems the solution to the problem of the Borg was to
ultimately get rid of them.  But, it does make sense.  In order to
prevent the perpetual nerfing of the Borg or the perpetual power creep
that the Federation would have to go through in order to constantly
defeat them; perhaps the best solution really is to just eliminate them
entirely to prevent not only over-use of the Borg, but further
degradation of the "canon."  David Mack takes a gamble, and ultimately
wins, as far as I'm concerned.  The send-off they get is equal parts
relieving and moving.

Mack manages to tie together all four post TOS Star Trek series and a
large amount of established literary universe into three novels that not
only give the Borg an origin story, but an end story that manages to be
quite thought-provoking and moving.  Of course, the main stars are the
TNG cast, with almost everyone other than Ezri Dax relegated to small
parts and cameos, and the Enterprise crew is entirely off camera even
during the parts that take place during the 22nd century.  Captain
Hernandez ultimately becomes quite interesting, and ended up once again
making me wish that Enterprise had continued past Season 4.

I found myself less interested in the characters that were created in
the literary universe, but as the story went on I grew more familiar
with them.  The story is very evocative, and I found Mack manages to use
the prose to generate genuine dread, fear, creepiness and ultimately
relief throughout the tale.  It's to his credit that when I was done I
immediately began looking into more Star Trek literary universe ebooks
on Amazon.  David Mack's new series seems to be a three parter about
Geordi attempting to rebuild Data, and I'm already thinking of
purchasing it.


Stray observations:

This seems to be sticking with the "Bashir and Dax broke up post DS9"
book canon.  Also very weird that Bashir, O'Brien, and Nog are not
appearing in this film at all.  At least Garak shows up.

Speaking of, it would have been nice to see more of the Federation's
allies involved other than the brief cameos Garak and Martok and a lot
of generic ambassadors have.

Geordi doesn't have a lot to do, though a short romance is shoehorned in
for him, which I feel like he deserves at this point.

I like the idea of Worf as Picard's first officer, but isn't he supposed
to be the Ambassador to the Klingon Empire?  Worf also gets a short
romance shoehorned in.

I had one small gripe in that Picard seems to have dropped back into his
jerk mode he was in for most of Star Trek First Contact.  Which, I
thought the point of the movie is he gives up on the White Whale.  Maybe
I missed some kind of a relapse he had in the literary universe, but I
couldn't get over his inability to function for 2.9 books because of the
Borg.

"Blood Angels Omnibus"

The Blood Angels Omnibus (James Swallow)

This omnibus collects two novels and a short story. Normally I'd review the novels separately, but they're basically two halves of the same tale, and if I had read the first novel by itself, I probably would have been pissed at the cliffhanger ending. (I also don't know that I have much to say without giving away the first book's story.)
Collected as a omnibus, the two novels work great; I have yet to read a bad James Swallow book, and the streak holds here. Swallow's villains are always more interesting than his heroes, and this omnibus stars a particularly loathsome piece of filth pitted against our (somewhat forgettable) heroes. I don't want to say much more except that this falls into solid good-not-great territory; it's a easy recommend for W40k fans, but if you're not familiar with the setting, I'd recommend Swallow's excellent Fear to Tread first, which covers the same chapter of Space Marines and serves as a very nice introduction.

Grade: B+