Peter Sean Bradley

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I came to this book after watching Briarpatch, the television series. I've posted my review of that series noting the changes between the book and the series (which genderswaps multiple characters.)

This is a competently done mystery. It's 1983. Ben Dill is an investigator for a Washington DC subcommittee. He gets word that his younger sister has been killed in a car explosion. He decides to return to his unnamed home town for her funeral. He's asked by his senator to “take a deposition” of his childhood friend Jake Spivey, who was into questionable dealings in Southeast Asia after the fall of Saigon with the even shadier Clyde Brattle.

When he gets there he immediately runs into love interest Anna Maude Singe. The two of them then begin to deal with the corruption of his hometown. Murders happen. Everyone has a scam or an angle.

Ben Dill comes across as a competent, fairly likeable individual with some interesting quirks. On the whole, the story movied along at a good clip to a satisfying concluion.

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This book is absolutely fascinating and well worth reading. It is probably not going to be accessible for those who lack a patience for academic terminology or demand immediate gratification. For those who are fascinated by the windy, twisted path that intellectual history often takes - and the surprises that lie in wait when we backtrack that history - this is a very satisfying book.

The question that has to arise in the minds of any historically knowledgeable Christian is “Where did the idea of a Trinitarian God come from?” Consider the oddity in a radically monotheistic culture - a culture defined by its commitment to One God who is one God alone and transcendent - spinning off a daughter religion that announces out of the blue that in fact this One God is composed of three persons, i.e. a Trinity. As a practical matter, how does that splinter make that leap of understanding?

Author Matthew Bates tackles this question by looking at what the earliest Christians did when they tackled the question of “who is God?” by looking at how they read the sacred texts. He finds, illustrates and demonstrates that they practiced a reading technique that he calls “prosopological exegesis” [“PE”] whereby apparent dialogues in the Old Testament, particularly Psalms, were assigned to different speakers. This technique seemed to clear up conundrums of interpretation. For example, in Psalm 110:1, the psalmist says “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies as a footstool for your feet'” [Ps. 109: 1 LXX]. The conundrum is “who is the second “Lord” (aka “my Lord.” Jesus pointed out that it cannot be David since David himself calls him “Lord.” (Mark 12: 35–7; cf. Matt. 22: 41–6; Luke 20: 41–4)

Bates argues that the question is answered by assigning “persons” to the speakers of this dialogue. The speaking Lord is God (the Father). David is recounting the dialogue. So, the second Lord (“my Lord”) is another person. In the context of other passages, the second person would be identified as the divine Son of the divine Father.

This kind of exegesis is not something we see today. Given the general reaction we tend to see against anything that doesn't involve a simple effort to translate the words in the text, this kind of exegesis would be viewed with a great deal of suspicion in the modern Christian world. But this kind of exegesis was extremely common in pre-Christian Judaism and the early Christian church. Bates offers numerous examples of Christian writers. For example, he writes:

“Justin Martyr in Dialogue 56. 14–15 argues that there are passages in the Old Testament where someone is called “God” or “Lord” alongside the Creator of the universe, a fact attested not only in passages such as Genesis 19: 24 (e.g. “The Lord rained upon Sodom brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven”) but also by David in Psalm 109: 1 LXX (“The Lord said to my Lord”). Like Justin, Irenaeus (Epid. 47) and the author of Hebrews (1: 8–9) believed that two distinct persons are described as God in Psalm 44: 7–8 LXX, in which a coronation is described. Accordingly, the author of Hebrews states: But about the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever and the scepter of justice is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; on account of this, O God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” (Heb. 1: 8–9 citing Ps. 44: 7–8 LXX)15 A person designated “God” is directly addressed in the psalm. This person possesses the royal scepter, rules with justice, and most crucially has been anointed by a second person called “your God” in the text. Since the person designated “your God” anoints the other person called “God,” and the action is not reflexive, two persons both called “God” are necessarily present in the text. Moreover, the verbal action of anointing (echrisen), which the one labeled “your God””

Bates calls this a “prosopological” exegesis or “reading technique” because it seeks to personify the apparent speakers of a text. Merriam Websters defines “prosopopoeia” as “1: a figure of speech in which an imaginary or absent person is represented as speaking or acting 2: PERSONIFICATION.” Bates's short definition of PE is:

“in short this technique—prosopological exegesis—involved assigning dramatic characters to otherwise ambivalent speeches in inspired texts as an explanatory method.”

By engaging in this kind of reading technique, Christians “baked in” the understanding of God as involving “persons” that were in a “personal dialogue” with each other. However, it was not just the Christians who did this. The idea of a personal dialogue was “baked in” with Jewish exegesis, which recognized God as a “personal God” and also used PE in reading the sacred text. Bates writes:

“So, in speaking of the “birth of the Trinity” I do not want to suggest that real and complex theological issues were not still under intense negotiation and vital development in the third and fourth centuries (and beyond). Nor am I claiming that nomenclature to express the Trinity had attained stability—anyone who is even remotely acquainted with the literature will immediately recognize that, on the contrary, nothing could be further from the truth. Yet, I do want to assert in a forceful way that the die had been cast long prior—in the first two centuries of the Christian era—because “God” had already been read dialogically and prosopologically in the ancient Jewish Scripture, and hence the foundational conceptual decision to privilege the “person” metaphor in considering internal distinctions within the one God had already been made via scriptural interpretation. Even if a minority might desire to retrench (the Monarchians and the like), and many would dispute how to best express the inherited person metaphor in light of the scriptural testimony to the interrelatedness of Father, Son, and Spirit, the prosopological interpretative precedent had already shown to the satisfaction of most of the early church that the one God could successfully be read in the ancient Jewish Scripture as multiple “persons.” So the Trinity emerged conceptually to a large degree through interpretative reading of the Old Testament, especially through a specific technique, prosopological exegesis.”

This seems to be in line with Daniel Boyarin's “The Jewish Gospels.” Bates notes and commends Boyarin's work, but places it in a different argumentative category from PE, which he feels needs supplementation.

This is obviously very mind warping for the conventional mindset. But, wait! There's more.

A key part of PE is what Bates calls “theodrama.” Essentially, when we have these interpersonal dialogues we are witnessing something that happened at an earlier time presaging something that will happen at a later time. In essence, when the Psalmist wrote the verse about “the Lord said to my Lord,” the Psalmist was a prophet channeling something that had happened long before, perhaps at the beginning of time, which would not come to fruition, or which might not be said, until after the life of the prophet.

This is illuminated by the words spoken with respect to the baptism of Jesus that “You are my son. Today, I have begotten you.” It is not hard to see this as an Adoptionist text; namely, Jesus did not become the Son of God until he was adopted at the baptism. That interpretation is rejected by PE:

“As portrayed by the Evangelists, when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan by John, the heavens were opened, the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove, and a voice came from heaven, saying: “You are my Son, the beloved one, with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1: 11; Luke 3: 22; Western text of Matt. 3: 17) or less directly, “This is my Son, the beloved one, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3: 17).46 The allusion to Psalm 2: 7 LXX is quite obvious—it is widely recognized by current biblical scholarship—not least because the allusion is made emphatic in some portions of the textual tradition and the early reception history, which turn the words into a direct quote of Psalm 2: 7 LXX: “You are my Son, today I have begotten you.”47
Yet, what the bulk of biblical scholarship misses is that, unless we are to suggest their exegeses were idiosyncratic vis-à-vis the rest of the earliest church, the Gospel writers would have sought the meaning of this allusion by reflecting on Psalm 2: 7 through a person-centered exegetical process.48 More specifically, previous New Testament scholarship pertaining to this allusion at the baptism and transfiguration has tended to see it merely as a direct speech made by God to Jesus that evokes Psalm 2: 7 in accordance with the surface narrative in the Gospels, but has neglected an absolutely crucial datum.49 As will be shown, for the earliest Christians Psalm 2: 7 was consistently regarded not merely as a direct speech made by the Father to the Son, but rather it was taken as a speech within a speech that was originally spoken by the Son, who was reporting the words the Father had spoken to him at an earlier time, all of which has critical implications for how Christology and Trinitarian dogma developed.”

Bates breaks this down as follows:

“God (speaking to Jesus at the baptism): You are my Son...
Jesus (thinking to Himself): Those are the words that the person—the “me”—in the second psalm reported that the Father had spoken previously to him. Seemingly, God is hereby indicating that I correspond to the “me,” the addressee. But exactly who is this addressee according to the psalm?
Jesus (thinking to Himself): During the time of David, this addressee was able to report a previous conversation between God and himself, “The Lord God said to me, ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you,'” so this “me” was begotten as Son before the time of the speech if David is able to report it in this fashion.”

Again, mind-blown.

Obviously, none of this is apparent on the surface of the text to us today, who might view this as ad hoc and bafflegab, but it was the way that the text was read in the formative years of Christianity, and, thus, it is not only normative, but Christianity becomes largely incoherent without it.

Bates points out that PE is flexible enough to be used by heretics, such as the Gnostics. In fact, the Gnostics were quite willing to personify different texts to different other persons, such Ialdabaoth and the Demiurge. So what could be done to keep PE properly reined in?

The answer was to remain within Christian tradition as taught by apostolic succession. According to Bates:

“Quite succinctly, Sextus Empiricus says that when used in the literary sense, it refers to “the peripeteia, (or ‘argument' or ‘plot') of a drama.”19 For Irenaeus the hypothesis of the Scripture taken as whole is the Rule of Truth (kanōn tēs alētheias), which Irenaeus himself claims to have received in an unbroken line from the apostles.”

Bates lays out some guidelines for the proper deployment of PE, so as to stay away from Gnostic nonsense. These guidelines can properly be boiled down to “read the text with the mind of the Church,” or always stay oriented to Holy Tradition:

“Thus, the “literal sense” of these Old Testament prophetic texts must be sought within the bounds of the entire divine economy, including the apostolic proclamation about Jesus, even though the apostolic proclamation is not, strictly speaking, found in the Old Testament itself.”

Now, Bates is a Protestant, so one wonders where that leaves Sola Scriptura.

But that is a question for another day.

Jack: Secret Histories by F. Paul Wilson



I am not a “Repairman Jack” reader. I think I tried one a few years ago and decided that it was too much of a by the numbers actioner with the uber-competent hero. On the other hand, I liked F. Paul Wilson forty years when he was writing libertarian science fiction, although I didn't follow him when he turned to horror. Also, I read some of his “secret history” stories and enjoyed them.

So, bottom line, if there are references to later books in here, and I imagine there are, I didn't catch them.

What I found was a solid young adult mystery story with a cultic overlay. Young Jack is fourteen and it is the summer before entering ninth grade at the local high school. He and his friends, Weezie and Eddie, travel out to the New Jersey Pine Barren and find a body and a strange object. They try to ascertain if the object is an ancient artifact but find themselves being stalked. And then deaths tied to the strange and secret Septimus lodge start happening around time.

It's up to Jack to figure out what's happening to whom.

I particularly liked Wilson's Pine Barren setting. He has had some other stories in the same setting and it seems that he has local knowledge. I would never have considered New Jersey a place for the occult, so I was surprised to discovery that the Pine Barrens hold their own mystery.

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I enjoyed this book and found it interesting. I'm taking off a star because I think that it oversold the “collaboration” theme.

Even prior to the Nazi take-over in 1933, Hollywood was modifying its product so that it could continue to sell movies in Germany. In the 1920s, there had been anti-German “hate films” which played upon stereotypes of German cruelty or malevolence arising from the emotions of World War I. The Weimar Republic was looking to protect the reputation of Germany and passed a law allowing it to ban film companies that produced films that denigrated Germany or Germans. Under this threat - prior to 1933 - Hollywood had removed scenes that were considered too offensive for German sensibilities, including in the classic anti-war movie “All Quiet on The Western Front.”

So, there had been “collaboration” prior to the Nazis in the form of give and take between Germany and Hollywood and what was over the line and what wasn't. This give and take was not limited to German interests. Censorship of films was rampant in the period. Cities and states had their own censorship boards that could require Hollywood to cut a variety of scenes that were deemed problematic to local mores.

This pushing and shoving continued under the Nazis, obviously. Hollywood knew that it was at risk of losing the German market and so much of the “collaboration” was self-censorship. None of this should be very surprising and it is not like the Nazis and Hollywood sat down together to plot out what movies would be made.

In fact, the self-censorship may be the big take-away from this book. For example, in 1933, Max Jaffe sought to make an anti-Nazi movie called the “Mad Dogs of Europe.” The movie never got made because the large studios - which were Jewish owned - did not want to lose their business in Germany and independent filmmakers were persuaded by Jewish organizations that German Jews would pay a price if the move was made. Likewise, after the antisemitic film “The House of Rothschild” was made by Howard Hughes in 1934, the consensus of Jewish organizations and Hollywood was that the Jewish community was better off if Jews stopped appearing as characters in movies. As the author Ben Urwand points out Jewish characters had been a staple of entertainment prior to 1934, but after 1934, Jewish characters and Nazis were erased from films.

The idea of “accommodation,” is surprising, but probably should not be so surprising at this particular moment when Hollywood and the NBA are bending over backwards not to antagonize the loathsome dictatorship in Communist China.

I particularly liked the book for the story it told about Hollywood in the 1930s. I recently read a book on “pre-Code” Hollywood and I enjoyed seeing the same names in this book as in that book. In the other book, the issue wasn't foreign affairs, but the depiction of criminals and nudity. Nonetheless, the same kind of wheeling and dealing is apparent.

So, the book overstates matters by referring to “collaboration.” A more accurate but less “clickbait” word might have been “appeasement” or “accommodation.”

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I liked this story, but I'm not sure that I should and I can think of a lot of coherent reasons why I shouldn't.

The story is juggling a lot of balls. Each chapter flicks back and forth between different storylines. Some chapters of the story are set in the modern day, in places like Dublin and Albany; some are set around Mars two hundred years in the future; and some are set one hundred years in the future in the post-Climate Change apocalypse. Characters are assigned code names - Beta, Ivoire, the Signalman, the Egyptian, sixty-six - and do their bit at various times and sometimes across time.

It's hard to know what's going on.

The story opens with an apparently immortal woman called the Egyptian meeting with renegades from “X.” Apparently, she represents “Y.” Beyond that we don't know who these people are, although it seems that the Signalman from Agents of Dreamland - so called because he has his grandfather's pocket watch - is part of the “Men in Black.” The Egyptian is engaging in spy craft with the renegades.....cut to Deer Island, Maine where Ivoire and Sixty-six are shooting at Shoggoths emerging from the ocean and cut to Mars where the albino assassin - Ivoire two hundred years in the future - is planning an attack on Mars and waiting for the Egyptian...and cut to a fishing boat off of sunken Boston where someone is doing something on the information system that is attracting someone else's attention.

Back and forth it goes.

The author has a backstory and is not sharing. I noted in Agents of Dreamland that I was puzzled by the Signalman's sobriquet. We get the answer in this book and it isn't that special. We don't learn what is going on with X and Y or who they are or why we should care. Was Deer Island real? Seems like it was because the Signalman had to blow the bridge, but why did he do that? And really what was going on with Sixty-Six, Bete and Ivoire?

It all came across like a puzzle to me and I like puzzles, but I sure hope that there is a pay-off here, otherwise this will be a wanking mess.

Secret Stories by F. Paul Wilson


I read a few of F. Paul Wilson's libertarian “LaNauge Federation” stories back in the 1980s. When Wilson shifted to horror, I didn't follow.

Now, I'm captivated by the shared universe that he seems to be linking together. In this book, Wilson offers a number of short stories with the background on the stories and how they fit into his meta-narrative about “secret histories.”

I enjoyed the stories. They were well-drafted and captivating. I particularly like the stories set in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. I've never considered New Jersey as particularly mysterious or occult, but the Pine Barrens come across as outre.

All in all, I think I need to get cracking on catching up on the Repairman Jack and other series.

Eloise (Dumarest 12) by E.C. Tubb

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This book opens with the Cyber Prime contemplating the Dumarest Problem, specifically how to locate him and win the Affinity Twin secret. Despite the Cyclan ability to pontificate endlessly about their commitment to logic and reason, and their hope of being wired into a neural network when their bodies deteriorate, Dumarest's randomness and luck (and more than a small bit of the author's thumb on the scale) had continued to frustrate them. But this time they have him, they know he is heading toward the planet Tynar.

For his part, Dumarist is on a ship heading to Tynar. The crew has intuited that Dumarest would be far more valuable as a prize for whoever he is fleeing. But then the ship falls into a warp and crashlands on one of the strangest cultures of the Dumareverse.

Dumarest finds himself in Instone where people undergo a lottery where they disappear if their number is too low. The town is controlled by something called Camolsaer that relies on robots called Monitors to run the town. Dumarest, of course, sees this as an untenable situation, particularly since he has made enemies and it seems likely that the lottery can be rigged.

Will Dumarest escape Instone?

Will some scantily clad buxom babe confess her love for him?

Will the Cyclan realize that he's been thrown a million light-years in a random direction?

This is but Book 12 and there are another 14 books remaining.

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Christmas comes to the Oddjobsverse.

It is Christmas Ever and children are eagerly waiting for Father Christmas.

But in the Odd Jobs Universe, the apocalypse is on the horizon and Krampus is real.

Nina and Rod show up to see that the rules are enforced with wit and insight into the actual rules that underlie the psychology of our future rulers.

In the Odd Jobs Universe, we have to take our wins where and as we can.

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This is a slim, readable text on the state of the United Methodist Church (“UMC”) in 1986. Initially, it may seem like very much “inside baseball,” but thirty years later it has a substantial explanatory power in capturing a significant moment in one mainline Protestant church and revealing how we got where we are in 2020.

I became involved in UMC disputes in the late 1990s as an attorney representing small UMC “local churches” who had grown tired of how the UMC had departed traditional Christianity. At that time, there were samizdat xeroxed copies of dissident UMC members recording how UMC gatherings had incorporated ceremonies to Sophia, the divine feminine. Likewise, although the UMC's “Book of Discipline” - basically, the constitution/theological foundation of the UMC - forbade same-sex bishops and marriages, these rules were regularly breached. When conservative members and religious raised the issue, the UMC would bring those pastors who had tried to get the UMC to comply with its own rules up on charges. The net result of the adoption of the ideology of inclusiveness (regulated by fierce intolerance to traditional Christians) was that my clients walked out as a church. Many other churches did as well.

When I got involved in the late 1990s, I did not hear any discussion of “doctrinal pluralism.” At that time, the language involved “inclusiveness,” except toward people who insisted on traditional Christianity. As author Jerry Walls notes in this book, true tolerance is incoherent; the single overriding commitment of a regime that is committed to the name of “tolerance is an overriding intolerance to anyone that challenges tolerance.

Walls book is from a moment about 15 years prior to my involvement when the future disruption of the UMC was a cloud perhaps slightly larger than a man's hand on the horizon. The problem that Walls points to as the problem he was dealing with was “doctrinal pluralism.” In its 1972 General Conference, the UMC incorporated language into the Book of Discipline (the “Discipline”) which paid lip service to the traditional doctrines of the UMC but also incorporated language that adopted “theological pluralism” as its “guiding principle” in the interest of reviving and updating Methodist doctrine for the modern world. (See p. 6-7.) In 1980, the Discipline stated that “we recognize the presence of theological pluralism.” (p. 7.) In 1984, the Discipline incorporated the word salad that “we recognize under the guidance of our doctrinal standards and guidelines the presence of theological pluralism.” (p. 7.) Doubts set in about “theological pluralism,” namely that it was “used to allow or condone almost any theological or ethical position - provided that position is within the psychological framework of a liberal and humanistic interpretation of faith and life.” (p. 8.) Over time, some began to suspect that the “core of doctrine” was simply pluralism, as if pluralism held Methodists together. (p. 9.)

Walls notes in his introduction that pluralism seems biased. Everything is tolerated under pluralism except traditional Christian doctrine. He also notes that pluralism is a phenomenon in other traditions. He points to a 1985 New York Times advertisement where leftwing pro-abortion Catholics offered a Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion. (Although noting the different trajectories of the UMC and Catholicism on abortion, one would hope that a more mature Walls would see that there is difference in the two traditions concerning the “problem of pluralism.”)

In Chapter 1 - The Many Faces of Pluralism - Walls clears out the underbrush concerning the many uses of pluralism, e.g., politcal pluralism, human diversity, the diversity of the gifts in the church, etc. These concepts are appealed to under the heading of “pluralism” as if they make “theological pluralism” unavoidable. The focuse is on theological pluralism which Walls introduces in a discussion of John Hick's views on the pluralism among the world religions, where the views of each world religion is viewed as “a perception and a response to the ultimate divine reality which they all in their different ways affirm.” (p. 24.) However, if all views are to be accorded respect as approaches to truth, then Christianity becomes problematic since it makes definite claims about the truth of certain propositions, such as the Incarnation. (p. 25.) The answer to this problem for Hicks is to reinterpret propositions like the Incarnation and the Resurrection “metaphorically or mythically.” (p. 25.) Thus, Jesus was gradually deified over time “largely under the impact of the early Christians' experience of finding reconciliation with God through encountering Christ.” (p. 26.) The Incarnation is “not indicative but expressive; suggesting a response rather than asserting a fact. (p. 26.)

Walls notes that “theological pluralism” is not the same as Hicks' “religious pluralism.” (p. 27.) Theological pluralism is restricted to the internal theological diversity within Christianity rather than to the relationship of one religion to another. (p. 27.)

In Chapter 2 - “What is Theological Pluralism?” - Walls points out that the Discipline never codified a definition of “theological pluralism.” (p. 29.) “Doctrinal Pluralism” is defined in a fairly convoluted structure of clauses that recognize the limitation of language, allow for more than one non-exhaustive verbal statement of truth, maintain continuity and identity of the Christian message but allows legitimate expression in various theological “systems” and “special interest theologies that may be “argued fruitfully in terms of evidence and cogency.” (p. 30-31.)

In the remainder of the chapter, Walls dismantles this word salad. Walls recognizes the ambiguity of language, but ultimately upholds the ability of language to get the job done. “The Nicene Creed is a major example of theologizing which recognizes that the limitations of language not only allow but sometimes even require, more than one verbal statement if the truth in question is to be accurately expressed.” (p. 35.) True statements must complement each other and be consistent with each other. (p. 35.)

Walls points to the “reductionist” game played by theologians like Hicks. These theologians reduce every problematic Christian doctrine to psychology. So, Christians say that Christ rose from the dead? Actually, what happened was that Christians had a subjective experience of God's mercy, and from that they formed a story that would communicate that experience. (p. 37.)

The criteria of “continuity and identity” take a beating in “doctrinal pluralism.” There may be disagreement about what really is “core” in Christianity but generations of Christians have been in remarkable agreement on the doctrines that pluralist now “mythologize.” Walls asks:

“If the Church catholic has been mistaken for centuries in its insistence on the doctrines of the creeds, are we not driven to the conclusion that the meaning God's revelation, which the creeds attempt to state is hopelessly beyond us?” (p. 40.)

[Walls mentions the creedal affirmation of the “Virgin Conception,” and notes that “what is definitive is the truth expressed by the creeds, not the particular expressions used to convey that truth.” (p. 41.)]

Finally, Walls notes the “witness” of various “expressions” including “naturalism.” (p. 44.) By this time, the game is up. Naturalism, of course, posits an anti-supernaturalism. The Discipline is effectively affirming both supernaturalism – traditional Christianity – and anti-Supernaturalism – which is sure sign of incoherence. (p. 45-46.) Presumably, it might be if religion was merely about the human response to the psychological effect of a belief. Thus, the question is whether religion is about a truth “out there” or a psychological experience ‘in here.” (See p. 47.)

Chapter 3 – John Wesley and Theological Pluralism – Pluralists put a lot of weight on Wesley's reputation for not drawing hard and bright lines on doctrinal issues. While this was true with respect to “smaller” issues, Walls allows, Wesley was not afraid to defend the large issues over which there had been longstanding agreement. “United Methodists, on the other hand, need to learn that some doctrines are essential and that these define the limits of tolerance.” (p. 67.)

Chapter 4 – A Problem of Coherence – I may have anticipated some of the arguments made int his chapter. Walls begins by noting that there is evidence that “liberal pluralists” were forming their own orthodoxy by excluding evangelicals from participation in the church. (15 years later, this had reached its terminal condition.)

Walls provides a tour de force for the proposition that a condition of “pure pluralism” inevitably becomes a regime of intolerance because “pure pluralism” is incoherent. Thus, to sum up the argument: Pluralism says that ALL positions should be subjected to criticism and possible overthrow. This commitment should include the idea of Pluralism itself. But overthrowing pluralism would deny pluralism. Pluralism is therefore an exclusivist position. Walls writes:

“Pluralism masquerades as tolerance. It appears to guarantee fairness and equal treatment for all serious opinions. The problem, to reiterate, is that some serious views claim more than a tentative status and are therefore exclusive in a way that puts definite stricture on pluralism. In such cases, it is impossible to recognize the validity of both the exclusive claim and the views with it excludes. A Standoff is inevitable, and the advocates of pluralism must side against all exclusive claims which are not content to accept a tentative status.” (p. 75.)

I think in 2020, we've seen the terminal end of pluralism in this conclusion. It was certainly the experience of my clients who were treated as dangerous Fascists for asserting their own values that conflicted with “pluralistic” values.

Chapter 5 – Pluralism and the Problem of Authority – Walls argues that there has to be some basis for finding an authority higher than pluralism. He argues that the answer is in the Scripture which, after all, is revelation. Revelation chiefly reveals things; if it fails to do that, then it isn't much good as “revelation.” This then answers the concern about the inadequacy of language which looms so large in the pluralists' psyche.

Chapter 6 – Pluralism, Doctrinal Standards, and the Nature of Theology – The issue becomes a matter of “finality.” Theology is never final since it necessarily must continue – as law has to continue – to deal with new issues and find new solutions to new problems. Doctrines, though, can be final. (p. 109.) A problem of the “theological pluralism” is that theology replaces doctrine and denies finality. (p. 108.) Walls observes:

“If doctrinal standards are to have any real authority among us, we cannot accept the notion that all doctrinal statements are mere landmarks. Rather, we must insist that some doctrinal statements express truth, and are thus final.” (p. 111.)

Thus, the Nicene Creed can be rephrased, but the truth it states are true and final as doctrine. (p. 111.)

Walls discusses the archaism fallacy and the futurist fallacy. The former rests on the notion that doctrines must be phrased in Scriptural terms; the latter rests on the notion that the affirmations of Christian faith never have a final sense. (p. 110.) (Interestingly, in “Christianity's Dangerous Idea,” Alister McGrath identifies the futurist fallacy as the sine qua non of Protestantism.)

I liked Walls point that learning theology is like grammar or logic. (p. 112.) The end is not the grammar or logic but what you can do with the grammar or logic. That has been my experience of law and of learning Thomism.

Walls closes the book with a hope that Bishops will reign in theologians. We know that didn't happen. In fact, the Bishops supercharged the movement away from traditional Christianity. My late partner took the deposition of one UMC bishop, who justified ignoring the Discipline on the grounds that he answered to something higher than the Discipline (and the Bible.)

Although the language of theological pluralism had been explicitly taken out of the Discipline, the ethos remained, but not the ethos of tolerance; rather the ethos of intolerance.

So, this is a valuable book to understand the world we inhabit in the early 21st century, the foundations were laid 50 years before.

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The Ruiner by Jeff Somer

This is a quick, fun read.

Thomas Massery has an unnatural way with women. As a result, he has four ex-wives, three of whom are at the wedding reception he is attending. Massery gets hammered; his ex-wives circles; he engages in hanky-panky.

Massery is a witty, sarcastic guy. His friends are fun. I nearly got a hangover reading about all the booze Massery consumed.

Strangely, this story is not science fiction or fantasy. I kept waiting for it to go that way, but it remained a fun story.

Relic by Alan Dean Foster



Alan Dean Foster is One Of The Nice Ones (OOTNO). His books are always nice with nice characters who are involved in difficulties that eventually they can work themselves out of. He has a trademark light, humorous approach to his stories and it is always a pleasure to read his stories.

“Relic” is no different.

Humanity had a nice run. It colonized, created empires, fought among itself, reached heights, but that's all over since someone uncorked the Aura Malignance which targeted only humans. All humans have been killed off except Ruslan. An alien race named the Myssari find him among the ruins on the planet Seraboth. The Myssari are plaeased to have a human specimen to unravel the mysteries of the many human colonies they and other alien races have discovered in the formerly human quadrant of the galaxy.

However, the Myssari are civilized. They recognize Ruslan's rights and want to make him happy. Ruslan's chief emotion seems to be sulking. He doesn't seem to miss humanity, which after all, was stupid enough to kill itself off. He is definitely cool to the Myssari idea of resurrecting the human race by cloning Ruslan.

In order to advance their agenda, they offer to locate legendary Earth for Ruslan. Along the way, Ruslan crosses path with another alien race that doesn't seem as nice as the Myssari. They also find some survivors.

Do they find Earth? That would give it away, but I will say that there is a particular Foster story that this story put me in mind of.

The story is nice but slow. No one seemed in any particular hurry to get anywhere. Ruslan is nice but not very motivated. The ending didn't surprise me for the reason I said. I didn't see that this was the introduction to further books, but it doesn't surprise me.

Oddjobs by Grant and Goody



The world is going to end in a Lovecraftian nightmare in a little while. But until that happens, protocols and regulations must be observed.

This is an enjoyable, laugh out loud take-off on Lovecraft's elder gods, called the Venislarn, mashed with a bureaucracy charged with keeping tabs on the elder gods, lesser gods, and minions until the Soulgate slams shut, preventing the good people of Earth from taking the easy way out by suicide.

The story reminded me of Charles Stross's “The Laundry” series in setting, plotting and wry English humor. I thought the story moved along at a good clip and I enjoyed the humor.

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The Red Decade by Eugene Lyons

The publication of this book happened at a historically fascinating time. The book was published in 1941, shortly after Hitler's surprise attack on Communist Russia caused yet another reversal of Russian Communist policy and, consequently, American Communist policy. The net result is that the American Communist dalliance with Nazis and “America First” is fresh in author Eugene Lyon's mind, and, so, we get to see it without the shading of the subsequent alliance of the democracies and Stalin.

Eugene Lyon was a leftwing journalist assigned to Moscow from approximately 1930 to 1935. He seems to have been initially been well-disposed to Communism, but while in Russia he found that he could not ignore the cruelty and oppression that Communists were inflicting on Russia as well as other American journalists. When he returned to America, he wrote “Assignment in Utopia,” revealing the problems of Communism and earning himself the title of “redbaiter. He looked down on his fellow journalists who continued to act as Communism's public relation agents.

This is a lengthy book that follows the back and forth of the many persons who associated themselves with Communism. The significance of a lot of this name-dropping is lost to time, but some names stand out. For example, Dashiel Hammett, Paul Robeson, Dorothy Parker and some other members of the Algonquin Round Table show up repeatedly as reliable fronts for Communist petitions. I was personally interested in seeing Will Geer - Grandpa Walton - being outed as a Communist.

The thesis of the book is that the policies and leadership of the American Communist Party were determined in Moscow to comply with the perceived needs of Russian Communism at any particular moment. The result is that American Communists went through totally incoherent policy changes that were antithetical to the interests of American Communism. Lyons traces American Communism from the founding of the Comintern in 1919 through the “Red Decade” of the 1930s through five periods.

The first period involved the traditional imagery of Communists as radicals, complete with contempt for capitalism and wealth, and the wearing of leather jackets, etc. (“This was the First Period of the Comintern-shrilly revolutionary, conspiratorial and glorying in outlawry, appealing in all countries to genuine social rebels and to bold romantics.”)

The Second period involved a movement toward legality. According to Lyons: “This was the Second Period in the career of the Comintern and hence of its every extension abroad, roughly from 1921 to 1928. Wherever possible the Communist Parties retreated from plotting to mild propaganda within the laws of their respective countries. In many countries, among them the United States, the parties climbed out of romantic subcellars to the prosaic sidewalks of legality.”

The Third Period began in 1928 with Stalin's complete usurpation of power. The American Communist Party returned to talking about immediate revolution and a revolutionary ethos. “Such was the distemper of the fabulous Third Period. Its propaganda bristled with mouth-filling and soul-stirring talk of “ideological subjugation,” “opportunist deviations,” “chauvinistic demagogery,” “true Bolshevik intolerance,” “Leninist firmness,” “renegade theatricalism,” “social fascist betrayal.” The comrades wore caps and leather jackets and unshaven faces. The girls in the movement disdained lipstick and cut their hair short and lived demonstratively with Negroes.”

Along with this was anti-Americanism and Pro-Sovietism:

“But after a fine start the Councils began to lose strength. Droves of the unemployed were scared off by the Third Period slogans foisted on them: “Down with Yankee imperialism! Defend the Soviet Union! For a Soviet America!” At the same time a rival organization began to make great strides. It was the Workers Alliance, sponsored by the Socialist Party and liberal elements, and headed by a young, vigorous and capable socialist, David Lasser. The communists realized that their salvation lay in a merger. They were convinced, and rightly so, that once an amalgamation was achieved, they would control it. Besides, the Third Period was drawing to a close—symptoms of Moscow's abandonment of the “revolutionary upsurge” were multiplying.”

This period gave way to the American period where American Communists attempted to persuade Americans that Communism was as American as apple pie. Communist publications feature Lincoln and Lenin. This period was the period of the “popular front,” where Communists tried to appease the democracies in the interest of finding “collective security” against the threat of Hitler. As Lyons observes:

“Only when Hitler rejected the “very good relations,” preferring to set himself up temporarily as Europe's policeman against Bolshevism, did Moscow veer gloomily to its “democratic” anti-fascist line of recent memory. The epoch of People's Fronts, Popular Fronts, collective security and elaborate pseudo-democratic mummery, the Fourth Period, was thus virtually forced upon the Communist International by the German Führer.”

The Fifth Period was eventuated by Stalin's pact with Hitler. Overnight the Communists went from advocating attacking Hitler to advocating that the democracies stay home and leave Hitler alone.

“The Fourth Period came to an abrupt end in August, 1939, with the Soviet-Nazi Pact. Its sudden death, like its slow birth, had nothing to do with conditions in America or any other non-Soviet country. On the contrary, the world was never riper for a real democratic united front than at the moment when that front was kicked over by a Russian boot. The whole fantastic tale makes sense only in relation to the national interests of Russia. The history of Bolshevism in America makes sense only as a shifting shadow thrown on the screen of American life by a far-off dictatorship.
The Fifth Period, after the pact, unfolded smoothly enough for twenty-two months—until it was smashed on June 22, 1941, by the treachery of the Berlin partner. While it lasted, the Comintern swung back to world revolutionary pretensions and slogans, utilized primarily in the service of the very forces it had presumably been fighting against in the preceding period.”

A lot of attention has been spent on American conservatives and Republicans who were isolationists and “American Firsters,” but between September 1939 and June 1941, but consigned to the memory hole is the fact that the American Communists were leading isolationists:

“Not until two weeks later did the few writers and the mass of pseudo-writers who took part in this ill-fated congress realize that history was playing a nasty practical joke on them. Ignoring the “capitalistic lies” about Comrade Hitler's aggressive intentions against Führer Stalin, the muddled literati went all-out in support of Moscow's “peace” policy for the U.S.A. They passed resolutions condemning our “war mongering” aid to Hitler's victims, supporting outlaw strikers in our defense plants and glorifying Stalin's genius in keeping out of the unsavory imperialist squabble. They indicated their adherence to the “peace vigil” picket line maintained by the American Peace Mobilization around the White House. An entire session was given over to the memory of Randolph Bourne, who opposed American participation in the first World War and Theodore Dreiser was honored with a Randolph Bourne citation as the current embodiment of Left isolationism.”

All that changed precisely on June 22, 1941:

“The national organization especially created to promote the strictest isolationism and non-intervention, the American Peace Mobilization, called off its “peace vigil” at the White House and announced its support of aid to Britain. The whole communist “peace front”—until the night of June 22 so loud and busy and crowded—was soon silent and deserted, except for the faint wailing of honest pacifists trampled in the ignominious retreat of the comrades from fake-isolationism.”

Lyons also documents the “Red Terror” whereby the Communists would blacklist any writer who fell outside the pale:

“It was the price men of talent paid for refusal to play the Stalinist game. The price could not deter a Farrell or a Dos Passos. It did keep scores of lesser literati in line. The one word “GREATNESS” headed a review of a book by John Dos Passos in August, 1936. His skill, his social-mindedness and human qualities were constantly extolled in the communist and liberal press. Then Dos Passos, too, went to Spain. He was horrified by the operations of the Stalinist camarilla in and behind the Loyalist lines, and he said so. The much-reiterated verdict on him was thereupon reversed. Comrade Gold was the trigger man in a column denouncing not merely Dos Passos' politics but his art.”

Of course, it wasn't just Dos Passos, it was every writer or public intellectual who moved in Leftwing circles:

“The same ugly labels were plastered on Sam Baron, a well-known socialist who returned from Loyalist Spain critical of the dictatorial ruthlessness of the communists. A veteran of the Russian adventure in Spain sat in my office. He was distressed nearly to hysteria. “If I come out and tell what I really think about the Spanish affair,” he said, “I'll be called a traitor, a fascist, a spy. I'll be shunned by my friends and avoided even by some members of my own family.” At that time he was still making speeches for a Spanish aid committee under Muscovite control.”

Likewise, as is the case today, trendy people embraced trendy causes. “To merge yourself with Stalinism, therefore, was decidedly not a form of self-abnegation. It was a species of social climbing. In California at that time it meant the inside track in local cocktail society as well as government, labor, the New Deal. The Hollywood Anti-Nazi League claimed 4,000 members.”

This is a good primary historical source. The special utility of texts written at the time is that they haven't been subjected to the process of revision to fit the conventional wisdom that arises after the fact. Consequently, the information is often fresher and more reliable than the books written long after the fact.

Evil Archaeology: Demons, Possessions and Sinister Relics by Heather Lynn




Writing a horror story? This book may be a good resource.

This book is essentially a survey of legends, myths, folktales, and wive's tales about demons and the spooky spanning the period from 3000 BC to the last thirty years. It contains a lot of unverified and unchecked stories and folderol, so take it with a grain of salt. On the other hand, the book does seem to include some obscure “real deals,” such as a description of “witch bottles.” I remember reading earlier this year (2020) that a witch bottle had been recently discovered in Virginia. So they really existed and are obscure enough that I had never heard of one until it turned up in a couple of news stories.

This is not an academic work. If you are interested in details of archeology or history, then give this a miss. If you are looking for something that trots out the weird things that have happened in history, then it is something of a diversion.

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Jack Glass by Adam Roberts

I was quite blown away with this book. I came to it not expecting much, but it had a wealth of ideas, some attractive characters and tight plotting that made the book stand out.

The book is actually a short story and a two-part novella. In the short story, a handful of criminals are dumped onto an asteroid with rudimentary technology. They have been sentenced to remain on the asteroid for eleven years, during which time they must transform the asteroid into a hollowed out sphere, which will then be sold as housing. If they don't hollow out the sphere, they won't find ice and create room for themselves. It is a harrowing existence.

The two weakest members of the group are prey for the others. It turns out that one of the two has a secret that the government who put him on the asteroid want, and it will be back shortly to take him and get the secret.

The short story turns into how someone escapes from an inescapable prison.

The novella shifts to a story about two young sisters who are visiting Earth. We learn a bit about the strange culture that has evolved with great families ruling different sectors of human space. Humanity is limited to the Solar Systems and numbers in the trillions. Trillions of people live around the sun in flimsy bubbles. There are so many of these bubbles that it affects the spectrum of light received on Earth. The great mass of humanity is impoverished, while the ruling families live in technological luxury.

The older sister, Eva, is immersed in discovering the mystery of “Champagne Supernovas,” which are a real thing that occurs when a small star explodes in a supernova that generates far more energy than its size should allow. The younger sister, Dian, is fascinated by solving murders. A murder lands in her lap before her 16th birthday. The solution seems obvious, but there are warnings that the notorious murderer Jack Glass is involved. And there is something about some scientific discovery.

The second part of the novella takes Dia off planet with her mentor Iago. As they flee various enemies, they are involved with a strange death that has to involve an impossible gun or an impossible bullet.

More than that I will not say.

I loved the world-creation of the gritty reality that Adam Roberts sketches. I loved the way he worked science into his story. Finally, I particularly enjoyed the writing which was smart and occasionally very funny.

A complaint is that the book ends midpoint. The book was clearly intended to set up a second book, but this one was written in 2012 and as near as I can tell, it hasn't come out.

When I was in school, the planetary system was the gold standard for modeling permanence and regularity. We even had a law for predicting where planets could be found. Of course, whether it was a “law” or a coincidence would depend on observations from other planetary systems around other stars, but in 1977, that was not something to worry about.

Well, the returns are now in, and the universe is far stranger than we can imagine, with large planets migrating around the solar system or spiraling into orbits that take a week to travel around their stars. Planets smashing into each other as dust particles build up into boulders build up into embryos that reach a size called “oligarchs” from which the survivors of the age of bombardment can be called “planets” or “moons” (or “plutinos.”)

Erik Asphaug's “When the Earth had Two Moons” offers the apogee of “Gosh! Wow! Science” with a tour of the Solar System's pre-history. Long before we had our nine planets, there may have been many more planets orbiting the Sun. Some of those planets - lost Jupiters and Saturns spiraled into the Sun. Others collided and left behind one planet as the “lucky shark” surviving in the ocean. The Earth/Moon system is the result of a collision between proto-Earth and a Mars-sized “oligarch,” now called Theia, which struck at just the right angle to deposit a large section of Earth's crust into Earth orbit. This formed the Moon, which has been slowly receding from Earth, so that right now it is at the exact distance to permit full eclipses of the Sun.

When we get reports of Super-Earths, that may simply be an indication that the “Earths” of that system didn't avoid the continuing accretion that could have happened in our system

Asphaug is noted for a pioneering theory of the formation of the Moon. One of the discoveries of the Apollo program was of the Dark Side of the Moon, which had never been observed before. The Moon is tidally locked to the Earth and only ever shows one side to the planet. The Dark Side does not have the familiar “Mares” or dark flat spot we are used to seeing. Instead, it is all mountains and has a thicker crust. Asphaug theorizes that there was a time when the Earth was orbited by two moons. The smaller eventually crashed into what is now the Dark Side, which formed the mountainous terrain we now know to exist.

This is mind-bending stuff. Asphaug's text is accessible to the layman, but I really couldn't figure out how his topics were organized. It seemed that he meandered from one topic to another without any organizing idea.

Nonetheless, this is interesting material and it would be worth buying Asphaug a beer and letting him meander into the night.

This book is infuriating.

Andrew C. McCarthy reviews the last three years and puts together the history of the Media/Democrat Russian Collusion hoax. He finds collusion, but the collusion is between Democrats and Russians or between Democrats and Ukrainians. Along the way, he explains and puts together the various threads of gaslighting and backpedaling that have been presented as Truth. For example, he reminds us that the New York Times presented two different origin stories for Crossfire Hurricane - FBI's investigation of Donald Trump - which (a) contradict each other and (b) were generated within months of each other (c) without any effort to reconcile or explain the two.

The Ministry of Truth could not have managed it any better.

Along the way, Americans were defamed as Russian agents by the most callous and corrupt kinds of betrayal. Hence, Papadopoulos and Page were both befriended by English academics with long ties to British intelligence in order to induce them to say things that could be used to charge Trump with collusion with Russia.

There are several factors that support Andrew C. McCarthy's account in “Ball of Collusion”: first, McCarthy is not a Trump supporter. He didn't support Trump in 2016 and he is willing to call out Trump's silly expressions of support for China. Second, McCarthy is clearly in the foreign policy hawk camp and, so, is naturally opposed to Trump's movement toward a kind of isolationism in American foreign policy. Third, McCarthy was a career federal prosecutor and so can sniff out the normal procedure from the ad hoc and extraordinary. Fourth, recent developments in the release of previously redacted or concealed information has proven that McCarthy's inferences and deductions - based on his experience as a prosecutor - have been exactly correct.

For example, McCarthy wrote last year that the FISA court had been hoodwinked by the FBI's misrepresentations into granting surveillance on Carter Page. This was at a time when the mainstream media was still buying the claim that the court had been told everything it needed to be told. Yet, lo and behold, this year - 2020 - the FISA court has explicitly said that at least the last two FISA warrants lacked legal support and in late 2019 it clearly identified the lies in the FBI application - including the failure to share the known fact that the Clinton campaign had created the data the FBI was using - as the reason for granting the warrants.

Similarly, McCarthy repeatedly implies that British intelligence was intimately involved in the setting up of low-level, uninvolved, innocents like George Pappadopoulis and Carter Page. In mid-March 2020, this role was supported with more evidence, but still something less than an admission.

Finally, there is this:

“There is absolutely no chance any of the Russian officials charged will ever see the inside of an American courtroom. The indictment is an artifice by which the special counsel hoped to accomplish two objectives. First, Mueller wanted to put to rest the question of Russia's guilt, because if that is in question, many Americans will rightly demand to know why the country was put through a two-year investigation of the president on suspicion of abetting the Russians. Unfortunately, as we've just detailed, the best that can be said about the Kremlin's culpability has already been said—and not completely convincingly—in the intelligence agencies' assessment report. Mueller hoped, however, that by having a prosecutor reaffirm the intelligence assessment in a court proceeding, its conclusions would assume the gravitas of judicial findings—i.e., he hopes you won't notice that he hasn't actually proved anything, that no one has been or will be convicted. Second, the special counsel wanted to justify his superfluous investigation. It is “superfluous” in the sense that there never was evidence of a Trump–Russia conspiracy and, again, we already had a report about Russia's clandestine activities, so what did we need a prosecutor's investigation for? Answer: prosecutors are there to indict, so now we have an indictment—woo-hoo!
Often, no harm comes from publicity stunts.
That can't be said here. Look at how farcical Russia-gate became: In announcing the indictment of Russia's intelligence officers, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein asserted, “In our justice system, everyone who is charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.”10
So we have to think of the Russians as innocent? After the president of the United States has been a suspect for two years for purportedly conspiring with them?”

Lo and behold, this month - March 2020 - all of the indictments against the Russians were dropped. The whole thing was what McCarthy predicted it would be.

There is a lot of information in this book. It is worth keeping as a reference. Any time anything is said that is near this subject, use this book to fact-check. For example, in one of the debates, Joe Biden explained how he had gone to the intelligence services to warn them about Russian meddling.

I immediately remembered this book and I knew that it wasn't true:

“By late October, the Russian “cyberespionage” effort to meddle in the election was well known. In the same debate in which Clinton rebuked Trump for refusing to concede the election's legitimacy, she attacked her rival as “Putin's puppet” and cited the finding of government agencies that Russia sought to interfere in the election. Clinton was not at all concerned that Putin's shenanigans would have any actual impact on the election. She invoked them because she thought it was helpful to her campaign—an opportunity to portray Trump as ripe for rolling by the Russian regime. And how could she have taken any other position? None other than President Obama himself observed that there was nothing unusual about Russian scheming to influence American elections, which he said “dates back to the Soviet Union.”39 Obama deftly avoided mentioning that past scheming had never gotten much media traction because the Soviets had been more favorably disposed toward Democrats. While he blamed the Putin regime for hacking emails during the 2016 campaign, Obama described this as “fairly routine.” He acknowledged, moreover, that it was publicly notorious well in advance of the election—which, of course, is why Clinton had been able to exploit it in a nationally televised debate three weeks prior to November 8. What happened here is very simple: Russia was unimportant to Democrats, and was indeed avoided by Democrats, until they needed to rationalize a stunning defeat. Prior to the election, Democrats had little interest in mentioning “Russia” or “Putin.” Of course, they sputtered out the words when they had no choice—when, not wanting to address the substance of embarrassing emails, they had to shift attention to the nefarious theft of those emails.”

Of course, we know this is true because we were there, but we are often confused by gaslighting and big lies, such as the one that Biden told in the middle of that debate, which was never fact-checked by the media.

Get this book and read it. It's about more than the temporary phenomenon of “Russia Collusion.” It is documentation that shows what is dysfunctional about our democracy.

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This is book 5 of Gene Doucett's “Immortal” series. This book is definitely not a stand-alone book. It follows closely on the heels of the immediately prior book, “Immortal and the Island of Impossible Things” and leaves the protagonist, the immortal man, Adam, in an immediate quandary, which will obviously be the jumping-off point for the next book. If you start with this one, you will be at sea. So don't.

You will also be missing a lot of fun.

Adam is around 60,000 years old, although his memory is crisp only for the last 10,000 years since not much was happening before then. He's gifted with a good immune system but nothing more remarkable than that. He's perennially drunk, sometimes for decades, but he's been fairly sober in this series. His world is people with strange beings of myth and legend, e.g. Elves, Goblins, Imps, pixies, ifrits, etc., that make up the “impossible things” on the “island of impossible things.”

In the prior book, Adam and Mirella, his girlfriend/goblin bodyguard (who is far hotter than the word “goblin”) implies, set up shop on a peaceful island in the South Pacific that was kept secret by the “other species” elite. The tropical paradise was marred by a mysterious message in blood, followed by a tsunami, a cult led by a prophet and murderous mermen, whose existence had never previously been known. In the course of dealing with these trials and tribulations, Adam meets an intelligent troll, discovers a disease that melts people and is surprised by the re-appearance of Eve, who is infected with the disease.

Who is Eve? Good question. Eve is the immortal woman that Adam has been chasing for several thousand years. She has a grudge against Adam and an odd way of getting around explored in “Immortal at the Edge of the World.”

See what I mean about this not being a stand-alone book?

In this book, Adam is off in search of a cure for Eve's disease with Mirella, discovers that there is a bounty on his head, survives assassination attempts in Paris, and travels to Chicago where he was during the Columbian Exposition of 1893. Along the way, Adam discusses how he became acquainted with two serial killers; Jack the Ripper through his friend Herman, and HH Holmes through, again, Herman, aka Herman Muggridge. If that doesn't mean anything to you, then you should read “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson. (I have the top-ranked review over there, by the way.)

There is action and adventure and fights galore. For a person who is mostly human standard, Adam is quite capable based on years of experience. These sequences come off as possible with luck and a bad attitude.

The denouement leaves around twenty dead, one of whom is a Chicago Police Department officer, and Adam in possession of the knowledge that there is a plan to exterminate the other species. Also, he learns that Herman is still alive, he's not the only immortal man, and Eve has recovered.

These are fun books. The writing carries the reader along. The character of Adam is sympathetic and humorous. This is exactly the kind of book you have been looking for as a diversion.

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This is a classic Walter Miller Jr. science fiction story that moves along quickly, provides a glimpse into a different society and revolves around a single fascinating idea.

The setting is Mars in the far future. Mars was terraformed in the far past, around 6,000 to 12,000 years before. The humans on Mars have evolved a culture where wealth is based on snippets of the writings of science and history books from the founding generations. Apart from this bit of surviving learning, the culture has decayed to a pre-machine level.

And the air is running out.

Asir is a thief who has stolen the small bits of text. He's pieced together the problem that Mars faces and how - perhaps - to remedy it, except Asir has been caught, and he's hanging on an execution post.

I have always enjoyed this story. It serves its purpose as a quick and enjoyable bit of science fiction from a time when Mars could still elicit some fantastic dreams.

“Praying for the Dead” by R.J. Edmund Boggis

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I read this after reading “Speaking with the Dead in Early America” by Erik R. Seeman. Seeman's book starts with the Reformation - which suppressed the historic Catholic practice of praying for the dead - to the mid-nineteenth century and the rise of Seance Spiritualism. Seeman's book seems to document that the desire for humans to maintain some sense of contact - some presence with departed loved ones - is irrepressible.

“Praying for the Dead” by R.J. Edmund Boggis dovetails nicely with the Seeman book. Boggis was an Anglican priest who wrote this book in 1913 for the purpose of arguing that the Anglican church should return to the historic Catholic practice of praying for the dead, after it had been suppressed, but not outlawed, during the sixteenth century.

The book is an extended examination of texts concerning praying for the dead beginning with pre-Christian pagan texts and ending in the post-Reformation period. Boggis notes the universality of praying for the dead, which he conceives of as a part of “natural religion” flowing from certain conceptions: (a) the existence of a Supreme Being who is the ruler and maker of all; (b) man can indirectly influence his fellow-creatures by making an appeal to the Supreme Being; and (c) death does not involve extinction, but rather something survives. From these conceptions, many religions adhering to these convictions have recognized the efficacy of praying for the dead, including the Egyptians, Muslims, Zoroastrians, etc.

Boggis notes that there is not a lot of references to praying for the dead in the Jewish texts, but also not a lot of references to the state of the dead. Boggis theorizes that the focus of Judaism was the corporate state of Israel, rather than the future of the individual. However, by the time of Second Maccabees, it seems that sacrifices and prayers for the dead were unexceptional since Judas Maccabee's instruction to offer sacrifices for Jewish soldiers with pagan trinkets did not provoke criticism. Later, Judaism had tomb inscriptions asking for prayers for the dead, which is consistent with a belief in the efficacy of such prayers.

The New Testament presupposes the efficacy of such prayers. Jesus told parables and stories that presupposed that the dead were aware of the happenings in this world and having some interaction with the world. Hence, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were still living, the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man presuppose interaction with the dead, the good thief was promised paradise, Jesus preached to the sinners in “Hell” after the crucifixion, John's Revelation depicts the martyrs under the altar aware that they have not been avenged, etc.

When Boggis gets to Eastern and Western Christendom there is no doubt that praying for the dead was a custom universally shared from the earliest times. Boggis mentions only one outlies on the consensus, Aerius of Sebasteia, who was quickly rebuked.

The consensus ended virtually over night with the Reformation. Luther did not rank ending the custom as high on his list of priorities and could have tolerated it. Calvin, however, was adamantly opposed to praying for the dead as useless and superstitious. Calvin was followed by a number of other Reformers. As of 1913, the Presbyterians officially forbade prayers to the dead.

Anglican reformers were also publicly and fairly uniformly against praying for the dead. However, they did not officially condemn this practice, which Boggis argues was the result of divine protection of the Holy Spirit and allowed for the reintroduction of the practice in 1913. Boggis argues that the Anglican Reformers actually condemned the practice of the Scholastics, rather than the Christian practice of praying for the dead and that they failed to distinguish between praying for the dead - which might be to hasten the Second Coming or promote the joy of those in heaven - from the “scholastic” notion of purgatory with its idea of punishment and suffering.

Maybe so, but Boggis also notes that the traditional Christian belief was that there was a “third place” which was not Heaven or Hell, which made the purpose of praying for the dead so that the dead could leave the third place and enter Heaven. Call it what you will, but it still sounds like purgatory.

In any event, it appears that Boggis has made his case. He feels that having requiem masses, in essence, will restore Anglicanism to its Catholic roots. He also thinks that this practice is more in keeping with natural feelings. In that regard, he writes:

“There is a passage in the Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson which informs us that he obeyed the natural promptings of his affection, and tentatively offered his intercession for his wife twelve months after her decease. It occurs in his “prayers and Meditations” and runs as follows: – “March 28, 1753. I kept this day as the anniversary of my Tetty's death, with prayer and tears in the morning. In the evening, I prayed for her conditionally, if it were lawful.”

And this would seem to bring us back to our beginning. It does seem to be a precept of natural religion that the living wants and needs to retain involvement with the beloved deceased. The suppression of that desire can have only a limited and temporary success.

Basically, this book is a collection of ideas on how to use a pen and ink system for journaling/project planning etc. It seems useful as a source of ideas, albeit there is a non-utilitarian emphasis on border decorating which I will never use.

Speaking with the Dead in Early America by Erik R. Seeman

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When I was a history major at UC Davis, I didn't like social history classes. I preferred the big stuff- wars, dynasties, the big changes in society, rather than the micro-details of how people lived their lives. It seems that as I get older, I find far more value in the micro details of how people live their lives. It allows me to appreciate the ordinary in different ways as well as to see the connections between today and the past.

This is a fascinating book, but not one for the general reader. The author - Erik R. Seeman - traces the evolution of Protestant American interaction with the dead from shortly after the Reformation to the mid-nineteenth century rise of Spiritualism.

The book begins with the post-Reformation period. A central tenet of Reformation Protestantism was the abolition of the doctrine of Purgatory, which placed departed souls safely and permanently in Heaven or Hell, with no restless place in between. In the interest of distinguishing the new Reformed faith from hated Catholicism, the Reformers emphasized that it was improper to maintain any communication with the dead or imagine that the dead took any interest in the living. Graves were moved away from churchyards and corpses were conceived of simply food for worms.

Seeman notes that during the Puritan period, elegies would be given that often contained the rhetorical tropes of apostrophe and prosopopoeia. Prosopopoeia is the figure whereby the speaker claims to be addressing the subject of the speech, such as where an elegist speaks to the listeners on behalf of the deceased person. Obviously, this was understood as an imaginative device and not a real address. Apostrophe is the figure whereby the speaker addresses the crowd in the imagined words of the deceased. Neither of these represents true communication with the dead, such as the hated Catholic prayer to saints but they do point to a tradition that might give social sanction to interactions with the dead.

In that regard, Seeman also addresses the phenomenon of the “talking gravestones,” which were gravestones that seemed to address walkers-by on behalf of the deceased. Again, these talking gravestones seem to point to a pent-up demand for communication with departed loved ones.

Seeman also points out the acceptance of ghost apparitions in Puritan times. Although the official Puritan position was that ghosts could not be returns from the dead, and so must be, most likely, demonic apparitions, this attitude began to change in order to refute the materialism of Thomas Hobbes and “Sadducists.” To that end, Pastor-Scientists and Thanatologists, such as Cotton Mathers, became interested in ghostly apparitions in order to provide an apologetic argument against materialism.

Seeman points out that there were many ghost apparitions that played an important role in the Salem Witch-Hunt. I had heard of “spiritual evidence,” but I didn't appreciate that this evidence was that of ghosts playing their duly appointed role of accusing criminals of their crimes.

Seeman discusses the “graveyard poetry” of the eighteenth century and the Gothic Novels of the early nineteenth century in which the effort to remain in some kind of communication with deceased loved ones became more deeply felt. It was here that I began to wonder about the origin of horror from this frustrated, pent-up need to maintain a relationship with those who had died. One thing about this book is that I was overwhelmed by the pervasiveness of the death of children, sisters and brothers. It is hardly surprising that there was this need, which incorporated ghost stories and gave rise to horror stories.

One of the more interesting asides is that women were the largest consumers of Gothic fiction. I wonder if the reasons for this are similar to the reasons why women are the chief consumers of the “murder true story” genre today? Something to consider.

The next step in the evolution of the Protestant interaction with the dead was the keeping of death objects, locks of hair, painting, samplers, etc. We are sometimes weirded out by the photos of dead children that were taken in the nineteenth century, but those were part of this phase. Eventually, this gave rise to the Protestant “Cult of the Dead” whereby Protestants began to ask the dead to guard them.

This evolution may account for the Protestant new religions. Seeman has a wonderful section on Swedenborg, the Shaking Amish, and the Mormons. Each of those new religions conceived of a new way for the living to maintain contact with the dead. For the Swedenborgians and Amish, it was speaking with the dead; for the Mormons, it was the baptism of the dead.

Of course, I was waiting for the big finish with Seance Spiritualism, but the book treated that subject only lightly. It does have some discussion of that subject up to the mid-nineteenth century. We can see why Spiritualism was so heavily influenced by women.

This is a dense book. It got me to wondering about the Catholic experience during this same period. Did Catholics participate in Gothic fiction and talking gravestones? More important is the evolution of Protestantism from what the author disputes is a “religion of absence” - absence of the spiritual from the material - to a religion that mimicked for some the traditions of Catholicism.

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I came to this after watching the movie “Spanners.” The movie and the book sharply diverge from each other, although some of the same characters - Adam, Phage, Mayflie and Gereon - are common to the two books.

In the book, the immortal Juan Ponce de Leon is freed from burial in the swamps of Florida. It seems that Juan, as he is known in this book, discovered the Fountain of Youth and the secret of immortality, which he then bestowed on his fellow adventurers. The Fountain turned out to be an immortal Arawak girl. Juan murdered a lot of Arawaks to get to the Fountain, which caused his trusted lieutenant, Balthasar to decide that Juan was best entombed. Five hundred years later, Balthasar has come to regret his decision. Balthasar frees Juan, who re-embarks on his mission to control the Fountain and rule the world.

It turns out that Juan and Balthasar are “spanners.” A spanner is anyone with an unusual life span, something which is defined to include not only the immortal but anyone with any kind of mutant power. Each spanner belongs in a class with its own power and weekness. Mayflies, for example, are super-smart but live for only six months. Phagge class spanners are immortal but have no immune system and are eternally sick and carriers of sickness. Phoenix class spanners resurrect life after life but almost always have a bad love affair which causes them to self-immolate.

And on and on.

This story fits best under the “urban fantasy” label. An urban fantasy is a story set in our time and world where creatures of fantasy inhabit the fringes of our culture. The problem that I had with this book is that there were so many spanners that I had to wonder how they could possibly remain on the fringe. Also, there were so many classes with such a wide divergence of powers that this element seemed ad hoc.

In addition, the story moved from urban fantasy into epic fantasy when the characters entered the “badlands,” a place where disturbing and dangerous spanners go. But where was this land? Not on this world certainly. It is here that the story turns something like a battle from Lord of the Rings.

The writing was journeyman. The plot was basically a quest story. I think my biggest problem was that there was so much backstory imagined by the author. So, many classes, so many characters, so many elements ranging from immortal Arawaks to immortal Vikings to eternally-sick immortals and a Fountain of Youth that had to be divided into two people. The story needed to be pruned in order to make it more intelligible and smooth the flow of the story.

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I've been a faithful reader of this “sequence” and my feelings are ambivalent. The “Fractured Europe Sequence” is not really a series. It actually is a single book published in parts over the course of years. The nature of the reading experience made following the storyline difficult. In addition, this story is basically a spy story where everything is nuanced and shadowy.

Before I get into review proper, let me advise anyone who hasn't read the previous books - Do not start with this book. This book is the last part of a larger novel. It will make no sense to you by itself.

Now, here there be spoilers.

The world is unusual and yet surprisingly familiar in this the Year of Our Lord 2020. In the recent past, Europe was ravaged by the Xian Flu, which triggered an epidemic of devolution, as parts of countries separate and secede from each other.

Rudi made his appearance on the first book as he became acquainted with the mysterious organization known as Les Coureurs des Bois, whose mission is to get things through these new borders. In the first book, we watch Rude learn tradecraft through a variety of missions that do not cohere into a single narrative. At the end of the first book, Rudi discovers that there is a pocket universe called the “Community” which is accessed at odd spots in our world abut spans Europe in a starnage topological overlay.

Book two introduced us to Rupert took us to a pocket universe - the Campus - where society is a college campus. Rupert is the security chief of one faction of this society, which is in the midst of a revolution. There is some interconnection with our world and the Community. It seems that this unversity world is where the Xian Flu came from. At the end, Rupert defects to our world as the Campus is destroyed in a nuclear attack.

In the third book, Rudi returns and pursues his own mysterious history in the Couriers. He becomes involved in some subtle missions concerning a mathematician who seems to have the key to creating pocket universes. At the end of the book we get a hint that there may be an ever more secret group involved in the struggle between the Community and Europe.

Throughout these books, the most interesting creation has been “the Line,” which is a Europe-spanning railroad that is its own nation. The Line seems to play an important role in these stories but is very mysterious.

The final book opens with a new character, Ben, who is a Somali refugee on an island in the Mediterranean. He is recruited and, then, disappears from the story until he gets a walk-on at the end. The rest of the first 70% of this book is like that. Things happen but it isn't clear what is happening, whether we should care, and what is important. There is a long extended section involving Alice, who is a Scottish embassy official, who gets played in a gambit involving a jeweled skull. Is she imporant? What about the person she meets, who is affiliated with some organization, but which we don't know? And then there are the references to the “William Dancy Reading Group,” which has become a charity involved in providing medical equipment. What's that all about?

Honestly, at 60% of the way, I was ready to quit on the grounds that this story was going nowhere.

I was impressed with the topological nature of the books. For example, it seems that a large part of the Alice section happens before the events of other books. I wondered if there was a clue in that feature.

However, I persevered and, as in the other books, there was a big pay-off in the end. We learn who the other player in the struggle was. The Whitcomb-Whites - the mysterious creators of the pocket universe - make a reappearance. We learn what role the Line plays. We see the games within games of the Community and the European intelligence agencies. Rupert is a key player and gets revenge for the destruction of his world.

However, there were some notes that left me dissatisfied. I don't know if I missed them or if they were there all along. For example, I don't think the jeweled skull showed up in earlier books. I missed the role played by Araminta Delahunty and Andrew Molson. I don't know if I was dense or the clues were too subtle for me to pick up on.

In any event, the ending redeemed the book and the series for me. I have always liked the imaginative construction of this world and I've considered the characters to be well-drawn. I also like nuanced spy stories that cause me to reconsider what I thought was true and false.

Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

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This is a sweet, winsome, gentle book that was a light and enjoyable read. It was also something of a shout-out to people like me who never get any recognition and barely recognize themselves as a group, viz, booklovers, bibliophiles.

I've always known, and never thought much about, my love for bookstores. When I travel to a different city, I will invariably end up in the local bookstore. The smell of bookstores always takes me back to an easier and happier time. For that matter, I practically raised my kids at Borders and Barnes & Noble.

That's why I enjoyed the protagonist's description of books and bookstores. We can tell that author Robin Sloan is a big-time nerd. (It's also why I can recognize Mr. Penumbra's bookstore as a thinly-disguised “City Lights Bookstore” in San Francisco, right down to the Condor Club (featuring Carol Doda, if you are old enough to remember, catty-corner across the street.)

Clay comes to Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore in search of a job. he gets the graveyard shift and starts noticing an odd clientele getting odd books. It becomes a mystery that Clay feels he has to solve. Along the way, he meets a cute nerdette and discovers the strangest secret society devoted to the weirdest secret ever described. There is moderate adventure and low-risk conflict. Clay presents as a typical urban fantasy nerd with the usual self-effacing humor, although this really is not a fantasy, but it could easily have been one, and a epic fantasy novel figures prominently in the solution.

Does Clay prevail?

Read the book. It's very nice and you will enjoy it.

I might recommend this as Young Adult, but for the fact that the relationship between Clay and his girlfriend is a “mature” relationship. Perhaps it would work for older YAs?