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It is said that God created academia to train the faithful. Oh, no, wait; that’s Arrakis I’m thinking of. But, the point stands: the academic setting is full of little conflicts, petty rivalries, and various other annoyances that test the patience of those working in it.

And it can also be a place where people find love. At least, that’s what the dual protagonists of this book, Prof. Flora Fineman and Prof. Mark Reynolds, are hoping. Flora is still recovering from a disastrous relationship during her post-doc years, and Mark is dealing with the double-whammy of a divorce and raising a child recovering from cancer. Both of them have a lot on their plates, and that’s before they’re assigned to serve on Astor College’s budget committee for the semester.

The thing is, Flora and Mark don’t like each other. They haven’t interacted much, but to the extent that they have, their encounters have been unpleasant. But, you know how it is: fate and committee meetings have a way of throwing people together.

And soon, their work gives them another challenge to confront. An anonymous informant notifies members of the budget committee that something strange is going on with Astor’s finances, and sends the committee members a spreadsheet of all the college’s financial transactions, something which even faculty are not normally allowed to see.

Flora and Mark may not like each other, but they do like investigating mysterious goings-on, and these financial shenanigans appear to go all the way to the top.

Of course, figuring all this out means working together closely. And in so doing, Flora and Mark each realize that their judgments of each other may not have been entirely accurate.

The book is written with chapters alternating between Mark and Flora’s points of view. What makes this especially interesting is that the co-authors wrote the different chapters, with Dobson writing Mark and Anonymous Ph.D. writing Flora. The two authors have different styles as well; one being a “pantser” and one a “plotter.” This gives each character a subtly different feel, and makes the evolution of the plot feel spontaneous. As explained in the Afterword, the authors would often surprise one another with the direction they took the story.

I loved the book, partially for its unique storytelling style, but above all for its extremely vivid portrayal of the setting and denizens of Astor College. The personalities, the intrigues, the cynical humor which most people adopt as a coping mechanism… all of it felt like a very accurate depiction of a bureaucratized institution of higher learning.

I recently watched the BBC series The Barchester Chronicles, starring Donald Pleasance and Alan Rickman. It’s a delightful romantic dramedy, based on novels by Anthony Trollope, about church politics in 19th-century rural England. One of the main sources of humor in it is how unbelievably petty are the concerns of the churchmen. They imagine themselves as crusaders for Holy Justice, doing the work of their Lord and Savior… when all that they are really arguing over is some trivial question like who shall receive wardenship of a Church hospital. The meek and mild-mannered Mr. Harding muses that all this hardly seems worthy of worshippers of Jesus Christ, to which the perpetually-outraged Dr. Grantly angrily fumes, “Christ has nothing to do with it!”

There’s something similar going on in The Academy, I think. Perhaps the cathedrals of yesteryear have been replaced by university administration buildings, and yet the fundamental dynamics remain the same. The same fights over trivial fiefdoms and fleeting political power override the institution’s true mission. As my Sith mentor used to tell me, “it’s all about power and control.”

But as my other Sith mentor used to tell me, “apathy is death.” And indeed, the apathy of the faculty and staff is the principle weapon which the villains of the piece count on to ensure their scheme will succeed. So when Flora and Mark realize they themselves actually care…

Well, “it’s an unjust world, and virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances.” To which I might add, rom-coms and other light entertainments. Perhaps if more people took the trouble to actually care, things would be different. Then again, perhaps not. Either way, though, this book is a fun and funny look at academia through the eyes of two rivals who gradually learn the oldest and most fundamental lesson of all human endeavor: that sometimes you have to be willing to admit when you’re wrong.

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🎶”Oh, take me down to the Nightside City / Where the grass is rock and the girls are implanted with symbiotes…”🎶

Okay, that’s not too catchy. But it is an accurate description of the setting for this neo-noir cyberpunk detective story.

Carlisle Hsing is private investigator who is down on her luck and down in the dumps. Quite literally, because she lives in the slums at the bottom of a giant crater. Also, it’s always night, because the planet it’s on, Epimetheus, doesn’t rotate. Naturally, the place has become a tourist trap; a Sin City on a par with Vegas, with the added attraction that it will be destroyed someday.

Because the planet doesn’t quite not rotate. It rotates, but very slowly. So eventually, Nightside City will be in the blistering hot sunlight, and will then stay there for a long time, becoming an unlivable irradiated hellhole.

Hsing is hired by some slum-dwellers to investigate a mysterious effort to buy up their properties on the dingy outskirts.  Why someone would be buying land on a place that is soon to become uninhabitable is anybody’s guess, and that’s what makes Hsing take the case. That and the fact that she desperately needs money.

And so, she plunges into a web of conspiracy, intrigue, backstabbing, lying and cheating, in a world populated by persistent surveillance drones, sentient taxis, and augmented cyber-decadents, with only her wits, her own cybernetic enhancements, and her massive gun to help her survive.

In a weird way, the book made me think of Chuck Litka’s stories. Both in the ways it was like them and in the ways it was profoundly unlike them. It resembled his in that the mystery was low-stakes, and, Hsing’s aforementioned massive gun notwithstanding, is pretty low on actual violence. All that ever gets shot is one of the surveillance drones.

On the other hand, it was unlike a Litka book in that the tone is dark, and gritty, and many of the people are rather nasty. Although there isn’t much actual violence, there are numerous threats of violence. Anger, greed, lust, vanity, pride… all the standard sins are featured here. And while stupidity isn’t a sin officially, a number of the denizens of Nightside City indulge in that as well.

But the story isn’t stupid. Far from it; some of the details about planetary motion and gravity were like an intro physics class. Fortunately, Hsing’s sardonic wit makes these bits of background information interesting.

This is pretty much everything you could want in a cyberpunk story. It’s clever, biting, prophetic, and ultimately morally ambiguous. Not everyone will find the setting of a cyberpunk dystopia compelling, of course. (Though you might want to start… you’re living in one. 🙂 ) But anybody who enjoys what I have occasionally called “Techno-Decadence” will certainly want to pick this up. And that cover! Just an absolute work of art. I miss covers like that.

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1776! What a year! Things were wild back then. It’s when Adam Smith published An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, a founding text in the science of Economics.

Also that year, the thirteen colonies of America declared their independence from Britain. This year marks the semiquincentennial of that event—250 years, in other words.

Before we even begin, I question whether this even means that 1776 truly marks the founding of the country. It’s true that the colonies declared themselves independent and therefore separate from England, but the Constitution and the structure of government with which we are today familiar was not established until 1789. (Another interesting year.) So it is questionable, in my mind, whether the current system which claims to trace its ancestry back two and a half centuries is really quite correct.

Ah, except it is correct de facto, if not de jure, if for no other reason than because the United States government is a powerful entity, and, like the Mikado in The Mikado, its will is law, and if it says “let a thing be done” then practically it is done, and if it is done, then why not say so?

It was not always thus. As Mr. McCullough’s chronicle of that fateful year shows, the USA was far from a juggernaut when it started out. Very much the opposite. Indeed, perhaps it was the very rag-tag and humble nature of the initial colonial rebellion that enable it to be successful, for the mighty British government never took seriously the idea that it could succeed.

(And by the way, it is just Mr. McCullough. I was surprised to learn in writing this post that the late historian was not a professor, holding only a B.A. from Yale.)

Most of you know the story, in general outlines: America declares independence, British get BIG MAD, send army to subdue rebel colonists. George Washington is appointed commander-in chief of the rebel army. Things go poorly at first, especially at the Battle of White Plains, but then Washington crosses the Delaware and scores surprise victories at Trenton and Princeton to close out the year on a high note.

All of this I knew, not through any diligent scholarship or study, but from careful and complete viewing of the series Liberty’s Kids. (Possibly the second-greatest show to air on PBS kids, trailing only the incomparable Wishbone.)

Still, there are details Liberty’s Kids omitted out of care for its audience. It could not depict, for example, some of the more savage attacks perpetrated upon the civilian population by both sides. These are the sorts of details McCullough is able to relate to his more mature audience.

Also, both Liberty’s Kids and this book offer an incomplete picture of the British position. Both are strong in depicting William Howe as incompetent at best and a traitor at worst. Even Liberty’s Kids managed to hint at what 1776 notes explicitly regarding Howe’s proclivities, as described in the rebel song:

Sir William he, snug as a flea,
Lay all this time a-snoring;
Nor dreamt of harm, as he lay warm,
In bed with Mrs. Loring.

But Howe is only the tip of the immensely complicated iceberg that was the relationship of the British government towards the rebellion. Yes, there was more to it than just a bunch of sneering officers looking down their noses at the plucky rebels. The Star Wars-ification of history is one of the real plagues of our time.

Let’s begin with one of my favorite bits of trivia: perhaps you have heard of the New England Patriots of the National Football League, a team whose colors and logos are obviously tributes to the revolutionaries of 1776?

The connection runs even deeper: the Patriots play in Foxborough (often shortened to Foxboro) Massachusetts. Foxborough is a borough named after Charles James Fox.

Who was Charles James Fox, you ask? Well, he was a Whig Member of Parliament who was a staunch supporter of the colonist cause. Wikipedia provides a helpful summary:

….[W]ith the coming of the American War of Independence and the influence of the Whig Edmund Burke, Fox’s opinions evolved into some of the most radical to be aired in the British Parliament of his era.

Fox became a prominent and staunch opponent of King George III, whom he regarded as an aspiring tyrant. He supported the American Patriots and even dressed in the colours of George Washington‘s army.

You see, Britain was far from monolithic. The Whig party, which included many famous people such as Edmund Burke and Edward Gibbon, broadly supported the American cause.

Is this important? I’d argue it is, if for no other reason than because it is just too easy to fall into the trap of viewing history as a caricature. Also, it’s worth noting that the Fox family were the arch-rivals of the Tory Pitt family. So, even though Pitt the Elder came earlier, I think it’s fair to say that whenever the Patriots play the Steelers, their ancient enmity is in some sense revived.

1776, alas, doesn’t concern itself much with these kinds of political intrigues. McCullough is focused heavily on the military aspect, and specifically on George Washington. Which is fine. Washington is a cool guy.

But he wasn’t, at least in 1776, the most powerful man on the side of the United States. He was just the military commander in the field, and while he had perhaps the most important job for the future of the nation, he could not yet be said to be its leader. It was led by the Continental Congress which was, by most accounts, kind of a mess. Technically, the closest thing to an executive the government had at the time, the president of the Congress, was businessman and smuggler John Hancock.

It’s difficult to overemphasize just how much the shape of the whole project changed between 1776 and 1789. In some ways, you could argue it’s almost like the evolution of the French government between their revolution in 1789 and the Coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799. Or perhaps even more accurately, the evolution of the Roman government from the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC to the rise of Octavian-Augustus as God-Emperor Princeps in 27 BC.

If there’s one thing we love here at Ruined Chapel, it’s finding surprising patterns across different periods in history. (If there are two things we love, it’s that plus Halloween. If there are three things we love, it’s obscure historical patterns, Halloween, and Natalie Portman movies. If there are four… but why am I telling you this? I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition!)

Anyway, all that I really am arguing is a rather pedantic point, which is that the United States was not actually founded in 1776, but in 1789. Now, of course, I have no problem with celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration, which is very much an event worth recognizing.  But are we prepared to do it all again in 13 years to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the original founding? What did they do in 1989, besides take down the Berlin Wall?

Will the United States still be around in recognizable form in 13 years? Sir John Glubb calculated that great superpowers only last for about 250 years, a fact which tinges some political commentary on this anniversary with a bit of apprehension.

Oh, well. Whatever happens, 1776 is a year worth remembering for the epic struggle between authority and liberty, for the risks run and sacrifices made, and the sheer human drama of it all. Despite what I said about Star Wars-ification, there are indeed heroes on both sides, and that fact is perhaps more salient than any esoteric arguments of political philosophy. And so, in reviewing it all, the words of William Makepeace Thackeray, as rendered by Stanley Kubrick, come back to me:

 

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Can there be such a thing as a cozy legal thriller? I’ve heard of cozy mysteries, and I’ve heard of legal thrillers, but both at once? Well, I am here to tell you that there is such a thing, care of the great C. Litka.

This is another of his Redinal Hu stories, and in this one Red gets a chance to demonstrate his legal acumen, as well as his less cerebral skills.

Hu is hired to act as the bodyguard of Constance Darma, the new head of House Darma, whose life is under threat from members of her family seeking to acquire her fortune. Mz. Darma, however, is unfazed by the increasing danger she and Red find themselves in; for she has a plan to thwart her would-be killers: she is going to alter her will to cede her inheritance to a member of a rival House.

As ever in Litka’s stories, even in matters of life and death, people are almost unfailingly pleasant and polite. The nice thing about this world is, when you walk into your house to find an enemy agent lying in wait for you, there’s no need to act like Jack Slater in Last Action Hero; you just politely tell them you’re not interested in whatever they have to say, and bid them good evening. You might even have a cup of te with them.

Speaking of that enemy agent, there’s also a bonus story, The Pawns’ Game, that fleshes out a bit more about these agents and how they operate. I don’t want to spoil too much, but I love the idea of a sort of “henchmen guild” that Litka plays with here. I’ve often joked about how villains in movies and TV shows seem to have an endless supply of people willing to do their dirty work for them. Litka offers a sound in-universe explanation for how this might actually be arranged.

All told, these two stories make for a fitting conclusion to the Redinal Hu saga… which is not to say I wouldn’t be pleased should Mr. Litka reconsider and decide to write more of them.

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Do I really need to review this book?

If you’re a long-time reader, you know I’m a Carrie Rubin fan. And there’s a pretty good chance you are too. In fact, you probably already are planning to read this book, no matter what my review says. At most, all I need to say is that it’s everything we expect from one of Dr. Rubin’s books, and that alone should send you running to buy it.

But, I would hardly be upholding my reputation as a writer of long-winded reviews if I didn’t add some corroborative detail. We’ve got the catacombs of Paris, rumors of sinister activities within them, and our heroine, Kelly Burke, a student working as an au pair with the very same family that had previously employed the titular missing woman, Erin Fenton.

Driven by the loss of another friend, Kelly is obsessed with finding Erin, no matter what obstacles stand in her way. She is assisted by her friend and fellow student, a young man named Wayne, who sticks by Kelly even as her obsession with finding the lost woman pushes her to run greater and greater risks.

That’s the plot. But the setting is just as important, 1980s Paris comes to life, drawn from the author’s recollections as one who herself was an au pair there at that time. While I’m not one to insist that a writer must experience something firsthand before writing about it (tricky for an author of science fiction 🙂 ), there can be no doubt that having experienced that time and place lends a feeling of plausibility to the entire story.

All these little touches make the book feel real, and like something that could plausibly happen. Of course, that doesn’t include the darker aspects of the story… I’m sure things like that could never happen. Right? Well, anyway, I certainly hope not. I don’t want to spoil the whole thing, but let’s just say the plot involves some of my favorite fictional tropes, which is yet another point in the book’s favor. I wish I could say more about this, but I just can’t without spoiling the story.

I’m tempted to say this might be Carrie’s best book yet. It’s difficult to choose, of course, and I’ll always have a soft spot for The Seneca Scourge, with its sci-fi twist, as well as for the dark psychological mysteries of Broken Hope and the Liza Larkin series. Everyone has their own preferences, but this one is surely top tier, in no small part due to the extremely likable protagonist, who is easy to root for from the start.

It occurs to me, as I put the finishing touches on this review and WordPress’s deeply unhelpful AI assistant offers to provide suggestions, that an AI could never write a book like this, drawn as it is from the author’s personal memories. What makes a good story are all the little pieces of themselves the author puts into it, and only Carrie had the exact combination of experiences necessary to write this book. That’s what makes it such a pleasure to read.

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There’s nothing like a good redemption story. And if that redemption story also happens to feature space pirates and interstellar battles, so much the better!

Sol Linocass is a divorced dad down on his luck. His attempts to win back the favor of his ex-wife invariably seem to go sideways. He can’t hold a job, and he’s an alcoholic. His life, in short, is going down the tubes, and his dream of a better future thanks to his skill as a pilot from hours in simulators doesn’t seem likely to materialize any time soon.

But one day he stumbles across top secret information hidden in some scrap he hauled in from the junkyard. Sol may not be the best decision-maker in the world, but he is wise enough to know just what the government would do to get their hands on such data. So, he decides to flee as fast as he can, by joining up with his sister Trudy and her rag-tag crew of space pirates.

Trudy is the opposite of Sol in many ways; competent, organized, and in command of her life. She makes it very clear to Sol that once they leave port, he’s not her little brother, he’s just a member of her crew. She stops just short of making a “row well, and live” speech, but it’s very clear who’s in charge here.

I’m not usually one to want prequels or retellings or things like that, but I would love to read the story of this book told from Trudy’s perspective. She’s a fantastic character, especially once you know the whole story, and can appreciate all the different concerns she’s required to balance.

What follows once Sol joins the crew is a spacefaring adventure full of danger, intrigue, political-machinations, and double-crossing. It reminded me a little of Frank Herbert’s sadly neglected novel The Dragon in the Sea, about a submarine crew where everyone suspects everyone else of being a double agent. With everything that’s at stake, Sol never knows who can be trusted. (In the sage advice of Natalie Portman in My Blueberry Nights: “You can’t even trust yourself.”)

But in the end, everybody has to put their faith in something; and ultimately that’s the decision Sol is forced to make under the highest pressure imaginable.

There are so many things I could praise in this book: the obvious points are the compelling and twist-filled plot, and the vivid, memorable characters. It reminded me of a Carrie Rubin novel in that regard. (And yes, there is even a bit of a medical subplot to it.)

A less obvious, but equally important quality is how Holtschulte handles the world-building. World-building is key in a science fiction story since, you know, it’s set in a different world.

Tall Boy Sun contains a bare minimum of world-building. It conveys just enough information about the setting that we can follow what’s happening, and not a bit more. There are no info-dumps or long-winded expositions here, which is perfect.

When you read an exposition-heavy section in a character-driven novel, it has the effect of taking you out of the moment, and reminding you that you are just reading a story. For comparison, imagine reading a novel set in the present day: if it weighed you down with a bunch of needless backstory about politics and history of our own world that wasn’t relevant to the story, it would be distracting and even a little confusing. You would be asking, “why would the author need to tell me this?”

We accept more explaining about the world and setting in sci-fi or fantasy novels, but how refreshing it is to read one that feels like it really is of a piece with its setting! Tall Boy Sun‘s world is so well-built that it ceases to feel like it was built at all, and feels as if the writer truly inhabits the world being described, and simply penned a novel set in it.

There are many more praiseworthy things in this book, such as Trudy’s colorful crew, and the sinister antagonist Gilbert Bane, who is a mixture of Boba Fett, the Red Baron, and the Dread Pirate Roberts. But, it’s more fun if you can just discover the world and denizens of Tall Boy Sun for yourself. I highly recommend this book, even if sci-fi isn’t one of your typical genres. It is first and foremost a book driven by its characters, who are as well-crafted and memorable as any you’ll ever meet.

Now if we can only get a spin-off about the adventures of Captain Trudy…

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Andrew Crowther posted about this book the other week. I shared his reservations, but as a longtime Marxist of the Groucho School, as well as a fan of offbeat books generally, I had to give it a try.

The book is narrated by… some guy. Frank Denby, I think, or something like that. And he’s a reporter in 1930s Hollywood. But he’s just filling the role of the Poor Nut, to use Stephen Leacock’s phrase. Nobody’s reading this book for him. No, they’re reading to see how the author manages to turn Julius Henry “Groucho” Marx into a detective.

Well, all told… it’s a mixed bag. Groucho, as depicted here, is certainly witty and gets off plenty of good lines. Moreover, I don’t think they’re just recycled gags from the movies; at least I didn’t remember most of them. The author appears to have gone to some effort to mimic Groucho’s style while furnishing him with original material.

Less impressive is the mystery itself: a starlet is found dead, and the authorities rule it a suicide, but Groucho knows better. He suspects foul play by shady characters in show business.

And, lo and behold, it turns out that it is indeed foul play by shady characters in show business. Granted, there are enough of them that figuring out exactly which ones did it is something of a mystery. But not really enough of one.

Again, though, is anyone reading this because they expected a mystery to rival one by Arthur Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie? Or are they reading it because it’s an amusing novelty? Exactly. It is the literary equivalent of a gadget play. And for what it is, it succeeds well enough. My favorite scene is the one where Groucho, disguised as his brother Harpo, narrowly avoids assassins sent by some of the villains. Groucho’s press conference afterwards is particularly amusing.

Fans of the Marx Bros. will probably enjoy it. Fans of mysteries will find it fairly predictable. But to me, the acid test of a book like this can only be: what would Groucho himself think of it?

My guess is he would say something complimentary, and then immediately add something else that would reframe his initial comment as an insult. Then he’d waggle his eyebrows, take a puff on his cigar, and walk comically away to his waiting vehicle, which Harpo would drive away without him.

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You remember the other week when I reviewed that “biography” of Baron Ungern-Sternberg and talked about how it was cool to read a book that didn’t over-explain things to the reader? Well, this book is like that too, only it’s an alternate history story rather than a biography.

You can tell things are different in this world. The story is about the Energy Wars of 1994, when terrorists of unclear affiliation attacked the Johnson Space Flight Center.

General Gus Grissom, who apparently did not die (I think–see below) in the Apollo 1 program in this timeline, is heading the response to the attack. Under his command is the narrator of our story, Peter Caudell, with the framing device of Caudell telling the story many years later to his daughter.

It’s a very short book, taking only about ten minutes to read, but it packs a lot into those ten minutes. Mostly raising more questions than answers. Which is good if you’re like me. My motto is that the best books are the ones that leave you questioning what’s even real.

Still… it would have been nice to have things a bit more fleshed out. The author does include an Afterword which explains some things, but even the explanations raise questions. For example, there’s a note about where the clones of Stalin are located in this alternate world.

This is why I included the parenthetical note about Grissom above. There are multiple references to clones throughout the story, in a way that suggests they’re important, but I could never figure out exactly what the deal was with them.

But in a way, this makes the story feel more authentic. I feel like clones were all the rage as the sci-fi trope of the 1990s. I know I was a big fan of clone-related stories when I was a kid. AI and robots and simulation theory are all right for these young people with their short pants and their comically oversized lollipops, but me, I’m from the Old School. Give me that old-time warehouse with rows of clones in test tubes. If it’s good enough for the Galaxy of Fear, it’s good enough for me.

Anyway, back to the story: it’s well-written but kind of incoherent. But I’m strangely okay with that, because it really does feel like reading a fragment of a dispatch from some other reality.

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Well, right off the bat, you’ve got to love the title.

I’ve been a fan of Andrew Crowther since I was a teenager. He was the world’s leading expert on W.S. Gilbert, and I was a kid who used a dial-up internet connection and an iMac G3 to read archived Savoynet discussions on the G&S Archive.

Well, times have changed, but Crowther is still the leading expert on W.S.G. Now I have faster internet and a MacBook Air, but I have never lost my appreciation for Gilbertian humor, which is to say, sharp wit and clever satire. Crowther’s book contains plenty of both.

Which is not to say he’s just imitating Gilbert. Far from it. His style is different; darker and starker, with a harsh edge not found in most of Gilbert’s works. (With important exceptions.) Crowther tackles the absurdity of the modern world by heightening it just enough, until the contradictions and hypocrisies become impossible to ignore.

Some of the stories verge on horror, most notably “Jasper” (which animal lovers may wish to skip), others, including my favorite, “The King’s Juggler”, are more in the Victorian satire vein, wherein we are invited to shake our heads and chuckle sardonically along with the author. And some are downright uncanny given current events.

You don’t see a lot of books like this any more. Short stories have been said to be dying for decades. Now, novels are said to be dying too, and indeed literacy itself may be on the way out. Therefore, I encourage you to rage, rage against the dying of the light by reading this collection. It’s just the right blend of Victorian and modern cynicism.

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Only Adam Bertocci could tell a story about a small high school chess club rivalry and turn it into a grand drama about life, art, the nature of genius, and the meaning of greatness.

Parker Sabatini is an accomplished chess player in her school’s casual chess club. One day, Ali Wolfhart, on leave from the cheerleading squad due to injury, stops by the club. At first, she seems like just a novelty. Until she starts winning. And winning. And winning. To the point that Parker begins to become obsessed with Ali’s uncanny gift for the game.

Like Salieri vs. Mozart in Amadeus, Parker struggles to comprehend why this divine fire of genius should have been bestowed upon a cheerleader, of all people. Her obsession turns to jealousy, culminating in a violent outburst at a chess tournament.

The book is told as a series of interviews with students and faculty at the school, narrating how the relationship between Ali and Parker evolved. Or, perhaps, devolved. (This style of narration foreshadows that used in Bertocci’s recent novel, The Sorcery of White Rats, which is also excellent.) In the course of these ruminations, the interviewees muse on all sorts of topics, ranging from educational philosophy to the meaning of life.

There’s been many a novel written that doesn’t tackle themes as heavy as these, but as always, Bertocci addresses these big questions with a light touch and economy of words. The book takes only about 30 minutes to read, and it leverages each word for maximum impact.

In the end, Ali’s genius remains enigmatic; as genius always must. Perhaps the best attitude to take towards genius is simply to be grateful that one is fortunate enough to have the opportunity of witnessing it. That’s certainly the attitude I take when I read one of Bertocci’s books.