Virtual Mode – Piers Anthony

Summary: Colene is walking home from school, and discovers a strange man collapsed in a ditch. They learn how to communicate and Darius brings her a story of a land where magic reigns. She assumes that he’s crazy and when he’s able to travel back to his own dimension, she realizes that he was telling the truth the whole time. How can she get back together with him?

Setting: Starts in Oklahoma in the 1980’s, includes travel to other dimensions.

Plot:  Colene is a 14 year old high school student. She’s popular enough but she’s got some significant issues, among them that she’s suicidal, and her parents marriage is a sham. Her father is a philanderer, her mother is a practicing alcoholic. She meets Darius, a king from another dimension, when he’s beat up by hoods in her neighborhood. She nurses him back to health in secret and he tells her of his mission – to find an appropriate queen. We already know that Colene wouldn’t be appropriate for his purposes, but they fall in love anyway; at least he does. She think's he’s crazy, but accepts his story for something to grasp onto and believe in. He finds out that she’s suicidal, and that she wouldn’t meet the qualifications to be the queen (because of her negative attitude), so he decides to return to his home dimension (with her help) and try finding a queen another way. His leaving demonstrates to Coleen that he was telling the truth, and cements her feelings for him. Unfortunately, she’s separated from him by virtue of being dimensions away.

Darius returns to his home dimension, and finds a way that he and Colene can be together, so he sets up a method of joining their dimensions so that they can join back up. Colene is eager to get out, and grasps on the opportunity to reunite with Darius (now that she knows he’s not crazy), but first they have to actually find each other. Enter the telepathic horse, the old woman who can’t remember the past but can see the future, and the homicidal intergalactic emperor. 

Criticisms:  Piers Anthony is an accomplished enough writer that if you’re interested in sci-fi and fantasy in the first place, you won’t find any gaping holes in the plot. He’s one of the masters of the genre, and definitely knows his business.

Wrap-up:  This was a hard read, and forced me to reevaluate whether this belongs on my bookshelf in the first place. It’s not my favorite series by him, but it’s pretty well written. What made this so hard is that he’s such a good writer, and he deals with some uncomfortable issues. Colene is suicidal, and cuts her wrists to flirt with death. She’s been raped in the past, and this affects her psyche and her daily life. Darius falls in love with her (he’s in his 20’s and she’s 14), but for this book at least, they don’t consummate their relationship. This book attempts to deal with alcoholism and a father who’s unfaithful to his wife.

Are Colene’s psychological aspects realistic? I truly don’t know. I’ve never been a 14 year old girl, and I don’t know what it feels like to be in ones head. I guess what’s a little disturbing is that Piers Anthony apparently does and, from the outside at least, he appears to do the whole “teen angst” thing quite ably, 5+ years before it occurred to Kurt Cobain. That’s pretty impressive for a (at the time) 57 year old man, but it’s still a bit uncomfortable.

If you’re already a Piers Anthony fan, chances are you might have missed this series, and it’s worth a look. If you’re not a Piers Anthony fan but wanna give him a try, I would recommend starting on one of his one-shots first (I can make some recommendations if you need some), then trying out another of his series first. This one’s a bit heavy.

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I would give this book a C+.

High Crimes – Joseph Finder

Summary: Claire’s a law professor at Harvard, and everything’s going right for her. She’s got a beautiful daughter from a previous marriage, tenure, and she’s married to the man of her dreams. Or is she? Following a break-in at their house, her husband is chased down by the government and the military for a horrendous war crime he’s accused of committing 13 years earlier. Claire takes the reins and leads her husband’s defense team, trying to keep him alive and out of military prison.

Setting: United States, 1993 and flashbacks to Central America, 1985

Plot: Claire is a tenured professor at Harvard, a rising celebrity due to her involvement with a highly publicized case, and is happily married to a wonderful man. Her life starts falling apart around her when her husband is accused of war crimes in an undeclared war in Central America, and chased down by the FBI. She pursues a vigorous legal defense for him, taking on the military justice system in a bid to get down to the truth, or at least to keep her husband out of prison. Are those goals mutually exclusive?

Criticisms: No significant criticisms. The book is written about a pretty graphic series of events during an undeclared war. Most of the graphic events covered are described from a more narrative style, rather than from a gritty, realistic perspective.

Wrap-up: Finder does a good job of dumbing down some of the more technical concepts (regarding armaments, etc.), and while his courtroom scenes aren’t quite as polished as Grisham, he’s quite effective at capturing the courtroom drama. Most of his books are written more about the corporate world and corporate espionage, so this was a nice change-up, and nicely demonstrates his versatility as a writer.

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I would give this book a B.

The Other Side of Midnight - Sidney Sheldon

Summary: One word - Vengeance. With a capital V. An "In Your Face", over the top grandiose exposition of Vengeance, with a steaming side order of ruining someone's life over the course of a couple of decades.

Setting: Europe and the United States, between the 1930's and the late 1940's.

Plot: Standard Sidney Sheldon fare; an exceptionally written, internationally set, character based drama. Noelle gets jilted by a US pilot who's on temporary assignment to the RAF. She spends the next few years plotting how to get even with him, then delivers on her promise (with a truly surprising Sheldon twist). It's hard to classify Noelle as the antagonist or protagonist in this story; she's definitely a "bad" character (the story opens with her on trial for murder), but she's been forced into her circumstance by her (sometimes naive) dealings with other characters. I was rooting for her by halfway through the book, and trying to guess how she would deliver her vengeance to the aforementioned pilot. This book begins with the adventures of a handful of main characters through the turbulent time of France, England, the United States and Greece in the years and months leading up to the Second World War, and their story continues through the war, and a few years immediately following.

Criticisms: This book has only a few issues, mostly with what some of the characters are able to accomplish with limited resources. Some of the female characters are able to throw themselves on the mercy of handy benefactors who have obviously been inserted into the plot specifically for those purposes (if that makes any sense). There is some further development of those characters though, so he didn't completely forget about those characters once they'd accomplished what he'd originally needed them for. A few were obviously secondary creations though.

Wrap-up: Sidney Sheldon did a very good job with this book, one of his better ones. It was initially published in 1973, and while some of the terminology is quite dated, as a historical drama it performs within its internal time period fairly smoothly. The international settings are brilliant, and Sheldon demonstrates again how well his descriptions can be used to paint pictures that you can see and feel, almost more vibrantly than if you experienced them yourself. There are a few minor holes in the plot, but the stumbles are artfully concealed with reasonable explanations, given the time periods involved.

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I would give this book a solid B+.