Words from the Hill, by Stu Garrard

For many years, I have loved the worship music of Delerious!  So I figured if their guitar player and song writer Stu Garrard had written a book, I ought to check it out.  Stu has been working on The Beatitudes Project, which includes a film, some new music, and his book Words from the Hill: An Invitation to the Unexpected.

Stu takes each of the Beatitudes and tells stories of his friends and others he has met whose lives reflect each one.  The Beatitudes, he writes, "are predominantly blessings of God's presence for people in bad situations, and not a list of spiritual virtues to attain. . . . they're about being, not doing."  He personalizes the Beatitudes in a way that leads you to see others with Jesus' eyes and to see your own life through God's eyes.  The message is that you are blessed, and God is on your side, no matter what you're going through.

Stu's work is less Bible study than life study.  He does have some illuminating thoughts about the meaning of each Beatitude.  More than that, he tells the stories of people for whom God's blessing and mercy have been vital and real.  His exposition is, frankly, a bit disjointed, and he seemed pretty loose theologically.  A good bit of the narrative involves his friendships with Jewish and Muslim friends.  All that to say the stories bring the Beatitudes to life and will call you to reflect on your own response to Jesus' teachings.

As he points out, we Christians have historically focused on our creeds, careful to get our beliefs right but sometimes neglecting application to life and relationships.  "What if," he asks, "like the earliest Jesus followers, we began to see the Beatitudes as the Jesus Creed?"  Words from the Hill can begin to give us a vision of what a Jesus Creed would look like.  I like Stu's music more than I like his book, but his book, like his music, points me to Jesus.  That's worth the price of admission.



Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Resurrection Perverts: Hunter's Point, by Danny Hellman

Danny Hellman's Resurrection Perverts: Hunter's Point tells the story of Harry Homburg, "America's last porn mogul," trying to resurrect his career by publishing compromising photographs of the president.  Things don't work out so well for him.  Hellman is making some commentary on fame, sex, politics, the media, but don't worry, it's nothing too profound.  Actually, not profound at all.

The art is pretty cool.  But the story didn't grab me, and the cliffhanger left me with a yawn, not a hankering for more.  I'll skip whatever the next installment is.


Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers

Becky Chambers introduced the world of the Wayfarer, a long-haul spaceship, in The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.  The story of some of the characters from that novel continues in A Closed and Common Orbit.  We don't see or hear from the Wayfarer in this second installment.  Pepper, a friend of the Wayfarer's crew, returns, along with Lovey, the Wayfarer's ship AI who is embarking on a new life in a body.

The story jumps back and forth between Pepper's childhood and Lovey's acclimating to her body.  Pepper escaped from a labor camp and spent her formative years being taught and cared for by the AI in an abandoned ship.  I enjoyed the parallels of the two lives, a ship AI learning to live in a body, and another ship AI teaching a body how to live.

I kept wondering how these parallel threads would converge, and when they finally did, it made perfect sense.  As in The Long Way, Chambers spends a lot of time developing the alien species and cultures.  A Closed and Common Orbit has stronger emphasis on the story, as we see these two characters develop.  The scope of Common Orbit is smaller than that of The Long Way.  I think that helps Chambers tell a better story.  She also leaves me wanting to read more of her stories and to learn more about the Wayfarer and Pepper and Lovey's futures.  I hope Chambers continues this series.

Void Star, by Zachary Mason

I rarely start a book without finishing it.  Unfortunately, I didn't get all the way through Void Star by Zachary Mason.  I should have followed the clues on Amazon.  "The best and most beautiful book about computers since Neuromancer."  I really didn't like Neuromancer.  "Void Star utilizes a deliberate, predatory pace more common to the most exquisite horror novels."  I am no fan of horror novels.  "The hallucinatory beauty of the prose . . ."  Yeah, those hallucinatory sequences unmoored my mind from the book . . . and got me hallucinating about reading something else.  "His language delights . . ."  True, he does have some nice language and colorful prose (plus some vocabulary I had to look up).  I just didn't get into his style.  Or the story.

I know it may not be fair to review a book I didn't read all of.  I just felt like moving on to something else.  I'm giving this a middle-of-the-road 3 out of 5, recognizing that readers who like this genre will probably like the book.  It just wasn't for me.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

The Sex Effect, by Ross Benes

Similar to the way the authors of Freakonomics offer insights into life by looking at the world through an economic lens, Ross Benes looks through the lens of sex.  In The Sex Effect: Baring Our Complicated Relationship with Sex, Benes examines the relationships of sex with culture, economics, politics, religion, and life.  He writes that "many of the ideas our society holds to be self-evident about monogamy, affairs, divorce, rape, porn, abstinence, STDs, contraception, fertility rates, and reproductive technologies are often far from empirical truth."  In ten topical chapters, Benes draws from a wide array of sources to get to the truth and clarify misconceptions.  His writing is entertaining and informative.

Depending on your feelings and beliefs about sex and sexuality, you may not be comfortable with Benes's conclusions.  He does like to be a provocateur.  For example, he argues that monogamy was introduced for political and martial reasons; religious preferences toward monogamy are cultural responses.  He makes an interesting point, but Christians and Jews, who tend to think of monogamy as God's plan from the dawn of time, might want to add something to the argument.

Some other interesting conclusions he draws:

• We shouldn't give presidents grief about their sexual liaisons; they are powerful men, and men with the disposition to be in a powerful role want/need/deserve outlets for their desires.  
• The policy of prohibiting homosexuals from serving in the armed forces had the unintended consequences of solidifying gay identity, creating gay-friendly areas in port cities like San Francisco, and introducing young people to the concept of homosexuality.
• Struggling urban centers like Detroit should look to the success of other cities' gay neighborhoods and actively recruit homosexuals to move in and lead urban renewal.
• We may not want to admit it, but as porn has proliferated, rape has declined.  ("For every ten-percentage-point increase in Internet access, reported rape declined 7.3 percent.")

The most powerful chapter, in my estimation, dealt with the AIDS epidemic in Africa.  As you might have gathered, Benes does not harbor puritanical views about sex.  The tone of most of the book is "anything goes."  But in the AIDS chapter, he points out that biomedical solutions--condoms and drugs--have either worsened or at least not improved AIDS rates.  What solution does he recommend?  The tried and tested "ABC" method: Abstain, Be faithful, or use a Condom (in that order).  Education campaigns with this model were by far less expensive and more effective at reducing AIDS rates in African countries.  But when the U.S. groups came in, backed by pharmaceutical firms and condom manufacturers, the ABC campaigns were jettisoned.  So profit motives and ideology ("The condom coalition condemns anyone advocating for anything resembling a sexual restriction.") trumped what actually worked better, costing lives in the fight against AIDS. 

Benes's arguments are thoughtful and thought-provoking.  He leans toward a pragmatic sexual ethic.  Actually, he might balk at my even referring to a sexual ethic.  Benes's concern is what impact sexual behaviors have, what economic ties sexuality invokes, and what policy decisions impact sexual behavior and vice versa.  He's more of an observer than an ethicist.  He definitely gets some conversations started.

(On a technical note, I read The Sex Effect on my Kindle.  Benes uses tons of footnotes and endnotes, many of them quite lengthy.  Most are informative and/or entertaining, but the flow of the text on the Kindle was disrupted terribly.  I hope the publisher has fixed this for the final version.  One word: hyperlink.)




Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Brave New Girl, by Lou Hamilton

"Big dreams start in play."

Lou Hamilton has a message for girls and women everywhere: Be brave.  In her new book of inspiration, Brave New Girl: How to Be Fearless, she wants you to "start to imagine being anything you want to be."  With her simple pen-and-ink drawings and brief words of wisdom, encouragement, and inspiration, she spreads positivity and confidence.

Some of the quotes are tried and true ("Reach for the stars."  "Take the road less travelled.")  Others, if not original, are less commonly heard.  ("Step out from your hiding place."  "Embrace the loop-the-loop.")  By the way, I know many of the challenges girls and women face in the world are different from those that men and boys face, but there's not a thing in here that couldn't inspire a guy.

Brave New Girl is cute and inspiring.  Give it to a girl you know who could use a pick-me-up.

"Spread the love."

Robota, by Doug Chiang and Orson Scott Card

Doug Chiang has worked on some great movies as an artist and production designer, most notably some of the Star Wars movies.  His book Robota features his original art, paired with a story by Orson Scott Card.  The art ranges from stunning and beautiful to interesting.  Among the larger-format concept paintings, he included pen-and-ink sketches and concept art.

None of the art in Robota is from Chiang's Star Wars work.  The similarities in style are unmistakable; at times you might think, "Did I see that in The Phantom Menace?"  The story takes place on the planet Robota, which was developed by a robot race before conflict with the humans led society into disarray.  Now the robots hunt humans and animals, and enhanced, sentient animals work with the humans.

Card's story is decent, but is really second-rate, compared to his major works and compared to the first-rate illustrations.  My recommendation is to soak in the art, but don't worry about the story.









Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!