Fuzzy Nation, by John Scalzi

John Scalzi writes fun and engaging sci-fi.  Fuzzy Nation fits that bill with a story that has the fun of a Saturday matinee with some thoughtful speculative elements that keep you thinking.  Fuzzy Nation is inspired by H. Beam Piper's Fuzzy books (Little Fuzzy, Fuzzy Sapiens, and Fuzzies and Other People).  I'm only vaguely aware of Piper, who died in the 1960s, but I should become more familar; he wrote lots of novels and stories and appears to have been rather trend-setting.

In Fuzzy Nation, Jack Holloway is a mining contractor working on a planet called Zarathustra.  He discovers a vein of a sought-after stone that promises to make him a billionaire.  However, when he encounters intelligent, cat-like bipeds near his home, that future of wealth is threatened.  If a sapient species is discovered on a planet, all mining operations must cease.  Thus, ZaraCorp, the massive mining conglomerate that controls mining on the planet, has a vested interest in proving the Fuzzies are not sentient, or, if they are sentient, exterminating them.

As Jack defends his new friends, he becomes a target as well.  He's a lovable rogue, a selfish loner who becomes a hero with heart.  Fuzzy Nation may be a bit more pulp-fictiony (presumably drawing on Piper's tradition) than some of the harder sci-fi Scalzi has written, but it's great fun to read, and if a book doesn't at least have that going for it, it's got nothing. 

Code Name Lise, by Larry Loftis

Odette Sansom was born and raised in France, but married an Englishman and moved with him to England and had three children together.  When World War 2 was firing up, she was recruited to work as a British spy in occupied France.  Larry Loftis tells her remarkable story in Code Name Lise: The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII's Most Highly Decorated Spy.

Loftis has done yeoman's work gather source material to present a first-hand account of her experiences.  Odette worked as a courier, transporting supplies and cash to the French Resistance, as well as working with her team to assist other spies entering the country by air or by sea.  Even though she was married, she ended up falling in love with her commanding officer.  After a few years they were captured and held in a Paris prison and later in a concentration camp.

In spite of horrific torture and extreme deprivation, which nearly took Odette's life, she never broke.  She protected the identities and locations of allies who had not been captured and who were able to continue the work of their network.  She was ultimately honored by the Queen, had books and movies made about her, and married her commanding officer.

Despite her protestations that she was just an ordinary woman, Odette was truly a remarkable woman.  Loftis does a nice job of presenting the timeline and events in her life, personalizing it with reconstructed scenes and conversations.  While her story is interesting and inspiring, in a way it lacks a plot and crucial moments that would make this a truly great book.  I was left with only a vague picture of her day-to-day operations before her capture.  The conditions and experiences in prison were more detailed but not as eventful or consequential to the war effort.

I enjoyed the book, and enjoyed this perspective on the war in Europe.  Odette may not have been a battlefield hero, but she was a hero nonetheless.  Thanks to Loftis, her story will be heard by a new generation.


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

The Unholy Trinity, by Matt Walsh

Matt Walsh is a leading conservative commentator and provocateur.  His social media posts make the viral rounds, and his columns appear in The Daily Wire.  In The Unholy Trinity: Blocking the Left's Attack on Life, Marriage, and Gender, Walsh discusses these hot-button issues and calls on Christians to speak up for conservative Christian values.

The root of the problem is liberalism, which he boils down to self-centeredness.  The original liberal was Satan, and liberals continue to want to make their own way and reject moral norms.  Liberalism has distorted life, marriage, and gender.  Walsh offers a strong, no-holds-barred defense of conservative positions.

On abortion, he makes no compromise.  Life is life, no matter how it was conceived.  The liberal position, that a fetus is a parasitic bunch of cells, reveals the death cult that is liberalism.  He makes an argument I've never heard before, connecting the ubiquity of the birth control pill to the increase in divorce rates.  On one level, that's obvious, as the pill ushered in the sexual revolution.  But he takes it a step further, linking the alteration of women's hormonal makeup to larger changes in attitudes.  Feminist  celebration of reduced birth rates reveals the anti-family agenda of so many liberals. 

Walsh's arguments against so-called euthanasia are powerful as well.  "Death with dignity" is a total misnomer.  Another misnomer is "gay marriage."  There's no such thing, he writes, just as there's no such thing as a square circle.  Calling a gay couple married is a rejection of the very definition of marriage, making it meaningless, and opening the door to calling the union of any combination of people a marriage.

Another compelling discussion was his argument that transgenderism is a rejection of feminism.  The two positions must be at odds with one another, which makes the promotion of transgenderism by feminists particularly odd.  For decades, feminists have been arguing for the destruction of gender categories, but now we see people trying to claim a category into which they were not born.  If feminists argue that there's no such thing as a "female brain" because of equality, how can they argue that a biological male has a female brain?  Arguments become nonsensical.

Walsh has been called homophobic, sexist, and worse.  The crazy thing is that on these topics, his position was, until very recently in our history, mainstream.  I think he still is very mainstream, but most people are fearful of offending anyone today.  Not Walsh.  He calls out liberals and is not afraid to call what they believe evil.  I wish he backed his positions with more research and documentation, but his arguments are certainly strong.

Stop Looking at Your Phone, by Son of Alan

Everyone knows smart phones have impacted the way we live and go about our days.  Son of Alan has a message for you: Stop Looking at Your Phone.  With simple graphics and illustrations, he communicates simple steps you can take to engage with people and the world around you.  Actually, it's one simple step: put the phone away (or maybe just trash it).

He illustrates the many perils to our bodies, social lives, relationships, and health that our phones may cause.  Missing out on meeting new people or enjoying our families, falling down stairs or into a manhole, or falling over a waterfall during a botched selfie are bad enough.  When we're glued to our phones, we might also miss the best part of a concert, or get caught up in filming or posting about something without truly enjoying it.

Funny and sarcastic while giving good reminders to put the phone away, Stop Looking at Your Phone is sure to hit a nerve and make you sheepishly put your phone in your pocket.  That's a good thing.


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

The Warner Boys, by Curt and Ana Warner

Curt Warner made a name for himself as a running back for Penn State and the Seattle Seahawks.  (He should not be confused for Kurt Warner, the quarterback who won a Super Bowl with the Rams.)  Curt Warner and his wife Anna have two children with autism.  In The Warner Boys: Our Family's Story of Autism and Hope they tell their story of the struggles they endured raising their twins. 

Without going into a lot of detail about autism itself, their goal is simply to chronicle their experiences.  As people who know autism can tell you, the range of effects varies widely.  As they say, "If you've met one child with autism, you have met one child with autism."  The Warners's twins behaviors and manifestations will not bring much encouragement to parents whose young children have been recently diagnosed.  But the grace and perseverance with which Curt and Ana have lived their lives as parents certainly gives inspiration.

I would suspect most children with autism are not quite as violent and destructive as the Warner boys were.  Among other things, they would continually kick holes in the walls.  One of them went on a stabbing attack on the sofa (He imagined it was a dragon from a Disney movie.).  Later he burnt down the house.  (He imagined that he was Pinocchio in the whale, and need to start a fire to escape.)  The boys required a high level of vigilance so that they would not hurt themselves or others.

The Warners are nothing if not honest.  What you get here is an honest look.  "This is what our kids did.  This is how we responded.  These are the medical, environmental, and dietary solutions we tried." The book is by no means prescriptive, but descriptive.  The "hope" in the subtitle is the fact that the boys are adults, living independently from Curt and Ana in a group home setting, and seem to have a good relationship with the rest of the family.

I enjoyed meeting the Warners via their book.  They have an important, supportive voice from which other parents of children with autism can learn and be encouraged.


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

Life is a Marathon, by Matt Fitzgerald

Matt Fitzgerald is that rare individual whose hobby is also his career.  He has built his living around writing about running and competing in triathlons.  For his latest book, Life is a Marathon: A Memoir of Love and Endurance, Fitzgerald puts together a cross-country marathon quest to run eight marathons in eight weeks. 

Interspersed among Fitzgerald's road stories and race reports, he writes about his life, particularly about his marriage.  Through the hardships of his marriage to a woman who struggled with bipolar disorder, he demonstrates this truism: "Because life truly is long and difficult, it demands endurance, fortitude, patience, resilience, and long-suffering.  The marathon develops all these fundamental human coping skills."

Fitzgerald's marathon times aren't quite elite, but he is definitely a front-of-tbe-packer.  However, the rest of middle- and back-of-the-packers can relate to his struggles in training and on race day.  He writes, "if you run marathons, you will fail.  The marathon is no respecter of persons.  It humbles everyone sooner or later--and I mean everyone."  Most of his races attest to this, and if have ever run a marathon you surely agree. 

So why do we do it?  Fitzgerald say he has "become a connoisseur, of sorts, of this unique brand of suffering.  The pain of endurance racing is to me now as wine is to the oenophile."  After a painful race, which he won in three hours flat, he said he "rose smiling, not about the medal but about my scorched esophagus and throbbing calves, welcome signs of a body well tested--an acquired taste, to be sure, but like many acquired tastes, superior to most easy gratifications."

As much inspiration as he provides in the world of running, his endurance as a husband is admirable as well.  His bipolar wife had several episodes of manic violence in which she literally attempted to kill him.  After brief hospitalizations, she would return home for another chance.  It's a miracle they're still together.

Fitzgerald said he wanted to find the magic of the marathon.  I agree with his conclusion, that "in the pain of a marathon we learn who we are, discovering within ourselves both the weaknesses and flaws that hold us back and the strengths and virtues that drive us forward, which are different in each of us."  I enjoyed reading about Fitzgerald's racing and training, and, like any good running book, he inspires me to get out and run and sign up for another marathon!


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

Adam, God's Beloved, by Henri J. M. Nouwen

Henri Nouwen, theologian, professor, and priest, is know for his deeply reflective writing.  He manages to inspire while relating to the intense struggles of loneliness and depression.  In his last book, Adam, God's Beloved, these themes come through, but the sense of celebration of life comes through even stronger.

When Nouwen moved to L'Arche, a community of people with intellectual disabilities, he was assigned to assist Adam Arnett.  For two hours each morning, he would help Adam dress, take care of his personal needs, help him to breakfast, and help him get to his day program.  He writes about his time with Adam, who became Nouwen's friend, teacher, and guide.

Adam "offered those he met a presence and a safe space to recognize and accept their own, often invisible disabilities.  He radiated peace from his center. . . . He was simply present, offering himself in peace and completely self-emptied. . . . Adam was a true teacher and a true healer."  He goes on to compare Adam to Jesus in his ministry and vulnerability.

To a certain degree, I understand and appreciate Nouwen's perspective.  I love the fact that he's calling all of us to look to disabled individuals for what they can offer us, and to take time to include even those with profound disabilities in our lives.  You can never emphasize enough that everyone, no matter the extent or nature of their disabilities, is made in the image of God and has a purpose to fulfill.  I have a disabled child who is nonverbal, yet can communicate more with a gesture or body language than many people can with a paragraph.  I also spent several years visiting regularly with a friend who lives with cerebral palsy and could not speak and had very little means of communication, but with whom I formed a bond.

The problem I had with Adam, God's Beloved, is that Nouwen said so little about why he felt this sense of ministry from Adam.  Adam is nonverbal and, in Nouwen's telling, could do very little in the way of response.  In fact, Nouwen's descriptions almost made me thing Adam was in a catatonic state.  "Adam often looked at me and followed him with his eyes, but he did not speak or respond to anything I asked him.  He seemed unaware of all that was happening around him and through him. . . . He seemed to be without concepts, plans, intentions, or aspirations."  Adam's "communication" with Nouwen seemed to consist of totally passive silence.

So was Nouwen looking to Adam as a teacher, counselor, mentor simply a result of Nouwen's  being forced to slow down and be quiet?  As I was reading, I was reminded a bit of Peter Sellers's character in Being There, who either remained silent or offered tidbits of gardening tips, while people around him thought he was a brilliant fount of wisdom.  On another level, I was reminded of people who say their pets are great listeners and provide a sense of calmness and unconditional love.  (Forgive me if that sounds crude, but that's just how I felt.)

I am all in with Nouwen on the dignity of the disabled, and allowing ourselves to learn from and be blessed by them, no matter what their disability is.  But to me, Adam, My Beloved simply didn't make that case.