Book Review: Uncommon Type

Uncommon Type, by Tom Hanks

Yes, that Tom Hanks --  the actor and all-around nice guy.

I once heard Hanks on a radio show, and I was surprised at just how funny he was. When I mentioned this to people, I was told, "Well, yeah. Who didn't know that?"

So let me be among the earliest to say, Tom Hanks can write.

But it seems everyone knows that, too. After all, he's written several screenplays, including, That Thing You Do! This, however, is his first collection of short stories, and it's a doozy.

It's funny, moving, and surprising. Its writing is sparse and simple; its stories short and easy, and its theme intriguing. All the tales, somehow, encompass the idea of typewriting or typewriters, in all their uncluttered yet intricate glory. Why? Who knows?

"Typewriters must be used," says one character. "Like a boat must sail. An airplane has to fly. What good is a piano you never play? It gathers dust and there is no music in your life."

And here is the music Hanks brought into my life in this collection: A story of two friends falling in and out of love. A bizarre yet entirely believable tale of four friends blasting off to the moon and back in a homemade spaceship. Several newspaper articles from a grumpy old small-town columnist. A timely narrative about an immigrant coming to America.

All good. All well told.

Book Review: Artemis

Artemis, by Andy Weir

I really wanted to like this book -- it's written by the same guy who wrote The Martian, a brilliant novel of science and space. But this time, the setting is in the first colony on the moon, where people live in bubbles built into the dirt near the Apollo landing.

The name of the colony is Artemis -- goddess of the moon and sister to Apollo -- so it fits right into the mythology.

Weir's second novel has some of the same attributes as his first. It's well written; the science is explained well and correctly, without being overbearing, and it has several strong and diverse characters, including the lead -- a woman of color who is young, resilient, and stunningly real. Weir sets up a recognizable, yet unique, lunar culture, society, and economy.

But the book has problems. And those result from the story, which mutates from a wondrous start into a average, normal, and typical (three words meaning the same thing) tale of crime and adventure. Sure, it's enough to keep you reading, but if the novel wasn't set on the moon, it would be a lot less compelling.

Weir introduces us to Jazz, a young woman from Saudi Arabia who grew up mostly on the moon, and considers it her home. She enjoys the freedom she has, but dreams of becoming wealthy in the free-for-all that is the lunar economy. When we meet her, however, she is a poor, petty criminal with lots of intelligence and flaws. Her desire to move ahead often is thwarted by her penchant to break the rules and flout authority.

She soon meets up a customer from her smuggling business -- like Red in  Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, she's the one who can get you anything -- who is one of the wealthiest men on the moon. He has a proposition for her that could help her achieve her dreams. Of course, it's illegal -- that is, if Artemis had an enforceable legal code.

It's here where the book gets more into its action-adventure mode. But the moon is the star, and the story, while tedious in parts, remains readable.

Review: The Obama Inheritance

The Obama Inheritance, by Gary Phillips


When I started looking for this book, which takes a light-hearted, fictional look at the conspiracy theories surrounding President Obama, I began to think that maybe, just maybe, it was another crazy dream.

I had heard a review on NPR, praising the book. But then, that's a well-known liberal station that deals in what our current president calls fake news. Still, it sounded good, so I plugged it into my books-to-buy app. But mysteriously, the app could not find the book. And when I visited my local Barnes & Noble, it was not in stock. Moreover, the clerk told me the B&N website had it as "unavailable."

Hmmm.

Three other local bookstores -- one chain, two independents -- also didn't have it. No one at any of those stores had heard of it.

Double hmmm.

So, I finally traveled 800 miles from home, on my Thanksgiving trip to New York. And there, in the Oblong Books and Music store in Millerton, N.Y., I found it. I had to ask, but the clerk knew it and took me directly to it. It exists!

Seriously. It exists.

By the way, have I mentioned how much I love this bookstore? If you're ever in upstate New York, plan a visit.

Anyway. Here's the review.

This book is good, if uneven. But that's to be expected with a short story collection written by different writers. Some you will love. Some are just OK. Others you will deem unreadable, and move on. That's what I did.

But here are three I really liked:

One portrays Michelle Obama as the leader of a group of women officials who have second lives as a group of vigilantes, attacking pharmaceutical executives who blatantly raise prices on live-saving drugs. Obama's Book Club persuades the men to reverse position.

The second is a Star Trek takeoff, with Bah'rack playing the role of the logical Vulcan, and Dr. Joe Biden as the ship's high-strung doctor. Sometime in the future, the ship's captain notices an incursion in the space-time continuum, and concludes that Klingons have travelled back in time to the mid-20th Century. So the Vulcan and the doctor are sent to earth to fix the problem. Biden has to drop the doctor, since his knowledge is too advanced for this world. Bah'rack -- whom you will note is neither American nor even Earthling -- takes the Anglican version of his name. And the rest is history. OK, alternative history.

The third story is about the Second Amendment supporters who attack a hospital seeking the identity and location of the Obama Death Panels. Good characters and finely written.

Review: Wild Ducks Flying Backwards

Wild Ducks Flying Backwards, by Tom Robbins

This book really is front-loaded.

Unlike Robbins' previous works, it's not a curiously eccentric full-length novel. Rather, it's odd collection of journalism and fiction -- travel articles, profiles, short stories, poems, and meanderings on life and politics.

The best stories are the ones in the beginning, the articles in which he describes exploring places as diverse as Nevada and East Africa. Robbins captures the spirit of the places, taking them as they are, and explaining them as only a great writer can, willing to let the story go to wherever the adventure takes him. He does so in articles that are witty and daft, and, like many of his novels, confusing until you find yourself in the world he is exploring.

The profiles are OK, except here Robbins seems to start dropping his opinions in as if they are fact. But later on, they increasingly seem mired in sexism and thoughtlessness, surrounded by a libertarian philosophy that exhibits all the selfish flaws inherent in that viewpoint.

Still, it's a book I'd recommend for the wonderful writing Robbins is known for. And for showing us how to write a decent travel article.

Just skip over the bad parts.

Book Review: Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs

Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe, by Lisa Randall

If I have this right, this is what this book proposes:

Dark matter, which we know is out there but cannot see, includes some particles that interact, however weakly, with each other. They also might interact with particles included in regular matter. (These particles are called weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs. And you think scientists don't have a sense of humor.)

Assuming these dark matter particles interact with regular matter particles, the interactions are really, really small. So small they cannot be measured except on a galactic scale, and even then, only with precise equipment studied by people who know what they are looking for and what they are doing.

Further assuming these particles interact, they could possibly form a small, flat, dark matter disk in the center of the Milky Way. This disk, which remains theoretical, could then interact, however weakly, with our solar system as it revolves through and around the Milky Way. Over a period of years -- again we are talking large scale, so it's over millions of years -- the dark matter disk causes a wobble in the Oort Cloud, which circles around the outer edge of our solar system. That wobble may knock material out of its orbit, pushing it into the sun's gravitational pull, where it heads toward the earth.

Theoretically, this should happen every 30 million to 35 million years or so -- let's put it approximately at every 33 million years. It could be happening now.

Which means that sometime around, say, 66 million years ago, that dark-matter-caused wobble sent some Oort Cloud matter hurtling toward the sun, and such matter struck earth, causing the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, which snuffed out the life of 75 percent of the earth's plants and animals, including -- you guessed it -- the dinosaurs.

Or, to put it in haiku form:

WIMPs in dark matter

Thin disk in Milky Way, then:
Dino extinction

See how all this is connected? At least, it is in theory. And this is what Dr. Randall explains in her well-written and intriguing book. And she explains the science far, far better than I do.

If this kind of stuff interests you, and you want to know more, go out and buy the book.