Reviews and Comments

The American Zone was a good way to end out the North American Confederate series. Nearly as good as the first. It really can stand on its own. Certainly no reason to read the rest of the series, particularly the barely even relavant books 3-8. That being said it is certainly a product of its time> Being written at the tale end of 2001 there is a more than mild obsession with terrorism and the possibility that the terrorist aren't who they seem but actually folks who want to create a laviethan state. I susepct that L. Neil Smith is, or at least was at the time, a so-called 9/11 truther. Regardless the story is entriguing. our hero Win-Bear is saved by his healer wife far more times than should be justified for any red-blood American. And even the open minded confederates start blaming the terror plots on immigrants, like those from the USA and other altenrate realities, after all they didn't have these issues before there was an "American Zone." A few thigs do seem a bit far fetched, like that one of our new comers finds a market for troll dolls because they never came to this reality, but somehow no one has thought to bring all the gold from all the other realities to debase their precious metal currency? Oh and of course there is Smith's regular obsessoin where we get more descriptions of a character's firearms than we do of the characters' character.

The Pipe and Christ is a hard book to rate. It was very slow going at the begining, much like the pastors and mediciene meetings on the Pine Ridge reservation upon which the book is based. The medice men talk in circles. They aren't trying to be difficult. From their perspective there is no direct path to God.

I was raised in a evangelical family in whcih anythign that wasn't expeclictly evangelcial Christian was wholly demonic. Some of the Jesuits who went into the discussion with the medicen men feared this may be similar. But throughout we learned so much about how the two practices, the author calls them religions but I wouldn't use that word, are not only not incompatible but in fact the Lakota teachings could shed light toward the truth Christ taught and the love he's had for his people throughout generations.

Prior to reading this I had heard of the "sun dance" mostly through the work of Russel Means and the books he and others wrote related to the second wounded knee in the US 1970s. This book actually described the event in a way I could understand. With the [uaually young adult] Sioux man hanging himself on a tree, fasting and praying until eventually his own weight was enough for the tree to rip his skin from staying there any longer. In a way far too similar to the crcifixtion than any white man really wants to see.

While I felt like I learned more respect to native tradiotions, while my wife's family isn't Sioux they are of another tribe that hasn't been as lucky to have anyone still practicing the old ways, and I learned more about my own faith learnign the author of this work had a pretty shady past himself leaves an emptiness in the stomach such that I can't muster more than 3 stars at this time.

This book was the novelization of the original V miniseries, and its sequel miniseries "The Final battle." The 80s series I devoured on Netflix like a decade ago and recently did the same with the 21st century reboot on Tubi. When I wanted to read the novels I had planned on skipping the novelzation and going into the 1985 sequel as I already knew this story, but eventually went ahead anyway. I'm glad I did. So much of the story was unfamiliar to me that I needed to stay up way too late to find what happens next. I don't think I've ever finished 400 pages in less than a week before. I'm not sure if there were many changes from the TV Mini-series, or if it had just been that long that I'd forgotten. The most memorable scenes were still there, but the love for each other while fighting interstellar fascism is felt more deeply than I had expected. 5 stars highly recommend. Don't need to watch the show to appreciate but will be worth it either before or after.

Ready Player One is one of the greatest books I ever read. As such the sequel is likely disappoint. Cline's writing is still spell-binding and leads one wanting to turn the page. The sequel claims to start only a few days after the end of the previous, but so much of the world has changed, like Artimus now hating Z.

Cline tries to get the magic of Haladay's contest again in the quest for the siren's soul. But while Holiday's contest took years to complete, Anarch gives our protagonist only hours to get it done. The number of times that the characters feel free to joke and guess the outcome of an invent doesn't seem believable at a time they also are fighting for the survival of much of the human race with less than 12 hours to complete it.

That being said the story is still very good, and the "continue" section (e.g. epiloge) gives a great hop for the atheist as to a chance for eternal life. I try not to get my self-righteous Christian hat on.

Regardless I highly recommend this, but only after you've read the first, and feel free to skip the movie.