5 Stars for Lost Moon

Summary: 

In April 1970, during the glory days of the Apollo space program, NASA sent Navy Captain Jim Lovell and two other astronauts on America's fifth mission to the moon. Only fifty-five hours into the flight of Apollo 13, disaster struck: a mysterious explosion rocked the ship, and soon its oxygen and power began draining away.

What begins as a smooth flight is transformed into a hair-raising voyage from the moment Lovell calls out, "Houston, we've got a problem." Minutes after the explosion, the astronauts are forced to abandon the main ship for the lunar module, a tiny craft designed to keep two men alive for just two days. But there are three men aboard, and they are four days from home. As the hours tick away, the narrative shifts from the crippled spacecraft to Mission Control, from engineers searching desperately for solutions to Lovell's wife and children praying for his safe return.

The entire nation watches as one crisis after another is met and overcome. By the time the ship splashes down in the Pacific, we understand why the heroic effort to rescue Lovell and his crew is considered by many to be NASA's finest hour.

Lost Moon is the true story of a thrilling adventure and an astonishing triumph over nearly impossible odds. It was a major Oscar(R)-nominated motion picture directed by Ron Howard and starred Tom Hanks and Kevin Bacon.

Review:

On the outside, Lost Moon by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger tells story about three astronauts that almost didn’t make it back from space, but inside this book is the deeper story of a nation bent on beating another, creating a paranoia and fear beneath the umbrella of Communism and The Cold War. Russia started this cold competition with Sputnik, leading to greater space flights before we could catch up.

Russia lost its lead on July 20^th, 1969 when our Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Even if folks don’t know many of the details, most people know what Neil Armstrong said when his feet touched the moon – “That’s one small step for man, and one giant leap for man-kind.” After, Russia lost a craft on the moon and gave up. We won. The days that followed were the glory days of the Apollo space program. And then, disaster struck with Apollo 13. Astronauts Lovell, Swigert, and Haise lost oxygen due to an unexplained explosion.  

The next line we remember as a nation about the NASA space flights are Jim Lovell’s words, “Houston, we have a problem.” Now, in as much as heroism followed Armstrong when he landed on the moon and captivated plethora amounts of fans; we should also follow Lovell, Swigert and Haise. As these men continued to lose power and oxygen; they remained calm brainstorming solutions with Houston back home until they landed in the ocean back on earth.

Lost Moon is loaded with engineering jargon, which I admit took my literary mind more than a second to grasp tiny fragments of the engineering genius it took to get home, meanwhile oxygen levels minimalized. The understandable knowledge that held my attention revolved around the central idea held by the three men – oxygen levels could support two, not three of them, if they couldn’t figure a way to power home soon. This kind of deadline kept you reading.

The other information exposing the dangers of space flight to these astronauts/heroes happened prior to their flight. Not long before Lovell jumped aboard Apollo 13; he lost his friend Ed White to a fire that started in the cockpit of a rocket during training. Before I read this book, I took our incredible space flights for granted. They fell in line with a whole other list of heroic activities due surfeit amounts of respect and awe, but with my little understanding of the complications, problems and pure brilliance that made history.

Other than awakening a further understanding of space flight, Lost Moon, did a more than adequate job on the characterization of Jim Lovell. This book made him come to life with small details painting him human. For example, when Lovell was a kid he stumbled into a corporate office asking for potassium nitrate, Sulphur, and charcoal, so that he and his seventeen-year-old friends could build a rocket. Just so happens though, unless these three ingredients are packed right they create gunpowder - not rocket fuel.

This told me two things about Lovell making me root for him: 1) Lovell loved flying from an early age, and followed that dream. 2) Because Lovell didn’t know about the gunpowder, he had a lot to learn, and so he did. He played a massive part in saving his friends, Swigert and Haise, flying home in Apollo 13.

Five Stars for Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.

Summary:

The armies of Good and Evil are amassing, the Four Bikers of the Apocalypse are revving up their mighty hogs and hitting the road, and the world's last two remaining witch-finders are getting ready to fight the good fight, armed with awkwardly antiquated instructions and stick pins.

Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except that a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon -- each of whom has lived among Earth's mortals for many millennia and has grown rather fond of the lifestyle -- are not particularly looking forward to the coming Rapture.

If Crowley and Aziraphale are going to stop it from happening, they've got to find and kill the Antichrist (which is a shame, as he's a really nice kid). There's just one glitch: someone seems to have misplaced him. . . .

Review:

Two indisputable reasons to read Good Omens: 1. Laughter 2. Supernatural.

Good Omens made me laugh out loud. This type of occurrence happened with one other book: Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Good Omens like Confederacy of Dunces screams absurd stupidity. Picking up either of them on my own to read – impossible, not happening and all that; however, Good Omens reminded me of the TV show Supernatural, and I’m a huge fan, so maybe not so improbable.

Other reasons to read Good Omens:

1.      “It’s not enough to know what the future is, you have to know what it means.” In Good Omens the future is written in the Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, but it doesn’t exactly give you dates, times and places of the exact incidences. I was raised Southern Baptist, and nothing is more annoying than what C.S. Lewis calls the watered down Christian. The Christian who takes the biblical word at, well – its word.

2.       Good Omens answers pertinent questions like “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”

3.       Campy catch phrases: “That’s how it goes, you think you’re on top of the world, and suddenly they spring Armageddon on you.”

4.       Because we are people …

“And weren't, when you got right down to it, particularly evil. Human beings mostly aren't. They just get carried away by new ideas, like dressing up in jackboots and shooting people, or dressing up in white sheets and lynching people, or dressing up in tie-dye jeans and playing guitar at people. Offer people a new creed with a costume and their hearts and minds will follow”

The fourth reason can be attested to by Rick Springfield when he played Lucifer on Supernatural. Those Springfield episodes bagged a lot of souls.

4 Stars for The Fireman by Joe Hill

Summary:

The fireman is coming. Stay cool.

No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.
Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin.

When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long enough to deliver the child.

Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as

The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.

In the desperate season to come, as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman’s secrets before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes up in smoke.

Review:

After reading, Joe Hill's NOS4A2 and Heart Shaped Box, The Fireman fell short to high standards. The concept kept high marks, original, thought-provoking, and tantalizingly morbid for an apocalyptic book. Hill definitely carries his father's (Stephen King's) DNA when it comes to creative ideas. Unoriginally, disease and sickness from the flu to zombies paint the dim setting for the apocalyptic novel, but a disease carrying spore that burns its victims alive is different.

Hill did a nice job with characterization. Harley, the protagonist of the story became the kind of heroine the normal average American wanted to see win. Harley reeked with flaws on top of a grand liberal heart that wanted to save not just her own life, but every one else's.

Hill did a fascinating job creating  mystery around the Fireman before letting the reader into his heart. Other characters included children like Nick and Allie who showed incredible strength in the midst of paranoia, and hatred for their kind.

This book fell short in pacing. It was too long, and would often spend pages in pointless dialogue that did little to move the plot forward. For example, in one scene where the Fireman and Harley began to get to know each other better, several pages of dialogue followed on whether or not Harley was a Beatles, or a Stones girl.

Now, why this conversation is interesting, it did spend a lot of time away from the plot. I found myself skinning large sections in order to find out what happens next. This particular scene did enhance the characterization, but it fell towards the end of the book where the reader should have been already attached to the characters. The scene felt like it was more for the writer than the reader.

Would I recommend The Fireman by Joe Hill? Absolutely, if you don't mind skimming a bit to read interesting characters in a world bleeding with the fresh and profound.

Interview with Cindy Borgne, author of Native Shifter

Summary:

Native Shifter is a paranormal romance set in the mid 1770’s. It’s the first book in the Freedom Shifters Trilogy.

Leotie values her freedom and peaceful life with her tribe more than anything. However, the outlanders want more and more of their land. They are given the ultimatum to leave their home or die. Soon the Mahasi are going to war with an unpredictable enemy. Leotie wasn’t born to stay home and string beads. She’s a hunter and a warrior who gets a chance to defend her people, but what she doesn’t know is that a powerful shifter is watching her. He’s about to turn her world upside down.
Keme is a native young man who believes he’s a coward. He’s nothing like his father the Great War Chief. Everyone knows him as the one who ran from battle. Secretly, he trains to be a healer. He tries to warn his people that going to war with the outlanders will end in many deaths, but only a few will listen. He wants to make Leotie his life-bond, but with his reputation how can he ask her?

1. What inspired you to write Native Shifter?

Most of the time my inspiration for novels comes from a combination of ideas. Native Shifter evolved from a novelette I wrote called “TransShifter.” However, that was about an alien shifter, while Native Shifter is about werewolf shifters. I had also wanted to write a story about Native Americans. So, the two ideas combined to became “Native Shifter.”

2. Tell us a little about your main character, Leotie.

Leotie is a Native American tomboy. She doesn’t like domestic duties, and would rather be hunting. Leotie insists she should be a warrior in their next battle. She doesn’t want anything in her world to change, but unfortunately there are many forces that will make that impossible for her.

Keme (Leotie’s love interest) is also a main character. He once ran away from a battle when he was twelve and has considered himself a coward ever since. His father wants him to be a warrior, but he wants to be a healer.

3. What was unique about the setting of the book, and how did it enhance or take away from the story?

The story takes place in the mid-1770s, and most of the setting is either in the woods or at a Native American camp site. Since so many shifter books take place in modern times, it makes me wonder if readers will give it a chance. However, I think the setting enhances the story because it lets the reader visit a different world.

4. What research did you have to perform to back up your story?

There was a lot of research involving Native Americans and that time period. To help with description, I collected a lot of pictures on Pinterest. https://www.pinterest.com/cindersann0341/native-shifter/

5. Why did you choose to write Native Shifter in third person point-of-view?

I have written two novels in first person, but this time I wanted to have the view point from both Leotie and Keme. Also, I wanted to have the viewpoint of the antagonist, Markus, for the purpose of adding suspense. Hopefully it worked. 

6. Which is your favorite scene from your book?

The very last scene, which I can’t tell you about or that would be a spoiler. However, there is a scene where Leotie struggles to act like a human, even though she’s stuck in wolf form. She believes that if she rejects wolf traits, it will help find a way to be human again. It comes across as some comic relief. I always smile when I read it.

7. What do you have planned for Leotie in book 2 “Rebel Shifter?”

I’m hoping to publish Rebel Shifter about 1 or 2 months after the release of Native Shifter. Leotie starts out in the first book as a person who only knows a life with her tribe. Throughout the series, she’s pushed to go places and do things she never thought she would do.

Interview with Cindy Borgne, author of Native Shifter

Summary:

Native Shifter is a paranormal romance set in the mid 1770’s. It’s the first book in the Freedom Shifters Trilogy. 

Leotie values her freedom and peaceful life with her tribe more than anything. However, the outlanders want more and more of their land. They are given the ultimatum to leave their home or die. Soon the Mahasi are going to war with an unpredictable enemy. Leotie wasn’t born to stay home and string beads. She’s a hunter and a warrior who gets a chance to defend her people, but what she doesn’t know is that a powerful shifter is watching her. He’s about to turn her world upside down.

Keme is a native young man who believes he’s a coward. He’s nothing like his father the Great War Chief. Everyone knows him as the one who ran from battle. Secretly, he trains to be a healer. He tries to warn his people that going to war with the outlanders will end in many deaths, but only a few will listen. He wants to make Leotie his life-bond, but with his reputation how can he ask her?

1. What inspired you to write Native Shifter?

Most of the time my inspiration for novels comes from a combination of ideas. Native Shifter evolved from a novelette I wrote called “TransShifter.” However, that was about an alien shifter, while Native Shifter is about werewolf shifters. I had also wanted to write a story about Native Americans. So, the two ideas combined to became “Native Shifter.”

3. Tell us a little about your main character, Leotie.

Leotie is a Native American tomboy. She doesn’t like domestic duties, and would rather be hunting. Leotie insists she should be a warrior in their next battle. She doesn’t want anything in her world to change, but unfortunately there are many forces that will make that impossible for her.

Keme (Leotie’s love interest) is also a main character. He once ran away from a battle when he was twelve and has considered himself a coward ever since. His father wants him to be a warrior, but he wants to be a healer.  

4. What was unique about the setting of the book, and how did it enhance or take away from the story?

The story takes place in the mid-1770s, and most of the setting is either in the woods or at a Native American camp site. Since so many shifter books take place in modern times, it makes me wonder if readers will give it a chance. However, I think the setting enhances the story because it lets the reader visit a different world.

5. What research did you have to perform to back up your story?

There was a lot of research involving Native Americans and that time period. To help with description, I collected a lot of pictures on Pinterest. https://www.pinterest.com/cindersann0341/native-shifter/

6. Why did you choose to write Native Shifter in third person point-of-view?

I have written two novels in first person, but this time I wanted to have the view point from both Leotie and Keme. Also, I wanted to have the viewpoint of the antagonist, Markus, for the purpose of adding suspense. Hopefully it worked. 

 
7. Which is your favorite scene from your book?

The very last scene, which I can’t tell you about or that would be a spoiler. However, there is a scene where Leotie struggles to act like a human, even though she’s stuck in wolf form. She believes that if she rejects wolf traits, it will help find a way to be human again. It comes across as some comic relief. I always smile when I read it.

8. What do you have planned for Leotie in book 2 “Rebel Shifter?”

I’m hoping to publish Rebel Shifter about 1 or 2 months after the release of Native Shifter. Leotie starts out in the first book as a person who only knows a life with her tribe. Throughout the series, she’s pushed to go places and do things she never thought she would do.

5 Stars for Native Shifter by Cindy Borgne

Native Shifter by Cindy Borgne

Native Shifter is Cindy Borgne’s best novel. I enjoyed her Vallar series, and her shorter novelette TransShifter, but Native Shifter brought it all together for me. Not only does Native Shifter have a great protagonist with complete three-dimensional characterization worth rooting for; it has a concise plot structure building to a climatic ending with small fiery details in-between.

The protagonist in the story, Leotie is a warrior at heart, who wants to do anything but string beads for her tribe. She is in love with a boy named Keme, her life-bond and someone who understands her dilemma, because he wants to be anything but what life has offered him. He wants to be a healer not a warrior.

Together they are perfectly matched; however, due to an increased war between the Natives and the white man they are pulled apart, and their dreams are seemingly shattered. As the plot progresses, and Borgne throws us obstacle after obstacle, death being the largest one; it seems these two are not going to be together.

Packed with interesting alternatives that lead to a twisted ending for them both, this story will keep you guessing right up until the last page. Despite continuous spell-binding plot, the pacing of this book moved like a roller coaster of small hills and a big climatic mountain at the end. The pacing would slow in the places it needed, allowing the reader to absorb the disappointments in the same way Leotie would respond to them.

You felt her sadness in a grand way and you experienced her strength with the difficult choices she had to make. She ended up being a warrior, not just because she could fight the battles outside of herself, but because she could also fight the ones inside of herself. Her inner conflicts and wins over them made her a stronger person in the end. I read Native Shifter in four days, and cannot wait to read the next book to see where Leotie’s journey will take her. Cindy Borgne’s book Native Shifter is a must read for those of us who like great characters, and a plot that keeps you guessing.

5 Stars for My Losing Season by Pat Conroy

Summary:

Pat Conroy, one of America’s premier novelists, has penned a deeply affecting coming-of-age memoir about family, love, loss, basketball—and life itself. During one unforgettable season as a Citadel cadet, Conroy becomes part of a basketball team that is ultimately destined to fail. And yet for a military kid who grew up on the move, the Bulldogs provide a sanctuary from the cold, abrasive father who dominates his life—and a crucible for becoming his own man.

With all the drama and incandescence of his bestselling fiction, Conroy re-creates his pivotal senior year as captain of the Citadel Bulldogs. He chronicles the highs and lows of that fateful 1966–67 season, his tough disciplinarian coach, the joys of winning, and the hard-won lessons of losing. Most of all, he recounts how a group of boys came together as a team, playing a sport that would become a metaphor for a man whose spirit could never be defeated.

Review: 

“I was never a good player, but the sport allowed me glimpses into the kind of man I was capable of becoming.”

Pat Conroy My Losing Season: Prologue

Conroy is speaking of the game of basketball, a sport I never found all that interesting; however, this line hooked me into reading an entire book largely to do with basketball. I wanted to know what man Conroy became especially after finding out his father verbally and physically abused him daily making him feel like he was never more than a loser. Then Conroy attended the Citadel, a military school notoriously known for its man-breaking plebe drills, and last there was Conroy’s basketball coach at the Citadel, a guy named Mel Thompson, a guy who bled his team through intimidation and fear.

Despite the weight of negativity pushing Conroy under, he found his voice, his inner team spirit. Below is a passage after the Citadel played Greensboro N.C. Conroy speaks first, then Rat, another team player for the Citadel.

“Why did Mel excuse me from his ass-kicking?” I asked.

“Because you were terrific,” Rat whispered. “You scored twenty-five points. You made nine out of thirteen shots. Hit all seven of your free throws. You were good.”

This personal win fell short for Conroy because the team lost and as team captain he felt ultimately responsible. But later, he says he wouldn’t change anything about that game that year.

“My team taught me there could be courage and dignity and humanity in loss. They taught me how to pull myself up, and hold my head high and to soldier on.”

And Conroy did soldier on becoming one of the finest writers I’ve ever read. My Losing Season is a memoir that doesn’t drown itself with exposition, instead it breaks its storytelling into excellent dialogue coupled with passages of telling. Conroy doesn’t just tell his story; he shows it bringing the reader right into his own heart.

Again, I never cared much for basketball, but after reading Conroy’s story, and playing the game through his eyes, his heart, I learned the importance of a good point-guard, an award winning pass and dribble, and how all of those things parallel to the basic universal needs to be loved and recognized. It made me reflect on myself, pull on my inner strengths, and persevere become more aware. Isn’t this what good story telling and writing combined accomplish?

Conroy’s losing season was about losing, but was equally about perseverance and strong wins. Conroy became hugely successful publishing several more books, three of which made movie deals. He died this past March, but his books and words live on in places like Hollywood, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and in the hearts of those who listen.