Reader’s Diary

James P. Hogan

In this, the biggest fictional disaster since Kal-El left Krypton, Earth is menaced by a Velikovskian threat: a planetoid born from Jupiter. As members of a utopian Saturnian colony try to warn the nations of Earth, time runs out. Deadly meteor showers, flaming skies, and cataclysmic tides kill millions. The bulk of the novel is the story of an engineer’s epic journey across a devastated United States to a private space launch facility that might be his group’s only hope for survival. “Cradle of Saturn” is a great read that’s hard to put down.

(I hadn’t read any of Hogan’s stuff in years, but an interesting interview with him at IT Conversations prompted me to pick this up. I’m glad I did.)

Peter Alson

This is an account of the author’s experiences in the 2005 World Series of Poker. It’s moderately interesting, even for a cards-challenged person like myself. I could have done without his ruminations on his impending marriage, but the stories about his poker friends and enemies are entertaining.

Steve Berry

Spurred on, perhaps, by the success of “The Da Vinci Code”, once-promising author Steve Berry ramps up his anti-Catholicism with this competently written but ultimately dumb book. In the novel, a bunch of characters chase after the lost treasure of the Knights Templar. Naturally, we soon discover that the Knights have survived in secret and are themselves seeking the treasure, which goes by the never-explained name of “The Great Devise”. After a lot of increasingly-tedious wandering about in the south of France all the characters end up in a cave in the Pyrenees which contains Christ’s bones and a gospel by Simon Peter that explains how none of that miraculous stuff ever really happened, but that his buddy “the man Jesus” was a really nice guy who taught that God forgives pretty much everything.

By the way, the quote attributed to the Medici pope Leo X, which Berry uses as a parting shot at the Church in his “writer’s note” is, in fact, a line from an anti-Catholic satirical play by Englishman John Bale.

Tom Lutz

This book is more academic than the title would indicate, but it’s still an entertaining and though-provoking look at slackers throughout history form “The Idler” of 1758 to the Beats, to Chaplain’s “Little Tramp” to the first slacker president. The slacker is, in Lutz’ analysis, a product of the industrial revolution, a clown-like figure who functions as a fantasy, warning, and comment on our relationship to work.