What I’m Reading - December 06

As the year comes closer to an end, I’m wrapping up my latest fiction read which is by Harry Harrison… or at least it says it is. It’s called "The Hammer and the Cross" and it’s a fictional alternate history of the Vikings and the Christians through the eyes of Shef. This character starts out very low in the pecking order and, I’m assuming through the course of the trilogy of books, he eventually becomes the ruler of some place or another.

I say the book is supposedly by Harry Harrison (Stainless Steel Rat, Deathworld, To The Stars) because the writing style doesn’t really seem like him at all. And indeed, upon further investigation of the book’s copyright, credit for the writing of the novel seems to be shared between Harrison and someone named John Holm. I find it odd that Holm doesn’t share credit on the cover. The fact that the book doesn’t read much like Harrison makes me wonder if Holm wrote the bulk of it with merely input from Harrison. If so, Holm got screwed.

All said though, it’s a decent book. Epic storytelling (each of the three books are somewhere in the 500 page range). I’m most-the-way through the first one and intend to, of course, read the remainder of the series. Although it’s pretty good, I don’t think I’d characterize it as my favorite series so far… and some of Harrison’s stuff I do rank as such. So we’ll see how it goes.

I am also looking forward to getting a few books for Christmas. My guilty pleasure of reading the Star Wars novels continues. I’ve been a little behind of late, but Christmas oughta catch me all the way up on Clone Wars, Old Republic and the new Legacy of the Force series. I’m also gonna get the new Walt Disney biography by Neal Gabler. I can’t wait to dive into that one.

A friend of mine also sent me a book by Don Piper, "90 Minutes In Heaven: A True Story of Death and Life," about his experience dying for 90 minutes and returning to earth. Sounds intriguing.

So much to read. So little time.