Occasionally a book comes along that captures and holds my interest until it's finished. Whether it is story or plot or writing skill, I'm pulled in and all other activities I'm doing fade away because I'm hooked into the book.
Booth (Random House, ISBN 978-0-593-55649-8) is Karen Joy Fowler's 2022 release, and her second novel. (Her first novel is We are All Completely Besides Ourselves). The well-written story is a meticulous glimpse into the past before Abraham Lincoln was killed in cold blood by John Wilkes Booth.
When a monster solar coronal mass ejection (CME) strikes the Earth it destroys all of the power grids in the world, leaving our Earth in the literal dark as the electricity disappears worldwide. This is what occurs in David Koepp's second book titled Aurora (ISBN 978-0-06-291647-1). Koepp is the screenwriter of many popular movies, including the first two Jurassic Park releases, Mission: Impossible, and War of the Worlds, plus many more, some of which he also directed.
Welcome to the new Old West and a colorful cowboy and sometime deputy.
Life in Toussaint, Montana is all but disappeared. The Me'tis Indian people cling to their old ways while outsiders move into the area by the Wolf Mountains and bring their own problems to the town of five hundred survivors in this modern world.
By Craig Hoffman
Blogger at Grey, Grizzled and Gaijin
Editor's note: The new Ada Icon editor is just getting to know Craig Hoffman and perhaps some of our readers are, too. Craig graduated from Ada High School in 1994 and has been on the pages of the Icons since 2014. He lives in and blogs from Japan. In this installment, Craig has some advice for aspiring novelists.
We had a couple of days off from our regular gig in the salt mines, so we thought we would address a recent Grey, Grizzled, and Gaijin mailbag question that came in to us.
I reviewed this book once before, but felt the need to look again at this very complex novel. Some readers will not like it for its complexity and length. All I can say is that it’s worth the investment of time and thought it takes. I hope you give it a chance and become a fan of Doerr’s twists and turns.
Photograph of Captain Richard Louis Basinger courtesy of The Virtual Wall.
By Bill Herr, Icon columnist
Courage is defined in Webster's Dictionary as mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. The most courageous person I ever knew was my friend, Dick Basinger. His father was my Vocational Agriculture teacher at Bluffton High School, Mr. Lorain Basinger.
