Opening Heaven’s Door: What the Dying May be Trying to Tell Us About Where They’re Going by Patricia Pearson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked up this book (well, it was an ebook, so the picking up was virtual) for three reasons:

1. It was on sale. Cheap is always a price I like.
2. I’ve loved these sorts of nutty topics (out of body experiences, telepathy, Bigfoot, ghosts, Bigfoot ghosts with telepathy, etc.) since I was a kid.
3. It seemed like good background material for a novel I’m writing that coincidentally embraces the subject of death and near-death experiences.

Journalist Patricia Pearson draws from a range of studies and personal accounts stretching back decades to dig into the near death experience (NDE) and other related phenomenon. The deaths of her sister and father serve as a framing device for the book and Pearson is up front about how their deaths and oddities around the deaths helped develop her interest in and shape her point of view on the subject.

Despite the title of the book, Pearson paints NDEs as more of a spiritual awakening rather than a religious experience. Indeed, more people have apparently turned away from religion after having an NDE while at the same time becoming more spiritual. Throughout the various studies and research Pearson shows how little science has been able to quantify what happens when someone comes close to dying and recovers or just plain dies. In the main the affected individuals seem to traverse into another realm or reality, out of their bodies, often meeting other people they know who are already dead, and for the most part the experiences are positive, even joyful. As you may suspect, conducting experiments around people who have just escaped death is a bit tricky, as scientists, smart and diligent as they may be, cannot hang around intersections indefinitely waiting for near-fatal traffic accidents to occur. Well, they could, but probably not with funding from a university.

My biggest issue with the book is its relative shapelessness. Pearson writes well and has put in a lot of research on the subject (the bibliography and notes are extensive), the tone remains respectful and she never makes declarative statements one way or the other (“The Buddhists are right, if you screw up in your post-life you come back as a dung beetle!”), but the book has no sense of progression. She documents the subject and then the book ends. Maybe I’m trying too hard to impose a narrative structure on something that doesn’t necessarily need one.

In any case, if you have any interest in the subject matter–and yes, most NDEs center around being surrounded by glowing light, a tremendous sense of love and no fear of death–this is a sober and serious look at it.

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The Forge of God by Greg Bear

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’d probably give this book 3.5 stars but Goodreads (where this review originates) doesn’t allow half stars, so I’m giving it four, since I lean more toward that than three.

This 1987 novel is dated politically (set in 1996 but not foreseeing the collapse of the Soviet Union) and technologically (it predates the Internet so a lot of data in the story is gathered and stored on fancy optical disks) but otherwise feels fairly fresh nearly thirty years later.

The plot is a downer–mysterious aliens arrive to destroy Earth–and the resolution, such as it is, is a bit abrupt because the story continues in the 1993 follow-up, Anvil of Stars. But The Forge of God is more about the journey than the destination, as Bear unfolds what begins as a galactic mystery and ends with humanity reduced to a murmur in the great vastness of space.

The story almost feels like two different tales stitched together. There’s the initial mystery and scientific investigation–a moon of Jupiter disappears and months later strange artificial rock formations appear in Death Valley and other spots around the world. The leading characters are geologists and there is much speculation before an alien appears out of one of the formations with a dire warning that Earth is doomed, destined to be torn apart by a fun bunch described as “planet eaters.” The latter part of the story chronicles the months leading up to what appears to be the end of the world as we know it (and no one feels fine), with a plan by the mysterious but apparently beneficent warning aliens to cobble together the remnants of the world in order to create some aspect of it elsewhere.

These two halves also stand apart with distinct tones. The first half is filled with politics, scientific theorizing, investigation and generally lots of “big picture” stuff, while the second half zooms in on some of the characters and becomes more personal, following them as they grapple with a seemingly sealed fate. Bear does a good job transitioning from the big picture to a more intimate one, capturing the despair–and faint hope–as the last days of the story (and possibly the planet) play out.

If you like a good doomsday scenario supported by credible science, a chilling answer to the Fermi paradox, and have always wanted geologists to be the leads in a novel, The Forge of God comes recommended. My only regret is I didn’t research ahead of time to find out it was part of (an admittedly very short) series, so I know feel obligated to read the sequel, to find out how it all turns out (until the inevitable sequel after that one).

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How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them–A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide by Howard Mittelmark

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Why would you read a book about how not to do something?” he asked quizzically, his eyebrows knitting together like two large black caterpillars intent on copulation.

“I don’t trust myself. I never have!” I sobbed sadly. “If I don’t have someone telling me what not to write, surely I will write it!”

“You sound just like my Uncle Norman the unpublished novelist!” he said ruefully.

“I’m drawn to cliches but try to avoid them like the plague,” I explained earnestly. “I’ve told myself a million times to never use hyperbole when creating characters but I never learn. But this book–How Not to Write a Novel–has been like manna from Heaven when it comes to what not to write.”

“Tell me more!” he exhorted.

I began counting on my fingers in order to visually illustrate my points. It was a technique I learned in college and have used throughout the long, lonely years since then, often counting out the days of relentless rain, when everything is as gray as the embers that once sparked inside me, beaten down into dust by the burden of living in a heartless and unfeeling world. I took a sip of my Pepsi Cola that I purchased in a six pack at WalMart, then continued. “The book shows you how to write unbelievable characters, how to change tense in whimsical, nay, unpredictable ways, how to insult your reader with strident or weird positions you hold that are expressed by the people populating your story, and how to write unconvincingly about things you love to talk about but have little to no knowledge of. It wraps up with examples of the worst query letters and pitches you could possibly compose, anything likely to turn away an editor or agent forever.”

“Wow!” he blurted.

“So I just do the opposite of everything and walla–yes, walla!–I’ve written a surefire bestseller!” I smiled broadly, my grin an irrepressible rictus.

“Wow!” he shouted again, spittle flying from his mouth like a jet taking off from an aircraft carrier. “This book sounds great. How would you rate it?”

“Hmm,” I puzzled. “On a scale of one to ten failed writers living on dirt and gum, I rate it a solid eight failed writers.”

His face suddenly caved in, like a cave where the top part collapses onto the floor. “Eight out of ten? So there is room for improvement?”

“There’s always room for improvement,” I said sagely. “Now I must get back to my epic tale, All the Shades of Grey The Light Cannot See Games.”

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UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record by Leslie Kean

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s probably accurate to say that most people think of UFOs–Unidentified Flying Objects–as being craft controlled by extraterrestrials. This is to say that few people think of UFOs as being quite literally what the acronym stands for, objects in the air that are unidentified. Since the modern UFO era began in the 1940s the subject has, especially in the U.S., been treated as one not worthy of serious study or investigation. Project Blue Book, the Air Force group tasked with checking out UFO reports, was closed down in 1969 with a summary that essentially said “UFOs lol!!”

UFOs (the book) argues the case for returning to the serious study of UFOs, advocating the U.S. government take a leadership role as the world’s leading technological power. With the current congress stuffed full of climate change deniers, it seems a less likely prospect than when the book was published in 2010, but stranger things have happened. Many are documented in this book.

The book’s chapters switch between the author’s advocacy for serious investigation, with ideas on how such investigation could be organized in the U.S., to first person accounts of UFO sightings from credible witnesses ranging from commercial and military pilots to generals and even a state governor. Throughout, none of the witnesses nor Leslie Kean, the author, assert that UFOs must be alien-controlled craft. Instead, she describes herself as a militant agnostic, refusing to commit to what UFOs are because we simply don’t know yet. She doesn’t deny that extraterrestrial craft may be the likeliest explanation.

On the question of the validity of UFOs as a phenomena, she is much more certain. There are hundreds of well-documented sightings (often by multiple credible witnesses) with physical evidence, radar tracking and photographs that stand up under the scrutiny of modern image analysis. In light of all the evidence, Kean argues that the question isn’t if “UFOs are real” but rather, what are they? She repeatedly comes back to a primary reason for investigating and that is the unknown nature of the UFOs, coupled with their physics-defying properties (ignoring gravity, being able to move instantly and silently at great speed and so on) and the tendency for so many to appear near sensitive sites like military bases and nuclear power plants makes them potential threats.

I wonder how many skeptics will read this book and come away buying into Kean’s arguments. Her case is well-researched, detailed and presented without sensation, but as she admits, the taboos surrounding the subject are strong and have become ingrained over the last half century, especially in government circles, where admitting to the reality of UFOs–whatever they may be–is tantamount to acknowledging that with our current technology, there is little to nothing we can do to control or if need be, defend against them.

If you have any interest in the subject, this is a highly recommended read.

Plus come on, UFOs are neat. And scary.

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Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is one of King’s thrillers, with no supernatural elements, and because of that it has a decent ending, a plus right from the start…er, finish.

Mr. Mercedes is a book with few surprises. The good guys have their flaws but they’re all nice people. The bad guy is a psycho with loads of issues but not so much that you feel any real sympathy for him, more pity than anything.

The good guys–recently retired police detective Bill Hodges, a teenage boy who helps the Hodges with various chores, and a woman in her mid-40s with mental issues–are sufficiently clever enough to put together the identity of a mass killer that Hodges couldn’t collar before retiring. The villain, the 30ish Brady Hartsfield, is portrayed as a man brilliant with technology but one who also shifts between thinking of everything and being strangely careless and sloppy. In a way the depiction of the protagonists and antagonist reminds me of Stoker’s Dracula, where the heroes easily outmatched the vampire. Here the retired Bill Hodges and helpers make all the right guesses and even when they slip up they recover in time. Brady not so much.

King gets most of the technical details right, though there is some over-explaining, particularly by one character to another. There is the expected noble sacrifice and the brief final scene is a cute callout to Halloween.

The way I’ve described the book probably makes it sound predictable, even boring, yet King’s writing is smooth enough I found myself willing to forgive the flaws. It also helps that I don’t read a lot of thrillers so I’m likely easier to please in that regard.

Thumbs up, then. This is better than King’s sloppiest work but falls short of his best.

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The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Shirley Jackson has apparently fallen out of favor these days, though many still get exposed to her work in school through the classic short story, “The Lottery.”

A take on the Gothic ghost story, The Haunting of Hill House applies some modern touches by having the characters gather at the house under the pretext of a scientific investigation of the alleged ghostly phenomenon, a nod, perhaps, to Stoker’s use of science to battle Dracula in the self-same novel (I was amused at just how poorly the ol’ vampire managed against the array of instruments and techniques used against him).

Hill House does not surrender so easily and focues its malice on an emotionally vulnerable woman named Eleanor. While the characters are at times a little too busy saying clever and silly things to each other, Jackson still does a nice job of casting the house as a sinister character of its own. This is as much a tale of psychological terror as it is about things that go bump in the night.

Worth reading if you are interested in one of the early modern horror classics.

One warning if you are reading the Penguin Horror edition — Laura Miller has an opening essay that is filled with spoilers. It would probably have been better at the end of the book.

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