The Saturday Morning Post (No.8)

This week I'm reviewing two books, the first, a humous fantasy novel featuring a devil, Mephistopheles, and a wolf that he transforms into a man and a humorous romance about an Australian genetics professor's plan to find a suitable wife.
 

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

The Devil and The Wolf by Richard L Pastore  B

Many centuries ago, an old and powerful devil, Mephistopheles had been tasked with giving the humans he selects whatever they desire, as part of an experiment to determine if humans are fundamentally good or evil. Apparently this question is of some importance to both heaven and hell, which are currently engaged in a cold war following a disastrously hot war. However, Mephistopheles has grown weary of his task, since no definitive answer has come out of this long running experiment. Because of this, he has devised a plan to end it, which involves remaking a wolf into a human; one JR Wolfe, the wolf in the title. I will admit that the metaphysical and philosophical underpinnings of both the experiment and how the creation of JR Wolfe fits into it are over my head, but I just went along with the flow. And the story flows along with a lot of humor as the former wolf explores his human nature and human possibilities. There are a number of subplots involving humans here on earth and angels and devils in heaven and hell that threaten Mephistopheles and his plot to bring the great experiment to an end as well. These subplots slowly unfold throughout the story, though it is never clear exactly what Mephistopheles is up to until the very end, so I won't spoil that except to say that there is an explanation of sorts, and that it involving a tense confrontation between him, heaven, and hell. Thankfully, this confrontation is kept low key, keeping the whole story somewhat believable, unlike the last book I read dealing with heaven and hell, Grave Importance by Vivian Shaw which carried its confrontation well over the top. To be honest, I don't know if the explanation makes any sense, as I'm unfamiliar Western philosophy, but I have my doubts. As I said, I content just to go along for the ride. I enjoyed the story, though I read it more as a modern fairy tale than a fantasy novel.

But oh, that premise again. What follows are a few remarks concerning that premise, not of the book The Devil and the Wolf, itself. My comments apply to all similar stories like Good Omens, The Good Place, Grave Importance, and likely many others as well. Indeed, the winning novel of the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off #8, Small Miracles by Olivia Atwater is another book featuring an angel and a devil vying to win over a selected human. It seems to be a popular theme.

But not with me. By the time I was in 8th grade in a Catholic school, I was reading SF and had come to realize just how insignificant the Earth's place in the universe is. This being the case, to ascribe it as the center stage of THE whole reason for the creation of the whole universe seemed silly to me even at that tender age. Four more years of Catholic education and a lifetime lived has not changed my view of the matter. This outlook means that stories that utilize Christian mythology with angels and devils, heaven and hell, strike me as being inherently nonsensical. And even when a writer tries to modernize this mythology, as in the stories mentioned above, by giving heaven and hell some sort of faux scientific basis using quantum mechanics and the theoretical multiverse, they are still ignoring the vastness of the rest of the universe. They are still placing the Earth center stage for THE universal drama, which as I said, just doesn't make any sense to me. Plus, the authors of these stories strip devils of their evilness and angels of their rightlessness, and in doing so, ignore almost everything fundamental about them. They instead simply make devils and angels into humans with magical powers and wings, who, like humans, must deal with politics, war, and death. Gone are the orthodox flames of eternal damnation and the great cathedrals of heaven; heaven and hell are just alternate versions of Earth. Since they are defanged, revisionist, unrecognizable versions of those mythological places, so why use them at all? Moreover, I believe that all of the stories I've mentioned keep the Christian god well off stage, without mention of him at all. I assume this is for story reasons, since a supposed all-powerful creator of everything could solve any problem presented in the story in a snap of his fingers. 

Still fiction is fiction, so what's the problem? There is none, except that for me, my fundamental disbelief of the premise they are playing with makes the story a mere fairy tale for me. By fairy tale I mean a story that, as I read the story, I can't suspend my disbelief and really get into the story as I would like. This is not always the case for fantasy or humorous stories for me. You can have silliness and silly characters, and still ground the story with just enough realism for me to suspend my disbelief in the premise and/or characters, so that, at least when I'm reading the story, the characters and their story become alive in my imagination. I'm willing, indeed, wanting to believe that P G  Wodehouse's world could exist somewhere in the multiverse because his characters seem like they could be real somewhere, in sometime. In writing his stories he keep one foot on the ground, even if he has to stand on his tip toes to do so. This isn't the case for me when dealing with devils and angels, as my long held disbelief in their existence and Christian mythology makes it impossible for me to see the story as anything more than tall tale. Blame it on my youth.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion  B

This 2013 book was suggested by my wife, who read and enjoyed it. It set in the author's homeland of Australia and concerns a socially awkward but detail orientated college professor, Don Tillman. He is something of a genius who is on the Asperger's spectrum. He has decided to find a wife, and to do so he devises the Wife Project that includes a 16 page survey for prospective applicants to that position to complete in the hope of avoiding wasting time on unsuitable prospects. Pickings are few.

By accident he invites Rosie, who he thinks is responding to his Wife Project, but wasn't, to a disastrous dinner, but nevertheless becomes involved with her, helping her in her quest to find who her real father is. It was hinted to her that her biological father wasn't the man who raised her, but someone in her mother's class of fellow doctors who, on the night of their graduation party she slept with. Don uses his skills in genetic, access to the university facilities, and as the story goes on, his newly acquired skills to covertly collect and analyze DNA samples of her mother's classmates. Along the way he is forced to change his way of life, becoming less rigid, as he faces new challenges - changes that he discovers are worthwhile to make in his life. As usual, I don't like to give much of the plot away, so I'll leave it at that.

I enjoyed the book and the character of Don Tillman. It is told in first person by Don, so that you get into the mind of someone on the Asperger's spectrum and who is not only aware of his social limitations, but has adjusted to them, only to have to navigate the many changes inadvertently brought about by his decision to find a wife. By telling the story from Tillman's point of view, so we can watch, step by step, his thought processes, Simsion is able to make a plausible  case that Don could change in the ways he did within the story. If you want an lighthearted interesting read, with a little something different, this is your ticket.