At least he's not dead!

Terry Pratchett announced yesterday that he has Alzheimer's:

Best-selling fantasy author Terry Pratchett has been diagnosed with a rare form of early onset Alzheimer's, he said in a message posted to his illustrator's Web site.

In a brief note to fans entitled "An Embuggerance," Pratchett, 59, said he was taking the news "fairly philosophically" and "possibly with a mild optimism."

Well, it's bad news but at least it's not an announcement that he died, which we've seen a few too many of in the last year. Here's hoping he sticks around for quite a while.

The Mist (movie and novella) by Stephen King

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I really enjoyed this novella when I read it some 15 years ago. It's really one of the best examples of Stephen King's writing. I was complaining to my wife after the movie that evidently most people who make Stephen King movies either don't understand what his books are truly about or don't read them in the first place. I don't take credit for inventing the idea that stories are either primarily about characters or plot, but I did figure that out for myself and one of the most obvious examples of a writer whose books are about characters is Stephen King. That must sound like a strange analysis of the "Master of Horror" that King is called or claimed to be. But I have read almost the entirety of his body of work and King is, above all, concerned with characters. He thinks about what they feel, think, do, say, and react to each other. This is in sharp contrast to some people who write characters that are about as realistic as a He-Man action figure (like JK Rowling).

So one can say that the plot of The Mist is that a weird mist rolls over the town, filled with monsters and creatures all of which seem to be bent on killing people. Some people manage to find refuge in a supermarket, where they struggle to survive. The meat of the story is about what exactly they would do to survive, and how they decide to act under these circumstances. Basically it's all a setup for the characters so that King can explore their actions and reactions as individuals and as a group. And that's what's really fascinating about this book. People have done monster stories before. People have done stories about people trapped in a situation with no way out. King's story isn't remarkable in his choice to use those two elements together. It's remarkable because he can write realistic and believable characters in that situation.

You have Mrs. Carmody, the nut (some might characterize her as a religious nut, but religion is her enabler, not the cause of her viciousness). This is the woman you're hoping the monsters will eat first. There are plenty of memorable characters and King manages to give them, mostly, distinct personalities that react to the situation in different ways. There's also the mob mentality of Mrs. Carmody's followers, which is all too believable.

The action of the story is driven by the monsters in the mist, but the drama is all in the choices the people make. Most of the time the monsters are simply some threat out there, not inside the store at all, but that merely gives the people more time to turn on each other. I really don't take this as some kind of scary monster story. It's not an Alien or Predator situation. This is a psychological thriller about what happens to people under extreme duress. It's a fine story, and at about 113 pages it's not too long to take the time to read it.

The Movie

Frank Darabont's adaptation holds up pretty well (this is Darabont's fourth time adapting a King work). Unlike many, perhaps most, movie adaptations, the story is left almost completely unchanged, with even a lot of the same dialog. Darabont has a very simple directorial style in this movie (and overall, mostly), with no dramatic slowdowns, no dramatic closeups, very little in the way of swelling music, etc. I'm very pleased with that as many directors can't seem to figure out that nobody appreciates what they think are wonderful shots.

I thought the movie was good pretty much because it left the original story alone. The monsters were pretty cool and the effects were pretty good overall. The actors were great though. Thomas Jane was a very, very good choice for this role. Just about everyone was absolutely believable in their role, and Andre Braugher played Norton perfectly. It's always nice to watch a movie where actors act like their characters!

There is a major, major drawback to this movie, and that is what Darabont does with the ending. He does not keep the original ending and what he does is inexplicable. After the movie had gone the way it had for so long, why he would choose an ending like that is beyond me.

I'd give the movie 4 out of 5 stars, but the ending alone takes it down to a 3. However, let me say that I enjoyed that movie a lot and I do recomment seeing it. As long as you're prepared to be disappointed by the ending, you won't be as upset as I was.

Ender's Games (and series) by Orson Scott Card

Wow, I can't believe I haven't reviewed anything since July! Sorry for that; I know how ravenously my fans await my writing. To be sure, I have not ceased reading. Oh no indeed. I can't even remember how much stuff I've read since July, but that just means it's too damn much. I get at least four books a month read (not namby-pamby little paperbacks either) and I tend to forget what they were, although if you asked whether I'd ever read a certain book or not I could tell you for sure. Actually, let me say that in the space of July, August, and September, I've read some 10 novels plus innumerable graphic novels (literally 20 or more), and listened to at least 4 audiobooks. I'm not counting comics or manga either, both of which I've also read a buttload of. Enough of that! On to the book.

This book has been reviewed to death and is universally loved. There's very little I need to say in regards to whether this is a great book or not. It is and almost everyone who reads it ends up liking it very much. For those of you who have never heard of this book, here's a very short plot summary. Ender Wiggin is a third child in a future where parents are restricted to two upon threat of financial penalties. This is because of the shortage of resources due to the "Bugger Wars" going on. Earth has been attacked once by an alien foe and the humans are building fleets to fight back. Ender is the third child of a genetic union predicted to bring forth a military genius. The first two children were unacceptable, but Ender is everything the military is looking for (so they think) and he is whisked off to Battle School in orbit around Earth. While there he is given the arduous job of leading an army of boys like him in battle simulations against other armies of boys. However, this game is no simple game at all. Ender must fight for his life against other boys in the school. Eventually he is promoted to command school, where he plays simulations that teach him how to command a fleet...or so he thinks. Can't say more than that without spoiling things.

There would be so much to say if I even tried a comprehensive review that this would get ridiculous and I wouldn't finish tonight. I don't have that kind of time so I'm going to restrict it to some thoughts on Card's writing in his books.

Ender's Game is the best Orson Scott Card book I have read. Card has a tendency to keep his language simple and a very fine way of treating characters (when he's at his best that is). Card wrote this for a young audience, although from what I've read of his other books none of them feature extreme sophistication of language. Not that that's a drawback. Sometimes you need eloquence, sometimes you don't. Card's books deal with people who would fit in in our reality and the realistic dilemmas they find themselves in, and Ender's Game is the pinnacle of a human story, albeit in a science fiction setting (the setting is an asset, not a drawback).

Card said he wrote this book for a younger audience, and it cannot fail to resonate with them. It deals with a lot of themes for younger readers such as loneliness, alienation, the stress of expectations,the sometimes brutal treatment other children can dish out, the just plain difficulty of growing up. Ender has it worse than most, to be sure, but that can only help readers sympathize with him. Despite the fact that this was written with younger readers in mind though, this is certainly a book any adult can read. Card does not talk down to his audience, which means that even though the book is written for children, it can be read by any adult without having to sit through pages of exposition where some character expounds a plot point which the author assumes kids are too dumb to have figured out on their own. That's not to say he makes you figure it all out either; it's just he doesn't resort to the old "parlor scene" denouement. In other words, it's not Scooby-Doo (or Harry Potter).

One of the things you might never learn about this book without reading the author's notes in the printed version or listening in the audio version is that the book Card set out to write was The Speaker for the Dead, nominally the second in the Ender Series. Even though he started on that, he wrote Ender's Game as a short story to provide the background and an explanation for the character of Ender in Speaker for the Dead. But once he was finished he basically ended up realizing he needed to write more and turned it into a novella. And then he did it again and turned it into a full-blown novel. I'm not entirely sure that he did all that before writing The Speaker for the Dead. But at some point he had them both out.

The third and fourth books, Xenocide and Children of the Mind were actually the third book that he game up with after Speaker for the Dead. He and his editor decided that it would be best to split that book into two because it was too long and there was a natural splitting point in the middle. They still ended up being pretty long individually. And he now plans on there being a fifth book, bringing together the Ender and Bean series (although I haven't read that other branch of books yet, so I can't say if this is welcome or not).

I don't know if this is a great idea or not. Xenocide and Children of the Mind were not so great. Card explains that these books were basically his mechanism to philosophize about what consciousness and life is. I might like to read about his ideas in a non-fiction setting, but it basically slowed the story down interminably. Of course, to be fair, the only reason there was a story to keep some semblance of readability. It really was just a philosophical playground. There are no major philosophical points I agree or disagree with in his ramblings. I don't begrudge him his play time, but it's not really why I picked up his books in the first place.

In short, if you loved Ender's Game, you can quit right there. The book and story is entirely self-sufficient and you will either be satisfied at the end or not. If you are not, the following books will not make you satisfied. Well, I can almost say that with perfect certainty. You might like them.

Madeleine L'engle and Robert Jordan pass away

I doubt this is news to anybody now, since I meant to publish this when it happened, but as you can read from the title, noted and prolific authors Robert Jordan and Madeleine L'engle both passed away recently. I haven't reviewed any of their books here, but I have read plenty of both and I lament their passing. As much as I've criticized Jordan for the monstrous bloatedness of his Wheel of Time series, at least in the beginning it was one of the few fantasy series I actually thought was worth reading (keep in mind I'm a fantasy lover, have been since I read Tolkien at age 11). I'm no fan of RA Salvatore (sorry, mom) and I think George R.R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice went nowhere fast. Robert Jordan may have jumped the shark around book six of his series, but even after that he was a better read than most other authors out there (even than Stephen King's fantasy series, at some points).

I must say L'engle had a profound impact on me when I was younger. "A Swiftly Tilting Planet" was, I thought and still think, one of the most original pieces of fiction I'd ever read. And readable, which is no small feat. So much fantasy and science fiction is derivative these days it's hard to pick up a book without thinking "Oh, that was done first in such and such book" or "Man, that's like three books I've read rolled into one". Not that all the good books have been written, but without going into details the publishing industry seems to be making less and less room for new, original writers whose audiences may never be huge. L'engle probably wouldn't have broken in if she had to start now!

You always must feel some loss when an author or artist you love dies. It's natural. But the fact that we didn't get more of their books to read (or music, or art) should not distract us from the beauty of that which they have given us. And after all, no matter how much they wrote it would never be enough.

PS. I learned later that Fred Saberhagen died recently as well. All I can say is, "damn".

The Assault on Reason by Al Gore

This book is surely to be hailed by the left and dismissed by the right. I think it's at least very informative about the modern day political process. I liked the book, but I have to admit the book didn't tell me much that I didn't already know.

I thought the book was going to be about why Americans in general are more hostile to reason and intellect these days. It was, to some extent, but the bulk of it was dedicated to every way in which the Bush administration has defied all logic in its political decisions and is beholden to nothing but its political masters (the people with money).

He does offer some very interesting insights on the way modern political campaigns are run. One story he describes about a pollster advising him on buying so much advertising and predicting that it would increase his lead by so many points was pretty disturbing when it turned out the pollster was exactly right. It show how easily manipulable people the general public are because most of their information comes from television, a subject which Gore discusses in depth as well.

Gore talks about the one-way nature of modern political "dialogue". These days what we expect to see are speeches or debates on tv, which we are unable to participate in. Before the age of radio it was much more interactive since political discourse was conducted in either newspapers (which were almost all locally owned) or in person. This has had a noticeable, dramatically depressive effect on the nature of political discourse in America.

While Gore slams Bush pretty hard, he does find fault in the overall political process and does acknowledge that the problem manifests in both parties because of the way campaigns are conducted these days. The way they're so totally dependent on campaign contributions is simply killing the political process.

Since most of us aren't big fans of Bush (at least any more), this book should be suggested reading for most anyone. And it's pretty well written. Gore is a smart guy and a fine writer, but sometimes I just get tired reading political catchphrases, and even Gore is guilty of using those from time to time. Still, it's well worth reading.

"Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq"

... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...

Hello all, this is Adam, brother of Nat-Wu and fellow blogger for Three Wise Men. Today is my first time posting on the book blog. Over the past few weeks I have been taking a college course at the University of North Texas where I attend on modern Middle East history. We have to read several books, many of which are first-hand accounts of historical events (Al-Jabarti's chronicle of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, for example), but the last one we read was particularly interesting. "Baghad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq" is a collection of blog posts from an Iraqi woman during the American invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, going by the pseudonym of Riverbend (it also features several passages written by James Ridgeway detailing the events going on in Iraq during the time of her writing, such as the invasion of Fallujah, the Abu Ghraib scandal, etc.). The first of two books so far, this collection includes posts from August 2003 through September 2004. The blog is still ongoing, with the the last post made on April 26th, 2007. You can find it here.

Riverbend is a 24-year-old computer programmer who lives with her mixed Shia-Sunni family, including her brother known simply as "E." With a grasp of English superior to most Americans, her writing is so eloquent, witty, and emotional you'll completely forget your reading someone's blog. As she has noted, many didn't believe she was really an Iraqi, thinking that no one from Iraq could possibly be as educated and informed as she is (again, she puts the average American to shame. As she says, how come everyone there knows American culture and politics so well, but Americans know so little about them?).

What really sells the blog and book of course is the unmatched picture you get of the day-to-day struggles of life for Iraqis during the occupation (something that was bad then, but even worse now), including raids on neighbors, fuel shortages, infrequent electricity, etc.. But she is also keenly aware of Iraq's political situation, using eyewitness accounts and also following local and international news to maintain an ongoing and detailed commentary on the corruption of the provisional government, the early formation of the Iraqi constitution, the rise of extremists such as Al-Sadr and the decline of women's rights, as well as blistering attacks on the American media (like for not understand that not everyone in the Middle East is "Arab," such as Iranians and Pakistanis). Always opinionated, she absolutely gives it to Paul Bremer and Chalabi and all of the other similarly incompetent people put in charge of running Iraq at the time. Honestly, if we had just been following Riverbend's blog, we should have been able to foresee some of the worst mistakes made in the first year of the war. She also makes fairly whimsical, but astute observations. Such as how the idea of putting Turkish troops into Iraq because they are Muslim would be like if North Korea invaded the U.S. and put Mexican troops in just because they are Christians. It just shows how much we don't think about.

No doubt critics would challenge her for never mentioning the horrors of Saddam Hussein's regime, but why is that necessary? We are all aware of that. It's her situation we weren't aware of, and most are only beginning to be aware of it now. Furthermore, she - like most Iraqis - never personally suffered under Saddam (though they did under the international economic sanctions placed on Iraq and the constant bombings after the Persian Gulf War). While he was unquestionably a brutal dictator who murdered and tortured people, people like Riverbend didn't before have to deal with the kind of daily death and destruction that goes along with war and occupation, no matter how benevolent American troops may strive to be in Iraq. Riverbend didn't see daily raids on her neighbors, lack electricity and a job, or attend countless funerals for her friends and relatives before the American invasion and occupation. Whether you support the war or not, Riverbend's point-of-view is an important one we should try to understand to grasp why Iraq is increasingly collapsing into the chaos it is. People are desperate, and desperation drives people to extremism.

Of course, Riverbend received a lot of hate mail for her views. Here's her response:

...when I hear talk about "anti-Americanism" it angers me. Why does America identify itself with its military and government? Why does being anti-Bush and anti-occupation have to mean that a person is anti-American? We watch American movies, listen to everything from Britney Spears to Nirvana and refer to every single brown, fizzy drink as "Pepsi."

I hate American foreign policy and its constant meddling in the region... I hate American tanks in Baghdad and American soldiers on our streets and in our homes on occasion... why does that mean I hate America and Americans? Are tanks, troops, and violence the only face of America? If the Pentagon, Department of Defense and Condi are "America," then yes - I hate America.

I think there's plenty of people in America who agree with and understand that sentiment.

The book ends with a powerful post made after Riverbend watched a bootleg copy of "Fahrenheit 9/11" around the time of September 11th, 2004:

Three years ago, Iraq wasn't a threat to America. Now it is... I constantly wonder, three years after 9/11, do Americans feel safer? When it first happened, there was sort of a collective shock in Iraq... How do we feel about it this year? A little bit tired.

We have 9/11's on a monthly basis... The number of Iraqis dead since March 2003 is by now at least eight times the number of people who died in the World Trade Center...

September 11... he sat there, reading the paper. As he reached out for the cup in front of him for a sip of tea, he could vaguely hear the sound of an airplane overhead. It was a bright, fresh day and there was much he had to do.. but the world suddenly went black - a colossal explosion and then crushed bones under the wight of concrete and iron... screams rose up around him... men, women, and children.. shards of glass sought out tender, unprotected skin.. he thought of his family and tried to rise, but something in him was broken... there was a rising heat and the pungent smell of burnish flesh mingled sickeningly with the smoke and the dust... and suddenly it was blackness.

9/11/01? New York? World Trade Center?

No.

9/11/04. Falloojeh. An Iraqi home.

Whether you agree with Riverbend's view of the war or not, hers is an important one that should be listened to. Certainly as much as any American blogger, or talking head on TV. I daresay a conservative girl who sits in front of me in my class is slowly opening her mind up because of this book. On that note, I recommend it highly and I cannot wait to read the next collection.

Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto

Screw any elitist who tells me that this isn't worthy of any kind of literary review, even one as humble as my own. Naruto is a series I enjoy greatly (moreso than the anime, although that's fun too), and I think it's just a good read that anybody who likes graphic novels or manga will enjoy. Let me start with the basics.

The title character is Naruto (who for some inexplicable reason always wears orange pants and an orange jacket), a shinobi (the original word for what we now commonly call ninja) just out of shinobi school. He's none too talented, smart, or attractive, but he's blessed with tons of energy and an incredible will become the Hokage head ninja of Konoha village). The first volume deals with Naruto's attachment to a team which includes a boy he hates and a girl he has a crush on and their inevitable disasters in trying to pass the tests their teacher puts in front of them. Needless to say, they do eventually start learning how to work together and at least become real ninja. Fortunately, the rivals don't just eventually become the best of friends (a cliche that goes back at least to Dumas), they pretty much stay rivals. That's an example of one of the better features of this manga; the relationships feel somewhat realistic and have a greater depth than you commonly see in youth-oriented graphic novels and manga. That brings up another point, which is that the Naruto anime is, in America, targeted to younger audiences, whereas the manga is really written at more of the YA level. Now I haven't seen much in the way of sex alluded to, but there is more violence in this manga than any 10-year-old's mom is going to approve of, and it gets a little graphic. Some examples include a decapitation and a guy getting crushed to death by sand.

The shinobi "magic" (in reality chakra, based on the idea of human bodies being endowed with natural energy) doesn't come off as stupid, and as a matter of fact seems to have some rationale behind it. There are quite a few instances where the mechanism by which they perform some feat is explained, and in their world it is consistent. That's certainly better than most American comics oriented towards youths are, not to mention the sometimes imbecilic American cartoons where the authors felt no need for consistency whatsoever (He-Man, Thundercats, etc). The point is, if you can take Harry Potter seriously despite the fact that people actually fly around on brooms, you can handle Naruto.

Furthermore, character development is deeper than you'd expect for a manga about kid ninjas. Some of them have traumatic pasts, some don't, and their interactions all make a decent amount of sense. I really think Naruto's characters are the best part about the series, followed by tense, relatively uncomplicated stories.

The art of the books is no great shakes. Some of the panels are nothing but speed lines and a blurry shape intending to portray someone's awesome speed and technique. But the effect can fall flat when you can't make heads or tails of what's going on in the frame. Character design is basic, with most males being extremely similar except for things like facial hair and what they wear. Manga are always drawn in strict black&white, and I just find that more visually confusing when the artist likes to have a lot of action going on in each panel.

Lastly, as I said about the plot, it's relatively uncomplicated but it does manage not to move too slowly. New characters get introduced and for some reason it's fairly easy to remember their faces and names, so you never get lost when one of the characters starts using someone else's name. That keeps things simple and it means they don't waste panels reminding you who someone is several times. So almost every panel advances the story, and the artists make pretty good use of that to keep the story flowing. Plus which, there is enough plot to fill all that space, so that's not a worry either. They do tend to stick to the basic themes, like power-hungry villains or revenge, but then, so do most books. The question is how well they execute those stories, and in the case of Naruto, I'd say they do pretty darn well.

My recommendation is: Read it! After all, one book does only take about a half hour!

Gene Wolfe's "There Are Doors"

Gene Wolfe will always be one of my favorite authors because of the Book of the New Sun (and to a lesser extent the Books of the Long Sun and Short Sun). I've read several of his other works now, and I think the reason I like the Book of the New Sun so much is because it has the least ambiguous plot of all of his works that I've read so far. Many of his books have the characteristic of having a beginning but no real end. The climax or conclusion is merely an ending point, as if the story could go on or could have ended earlier. This is strongly apparent in "There Are Doors". That doesn't make it a bad book though, or not worth reading.

One of the things I like about Gene Wolfe is a quality he shares with Neil Gaiman. Oftentimes, his stories have a dreamlike, not-quite-real property. The difference is that with Wolfe there's the surety of an underlying reality. Gaiman has made clear that his stories don't necessarily have an underpinning of reality; they can be self-contradictory and highly symbolic without feeling absurd. With a Wolfe story I always get the sense that there's something going on under the surface, and if only I could figure it out I would be able to understand what's going on in the story. With all that said, let me get to the actual book.

"There Are Doors" is the story of a man (we never learn his name, really) who meets and falls in love with a woman. One day she tells him she has to leave and warns him about passing through doors that look significant (the title is taken from her warning to him). He doesn't understand her, but predictably enough, he finds a door and accidentally goes through it. He enters into a world where his lover is a goddess (both mythical and real; she's a movie star as well). The other major difference is that in this world, men die after having sex. Their immune systems collapse for some reason.

According to this reviewer, "There Are Doors" is an homage to Phillip K. Dick (with some references to Kafka as well). With the elements of paranoia, mental illness, and the lack of sureness in the reality of the world, this certainly is a reasonable parallel. Unlike Dick though, Wolfe's writing often does not come to an easy conclusion. Dick's work, like Wolfe's, is often very thought provoking. "Minority Report", "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", and "A Scanner Darkly" were awesomely provocative, but all of them included solid plot-based stories. Comparing "There Are Doors" to any of those isn't really fair, as Wolfe didn't include a compelling story like any of those.

Of course, one can criticize Wolfe's book for exactly that point without comparing him to Dick. Wolfe is a master of language, even when using it as simply as he did in this book. It gives it a completely different texture from other works of his, like the New Sun. Plus he does something many writers just can't manage to do; he gives his main character a voice that sounds different from other characters. Tolkien exemplifies giving different characters different voices. Tolkien also wrote a slammin' plot-based story that's still the archetype for fantasy, but you can easily complain about character development. Point being, no book has it all. Wolfe's often don't focus on the plot as much as character interaction (that is, interaction between the character and the world, other characters, and whatever animate or inanimate objects populate it).

The story of this book is simple enough; once Mr. Green (which we think we discover the main character's name to be) passes into the alternate world, his search for his lost love begins. But almost immediately after it has begun, it ends with him having an accident and being put in the hospital. We find out there that Mr. Green was a mental patient in his own world. The deeper implication is that perhaps this world is nothing more than a mental construct in his own mind. A few events occur and Green is sucked into some kind of conspiracy by a paranoid psychotic named North. After being nearly blown up, he returns by accident to his own world a month later. There is some skewing of time evident, as he was only in the alternate world for a few days. He ends up being in his own world for years before returning to the alternate. He does manage to return, and in the end finds his goddess, only to be relegated to the role of something like servant. In the end, he departs again to find her in her true home with a map that shows no roads or cities.

This book isn't easily understood, but I'm not going to find fault with it for that. Counting Heads was far too easily understood, but that didn't make it a good book. Karen Armstrong points out that mysteries don't always exist to be solved, but rather to be contemplated. This book may be such a mystery, and is definitely worthy of being contemplated.

Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden

This is the story of the Iran hostage crisis which began in 1979. Before I read this book, I had no idea how much of an impact the crisis had on the US and Iran. Not merely shaping how each viewed the other, but even influencing politics inside those nations.

The book goes into great detail on certain aspects of the hostage-taking and follows some, but not all, of the hostages from beginning to end. Of the 52 hostages inside the embassy, only about 12 are mentioned more than once. This is not a drawback, of course. Bowden is using a representative sample as a complete account of every day of every hostage would be an incredibly long, boring, and ultimately unenlightening book. Moreso than in Black Hawk Down, this book covers the wider implications of the crisis, including Carter's response and the Ayatollah Khomeini's irrational and unpredictable behavior. Not only does he relate simply what the leaders and actors in the crisis did, but why they did it.

Bowden, it hardly needs to be said, writes excellently and this book tells a fascinating story. The story, of course, is true and would stand on its own regardless of who wrote it, but Bowden crafts a tight storyline. The book is just too thick and the plot too intricate to even summarize, but some of the more important reasons to read this book are the effects this crisis had on the Carter administration and the future of the Iranian government. Carter's moderate response to the crisis is what eventually led to his loss of reelection. The responses of the members of the Iranian government who opposed the takeover are what led to the supremacy of the Islamic hardliners and the continuing tyranny of what Bowden describes as the "mullah-ocracy". As a case in point, it should be noted that current President Ahmadinejad was one of the original planners of the takeover. Some of the hostages even claim he was one of the interrogators.

Of course the human drama is worth reading as well. The hostages were in doubt of their futures and lives until the moment they were told they had crossed out of Iranian airspace. The long, laborious process the diplomats faced in even figuring out who to negotiate with in the almost non-existent Iranian government also provides worthy reading.

To get back to the larger historical picture, the hostage crisis could be blamed for much of ills that have plagued the Middle East for the past 25 years. When the embassy was taken, the US froze Iranian assets, including equipment for the military that the Shah had already paid for. Because of Iran's state of disorganization and unpreparedness, Saddam Hussein felt Iraq was well poised to strike and seize the Shatt Al Arab, as well as some valuable oil fields. If Carter had been reelected, the US would not have dealt with Saddam and given him weapons (of mass destruction!), and possibly, even probably, we would not be in a war there now. If Iran's moderate government hadn't been toppled due to the instability caused by the seizure, Iran might be a moderate democracy and would never have backed terrorists.

Lastly, this book provides some insight into how Iranians viewed and view the US. It's not what you might think. There are and have always been those who sympathized with the US and wished to have normal relations with us. There are those who believe America is the Great Satan (and they're usually among the most ignorant). One also gets to see what Khomeini was really like, and it was more like a powerless puppet than you might think.

Anyway, that's all I can think to say for this book. You need to read it, unless you already know everything there is to know about the history of Iranian-US relations.

All the Shah's Men by Stephen Kinzer

This book provides an excellent starting place for anyone who wants to understand the United States' relationship with Iran. It covers the events surrounding the US-backed overthrow of Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. At first, it might sound like this book exists to blame the US for its actions in Iran and point out how they have come back to haunt us, but while that's definitely a lesson to take from the book, this is a solid history.

There's no strict timeline in the book; the focus is on several different players over time. The story begins with British oil interests in Iran which coalesce into the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The name may imply partnership, but the British steadfastly opposed allowing the Iranians any more involvement than manual labor. The book also covers Mohammed Mossadegh's life and rise to power. Mossadegh was and still is a central figure in Iranian history. If his government hadn't been overthrown, Iran might now be a moderate democracy experiencing growth pains instead of a repressive Islamic state ruled by tyrants. The central conflict of the book was Mossadegh's decision to nationalize Anglo-Iranian in 1951, a decision that sent the British into paroxysms of self-righteous rage. Ironically, the British had nationalized industries shortly before in the name of national interests.

From then on, the story was full of British intransigence, and Iranian stubbornness. The British kept hoping they could use the Shah to overturn Mossadegh and absolutely refused to accept the truth of the situation in Iran. Their entrenched racism comes through quite clearly in quoted documents. In truth, the British come off looking pretty ridiculous throughout it all. They certainly had some claim to remuneration, but since they were pretty much exploiting Iran's people and natural resources, the reader won't be highly sympathetic to their claims. The British also unfairly bullied the US on the issue. Truman showed remarkable restraint in trying to work out a diplomatic solution, but the unwillingness of both sides to compromise doomed his efforts to failure.

The coup actually doesn't take up much of the book, because even though it was central to the story, it was a relatively minor event. Unlike other coups, this one didn't dissolve the government, but rather put it back in the hands of the Shah. The Shah comes across as a vain, cowardly man who, although he desired a modern and moderate Iran, was unwilling to do it the right way through transitioning to a democratic government. He believed in his divine right to rule (and surely felt justified when his SAVAK secret police killed dissenters).

The United States' role in the coup is laid out in detail in this book. With the shift in administrations from Truman to Eisenhower, the US took a different tack. The Eisenhower administration placed first importance on containment of the Soviets and the British painted Iran as ripe for a Marxist takeover (it wasn't). The Dulles brothers decided that supporting Britain was in the US' interests, and from then on pressured Eisenhower to allow them to do something about it. It was only a matter of time before he gave in. Kermit Roosevelt, CIA agent and grandson of the famous President Theodore Roosevelt, was almost single-handedly responsible for bringing about the coup. He made the arrangement, found the contacts, and spread the money around.

If you've ever wondered why Iranians marched around the US embassy shouting "Death to America" or "Death to Carter" or "America is the Great Satan", this book is the place to start. The "popular" uprising against Mossadegh was nothing more than mobs and thugs paid off by Kermit Roosevelt's agents to march against him, and in one stroke Iran was taken off the path of Democracy and freedom and began its slow decline into the Islamic tyranny that it is now, where full-body coverings for women are mandated by law and journalists that speak against the Imam may be beaten. It's true that we didn't directly do that to Iran, but it's also true that we made it possible for it to happen.

Judgments aside, this is a great compact history of the coup, its prelude and its aftermath. I'm sure there are larger, more comprehensive ones, but surely none this concise and well written and interesting to read. Given Iran's place in the papers these days, I suggest you start reading.