New Book Alert: Ark of the Apocalypse (The Magellan II Chronicles) by Tobin Marks; The Dark Somber Final Word on Earth's Destruction By Human Cruelty, Arrogance, Apathy, and Ignorance

 

New Book Alert: Ark of the Apocalypse (The Magellan II Chronicles) by Tobin Marks; The Dark Somber Final Word on Earth's Destruction By Human Cruelty, Arrogance, Apathy, and Ignorance

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers:There are science fiction books that are so dark that you fall into a black hole of personal depression. Then there are those that cause you to just throw up your hands and go "No hope! We're doomed!"

 If Court of The Grandchildren is a final warning for humanity to prevent climate change and to mind what we are doing before it's too late, then Ark of the Apocalypse The Magellan II Chronicles by Tobin Marks is the final message. It's the suicide note that Gaia will write as if saying "The Earth is dying because you weren't good to it. Now you are dying too."

Last year, I reviewed The Girl Who Found The Sun right when Missouri was in the process of shutting down because of the Covid pandemic. A Science Fiction novel in which the characters live in an underground world kept from the outside suddenly seemed more real when compared to a real life situation in which people were kept inside their homes because of the ravages of a pandemic and the arrogance of many people and a then Presidential Administration that chose not to follow simple common sense advice and allowed the virus to spread.

Once again a Science Fiction novel has become too real. With the Delta Strand variant of Covid creating another wave and many people around the world being unable to or choosing not to be vaccinated, with wildfires the size of New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles spreading throughout the United States, and above all billionaires like Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos engaging in a "measuring contest" to see who can spend less than 15 minutes in space in a private spaceship instead of using that wealth to pay taxes or to help the people on this planet. The Magic 8 Ball prediction for Ark of the Apocalypse switches from "Maybe possible" to "Absolutely certain."

Once the future hits in 2035, it really hits and it's written in a way that is extremely believable. Temperatures in Mexico have reached 120 on normal days (the last time it hit under 115 was in 2027). Rising global sea levels have made most coastal cities flooded and uninhabitable and many once thriving water regions, like the Sea of Cortez, have become dead zones. Also hurricanes no longer operate through seasons and form supercells on a regular basis. Snow no longer appears on mountain ranges like the Rockies and the Alps.The rivers in India and China have dried up and the Great Lakes are becoming smaller because the waters dumped into them have dried up.

Earth is no longer able to produce enough food to maintain its increasing population. With the scarcity of water, only 20% of the Earth's population of 12 billion can be adequately fed.

 Countries, most notably Russia and the United States, are going to war over diminished resources. The U.S. President Abigail Moore is particularly eager to fire off her country's space orbital weapons system The Theater High Orbital Rover or THOR. (Typical USA in financial, environmental, and sociopolitical ruin but of course the government has the money to install and use a high tech brand new weapon for defense. I told you this book was spookily accurate.) 

The war ends in less than four minutes but one of the Iranian missiles explodes over Russia causing more tension between nations. Of course nuclear blasts unleash disease, famine, and a depressed and angry populace (at least the ones that survive.) Moore and Russian President Yuri Volkov exchange accusations and blame until they come to an uneasy agreement.

This is the kind of world where at the International Convention on Climate Control, climatologist Dr. Randall Burt's speeches could be summarized as "We tried to warn you. Everyone is guilty including myself. So long, Suckers!" Before he goes home to attempt suicide. His only suggestion is to eliminate 90% of the population or watch as we all drop dead. The only chance for humanity's survival is for a small group to travel into the stars and live on another planet. 

Two families are important to this mission. Their plan was centuries in the making. In the 1930's The Yanbeyevs, a Tatar family is ordered to be deported to Siberia. However, they have a secret up their sleeves which will help them get through the future struggles: A strange gift of prophecy shared by the seventh child of the family. This prophetic gift is passed through Anatoly's descendant Olga and her granddaughter, Nadya. Olga is determined that Nadya is to be one of the people on that space mission and she isn't above doing secretive underhanded things to ensure that future comes to pass and Nadya is able to survive to fill that destiny.

Another important family is that of Hikaru Mizushima's from Japan. After the bombing of Nagasaki, they have been holding onto a secret project contained within a metal box, a secret which will enable humanity to travel to the stars. Hikaru is able to use his ancestor's research to create spacecraft without rocket propulsion. 

This possibility of interstellar travel saving humankind is on the surface optimistic but that optimism is tempered by many realities.

 1) That only a select few people get to go so the majority of the population is left on Earth to die. In fact the cold attitude of many of the characters like The Yanbeyevs, Mizushimas, Moore, and Volkov is that "Everyone else can go f#$@ t&$#@(+-@_s," which is not the best way to make the Reader want to actually like these people and root for their mission to succeed.

2) Since the majority of the book is set on Earth, the focus isn't on space exploration or what this new planet is like. We do have some chapters where the characters encounter dragon-like beings and Nadya's dreams in the hyperspace sleep travel prove useful to the survival of the expatriate Earthlings. However, most of the book deals with the slow death march that Earth is on. 

We are given pages and pages of war and environmental catastrophe which is slowly strangling the remaining population. While you can't blame characters like Burt for reminding people that this could have been avoided, the callous tunnel vision that many characters have for the interstellar mission is is like ripping open a bandaid on a gaping wound. The wound is still there.

Especially since they are also willing to leave their families behind including small children. Unless they are planning subsequent space missions, they leave knowing that they are essentially consigning loved ones to their deaths by allowing them to remain on Earth. Also the chapters where they are on that planet suggest that they haven't lost their warlike nature or the desire of control and domination.

3) Of course the realism in how Marks writes this future cannot be avoided nor can the comparisons to the world that surrounds this fictional universe. It gets to the point that it's no surprise that the final two leaders of Russia and the United States: Viktor Petrov (replacing Volkov who was assassinated after 66 years as Russian President) and Crissy Caryn (an attractive former media celebrity) still engage in threats of war even as the world is dying around them suggesting that with some people power, any power, is more important than protection and survival. Nor is it any surprise that when Burt delivers the bad news, the people blame him for it instead of accepting their own share of the guilt.

This scenario is all too real and in real life may only be a few short years away (if not already here). The impending destruction and the callousness of the people living within it is something that we all have experienced and may continue to experience.

Ark of the Apocalypse The Magellan II Chronicles is one of those types of Science Fiction novels where even the hopeful moments convey a sense of despair because of what is left behind. It's a nightmare that is all too true and while we can close this book and forget about its contents, we can't close the real world around it. The only thing that we can do is turn things around, before this nightmare fictional scenario becomes the complete inescapable truth.

 

New Book Alert: Colony by Benjamin Cross; Suspenseful But Flawed Science Thriller Recalls '90's Adventure Novels and Movies

 

New Book Alert: Colony by Benjamin Cross; Suspenseful But Flawed Science Thriller Recalls '90's Adventure Novels and Movies

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Benjamin Cross' Colony is a book that is similar to its premise. The plot involves a group of scientists stranded in the Arctic that encounter a herd of prehistoric creatures that have evolved and adapted to their surroundings and are not so happy about being interrupted by some aggravating humans. Like the prehistoric creatures, Colony itself is practically an artifact from another time though a lot more recent.

Colony is similar to the science novels and blockbuster films of the 1990's, works of people like Michael Crichton or Robin Cook. Like Colony, they involve plucky scientists, usually American, British, or from various countries, who speak a lot of technobabble and have strange theories that are proven right by the end. They always face some sort of scientific threat of monsters, viruses, or natural disasters. There is some sort of family dilemma, perhaps a divorce, to give a personal conflict alongside the scientific one.

The scientists are surrounded by bureaucrats, scientific rivals, or representatives from another country who try to stop their research and either run afoul of or try to control the natural threat on their own. Oh and expect a betrayal that proves that humanity is the real destructive force.

It's exciting, suspenseful, and predictable. But there is a bit of nostalgia involved in a book that allows you to lose yourself in an adventure that hearkens back to an earlier time.

Callum Ross, a divorced Professor of Archeology, is spending some rare vacation time with his son, Jamie, when his boss, Jonas Olsen requests him to join an expedition to Franz Josef Land in the Arctic of Northern Russia. He is assigned to a group of scientists conducting a field survey on the recently found Harmsworth Island for the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental department that encourages cooperation within countries over the Arctic's vast resources. Of course Jamie agrees, meets the scientists, encounters prehistoric creatures, gets betrayed etc.

The protagonists are the usual mixed bag in this kind of book.  Besides Callum, there's Dan Peterson, an American New Age surfer dude who calls Callum "Indiana McJones" and is usually the comic relief. There's Lungkaju, the Nganasan guide with a personal connection to the local area. Dr. Semyanov, the father figure of the group. Then there are the female scientists Ava Lee, Canadian vertebrate paleontologist and Darya Lebedev, Russian ecologist. They are there as visual proof that science is not a male dominated field. However, they contribute very little to the plot except to look amazed,, occasionally use scientific jargon to prove that yes they are scientists, get injured and be at the point of death quite often, and become the love interests of Dan and Callum respectively. Like I said, Colony is a book invoking an earlier time. Unfortunately, the attention to female characters seems to also hearken back to that earlier time as well. The better characters are in fact the male characters.

There are some interesting scenes that develop the characters as they get to know each other. There are some cute flirty nerdy passages as Darya and Callum and then Ava and Dan share their um research with each other. There is also a particularly touching moment when Callum has a teleconference with a very disappointed Jamie and has a heart to heart with a seemingly gruff Russian comms assistant that gives him some surprisingly warm parental advice.

There is also a beautiful chapter in which Callum and Darya leave the compound to observe narwhals in action that acknowledges the beauty of nature. (Of course it's a lot less beautiful to read when in reality the United States is under a polar vortex.) Then there are the moments in which the antagonists plot with the traitor who becomes pretty obvious long before they are revealed. 

Of course these are mere distractions once the real stars of the show, the creatures, arrive.

The creatures are described as lizard birds and though that name sounds cheesy,the execution is less so. They are bipedal with feathers covering their skin, tiny forearms, tails, and long beak like snouts. Their large teeth, claws, and carnivorous diet, particularly for human flesh reveal that they mean business. They are adaptable to their surroundings as their eyes adjust to the sunlight or lack thereof and make use of the extensive caves as shelters. Their intelligence shows in their ability to learn from and hunt their human adversaries. 

Filmmakers would have a field day visualizing the attacks on the hapless scientists that have entered their territory. 

The stand offs are pretty suspenseful as Callum et al. have to face not only the reptilian but mammalian antagonists as the villains make their plans known. The action is non-stop and frequent, abandoning any semblance of development for high octane thrills and suspense.

If you are looking for a deep theme or characters, look elsewhere. Colony knows what it is and it delivers. It is an action packed science novel that is frozen in time as much as the lizard birds. However, upon reawakening, it proves to be an exciting and entertaining romp.

New Book Alert: Anonymous is a Woman: A Global Chronicle of Gender Inequality by Nina Ansary, PhD; Fascinating Look at Important Women Overlooked By History

New Book Alert: Anonymous is a Woman: A Global Chronicle of Gender Inequality by Nina Ansary, PhD; Fascinating Look At Important Women Overlooked By History

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews


In her landmark essay, A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf wondered why she couldn't find any lasting works by women from Shakespeare's day that were as notable as his and his other male contemporaries. In her frustrations, Woolf looked at the many poems and other literary works that were signed "Anonymous." Woolf speculated,"Indeed I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them was a woman."


All over the world and through history, women have been denied opportunities that were given freely to men. Some women like Artemisia Gentileschi, came from artistic noted families and were able to become exceptions and study with male contemporaries. Others like George Eliot, Georges Sand, and The Bronte Sisters published under male pseudonyms. Others like Jane Austen and Anne Bradstreet had to produce their work around the noise and disruption of family life. Then there are those like Rosalind Franklin who received no credit for their discoveries while their male counterparts did or even like Margaret Keane who had their work falsely attributed to male spouses and family members. Then there are others that history still haven't acknowledged.


Not just in history either. The Gender Gap is still wide. According to statistics 104 countries have legislation that prevents women from working in certain jobs. 45 countries do not legally prohibit domestic violence and 72 countries have no determined criminal penalties for domestic violence offenders. 59 countries have no laws preventing sexual harassment. Even certain fields in the United States underrepresent women. In 2017, 2.2 % of venture capital was awarded to businesses founded by women. In 2019, 87% of most of the American museum collections are works by men. Only 17% of people in STEM fields are women.


Many feminist scholars, historians, activists and authors not only try to change the outlook for women of today. They want to acknowledge the forgotten women of the past, recognize their achievements, and give them some long overdue credit. One of those scholars is Nina Ansary.

Ansary's previous book, Jewels of Allah: The Untold Story of Women in Iran highlighted the achievements of many female leaders and advocates throughout Iran's history. This book, Anonymous is a Woman: A Global Chronicle of Gender Inequality, takes her studies on a global scale and acknowledges women all over the world. Ansary describes the achievements of 50 women from En Hedu-Anna (c.2300 BCE), from Akkadia, the world's first known female astronomer who also wrote of her discoveries in poetic form on cuneiform to Alice Ball (1892-1916), an American chemist who created a water soluble solution of chaulmoogra oil to treat leprosy patients.


The women cover a variety of different backgrounds, time periods, ethnicities, nationalities, and occupations. From scientists, to inventors, to activists, to artists, to authors, to doctors, to warriors, to an aviator. These women were admirable in their actions and deeds often becoming the first woman in their fields. For example Sutayta Al-Mahamali (Birthdate unknown-987), from Arabia was the first female mathematician. She was known for her mathematical and legal mind and used advanced algebraic knowledge to solve inheritance disputes.

Another woman who was a first was Bessie Colman (1896-1926). She was the first American woman to receive a pilot's license and the first African-American pilot, period. Since American flight schools were closed to her, Colman moved to France to receive her license. She returned to America and assumed a career as a barnstormer, stunt pilot, until her death in 1926 when her plane went into a nosedive and crashed.


The accounts are brief but that is probably the point. Ansary is only giving the Reader a taste of these women, brief sketches of who they were. The Reader would then be interested to read and learn more about these amazing women. The chapter on Elizabeth Freeman (c.1742-1829) describes how she approached attorney Theodore Sedgwick to sue for her freedom, which she ultimately obtained. Readers may then want to find other works about Freeman and about other African-Americans who worked to obtain freedom before the 13-15th Amendments were ratified.

Readers may read about Marianne North (1830-1890) and learn that the Englishwoman documented and painted over 800 species of flowers and while visiting seventeen countries and six continents. Afterwards, they may want to look at her beautiful detailed paintings and read about her travels.

Readers might know Lilian Gilbreth (1878-1972) because of the book and film, Cheaper by the Dozen. However, the chapter acknowledges her contributions to the field of industrial and managerial engineering and organizational psychology. Her managerial efficiency skills were so well noted that she was a consultant for such businesses as General Electric and Macy's. Readers will learn of her psychological and industrial work and will recognize her as far more than a busy harried mother of twelve.

Many of these women became voices for their communities. Zitkala Sa (1876-1938), a Yankton Sioux woman wrote the libretto for the first opera by a Native American. She also founded the National Council of American Indians which advocated for education and health care for Native Americans.

Another advocate for women's rights in her home country was Zoila Ugarte De Landivar (1864-1969), an Ecuadorian journalist. She founded the first Ecuadorian Feminist magazine, La Mujer, and wrote various articles advocating feminist causes in her country.

Many of these women received abuse and criticism for their contributions. One of those women was Bibi Khanum Astarabadi (1858-1921), an Iranian advocate for women's education. When a book called The Education of Women was published declaring that women should not be educated, Astarabadi wrote her own response, The Vices of Men. She challenged the male dominated society that she lived under and argued for better educational opportunities for Iranian women and girls.

Unfortunately, many of these women's pursuits were overshadowed by men in their fields. One was Marion Mahoney Griffin (1871-1961), an architect who worked alongside Frank Lloyd Wright. Even though Mahoney Griffin was considered the most talented member of Lloyd's team and contributed many details to the projects such as stained glass, murals, and mosaics Lloyd refused to give her any credit clearly wanting to turn his work into a one man show.

In the early days of Hollywood, Lois Weber (1879-1939) was ranked as one of the "three great minds" of the early Hollywood industry, alongside Cecil B. DeMile and D.W. Griffith. The director of more than 130 shorts and feature films, Weber wanted films to discuss serious social issues as well as entertainment. Unfortunately, after her death, she was seen mostly as a star maker and her fame and influence on the industry was eclipsed by her male contemporaries.

One of the more interesting stories of a woman challenging a man for recognition was that of Margaret E. Knight (1838-1914),an American inventor. While working at the Columbia Paper Bag Company, Knight created a machine that made the work productive and allowed for the creation of the square bottomed paper bag. A man named Charles Annan tried to steal and receive a patent for Knight's invention. Knight successfully sued Annan and received the patent when she produced schematics, plans, and journal entries. Knight went on to invent other things like a shoe cutting machine, a numbering machine, and several devices related to rotary engines.

I would be remiss if I did not mention Petra Dufkova's illustrations. Very few of the woman were featured in photographs or portraits, so Dufkova used her imagination to sketch these women. The sketches reveal their strengths, intelligences, and determination to change their circumstances. This illustration shows Dufkova's portrait of Whang Zhenyi (1768-1797), a Chinese astronomer and mathematician who studied lunar and solar eclipses and discovered their mathematical and astronomical progresses.

Through Dufkova's beautiful illustrations and Ansary's insightful words, these women are being recognized for their talents, courageousness, intelligences, and willingness to change the world around them. They are names and faces. They are no longer Anonymous.