The Rosetta Codex - Book Review

The Rosetta Codex
by Richard Paul Russo
Berkeley Publishing Group 2005
(science fiction)

Cale Alexandros was five years old when his family's starship crashed on the prison planet Morningstar. His father and his nanny both died. Cale was picked up by a band of brutal prisoners and raised as a slave for many years.


Around the age of 15, Cale was able to escape and he began making his way to the divide - a huge chasm running across the planet that divided the large prison area from the smaller civilised area. The chasm or divide could be crossed only at certain points where the bridges had been built. These bridges were under heavy guard.

As a slave, Cale had never learnt how read and write. Fortunately one of the first people he met on his travels was an anchorite woman who was living an austere life. she taught Cale the basics of reading and writing and showed him how many different languages has their own alphabets.

During his travels to the divide, Cale came across a building with some weird writing on the walls. By the walls was a large concrete tomb which Cale opened, Inside was a books make of metal pages. Cale tried to read the book but did not know the language. So he buried the book under ground and vowed to retreive it some day.

By the time Cale was 20 he finally reached the bridge to cross the divide. Once on the other side, he settles in the city of Morningstar, and begins looking for a group of people called the resurrectionists.

This group beleive that the city of Morningstar was built on the ruins of an ancient alien city, that they have been digging beneath the city trying to find alien artifacts.
I think you have found the alien city, said Cale.
What makes you think that?
Because I think I have seen an alien artifact myself.
Where?
On the other side of the Divide.

Cale takes the resurrectionists back across the Divide to the place where he buried the book, and they bring it back to Morningstar. By now Cale is 22 years old and it is time for him to take his rightful place amongst the stars.

He travels back to his home world and takes over the family business (which had been run by his mother after her husband and son died). Cale builds a ship, hires a crew and they go looking for the planet of the ancients following the star maps in the alien book.

You will have to read the book to see what happens at the meeting. But I did enjoy this story.

Lara McClintoch novels - Book Reviews

Lara McClintock Archaelogical Mystery series
by Lyn Hamilton
Berkeley Prime Time
Authors website
The Etruscan Chimera 2002
The Thai Amulet 2004
The Chinese Alchemist 2007

I have just read Lyn Hamilton's website, sadly to learn Lyn died of cancer in September 2009. She was 65 years old.

The Etruscan Chimera

A Chimera is a mythological animal with the head and body of a lion, a second head of a goat and a serpent for the tail.

Lara McClintock is hired by a reclusive and wealthy collector, Crawford Lake, to purchase the Bellerophon statue that goes with the Arezzo Chimera. The Bellerophon is in France. The Chimera is already in the Arezzo museum in Italy and Lake wants to get them back together. These two pieces of art was created by the Etruscans who lived in Italy before the Roman Empire began. Both of these names (Bellerophon and Chimera are mentioned in Book six of the Iliad.

While trying to purchase the Bellerophon, Lara becomes involved in the theft of an Etruscan Hydria water jug. She also finds the private collector who owned the hydria dead. On her way to see Mr Lake, Lara finds the hydria again. She inadvertantly smuggles the hydria across the border from France into Italy.

Lara eventually discovers that Mr Lake is not who he says he is, and that there is a group of Etruscan fanatics who are stealing Etruscan artifacts from private collections around the world and smuggling them into Italy to be held at a private museum.

The Thai Amulet

A young friend of Lara's named Jennifer, has fallen in love with a fellow university student. This student is from Thailand and Jennifer is off to Thailand to meet his family. At the same time William Beauchamp goes missing in Thailand and his wife asks Lara to look for him, so Lara accompanies Jennifer to Thailand. William had sent his wife some amulets and Lara takes them back to Thailand with her.


Once in Thailand, Jennifer discovers that her boyfriend is the first born son of a well known Thai family that own a huge business corporation. The son is being groomed to take over the mansgement from the father and will not be permittrd to marry a foreigner. Jennifer is heartbroken.

Meanwhile Lara begins looking for William. She also find out that the amulets that william sent to his wife are very bad. They are not the usual designs. And Lara finds another mystery. Where 50 years previously an american woman had killed her husband and child and then disappered.

In this book Lara solves the mystery of the 50 year old murder, and the secret of the amulets.

I learnt a lot about Thai history, culture and geography in this book.


The Chinese Alchemist

A wealthy Eurasian collecter in Toronto(Dorothy Matthews) ask Lara to bid on a small chinese box that is going up for sale at a local auction. The box is withdrawn from the sale just minutes befor the sale is due to start. Dorothy dies from the stress. Some months later, the box agains comes up for auction - only this time in Beijing.


Lara is asked by Dorothy's widow to go to Beijing and see if she can purchase the box. At the auction the box is stolen in plain site of several viewers including Lara. Lara follows the thief to Xian where she discovers that Dorothy's family have been raiding an unknown imperial tomb from the area and that the 3 boxes originally came from this tomb.

The 3 boxes are engraved with parts of a recipe on them - the recipe to immortality.

And another major life change....

For those of you who are wondering why this blog has been so quiet - well I just spent a week in Hospital.

It started on Monday 4th January 2010, when my legs started swelling up. The skin became tight and my weight went up 20 pounds. I could not even get into bed without using my hands to LIFT my legs up. This is called Edema. My legs refused to go back to their normal size despite my elevating them. A few days later the heart started racing (tacycardia) and by now I was getting worrled. So on January 13th I finally went to the doctors.

I had edema, tachycardia and an enlarged liver, plus with the 70 pounds weight loss, I was looking gaunt and just not good.

I havent seen anyone looking as ill as you do, in all the 8 years I have been here, the doctor said. I want you to go to hospital - right now.

So I did. And had bed rest there for 6 days.

Thursday 14th I had several ultra sounds, an echocardiogram, and a CAT scan.

The hospital I was in, is a teaching hospital associated with the local university. On Friday 15th, due to my heart defect (I have a VSD that has never been repaired) and my other medical issues, I had several classes of students come though my room to see me and feel and hear what a real heat murmur looks and sounds like. These students were learning to be internists, cardiologists and nurses.

I was diagnosed with a hyperactive thyroid - and a condition known as Graves Disease. I was given medication to take, that will slow the heart down and keep it under control, control the thyroid and remove the fluid in my legs.

I was discharged on Tuesday 19th of January and am now back at home.

Graves disease cannot yet be cured, but it is manageable. and I will be taking drugs to control it for several years. It is possible to go into remission - where the disease behaves itself and the thyroid can function normally without any drugs. But if this never happens, then the drugs must continue for the rest of my life.

Because I had gone directly to the hospital from my doctors office, I did not have a chances to stock up on books. My weekend in hospital was so boring because I had no books to read. However I have read quite a few books and reviews will be up eventually.

The Last Judgement - Book Review

The Last Judgement
by Iain Pers
originally published by Victor Gollancz 1993
paperback published by Harper Collins 2001

Iain Pears is an English journalist and an art historian. He has written a number of novels starring Jonathan Argyll (an art dealer), most of which I have read. But I was pleased to find this novel which I had not read yet. So I read this for the Art History challenge.



The last Judgement is a painting by Jean Floret called the Death of Socrates. (He is the one who was forced to eat hemlock). It was one of a series of 4 paintings all shoing the last judgements of Alexander, Solomon and Jesus. (in reality there is a death of socrates painting but it is by Jacques Louis David and the other 3 paintings do not exist)

Jonathan is asked by a dealer in Paris to take this painting to Rome and deliver it to its new owner. When Jonathan arrives at the new owners place, the owner is delighted to get the painting, looks it over and then becomes disappointed saying that he no longer wants the painting. Jonathan takes it home and when he goes back the next day to ask some questions, he finds that the owner is now dead.

The owners name was Muller, a citizen of Canada born in France but raised in Argentina before immigrating to Canada. He had a secret - he was adopted and when he was 10 years old, he found out that his real father had been a hero in France during WW2. After Muller left school, he began his hunt to find his real father.

Mullers killer was traced to Switzerland. His name was Ellman and in his apartment (Jonathans partner) Flavia de Stanio found records that indicated that Ellman was receiving 5000 every months. Meanwhile Jonatahn went to paris to ask dome serious questions of the police and ifnd out who the real owner of the painting was. He is given a name - Jean Xavier Marie Rouxel - a french hero in the reisistance during WW2, who was due to receive a top french award later that month.

It turns out that Mullers mother was an english woman married to a german based in france during WW2. She was having an affair with Jean Rouxel and she gave birth to his child. She gave the child up for adoption and never told Jean he was a father. Her german husband (Hartung) knew that the child was not his. The wife eventually became a member of the resistance against Hartungs wishes.

Jean was the leader of a resistance cell and every time they tried to commit an action against the germans, the germans would show up there and prevent it. Someone in that group was a traitor.

After the war ended some of the group were interrogated by the germans, some were executed and some were released. Proof of the story was inserted into a painting.

The story of the resistance cell that were traitors only came out some 40 years later when muller started looking for his father. He was looking for Hartung. He was killed before he discovered that the war hero Jean Rouxel was his real father.

As for the painting - the last judgement, Rouxel claimed it as his own. It turned out that he had another painting in the same series. This second painting had the proof.

This was a most unusual art history book to read - because it was not all about the painting - no forgeries, no secrets. The secret was what happend in WW2. The painting was not involved except to hold the proof.

I am not fond of WW2 stories but I did read this to the end.

Publishers dumbfounded by airplane book ban

Publishers dumbfounded by airplane book ban
Globe and Mail Newpaper , Toronto, Canada
Tuesday, Jan. 05, 2010


Canadian publishers are dumbfounded by new airport security measures that seem to forbid passengers from bringing books and magazines purchased pre-flight onto airplanes bound for the U.S.

The measures, announced Dec. 28 by Transport Canada, permit Canadian passengers en route to the U.S. to carry on board “one or more” of 13 specified items. They include canes, cameras, laptop computers, musical instruments and “medical devices.”

However, books and magazines are not included among the permitted items. The situation has left Carolyn Wood, executive director of the Association of Canadian Publishers, “speechless, really. We're used to governments fearing books for their content. But what is it here? Is it their explosive capability?”

Ms. Wood's dismay was echoed by Jacqueline Hushion, executive director, external relations, for the Canadian Publishers' Council. The council represents some of the country's biggest foreign-owned publishers, including Random House and Penguin. (The ACP represents Canadian-owned firms.) “There's no common-sense in this,” Ms. Hushion said. “I can't believe they're not going to retract it. … And if they don't, I know thousands of people they'll be hearing from.”

An earlier news report indicated that while security personnel could exercise “some discretion” in what is permitted to go through security, only books and magazines purchased after the security check would be allowed into the cabin.

Globe and Mail

So for anyone travelling to USA - you cannot take any books with you (from outside the airport) through the security line. You have to purchase your books AFTER you have gone through the security line.

Well, now there is ONE MORE reason for me to NOT travel to USA.

The Moai Murders - Book Review

The Moai Murders
by Lyn Hamilton
Berkeley Prime Crime Books 2006

This is a Lara McClintoch Murder mystery. There are about 10 books in this series - all starring Lara Mcclintoch, an antiques dealer based in Toronto, Canada.

In this book, Lara takes a vacation with her friend Moira to Easter Island.


While they are on the island there is a conference about the history of easter island includng the moai (the statues) and rongo-rongo (the writing of easter island) which so far has stumped all linguists. So Lara and Moira join the conference.

This conference is a private group of easter island enthusiasts who have all visited easter island at least once before.

The conference discussion centres around where the easter island people came from - did they come from south america to the east (ala thor heyerdahl) or were they originally polynesians coming from the north west.

One of the members of this group Jasper Robinson has a surprise for the group. He shows a wooden tablet with rongo rongo writing on it and says he found it in Chile which proves that the easter islanders came from south america.

But two other members of the conference claim that Jasper is not telling the truth. Eventually it comes out that the tablet is genuine but it was found 30 years previously on Easter island in 1975 - on a dig which Jasper had headed. Two of the conference members were also on that dig.

During the conference - 3 members of the conference are murdered. One of them is Jasper Robinson, after he makes his big announcement.

Lara sets about asking questions, helping suspects to hide - the police have to come out from Chile to oversee the investigation - and eventually she tracks down the murder weapon and the murderer.

The murder weapon is a poison pen used for tattoos. Easter islanders have a tradition of tattooing the skin and some of the conference members get a tattoo. Those that do, end up dead.

I enjoyed this book very much, as it told me all about easter island, its geography, the culture and customs and the connection with Chile which lays claim to Easter island.

Personal History - Book Review

Personal History
by Katherine Graham
First published 1997
Vintage Books(paperback)1998

This is the personal memoir of Katherine Graham who owned and ran the Washington Post newspaper.




I have always been interested in the Watergate scandal and the 2 journalists who broke that story wide open - Bernstein and Woodward who both worked for the Post. Now I have finally finished Mrs Graham's memoir. This is the chunkster I mentioned a while ago. There is just over 600 pages of tightly packed small print. But that is not the reason wny I took over a months to read this book. No.

This book was hard to read because it reminded me so much of me. Katherine Graham insisted on pointing out a large number of times when she was a doormat - when she said "yes sir" and did what she was told without being allowed to make her own descision. She was a doormat for her father and mother, for her husband and for the government.

But after her husband died, Katherine was forced to grow up, to make decisions and to learn to make her own decisions. Just like I was. The second half of this book after her husband died was so much easier to read.

When I finished High school, I can still remember being told that I should do accounting and commerce at University (because thats where the jobs were) and not history which is what I wanted to do. So I did accounting and economics and I failed every single course. I was officially suspended from university for one year and never bothered to go back.

I truely regret not sticking up for myself and doing what I really wanted to do. If I had done the history degree, I could have been a librarian and right now I could be working in a career for the last 20 years, a career that I know I would be enjoying very much. But no, I was told that all I can do with a history degree was teach - and I did not want to be a teacher.

Thats enough, lets get in with it... (rolf harris)

Katharine Graham was born in 1917 in washington DC to great privilege. As I read about her financially privileged birth and upbringing, I wondered how such a spoiled and very sheltered child could survive in the world. Like I said, I did not get past the third chapter before I had to take a break from the book for a few days.

When Katharine was a 17-year-old boarding school student in suburban Washington, D.C., and the country was in the midst of the Great Depression (1933), her father bought The Washington Post Company (the fifth of five city newspapers and a pitiful, failing wreck) for $825,000. From then on, Katherine's life centered around The Washington Post.

At first, Katharine’s involvement with the Post is observational: she studied journalism in college while her father strove make a profit running the newspaper. She married a lawyer named Phil Graham. Phil inherits the newspaper while she raises her children. She did not inheriet the Washington Post because she was a woman.

Katherine wrotes about how she stayed socially aloof, ran the household complete with servants and a cook, and had parties with many famous people. There is a lot of name dropping in this book. Also a lot of Photos as well.

Phil graham was having very strange mood swings, and noone knew why. Now the symptoms of manic depression are obvious but they were not widely known in the 1960s. Also this illness, whatever it was, had to be kept quiet. In 1963 Phil committed suicide.

After Phil died, Katherine's life changed for the better. She was given the post of Presdient of the Washington Post. She had a lot to learn and she was not afraid to ask questions and learn the ropes. She was considered a powerful woman because of her title.

Katherine wrote about what happened during the turbulent 1970s. The Pentagon papers were published in 1971, Watergate stretched from 1972 to 1974 and in 1975-76 the printing union went on strike for 5 months.

Katharine’s life revolved around The Washington Post Company in every way, especially after her husband’s death and her assumption as president and publisher of the company. During the unfolding of Watergate, she or the newspaper were getting threats from the Nixon White House on a daily basis.

In addition, while one might have thought that The Washington Post was a well established paper when Watergate happened, it wasn’t. In 1974, after Watergate, the printer’s union went on strike, and The Washington Post could have easily folded. Instead, Katharine Graham learned how to run the presses, and the paper got out every day during the nearly six-month strike. Grahams’ ability to save the paper, despite the pressures, was incredible.

Katharine Graham led an interesting life of contrasts. While I worried her rich childhood meant she had a spoiled, sheltered life, I was very pleased on how much she grew and developed even during the seemingly insurmountable challenges.

As Katharine reviews her own life, she reveals much about the times in which she lived and the developments that society faced. I learned not just about Katharine Graham but about politics and political figures, publishing and journalism, travel, the life of the rich, history, culture, and the changing face of humankind over time.

She died in 2001 at age 83.
Prsonal History won Katherine a Pulitzer Prize in 1998.