All posts by Lars Walker

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Mighty Fortress,’ by S. D. Thames

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A Mighty Fortress

As Jimmy drove us farther north, I realized a serene calmness had fallen over me. It was as though I’d had my fix—maybe the way heroin calms an addict, or porn calms someone addicted to it. I’m my calmest when someone is pointing a gun at me.

[Cue sound effect: Ringing bell.] We have a winner! From a quarter where I wouldn’t have expected to find one! A Mighty Fortress is a first (full-length) novel by an author I’d never heard of. It has so much going against it – it’s a Christian novel (which usually means low quality, let’s face it, especially when the authors are starting out). It’s a hard-boiled mystery into which the author injects supernatural and theological elements. There are even miracles. The miracle for me is how well this thing worked, and how much I loved it.

Milo Porter is a Gulf War veteran suffering from PTSD. He makes his living as a private investigator and process server, working for lawyers in the Tampa area. When not working, he lets off steam doing power lifting at a gym owned by a friend, whose sister is Milo’s girlfriend. He sees a counselor for his insomnia and flashback dreams, but what he really enjoys is taking risks.

One Sunday he’s offered an unreasonable sum to do a special subpoena service on a guy connected to the mob. He figures a way to accomplish this and get out safely, but he still gets ambushed and kidnapped by the target and his henchmen later that night. But that’s the best part, as far as Milo’s concerned. By the end of the night somebody has been murdered.

Milo is compelled to get involved in the investigation, trying to locate a beautiful prostitute whose life is in danger. He encounters crooked politicians, crooked cops, pornographers, an alcoholic ex-judge, a preacher who’s lost his faith, and – a supernatural being. And that’s only the beginning of the weirdness.

The wonderful thing is that author S. D. Thames makes the whole thing work. His prose isn’t fancy, but it’s solid and compelling, highly professional in quality. The characters are interesting, and they often surprise us. Milo himself is a fascinating study.

I found A Mighty Fortress a delight, a little reminiscent of John D. MacDonald in style. I’m reading a previous novella by the author now, and look forward to more Milo Porter books when they come out. Well done. Not for the kids, but for anyone else, I highly recommend it.

Bookselling, Uncategorized, Writing

Breathless drama in the library

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It’s the roughest week of the year for this librarian.

First week of school. I’ve already done my orientations (a lecture and walk-through for Bible school students, a walk-through for seminarians). I’m training two new assistants (most years I have a junior and a senior assistant, so there’s only one to train at a time. But things happen). And I have a lecture to do on writing academic papers, tomorrow (I’ll be doing that with less practice than I hoped). And I’m putting together an article on the Reformation in Norway, for the Georg Sverdrup Society newsletter, deadline coming up.

Oh yes, I sell textbooks, too.

I’m not complaining. The days go quickly, and I’m not bored.

I also agreed, in a preliminary way, to tutor a seminary student in Norwegian. But that won’t happen (if it happens at all) until next year.

Oh yes, the Viking Age Club will be at the Nordic Music Festival in Victoria, Minnesota this Saturday. I’ll be there if I have any strength left.

Religion, Uncategorized

Gloomy news day

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Yesterday was the first day of school for my institution(s), so I was pretty busy. But I learned (primarily through Facebook) of two deaths that were significant to me. For very different reasons.

Phyllis Schlafly died. I assume that the left has assumed the same classy and openminded attitude toward her in death that it assumed during her life (which is to say, there is no epithet too vile for them to throw at her. I’ve seen one example already). I’m sure that in heaven she wears those clods and brickbats as royal decorations. She was a model to us all, in her patient endurance of personal insult, for the sake of the truth, and her refusal to back down.

I think of her most from back in the ‘80s, when I was living in that twilight world where I still voted Democrat while my heart was really with the Republicans. Oh, I still believed that high taxes were God’s chosen means for building the Kingdom of God, but the things my fellow party members said about Mrs. Schlafly made me mad. And eventually I figured out that the people who called her names didn’t think any more highly of me. It helped me to jump parties. Thanks, Lefties!

Another death yesterday was Hugh O’Brien, who – when I was a boy – starred in a TV series called “The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.” I was a big fan of that show. O’Brien, unusually for television in those days, made some minimal effort to dress like the character he was playing. It wasn’t very authentic, but it was an effort. After all, there was no question of his affecting the real Wyatt’s magnificent mustache in those days. I’ve seen re-broadcast episodes, and while the show is not high art, and it leans too heavily on Stuart N. Lake’s highly unreliable biography, it’s a notch better than average TV western of the day.

He devoted his later life to a foundation for youth leadership development. He seems to have been a serious man.

Finally, our friend Gene Edward Veith posted an interesting article today in relation to the canonization of Mother Theresa of Calcutta. As a Lutheran, he doesn’t have much to say about the Catholic canonization process, but he articulates thoughts I share about her admitted struggles with depression:

I have heard this period of darkness referred to as evidence that Teresa “was not perfect,” but I think it makes her holiness more believable. The life of faith is not “perfection,” nor constant joy; rather, it often involves what Luther called “tentatio”–struggle, conflict, agony of conscience–and her descriptions of her depression shows that her faith was in Christ and not her own good works, which she had in such abundance.

Fiction, Reviews

‘No Way to Treat a First Lady,’ by Christopher Buckley

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No Way to Treat a First Lady

Judge Dutch creaked forward in his chair. This is the source of the aura of judges: they have bigger chairs than anyone else. That and the fact that they can sentence people to sit in electrified ones. It’s all about the chairs.

Since I enjoyed The Relic Master so much (see my review a few inches down), I figured I’d give Christopher Buckley another go. This time I tried No Way to Treat a First Lady, a satirical novel about presidential assassination, always comedy gold.

President Ken MacMann (think John F. Kennedy, but updated to the 1990s or so), after a grueling session of intimate relations with a movie star in the Lincoln Bedroom, retires to his own bedroom, where he wakes his wife, Beth (popularly known as “Lady Bethmac”). She lobs an antique Paul Revere spittoon at his head and goes back to sleep. The following morning, the maid finds the president dead.

Beth is immediately arrested for murder and assassination. In her time of need, she turns to Boyce “Shameless” Baylor, America’s most famous defense attorney. He also happens to be the guy Beth was engaged to years ago, in law school, before she met Ken MacMann. Boyce takes the case eagerly, and contemplates the possibility of botching the defense, just to get his own back.

That is the premise of a story that, for all its lampooning of American institutions and hypocrisies, is surprisingly sentimental at its heart. I laughed often while reading No Way to Treat a First Lady, and I made a guess as to how the story would come out. I was wrong. I like being wrong when it comes to predicting story endings.

Full points for entertainment value and social commentary here. Cautions for adult language and (sometimes kinky) situations. Otherwise, recommended. (Oh yes, there’s a born-again Christian character who, though not generally sympathetic, does the right thing when it comes down to cases.)

Uncategorized

Klavan on ‘The Great Good Thing’

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Andrew Klavan’s spiritual memoir, The Great Good Thing, will be released later this month. Here he describes his journey to faith for Christianity Today.

But perhaps most important for a novelist who insisted that ideas should make sense, Christ came to me in stories. Slowly, I came to understand that his life, words, sacrifice, and resurrection formed the hidden logic behind every novel, movie, or play that touched my deepest mind.

I was reading a story when that logic finally kicked in. I was in my 40s, lying in bed with one of Patrick O’Brian’s great seafaring adventure novels. One of the characters, whom I admired, said a prayer before going to sleep, and I thought to myself, Well, if he can pray, so can I. I laid the book aside and whispered a three-word prayer in gratitude for the contentment I’d found, and for the work and people I loved: “Thank you, God.”

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Relic Master,’ by Christopher Buckley

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The Relic Master

Did the relic emit fragrance? Had there been verification by ordeal? Had it caused a miraculous healing? Finally, had the saint permitted it to be stolen from its shrine? The correct term was “translation.” There was a logic to it: Saints were living beings, even dead. No saint, or member of the Holy Family, would permit his or her relic to be translated from one owner to another unless they favored relocation.

Christopher Buckley, son of William F. Buckley, has made a career of writing satirical novels about the modern world. Now (perhaps because modern life has begun to outstrip the most outrageous satire) he has turned his eyes to the 16th Century in his marvelous – and surprisingly sweet and inspirational – novel, The Relic Master. It’s still satire, but it’s also an insightful, exciting, funny, and informational book.

Dismas is a Swiss, a former soldier and a widower. He lives in Germany and makes his living as a relic master, procuring relics for two different, and competing, clients. His favorite is his uncle, Elector Frederick III, a man of piety and good taste. The other is Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz, a greedy and corrupt man.

Dismas is an ethical relic master. He never buys anything he knows to be fraudulent – which sometimes displeases Albrecht. Continue reading ‘The Relic Master,’ by Christopher Buckley →

Poetry

No, the national anthem is not about slavery

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The Star-Spangled Banner
The original Star-Spangled Banner, in the Smithsonian Institution

One would think that the availability of the internet would increase the general truthfulness of human discourse. When it’s so easy to check our facts, our facts ought to be more… factual.

The actual effect, as far as I can see, has been to simply facilitate the spread of misinformation. Which ought to prove the doctrine of Original Sin beyond all dispute, it seems to me.

The misinformation I have in mind today is the urban legend, popularized in the wake of the recent controversy over a football player (who shall remain nameless here, because he doesn’t need the publicity) who refused to stand for the national anthem. The urban legend says that all black people should refuse to stand for the song, because it was written by a slave owner for the purpose of glorifying slavery.

This is hogwash. Francis Scott Key was a slaveholder, and a supporter of slavery, in common with most of his family and neighbors. But the song has nothing to do with that.

The offending lines, which are quoted as proof that the Star-Spangled Banner is a celebration of the institution of slavery are these: Continue reading No, the national anthem is not about slavery →

Uncategorized

My friends call me “Professor”

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I have reached another level in my carefully plotted strategy for world domination. I have agreed to teach three class periods in the seminary this fall. One hour on how to write research papers, and two on the historical background of the Free Lutheran conception of the pastoral ministry.

In what is tediously known as the Real World, of course, it’s not that big a deal. I don’t have faculty status. But I’ve always had great respect for academics (or I did until the field in general got turned into an exercise in political flacking). That’s probably one of the reasons I always resisted graduate study – until it became a necessity – I felt unworthy. Though I’ll admit it was mostly a matter of laziness, and finding school both boring and annoying.

It wasn’t a surprise. We’d discussed the idea before, and I’d done some preliminary preparation. But today it was confirmed, and the writing class is on the calendar.

For me, it’s kind of a big deal. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a teacher, but I do love lecturing. Pay attention to me!

Fiction, Reviews

‘Somewhither,’ by John C. Wright

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Somewhither

Now there are people who like it when bathing beauties kick the butts of beefy mobsters in TV shows and stuff, but that is just TV, and if you think that is real, you need to get out more, and get in more fights.

I read a lot of novels, as you’ve probably noticed. A few I don’t bother to finish. Some I like, but they leave no impression. Others I like a lot. A very few I admire exceedingly.

But it’s not often I find a book that’s just a whole lot of fun. John C. Wright’s Somewhither is just that. I’m not sure it’s a great work of art, but it could become a classic of the Wizard of Oz variety. Because the entertainment rewards are so great.

Here’s a book whose hero is a Neanderthal boy, in a bathrobe, with a samurai sword. The heroine is a mermaid named Penny Dreadful.

There’s a Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy vibe here, but underneath the many gags (sometimes too many, perhaps) there’s serious purpose and Christian edification. Continue reading ‘Somewhither,’ by John C. Wright →

Publishing, Writing

Status report

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I owe you an update. You know I’m done with my graduate work. That’s kind of an annoyance, in a way, because I’d gotten used to using school as an all-purpose excuse. “Gee, I’d like to help you move on Saturday, but golly, I’ve just got so much homework to do!”

Hard on the heels of that consummation, I was asked to do another edit on the Viking book I translated. I did that, and then when I had sent it in I re-considered and asked to have it back for one more pass. Because I like to do these things right. I have an idea that this translation will be a large part of the footprint I leave behind in this life.

Yesterday they sent me a draft cover for the book (to be called Viking Legacy, by Torgrim Titlestad). I’d share it with you, but I don’t have permission to. And it’ll probably change anyway. But I felt a quiet swelling of pride in my chest when I saw it. It’ll be good. Watch for it. This fall. Sometime.

Looks like I’ll be having some more translation work to do in the future too. I’m going to have to work out how to balance that with my novel writing.

I have been working on the next novel too, though. The problem is that this one’s a toughy. Of all the books in the Erling series, this will be the hardest to plot. It involves the lowest point in Erling’s life, and by extension in Father Ailill’s. I’ve got to figure out how to keep this one from combining the optimistic sparkle of Dostoevsky with the cheery fun of Game of Thrones.

Last night one of the characters did something I didn’t see coming. I’m still working out (while time is paused in his world) how Ailill will react.

So I shall not want for work to do.