Channel Blue  (2014)  Jay Martel

Perry Bunt is a screenwriter / teacher at a local community college.  Through ineptitude and bad luck his career in screenwriting is washed up.  One of his students – Amanda Mundo – catches his eye because she is lovely and encourages him.  When she leaves her coat in class he follows her to her work place and finds out she is actually a producer for Channel Blue, which runs the planet Earth asa reality show for aliens.  She had sat in on Perry’s classes to get ideas for storylines because the ratings for Earth were so bad that cancellation was in the plans.  Cancelling the show means destroying the Earth in one last ratings-busting Grand Finale.  Perry and Amanda try to save the Earth and themselves by getting the ratings up.  Along the way they meet G.O.D. and Satan along with Elvis – none were who we thought they were.  Does Earth burn or do they save the day?  Is this book a comedy or tragedy?  This book has been compared to Douglass Adams -  I’d say maybe Adams-Lite.  But hey that is still pretty good.

Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century (2010) Michael A. Hiltzik

Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century (2010)    Michael A. Hiltzik

The story of the building of Boulder re HOOVER Dam.  What an incredible American Adventure!  I always wondered how a dam could be built for such a raging river like the Colorado.  The creation of the four bypass tunnels were amazing.  Hiltzik captures much of the detail of the actual building and the labor issues involved.  It would have been interesting to understand more of the basic engineering issues involved.  The curing of the immense amount of concrete was astounding.  Well over a hundred deaths happened during the construction and it sounds like it could have been many more.  Hiltzik does a good job of placing this project in time along with the Great Depression and the New Deal Era of FDR.  Overall a great read!

Playing Through the Whistle (2016) SL Price

Playing through the Whistle (2016)  SL Price

What do Mike Ditka, Henry Mancini and Darrell Rivas have in come?  Their hometown of Aliquippa Pennsylvania.  Situated west of the Ohio River very close to the Ohio Border I visited and heard about Aliquippa, Beaver Falls, Monaca Heights and New Hope throughout my childhood.  My grandfather work in J and L Steel on and off for 50 years.  Price does a great job of describing the community that developed around Jones and Laughlin (J and L) Steel.  He not only follows the rise, fall, and rise of Aliquippa football but also reviews the labor and race relations that  I remember my grandfather talking about when we visited.  It is a unique place that seemed to develop tough and unique characters. It is a super book!

Soft Apocalypse (2011). Will McIntosh

Soft Apocalypse (2011) Will McIntosh

Jasper and his tribe and just trying to live from day to day as the world slowly crumbles around them.  Not quite as exciting as other end of the world books but much more believable.  That’s what makes it frightening.  You could see yourself in the same situation.  It makes you wonder what you would do in a similar situation.   What (and who) would be your priorities and how far would you be willing to go to keep them?  Will McIntosh makes you think -  Check out two of his other books – Faller and Defenders.

Genesis (2000). Poul Anderson

Genesis (2000)  Poul Anderson

Christian Brannock is astronaut, poet, singer and eventually uploaded brain in a box.  He travels the stars and one iteration of him bonds with the great galactic mind – Alpha.   Alpha then sends him to investigate why the great mind over Earth  -Gaia -  does not want to try to extend the eventual existence of the planet as the sun gets closer to super nova.  Typical  (good) Poul Anderson.   Good characters and better plot with a lot of situations.