The Spanish Helmet by Greg Scowen

 

http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Helmet-Matthew-Cameron-ebook/dp/B00537SKMA

Scowen has created a very exciting story from the mix of “evidence”, hypothesis, and hyperbole that is the history of New Zealand before 1769. The alternating chapters of possible 16th Century Spanish discovery and an equally plausible present day story are knitted together very well. As with history everywhere, the most easily accessible “truths” come from amongst the records of the victorious and not from those of the defeated. Taking this factor into account this fiction builds a believable plot.
I loved the way Scowen blended together the “known” and the theoretical in creating this realistically paced thriller. He wasted little of his wide cultural experiences either, as he even weaves in some recently acquired knowledge of Switzerland.
I include here a paragraph of background to help those unfamiliar with New Zealand gain a feel for this book’s foundations. I would be distressed by the opinion that any of this is anywhere near being a spoiler. There were quite possibly some “fair-skinned tribes” in NZ before “discovery” by the Dutch and English. There are all sorts of diverse and variably weak bits of real evidence for such a theory. Timelines are very unclear. This is unsurprising considering that so much of what we do know comes from the oral histories of the Maori, and from a strange mix of singularly inconsequential archaeological inconsistencies and theories. However, Scowen has used a nice mix of what I assume are genuine, though perhaps minority, Maori tribal memories and the thin presently available archaeological evidence to great effect. That in this temperate zone of the southern hemisphere there were “fair” skinned peoples long before the arrival of Europeans seems biologically unsurprising. There is also a probability that a few Europeans arrived well before 18th and 19th Century waves of modern Pakeha. Possibly there were enough whites to have given rise to a small fairer-skinned assimilated population. I was pleased to have this information prior to reading the book, as I’m sure it only added to my rapid immersion in the story.
The mixed bonds and frictions within close and tribal families provide the glue to many aspects of the plot. There is plenty of love, hate and drama to add spice to history and archaeological intrigue. Good, bad and variously flawed individuals experience all the classic ingredients of love, sexual tension, and violence, turning this mix of historical and contemporary fiction into a great read.
The possible voyage of the real San Lesmes and the main character’s modern fictional tour of New Zealand may almost have been designed to give NZ Tourism a boost. Scowen’s book is very readable. Without a series of inevitable distractions I would have had no trouble in finishing The Spanish Helmet in one read. I look forward to his next book.

Born a Refugee, by Dixiane Hallaj

This is a deep, rich, poignant and profoundly humanistic book. It is also one of the best “political” books I have ever read.
The central thesis, a family that could be any one’s neighbours anywhere of Earth, except that they are struggling against the crush of a “foreign” military occupation, living between Jerusalem and Ramallah, is brilliantly constructed.
Whilst telling one extended family’s story Hallaj very cleverly keeps the reader linked to the massive historical waves convulsing the nowadays lands of Abraham. The chosen device, the start of chapter historic, headline, quote, works very well.
Haaaj is a very good reader of people. Her characters are totally believable, and her understanding of the issues facing stateless people walking their own ancestors’ lands seems to an outsider to be sharp and profound. Politicians who really care for the pursuit of peace should read this book, whatever side of the wicked divide birth or conviction puts them on.
My only gripe is that Hallaj is far too soft on the terrors on both sides of the story. For me the time for soft kicks, for common sense solutions, ended with the death of Ben Gurion, a long life far too short. But then again, if ever peace is to come through peaceful means then this book may well be a cathartic part of the build. No antagonists can justifiably claim that this read is too hurtful of their sensibilities. For those distant from the issues, here is a fiction that accurately reflects a continuing truth.

http://www.amazon.com/Born-a-Refugee-ebook/dp/B003A4IEFG

Alexios, Before Dying- Chance Maree

First off, this is a very well written book, and a very good example of the sort of original work that self-publishing has saved from the traditional publishing houses waste-bins. Perhaps in more enlightened times, ones less focused on the bogey of profit before enterprise, Chance would have found a main stream publisher. Fortunately ePublishing allows inventive authors to ignore the traditional paths.
This is a thinker’s read, not a high-brow pretentious one, but definitely cerebral. Amongst my early thoughts was the idea that I was reading a selection of short stories. Particularly the first few chapters can be read as self-contained pieces. By the end of chapter four I realised there was a thread, one that I failed to really see until the very end. I became increasingly aware of a need to concentrate more fully.
I love the diversity of Chance’s characters, or partial characters might be a more accurate description. I think Chance has spent a lot of time people watching. The diversity of characters is only matched by the range of cultures, and philosophical ideas on which Chance draws. We see elements from many mystical, metaphysical and private insights in the building of Alexios.
There are problems. Chance runs the risk of losing some readers, by not having a rigid and clear plot line. We see the direction at the end, but the shallow reader that is me could have done with being better anchored. In other words, the story does ask a lot of the reader. Luckily her prose writing is so good that most are sure to be kept on-board.
I would have liked Chance to have majored on her brilliant story telling more than her philosophical conjuring. She doesn’t need to drop the intellectual content, far from it. Rather she needs to boost the story with even more gratuitous rewards for the reader along the speculative path.
Perhaps the real problem was manufactured by trying to write to concisely, by bowing too much to the modern clarion call to write short. Self-publishing allows a freedom which perhaps was compromised by early attempts to satisfy the short-sighted monster that is modern establishment publishing.
I will be looking out for Chance’s future works.

http://www.amazon.com/Alexios-Before-Dying-ebook/dp/B006P1VRAA