Equinox Books

This book gives a great flavour of Java, by someone who has clearly spent a lot of time there. It's a true story, but reads like a novel: larger-than-life characters, bizarre plot twists, an exotic location, and a murder mystery. Set in Indonesia during 1996-1997, the country is just experiencing the first rumblings of political discontent. A journalist, Udin, is killed after writing stories critical of a local politician. The subsequent investigation turns into a ham-fisted cover-up, complete with a dim-witted fall guy threatened into confessing a ficticious crime of passion, but Udin's colleagues and a band of ambitious lawyers expose the plot.

The author carefully sets the scene, explaining the background to the action as he goes along. The journalistic digressions - on Javanese belief in magic, on Suharto's family dealings, on the static and corrupt nature of Indonesian "electoral" politics - are among the most interesting elements here. The bits on Indonesian police procedures, and the warped legal system are also great.

The book is most successful in explaining how an authoritarian regime like Indonesia's actually works in practice - how the benefits of power are shared out, who loses out, and how ordinary people are forced to compromise. In the Udin case, in the end, a lot of people refused to compromise. A year later - after the 1998 riots - Suharto was gone.

A remarkable story, and a cracking read.

Though historically skeptical and reads the historical texts of the Bible to uncover ideological bias, the combination of Liverani's expertise in ANE background combined with setting Israel in the context of the larger world (esp. the sixth century BC) sets this history apart, and much insight can be gathered here.

For the most part I enjoyed this book, although I must confess, I had some strong philosophical differences with the author. I think it's worthwhile reading for parents who're looking for information on the Internet to help them in their quest for healthy and happy child-raising, and home management information.

McCutcheon develops his ideas further than ever in this slim volume. Concise, challenging, and provocative. Guaranteed to tick you off, if you care about the theory of religion.

This book is a decent summary of the inter-religious strife that hit Maluku (the Moluccas) in Eastern Indonesia between 1999 and 2002. Though written as a novel, the author has obviously done his research and tried to summarize all factors, events and characters involved in the real conflict in a short book.

On the positive side, his general conclusions about the causes of the conflict are pretty correct. He has even managed to remain more impartial than most Westerners writing about this conflict by pointing out that attrocities were also commited by the Christian side, and even making a Muslim the main hero of his story.
The role of the Army and the character of its leaders are also well-described.

The devil is in the details, which are more errorous.
The island he describes is placed in South Maluku, yet has a neglected sultan - in reality sultans only ever ruled North Maluku, where they have always commanded much respect. The South has rajas instead, both among Christian and Muslim communities.
The main spice of the fantasy-island is called "noli" - but its description is so obviously of nutmeg that it left me wondering why call it by any other name?
The chronology of the events described is wrong. For one, he claims that strife in Ambon started with Muslims attacking the Christian-run market! Anyone familiar with Ambon knows that until the troubles Muslims ran the markets there, which was in fact correspondingly burned by Christians first. Then the incident of forced islamization on Kesui is described as having happened soon after the initial outbreak of violance - in reality it happened much later...
Generally, the long phases of the conflict that took 4 years to run its full course in reality take place in a matter of days, weeks and months in this book - which might well leave readers bewildered on how things can change so rapidly.
And while the characters are nice and moving, I found them less than life-like - but more idealization of them might be justified in what is a novel after all.

Maybe I only noticed the above as I myself spent much time throughout Maluku during this conflict over the past years and hope to have got to know its people and history better than most visitors.
This has probably made me a somewhat critical reader - but even so I would still say that all things considered, the author has tackled the difficult task of making this cruel conflict comprehensible to the wider public pretty well.

Spring Equinox and Beyond it's a faithful portray of the urban Japanese society in the early twenty century. Japan society of status is presented at Keitaro's search for a job, and the price he is willing to pay for Taguchi's help. This author is one of Japan's finest. I recommend it.

What's up with you guys? An author comes along and offers us something genuinely new in the field of jazz biography, and all that some of you can do is descend into name-calling and personal attacks. I'd always liked to imagine that Amazon reviews might be a place for constructive criticism and debate. Apparently not.

Rather than offering us yet another Great Man (in the tiresome style of the Ken Burns Jazz series), Mr. Perchard offers a painstakingly researched and richly contextualized account of the life of an often inspired and often troubled soul. And, rather than adopting the authoritative voice of the confident biographer, full of confident facts, Mr. Perchard reflects intriguingly on his own role in the process of telling, and constructing, history. This is, indeed, something new. So, for those of you out there who are apparently 'troubled' or 'disturbed' by Mr. Perchard's account, I suggest that you check out the reviews of his book by some well-established jazz writers (www.tomperchard.com/reviews.htm), and then go back and have another look at this fascinating text.

And the only thing "disturbing" about Mr. Fitzgerald's recent posting is that he appears to be on commission from the University of Michigan Press. Is this what Amazon reviews are for? I'm sure that Mr. McMillan's forthcoming book will act as an interesting complement to Mr. Perchard's, although Mr. Fitzgerald seems remarkably confident in the apparent strengths of the former, given that it hasn't even been published yet. And U of M Press, please note: Mr McMillan's book is not, as you state in the blurb on your website (with the aid of a well-split infinitive), "the first biography to seriously examine Morgan's vast contributions to jazz." Mr. Perchard's book, which examines seriously Morgan's vast contributions to jazz, was published in November 2006. Puffery is one thing; factual accuracy is another.

Well, this wasn't exactly what I was thinking when I bought this bio of my favorite musician, but it's ok. As the title suggests, the author not only focuses on Lee, but the politics and culture of the time. He brings in factors that some of us would have already considered (like the civil rights and Black Power movements), as well as his horrific heroin addiction. I would have liked more from musicians he really liked performing with, like Jackie McLean, Billy Higgins, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, etc., but maybe he couldn't get to them. It was interesting, but ultimately, not enough for real lovers of this great musician.

As others have already noted, this is a very flawed book. It suffers from hasty production, incomplete research, and a lack of understanding of Lee Morgan's full contributions to jazz (can anyone believe that a book-length biography of Morgan doesn't even mention ONCE his beautiful composition "Ceora", which has become a jazz standard?). It was also disturbing to see the author's prejudices and preconceptions come through again and again, even to the point of him arguing with his interview subjects. "My mind is made up; don't confuse me with facts."

But do not fear, because a second Morgan biography is about to be published. This one, by Jeff McMillan, will quite likely be the satisfying, well-researched book that Morgan deserves.

Delightfulee: The Life and Music of Lee Morgan (Jazz Perspectives)

Though it was a bit too focused on the political and sociological climate of the time, I thought that the book was good given the fact that the author's intention was obviously to write a contextual biography. The validity of some things written might be questionable, and there are things left out, but at least someone stepped up and made the effort to write a biography about Lee-this should have been done long ago.

I must admit that I did learn a bit of factual information about Lee Morgan From Tom Perchard's book, but what I really came away with was the author's sociological theories about race, drugs, and growing up in the jazz music business in the 1950s & 1960s. This was fascinating and intriguing reading for a few pages but by the end of the book I really had more of an idea about the author's viewpoints than any sort of idea about what Lee Morgan was actually like. Maybe someday we'll get a biography about Morgan that's actually more about Morgan and less about the author's sociological insights.

I was intrigued to see what the next titles from MAX would be and Hellstorm did not disappoint. While it is an uneven experience, with some sections being a little slow for my taste and some being quite fast, Irvine and Braun actually create some shockingly good comic sequences and set pieces which is becoming rare in an era of throwaway art and characters. A good first collaboration and it shows great promise for things to come from both.

Some of the extras from the comic show the original pencils and I find myself very much preferring the originals to the final product, although the inks by Klaus Janson are very painterly. I feel its a mistake to have both painterly inks and colors which is what we see here but the final product is still quite good. I would have been intrigued to see an edition printed in black and white which might have done more justice to the original art and the time Klaus clearly spent on the inks.

The writing is a very good first attempt for Alexander Irvine. Humor suffuses even very small details making the characters seem like real people - a good example are the ringtones used for Satan. Irvine mixes post Katrina New Orleans with Egyptian mythology in ways you would never expect and the results are very interesting.

All in all, 4 stars. Lets see more!

well I am a huge fan of punisher MAX and I wanted to see what some of the other MAX titles had to offer.This is my first exposure to this character and the concept seemed pretty cool. I was really disappointed by this book. The story seemed so pointless I had no idea what the the characters were trying to do and why I should care to figure it out. The art is the only thing that makes this tolerable. Hopefully the following books will be a little better but this, in my mind, is a horrible failure. Don't waste your time reading this.

Daimon Hellstorm has had a sordid history to say the least. He was part of Marvel's horror line from the 70's, and underwent a bit of a reboot some years later that really went nowhere. Now, the Son of Satan is back in the modern age, and what a better time and place (Marvel's mature themed MAX line) for Daimon to rear his demonic head. Hellstorm: Son of Satan finds Daimon in a post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans as a plot unravels involving his father and those defying him in an effort to gather body parts. Yes, the story sounds like it may not make much sense, but writer Alexander Irvine knows what he's doing, and by the time the twists and turns and revelations pop up, you'll be left with what is by far the most compelling story to ever feature Daimon Hellstorm at the forefront. There's great, bloody art courtesy of Russell Braun and Klaus Janson, issue covers from the great Arthur Suydam, and an afterword featuring commentary from Irvine, Braun, and Janson on how the book came together. All in all, Hellstorm makes a very good debut on the MAX line, and here's hoping this isn't the last we'll see from the trio and the character alike.

Philip José Farmer is a groundbreaking writer that in the '50s & '60s starts turmoil in the scene of Sci-fi. Up to that time the genre was almost aseptic, romance: yes, sex: no.
PJF launched his short story "The Lovers" (1952) and started a change. "Flesh" (1960) and "Riders of the Purple Wage" (1967) are two interesting examples amongst other of the same kind.
The other unconventional thematic he approached is: "What happens after death". A good example of this is his Riverworld Saga initiated with "To Your Scattered Bodies Go" (1971) and an excellent short story as "A Bowl Bigger than Earth" (1967).

"Inside/Outside" (1964) pertains to this last group.
Here, a strange world named "Hell" is depicted. This cosmos is contained into a sphere with the "sun" in its center.
The reader is introduced to this complex universe following the daily life of Jack Cull. Thru his eyes and thoughts, bit by bit of odd and contradictory information is revealed. Supposedly the inhabitants of Hell went there after living a previous life in Earth, but they keep vague memories of such previous life.
Cohabitating in Hell there are Demons but Humans are the dominant specie instead of them (isn't that nice?).
Among other oddities this world is subject to constant earthquakes in order to expand and make room for more and more inhabitants. Yet another cute characteristic is: no one dies. If by accident a human being dies, his/hers body is collected by an ambulance and he/she reappears unharmed hours after.
Well, that is the background where action takes place. Discover the rest by reading the book if it seems to interest you.

PJF constructs a grim and stark novel that will affect and may disturb the reader, yet is a fascinating piece of strange sci-fi.
Sci-fi addicts will surely enjoy it!

Reviewed by Max Yofre.

In this peculiar novel Farmer takes us to a radically new locale - a heretofore unknown portion of the cosmos which its inhabitants refer to as "Hell". The protagonist (one certainly can't call him a hero) is Jack Cull, an agent of an investigative agency known as the Exchange. Amidst this living horror where no one seems to know any essential facts of existence, the Exchange seeks out information concerning the possibility of eternal salvation, or failing that, any rumors that might suffice to give some hope to the long-suffering inhabitants. Of primary concern is the mysterious being known only as "X", who appears to collect the bodies of the deceased, delivers a cryptic moral message to any bystanders, and then retires to engineer the resurrection of the dead. Thus death does not end, but only interrupts, the tedious existence of these god-forsaken creatures. Without giving away the many unique twists this story presents, Farmer gives us an extensive tour of the premises, a confrontation with X, and a major cataclysm, all within this rather short novel. This adds up to a book packed full of action, and brimming with radical, even bizarre, cosmological ideas. The characters, setting, and violent action are uniformly grim, depressing, only half-familiar, and often morally repugnant; all of which contribute to making this book an artistic success as a view of a world without any moral compass or any real hope of redemption. Regrettably, these same qualities make the book a rather depressing read, as the hopelessness and despair of the characters tends to bleed over onto the reader. Things happen so quickly that it's often hard to understand exactly what's going on, and of course no one ever understands why (they aren't supposed to, until the very end), keeping the reader more befuddled than engrossed. The conclusion of the novel, where the secrets are revealed, is certainly surprising enough, although like most theories of cosmology it may offend those with strict ideas about the nature of the universe, and it certainly is of no practical importance even if one believed in it. All in all, readers who are neither offended nor depressed by Farmer's vision may find it both clever and even amusing, although no one's life will ever be changed by it. But in the last analysis, though Farmer has done a magnificent job of integrating every facet of his novel to create a perfect picture of soulless emptiness, as with the artist who fills jars with urine, it's hard to believe that many people will actually enjoy the result.

When the democracy dust settles, it will be interesting to see how this novel is viewed, because I think most of the pizazz of Saman is in its timeliness.

Ayu Utami is a gifted social activist and journalist, in addition to being a novelist. She deserves a platform. Maybe the problems with Saman can be traced to the translation work (not hers), but it is at best uneven and at worst an odd confusion of voices.

Certainly, Utami was able to write this in Indonesian for Indonesians at a time when the door opened a crack for free thinkers and crusaders for human rights. The novel touches on the basic human need for justice and honesty at a time when the two concepts were fresh ideas for this fascinating populace. It caused a sensation in her own country, in its original language. The writing's raw use of sex and politics is a bit jumbled to the western reader, but a Pandora's box of suppressed thinking has been opened in Indonesia, and there's bound to be a bit of chaos right now. The novel certainly shows this.

But if you, reader of English language texts, want to get a taste of what is new and important to young, informed Indonesians, then you'd better read Saman.

In this slowly starting and loosely constructed novel, the key theme is freedom: the collective and individual struggle to be oneself and free.

It is a battle for economic freedom: 'If the company wants to turn the failed rubber plantations into palm oil plantations, let them. But don't let them touch our trees.' The free peasants fight against forced cultivation and outrageous deceit and fraud.
A battle for social freedom: worker's rights and the protection of the poor, who are perpetually victimized.
A battle against the patriarchal power structure and the repression of women '...cocooned in domestic affairs, leaving strategic decision-making entirely in the hands of men.' More, 'Five or more unidentified bodies were found each week in South Sumatra. Two, or three of them were women. Many of these women were raped.'
A battle against the oppression of religion: ' The Church itself is in a compromised position. The congregation is frightened by the spectre of Communism. The accusation of forcing people to convert to Christianity can only bring us in disrepute.'
Covering it all are political freedom and freedom of expression: the fight against dictatorship, its intimidations through rape and demolitions, its tortures and its bureaucracy: 'the authorities have the power to buy or manipulate everyone.'

Saman, the main character in this book, is a priest, who is accused of being a disguised communist. He is put in prison and tortured. He looses his faith: 'When I have to choose whether to stay in the Church or to be with my friends to whom I am committed, I have been leaning towards the latter ... here I am deciding to leave the priesthood.'
He also becomes sexually free.
After escaping prison, he works for an NGO 'Human Rights Watch' and uses Internet as the ultimate channel of free speech.

This book is solidly anchored in Indonesian society with all its taboos. But it is also a very worthwhile read for non-Indonesians for its tackling of a universal human problem.