You know I stint on five-star reviews, but I gave out five for both of these very different books. One, a memoir, the other a sci-fi book. Both on Kindle. As the brain freezes from finishing my own projects, it’s almost always possible to read something somebody else wrote.
Hippie at Heart: What I Used To Be, I Still Am by Lynne Zotalis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
On a 30th anniversary trip to Mexico, her beloved husband dies on a beach of an apparent heart attack. That’s an opening frame in this memoir of discovery in her home state of Minnesota. As many youth in the sixties, she finds escape in a variety of drugs readily available then and well into the seventies and beyond. Miraculously, she encounters the love of her life in that world.
The title exemplifies the life the author and the man who would become her husband led for some time–the counterculture rejection of the staid life normal parents led. I didn’t go quite so far as they did–building a log cabin in the middle of nowhere. Yet, I can identify. Especially in the rejection of the traditional cultural and political values. The two found a very different spiritual path than I did–one I could never in my wildest nightmares have adopted. One so far from the drug culture that they had been a part of. Still, you will find that–and their eventual departure from it, a very intriguing journey.
If you can’t find this book engrossing, you must be from a very different place. Not just a time, but a culture. It’s well-written and should keep you wanting to know what happens next. Despite knowing the end, it’s how Zotalis gets there that is where the rich tapestry of this story lies.
Oddly enough, we might have met decades ago–or at least been at the same Zappa and the Mothers concert in the Depot, a former bus station for “the Dog,” that briefly became a club for music and dance in Minneapolis in 1970-71. We might have been neighbors in South Minneapolis as well–hard to say. But then, those girls in their early twenties and guys as well had certain features in common–long hair on both, freak or hippie styled clothes and beards on the guys.
Spiders & Spice by E.J. Randolph
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Another great story by EJ Randolph about Kate Stevens, Federation Diplomat. This is my fifth read in the series. I received an ARC copy through StoryOrigin. Yes, it is a space opera–of sorts. But tech and space are setting and incidental challenges, not the main story. NOTE: you don’t have to read the others before this one–each stands alone. But to paraphrase the food jingle– “Bet you can’t read just one.”
Revisit the same cast of quirky characters on the crew of the transport that takes Kate to strange planets.–or meet them for the first time. In Spiders & Spice they’re on an intentionally backward planet that chooses to avoid technology and change. Consensus is the rule–a very strong rule. For those who can’t abide that requirement, there’s banishment to a more freewheeling town.
As always, Kate is challenged to save a planetary culture from itself–and a nefarious enemy. What makes the series worthy of reading is the world and culture building–with a well-developed sense of engaging diplomacy in peculiar political environments. Randolph does a fine job of doing that. With a good bit of humor thrown in. Humor like her supervisor (humorously referred to as “Really Big”), who plays his usual shell game on her. All part of the reality of those who have ever worked for any form of bureaucracy will identify with. Or the stomach churning food combinations like marshmallows on sauerkraut that crewmember Nick produces from the food fabricator.
