Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 29, 1993 TAG: 9308290289
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
This book is an interesting assortment of tips, instructions and ideas for knowing some of the lost arts: carving a turkey, laying a fire, being a welcome guest, shaking hands and 26 others. I thought I knew how to boil an egg but, lo and behold, there are five methods described in the egg chapter. I tried the fourth: add eggs to water already at a rolling boil, cover, remove from heat and let stand ten minutes. It works nicely but if the eggs are large or extra large, better add another minute or so.
The chapter on packing a bag has standard tips but the authors omit the idea of including a half-dozen light plastic hangers for doing laundry in the hotel room and for those hotel closets that don't have enough hangers. The most interesting paragraphs were the ones on the rule of thumb on what to pack and what to leave at home. Take the address book of friends but leave at home grandmother's diamond bracelet. If you're going to fret about losing it, leave it; if your trip will be enhanced with it, take it.
That last chapter is on writing thank-you notes. Now that's something that should be required reading for every age. Ann Landers is right: "It's never too late to write." Tell that to the bride of a couple years ago who hasn't yet. _PEGGY DAVIS
\ COLD ALLIES. By Patricia Anthony. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. $21.95.
The nuclear wars predicted in books like "On the Beach" no longer seem quite as likely as they did in the 1950s, but longer-drawn-out conventional wars fought with futuristic weapons can be almost as scarey. In this first novel which does not read like one, perhaps because the author has already honed her skills with a variety of short stories, America and Europe (except for neutral Russia) and the Arab National Army are at war in the next century over the dwindling raw materials that still exist.
And our side is losing.
Anthony lets us see the story unfold through a variety of characters, from the high-tech officers on both sides to the non-coms who sit in video-game-like consols and operate intelligent armor on distant battlefields by remote control.
Then a wild card appears - tiny blue lights, reminiscent of the "foo fighters" reported in World War II, lurking over battlefields and even following the armor unit of a sergeant to whom one light seems to have taken a liking.
A U.S. general who believes the lights may offer a way to stem the Arab tide drafts a middle-aged Arlington woman who writes books about her contacts with advanced aliens visiting us in UFOs. She is an utter fraud, but the general doesn't know that and her double-talk strings him along while preventing the authorities from acting against her.
The novel is both funny and tragic by turns, but a page-turner either way.
\ CHILLER. By Sterling Blake. Bantam. $21.95.
Sterling Blake has written an interesting first novel with "Chiller." If he had cut this 485-page techno-thriller in half, he'd have had a real winner. The novel has a suspense-filled plot based on the already frightening and seemingly sinister science of cryonics, or freezing corpses to keep them in a suspended sub-zero state until science can develop a cure for what killed them.
Biochemist Alex Cromwell, Dr. Susan Hagerty and Research Assistant Kathryn Sheffield all work at Immortality Inc., a cutting edge cryonics facility in Southern California. Upon that premise Blake has added a bizarre serial killer, a charismatic televangelist and a shadowy Machiavellian figure who seems to run the whole show. So far so good, but there's just too much going on in "Chiller." Perhaps Blake (or his editors) just didn't know when to stop. When he finally does get to the end, he's forced to jump into the unusual denouement too abruptly and without much credibility.
If you like this sort of techno-thriller, then "Chiller" is worth reading, and it's an impressive first novel. You may find yourself on episodic overload somewhere in the middle, though, as I did and start skimming.
-JUDY KWELLER
\ Peggy Davis reviews books regularly for this page.
Paul Dellinger is a reporter for the Southwest bureau of this newspaper.
Judy Kweller is vice president of an advertising agency.
by CNB