Review of "Mongolia and the Golden Eagle"

Review of

Mongolia and the Golden Eagle: An Archeological Mystery Thriller, by Bradford G. Wheler

9780982253892

Three out of five stars book

 While there is a lot of archeology and Mongolian culture there is little in the area of mystery or thriller in this story. It is more in the area of an adventure, where the main characters of Cornell archeology Professor Robert Johnson and his colleague and former student Abbey Summers embark on a research trip to Mongolia. They are both plucked from their classrooms by a multi-million dollar grant provided by high-tech billionaire Walter Falone.

 Explanations are in very short supply as they organize the expedition to supposedly search for caves that were inhabited by humans thousands of years ago. Yet, they develop a work plan, get organized and are on the ground in Mongolia. They meet with Mongolian government officials and begin working with park rangers and other Mongolians, including a former sumo wrestler. 

The reader is exposed to a great deal of the history of Mongolia, including its being a country that the two powerful communist nations of the Soviet Union and China engaged in a major rivalry over for decades. Although neither country is really communist anymore, the rivalry persists.

 I am not sure what the mystery is supposed to be in the story, at the end there is an event where it is possible that there will be a significant battle between Russia and China in Mongolia with the Johnson expedition caught in the middle. There is no mystery associated with the possible conflict, it is over some lost hi-tech property. There are some cyber security and spying aspects of the story, but none of them are very well done, they appeared to me to almost be afterthoughts or filler.

 Given the history of Mongolia under the powerful Genghis Khan and the mighty empire he created there is a great deal of plot options that could have been developed. It is not inconceivable that all of Asia and Europe could have developed while speaking Mongolian. However, Wheler chooses to include many different aspects, trying to combine archeology, Mongolian culture, Asian geopolitical rivalry and good old fashioned spying. However, none of them are done very well, Wheler simply included too many things to expand them all out well. 

This book was made available for free for review purposes

Review of "Rose and the Wish Thing: A Journey of Friendship", by Caroline Magerl

Review of

Rose and the Wish Thing: A Journey of Friendship, by Caroline Magerl

9780553536171

Three out of five star book

This is fundamentally a good story, Rose has moved and she sees the town where she now lives. She is experiencing the loneliness of being the new kid and so she looks out the window and makes a wish. At first, the purpose of the wish is indeterminate, the reader suspects that the goal is to find some new friends, but it is never made explicit. Rose searches in many places in her new town and eventually she encounters the point of her wish.

I never had to experience the trauma of moving to a new school, but I knew several children that came to mine. They would talk about the feelings of uncertainty and alienation as the teacher introduced them to the other people in their class. Ironically, in many cases it was the unpopular children that were the first to interact with them.

 There is very little text in the book and it is at the level of the very young reader. Many of the pages contain only illustrations. Which leads me to the problem that I have with it. The style of the images is that of being indeterminate and looking washed out. There is a significant blandness to the coloration as well as a fuzziness to the objects in the illustrations.

 This will make it difficult for the eyes of the beginning reader to discern the content. Given the small amount of text, the illustrations must contain a great deal of the story and in this case they do not. In my opinion, this is a serious flaw. 

This book was made available for free for review purposes

Quintillions or solid pentominoes: A challenging game puzzle that is also a work of art

Review of

Quintillions, A Set of Solid Pentominoes created by Kadon Enterprises

This is a set of solid pentominoes where the squares are approximately ¾ of an inch thick. The craftmanship is extraordinary, all of the edges and faces are as smooth as possible and the grain of the wood is very attractive.

 The set comes with a folding grid for the pentominoes that is 9 by 12, giving the “player” great flexibility in how they put the pieces together. The package contains a 63 page booklet of structures that can be made from the set. As is normally the case, there is a wide difference in the difficulty of the problems, some are three-dimensional structures.

 There are hours of challenging fun inherent in this collection, the pentominoes are the ideal set of polyominoes, there are enough of them to make it interesting but not so many as to be impossible. While few toys can double as a work of art, this is definitely one of them.

Visit Kadon Enterprises at http://www.gamepuzzles.com/