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final book in Charlaine Har- ris' best-selling series about telepathic waitress Sookie. Stackhouse provoked such an outcry that some fans sent death threats.
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G4 Sunday | November 3, 2013 | tulsaworld.com

H.G. Wells 1937 essay finally in print • The insightful article notes the precarious state of the world. BY HILLEL ITALIE Associated Press

NEW YORK — As Nazi Germany grew ever more dangerous in the 1930s and the Japanese threatened China, science-iction author H.G. Wells wrote up some thoughts about real-life horrors and in 1937 submitted them to a magazine with the widest possible audience, Reader’s Digest. “Democracies need not merely freedom to think and talk, but universal information and vigorous mental training,” warned the author of “The War of the Worlds,” “The Time Machine” and other classics. “Consider China today. An ignorant peaceful population has as much chance of survival now as a blind cow in a jungle.” The British author was known worldwide, but his message was apparently too strong for the

editor Andrew Gulli says of Reader’s Digest, “and they occasionally even reprinted his stuf. But this article about democracy seemed to have rankled them.” The Strand’s latest publication, which came out Friday, also features a private letter by Wells that he wrote in 1935. Gulli found the materials among thousands of papers in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Wells was a socialist and often a paciist whose fears for the planet’s fate were well-developed in his iction. But Gulli says the Reader’s Digest piece was an unusually strong noniction work, a direct call for action that anticipated the current debate about “failed states” in the Middle East and elsewhere. British author H.G. Wells arrives in New York aboard the ocean liner “Wells was progressive in his Scythia on Oct. 3, 1940. A strongly worded essay written in 1937 by Wells is views. He belonged to a generapublished in the new edition of The Strand Magazine. Associated Press file tion of ardent imperialists, yet his belief was that the great powconservative magazine, which which has rediscovered obscure ers should grant their colonies never published the brief essay. works by Mark Twain, Joseph self-determination,” Gulli says. Its debut in print comes more Heller and many others. “His fear, I think, was that many than 75 years later, in the holiday “He had a very good relationof these Third World countries edition of The Strand Magazine, ship with them,” Strand managing would fall prey to demagogues

and militia and clerics.” In his article for Reader’s Digest, Wells inds that too many countries are “half-literate” and “wholly undisciplined.” Democracies should build up their militaries, Wells recommends, but he insists that education is the best weapon. “The choice is a plain one now,” he concludes. “Train yourself for freedom or salute and march.” Wells was a proliic writer and tireless thinker, well demonstrated by his 1935 letter. He writes of a day that begins at 4 a.m.; includes revisions of a book about how “human hope and efort are frustrated”; preparations for a radio broadcast about the evolutionist T.H. Huxley; and several hours of work on a dystopian ilm he was writing, “Things to Come,” that eventually starred Ralph Richardson and Raymond Massey. That night, the 69-year-old author dined with a Russian friend. “And we argued about freedom of thought and expression,” Wells wrote, “with more particular references to Russia, until it was time to go to bed.”

Paretsky’s latest thriller packs energy • Nuclear intrigue spices up the private eye novel “Critical Mass.” BY SARAH BRYAN MILLER St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MCT)

‘CRITICAL MASS’ By Sara Paretsky Putnam, $26.95

There must be something inspiring about dating a classical musician: Since private investigator V.I. Warshawski took up with double bassist Jake Thibaut in 2009’s “Hardball,” her creator, author Sara Paretsky, seems to have renewed creative energy, evident in pages that almost seem to turn themselves. The considerable action of “Criti-

Book ahead The Morrissey memoir show will soon arrive in the U.S. Penguin Random House announced that Morrissey’s “Autobiography” has been acquired jointly by three of its imprints. G.P. Putnam’s Sons will publish the hardcover on Dec. 3, while Penguin Classics will handle the paperback edition at a date to be determined. The book is a No. 1 best-seller in England. British reviewers have been divided over the book by the Smiths’ former frontman. Rock Morrissey critic Neil McCormack gave “Autobiography” a five-star review in the Daily Telegraph. He compares it favorably to Bob Dylan’s “Chronicles.” But the Independent’s literary editor, Boyd Tonkin, writes that he tired of Morrissey’s “droning narcissism” and “puerile litany of grievances.” At age 80, Willie Nelson is ready to say it all. Little, Brown and Company announced that the country music superstar has a book deal with the publisher. Although Nelson is the author of several books, Little, Brown promises that this one will be an unvarnished story about the artist known for “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” “Funny How Time Slips Away” and other classics. The memoir is untitled. It is scheduled to be published in 2015. Nelson Nelson’s previous books include an autobiography published in 1988 and “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings from the Road.” — FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

cal Mass” (the title refers to nuclear physics, not getting together a crowd of reviewers) is set of when Warshawski is asked by her friend, Dr. Lotty Herschel, to ind Judy Binder, the daughter of Käthe, with whom Lotty grew up in pre-World War II Vienna, and Judy’s son, Martin. That assignment takes Warshawski from her North Side Chicago neighborhood to a ruined downstate meth house in a irst chapter that contains some of Paretsky’s tautest writing ever. The book’s narrative also moves between wartime Vienna and present-day Chicago, the misery of the Jewish ghetto and the luxuries of North Shore privilege. It’s a tale of intertwined genera-

tions. The miserable Käthe was the illegitimate daughter of two nuclear physicists, sent from Vienna to Britain with Lotty and other Jewish children in the Kindertransports in 1939. Her mother, Martina, disappeared without a trace after a stint as slave labor. Käthe’s daughter, Judy, is a drug addict, but Judy’s son, Martin, takes after Martina, a scientiic genius. His employer, a computer magnate, thinks he’s trying to sell company secrets. Warshawski tracks down Judy, but Martin has “gone dark”; inding him takes most of the rest of the book. She tangles with drug dealers and thugs, most notably a Bill of Rightstrampling pair from the Department of Homeland Security, who wreck her

oice and apartment and shoot at her, citing “an investigation connected to our national security” to justify anything they care to do. There’s plenty of action, along with Paretsky’s usual dry humor. “Just at the time that John von Neumann was bringing the irst big computer online at Princeton, Edward Breen came up with a relativistic model for the matrix that altered the mechanics of core memory. I read that last sentence three times, and decided that English might not actually be my irst language.” With entombments, solved mysteries, loose ends neatly tied, good writing and a little bit of love, “Critical Mass” is a thoroughly satisfying read.

Final farewell for Stackhouse fans BY JAMIE STENGLE

But, Harris says, don’t expect any revisions. “I wrote the ending the way I wrote it, and I’m FORT WORTH, Texas — The not going to change it.” inal book in Charlaine HarThe uproar over her “Dead ris’ best-selling series about Ever After” started when an telepathic waitress Sookie online review appeared about Stackhouse provoked such two weeks before its oicial an outcry that some fans sent May release date. (A reviewer death threats obtained a copy from a German and curses. bookseller.) But after “I thought I had two more spending the weeks to brace for it, but I past 15 years didn’t, and it was just overwriting about whelmingly awful,” said Harris, the intrepid 61. small-town The most vehement were Southern angry that Stackhouse didn’t girl whose end up with the vampire Eric. adventures Harris said she’d been steering Harris have featured readers to that eventuality. a host of su“Not only is who she ends up pernatural beings, Harris says with not the point of the books, ‘AFTER DEAD: WHAT CAME NEXT IN she has no regrets. but I said all along: ‘She loves THE WORLD OF SOOKIE STACKHOUSE’ the sun. She doesn’t want to “I had to be true to my own vision for the books otherwise, By Charlaine Harris just be able to go out at night,’ ” Penguin Group, $18 what kind of writer am I? Not Harris said. a very good one,” said Harris, “And I said in every interview adding that fan reaction to the still have something to say.’ ” I gave when someone would end of the series was distressShe released her inal nod ask me: ‘Sookie will never be ing. to Stackhouse and her world a vampire.’ And still: shock, Harris said she knew it was this week with “After Dead: horror, amazement, accusations time to end the Sookie books, What Came Next in the World that I’d sold out. I thought, ‘If which inspired the hit HBO of Sookie Stackhouse,” an ilI would have sold out I would series “True Blood,” when she lustrated book that lists the have written the ending you wasn’t approaching each new myriad of characters that wanted.’ ” addition with excitement. appeared in the 13-book series But as fall approached, Har“And I thought, ‘You know, and tells readers what happens ris said the reaction calmed. this is the time to end it, when I in the ensuing years. And she even got some apoloAssociated Press

gies. Harris published her irst book in 1981. After years of writing conventional mysteries, she wanted to try something diferent, something supernatural. It took two years to sell the irst Stackhouse book, but it wasn’t long after “Dead Until Dark” was released in 2001 that Harris knew she had a hit. Harris’ next series is set in Texas. She and her husband settled into the countryside outside Fort Worth about two years ago after living in Arkansas for about two decades. So far she’s signed for three books in the series. “Midnight Crossroad,” to be released in May, is about “a mystical crossroad in a little dead Texas town,” Harris said. “It’s at an old town that’s partly derelict, but there are a few homes and businesses still in use there. A town called Midnight. And there is a reason the people who live there are living there.” “I didn’t really intend it to be as supernatural as it’s turning out to be. It’s like I just can’t help myself.” Will there be vampires? “Well, there might be one vampire,” she said, eyes twinkling.

ANSWERS

‘The Double’ is throwback thriller

Crossword

BY BRUCE DESILVA

“The Double,” the new novel featuring the retired Marine, inds Spero especially busy. Spero Lucas joined the MaHis brother Leo, a high school rines, got shipped of to Iraq, teacher troubled by the unfought house-to-house in Fallu- solved murder of a student, asks jah and came home in one piece Spero to look into it. A lawyer to Washington, D.C. Others he hires Spero to ind something, served with are damaged, some anything, that can throw doubt physically, some in ways you on the prosecution’s case against can’t see. Lucas says he’s OK. a man who almost certainly He’s not, but he’s better of murdered his lover. And Grace than most. Kinkaid, a middle-age woman His needs are simple: a clean with bad taste in men, commisbed, a steady supply of beer and sions Spero to recover a painting weed, a woman now and then. taken by a cad who seduced her But he craves action. For him, and dumped her. there must always be a mission. Along the way, the lawed hero Spero, irst introduced by inds time to visit wounded warauthor George Pelecanos in “The riors and to fall in love. Cut,” inds what he needs by doThe Kincaid case, which ing part-time investigative work provides the main story line, pits for a criminal defense attorney Spero against a gang of thieves and by helping people recover led by a swaggering sociopath. stolen goods in return for a To track them down, he leans on inder’s fee. some old war buddies, but when

Associated Press

Cryptoquip

‘THE DOUBLE’ By George Pelecanos Little, Brown and Co., $26

the brutal confrontations come, he prefers to work alone. The author laces his story with vivid descriptions of Washington’s urban landscape. The writing is taut, the violence is graphic and the characters are so well-drawn that they step of the page and into your life. Pelecanos, well known for the scripts he wrote for HBO’s “The Wire,” is the author of a string of critically acclaimed crime novels including “The Night Gardener” and “The Turnaround.” With “The Double” he has produced a throwback, a hard-boiled story that will remind readers of the Parker novels that Donald Westlake published under the pen name Richard Stark.

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