The IBIC Guide to Books By Greg Iles
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June 14, 1994 I just finished reading SPANDAU
PHOENIX by Greg Iles (Signet). An energetic if somewhat
overwrought Nazi genre thriller about the enigmatic Rudolph
Hess. I had mixed feelings about selecting this book for
reading--I tend to stay away from thrillers which feature evil Nazis. I feel they play to a kind of subconscious
glorification of the Nazis. But I have to admit there was
something intriguing about the cover--I almost checked the book
out from the library several times. Finally, a friend's
recommendationipped the balance, and I read this book.
As indicated
above, Iles has a lot of energy. He's devised a nice,
complicated plot with a lot of interesting characters. In fact,
there are probably too many interesting characters. About a
third of the way through the book I began to feel that this was
somewhat similar to an elaborate version of the board game
"Clue!"--the British spy in Berlin killed the German prisoner in
Spandau with an electric cord, then the Israeli solder in
Johannesburg killed the South African army general with an Uzi,
then theauthor kills half of his characters in a series of bloodbaths
which take up the last two thirds of the book.
I don't think
I'll read any more Nazi thrillers for a long while. Not that
this wasn't a good book--it is pretty good, especially for a
first novel--but reading page after page of entertaining fiction
about Hess, Hitler, Heydrich turned my stomach after a
while.
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Editor's Recommendations, Summer 1996
In this inaugural edition of IBIC's Featured Books, I'd like to
draw your attention to several titles which have helped to shape my life
and thinking.
- When I was around fifteen, I came across Larry Niven and
Jerry Pournelle's science fiction novel, INFERNO. This '70s remake of Dante's
classic describes science fiction writer Allen Carpentier's
descent into Hell. It's still a very fresh, accessible take on
the classic. What a great movie it would make!
- The Niven/Pournelle INFERNO
immediately inspired me to read the original Divine Comedy.
I've read a number of translations over the years, but my
favorite is the one by Dorothy Sayers (INFERNO;
PURGATORY;
PARADISE). The notes
are excellent, and Sayers had such a knowledgeable and witty mind that reading
her prose is a pleasure in itself. (For those interested in a more contemporary translation, I should mention that Robert Pinsky received excellent notices for his 1995 THE
INFERNO OF DANTE : A NEW VERSE TRANSLATION; it's a very handsome book.)
- I also want to tell you about the late Henry Fairlie's THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS TODAY,
which probably did more than any other single book to galvanize me into a lifetime interest
in Christianity that led me, eventually, to faith. Ironic, because Fairlie was a self-proclaimed agnostic socialist! But
reading between the lines of this insightful and deeply feeling book, one realizes
that the love of God cannot have been far from Fairlie's heart.
- Finally, I should draw to your attention a more recent
acquisition, the very handsome NIV
STUDY BIBLE (10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION) from Zondervan, indexed and bonded in leather in
IBIC's theme color, burgundy (black
and brown
are also available). The notes to this Bible are amazing. They
appear to provide you with a very substantial portion of what you need to
know to have an intelligent layman's appreciation of the
linguistic and historical issues involved in understanding
Scripture.
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