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This is a book about five current missional groups: InnerChange, Servant Partners, Servants to Asia's Poor, Urban Neighbors of Hope, and Word Made Flesh. Bessenecker writes about the fact that historically, radical Christ-followers step away from the Church and to the the poor in order to call the Church back to the poor. These followers live simply, among those who are poor, making a difference in the small scale, suffering with and being present with their neighbors. He talks about how these people are radical not simply as an end, but in order to pursue Jesus. There are five different pursuits he focuses on: Jesus' descent into humanity, intimacy with Jesus, relational wealth, the Kingdom, and the edges.

Nice to read this book because I am part of one of the groups he discusses, and it's encouraging to know there are a number of us out there. And that this is not such a strange calling .. many throughout history have been similarly called to love those on the margins and to step down instead of reaching for those things the world values. Bessenecker makes these ideas accessible for the reader, without using fancy language or trying to prove his point strongly .. stories and examples from today are more than enough to do that.

Title:	The New Friars
Author:	Scott Bessenecker
Date published:	2006
Genre:	Spiritual, Nonfiction
Number of pages:	175
Notes:	from t. lockie

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This volume collects three different Darkover novels, all of which deal with the clash of cultures when Darkover is once more connected to the Terran space empire. All three books focus on young men of mixed or confused ancestry (whether they know it or not-- mostly not) who come to Darkover and are drawn by the strangeness of Darkover. Darkover society is still feudal and hierarchical, and their technology is based on psi-powers augmented by matrix crystals, but only the elite and gifted upper class tend to be powerfully gifted. It's interesting to see the conflicts in culture and the differences in attitude; in one case, a young Terran and Darkovan must join forces to cross wild territory together, and it takes both of their cleverness and different education to get them through-- tracking and hunting on one side, and basic knowledge of compasses and geography on the other. In another case, a Terran who had played with lenses as a hobby is brought in to teach the Darkovans (to help them battle forest fires) and is shocked that the intelligent, quick-learning man he is teaching doesn't know how to read. They explain to him that Darkovans don't make a "fetish" of literacy like the Terrans do-- they leave that to specialists and prefer to learn directly, with direct human contact.

All three of the stories were engaging, although I think they got better as they went on, since I found it much harder to put the book down when I was in the middle of the second two stories. They are also set in roughly the same time period, so there are some common characters and even some of the main characters show up in other books as minor characters (and sometimes at different points in their lives).

In Star of Danger, teenage Larry comes to Darkover with his dad (who comes there to work). Larry is immediately taken with the new world and longs to see more of the place and the culture. He explores the city, even parts of it that aren't safe for most Terrans, and ends up making friends with Kennard, the son of Lord Alton. Larry gets the chance to spend time in real Darkovan culture, and ends up getting tangled up in the politics and warring groups. Eventually, Larry discovers what the reader probably figured out long ago-- his mother was Darkovan, and he belongs to both worlds.

Jeff Kerwin is the main character in The Bloody Sun, and like Larry, he has ties to Darkover and returns there by means of the Terran space empire. He was raised in an orphanage there, but when he inquires as an adult there is no record of him, and when he wanders the Darkovan parts of the city he is mistaken as one of the Comyn, the gifted, red-haired lords of Darkover. Eventually he finds his way to the Tower of Arilinn and is trained in his psi powers to join them in a "circle", powerful enough to accomplish feats that would rival Terran technology, such as locating oreand mining it (this is done with the aim of proving that they can retain the Darkovan way of life and keep the landscape unspoiled, while still moving forward in technology). This book verges much more on the politics of Darkover-- there are no longer enough Keepers and matrix mechanics for the towers because the discipline required is so great and the old traditions are causing problems-- most notably the virgin-worship of the young Keepers and insistence that she remain a virgin lest she lose her power. Like Larry, Kerwin isn't all that he seems-- in fact, he turns out to be full-blooded Darkovan and the child of an earlier Keeper who attempted to change the traditions of virginity associated with the post, but failed to convince people. Through his experiences as a Terran and discovering his psi abilities, Kerwin recognizes that the psi powers aren't limited to the upper-caste Darkovans, as had been long thought, which opens new possibilities for the interchange of technology and knowledge between Terra and Darkover, as equals.

In Winds of Darkover, Dan Barron is the space-port equivalent of an air-traffic controller, but one day when he is caught up in an incredibly vivid daydream and almost crashes the landing spaceship, he is suddenly stripped of his position, and packed off to teach the Darkovans how to make lenses so they can build telescopes for fighting forest fires. On his trip to the forest outpost, he meets Lord Alton and is accompanied by Alton's foster-son Larry. They both notice some kind of psi-sensitivity, but they don't know quite what is going on. Meanwhile, bandits have beseiged and taken over the lonely outpost of High Windward-- the head of the family is blind Loran, who cannot save his family but instead decides to break ancient Darkovan law and uses his laran powers to take over Barron's mind and use him as a body to come aid his enslaved people and sisters. It works, but it changes several lives in the process and also brings up issues of Darkovan traditions with regard to who can be trained in the use of their laran gifts.

Title:	A World Divided - compilation of The Bloody Sun (1965), Star of Danger (1965), and The Winds of Darkover (1970)
Author:	Marion Zimmer Bradley
Date published:	2003
Genre:	Science Fiction
Series:	Darkover
Number of pages:	688

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This is the strange, out-of-order love story of Henry and Clare. Henry is a "Chrono-Displaced-Person": he has a genetic disease that causes him to travel through time-- but he can't control it, so he is constantly ending up in unlikely or inconvenient places, naked (because nothing goes with him when he travels), and having to fend for himself or rely on the few people who know his secret, if he's in a place and time when they know about it and can help. For Clare, the first time they meet is when she is a girl and Henry is an older man who is already married to her. For Henry, the first time they meet is when he is a young man working in a library-- but Clare is so excited to finally meet him in real time, and already knows the future self that he has not yet become.

There is a brilliance to Niffenegger's concept-- this is an incredibly unique story, and it's well told; every section is labeled with the age(s) of Henry and/or Clare, which helps to alleviate some of the confusion. Henry is often hearing things from people in the past that suddenly make sense of things they've said to him before (in his past, their future); and to some extent, the reader gets to experience a bit of this as well: getting parts of the story now, through Clare's eyes, and part of it later, through Henry's perspective. However, there is a disturbing aspect to the morals and ethics of this story that bothered me; the narrative touches on it at moments, but then dismisses it too easily for my taste. An older Henry corrupts his younger self on one of his first times travelling-- teaching him how to steal wallets and unlock doors so that he will be able to fend for himself when he's on his own in time. The older Henry feels a twinge of guilt about this, but for him it is a necessity-- and, what's more, it has already happened in his past, so he can't change it (this comes up more frequently-- causation in Henry's life is quite tangled because of the things that have already happened, and he explains at various points to others and even himself that he can't change anything when he's in the past). Likewise, the older Henry worries that he is perverting Clare through his relationship with her as a girl and then a young woman-- even though he is careful, of course the very fact of Henry being there changes her and makes her different from all the other girls. I was also troubled by the idea of cheating on one's spouse with a future or past version of them.

For all the brilliance of the idea of this book, I found myself slogging through it just to finish, and I finally figured out why when I met Henry and Clare's daughter Alba. She is a delightful character; afflicted with the same time-travelling disease that Henry has (although perhaps with a little more control), but clever and smart and-- perhaps what is strikingly different from the other characters-- happy and well-adjusted. Alba is the first character in the book that I actually liked. The other characters, even Henry and Clare, are so unhappy and messed up-- they have sad childhoods (in many of his time trips, Henry revisits the scene of his mother's death over and over) and mixed up relationships with their friends. There is a sadness about Clare, because she is nearly always waiting for Henry-- waiting for him to come visit out her out of time, waiting for him to come back from his time trips. And the murky ethics of it all is disturbing to me-- but there is none of that in Alba. For Henry, his disease is a curse that warps his life and eventually destroys him; for Alba, in a way it is a blessing because of the moments out of time that she gets to spend with her father.

This book was recommended to me by several people (I don't remember who all); my first hint that it might not be the kind of book I first thought was when I looked for it in a bookstore and it wasn't in the Science Fiction section.

Title:	The Time Traveller's Wife
Author:	Audrey Niffenegger
Date published:	2003
Genre:	Fiction
Number of pages:	560
Notes:	recommended by several people; gift from Jane

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Harriet Vane decides to go back to Oxford for a reunion of sorts, even though she was on trial for murder and feels unable to face those she knew. Things turn out alright, and because she is a murder mystery writer, when strange things start to happen on campus they call her for help. They want to keep it quiet and under wraps so that the only all women's college isn't closed. But things get stranger and stranger, and Harriet eventually calls in the man who kept her from going to the gallows.

Because of various facts, a number of students are ruled out. So there are a number of tensions that arise, with people getting mad at one another and suspecting one another. Harriet is able to find a few people who have alibis (because she was with them during an event), and so is able to care for the college better. It has to be someone who is fairly well-educated, because Latin is used, and good spelling. Peter Wimsey eventually comes to save the day, and they solve the problem easily, before it comes to a horrible end. It turns out to be a woman whose husband was ruined by one of the teachers, who is trying to get revenge against the woman who ruining his life. Harriet meets Lord Saint-George, who is a nephew of Lord Peter Wimsey. He is quite amusing, knowing that he is handsome and that he can get just about anything he wants. He and Harriet become friends, and some interesting things happen between them. One of which is that Harriet and Peter have to start talking again .. and eventually, she decides that you can relate to someone both emotionally and intellectually. Well-written and intriguing, with plenty to ponder. Re-readable!

Title:	Gaudy Night
Author:	Dorothy Sayers
Date published:	1936
Genre:	Mystery
Number of pages:	501
Notes:	borrowed from mom

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This is the first volume of the acclaimed Y: The Last Man series, and it is engaging right from the start. Some unknown disease (or something) kills off all the males on the planet (not just humans but every species), and it happens all over the world at the same time. The only male survivors are Yorick, an out-of-work street magician and escape artist, and his pet monkey Ampersand. Vaughan presents a compelling picture of what the world might be like and how people might respond to an abrupt change like this. Some women form a new gang of Amazons, insisting that the world is better off without men; others mourn the incredible losses of all the talented musicians, scientists, and other great men that were taken away all at once. Even the political aspects are compelling: Congress is left with mostly Democratic politicians and the wives of the dead politicians demand their share of the power. The title of the series works beautifully on so many levels-- Y for Yorick, the last man on Earth, but also for the Y chromosome, as well as a play on the question, "Why?" since no one knows the cause of this disaster (although Vaughan offers a couple of possibilities in some of the different storylines).

The artwork is great, and so many little details-- in the art and in the story-- are delightful. Yorick's father is a literature professor who named his children after characters in Shakespeare (Yorick's sister is named Hero). The opening of this volume grabs you immediately because it shows the catastrophic event and then jumps back a little bit and gives you some of the different events in the storylines that lead up to the moment when all the males on the planet drop dead. This technique is very effective for this part of the story, but it began to seem a little overused when I saw it in the other sections of the story, at the beginning of some of the other issues in this volume, where it really wasn't needed to tell the story effectively.

Overall, very interesting and engaging. I will be looking to read more of this series.

Title:	Y: The Last Man - Unmanned
Author:	Brian K. Vaughan
Date published:	2003
Genre:	Graphic Novel
Series:	Y: The Last Man
Number of pages:	128
Notes:	gift from Jane (from my wish list)

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The fairy godmother that dogged Harry's footsteps in Grave Peril was forced to trade the debt-- Harry now owes a debt to Queen Mab of Faerie, and she is requesting him to look into the murder of one of the knights of the Summer Court of Faerie-- a person of great power, whom it would be difficult to kill, which may mean that it is one of the other Queens of Faerie. Mab wants Harry to prove that it wasn't her, in order to avert a war between the two courts of Faerie. There's also some wizard politics going on, fallout from encounters with the vampires in previous books, that forces Harry's hand and makes him accept Mab's offer even though he knows he should avoid entanglements with fairies at all costs. Harry begins the difficult task of investigating the other six Queens of Faerie (three for each of the Summer and Winter courts), and does his usual bang-up job of alienating people along the way. And, naturally, someone doesn't want him to succeed in his investigations and keeps sending warriors and beasts to try to stop him.

There are some clever, fun parts to this story. I liked the way Butcher worked in all the known names of the Queens of Fairies by giving the Summer and Winter courts each three queens-- sort of a past, present, and future queen, in a sense. I also liked the continuity from the other books-- the Alphas from Fool Moon are around, keeping an eye on Harry and helping him out of trouble, and eventually helping him out in the final showdown.

That final showdown is pretty exciting. There is a war going on in the heavens-- the beginning of a full on Faerie battle that, if left unchecked, could destroy the human world. Dresden and his allies climb up into turmoil and dark clouds over Lake Michigan in order to fight their way into the center of the battle and stop the unraveling that was caused on purpose, to upset the balance of the Winter and Summer courts of Faerie.

Title:	Summer Knight
Author:	Jim Butcher
Date published:	2002
Genre:	Fantasy
Series:	Dresden Files book 4
Number of pages:	371
Notes:	borrowed from Garvey

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This is a graphic novel adaptation of Richard Matheson's famous 1954 novel (which I haven't yet read but now want to). Robert Neville is the only uninfected, normal human left in a post-apocalyptic world (there are hints of bombs and dust-clouds in his flashbacks) where all other humans have been infected by a disease that basically turns them into vampires. The black and white artwork conveys beautifully the darkness and the utter loneliness of the world that Neville lives in. When the book opens, Neville has an established routine of the errands and tasks he does during the daylight (including repairing any holes in his boarded up windows, growing garlic in his hot-house, and stringing garlic around the doors and windows), but is always inside and locked up by dusk, usually playing classical music in attempt to drown out the noise of the monsters that congregate outside his house to try to lure him out. Eventually, Neville starts to move beyond this routine-- he starts researching the infected blood and reasons through how much of the vampirism is biological and what might be psychological (like fear of the cross and mirrors), and he starts hunting and killing as many vampires as he can during the day, while they are in their coma-like sleep.

There are great details here that make the whole world Neville inhabits much more convincing. For instance, on cloudy days he can't go far from home because he doesn't know how soon it will be dark enough for the vampires to come out. Or how a little thing like a watch stopping could mean death. Neville goes to abandoned stores for whatever equipment he needs and can salvage (like the microscopes he uses to study the infected blood), and he drives at high speeds, goes the wrong way on one-way streets, etc-- rules that were necessary in society become meaningless when he is the only man left.

What makes this story is compelling is the human element. Neville is tortured by the loss of his wife and child to the plague, and some of these experiences are shown through flashbacks. When Neville sees a thin, scared, stray dog in the daytime is nearly overwhelmed by the desire to have companionship. Over days and weeks he slowly, patiently gets the dog used to him, feeding him and moving closer to the food while remaining utterly still so as not to scare the dog off. Finally he manages to bring the dog into his house, and as night falls the dog is terrified because it can't get to its hiding place (and, of course, doesn't know that the house or this man is safe). Neville is finally able to touch the animal, and discovers that it is infected.

The other brilliance of this book, of course, is the twist of the title. Eventually (after three years of this existence), Neville discovers that the infected humans have figured out a way to live with their disease and are beginning to establish a new society-- and as he is dying, he recognizes that he has become to this new society what vampires are to us: the legendary, horrific monster that comes in while we are asleep and kills for no reason.

Title:	I Am Legend
Author:	Richard Matheson (adapted by Steve Niles and Elman Brown)
Date published:	1991
Genre:	Graphic Novel, Science Fiction / Horror
Number of pages:	244

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The galaxy of Ulubis has been disconnected from the rest of the "meta-civilization" when its wormhole portal is destroyed by Beyonder terrorists, but now, because of something inadvertently discovered by Seer Fassin Taak, two separate fleets are racing through deep space to attack or defend Ulubis and retrieve the vital information they think Fassin stumbled across-- a transform to find and access the long-thought mythical Dweller List, a wormhole network set up by the ancient gas-giant Dwellers centuries ago. Fassin is a scholar of Dweller Studies, caught up in the politics and bureaucracy by the order of the Mercatoria. While all the preparations for war and defense are going on, he is sent back to the gas planet Nasqueron to try to find the information that everyone is fighting for. Most of the story follows Fassin, but we get other parts of the story through Fassin's flashbacks, his friends Saluus Kehar, a rich industrialist, and Taince, a military officer with the fleet racing to Ulubis' defense, as well as glimpses of Lusiferous the Archimandrite, the ruthless and vicious head of the fleet coming to attack Ulubis. Banks has created a rich, dense universe populated with fascinating creatures (so many ideas here just thrown into the background could be a full story) and a compelling plot with a pretty satisfying resolution.

One of the undercurrents to this book is the existence of AIs. The current reigning bureaucracy hunts them down and destroys them, and often people use technologies that are "dangerously close" to full-blown AI. In fact, I noticed early on that the few instances of first-person narration all seemed to be AIs; most of the book is in third person, so this is an interesting (and, no doubt, quite intentional) choice-- it's subtle, but it seems to underscores the "personhood" of the AIs. I hoped and suspected that AIs would play into the story, and was delighted when one of the most interesting and strange characters turned out to be one.

There are so many interesting creatures and ideas here. The Dwellers themselves are fascinating (although I can't quite picture them visually from the strange description); they seem childish and silly, but they are the oldest known civilization still living in the galaxy, spread to all gas giant planets billions of years ago, and individuals can live for centuries. Species are divided into Slow (like Dwellers) and Quick (like humans), both for how they sense time's passing and (more importantly) for how long their civilizations endure. Dwellers are impossible to coerce or bribe, both because they are basically indifferent to most of what goes on outside their planets (during the invasion of Ulubis, almost all of the news Fassin can find is about the "play" war the Dwellers are conducting on Nasqueron), but also because their only form of money is the "kudos" that they receive from each other.

There are many fascinating "by the way" ideas that Banks throws in just as background for this universe. For instance, aHumans and rHumans-- some humans were taken from earth and helped to develop so that when the "remainder" humans finally developed their technology and made it into space, they discover that they aren't the only or even most developed humans out there. Or the Morbs, death-obsessed races such as the bird-like Ythyn who roam space collecting and preserving the dead of all kinds. The water-worlder Sceuri, like a huge eel with a folding sail-wing on its back. Or the moment when Fassin finds out his family has been killed and contemplates revenge, and ponders the fact that so many were involved in the destruction (military commanders, the person who launched the weapon, the people who built it, those who started the conflict, etc) that he can't possibly identify who was actually responsible. Also compelling: the Machine War against the AI (centuries ago) ended not because the biologicals won, but because the AIs recognized they could wipe out all of the biologicals and decided not to, and instead went into hiding.

I was a good chunk of the way into the book before I had any idea what the title meant. The Algebraist is the title of an ancient epic poem about a space voyage-- Fassin traded with a Dweller for this book, and it was in a footnote of the first volume that others discovered a reference to the key to the Dweller List. Eventually, Fassin discovers the alien algebra that is the answer he was sent to look for, and first thinks it is a joke-- but eventually figures out the answer is simpler than anyone could have guessed (it seemed like the perfect, satisfying answer to me, drawing together clues from earlier, seemingly unrelated parts of the story). But it also seems to me that the idea of algebra also links to the AI, especially because the first use of the word algebra in the novel is by an AI in hiding that knows it will soon be discovered and destroyed, meditating on the idea of revenge,

... the price its enemies all deserved to pay-by any algebra of justice under any sun you cared to name-for their intolerance, their savagery, their generacide...

Caveats for the sensitive reader: lots of swearing (even Dwellers occasionally use the f-word, which seemed strange-- translated into human?), some sex scenes, and some gruesome violence (presumably to establish how horrific and amoral Luseferous is, but still quite disgusting).

Title:	The Algebraist
Author:	Iain M. Banks
Date published:	2004
Genre:	Science Fiction
Number of pages:	434
Notes:	recommended and loaned by Pete

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