I’ve wanted to learn more about St. Athanasius for a while, ever since a visiting priest quoted him in his homily:  “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.”  That got my attention; I’d never heard it put that way before.  Athanasius emphasized the Divinity in ways we don’t hear all that much these days, because he was battling the Arian heresy, which said God never became man.  That’s probably all I should say about that until I learn more.

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“I know nothing of that,” retorted Brinn.  “I know only that she attempted Ceer’s life.”

Without warning, Covenant broke into a shout.  “I don’t care!”  He spat vehemence at Brinn as if it were being physically torn out of him.  “Linden saved me!  She saved all of us!  Do you think that was easy?  I’m not going to turn my back on her, just because she did something I don’t understand!”

“Ur-Lord—” Brinn began.

“No!”  Covenant’s passion carried so many implications of power that it shocked the deck under Linden’s feet.  “You’ve gone too far already!”  His chest heaved with the effort he made to control himself.  “In Andelain—with the Dead—Elena talked about her.  She said, ‘Care for her, beloved, so that in the end she may heal us all.’  Elena,” he insisted.  “The High Lord.  She loved me, and it killed her.  But never mind that.  I won’t have her treated this way.”  His voice shredded under the strain of self-containment.  “Maybe you don’t trust her.”  His half-fist jabbed possibilities of fire around him.  “Maybe you don’t trust me.”  He could not keep himself from yelling.  “But you are by God going to leave her alone!”

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In this middle book of the second Covenant trilogy, Covenant decides his only hope is to create a new Staff of Law, to give him a way to heal the land without unleashing his increasingly erratic power.  So with Linden, Sunder, and Hollian, he heads east out of the Land, hoping to retrace the steps of Berek Halfhand, the legendary hero who created the first Staff from a limb of the One Tree.

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I’m usually not into horror novels or movies, but Stephen King is one exception. His books are just so readable, with a conversational style that’s effortless to absorb, that almost anything he writes is a pleasure to read. I’ve also found that many of his books aren’t really horror, at least the way I think of horror, as in the gore and shock-value of horror movies. They have a spookiness about them, a feeling that there’s *something* out there we’d rather not look at, but that’s often combined with a good mystery or science fiction type of story that’s good in its own right.

That’s certainly the case with From a Buick 8, where much of the creepiness comes from the unknown and unknowable. When an old Buick Roadmaster—or a sort of model of one—is abandoned at a rural Pennsylvania gas station, a group of state troopers take charge of it and do their best to contain the dangers it represents. Over many years, they gradually discover that the Buick is some sort of a conduit to and from another place, drawing in and spewing out things that may not actually be evil but which sure feel like it.

A nice touch is that the story is told to the son of one of the state troopers who originally discovered the car, and several of the troopers take turns telling the story, offering different perspectives. There’s no one hero, and in fact nothing really heroic happens, which is one of the main points of the book: In real life, problems that come along aren’t always fought and defeated like they are in the movies. Sometimes they’re simply contained or dealt with, and life goes on as best it can. Not exactly a climactic concept to base a plot on, but it works well here.

Despite what I said earlier, there are a couple of unpleasantly gory scenes reminiscent of more typical horror novels of King’s like Carrie, so don’t read this book if you’re very sensitive to that sort of thing.

Rating:

I only recently discovered Leonard’s books, after reading quite a few by other authors in the same genre (what I think of as “tough guys who do what needs to be done without whining about it”), like Mickey Spillane, Ian Fleming, John Sandford, and Ed McBain. Leonard seems to tend toward the “edgier” end of the spectrum, with plenty of truly unsavory bad guys and heroes with plenty of flaws themselves. The world of these books is a seedy place, where very few people put anything else ahead of their own immediate gratification.

This book, and its protagonist,named Stick, are better than most. Stick, recently released after serving seven years on an armed robbery charge, has enough doubts to make him seem more real than the unreasonably confident James Bond types. He seems to want to go straight, but honestly isn’t sure how that’s done. (His first impulse, when trying to figure out how to go visit his little girl, is to steal a car.) He ends up (mostly) doing the right thing because the bad guys are so stupid and offensive, not because that’s how he plans it. It’s a good mix that makes him a likable character and more memorable than most in the genre, who are easily forgotten when one puts the book down.

The other characters are also well-drawn and easy to keep track of–something that’s important in pulp novels a reader can devour in a long afternoon. Chucky, Moke, Barry, and Nestor are all complete individuals; sometimes a bit over the top (or a lot in Chucky’s case), but always interesting. The women are fairly one-dimensional, which is typical in these books that are clearly written for men.

This is my first review, so I may decide on a different scoring system eventually, but for now I’m giving this one 3.5 out of 5 points. That’s pretty good for this kind of book: an adventure/thriller that’s only trying to be a fun, engaging read, and not trying to make any big points or do a ton of character development. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes the authors I mentioned above; but if you think Bond movies are macho and violent, take a pass on this one.

(Whatever scale I use, I’ll use it all. This won’t be like the Olympics, where even the guy who falls down gets a 9.3 on a 10-point scale. Whenever possible, I’ll include a link to buy the book, which will pay me a few cents if you use it, so feel free to do so!)