Book Review: Snowblind

This review originally appeared on East Niagara Post on December 2, 2014

After I graduated from the youth and tween books, I found myself gravitating toward works by Stephen King. I’m talking about the old-school King like It, Tommyknockers, and The Stand. These were the books that would scare the crap out of you.  After time, King’s books drifted away from scaring you out of your pants and seemed to tame a little. They’re still great works, but they seem to have lost a bit of that extra edge.

Robert Eugene Foster: Hero's Memory Lives On

This was the first article that I wrote as Deputy Historian. Written back in 2006, I recently discovered this article on a hard drive while I was looking for something else. This article originally appeared in the Union-Sun & Journal in late 2006.

In Biloxi, Mississippi, a Lockport man is remembered for his duty to his country during the Korean and Vietnam Wars.  “Foster Manor” barracks at Keesler Air Force Base was named as a lasting honor to Robert Eugene Foster.

William Warren: Wounded Warrior

Another in our Civil War series from the Union-Sun & Journal, this one details William Warren, a Lockport attorney. Originally appeared in the USJ in 2011.

Sunlight glinted off the cold steel of bayonets lining the edge of the woods.   Boys and men, dressed in blue wool, shifted nervously as they stared across the harvested wheat field toward rebel positions nestled in the forest covering the sides of Cedar Mountain.  The rush of cannonballs passing overhead, exploding all around added to the cacophony of the screams of wounded and dying men.  The plight of the Union Army under the continuous onslaught of Confederate artillery was so dire that a grave decision was made to help stave off rising casualties.

Book Review: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

This post originally appeared on East Niagara Post at:

http://www.eastniagarapost.com/2014/11/its-novel-idea-first-fifteen-lives-of.html

Imagine if when you died, you were immediately reborn to live that life all over again and you remembered everything from your previous life or lives.  What would you do differently? Would you be able to amass a fortune with all that you had learned before?  What if there were others like you in the world? Would they help you or hinder you? Those are some of the questions raised in the novel "The First Fifteen Lives of Henry August" by Claire North.

This novel is highly entertaining and very original. I was engaged from the first page, all the way to the last, and was kept guessing as to where the plot twists would take me. This was one of the books that I couldn’t put down as soon as I opened the cover.

Right from the first paragraph I was hooked. As old Henry August is dying in his bed, he is visited by a strange little girl who gives him a message to carry to his next life — the world is ending. Now it falls to Henry to try to stop this predicament in his next few lives.

What immediately comes to mind is the movie, “Groundhog Day,” starring Bill Murray. This novel could be considered in that vein except Henry August isn’t re-living a single day. He relives his entire life over and over. He is able to use his knowledge to steer humanity away from the precipice. Of course, he fails a couple times, gets bored, and gets shanghaied by another of his kind. In the end, his lives are defined by how he tackles the issue of how to curtail the end of the world.

One of the best parts of the novel isn't only the plot. The writing style of Claire North keeps the reader engaged, anxious to turn the pages to see if August is triumphant in his quest. North weaves several tales into one long epic. Each of August’s lives rings with its own emotion. Some lives read with desperation as our hero feels opportunity slipping away. Others read with pleasure as he once again meets up with the love of his life. The reader lives with August through his highs and lows.

Each of Henry August’s lives are different enough to keep the reader wondering what will happen next in each life, but similar enough that you know that it is the same person dealing with the same situations in different ways. Through flashbacks of different lives, the reader is able to assemble the various pieces of the puzzle and guess as to the solution to save the world. It is not without pitfalls, but it is ingeniously fun and engaging.

I should note that Claire North is a pseudonym. The mysteriousness of the author makes the story all that more intriguing. After reading this single work, I hope that the Claire North persona writes more novels as well done as this. Likewise, if he or she has written other novels under his or her own name, I hope that we can someday soon discover these other works. I highly recommend "The First Fifteen Lives of Henry August "if you are looking for some great leisure reading.

Two Presidents, Two Confederates, and a Union Surgeon

This article originally appeared in the Union-Sun & Journal as part of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War observation. I enjoyed writing these articles. Maybe I should write a series about the 100th anniversary of the US involvement in World War I?

Beneath a towering, nearly 200-year old oak tree among the rolling hills of Cold Springs Cemetery is the unmarked grave of Robert Crooke Wood.   The son-in-law of Zachary Taylor, brother-in-law of Jefferson Davis and father of two well-known Confederate officers, Wood has been left to lie in relative obscurity.

According to his enlistment papers, Robert Wood was born in 1799 in Newport, R.I., and educated at Columbia College for Medical Sciences.  While at Fort Crawford, Wisconsin, possibly studying under Dr. William Beaumont (recently transferred from Fort Niagara), Wood met Anne Mackall Taylor, daughter of Colonel Zachary Taylor, commander of the fort.  They married on September 20, 1829 at the fort, and Wood enlisted as a surgeon on July 4, 1836 with a commission in the Medical Staff Regiment Regular Army. 

While stationed at Fort Crawford, the family regularly moved around the territory as dictated by surgical needs.  During this time, a young soldier, Jefferson Davis, a soldier under Taylor’s command, married Taylor’s younger daughter, Sarah making Wood and Davis brothers-in-law.  Taylor opposed the match because of the harshness of outpost life.  Therefore, Davis resigned from the army to marry Sarah.  Unfortunately, three months after their marriage both newlyweds contracted malaria and Sarah died.

Robert Wood’s eldest son, John Taylor Wood, was born at Fort Snelling, Minnesota and is credited as the first white birth in Minnesota.  A second son, Robert Crooke, Jr., was born two years later at the same fort.  In 1837, both Taylor and Wood were ordered to Fort Brooke, Florida to take on the Seminoles in the Second Seminole War. 

Next in 1839, Wood is ordered to Buffalo where he became Post Surgeon at the Buffalo Barracks which were constructed that October to house troops due to “unease” with Canada after the Patriot’s War.  Wood remained at this posting until 1846, when he was called away to serve in the Mexican-American War.  Acting as the now General Taylor’s personal physician during the war and into his short Presidency, Wood obviously had a close relationship with him.

According to the Niagara County Deeds Index, Robert C. Wood purchased property in Lower Lockport in 1849.  Coincidentally, President Taylor was stricken ill while on a trip from Erie, Pennsylvania to Niagara Falls and was attended by Dr. Wood at either the Eagle House in Lockport or the Eagle Tavern in Niagara Falls.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Robert Crooke Wood was promoted to a full Colonel on June 14, 1862, and was named Assistant Surgeon General.  He was in charge of Medical Affairs in the Armies of the West and Southwest headquartered in St. Louis and in Louisville.  Near the end of the war, Wood was brevetted Brigadier General for his “faithful and meritorious services during the war.”

While Robert Crooke Wood was serving in the Union Army, his sons joined the Southern forces and his brother-in-law, Jefferson Davis became President of the Confederacy.  Robert Crooke Jr., was appointed to Braxton Bragg’s staff and served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Mississippi Cavalry while John Taylor became a lieutenant in the Confederate Navy.

John Taylor Wood had entered the Naval Academy in June 1847, graduating second in his class in 1853.  In 1855 he was promoted to lieutenant, but tendered his resignation April 21, 1861 due to reservations about the growing conflict between the northern and southern states.  The Navy, however, refused his resignation and instead dismissed him from the service effective from the 2^nd of April.  This “slap in the face” by the Navy swung him from his relative neutrality into enlisting in the Confederate Navy in Louisiana on October 4, 1861, where he had a distinguished career.

In January 1862, John was assigned as a lieutenant to the CSS Virginia, which was being reconstructed from the USS Merrimack at Norfolk, VA.  He commanded the ship’s aft gun during the famous battle with the USS Monitor off Hampton Roads and again two months later when the ships collided in the Battle of Drewry’s Bluff.  Later he was appointed by Davis as his aide-de-camp with the rank of colonel, giving John simultaneously similar rank in both the Army and the Navy.  He remained close with his uncle being present at Davis’ capture by Union troops in May 1865.

Robert Crooke Wood, well liked, respected and honored with rank, served his country with distinction.  His two sons were likewise dedicated to the Southern Cause.  Robert CrookeWood was stricken on Easter Sunday, 1869, in New York City and died.  His remains were returned to Lockport for burial at Cold Springs Cemetery.  Was a man from such a prominent family buried without a marker?   Was the gigantic oak tree in the family plot his only memorial, still living on a century and a half after his death?  

Go West, Young Man

This article originally appeared in the Buffalo News as part of a series of articles I wrote through the Niagara County Historians Office. Stay tuned, there will be new historical articles and photos coming out on East Niagara Post. 

The chugging of the train sounded like a heart beat; the cadence changing as the engine reduced speed.  Larimore, Dakota Territories, was not an official railroad stop so the train slowed to allow a group of men to jump off.  This new band of intrepid homesteaders was from Niagara County, NY, eager to try their luck on the western prairies.

Willard T. Ransom, George H. Webb, Hiram McNeil, E.H. Baker and Artemus Comstock had arrived in the area which became Grand Forks County, North Dakota, a community mostly settled by families from Niagara County.  On June 21, 1882, at the store of Ransom & Baker, it was voted to name the new settlement “Niagara.” 

Surprisingly, only 75 years earlier, Western New York had been the frontier.  British occupation of Fort Niagara until 1796 discouraged early settlement by Americans.  Niagara County, formed in 1808, also included modern Erie County.  Slowly, the area developed small, thriving communities, but growth was stunted by the ravages of the War of 1812.  At the time of its burning in December 1813, the village of Lewiston consisted of twelve houses, some warehouses and a Post Office.  Buffalo, the capital of Niagara County, boasted about 100 homes, stores, courthouse and a jail.

With the completion of the famed Erie Canal in 1825, settlers began to arrive in large numbers with cities like Lockport popping up overnight.  For some, feeling squeezed by this burgeoning population and bitten by the itch to discover what lay beyond the horizon, the lure proved to be too great and the westward trek continued.  In the late 1830s and early 1840s, many men and families pulled up stakes and headed west.  In 1838, Joel McCollum, a Lockport pioneer, bought huge tracts of land in Michigan and was instrumental in organizing the Village of Hillsdale.  Today, Hillsdale County boasts of the Townships of Cambria, Ransom, Somerset, and Wheatland – in honor of those New York communities left behind.

Still, for some enterprising souls, Michigan was barely far enough to satisfy them.  There was much more land farther west.  In 1880, a group of Niagara County men traveled to the Dakota Territories to homestead. 

In a series of letters, Artemus W. Comstock detailed the frontier life as he and his family moved into the Dakotas.  In February 1882, he and several others filed claims on 320 acres at Grand Forks for land nearby.  The weather there was harsh.  “When we first got to Grand Forks the railroad beyond was blocked with snow.  We stayed at hotel.  Early in morning, heard of train heading for Larimore, 30 miles west.”  When they arrived at Larimore, they still had 15 miles to trek through the snow and cold to their stakes.

Of the 320 acres they received, 160 acres had to be lived on and farmed.  The other 160 acres, by terms of the Homestead Act were to be forested.  Most of the time they planted wheat on their plots and they assisted other settlers when harvest time arrived.

While the winds whipped snow across the open plains dropping temperatures as much as 30 below zero, the settlers sought refuge in sod houses.  These structures were more prominent on the prairie than log cabins due to the lack of wood for building materials.  The thick roots of prairie grass were conducive to holding the sod together in the construction of a house.  Cut squares of sod were piled together to form walls with roofs of sod, straw, or in some cases timbers.  These homes were inexpensive and well insulated, but vulnerable to snow, rain and snakes.

According to Comstock’s letter, dated April 23, 1882: “Where our new house is located it is very dry and pleasant.  We can see many new houses in different directions, about a mile apart.  Our claim is quite level and I am pleased with most of it.  I don’t think there is more than a wagon-load of stone on it.  We can see prairie fires in most every direction.  At night they look beautiful.  Buffalo bones are scattered all over this country and well-beaten paths are in every direction, where they have traveled over, indicating it was a favorite resort.”

Some of the settlers, however, were disillusioned.  The Lockport Daily Journal reported on Comstock’s homesteading party merely a month after they left New York.  “Just four weeks ago a number of gentlemen of this city left for Dakota.  The visions of a mild sunny climate with milk and honey were prominent in their minds….A glance at the country and several weeks’ experience of a Dakota winter have tended to dispel the romantic picture and they determined to lose no time in returning to civilization.”

Artemus Comstock worked his claim diligently in Dakota Territory, but he died unexpectedly on April 27, 1882. Going out to plough his fields, he did not return at lunchtime as expected.  His daughter, Addie, went out to look for him and found him dead from a heart attack.  Artemus was a member of the clan who settled in Cambria at the corner of Comstock and Saunders Settlement Road in 1822 and was a man of some influence.  Before Westward fever hit, Comstock was a member of the New York State Assembly for Niagara County.  Upon his death, his body was returned to his native Cambria, NY for burial.

In 1898, the Niagara County Board of Supervisors, precursor to the current County Legislature, had a committee report on lands in Dakota owned by the county.  “Your committee on the Dakota lands owned by Niagara County report that upon investigation we find that the lands are mortgaged and are situated in one of the poorest sections of North Dakota and are unimproved and a source of no revenue to the county, and that taxes and interest are accumulating yearly.”

The government here in New York held a stake on 480 acres of land in Niagara, North Dakota after it was turned over by J.J. Arnold as “partial reimbursement for his peculations [embezzlement] from the county funds.” John Jacob Arnold, a manager of Merchants National Bank and Niagara County Treasurer, was convicted of embezzling funds from the bank where he worked and also from County funds while serving as Treasurer.  Arnold was sentenced to seven years and four months at Auburn State Prison, although it appears he served less than two years and moved to Ohio and Alaska after his release. 

From a population of nearly 400 in 1900, by 1910, the population dropped 60% to 157 people.  Although they showed a slight rebound in the 1920s and 1930s, the small North Dakota community has steadily shrunken.  The 2010 census shows only 53 people residing in Niagara. 

The names of Ransom and Baker, like the store where the settlement was named, live on today as streets.  Both Ransom Avenue and Baker Avenue serve as the major thoroughfares in and out of town. How many of those 53 people can trace their history back to a small county in Western New York, where the spirit of adventure propelled them West?  

Book Review: Hollow World

In my ongoing effort to get all my book reviews reposted, here is the latest throwback review. This article originally appeared on East Niagara Post at:

http://www.eastniagarapost.com/2014/11/its-novel-idea-hollow-world.html

It seems today that in Hollywood and on television that reboots or re-tellings are the newest fad. Occasionally, there's an interesting take on an old favorite, such as the "Tin Man" twist on "Wizard of Oz." More often than not, we get a hackneyed mess that detracts from the original vision, like the Star Trek reboot, or the abominable remake of “Can’t Buy Me Love.” Now it seems that the reboot and revisioning epidemics have spread to books.

H.G. Wells is one of the all-time greatest science fiction writers. Period. He was writing at a time when most of his ideas were only a part of the imagination, and is considered the father of the science fiction genre. His novel, The Time Machine, published first in 1895, is a timeless classic. Holding such a prominent place in the pantheon of SF writers, many newcomers attempt to emulate the master.

"Hollow World" by Michael J Sullivan is a perfect example of that emulation as well as, unfortunately, hackneyed revisionism. The preview on the jacket of the book showed a lot of promise, which is why it came home from the library with me. The beginning of the book even lived up to its publisher’s hype.

Sullivan’s work is a modern re-telling of The Time Machine, complete with it’s own version of Morlock and Eloi. It’s set in modern-day Detroit, where the protagonist, Ellis Rogers, is a middle-aged man in a loveless marriage. Somehow, in his spare time, he has built a time machine in his garage with milk crates and a lawn chair.

The initial character development of Rogers is fantastic. We learn all about his marriage, the loss of a son through suicide, and the unfaithfulness of his wife with his best friend. He hides his terminal diagnosis from his friends and his wife. He is a sad man, looking to escape from the doldrums of his life and start fresh somewhere else. Actually, somewhen else, where a cure for his cancer would likely be available. He sets his machine for 200 years. However, just like in the original, his plans go awry and he ends up much farther in the future.

When he awakes in future Detroit, nothing is recognizable. The city has returned to wilderness with only the iconic clock tower of the Henry Ford Museum remaining. It is here the story takes a turn and begins to suffer. There are still groups of people, exactly like the original story. In this version, the surface dwellers represent the Morlocks while the subterranean people represent the peaceful Elois. 

The first thing Rogers observes is a murder. Among the Hollow Worlders, murder is a complete unknown. All the people living below ground have evolved into sexless beings who are all connected digitally through neural implants. It’s like having Google in your head. With everyone able to know everything you do, crime is virtually non-existent. Rogers is eyed with suspicion as the timing of his arrival and the murder coincided.

It is among the surface-dwellers, people labeled “Darwins” by the Hollow Worlders, that Rogers finds his greatest surprise and challenge. He struggles with the information that is presented to him and must figure out how to balance what he’s learned in his old life with what he’s learned in this new future. The very future of the planet rides on his choices. Simultaneously, he attempts to deal with the fact that he will never see his wife again while processing the fact that he finds himself attracted to one of the Hollow Worlders, an advanced human who is neither male nor female.

As I stated before, the premise of the story was well thought out. The beginning of the story was very well done. The development of Ellis Rogers makes the reader empathize with him as he makes a decision to turn his life upside-down. Unfortunately, Rogers is the only character who gets developed. The Darwins and Hollow Worlders are faint caricatures of the Morlocks and Elois and never evolve.

The biggest positive for the plot is that it moves right along. There are not a lot of extra words to make the scene. The writer’s flow makes it an enjoyable read as far as actually just reading. The rest of the plot falls into predictability just after Rogers finds himself in the future. Sullivan has added enough modernity to Wells’ original to make it more relevant to today’s reader’s but the storyline itself is almost a perfect imitation. While I have no problems with imitation, there’s not enough of the new author in this tale to make it stand alone from Wells’ The Time Machine.

Reading this book, I can tell you that Michael J. Sullivan is a talented writer and I look forward to seeing what he can do with a storyline of his own. His other book reviews have all shown high praises for its fantasy content. I hope the next science fiction work he completes will be an engaging and fun novel. For The Hollow World, it just needed to be more Sullivan and less Wells.