This is the first of several “quickies”
to get me caught up. Last week was mid term with grades due at
midnight Sunday. Since one of my courses is online and I give the
students until midnight Saturday to finish up the first half of the
semester's work, I spent all day and evening Sunday reading exams and
processing grades. Saturday had been eaten up by our annual regional
Social Studies Fair. Then, “A Term” grades – half-semester
courses – were due on Tuesday evening; I taught one of those online
for the first half of this spring as well, so that was Monday and
Tuesday's task. Grading must be hard work!, because by Tuesday
evening my shoulder was hurting and Wednesday my rotator cuff was
killing me. Seriously, I wish I knew what I did to inflame it – I
think it was an old karate injury just flaring up – because I sure
wouldn't do it again. Anyway, I know that's all of less interest to
you than what I've been reading and watching … at least I think
that's the case.
As Iron Sharpens Iron is
Eidemiller's first commercially published novel. I put off reading
it until I had completed his fan-fiction Bronze Saga
as far as he's written it so far. I initially learned about Iron
the same way I learned about the Bronze Saga,
through his appearance last spring on the Book
Cave podcast,
and if you want to get some background on this story, meant to open
another series entitled The Irons Alliance,
that would be your best bet.
Going
directly into it only a short time after reading Bronze Saga #9, Bronze Golem,
was not the best reading strategy, I now realize. I had a real sense
of déjà
vu because Eidemiller uses a lot
of the same tropes in the framing sequence of Iron
as had been developed over nine stories in the Bronze Saga.
The effect of feeling that it's just retread was only heightened by
Eidemiller's use of the same name for his viewpoint character, Perry
Liston. As my old drunken mentor used to say in very different
contexts, “they are not the same, but the similarities far outweigh
the differences.” Luckily, it turns out that the beginning of Iron
is just a framing sequence, and the heart of the story takes place
sixty years in the past. That story – the origin of the Irons
Alliance – I found to be far
more engaging than what I felt to be a sideways reflection of Doc
Savage's latter-day band of high-tech paramilitary adventurers
without the Man of
Bronze himself.
Briefly,
the heart of this book tells of how a group of Christians from very
different walks of life – along with a character who is not
a Christian but rather an old-style pulp hero, a bloody avenger who
has a lot in common with Marvel Comics' Punisher – are drawn
together by a dream they have in common into an expedition to the
Arctic, where they discover a golden meteor that imbues them with
longevity and heightened abilities. Along the way “Punisher” is
saved, of course. All this happens just in time for a monstrous
mutated lizard creature – the archetype of Godzilla – to emerge
from nuked Japan and attack the United States. Using their various
talents and abilities, the group saves the day, the experience
forging them into a team who will obviously stay together through the
coming decades and adventures what are only alluded to in the framing
sequence, adventures which should provide Eidemiller with plenty of
subject matter for subsequent stories.
The
Irons Alliance came
together about 1950. By that time their world was already somewhat
different from our own. Just a couple of the most apparent
divergences were that Tokyo was one of the Japanese cities nuked by
the United States at the end of World War II and that Amelia Earhart
shows up late in the book as an integral character. It's also pretty
apparent from the framing sequence and the hints that are dropped
there that subsequent history ends up being quite different from our
own world. Exploring those differences along with Eidemiller will be
part of the fun of continuing this series.
Once I
got past the stumbling block of the opening as described above, I
enjoyed this story much as I've enjoyed the “Christian Adventures
of Doc Savage.” It has most of the same strengths as well as the
same weaknesses. The latter would be the somewhat overbearing
evangelical tone that pervades the story, which I can see being quite
off-putting to a reader coming upon it unawares. I was “awares”
so it didn't bother me, in fact as I've said before I'm very much in agreement with the basic Christian world view expressed herein, and I don't want to dwell on that any more than
I do when blogging about the Bronze Saga,
but a bit more subtlety may serve Eidemiller well in seeking a wider
readership. That would be my little bit of unsolicited advice.
Otherwise, as always, I find Eidemiller a very compelling writer, and
I do look forward to reading more about these characters.
Cheers!,
and Thanks for reading!
N.B.:
I just went to Eidemiller's web page and see that Bronze Saga
#10: Bronze Shaped as Clay,
is now listed with a tentative release date of this month … and is
indeed billed as “The final chapter in the Bronze Saga.”
That will be hard to
read and write about....
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