[Warning: spoilers shall abound. The only way it can be avoided is by, y’know, not writing this post. But I have every intention of not not writing this post. So my hands are tied.]
Stories have turning points. Most of the time when we think of turning points we think of them in terms of plot, but there’s a different kind of turning point that can have a much greater impact on the book. Well-written books avoid these second turning points to a certain extent and focus on using plot based turning points.[1] This is because the second sort of turning point is one of style or tenor.
The worst thing about these secondary turning points is that they don’t usually come up suddenly. Stuff starts to…happen, I suppose. For those of us who spend a lot of time thinking about writing and telling stories these turning points are fairly obvious and when they’re beginning to approach they drop hints of their impending arrival. So, basically, the reader spends a lot of time with various sphincters clenched in dread.
Even though I was absolutely prepared for Night of the Living Dead Christian to hit one of those turning points, I wasn’t prepared for what happened. Right around the midpoint of the narrative the book went from a fairly light-hearted, if ham-fisted romp to downright mean. The sad thing was, too, that Mikalatos had actually managed to build up a measure of goodwill when it happened. He seemed to be trying to make several important points and struggling against the constraints of his chosen genre. He seemed to be trying to create interesting, coherent backstories. I was far more willing to blame the obvious problems on Tyndale House than Mikalatos.
In the early pages of the book he took several shots at his own people. The obvious references to zombies as unthinking conformists who just do what their pastor tells them counted in his favor. The bit where he made the point to have one of the characters say that Hitler was not an atheist over the course of an argument about who counts as a real Christian, not to mention the insistence that Lutherans and Catholics were actually Christians[2]
From here, though, I fear I cannot go on without basically spoiling the entire premise. I’m okay with that.
There are three basic monsters in the book: zombies, werewolves, and vampires. These monsters hew pretty closely to the way they’re used in non-Christian contexts. Zombies are unthinking conformists with a rapacious desire to convert everyone[3] to their system. Werewolves are a representation of the unconstrained animal nature of man. Vampires are people who take from others for their own benefit.
In the early pages of the book we’re introduced to Luther, a werewolf. We find out that he was raised with a strict, disapproving pastor father who forced extreme religious instruction on his son. We also find out that his wife has just left him and taken their daughter because she’s, y’know, afraid of the werewolf thing. He’s been struggling mightily to overcome the whole werewolf thing, but it’s just not working out and all of the religious instruction has only made him believe god don’t give two shits. If you haven’t already figured out how that story arc goes, then you obviously don’t know anything about the conventions of Christian fiction.
We also briefly meet Lara in the early pages of the book. She’s a vampire. In the middle we get her backstory. It’s here where the sphincters start to really clench.
See, Lara had a high school boyfriend who she moved in with after graduation. He, as it turns out, was a vampire. She tells a sad story about him abusing her and, eventually, biting her. Now, at this point it almost works. Because she’s telling her story to Luther, who is seeing his wife in Lara and realizing, “Oh, shit, I’ve been a monster.”
But remember, Lara is a vampire. It’s not a passive thing in this particular universe, as you get bitten, then you bite someone else, then you become a vampire. Then you get chased around by some dude named Borut who’s basically the Van Helsing of this particular universe and who has no sympathy for your back story but just wants you dead or de-monsterfied.
So let’s review. We have a woman who was abused. But once we get done hearing her story of abuse so that one of the other characters can have sympathy, we learn that we really shouldn’t be sympathetic to her, since she then turned around and did that shit to other people. Oh, and also? This is the only female perspective character in the book. All of the other women are just kind of there as props so that the various men learn the all-important lesson of, “Don’t ignore your wives.” Well, except for the counselor woman, who gets a special place in Hell. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I can’t completely go after the use of the Lara character. In a vacuum that particular backstory would make a certain amount of sense. Her reaction to being abused was fairly realistic and actually fits pretty well with the standard vampire tale. I can go after it, though, because it highlighted the misogyny of the book. See, her story is basically there so that Luther can feel sympathy and decide he needs to change. Any sympathy for her is transferred to Luther’s journey and she makes it a point to not feel sympathy for him, so you know that she’s actually kind of a bitch.
But then she goes and engages in self-sacrificial battle against Borut. So that everyone can get Luther out to get him the help he needs. Yeah. That actually happens.
It works, too. Everyone goes to find the one man who can help Luther. That man turns out to be (drumroll, please), Luther’s estranged father. If you didn’t see that coming, I cannot help you.
Luther, not surprisingly, doesn’t want to go see his father. He instead opts to go see a psychologist. At this point Mikalatos (who, I should add, is the narrator, main character, and only “normal” person in this book.[4] Other than, I suppose, his wife and children and various other wives and children. But they don’t count, since they’re only there to drive the plot) goes off on a seemingly random tangent about a terrible experience with a school counselor he had as a youngster who actually hated children and was way dumber than his ten year-old patient. It then came as absolutely no surprise that Luther’s decision to avoid church and go to a psychologist works out really, really badly.
The next time we see Luther he’s a werewolf in a suit because the psychologist has told him to embrace his werewolf nature. For those who are wondering, yes, it is that bad. This is the standard evangelical Christian explanation of the depraved nature of mankind.[5] The werewolf is bad, the man is good. The werewolf must be purged. Dressing the werewolf in a suit is obviously a terrible idea destined for failure.
Meanwhile, Luther had managed to convince his wife to come over and bring their daughter so he could attempt to patch things up. She shows up with a gun loaded with silver bullets instead of their daughter. He finds out she’s not going to play to his tune and becomes enraged. She doesn’t shoot him, but leaves the gun behind and walks out, saying, “Here’s the cure. But you’re not man enough to take it.” So, y’know, total bitch, right?
Later on, then, Mikalatos-as-narrator offers this internal monologue: “I felt badly for the way his wife had treated him the night before, even though he deserved it and probably worse. But still, he had invited her to the house in good faith, wanting to show her that he had made steps toward health, and she had purposely torn him apart.”
This bit comes on page 121 (Nook epub edition). After Mikalatos-as-narrator has already reminded Luther that Luther almost killed him the night before whilst attempting to kill his wife. And other than the whole thing about how he “deserved it” there’s no real sympathy or empathy for the wife. Because the very next sentence is, “I wanted to help him find the peace I had found in myself, and though he wasn’t interested, I wanted to try to explain again that following Jesus didn’t have to mean zombified Christianity, that it could be something with real, vibrant, overflowing life.” Because that whole “almost killing me and your wife,” thing is less important than the whole “finding Jesus” thing in the narrator’s mind.
I feel like I’ve skipped over something here. Oh, wait, right, I totally forgot about the chapter in between, where we get more of Luther’s backstory, with Luther as narrator. That chapter starts with some high-minded philosophy-esque stuff about how he’s a selfish jerk but it’s okay because everyone is a selfish jerk. Because Luther, of course, is the voice of natural man in rebellion against god and people with god are just jackasses. It then goes sharply downhill from there.
I’m going to do something that I’ve never done on this blog before. I’m going to offer a trigger warning, because this next bit sickens me. Because we find out that Luther-the-werewolf is actually Luther-the-wife-beater. And that’s just the start.
I could tell you that it was, in fact, the first time I had struck her, but not the first time I had considered it, and I could tell you that I instantly wondered what I could do to stop myself from doing it again while quietly planning to make it a habit. I wondered what it would be like to strike my daughter.
Yeah…that.
No doubt you recoil from these frank admissions, but I suspect you recoil because you recognize them and have buried your own similar stories too deeply to acknowledge me as a mirror. Not to say that you desire to strike your spouse, or even that you have a spouse. But perhaps you like the tiny thrill of pocketing something that does not belong to you, or you enjoy taking a small bit of another person’s vitality in a one-night stand and then slipping out the door. Perhaps you merely enjoy the small barbs and carefully destructive words that can cause a coworker to look like an imbecile and you his superior, or you enjoy sharing information that is not yours with someone else, or giving attention to a man who is not your husband because he makes you feel for one moment like someone cares.
No. Just, no. I don’t recoil from that frank admission because I see a bit of myself in a wife beater. I don’t see a bit of myself in a character who planned to make beating his wife a habit and fantasized about hitting his daughter.
This is the problem of evangelical Christian theology that Mikalatos attempts to address but fails miserably to actually do anything about. See, this entire thing is about pulling out the Romans Road. You get someone to admit that they’ve sinned, then say that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of god, the wages of sin are death, but Jesus offers the free gift of forgiveness of sin.[6] In order for this to work, though, everyone must be a sinner. To make that argument though, all sins must be equally capable of destroying the relationship between god and man. So we end up with the absurd notion that making a coworker look bad is equally as evil as fantasizing about beating your daughter.[7]
Futhermore, we also learn that the mother who is simply trying to protect herself and her daughter from a man who intentionally made beating his wife a habit and fantasized about beating his daughter is actually the real bad guy because she’s not helping her violent, abusive get closer to a true relationship with Jesus. I mean, sure, she told her husband to kill himself and belittled his manhood. But, y’know, intentional, premeditated spousal abuse and fantasized child abuse.
Luther is a bad person. Luther is an extremely bad person. And Matt Mikalatos-as-narrator is an enabler. Furthermore, Matt Mikalatos-as-author is an apologist for wife beaters and child abusers, so long as they manage to learn about Jesus in the process, though.
Oh, and remember that psychologist I said deserves a special place in Hell?
When we first meet Luther-as-werewolf-in-suit he is waiting for his wife to show up for their ill-fated conversation. Mikalatos-as-narrator is confused. So Luther helpfully explains, “Your psychologist helped me understand that I am, in fact, a werewolf, and that is not something that can be changed. It can only be lived with, and through behavioral training she has helped me to embrace that fact, allowing me to remain a werewolf but not behave as a werewolf.”
That’s right. The psychologist’s advice boiled down to, “Embrace your inner habitual wife beater.” Because that’s totally what psychologists do when they’re not child hating morons who work in grade schools.
The problem here is that sometimes psychologists do, in fact, help people to embrace the inner-thing-creating-self-loathing. Usually, though, that happens with people who have been abused in some way or are dealing with self-confidence or self-image problems. Then, of course, there’s the other obvious parallel: self-loathing homosexuals. Affirming those thoughts and integrating them in to the whole self is a good thing.
Affirming thoughts of wanting to beat your spouse and daughter and integrating them in to the whole self is not a good thing. I can’t imagine any mental health professional doing anything even remotely like that. I can’t imagine the any of the major professional associations of mental health professionals allowing their members to do that and not receive censure.
Matt Mikalatos seems to think this is just what psychologists do, however. And he defames psychologists in the process of advancing his own view, which is the far more laughable, “Accept Jesus in the correct way and that stuff will pretty much go away.” Because, really, we all know that the only reason Christians aren’t perfect is because most Christians aren’t the right kind of Christians. They’re going to the wrong churches and stuff.
I hate this book.
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[1]Which isn’t to say that this sort of turning point is necessarily all bad, nor is it to say that a book can’t be well-written and not have them. Consider for a moment Neil Gaiman’s American Gods or Neverwhere. Both books absolutely hinge on a character suddenly finding the world is not what he thought it was. The secondary turning point, then, is necessary, as the world goes from normal to not-normal. But, of course, that secondary turning point is also a plot point. So it’s, y’know, intentional.
[2]Lutherans, after all, can be a little too liberal or high-church for evangelicals. And the Pope is regarded as the anti-Christ half the time. And the rest of the time evangelicals, by and large, think that Catholics worship Saints as alternatives to god. Baby steps, people, baby steps.
[3]And it is, literally, everything. Which, again, is a shot at those who create divisions between Christians. The zombie church is the only correct church as far as everyone in said church is concerned and they’ll attempt to convert non-Christians and not-the-same-as-them-Christians equally.
The irony in this, though, is that the book basically attempts to say, “This isn’t the right kind of Christianity. This other kind of Christianity is actually the right kind of Christianity.” Out of the frying pan, in to the fire, as they say.
[4]This, by the by, pissed me off to no end. Because he was not “Matt Mikalatos, narrator of his own wacky tale.” He was, “Matt Mikalatos, author of a book all of the other characters have read and everyone seems to find it necessary to reference.” This particular conceit is extremely arrogant and really got in the way of all of the other arrogantly annoying shit that happened in the book.
I’d contrast that particular turn of events with Yann Martel’s Beatrice and Virgil. That book starts with an author who has a successful novel that sounds a lot like Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, then gives up writing because his epic follow-up ends up being terrible, but then finds his next tale. Over the course of the rest of the book, then, you have the question in the back of your mind, “Is this supposed to be an autobiographical-type thing?” In that case it totally works due to an intentional ambiguity and a general lack of, “Everyone recognized me as Yann Martel, famous and excellently wonderful author.” In fact, one of the major plot points turns out the narrator not being recognized at all.
[5]This one is especially problematic. Of the three monster types, the werewolf appears to be the only one that someone just is. The vampires and zombies are converted. When we get Luther’s story it includes his father walking in to his bedroom and catching him in the act of, y’know, being a werewolf. He also talks of his brother standing up in church, declaring himself an atheist, and walking out of church, an act he refers to as a “flamboyant, dramatic streak.” These two things made me think that the author was attempting to make a point about the church’s treatment of homosexuality. At the point I drew the comparison I was still offering charity and I hoped it was actually a subversive attempt to make a point to an otherwise unreceptive audience. Sadly, that was not to be.
[6]I’ve mentioned the Romans Road on this blog before, I think. It’s prooftexting at its finest. You start at Romans 3:23, then jump to Romans 6:23, then go back to Romans 5:8, then Romans 10:13 and 10:19. Put these together and it says (paraphrased), “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of god (3:23), the wages of sin are death, but the free gift of Christ is life (6:23), and god loves us so much he gave that gift to us even though we didn’t ask (5:8), so all you have to do is call upon Jesus and confess he is lord to get salvation (10:13 and 19).” Of course, if you read those verses in order and with all the other stuff in between they don’t quite offer such an easy and clear-cut story.
[7]You might say this is an unfair assessment, as I’ve already said that Luther is supposed to be the worldly character in rebellion against god. I’m going to put my 25 years as an attendee of various evangelical churches up as an offer of my credibility and say that, no, we were all pretty much running around believing that one lie was exactly as bad as murdering because all sin is ultimately against god. The whole system only works if someone who only screws up a little is exactly as worthy of eternal damnation as, say, Hitler.
Re: Life of Pi: It was good up until the end, when Martel got heavy handed and decided to explain his entire maybe-it-is-an-allegory. WTF. That was totally unnecessary. And now you tell me he gets all heavy handed in another novel? What is his deal?!
Re: Psychologists: They really do do some pretty awful stuff and no one seems to care. When they call it "behavioral health care" I think they mean that to be a euphemism for "mental health care", but it is actually more descriptive of what they do because, while they claim to be concerned with actual mental health, they only really care about how you behave. Are you more depressed than before but eating now? Great, you're cured! (/rant)
Also, I know your view on these things and the Evangelical view on these things, but there were lots of times in this post that you didn't really distinguish the two. If your audience is only people those of us "in the know", I don't suppose that matters much.
Posted by: jessa | 10/14/2011 at 08:53 AM
It is a self-consistent and self-reinforcing worldview. Something wrong with your life? Accepting Jesus will cure it. Not cured? You haven't truly accepted Jesus - as evidence, the fact that you're not cured! Is there a non-Jesus-person who seems happy? It's just a false, worldly front, and they'll lie to you about it to try to get you away from Jesus.
Posted by: Firedrake | 10/14/2011 at 09:05 AM
jessa: How have I been unclear about the difference between my view and the Evangelical view? "These things" and "lots of times" are both pretty non-specific and I thought I'd gone to great lengths to make sure that I stated my opinion clearly. But if I failed I would like to know.
Also, I do know that psychologists often get stuff wrong. But I'm still going to stand by my opinion that, "Oh, yeah, embrace your inner wife-beater," isn't really high on the list of acceptable psychological counseling techniques. I may have to do a follow-up on that thought, because I just realized exactly why Mikalatos could either believe that or bluntly assume his audience would.
And as for Martel, I didn't find his use of possibly-himself-as-narrator particularly anvilicious. I found some other stuff anvilicious in Beatrice and Virgil, but that mostly goes to show you don't have to be writing an explicitly Christian novel to go overboard in explaining your allegory. Some artists simply can't resist making sure everyone knows how brilliant they are.
Firedrake: Yup. And it's fascinating how when you see that worldview laid out starkly in a book like this it seems so very false and wrong. Kind of like the way Left Behind's progression of events is utterly, preposterously wrong-headed and the constant attempts to force the book to keep going prove that LaHaye and Jenkins don't live in the real world at all.
Posted by: Geds | 10/14/2011 at 09:53 AM
A viewpoint that cannot be falsified - not because it's true, but because any evidence supporting its falsification will be instantly explained away - is to my mind a viewpoint that is unhealthy to hold. I don't care if it leads to you giving free kittens to orphans - it's still bad for you.
Posted by: Firedrake | 10/14/2011 at 10:22 AM
@ Firedrake - "No, see, you're an addict. What? You say you're *not* an addict? That's denial, a clear symptom of addiction."
I've never been on the wrong end of that conversation, but I've watched it happen. (The screening process for a drug and alcohol rehab center where I once worked firmly presupposed that if you were in the intake process at all, you needed to be in the program.)
Posted by: Michael Mock | 10/14/2011 at 10:26 AM
D=
This sounds like a wallbanger of a book.. which considering I use a nook as well, is probably a good thing that I didn't get this one. I'm really surprised Scalzi featured this one.
Posted by: Mink | 10/14/2011 at 10:46 AM
"Borut"? Seriously? What, is he trying to make benefit of the glorious nation of Heaven?
That aside, this is horrifying. A werewolf as something you "just are"? Okay, sure, I'll buy it. An abuser? No. People choose to beat their families.
And look, it's petty attacks on someone Mikalatos thinks wronged him when he was ten years old! I think somebody needs to get out more.
Posted by: emilyperson | 10/14/2011 at 11:22 AM
Mink: I very nearly wrote Scalzi a letter explaining this. I don't think that would get too far, as he doesn't actually read every single book in The Big Idea. From what I understand he takes solicitations and puts Big Ideas up if the author sells him on the value of his vision. I believe that's probably to keep politics out of the way, as he has a fairly big web presence and is also the President of the SFWA, so any accusations of favoritism and censorship would cause trouble.
Also, too, if you have a Nook and I have a Nook and I know that at least one other reader has a Nook (GailVortex, maybe?), want to set up a LendMe network thingy? I don't know how that works, as I've never done it, but that seems like a good idea.
emilyperson: Yeah. It's pretty juvenile and disconnected from reality. That's probably why I will end up writing a post about what the whole werewolf/wife-beater thing reveals about this particular flavor of Christianity.
Posted by: Geds | 10/14/2011 at 11:37 AM
Ug, it's all the same old script huh? Today a lady was going door-to-door in our neighborhood recruiting for a new, small-and-growing Christian fellowship in the area. Gave the typical "testimony" of how her old fucked up life involved heroin and abuse and two divorces, and her new life with Jesus involves waiting for God to tell her what to do about her current separation from husband #3.
I really can't relate; I hold my comittment to my partner as the holiest of vows, and there wasn't even a pastor at my wedding. Of course she goes on to ask if I have a "relationship with Jesus Christ," to which I reply that it would be difficult not to in this society, but that the details of mine are too personal to share. I'm not usually so closed with the travelling evangelists, but I find the Johova's Witnesses to be better theological conservationists.
Honestly, she doesn't want my opinion, which is that waiting around for a sign is just code for deciding to do nothing until something better comes along, whether you believe God cares or not. Let Jesus be your enabler, and suddenly live is all rosy, right? I thought Jesus was supposed to be a teacher. But no, instead I bid her good day, wondering which parts of her ruined life she would ultimately decide to salvage, if anything.
Posted by: Janet | 10/15/2011 at 09:47 PM
Geds: That sounds like a good idea! I've never done it myself, either; what do we need to do to set it up? (I admit that my book interests are a bit odd!)
Posted by: Mink | 10/17/2011 at 10:35 AM
Okay. Um. Wow. Hi, everyone.
I don't think I'll try to do a point-by-point answer to everything here because I don't want to come across as a defensive prick. Let me know if I fail in that. But I would like to just share a little authorial intent here on two topics... one, the misogyny/abuse enabling thing, and two the "Romans Road" issue Geds mentions.
(Side note: Geds, I think you may have stopped reading before you got to the end? Or skimmed heavily in the last couple chapters? I certainly would have if I thought a book was saying what you think my book is saying. If so, I think maybe there were some points in the last few chapters that would be difficult to reconcile with your reading. The other option being, of course, that it just didn't come across clearly because the writing wasn't good enough.)
Okay, the vampire doesn't take pity on the werewolf precisely because, as you say, she's been abused by someone very much like him. It has nothing to do with her being a bitch (I was surprised you saw her that way) and everything to do with her being a human being who has been hurt. Ditto the wife. Choosing to fight Borut to give the others a chance to get out has to do with her hatred for Borut more than her desire to help the wolf. And I think to say that she sacrifices herself is a little strong given that she's, you know, still alive and whole afterward.
I'm not sure where the "wife protecting her daughter is a bad guy because she's keeping the wolf from Jesus" part comes in. I don't think the story makes any suggestion of this. In fact, her courage in taking her daughter out of the situation is the incident which sets off the wolf's quest to actually get everything figured out.
So, let me just say this plainly, because I think it's obvious to any thinking person, and I know everyone reading this thread already thinks this, but let me just put it in here so you know that I agree: spousal abuse is worse than shop lifting and a large variety of other things. Hitler and Mother Teresa may have both been sinners according to Christian theology, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a difference in degree or magnitude. Part of the point of the book is to bring that home, and what you rightly describe as a trigger is meant to be a part of that, to provide an emotional point for the reader that is impossible to just glide over or explain away with theology. And the opposite point is made in one of the last chapters, that if everyone is depraved, also everyone is made in God's image, which means that there is hope for "even the most monstrous among us"... which comes just short of making the statement that there are degrees of monstrosity. You noticed, I'm sure, that Romans isn't quoted in the book. And I think it's pretty clear that Luther's speeches throughout are not meant to be taken as the take away points of the book, as is evidenced when he says things like the primary idiocy of Christianity being that God loves people. I mean, is it really that surprising that an abusive person would prefer to think that his transgressions are essentially the same as everyone else's? It's common, and psychology tests like the MMPI are built on the assumption that we all think that everyone else will essentially do and think what we ourselves do and think. Given Luther's background and issues, it seems like it would be more notable if he *didn't* think things like this.
The narrator (yes, the "me" character) brings this opposite bit out as well, in that he also realizes that he is a monster by the novel's end. Not a werewolf, but a mad scientist (and the arrogance of the narrator throughout the book is used to bring this out because, you know, it's a plot point). His issues, while still serious, are nothing on the scale of Luther's issues. They still need to be dealt with to move on and become a better person, but it's not like it's something that puts his family in danger.
Alright, I'll shut up now. I'm glad to dialogue on this whole thing if you're interested, or get out of your way if you prefer.
Thanks, Geds.
Matt
Posted by: Matt Mikalatos | 10/17/2011 at 10:46 AM
Oh hey, and I feel like I should reinforce what Geds mentioned in the comments here... Scalzi didn't read the book and didn't do anything other than show generosity and kindness to another author by sharing his platform. He's a great guy and any hard feelings about the book or its content should come my way, not his. Thanks.
Posted by: Matt Mikalatos | 10/17/2011 at 10:48 AM
I reread your post and I don't see the confusing bits I thought I saw before. I don't know what happened. I remember being confused by the juggling of "here is what I think", "here is how I thought the book might go in a direction that would fit in with what I think", "here is how Christian books usually do this stuff", and "here is how the book actually went." Maybe I was tired.
I also noticed that you drew a distinction between "embrace your inner wife-beater" as superlatively awful and things like "once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic". To me, those are conceptually pretty similar. Not having read the book, I'm not sure what here is so different. Wife-beating is more awful than alcoholism, yes, but when you are embracing that as a part of you (i.e. it will forever be a thing you have done) and stopping actually doing it, it doesn't seem so different. Unless, in the book, they don't bother with quitting wife-beating?
Mental health care uses blunt tools that are appropriate for some problems then apply them on a massive scale that takes them out of their realm of utility. That is what I meant when I said this was not an uncommon, immediately reprimanded sort of thing in mental health care. Also, I may have an axe to grind.
Posted by: jessa | 10/17/2011 at 02:43 PM
Yes, I own a Nook. Currently grateful for the "remembers your page when it falls over when you drift off" feature, since I am (for no clear reason) trying to make it through Crime and Punishment.
Posted by: GailVortex | 10/17/2011 at 05:51 PM
So, I don't know how to set up a Nook LendMe circle. But I'm about to pull the trigger to buy A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos and I figure this is the place to find others who'd like to read it. When I've finished it. :)
Posted by: GailVortex | 10/18/2011 at 11:23 AM