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Rating: 
Summary: Uneven and confusing
Review: I didn't read the precurser to this novel, which may have been a handicap, but I am an unabashed fan of the Recluce and Ecolitan books by Modesitt, and I was expecting realistic characters and a logically consistant universe. I didn't say mundane or "normal", I said "logically consistant". Well, the characters were quite real, but the world was... Frankly, words fail me. This book is billed as an alternate history; Ok, but an alternate history of WHAT? Historical names are mentioned, but the apparent timeline is completely out of sync. The archduke Ferdinand and Tony Blair in political contention? Really. The book is roughly two-thirds expostulation and I still couldn't figure out where (geographically) the story actually takes place and who the geopolitical players are and where they're located! Add the whole "Ghosts" premise, and I went thru "suspension of disbelief" and out the other side. I'm sorry, but this book either should have come with a warning label to see the previous volume or it truly needed the services of a good editor. I give it two stars based entirely on the strength of the characters. The world and the plot were a mess.
Rating:
Summary: Uneven and confusing
Review: I didn't read the precurser to this novel, which may have been a handicap, but I am an unabashed fan of the Recluce and Ecolitan books by Modesitt, and I was expecting realistic characters and a logically consistant universe. I didn't say mundane or "normal", I said "logically consistant". Well, the characters were quite real, but the world was... Frankly, words fail me. This book is billed as an alternate history; Ok, but an alternate history of WHAT? Historical names are mentioned, but the apparent timeline is completely out of sync. The archduke Ferdinand and Tony Blair in political contention? Really. The book is roughly two-thirds expostulation and I still couldn't figure out where (geographically) the story actually takes place and who the geopolitical players are and where they're located! Add the whole "Ghosts" premise, and I went thru "suspension of disbelief" and out the other side. I'm sorry, but this book either should have come with a warning label to see the previous volume or it truly needed the services of a good editor. I give it two stars based entirely on the strength of the characters. The world and the plot were a mess.
Rating: 
Summary: Enh
Review: This is a sequel to "Of Tangible Ghosts", but it doesn't seem to add much that is new to the previous story.It's a combination of alternate history (something to do with the Mayflower settlement failing) and ghosts actually existing. This seemed to work in "Of Tangible Ghosts" -- which I quite likes -- but here is just blah. There is some interesting stuff involving resource (energy and water) politics between "Columbia" (our eastern US), Deseret, and "New France" (our Mexico and California), but it gets lost in the end when the ghost story is allowed to take over. And that's between the recipes that seem to dominate whenever the main character and his wife have a meal! Anyway, I have a feeling in the back of my mind that Modesitt is setting the story up for something interesting between "Columbia" and the Austria-Hungary which dominates Europe in this weird alternate history. But whatever that is, it will be in a subsequent volume. This just seems to be an intermediary to get you from book one to a not-yet-published book three, and so doesn't really do a whole heck of a lot to advance the tale.
Rating:
Summary: Enh
Review: This was an enjoyable return to the world of "Of Tangible Ghosts". It tries to stand alone from the first novel, but doesn't quite succeed; certain character and background details are repeated (and repeated...), while others are omitted. His treatment of an evolved Mormon society is interesting, particularly in comparison the one in the author's novel "The Parafaith War". I look forward to future stories in this series that explore some of the other cultures in this world-line, such as the New French. About my only other complaint is that the main ghost (you knew there had to be one from the title) appears quite late in the story, and doesn't have the depth of character of the first novel's. I enjoyed the ghost construction details -- kinda like building a Web page on steroids.
Rating: 
Summary: Well-done, complex, worthwhile alt-hist political thriller
Review: [paired review with Of Tangible Ghosts]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Johan Eschbach, retired from an eventful career in service to
Columbia as a naval aviator, Spazi agent, and cabinet minister,
now teaches environmental economics at Vanderbraak State
University in New Bruges (New Hampshire in OTL). Doktor
Eschbach lost both his wife and daughter in a political murder --
he himself was badly wounded -- and he would like nothing better
than a quiet life in this academic backwater. But that would make
for a dull book, and he is soon caught up in a murder
investigation, love affair, political intrigues, and secret military
research into "deghosting". Doktor Eschbach's solution to the ensuing tangle is
"rather appalling and not entirely credible" [note 1].
--------
"A land of dirigibles and difference engines, Modesitt's
eerily refined world is compelling and coolly original, a place where
you still drive to work in a car--albeit steam-powered--but think
nothing of waving good morning to the zombies raking leaves off the
lawn." -- Paul Hughes, Amazon.com Ghost of the Revelator picks up Doktor Eschbach and his new
wife Llysette Du Boise as her singing career is taking off, and
as the messy ending to "Tangible" comes back to haunt Eschbach.
The story unfolds slowly, but the same wonderful details of
everyday life that enlivened the first book -- lunch at a favorite
cafe, icy roads, dense, lazy, occasionally sharp students, petty
academic politics, politicians who can "smile and smile and be a
villain" -- make the trip worthwhile. This world is slower-paced
than ours, and Modesitt's prose has something of the heavy Dutch
feel of well-fed burghers, shining-clean windows, tidy lives. Very
human. If slow bothers you -- skim. Modesitt still hasn't smoothed out his jarring exposition
of the differences between his alternate world and ours, here usually dumped as interior monologues. Show, don't tell, please! Llysette sings at a Presidential Arts Awards dinner and is
invited to perform at the prestigious Salt Palace in Deseret --
after fleeing the fall of France and an Austrian political prison.
Johan comes to the uncomfortable conclusion that he's about to be
eclipsed in fame and fortune by his glamorous wife.... ....but maybe Deseret is after more than just a performance by the
new prima diva. And what about Austria-Hungary? And New
France? And the shadowy "Revealed Twelve"? Minister Eschbach resolves the ensuing international crisis with
verve, skill, and a couple of twists that would be unfair to reveal.
Suffice it to say that the ending is most satisfactory, and leaves
plenty of room for future Eschbach/Du Boise adventures. Both books are reasonably self-contained, but if you read one and
like it, you'll want to read the other, so it makes sense to start with #1. Doktor Eschbach and the "Ghosts" books have parallels to Mr
Modesitt's real life: the author was a naval aviator, spent twenty
years in our "Federal District" as a political aide, EPA staffer, and
college teacher. He's married to a lyric soprano (sorceress?, who
teaches at Southern Utah University). He and his family moved
from DC to New Hampshire ("New Bruges") and then to Utah:
these are the settings for the "Ghosts" books. "Write what you
know," the old adage goes -- it certainly works for Modesitt. I
presume the spies and ghosts are from the author's imagination...
_____________
Note 1) -- not to mention *confusing*. A reader at
Amazon.com writes: "I've read the book 6 or 7 times,
and I'm *still* not sure what's happened at the end..."
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