Pieces of Fate: Book Reviews 2012

All Book Reviews will be on this page. they are titled and dated.

March 18, 2012--- PARANORMAL

Paranormal

“My Life in Pursuit of the afterlife”

Raymond Moody, MD

Paul Perry

General subject matter: Autobiography of Raymond Moody, and his studies of “Afterlife” experiences.

Theme: The afterlife and beyond.

Thesis: The experiences of life after death, past life memories and other “Otherworldly experiences” surrounding death of the human body. The attempts to prove all exist.

The purpose of this book is for Raymond to share a part of his life with the reader, in the hopes of giving explanation for his chosen field of study. Furthermore he shares his own experiences as he deals with illness, a “madness” of his own that he calls it, and the thoughts of mortality it brings with it. While traveling abroad to speak on his best seller Life After Life, he falls farther into the depths of this madness and understands the strong need to know the answer to the same question thousands of people ask of him. Is there more to life? Is there a soul? Does it live on after our body dies? He seeks to prove the unprovable.

The book starts with a brief introduction, in which he discusses his best-selling book Life After Life, some experiences and how to understand it all we need to know him. In fact I found he brings us back around to this point, time and again; that he is a best-selling author. The book seems mainly a vehicle of self-promotion.

Raymond begins with his birth and earliest memories and how some of these memories shape him into the young person he becomes. I know this is true for all of us. However, most of us do not recall things when we were infants or very young toddlers. Which Raymond claims he has. From my own psychology classes in college, and readings I’ve been taught that most children's earliest memory snippets are from a time period between the age of three to the age of seven.

He speaks of a town filled mostly with women, as it was in the time of World War II. His grandfather is his male role model for the first few years of his life as his father is off in the military. He views his relations with his mother, grandmother, grandfather, and all the neighbor ladies as peaceful, loving and good. Then his father comes home and spoils everything. However, he also credits his “tough” father of being the initially push into his quest to find out what happens when we die. Raymond’s father is a surgeon, and one day he regales the family with a story of how he had to “bring someone back” as the patient had died, and how he had to squeeze his heart to get it beating again.

As Raymond grows and begins to further his studies, he finds he has a great pension for philosophy, and the study of the consciousness. He attended a private school for intellectually gifted students. While here he recalls it was the first time any symptoms of his illness appear…but at that young age he just ignored them.

His illness is a thyroid disorder called Myxedema. Myxedema is another word for Hypothyroidism. This is a sluggish thyroid gland. The gland doesn’t produce enough of the hormone thyroid. Defined by THEFREEDICTIONARY.COM as; A disease caused by decreased activity of the thyroid gland in adults and characterized by dry skin, swellings around the lips and nose, mental deterioration, and a subnormal basal metabolic rate.

The end of the war brought a lot of change both good and bad; one of these changes was a growing theory that space travel was possible. Raymond was very interested in this, and the main scientist behind it; Dr. Werner von Braun. Dr. von Braun came to us from Germany, and would become quite pivotal in Raymond’s life. This was still early in Raymond’s life, he was in high school when they actually met when the Dr. came to speak in Macon, GA (Raymond’s home state and nearby town)

When he went off to the University of Virginia, he studied philosophy absorbing everything he could. He was especially drawn to Socrates and his belief in life after death. At this point, Raymond describes himself as “obsessed with death” and he starts to share some of the stories he has heard from people that experienced “near death experiences”. Additionally, the compilation of these stories, his own research and observations and the writing of his book; Life After Life.

This part of the book was the largest part and long it was. I had to push myself to get through it. To be honest I wasn’t really prepared for an autobiography and found the book to be quite disappointing. In hindsight I wonder if the reading would have been better if I had read Life After Life.

Once he starts to spiral down with his illness, on the book tour, he sees a few doctors, chats with some people and overall gets some help for himself. Then he begins to share his reading, studying and tales of other people’s past lives. He has himself hypnotized and shares that he had nine distinct memories of a different person in a different time that he was. While going to graduate school, he delved into this further and did his own hypnotisms, hearing of similar stories more and more.

While searching in a bookstore for a certain book, another book falls down. The book was titled Crystal Gazing written by Northcote Thomas, with an introduction by Andrew Lang. Lang was an eminent psychologist from the turn of the century. This is also something Socrates had spoke of in early Greece, where people gazed into pools of water. This act of gazing into water, crystal, glass, smoke, mirrors and other similar items can cause an altered state of consciousness, giving one visions. This is called scrying. Raymond was totally enthralled by this idea, and how it could be used to help with life after death, past life memories and possibly speaking with the departed. He held experiments with small numbers of students. Later decided to do this for patients, and build his “Theatre of the Mind” which is similar to the old Greek psychomanteums. Psychomanteums were cave warrens that were created for people to stay, prepare and eventually speak with their departed loved ones. In the caves they gaze into pools of water. People go to his Theater for a one day event where they go into a closet sized room with a mirror slightly higher than their head on the opposite wall for gazing into. The Greek's visit and preparation lasted for weeks.

While this last section of the book was very intriguing and exciting, sadly it was the end of the book. It left me wanting more on that subject, and sad that I had wasted so many hours on his life story. I find now that I want to go and read his best-selling Life After Life. Other books have also been recommended to me, based on my discussions of this book and Life After Life.

About the Authors:

Raymond Moody, MD is a Psychiatrist, Author and Lecturer. He is considered the world’s leading expert in the field of near death experiences. Find him online at www.lifeafterlife.com

Paul Perry is an international best-selling Author, who has co-written nine books on near death experiences. Visit him at www.paulperryproductions.com

I give this book 2 out of 5 “pieces”, having said that I venture a bet that the number might have been higher if I had read Life After Life first.

scroll down for the next book review...

August 20, 2012... WHITE RAVEN

White Raven: The Sword of Northern Ancestors

Irina Lopatina

and illustrated by

Igor Adasikov

WhiteRaven.lightmessages.com printed in the USA

ISBN: 978-1-61153-024-7

Fantasy, historic fantasy

This book is a Young Adult novel. I believe the targeted audience is mainly for late middle school to early college age students. However, as many YA novels have proven to have a large readership in the Adult population, I will say it is YA loosely.

I found in the beginning this book was a chore to read. The prologue was interesting, and helped further into the book, not immediately.

It didn't flow well for several chapters, kind of jumped around and otherwise made it a bit confusing to read. I would say that it began to glide along much better at about chapter four. Most of the jumpiness and confusion; I believe comes from the difficult names (Russian I suppose). Not just the names of the characters but there were many creatures that played somewhat large roles in this story and they also were named in such a way as it was a bit hard on the reader.

Once I got the names down of the more prominent creatures and the characters the book became a pleasant read. The main character Vraigo; aka White Raven was quite likeable, and I found myself cheering him on. His adventures to find the limits of his endowed magic abilities, encounters with other magically endowing players and creatures were most engaging.

When the very large twist happens in the story (ie. time travel) the story really takes off. There were places that were a little far-fetched. and there was some crossing of ancient and modern where grammatically it did not fit. Example: Early in the book, The author writes that one creature "paved the way" for another as dialogue. This was in ancient times, there was no "paving" in ancient times, so that phrase didn't fit. Additionally, when he travels to the future, he assimilates much too quickly, especially language.

I believe this is the Author's first book, so this will probably all improve.

The story line is one of evil vs. good. The good has to find a way to get the evil from entering their world, and just when they think they have a handle on where the new "monsters" are coming from, and devise a plan to close "the rip" in this layer of the universe that the monsters have breached, and to kill the ones that were already here, along with the evil magus, that brought them forth, the unthinkable happens.

The ancient magical sword "Urart" has been stolen, by gnomes that were bribed, they even kill one of the Griffins that guards the sword. This was thought to be impossible. Everything they have known has changed due to this new evil magus, and his followers.

Vraigo, early in the story had found the long hidden and ancient caves of the gnomes. He makes this his personal quest to retrieve the stolen sword and therein destroy the monsters, the evil magus, and close the "rip"

While in the gnome village deep in the mountains, he has with him only one companion, a small but powerful woodland magus called Shi-Shi. His weapons consist of his own sword, and an gnome dagger, that he had found earlier. Vraigo encounters only a few gnomes, but then, after following several passageways, he comes across other creatures, and a battle ensues. During this battle there is an earth quake. This changes EVERYTHING. If I say anymore I will spoil the story. :)

There is a bonus area in the back of the book: drawing of all the creatures, and humans and their names and brief description. I found this to be very helpful, and also actually fun!

*************************************

The author Irina Lopatina

as depicted by the illustrator for the book (cover, and chapter pages, as well as a bonus in the back of the book)

Igor Adasikov.

About the author: Irina works and lives in Siberia, Russia. her homeland is actually more exotic sounding; Altai. Altai is an ancient mountainous region, where now huge populated cities dwell side by side by ancient and pristine wilderness. Altai is an area of the world where some of the earliest civilizations formed.

While studying at Altai State university she studied heavily her ancient homeland. Irina visited archaeological sites on the mountain plateaus. She only could imagine what it was like to live in the ancient times, and what kinds of creatures might have lived there. This curiosity of what possible adventures took place way back then, is what brought her to write "White Raven".

Irina, freely admits she was quite inspired by the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, Ursula Le Guin and Russian authors; Nick Perumov and Svyatoslav Loginov.

About the Illustrator: As a child Igor knew he was destined to be an artist. While in art school he devoted much of his time to practicing classic drawing. His works won awards in Russian contests. Igor continued his education at Moscow Art institute. he prefers realistic painting, such as portraits and landscapes. yet igor's imagination needed an outlet. His Imagination found that outlet while illustrating; White Raven: The Sword of Northern Ancestors.

His illustrations make the story come to life and give the reader some visibility into White Raven's world.

I give this book 4 out of 5 "pieces"

I give thanks to TLC book tours for giving me this book to read and review.