Review of "Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night" by Jason Zinoman

 

David Letterman

In this overview of Letterman's professional tenure, the author - Jason Zinoman - covers Letterman's entire career, starting when Letterman was a DJ on a college radio station, through his morning TV show, to his late night shows.




David Letterman early in his career

Letterman was always plagued with insecurities, which were instrumental in shaping his comedy. Letterman incorporated his discomfort with people into his skits and guest interviews, and was sometimes impatient or dismissive (or even hostile) to celebrities if they weren't good guests...especially if they were awkward, or shy, or didn't have good stories to tell.




Alec Baldwin and Drew Barrymore were good guests


Rubert Gee


Letterman did numerous skits with Rubert Gee, owner of the Hello Deli

Zinoman gives a comprehensive account of all the people (writers, producers, assistants, cameramen, etc.) who worked behind the scenes on Letterman's shows, as well as Letterman's agents, managers, and publicists. Letterman apparently grew more and more distant towards these ancillary folks as he got older (and crankier). Zinoman emphasizes the huge impact Letterman's one-time girlfriend, Merrill Markoe (who was his head writer for a while) had on his comedy - especially scripted sketches filmed outside the studio, which she wrote and produced.


David Letterman and Merrill Markoe


Merrill Markoe

There's a little bit about Letterman's personal life, including the attempted blackmail that induced the talk show host to confess to cheating on his wife 'on-air'.....and how this affected him.


David Letterman with Robert “Joe” Halderman, who tried to blackmail him

Zinoman writes a great deal about Letterman's comedy and how it evolved over the years....and he describes lots of sketches and jokes. The author watched a few thousand Letterman shows and interviewed lots of people, and it's clear he's extremely knowledgeable about Letterman and his career. The writer also discusses how Letterman affected subsequent late night hosts, and describes the 'comedy giant's' lasting imprint on entertainment.

If you're a Letterman fan, you'd love this book.



(I didn't write a comprehensive review of the book as there are plenty of great ones available.)

Rating: 4 stars

Review of "Golden Boy: A Murder Among the Manhattan Elite" by John Glatt

 

Author John Glatt

In this book, John Glatt - who's written many true crime books - tells the story of Manhattan socialite Thomas Gilbert Jr., who murdered his father in cold blood.


Thomas Gilbert, Jr.

Thomas Gilbert Jr., called Tommy, has an illustrious ancestry in America - starting with Robert Treat, who founded Newark, New Jersey in the 1660s. Some of Tommy's forebears were also mentally ill, which foreshadows Tommy's own descent into paranoia and possible schizophrenia.

Tommy's parents, Thomas Gilbert Sr. and Shelley Rea Gilbert, were a wealthy New York couple with a luxurious lifestyle.


Tommy's father Thomas Gilbert Sr.


Tommy's mother Shelley Rae Gilbert

The Gilberts were thrilled when young Tommy was born in 1984, and the handsome intelligent little boy was pampered and sent to the best schools. Little Tommy was close to his dad and, at the age of nine, gave his father a 'World's Greatest Dad' statuette, which Tom Sr. cherished.

As a young teenager Tommy was a model pupil at Manhattan's elite Buckley School. Tommy was a straight A student, talented athlete, and student council member - later described as 'a golden boy' by a classmate.


Young Tommy was called 'a golden boy'

Tommy's outer façade was deceptive however, and he was becoming anxious and paranoid.....and developing an irrational fear of his father. A few years later, when Tommy was a junior at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, he became convinced his roommate was 'contaminated.' Tommy then began obsessively washing his hands, was constantly 'losing' clothing because it was contaminated, and started showing signs of depression.

Despite his problems, Tommy applied to his father's alma mater - Princeton University - and was accepted. However, Tommy's fear and avoidance of his father escalated at this time, and he also became convinced the Princeton campus was contaminated. To cope, Tommy embraced Princeton's drug scene, and indulged in marijuana, LSD, and cocaine. Moreover, Tommy began injecting himself with anabolic steroids, to improve his performance on the football field.


When Tommy got older, he became a heavy drug user

When Tommy was caught using drugs Princeton suspended him, and Tommy's parents reached out to mental health professionals for help. Tommy started seeing a psychiatrist named Dr. Kevin Spicer, and told the doctor people were contaminating him, stealing his personality, and killing his thoughts. Dr. Spicer diagnosed Tommy with a depressive disorder and possible schizophrenia, and prescribed antipsychotic medication. Spicer also advised the Gilbert parents to hospitalize Tommy, but they didn't, partly because they were in denial, and partly because of the social stigma.

In subsequent years - as Tommy's behavior became more bizarre and dangerous - various doctors encouraged the Gilberts to hospitalize Tommy again and again. The Gilberts always resisted, though, saying Tommy would refuse inpatient treatment. In retrospect, this seems like a grave error, as institutionalization might have helped Tommy before it was too late.

During Tommy's suspension from Princeton, he lived the high life for a couple of years, surfing his way around the world at his parents' expense. Tommy hit the beaches in South America, Africa, and Brazil, then spent time in America's Deep South before returning to college.


Tommy partied at his parents' expense

When Tommy finally graduated from Princeton, he was expected to become a successful financier like his father, but this never happened.

Glatt elaborates about Tommy's youth, years at Princeton, subsequent elegant lifestyle in Manhattan and the Hamptons (paid for by his parents), refusal to get a job, and declining mental health.




Tommy had an active social life in Manhattan and the Hamptons

Glatt also includes details about Tommy's troubled relations with his friends and girlfriends. Though Tommy was peculiar, many women liked him for his good looks.


Tommy's girlfriend Briana Ressner


Tommy with his girlfriend Anna Rothschild

Tommy's behavior - suspicious and antagonistic - made it difficult for him to keep friends, and Tommy went over the top when he beat up his former roommate Peter Smith, then burned down the Smith family's historic house in Southampton.


Tommy's friend Peter Smith


Tommy burned down the Smith house in Southampton

Sadly, Tommy's parents repeatedly hired lawyers, covered for him, and paid his way out of trouble, and Tommy came to expect special treatment.

As 2015 approached, Tom Gilbert Sr. was experiencing money problems and reduced Tommy's allowance, the idea being that Tommy needed to (finally) support himself. Tommy then made plans to sell his parents' Hampton's mansion, worth over 11 million dollars - and decided to murder his father so he could proceed with his scheme.


Tommy planned to sell the Gilbert mansion

On January 5, 2015, at the age of 30, Tommy paid a visit to his parents' Manhattan apartment and asked his mother to go out to buy him a sandwich and a coke. Tommy then shot his father in the head as Tom Sr. was watching television in the bedroom. Tommy was arrested seven hours later.


Tommy being arrested for shooting his father

The tale of Tommy's subsequent competency hearings and eventual trial takes up the latter part of the book.


Tommy in jail


Tommy at one of his court hearings

Though Tommy pulled the trigger, there's room to disagree about Tommy's 'legal' guilt or innocence, since he was mentally ill. Once again, one must wonder what would have happened if Tommy - starting in his teenage years - had received the help he so badly needed.

Glatt did extensive research for this book and observes, "Golden Boy is without a doubt my most challenging true crime book." The author spent five years interviewing Tommy's family, friends, and acquaintances, and following the winding path through scores of court hearings and trial transcripts.

Glatt came to know Tommy's mother Shelley quite well, and observes,"[Shelley's] courage and dignity are amazing, and I cannot begin to fathom how difficult it must have been to lose a husband and then a son to this terrible disease." Shelley hoped her son would be hospitalized rather than sent to prison.


Tommy's mother Shelley supported him after he killed his father

The author was also assisted by Tommy's one-time girlfriend Lila Chase, who remained empathetic to her former beau through his arrest, hearings, trial, and afterwards.

In many ways this is a cautionary tale, about the dangers of over-indulging children while simultaneously neglecting their obvious problems. Families should take heed.


Tommy with his sister Clare and their parents, Shelley and Tom Sr.

Thanks to Netgalley, John Glatt, and St. Martin's Press for a copy of the book.

Rating: 4 stars

Review of "Shards of Earth: The Final Architecture (Book One)" by Adrian Tchaikovsky

 

This is the first book in 'The Final Architecture' series by award-winning science fiction writer Adrian Tchaikovsky.

The story takes place in the distant future when humans have colonized space and encountered many kinds of intergalactic species. The most frightening of these is an entity called an Architect, a creature as big as the moon, with crystalline spikes radiating from its surface.



An Architect appears suddenly over an inhabited world, then quickly reshapes it into a gigantic sculpture, killing everything that lives there. Architects seem unaware they're destroying sentient creatures, almost like humans view gnats.



An Architect destroyed Earth, but humanity still exists on planets and moons elsewhere in the universe. All worlds containing intelligent beings are on high alert, ready to evacuate at a moment's notice, in case an Architect appears in the sky.



Nevertheless, 'sculpturing' by an Architect is so rapid that few can escape, and no weapons - even gravitic drives or mass looms - seem able to stop them.

The first being to successfully interact with an Architect was a human girl called Xavienne Torino. Xavienne's brain could 'connect' with an Architect somehow, and on one occasion Xavienne 'persuaded' an Architect to cease an attack and go away.



Xavienne was dubbed an Intermediary, and an Intermediary Program was started to modify human recruits to mimic Xavienne's abilities. The modification - which consists of genetic manipulation, surgery, and intense conditioning - is so extreme that it kills most trainees.





However a few people get through the Intermediary Program, and several Intermediaries - working together - put a pause in the Architect attacks.

The Intermediaries also have another ability. They're able to guide spacecraft through 'unspace', a dangerous region that permits rapid travel across the universe. Unspace drives almost all creatures insane, and - except for Intermediaries - travelers must be sleeping to get through safely.



As the story opens, there hasn't been an Architect attack in decades, and planets across the universe are engaged in all manner of commerce, import, export, mining, trade, etc. that requires space travel. Thus all societies want Intermediaries.



Of the few existing Intermediaries, all but one are 'leashed' (under binding contracts). The lone 'free' Intermediary, named Idris Telemmier, is a navigator aboard a salvage vessel called the Vulture God, whose crew consists of a handful of humans and aliens.



Any number of organizations, gangs, armies, businesses, politicians and so on - both human and alien - are trying to get their hands (or claws or tentacles or whatever) on Idris....and they'll do ANYTHING to accomplish this goal. Thus everyone seems to be on the lookout for the Vulture God, to get access to the Intermediary.

Idris and the other crew members of the Vulture God are at the center of the story, and we follow their adventures as they crisscross the universe.

One group that wants Idris is the Parthenon, whose members are genetically engineered human women. The females, called Partheni, are among the best fighters in the universe, and they'd like Idris to join their ranks. The Parthenon sends one of its own, a woman called Solace, to recruit Idris, and she (temporarily) joins the crew of the Vulture God to try to persuade him.



On one of it's salvage jobs, the Vulture God finds an object that suggests the Architects are back, and this is the underlying theme of the book.

There's plenty of action in the story, with fighting, shooting, stabbing, stealing, killing, destruction, death, and so forth. There's also plenty of prevarication, scheming, conspiring and negotiation. All this makes for an excellent space saga.



Tchaikovsky does a good bit of world-building in the story, and describes all manner of humans; aliens; societies; civilizations; spaceships; weapons; criminals; soldiers; etc....everything you'd expect in a sci-fi novel.







It can get confusing, but Tchaikovsky helpfully includes a glossary as well as lists of worlds; characters, species; and ships. Best of all the author includes a detailed timeline - an outline that depicts the events in the universe that brought it to it's present state.

I enjoyed the book and look forward to the next novel in the series.

Thanks to Netgalley, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Tor Publishers for a copy of the book.

4 stars 

Review of "Revelation Space: A Science Fiction Novel" by Alastair Reynolds

 

"Revelation Space" takes place in the 26th century, when humans have achieved space travel and can journey vast distances in 'lighthugger' ships that fly at almost the speed of light.



The story opens on the planet Resurgam, which was inhabited by the Amarantin civilization until nine hundred thousand years ago. At that time, just when the Amarantin were about to attain space flight, a catastrophe wiped out the entire race.



Now, small human settlements populate Resurgam, one of which is led by Dan Sylveste - an archaeologist obsessed with studying the Amarantin and what happened to them.





Dan Sylveste is famous for being one of only a few humans who have visited two mysterious alien worlds: the Pattern Jugglers - an obscure oceanic race that can imprint information on the brains of visitors; and the Shrouders - hidden beings who guard the most dangerous devices in the galaxy. In fact, Dan is the only human who ever returned alive from a trip to the Shrouders.



Dan is also well-known for being the son of the brilliant deceased scientist, Calvin Sylveste. The thing is, though Calvin is dead, Dan can still see him and talk to him. Calvin's neural patterns have been saved and Dan can call up his father's image - which usually shows up reclining in a comfortable chair - when he needs to consult with the great man.



While Dan is going about his business (voluntarily and involuntarily) on Resurgam, a decrepit lighthugger called 'Nostalgia for Infinity' - which has lost almost everyone onboard - is trawling the galaxy looking for the archaeologist. The spaceship is infected with the Melding Plague, a nanotech virus that attacks both organic and inorganic substances.



The Plague - which has badly damaged the ship - also infected the Nostalgia's skipper, Captain Brannigan, while he was in reefersleep (suspended animation). The unfortunate Brannigan is now a grotesque being who's expanding, mutating, and merging with the spaceship.



Dan Sylveste once came aboard the Nostalgia to treat the Captain (with dead Calvin's help).....and the crew wants the archaeologist to help Brannigan once again. Meanwhile, the Captain is being kept at a temperature of absolute zero to retard the spread of the virus.

The Nostalgia's leading crew members are a Triumverate consisting of: Volyova - a female munitions expert who controls a ginormous cache of weapons that ranges from guns to star-destroyers; 
 



Sajaki - the defacto captain of the ship; 

 

and Hegazi - Sajaki's yes-man. Sajaki and Hegazi are extreme 'Ultras' - humans who have been exponentially enhanced with technological implants and bionic devices. 

 

The ship also carries a myriad of robotic servitors - including janitor rats - that function as auxiliary help.

The last major character in the story is a woman named Khouri. Khouri is a former soldier who was accidently transported to the planet Yellowstone while she was in reefersleep. On Yellowstone, Khouri became an assassin in a kind of 'Westworld' game. Bored rich people looking for excitement could arrange for an assassin to hunt them down while they tried to evade the killer. But if Khouri is the assigned assassin, the patron is a dead duck because Khouri never fails.



Thus, Khouri attracts the attention of a woman called Mademoiseille, who 'hires' (extorts) Khouri to kill Dan. Mademoiselle alleges that the future of humankind depends on Dan's death.

As the story plays out Khouri eventually gets on board the Nostalgia - which is also searching for Dan. And that's all I can say without spoilers.

Other characters in the story include Resurgam residents who want to thwart Dan's research into the Amarantin; a journalist who's compiling Dan's biography; a Nostalgia gunnery officer who goes completely insane; a wily cyber-being with an agenda; Dan's deceased wife; and more.



The book is almost 600 pages long, and there's plenty of techno-speak that describes planets, stars, spaceships, shuttles, weapons, bionic devices, alien races, alien artifacts, space-time, objective time, subjective time, alpha and beta 'copies' of dead people, sophisticated spacesuits, esoteric discoveries, etc. The book also has a number of sub-plots; some exciting shootouts; plenty of twists, turns, and surprises; and an innovative and compelling climax.







The author tends to be a bit verbose and over-descriptive at times, which slows down the story - and I occasionally had to resist skimming. Overall though, I enjoyed the book, which is imaginative and well-written. Highly recommended to science fiction fans.

Rating: 4 stars