Review: An Epic Novel of Grasping for Hope in Humanity's Fallenness
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 10, 2011
Honor and Entropy is epic due to its length, depth, writing style and vast range of topics.  Additionally, the author often and quickly changes settings of time, place and characters.  He patiently offers his philosophical views of life and the world. Time is given for the characters to have conversations that create context rather than moving from one action event to the next.  This is a novel requiring patient attentiveness that I think proves worthwhile.The story involves many characters and frequent parallel plots that are connected in varying degrees to one another.  The main characters, perhaps protagonists -- although nothing here is so cut and dry, are Telly Brensen and Art Spevak who are friends from youth whose paths become entwined as adults.  A parallel part of the story focuses in a prior era when Telly's dad Ulysses Brensen has crash landed his navy plane and crew in Borneo in search of gold and then escape.  In another setting, we follow a couple of thugs taking advantage of Telly's mom Penny and her business estate and hospitality.  There are several other women in the fray, a couple other thugs, some headhunters, Communist Chinese, soldiers in Vietnam, Vietcong, Japanese officers from WWII, and others who are in and out of the novel. All contribute to what seems at times an otherworldly adventure, but it all occurs here on our planet.This is at its core a creative and intriguing story that involves many elements native to the human soul.  The complexity of the novel, its wordiness and cumbersome transitions make this at times an uneasy read.  If readers are willing to work through it, they will see an outcome that resembles some of the classic novels, tragic plays and epic poems that have helped humanity define itself through writing.