#32 Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Elizer Yudkowski This epic fanfic (yes, "fanfic") tome is available online via a simple search and can be read online or downloaded in PDF format. It takes Harry (the beloved adopted son of a scientist father and a teacher mother) through his years at Hogwarts and turns everything in the Rowling canon on its head. I'm generally familiar with the Harry Potter mythology, but this still surprised me (imagine playing quiddich without that buzzy golden flying thing). I enjoyed it. And I appreciate that it apparently took six years (six years?!) for the author to post all 640,000 words of this monster. Very different take on the Potter universe.
#33 C. S. Lewis: A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet by Alister McGrath Three very influential men died on November 22nd, 1963. They were President John F. Kennedy, former Presidential candidate and long-time public servant Adelai Stevenson, and author/teacher Clive Staples (C. S.) Lewis. If all you know about C. S. Lewis is Narnia, you've missed out on a lot. He wrote wonderfully inventive fiction, along with common-sense books defending Christian principles and doctrines. I learned that he was a human being just like me, a man who exhibited strengths and weaknesses and heartaches just like I occasionally do. Very interesting.
#34 Alpha and Omega: The End of Days by Harry Turtledove The author specializes in alternate history - "what if" on a global scale. In this one, he presents a current time when Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are all proven right. And wrong. All at the same time. None of the beloved doctrines of any faith are left unsmashed. Harry apparently thinks we'd all be better off if we ignored all that religious stuff and decided to "just get along." I read it because I wanted to see how he thought the end times should be. It turns out that, according to Harry T., all of us are complete idiots.
#35 The House of Daniel by Harry Turtledove I'm bunching books by author again. This one is about Depression-era barnstorming baseball in the U.S. with a twist - the depression was caused not by economics but by so much of the magic in the world going away. You'll read about thugs, baseball games, vampires, eccentric teammates, zombies, crumbling ballparks, werewolves, thinly disguised real major league players, voodoo hex men, romance, all set against the backdrop of ballplayers trying to get enough to eat each day. Unlike most of his books, there is no major point here. It's just a thin but fun romp. To get a really good taste of Turtledove's work, read his debut effort "The Guns of the South." The civil war will never be the same.
#36 Joe Steele by Harry Turtledove If the son of Russian immigrants had defeated FDR in the 1932 Democratic primary (because FDR died in a house fire set by henchmen of the son of immigrants) and went on to become a virtual dictator, the mid-20th century might have looked as bleak as this. Under Joe Steele, the U.S. begins to look like Hitler's Germany or Trotsky's Russia (he beat out Stalin), and we trace the downward spiral through the eyes of two brothers. One becomes a White House speechwriter, while the other is sent to a Wyoming labor camp for writing articles "harmful to America." It's what the United States might look like should a charismatic leader with fewer morals or ethics than any 20th-century despot come to power and do literally anything to remain there. Quite chilling.
#37 C. S. Lewis' Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason by Victor Reppert Lewis proposed a fairly simple but logical defense of Jesus' divinity, one that was later attacked by "real philosophers," in essence because he hadn't presented his argument as they would have preferred. The author takes up Lewis' proposition and defends it quite ably and adds to it. He also counters a number of objections to Lewis' proposition, again quite ably. I truly enjoyed this book.
