Rootes Reviews

This is a great book and I think I'll look for other books by this author. Not as good as SOUL TAKERS, but an excellent follow-up. I can't wait for his next one.

Simply put, I must read this book again!!!.... Rootes' second undertaking is a phenomenal growth from Soul Takers. Fluid and captivating, it shines over his first novel which was riddled by unfortunate typographical errors. Rootes unravels his latest tale as a seasoned pro, yet entices the reader with a sense of naivete. Captivating and magnetic!! Real and unreal!! Rootes is possibly the next Stehpen King, perhaps not as prolific.... Makes the readers wonder what is next????

(Sorry for my poor english...)

If you liked the marvelous Moravagine, Dan Yack could be considerated in a way as is soft counterpart. When a group of depraved artits decide to follow an idle billionnaire to spend a winter near the south pole, anything can happen. And, of course, as we are in the Blaise Cendrars world, it happens in a brutal, hallucinating but touching way. Dan Yack plays with life like a gambler who would play russian roulette with a gun loaded with five bullets.

Apollinair creates a novel about a noble that lives a very vivid sex life, almost all sexual standards are shot down in this excellent parade of perverted minds that fill the characters...Excellent fot the reader who does not fear to read something that might be socially unacceptable, though really entertaining. Concerning literature, the book has all that could characterise any other book as a great creation.

Talented writer, Robert Rootes, has written a shivering MUST READ thriller with his, "Preternatural Gifts." The excitment is nonstop and the storyline compelling! I was glued to this page-turning thriller from cover to cover! If thrillers are your thing, PRETERNATURAL GIFTS, is one book you do not want to miss! Take a bow Robert Rootes you have certainly earned it with this fantastic book!

A well written and researched short account of nomads and heretics that existed during the first few centuries of the millenium, with glimpses into their erotic methods and sexual cult like rituals that were performed as a way for their spirit to cast off a corrupt body and ultimately reach god. Their persecution by first the romans and later the christians and what they did in order to escape their persecutors.

Giuseppe

mulaise@aol.com

This is an excellent essay written with a somewhat literary style. The information it offers is fascinating, provided one has an open mind. I enjoyed reading it and have reread it several times over the past few years.

...you will benefit from this "forbidden fruit." If you are aware that so much of what passes for truth is in fact so much wishful thinking, conditioning, and convenience, then you will enjoy this history. Read beyond the initial discussion of Gnostic metaphysics, and by book's end you may well have an enhanced perspective of some of the greatest questions of all.

Rootes creates, or shall we say, relives his realistic Upstate New York adolescence-coming-of-age in his first novel Soul Takers. His work exhibits the energy of a new writer with the seasoned abilities of an old pro. The way he puts a spin on the old vampire tales, blends it to an erotic, romantic, sensual, suspense thriller is really an unique accomplishment indeed. The characters are real. We can feel for them. We are are left wanting more. I can picture this being a critically acclaimed movie with all the bells and whistles special effects that would probably be a flop at the box offices. Oh, well. The true artist is intrinsically motivated. Rootes has learned this by now, no doubt. Soul Takers is definitely a good read. And now we know where all of the Missing Children go........

I found this book to be an incredible journey in the minds of the lives characters. I love erotic, sensual tales of vampires, but not gory. The story was definately not gory and I liked that. I love the way you feel as if you put the book down you'll never know what happens next. He draws you into their lives and his thoughts. He's very enthralling and great with imagery and words. I would definately reccomend this book to all those who enjoy good sensual/romantic novels. I can't wait to see what happens more with Jordan and Damian.

Soul Takers is a book that you want to continue reading. It is a book that draws you in and creates each character to be a living person in your mind. It leaves you wanting more.

Robert Rootes has successfully created a story that brings all emotions to the surface. He will horrify you with how dangerous vampires can be. He will introduce you to, "The family," which is very mysterious. You will learn to love each and every one of them for their individual personalities. He will bring you to the true ugly truth of what man can be like and then bring you to the joy of what a loving family is like with all of their mistakes.

To miss reading his book is like finding out that you missed the movie that everyone is talking about! My only hope is that I can convince this talented writer to do a series from this book.

"On again, and the track flies beneath the swift hooves of the horses." The only reason to read this is if you love Cendrars poetry and just can't get enough of it. This book has great moments especially in the early going icluding that first glimpse of our hero in small Swiss village, as well as Sutters arrival in New York and his various careers in various kinds of swindling. Cendrars paints an interesting portrait of a man who learns all he needs to know about America from conversations had in bars. His listening gains him crucial bits of information that will shape his destiny. The journey west is great Cendrars writing full of gusto and energy but the accelerated pace of the telling only remains exciting while Sutter is in motion. After he settles down the hectic style doesn't carry the story or tell it nearly as well as it should be told. Gold is an unfinished work, an attractive but only partially completed manuscript. Interesting attempt to tell a story applying Cendrars poetic breakthroughs to novel writing though only partially successful. For Cendrars completists only. Moravagine is a much more satisfying novel by this wild Swiss traveler-poet.

This book wobbles betweeen being interesting and completely boring. The autobiographical passages and picaresque memories are your basic good ol' Cendrars. However, the endless diversions into the lives of levitating saints get old very fast. Read this only if you already like Cendrars and want to know more about the man.

Sky! memoirs---is part IV of Blaise Cendrars lyrical autobiography in which he vents his fascinations with the mystic art of levitation mixing in with his beatific poetic-prose the accounts of various case accounts, mostly centuries old, of some remarkable levitators. It opens with his carting some several hundred caged birds back to france from his miraculous travels gathering such colorful specimens armed with butterfly nets and dreams to give as a gift to a special little girl. Cendrars then goes into the details of what it is to fly, as humankind has striven to reach the skies from time immemorial. It is the latter half of the book that Cendrars unleashes his magic as opposed and/or complimentary to the first halfs mystic trends. And what magic does he make! Writing is compared with mining subterranean caverns, as a miner descends unto the abyss armed not only with the essentials of graveyard diggers but with a bird on his shoulder as miners use to do for caution regarding the dangerous and sometimes poisonous air within the earth's crust; if it reaches intolerable levels the little bird will quietly, without complaint, suffocate first. As the air down below is vaporous and the writer's descent: "visiting the secret interiors of the Earth to discover the philosopher's stone"= the formula of V.I.T.R.I.O.L. expounded by the alchemists in quest of the absolute. Cendrars previous three volumes, along with this one are extremely difficult to find, and it is a literary crime and testament that only a very few peole today have any true idea of the magical possibilities inherent in literature. As "Writing is successful only when it makes things happen"; and the prose of Blaise Cendrars, the one-armed ww1 veteran of modernism, replete always with a thick russian cigarette burning under squinted eyes, is a high ranking underground leader in the linguiststic legions who storms the sky in this last book of memoirs, riddling the air with verbiage and ammunition and followed by squadrons of eagles and falcons and hawks and when he sleeps floats approximately 3 inches off the ground for he is a writer of holy things worthy of the most sumptuous religious texts. One is transported while reading Sky Memoirs to a state not unlike that of the phenonemon of levitation, in which one's thoughts tend to hover, in a state of suspended animation and remains so until Cendrars decides to set you down upon a soft pillow, that you may truly take flight in the similitude of dreams.

This one is a real curiosity and you may have trouble finding an English-language version of it in print. Cendrars was a poet and leader of the avant-garde in Paris in the teens and twenties. Though born in Switzerland, he traveled widely, almost restlessly, and his poetry is distinguished by its focus on action. Gold, also known as Sutter's Gold, which is perhaps his most famous prose work, seems at least partly autobiographical, as the story of John Augustus Sutter so closely resembles the basic pattern of the author's own life. Sutter too was Swiss, but he abandoned his family and emigrated to America, pulled ever westward, he eventually became extremely wealthy and one of the founders of modern California. But then gold was discovered at the site of his famous mill, and his land was overrun by hordes of 49ers. He spent the rest of his life trying to recoup his losses, through lawsuits and pleadings to the U. S. Congress, but died without ever receiving a penny.

Cendrars relates this tale in a brisk and lively manner, taking us through Sutter's life at breakneck speed. The style is almost telegraphic as he dices 121 pages of story into 16 chapters of 74 sections. That doesn't leave him much time to develop any grand themes; the most I came away with was the rather silly notion that, though eager Europeans fled to America seeking opportunity and wealth, even if they struck it rich they were ultimately ruined. France may only have been his adopted country, but this attitude reflects the bitter, envious soul of a native.

GRADE : C+

Not at all worth the price, this huge disappointment has amateur effort written all over it. From its dark, grainy photos, to its total lack of substantial information, this book was a real let-down for me. Unfortunately this is the only book on Rootes Commercial Vehicles. Riddled with typos and grammatical errors, the bulk of the book is wasted on useless charts. Need I say more?