STORMING HEAVEN. By Ralph Fox. (Constable: 7s. ad.) —Mr. Ralph
Fox has written another very attractive novel about present-day Central Asia. Readers of his first book, The People of the Steppes, will expect..-much. In Storming Heaven he gives a story of a young American boy- brought up in a seamen's orphanage, and being taken over to Vladivostok by his guardians, and wandering across the mighty steppes till he _reaches Moscow. The best part of the book deals- with the long journey through Central Asia and with the wandering Kirghiz tribes who are the remnant of one of the mightiest of the peoples of the world, the great Turkish nation of which the 'Darks of Angora are but an offshoot. This was the race of Genghis, of Tamerlane, and of other conquerors. Now it is diminished and impoverished,_but may easily revive and play again a great part in the world's history. Ex-Tsarist _cavalry officers, American I.W.W. organizers who had drifted back to Russia, canny Coisack peasants, strolling players, hands of robbers and Bolsheviks, all cross his pages in rich confusion. The book, however, is by no means a mere collection of traveller's reminiscences, for it has a romantic love interest : in short there is something for all tastes, and everyone should enjoy it.
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