Is there anything better than a good book?

The Night Eternal

2012-02-09T08:34:00.002-07:00

The Night Eternal by Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan

With The Night Eternal Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan bring their vampire trilogy to a satisfying close. It began with The Strain which was a decent book in my opinion. A little flawed, but an intriguing beginning to their story. Then with The Fall the two corrected what needed to be fixed and got things really moving along. The Night Eternal was my favorite book of the three.

Two years have passed since the events of The Fall. The world is a much different place now. Nuclear winter has settled in as the master vampire used nuclear weapons to bring about nearly continual darkness across the planet. Now sunlight is only able to break through for two hours a day. The rest of the time, the vampires roam unimpeded.

The human population has gone through a mass extinction. The vampires, having first killed off all of the world leaders along with all the most powerful and brightest people, have now segregated the remaining population. The fortunate ones, the ones who possess the vampires' preferred blood type, have been interred in camps where they're fed well and live in relative comfort as they're either bled or bred to ensure the vampires' food supply. The less fortunate ones have either been forced into a life of servitude and compliance with the vampires, or they were destroyed. Only small pockets of resistance remain.

One of these pockets includes Eph, Nora, Fet, and Gus. Dr. Eph Goodweather's wife was turned by the master vampire and she later returned to kidnap Eph's son Zachary whom the Master has significant plans for. It's Eph's search for his son that nearly destroyed Eph but that now keeps him going. Eph's group is the only group remaining that has the ability to destroy the Master and bring about an end to the nightmare that's taken over the earth, but by doing so, he may have to destroy his son as well? That's a decision Eph might not be strong enough to make.

With the trilogy complete I can now wholeheartedly recommend it. The first book started off really strong but then it got a little frustrating as characters started doing things that drove me crazy. The series rebounded with the second book and then finished strong with this conclusion. My understanding is that Guillermo del Toro originally wrote this story hoping it would be a TV series. Unfortunately is wasn't to be. But based on the content, I don't think it would have aired on any channel that I get anyway.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Lunatics

2012-02-02T19:41:00.001-07:00

Lunatics by Dave Barry & Alan Zweibel

If a novel has Dave Barry's name associated with it, I'm going to read it. Both of his previous novels written for adults (Big Trouble & Risky Business) were hilarious. The Peter Pan prequels he's been coauthoring with Ridley Pearson for young adults are good too, but they're not the kind of laugh-out-loud funny books that cause people to move away from me while I'm reading them on the train into work that his others were. Pearson is kind of like Ritalin for Barry and my preference is to read Barry uncontrolled.

Lunatics was the first I had heard of Alan Zweibel and he made quite a first impression. If Pearson is Barry's Ritalin, I'd describe Zweibel as NoDoze with a Red Bull chaser. The pace of the book is fast, it never lets up, and it goes all over the place.

The book is about two men; Philip Horkman, a mild-mannered owner of a pet shop called The Wine Store (just go with it) and Jeffery Peckerman, a hot-headed, foul-mouthed forensic plumber (again, just go with it.) Their paths cross one day when Philip, a volunteer referee for a girl's recreational soccer league, calls off sides on Jeffery's daughter at a pivotal point in the game. From that moment on, the two can't seem to unseparate their paths and go back to their normal lives.

The story that follows made me laugh out loud regularly. If I wasn't laughing, I had a big grin on my face. I'm sure people around me when I was reading thought I was challenged in some way. Philip and Jeffery find themselves accused of masterminding a terrorist attack, hijacking a clothing-optional cruise ship, leading a revolution in Cuba, bringing down Somalian pirates, ushering in long-lasting peace in the Middle East, and then on to China.

I'm not going to try to pass this off as high-brow literature. This will not be an Oprah Book Club Selection. What it is is an hilarious book that's for those looking for an enjoyable time, and who aren't self-conscious about making a scene while reading.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Micro

2012-01-31T21:48:00.000-07:00

Micro by Michael Crichton & Richard Preston

Jurassic Park meets Honey I Shrunk the Kids. That's the best way I can describe this final offering from the mind of Michael Crichton. Micro was an unfinished manuscript Crichton had been working on when he passed away from cancer in 2008. It was finished by Richard Preston, brother of Douglas Preston, who wrote The Cobra Event, and The Hot Zone. I've enjoyed books by both authors and I think Preston was an excellent choice to finish Crichton's story.

Seven graduate students have come to Hawaii to look into working for Nanigen, an obscure, high-tech company that's at the cutting edge of medical research and nano-technology. Nanigen claims the ability to construct tiny robots, some of which are mere millimeters in diameter. They use these robots to perform research, gathering samples in the microbiological world in order to develop new medications.

What these students learn when they arrive is that Nanigen's technology isn't in creating these minuscule robots. Their technology is far more advanced and dangerous - it shrinks things, and not just the robots it builds, it can shrink anything: robots, equipment, scientists, and graduate students. Unfortunately for the students, they're shrunk against their will having uncovered the sinister side of Nanigen's psychopathic president.

The idea behind the story is outlandish, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment in reading it. The world is a far more dangerous place when you're half an inch tall and have to survive in the Hawaiian forest. Crichton (and Preston) do a great job of creating a sense of what that world would be like and creating the same level of fear for me that I felt for T. rexes and velociraptors only this time they did it with birds, wasps, spiders, and ants.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Get Shorty

2012-01-25T18:43:00.000-07:00

Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard

My favorite thing about discovering an author that's been writing for awhile is the fact that there are a backlog of books already written that I can look forward to reading. Discovering Elmore Leonard a couple of years ago is the epitome of that experience. The man is in his mid-eighties and just released his 45th book - Raylan, which is near the top of my TBR stack.

Get Shorty is only the fourth book of his that I've read, and to be frank, it was a let down. With is other books, I came to appreciate his no-nonsense, right-to-the-point writing style, but with this one, I found myself getting restless, wondering when he was going to get to a point. The premise of the book was interesting, but the characters were atypically one dimensional and I didn't form any type of emotional attachment to any of them.

Chili Palmer is a loan shark whose collection activities take him from Miami to Hollywood. He's chasing a man who committed insurance fraud against the airline industry, collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from them, loses it gambling, and then tries to skip town before paying up. Once Chili arrives in Hollywood, he becomes enamored with the seedy underbelly of the movie-making industry and decides he wants to be a part of it. He decides that the story of the man he's actively chasing would make for a great movie, so he starts meeting with movie makers in an attempt to pitch the idea.

Both plot lines play out simultaneously throughout the book, but unfortunately, neither one of them was very entertaining. I'm still looking forward to reading many more books by Leonard, but will probably be a little more selective in choosing them going forward.

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Alloy of Law

2012-01-20T18:35:00.000-07:00

The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson

Technically speaking, The Alloy of Law would be considered the fourth book in Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy - but that's incorrect by definition. Also, according to Sanderson, the first trilogy (Mistborn, The Well of Ascension, & The Hero of Ages) was just the beginning of a much larger series. Sanderson says that he plans to write two more trilogies, each taking place centuries after the events of the preceding one. Would that ultimately make the series a "novology"? In addition, The Alloy of Law isn't a part of any of the three trilogies slated. It's just a little extra something, like the peanuts offered at Five Guys - just there to add to the total level of my enjoyment. So I don't know what to call the series, a "decology"?

I read the first three books before I started this blog, so let me just quickly mention that they're excellent. Those books put Sanderson near the top of my list of favorite authors. They're very imaginative and a blast to read.

The Alloy of Law takes place about three hundred years after the events of The Hero of Ages. The world has moved on to an era consisting of locomotives and the introduction of electricity. But the different magical systems such as Allomancy and Feruchemy are still present. A small minority of the population possesses the ability to ingest small amounts of various metals and burn them internally, giving them temporary supernatural abilities - Allomancers. Some have the ability to make themselves temporarily lighter or heavier at will - Feruchemists. Waxillium Ladrian can do both.

Wax is a sort of frontier lawman who has had to return to the city of Elendel to set his family's household back in order. He's saved from the prospect of the lifestyle he shunned years ago when he gets involved in the investigation of a string of train robberies that have been taking place.

Like the first Mistborn trilogy, this book was a lot of fun to read. The battle sequences involving the two magical systems are unlike anything I've read anywhere else and I'm looking forward to the other books to come.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

11/22/63

2012-01-13T15:19:00.000-07:00

11/22/63 by Stephen King

Ten years ago this month, Stephen King made the announcement that he was retiring from writing. I remember hearing the announcement and feeling a sense of desertion. I've mentioned it in another post, but it was King's book Misery that I read as a senior in high school that started my love for reading. Since then, I have read all of his books and while some have been better than others, I've enjoyed every single one of them. Fortunately, King has not been a man of his word. Since he announced his retirement, King has published a dozen or so more books and there's both another Dark Tower book and a sequel to The Shining coming soon.

One of my favorite early books by King is The Dead Zone. In it, the main character Johnny Smith wakes from a coma to discover that when he touches people, he has a brief vision of their future. When that ability reveals to him that a local politician will eventually become the President of the United States and start a nuclear war, he struggles with what steps, if any, he should take to prevent that from happening. He asks himself the question: If I had the ability to go back in time and kill Hitler before he became the leader of Germany and caused World War II, should I do it? In 11/22/63, King comes back to that idea of going back and changing the past to create a better future, but instead of Hitler, this time it's Lee Harvey Oswald's life that he explores whether the world would be better off without.

There's a hole in the state of Maine, a hole that a person can enter and arrive at 11:58 A.M. on September 9, 1958. The hole is in the backroom of a local diner, a diner owned by Al who has been going through the hole for quite some time. Initially it was just to buy his food supplies at 1950's prices, but eventually his purpose in going back became more substantial - to prevent the assassination of JFK in 1963. But Al's time is running short. Even though every time he returns through the hole, only 2 minutes has passed in 2011, he has been spending years at a time in 1958 and his life-long smoking habit has put him on death's door. So he introduces Jake Epping, a loyal customer of his, to his secret and wants Jake to try to do what Al has been unable to accomplish.

I should say here that I love stories about time travel. I love the paradoxes it creates and the usually unforeseen ripple effect that comes with it. There have been a lot of great stories that involve it and 11/22/63 is one of the best. As he usually does, King has taken an otherwise ordinary character and placed him in extraordinary circumstances and then just seems to take a step back and watch along with all his readers to see what happens.

It's not rare that I enjoy a book that I'm reading. But what is rare is when a book is so good that I'm tempted to skip to the end of the book to see how things turn out. I've never done that, and I never will, but I was constantly fighting the urge to do it with 11/22/63. The story is fantastic. Needless to say, I'm enjoying King's retirement immensely.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

2011 - A Review

2011-12-31T12:52:00.000-07:00

Another year has come and gone, so here's my Top 10 List for the books read this year along with a few other book-related bits of information.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma
I Don't Want to Kill You by Dan Wells
The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips
The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint by Brady Udall
The Five by Robert McCammon
Exley by Brock Clarke

The worst book I read this year was Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk
Number of books read this year - 65
Booksignings attended this year - Sammy Hagar
Books I'm looking forward to that are coming in 2012:

Lunatics by Dave Barry & Alan Zweibel (1/3)
Raylan by Elmore Leonard (1/31)
Wild Thing by Josh Bazell (2/12)
The Technologist by Matthew Pearl (2/21)
Nocturnal by Scott Sigler (4/3)
Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore (4/3)
Drop Dead Healthy by A.J. Jacobs (4/10)
The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King (4/24)
They Eat Puppies, Don't They? by Christopher Buckley (5/8)
Railsea by China Mieville (5/15)
The Map of Sky by Felix J. Palma (9/4)

What are the best books you read this year?

The Vault

2011-12-30T10:19:00.000-07:00

The Vault by Boyd Morrison

If you enjoy books by James Rollins, Matthew Reilly, Steve Berry, or Lincoln Child, you'll enjoy Boyd Morrison's. The Vault is the second one of his I've read, and while they've both been extremely fun reads, they were the kind that requires a suspension of reality for maximum enjoyment. It also helps if you can tolerate some cheesy dialogue when things get hairy.

Tyler Locke, the Indiana Jones-type character that Boyd introduced us to in The Ark is back for another fast-paced action ride. This time the former Army Ranger, who now runs a cutting-edge technology company called Gordian, has been enlisted against his will to find the truth behind the legend of King Midas's touch.

Jordan Orr is a master thief who has personal knowledge that the legend is based on fact. As a boy, he had stumbled across a cavernous room deep below Naples Italy, with walls of gold and containing the source behind Midas's incredible curse - the ability to turn everything he touched into gold. Now, after decades of planning and preparing himself for the day when he could harness that power himself, he's ready to return. He needs the special skill set Locke possesses though in order to carry out his plan. So he kidnaps Locke's father in order to obtain his cooperation and away we go.

I mentioned that the book was a lot of fun, and it is. When his next book comes out, I'll be buying it and reading it quickly. But I'm hoping that as he continues to write, Boyd will spend a little less time devising outlandish plots and a little more time fine tuning the dialogue between his characters. It got a little distracting reading the glib comments his characters were making while they narrowly escaped various forms of certain death. I know Indiana Jones made a habit of doing it, but Jones was best when he didn't say a word, he simply dispatched the sword-wielding man with a pistol shot. Boyd would do well to take that lesson to heart.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Carte Blanche

2011-12-22T19:31:00.000-07:00

Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver

I’ve never read one of Ian Flemming’s James Bond books. So I can't speak to whether Deaver stayed true to the character as it was written by Flemming. I've seen almost all of the movies though. (Except for that one with the guy that no one can ever remember his name.) I was first introduced to Bond while on a family vacation when I was eleven or twelve years old. My dad rented Octopussy and let me watch it. I thought it was fantastic!. It had great stunts, fast-paced action, gadgets every boy would die for, and having just entered the stage of life where girls were of interest to me, it was perfect timing. With it being my first exposure to Bond, I had no idea that it was one of the worst Bond movies ever made, Nor was I aware that there had been a much better James Bond before Roger Moore. Nevertheless, I had discovered the character and 26 years later, I still look forward to every new Bond movie that comes out.

When I learned that Jeffery Deaver, an author I've read quite devotedly, had been commissioned to write the next Bond story, I became anxious to read my first one. I was interested to see how an author, notorious for writing unexpected twists into his stories, was going to write a James Bond story - where there's usually a pretty set formula: An evil genius, set on world domination, is foiled because instead of killing James Bond quickly and cleanly when he had the chance, decides to reveal the details of his plan to Bond and then take off - sure in his mind that there's no way Bond will ever escape the shark tank/conveyor belt slowly delivering Bond to his death/pilotless airplane seconds away from crashing/etc. Deaver didn't disappoint.

I went to a book signing last year for Deaver's last book and he discussed the upcoming Bond book. He described how he wanted to take the character back to what Ian Flemming first created, and then place him in today's world. Which is exactly what he did. In Carte Blanche Bond has only been a 00 agent for three years when it's discovered that next Friday night, thousands of people are going to die in some sort of attack. It's up to Bond to discover who is behind the attack, where it's going to take place, how it's to be done, and then to prevent it, all in a very short period of time. Having listened to Deaver describe Bond as he was first written into existence, before anyone played him on film (even the good Bond actors) and now having read a book, I'm much more interested in going back to Flemming's books and giving them a try.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Embassytown

2011-12-16T13:49:00.000-07:00

Embassytown by China Mieville

Mieville has said that one of the things he likes about science fiction is the feeling of not knowing what's going on that you have a lot of times when you start reading a book in the genre. I agree. It's that feeling of disorientation that you have until you start to get your bearings and figure out who, what, when, and where you are. For me it's what gives the genre a lot of its appeal.

Well, with Embassytown, he gave me that feeling in spades, and he stretched it out for the book's entirety. It's wonderfully written, it's a fantastic showcase for Mieville's creativity, but that feeling never left me. And I think that's exactly what Mieville intended. His descriptions of the characters, the setting, and the technology are very nebulous. He gives you little insights here and there, but never a complete picture. So it's not an easy book to describe.

If you've ever read one of Mieville's books, you know that he loves language. In his books he heavily uses words whose meanings can only be unlocked contextually. With Embassytown, he makes language itself the core of the story. The Ariekei are a peaceful alien species whose language is so closely tied to reality that it does not allow for lies. The restrictive nature of their language has given the Ariekei almost a lustful desire for the contrary nature of lies.

The Terre are human colonists who live on Ariekei in Embassytown. The Terre and their Hosts have long enjoyed a peaceful coexistence. The Terre have created Ambassadors, sets of cloned "dopels" bred and genetically linked together who can both understand and speak the Ariekei language. Through the Ambassadors, some of the Ariekei have slowly learned how to manipulate their language enough to resemble lying. But by doing so, they've opened Pandora's Box. Soon the first Ariekei murder takes place and chaos quickly follows.

Embassytown is not light reading. If you're looking for a book that you can pick up and read without using your brain, this is not it. But as is usually the case, things that require effort usually provide the greatest reward.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Minority Report (& Other Stories)

2011-12-09T08:04:00.000-07:00

Minority Report (& Other Stories) by Philip K. Dick

During his life, Philip K. Dick didn't have the tremendous following or financial success that some of his contemporary science fiction authors enjoyed (Herbert, Asimov, Heinlein). But he was far more prolific than any of them and has probably seen more posthumous success. His name still doesn't have the same widespread recognition that those others do, but I bet far more people have enjoyed his stories, albeit unknowingly, than all those others combined.

Hollywood finally gave him the recognition that his stories deserved. Blade Runner, Total Recall, Screamers, Imposter, Paycheck, Next, A Scanner Darkly, The Adjustment Bureau, and Minority Report are all adaptations of stories that he wrote, and I'm sure they won't be the last.

This book contained nine of his stories, and they were all great. Minority Report was the first, and while Spielberg took a lot of liberties with his adaptation, it's clear who the best parts of the story came from. I enjoyed the movie a lot, but the 45 page story was better.

Next was Imposter. It's about a man named Spence Olham who is accused of being an alien robot, sent to earth with the mission of taking over the identity of the true Spence Olham in order to detonate a bomb which would destroy the entire planet. A great story that leaves you guessing "is he, or isn't he" until the very end.

Second Variety takes place in the distant future during a war between Russia and North America. The Russian's first strike was an unexpected nuclear attack which left the whole North American continent desolate and forced its survivors to colonize the moon in an effort to retreat and regroup. The Americans retaliated by creating small crab-like robots that were exceptionally intelligent and capable of killing the Russians. But just when the Russians were nearly wiped out, a new variety of robots have begun to appear. Only these ones are indistinguishable from human beings and they don't have an allegiance to either side. They were created by the initial robots unleashed by the Americans and now the hole human race is their target.

War Game is about Wiseman, a man who works as a toy inspector for a company responsible for testing and monitoring toys imported to Terra. Terra is on the brink of war with Ganymeda and is therefore worried about possible threats that might slip through its defenses disguised as harmless imports. Three toys have come in for consideration, a toy soldier game where the soldiers attempt to attack and take control of a citadel, a virtual reality suit that causes its wearer to see and feel places from their past, and a Monopoly-like board game called Syndrome. It’s a red herring story that illustrates the best way to take down an enemy.

In What the Dead Men Say, after a person dies, there is a period of time called half-life in which they can be resurrected. Half-life is finite, so the longer they stay resurrected, the sooner their half-life is used up. A person who is resurrected for only brief periods at a time, can stretch their half-life to span centuries. This was both the longest and weakest of the nine stories in the book. But it still offered an interesting premise.

Oh, to Be a Blobel! takes place after the inter-species war between humans and blobels. Blobels are an interstellar species of very large, single-celled amoeba-type beings. During the war, soldiers from both species underwent physiological changes that allowed them to become a member of the enemy species in order to conduct acts of espionage. Now that the war is over, some of those soldiers are unable to revert permanently to their original species and are left living lives split between the two - a part of each day they're human, the rest blobel. (Dick wrote during the '60s and took advantage of the drug induced lifestyle that existed then, so that might explain some things.)

The Electric Ant is about a highly advanced robot named Poole. Poole has biological skin, flesh, and blood, so he's totally indistinguishable from a human being by all outward appearances. He communicates just like a human being and feels and shows emotions just like one as well. He also thinks like one too. In fact, Poole has no idea that he's not human. It's not till he's in an accident and looses his hand that the truth is revealed. When he realizes that, he also realizes that every aspect of his life has been a direct result of his programming. "Programmed. In me somewhere, he thought, there is a matrix fitted in place, a grid screen that cuts me off from certain thoughts, certain actions. And forces me into others. I am not free. I never was, but now I know it; that makes it different." So Poole becomes determined to locate his internal programming to see if he can disconnect it and finally begin to experience the real world.

Faith of Our Fathers is about Tung Chien, a Vietnamese man living in a time when communist China has control of the whole world. What no one realizes is that they're maintaining their control over the world's population by contaminating the water and food supplies with hallucinogenic drugs. These drugs prohibit people from seeing the leader of the ruling party for what he truly is - a being from another planet that is feeding on every living thing.

We Can Remember it for you Wholesale was probably my favorite story in the book. It's one of the shortest ones and instead of summarizing it I think it's enough to say it's what the movie Total Recall is based on.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

2011-12-05T14:00:00.000-07:00

The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint by Brady Udall

It was Brady Udall's second book The Lonely Polygamist that I enjoyed reading so much that it made me decide to start this book blog. So needless to say, I had pretty high expectations for The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, his first book, when I found a second-hand copy and bought it a few months ago. This book proved to me that TLP wasn't a fluke, Udall is a great writer. His characters are extremely well developed. They're not your conventional hero-type characters - in fact, with this one, he gives us Edgar Mint, probably the anti-hero by most definitions today, but they're the type of characters that you can't help but pull for.

Edgar's life has been a series of tragedies. Edgar's mother Gloria was an Apache who lived on a reservation in Arizona. His father Arnold was a city slicker from Connecticut who who wanted to be a cowboy and came out West, became infatuated with Edgar's mother, and then was driven away by her mother when Gloria became pregnant with Edgar. Gloria, who had never touched a drop of alcohol before in her life, found that beer offered the only respite from the nauseousness that accompanied her pregnancy, and began drinking it on the first day Edgar started to develop inside her and didn't stop until she died a few years later.

When Edgar was seven, the mailman ran over him, crushing his skull and sending him into a coma for three months. When he woke up, his mother had abandoned him and his recovery, while miraculous, was not a complete one. It's not made clear in the book whether the things that make him socially inept and that make his story so compelling are direct results from his accident, or whether he would have grown up the same way even without it, but he's a different kind of kid.

The story Udall tells is a great one. It's funny at times, heartbreaking at others. It shines a light on the things that make us humans, both the good and the bad. And it shows how the life of one inconsequential person can have such a profound impact on the lives of those around him.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Double Dexter

2011-11-29T19:14:00.000-07:00

Double Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Dexter, devoid of human feelings, deliverer of deserving death to the detritus of society, and now disguised as a devoted dad, has apparently been on display. While dispatching a man who moonlights as a clown-for-hire in order to prey on young children, Dexter becomes aware that he's being watched. He tries to catch his unwelcomed spectator, but is only able to catch a glimpse of an old Honda with a dangling taillight as it tears away from the scene.

That, along with some unwanted notoriety in the press has got Dexter decidedly disturbed. He needs to identify and eliminate this person who is now following him around and sending him threatening emails before his fabricated image as a normal member of society comes crashing down.

Double Dexter is the sixth installment in Jeff Lindsay's fantastic series, and I think it's one of the best. Dexter is one of the best characters around and in this one, he doesn't disappoint. It's good to see that he's still active and kicking, even if those who he decides deserve his personal level of justice aren't.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Reamde

2011-11-22T19:46:00.000-07:00

Reamde by Neal Stephenson

Reamde is the first book by Neal Stephenson that I've read. I had considered reading others of his books before but until now, I hadn't. I think it was due to a sense of intimidation. First of all, his books are long, (Reamde is 1,000+ pages) which means they're a commitment. Also, From the little I knew about his books, I was pretty sure most of it would go right over my head. I had heard that Stephenson is a very cerebral author and his books usually involve a lot of mathematics or cryptography, or that they require an MIT graduate's understanding of computers to understand. I thought, if I couldn't follow either of the TRON movies, then there'd be no way to follow one of his books. Finally, I once posted a question on a book blog asking for a recommendation on which Stephenson book was the best and received a response from a fan who's response made me question the mental stability of his readers.

That being said, I kept coming across reviews of Reamde and every one of them said that the book was great, so I decided to take the plunge. The title of the book is derived from the common subject line "Read Me" that usually accompanies an email that's going to infect your computer with a virus. Reamde, as the virus becomes known as in the book, is a computer virus that infects T'Rain, a multiplayer online role-playing game. It has millions of players all over the world and Reamde encrypts its users' computer files and holds them hostage until the user pays a ransom to unencrypt them. With as many players as there are in T'Rain, very quickly after the virus is released it impacts the files of some dangerous people.

The Russian mob, along with the world's most dangerous terrorist become involved in an action-packed chase that jumps from the Pacific Northwest to China, the Philippeans, British Colombia, and other places along the 49th parallel. The characters are well developed (as they should be, given the size of the book) and the plot is captivating. The book moves at a very fast pace which gives it the feel of a book half its size and not once did I feel like any of it was going over my head. Either my preconceived impression I had of Stephenson was incorrect, or I'm brighter than I gave myself credit for being. Either way, I really enjoyed it a lot and am sure it won't be the last book by Stephenson I read.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Machine Man

2011-11-03T21:00:00.000-06:00

Machine Man by Max Barry

Back in 2009, Max Barry undertook a literary experiment. he attempted to write a book through email. he would write a single page of a story every day and then send that page to his readers. By doing so, the story his readers received was going to be in a pretty raw state. The pace he set for himself didn't allow for much editing or polishing. It wasn't like he had a story already written and was just going to type up one page of it in an email and send it out every day. Instead, every day he had to come up with that day's portion of the story, write it, and then put it out there for as many people as wanted to to read it praise it, offer up ideas about characters, plot, etc. That story was the genesis of Machine Man.

Charles Neumann is not a people person. He's a scientific engineer at Better Future, a high-tech research and development company that develops and tests cutting-edge technologies and products, and he's more comfortable interacting with things containing a hard drive and power source than he is with things containing a brain and heart.

One day at work, in a moment of inattention, Charlie loses his leg when he gets too close to a hydraulic clamp moments before it shuts. The prosthetics he has to choose from leave a lot to be desired by his standards of efficiency and functionality, so he sets out to design and build a better leg. The leg he develops is far superior to even the best currently available to amputees, but he soon realizes that he will always be limited, not by his artificial leg anymore, but by his biological one. But that's a problem he can fix.

The book is pretty good. It has elements of my favorite genres: science fiction, horror, and thriller in it and Barry uses dark humor to counterbalance the implausibility of Charlie's gradual transformation. Machine Man isn't as good as the other book of his I read Company, but it's still a worthwhile read.

Book Trailer

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

A Game of Thrones

2011-10-28T13:58:00.000-06:00

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

I hesitated when I went to the label of this post in order to identify this book's genre. Before beginning the book, I thought it would be pretty straight forward. It's the first in Martin's epic fantasy series: A Song of Ice and Fire, and not having watched any of HBO's new series based on the books, I assumed it would be similar to Lord of the Rings or one of the other fantasy series I've read. This one is different. Not to detract from anything else in the genre, but A Game of Thrones possesses a maturity that its counterparts and most books of any genre don't usually have. It's a maturity that I usually only read in classic literature.

While there are still elements of the fantasy genre in it, these elements are not the prevailing characteristics of the book. The book lacks orcs and elves, and while there is a dwarf, he's the type of dwarf you see on TLC these days and not the battle-axe-wielding type in a Tolkien book. (Although Martin does arm Tyrion with an axe during one battle scene, maybe as a tongue-in-cheek nod to Gimli?)

It takes place in a time when things are out of balance. Summer has persisted over the past ten years, but an equally long winter is anticipated. And just as the warmth of the summer is ending, so too is the precarious peace that has existed under the reign of Robert Barathean, King of the Seven Kingdoms. A game is being played by some - the game of thrones. And as Martin mentions several times in the book, when you play the game of thrones, you either win or you die.

If you enjoy fantasy books, you can't do better than A Game of Thrones and you probably know that already so I'm preaching to the choir. If you don't typically enjoy or read fantasy, I am confident that you will enjoy this one. If you're going to read the series, and I strongly recommend you do, be prepared to make a significant commitment. So far there have been five books published with two more anticipated. Each of them is a doorstop - at least 700 pages long, and there is a phone-book-size list of important characters to keep track of. But it's worth it. Don't believe me? Take some other peoples' word on it. James Rollins, or this Deseret News Review.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Shadow Divers

2011-10-22T22:10:00.000-06:00

Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson

This book sat on my bookshelf for seven years. When I bought it I intended to read it soon but it never seemed to rise to the top of my to-be-read pile. It was a NY Times bestseller for several weeks and when it was published it was likened to Krakauer's Into Thin Air and Junger's A Perfect Storm which gives you an idea of what type of true adventure story it is and how good the book is.

Shadow Divers is about two American deep-sea wreck divers: John Chatterton and Rich Kohler, who discover a German U-boat sunk about 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey. No records of a U-boat having been sunk in that area during WWII existed so this was the find of a lifetime for both of them. It also represented the beginning of a quest to identify the submarine and discover what it was doing so close to American soil.

The story of how these divers went about trying to identify this submarine was interesting. They made dozens of dives down to it to try to retrieve something from it that would help them make that determination. They also scoured every available record from World War II, but it took years before they were finally able to solve the mystery behind it.

But that part of the book wasn't what I found the most captivating. Instead it was the information about what men like these are like, and what drives them to engage is such a life-threatening avocation. With every dive they make, they take risks with their lives that most people would never dream of taking. They dive hundreds of feet to depths which cause hallucinations with even the most experience divers. And the decompression required during and after every dive are amazing. For divers who go below 200 feet or so, they have to plan on a dive of a couple of hours. But only a quarter or so of the total dive time is used up at their targeted dive depth. The other three fourths of the time is spent waiting at various depths on the way back up as their body rids itself of the excess nitrogen that built up in their system.

The risk of the bends if they ascend too quickly or or don't decompress sufficiently is only one of the many risks they take. In addition to that, they also risk being lost at sea each time. I wouldn't have thought that was that big of a risk, but divers have to make sure to stay with the anchor line. A diver who looses contact with the anchor line, is more than likely to be pulled away by currents and come to the surface miles away from the ship.

I thought the book as a whole was fascinating. The men the book is written about are incredible and the mystery behind the submarine's identity is captivating. Robert Kurson did an excellent job of providing an insight into the life and mentality of the men who possess the inexplicable trait that makes them obsessed with the dangers and thrills that come with exploring wrecks on the ocean floor.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Plugged

2011-10-15T21:40:00.000-06:00

Plugged by Eoin Colfer

Eoin Colfer is best known for his Artemis Fowl series for younger readers and most recently for reviving Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series with his And Another Thing . . . Now with Plugged he makes his first foray into adult crime fiction and in my opinion, he's done pretty well.

Daniel McEvoy is an Irish bouncer at a disreputable casino in New Jersey called Slotz. Daniel has a thing for one of the hostesses there. (They've been friends with benefits once and he's hoping it won't end up being the only time.) Unfortunately his hopes are dashed when she's discovered dead with a gunshot wound in the forehead out in the parking lot one afternoon. McEvoy believes he knows who the responsible party is and he sets out seeking revenge.

Soon his pursuit of the killer spirals out of control and he finds himself in the crosshairs of the New Jersey mob as well as the police. It also leads to the disappearance of the man responsible for McEvoy's newly transplanted head of hair. The title of the book acquires a double meaning with this little gem of a side story and McEvoy's manhunt is doubled as well. Now he's not only searching for his would-be-girlfriend's killer, but he now needs to also track down the doctor so that the procedure can eventually be finished.

The story was great. It did get a little slow a couple of times, but only briefly and Colfer's sense of humor more than made up for those rare moments. Some reviewers have described it as a cross between an Elmore Leonard story and one written by Carl Hiaasen. And that's a pretty good description. I enjoyed it a lot and will definitely read the next book he writes for adults. I might even try some of his books written for younger readers.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The Cut

2011-10-12T20:58:00.000-06:00

The Cut by George Pelecanos

With The Cut Pelecanos begins a new series with a whole new protagonist, Spero Lucas. Lucas is a recently returned veteran of the war in Iraq who freelances as an investigator for a defense attorney in D.C. The skills he learned in the Marines are now serving him well as he specializes in recovering lost or stolen property for owners willing to pay considerably for his services.

But it's not just little old ladies who have lost their jewelry that Lucas is willing to work for. His abilities have also gained him the attention of one of the largest drug dealers in the District. Someone has been disrupting his network by stealing shipments of marijuana and he wants Lucas to find out who is doing it and recover either the drugs or the money they were worth.

Tempted by the opportunity for a huge payday, Lucas takes the job and in a very short time becomes involved in something much bigger than he anticipated.

Once again, Pelecanos shows why many of his contemporaries consider him the best writer in this genre. With Lucas, he's created another protagonist who lives in the real world, where right and wrong are shades of grey rather than the black or white we'd hope them to be.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Magician King

2011-10-06T22:03:00.000-06:00

The Magician King by Lev Grossman

A wise man once said, "Never judge a book by its cover." I assume that wise man lived in a time when book covers were plain and nondescript. For me, it's the cover of the book that usually draws my attention, like a lure to a fish. That was certainly the case with The Magician King's predecessor The Magicians. When it came out a couple years ago, I kept stumbling across it whenever I'd go into a bookstore. I'd pick it up and consider buying it, but always seemed to be short on funds so I'd put it back down. After coming across numerous great reviews written about it, I decided the book gods were telling me I really should read it, so I eventually did. And I loved it.

Now the sequel is out and its cover is equally as enticing and the book inside . . . just as good. I've heard the books described as "Harry Potter for adults" and that's a pretty good comparison. Grossman gives nods to J. K. Rowling as well as other popular fantasy authors like Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. In the first book we're introduced to Quentin Coldwater, a high school student in Brooklyn who has a keen fondness for a series of children's fantasy books that take place in a Narnia-esque world called Fillory. Quentin also loves magic. He's constantly practicing card tricks and slight-of-hand maneuvers as he goes about his listless existence. Fortunately for him, his talent for performing magic tricks has brought him to the attention of those in charge of Brakebills College, a Hogwarts-type school that teaches true magic to those who have an inkling for it. While at Brakebills he learns that Fillory isn't just the product of an author's mind, but a real place that the author knew of and wrote a children's series about.

The Magician King is an excellent follow-up to The Magicians. Quentin, who is now one of the kings of Fillory along with his friends, (C. S. Lewis, I know) has become bored with his life as a king. He wants adventure, he wants to go on a quest. He decides to travel to a distant island at the edge of his realm to try to add the excitement back to his life that he believes should always be prevalent in a magical place such as Fillory. It's on this island that he learns of the existence of a magical key and his sought after quest has been found. The adventure that follows as he seeks after that key and others, takes him back to the world he grew up in, to the Underworld where the dead reside, and to the underwater realm of a dragon in Venice among others. I doubt they'll ever make a theme park based on these books, but they're fantastic and well worth reading. I'm look forward to the next one.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Nothing But Blue Skies

2011-10-02T01:08:00.000-06:00

Nothing But Blue Skies by Tom Holt

In Nothing But Blue Skies, British comic writer Tom Holt takes aim at one of Great Britain's least appealing qualities, the one that occupies the position of second worst, right behind its cuisine: its weather. Most of its residence attribute the oft inclement weather on natural meteorological patterns, but a few of the weathermen have suspected for a long time that there's a much more sinister cause behind it: Chinese weather dragons.

These dragons have the ability to control the weather with their moods and are the real culprit behind Britain's interminable dreariness. The weathermen have become fed up with what they perceive as the dragons' sabotage of their sunny-weather forecasts in order to make them look foolish and they're ready to exact their revenge.

Their plan is to kidnap the Adjutant General to the Dragon King of the North West and hold him hostage in the dragon's most vulnerable form that it can take: that of a goldfish. Now try to stay with me for a minute because it doesn't get any simpler to explain. The dragon's daughter, who had taken human form prior to her father's kidnapping in order to pursue the man she's fallen in love with - the son of a wealthy newspaper tycoon who is himself trying to capture dragons so that he can harness the power of their third eye to telepathically deliver the news to millions of people worldwide without incurring the unnecessary expense of paper, ink, and delivery services, becomes its only hope for survival. Got all that?

The plot tends to get a little shallow in parts and none of the characters were that interesting for me, but Holt's humor redeemed the book as a whole for me and made it worth reading. I've enjoyed some of his other books more, most notably Falling Sideways and three of his more recent books that featured the company of J. W. Wells, but this one definitely had its moments.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Ready Player One

2011-09-23T14:07:00.000-06:00

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

"Dogs and cats, living together . . . mass hysteria!"

"You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada."

Family Ties

Silver Spoons

DeLoreans

Rush’s "2112" album

Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong

If these things mean anything to you, then Ready Player One is a must read. Ernest Cline has written his first novel and it’s a blast. The 1980s are forty years in the past, but because of one man, James Halliday, it’s the most important decade in human history. Knowledge of that decade’s movies, television shows, music, and video games is going to make someone wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.

James Halliday is the creator of the OASIS, an on-line reality that most people now spend every waking moment of their lives inhabiting. They live there as avatars, going to school, working, completing quests, defeating dragons, and falling in love, all while they sit in a chair, looking through a visor, wearing a suit that provides the tactile sensations of the virtual world they’re experiencing. The world outside the OASIS has fallen apart and the OASIS is the only world that matters anymore.

But the continued existence of that world becomes uncertain when James Halliday dies. In his will, he leaves ownership and control of the OASIS to the first person who can complete a contest; find three hidden keys that unlock three hidden gates within the OASIS and you’ll receive the OASIS along with Halliday’s immense fortune and wealth.

Ready Player One is really a lot of fun to read. Part of the fun for me was because I was a teenager during the '80s and grew up on all of the pop culture references Cline uses so well throughout the book. But you don't need to have fond memories of that decade to enjoy this book. The fate of the avatars is just as captivating as the fate of the real people behind them. And sometimes I found myself forgetting that the characters in the story weren't the real ones, but their virtual identity instead.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Lord Jim

2011-09-19T22:40:00.000-06:00

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

Years ago, when my wife and I were first married and had absolutely no money, I signed up to receive a book a month from The Easton Press. That decision nearly ended my marriage (numerous times). I wanted them because they were the classics, and with their leather binding, I loved the way they looked on the bookshelf. My wife was right though, I should have cancelled them after they sent the first one. But I didn't (and I'm still married,) so now every so often I take one of them down and I read it. When I do, I always feel a little tinge of residual guilt due to the monthly conflict that it caused. But these really are good books, so the guilt doesn't last long.

Lord Jim was published at the very end of the 19th century, just after Joseph Conrad published one of his other classic books: Heart of Darkness. It's about a man who lives on the sea. As a young man he gets a job aboard the Patna and spends much of his time dreaming about one day becoming a hero. It's on this ship that he gets that opportunity. When the ship collides with the wreckage of another boat in the middle of the night, Jim is sent down to determine the extent of the damage. What he sees leads him to believe that the ship's hull is close to breaching and that the Patna will soon sink. The crew decides to abandon ship and to ensure their survival, decides not to wake the sleeping passengers, leaving them behind to go down with the ship. Jim decides that he is too insignificant a member of the crew to go against their decision, and leaves with them.

Unfortunately for Jim, the Patna doesn't sink, and its passengers are rescued by another vessel and the crew of the Patna faces a judicial investigation where Jim becomes the scape goat and is the only one punished for the abandonment. Jim's decision to go along with his crew mates haunts him for the rest of his life and it becomes a defining moment for him. The rest of his life is spent running away from anything that reminds him of his experience on the Patna. Eventually he finds success in a fictional region called Patusan where he becomes a leader among the native inhabitants and ultimately finds a measure of redemption when he gives his life in their defense.

Lord Jim is a great story. At times it's a little slow and tends to get confusing at times as the narrator jumps back and forth in time, recounting the history of Jim as he had become aware of it through the reports of people he met throughout his life. But the themes in this book are what I think have elevated it to the ranks of classic English Literature.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The All-Pro

2011-09-16T19:01:00.000-06:00

The All-Pro by Scott Sigler

Just in time for the beginning of the NFL season, Scott Sigler releases his third book in the Galactic Football League series: The All-Pro. In the first book, The Rookie, quarterback Quentin Barnes placed the tier-two-level Ionath Krakens football team onto his shoulders and helped them qualify for tier one. Then, in The Starter, he and the Krakens had to fight for respect and try to avoid the type of season that would have sent them right back to tier two. Now, in his third year, Quentin has his eyes and his team set on the grand prize: Galaxy Bowl Champions.

This is a great series of books. The football aspect of it is spot on. Sigler knows his stuff and does a great job of giving you an idea of what it would be like to line up behind center and look into the eyes of someone (or something) determined to end your career every play. The idea that football might still be played 700 years into the future by not just humans, but by elite athletes from all the sentient races, makes the series all the more enjoyable. It's a lot of fun and fans of either the sport or the science fiction genre should enjoy it a lot.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Flashback

2011-09-12T12:14:00.000-06:00

Flashback by Dan Simmons

I'm now convinced that Dan Simmons could write a great book in any genre he were to choose. His catalog of books has spanned the genre spectrum and all that I've read so far, I consider among the best. With Flashback Simmons has written a dystopian novel that is going to stick in my mind for quite some time.

The economic downturn of the early 21st century was only the beginning of a downward cycle that eventually leaves the United States fractured and near total economic and political collapse. What remains of the country after the secession of Texas and the loss of power over the Southwestern portion of the country to Mexico, is a country with no future and no hope for change.

But it's flashback that has done the most damage to the country and many other parts of the world. Flashback is a drug that allows its users to relive the best moments of their lives as many times as they wish. Most Americans spend eight hours or more every day under the drug's influence - including Nick Bottom, a former Denver homicide detective who five years ago lost his wife in a bizarre car accident. He now spends all of his time and money on flashback in order to fill the void her death left him with.

Nick is hired by a Japanese tycoon to reinvestigate the murder of his son, a murder that Nick had previously investigated before he lost his job with the Denver police, but had failed to solve. Using flashback to relive suspect interviews and revisit crime scenes, Nick discovers something that went unnoticed during the original investigation six years earlier - his wife had been present at the scene of the murder minutes before it took place. In fact, when Nick begins to reinterview key figures in the investigation, he learns that his wife had spoken with many of them about the murder years earlier. What connection did his now-dead wife have to the murder, and was her death a result?

Flashback is a great book! It reminded me a little bit of some of the stories written by Philip K. Dick (Bladerunner, Minority Report). It has a gritty, defeated, and eerily plausible feel to it that I will remember long after the details of the plot leave me.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆