The Wizard of Dark Street, by Shawn Thomas Odyssey

Cute book. A young wizard’s apprentice is a natural magician but would rather follow in her father’s footsteps and become a detective. She gets mixed up with a somewhat silly mystery about missing party gowns and a much more serious one involving attempted murder. Light, funny, and friendly, this serves as a much better introduction to the world of fantasy than Harry Potter.

My mom gave my son an uncorrected proof; he liked it and passed it on to me. Clearly The Wizard of Dark Street is the first book of a series; it reminded me of a cross between Encyclopedia Brown and The Chronicles of Prydain. Being aimed at children, the main cases are wrapped up neatly at the end, but contains obvious villains and dangling plot lines aplenty for future volumes. An upbeat tone and positive messaging (“Neither man nor faerie can live long without hope.”) coupled with comfortable characters and easy friendships, this is a great book for any kid.

First Sentence:

“Magic is a fickle thing,” said twelve-year-old Oona Crate.

Life's Little Annoyances, by Ian Urbina

From the jerk who steals the parking spot for which you’ve been patiently waiting to the guy reclining his airline seat into your lap, from Starbuck’s insistence on calling a 24oz drink a Venti (which means 20, not 24) to shrink-wrapped CD’s that refuse to open, Urbina presents a collection of funny stories that express the exasperation we all feel at, well, life’s little annoyances. Most tales recount a bit of petty revenge, many of them quite clever. My favorite was the fellow that gets so irritated at the blow-in subscription cards in magazines that he drops them back in the mailbox—blank—so the offending company has to pay the postage. Another good one was the man who booked a room at a hotel hosting a telemarketing convention, and then starting calling every other room at 3am. This is a really quick read, fun but no real substance.

First Sentence (from the Introduction):

Most days the job ended late.

Extraordinary Engines, edited by Nick Gevers

Steampunk, the culture of modern inventions powered by steam in the 19th century, isn’t my favorite genre; I find it very hit-or-miss. This anthology was similar, a mix of good and not so good. Machine Maid by Margo Lanagan was easily my favorite, both entertaining and creepy. A young naive bride discovers she dislikes sex as much as her husband revels in it; finding that a nubile robotic maid has... other uses pushes her to commit mariticide in a most fitting fashion. Adam Robert’s Petrolpunk was a fascinating look at multiple dimensions, but as it went on got increasingly crazier until it spun entirely off its axis at the conclusion. I did like his term “steamternet” to describe the Victorian network, though. Jeffrey Ford’s The Dream of Reason was another odd one, telling of an experiment that trapped the rays of a star in a young woman’s mind using a fog that slowed light. Like I said, odd!

If you already like steampunk this is can be an interesting read; if you are looking for an introduction to the category, though, try The Difference Engine or The Peshawar Lancers.

First Sentence (from the Introduction):

Steampunk is a particularly engaging, entertaining, as well as thematically resonant, subgenre of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

The Snow Queen’s Shadow, by Jim C. Hines

Hines’ final book in the Princess series is a bit like what I imagine Disney might make of Crossed. A demon is freed and begins to infect the world (starting with Snow White) with a curse that causes everyone to see only ugliness and hate. Damaged relationships, petty revenges, and crumbling governments quickly follow, and Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are forced to hunt their closest friend. Unlike a traditional fairy tale everyone doesn’t live happily ever after, but the ending is still satisfying. This book is the series finale as well, and Hines tacks on a coda that harkens back to the first book, wrapping up the novels nicely. Each book builds on the previous one so you’ll want to read them in order, but reading them is recommended!

First Sentence:

The plan had been so simple.

The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading, by Peter Lunenfeld

This is a frighteningly bad and terribly inconsistent book. Lunenfeld’s point that the computer is dangerously close to replacing television as society’s idiot box is well taken, but his belief that a solution entails people creating as much content as they consume is ludicrous. “...the goal must be to establish a balance between consumption and production, and using the networked computer as a patio-potato enabler, download-only device, or even download-mainly device is a wasted opportunity of historic proportions.” Either he hasn’t seen what passes for content on YouTube these days or his wish is coming true in a wickedly ironic manner. Later he compares the Great Wall of China and the Greek myths to Wikipedia and Linux because they were all built with a communal effort. I wonder if the prisoners and soldiers that built the Wall often got into arguments over which brick went where?

While one one hand he demands people create and upload content, Lunenfeld is on the other offended at copyright laws and authors rights: “By holding on to Mickey [Mouse] ... [Disney] keeps the rest of us out of the storehouse of mutable materials for the creation of new, noncorporate culture.” He certainly didn’t give his book away for free without license. I imagine that M.I.T. (the book’s copyright holder) would frown on that as much as Disney would at someone posting Mickey porn on the Internet.

The author also bemoans the vanishing art of pen-on-paper illustration, calling it the “font of imagination.” He does go on to express hope that photo-realistic computer graphic special effects can be the new source of creative fantasy for the next generation. Sadly, the cover he chose for this book looks like a bad wipe from a 70’s TV show; a lost opportunity to encourage his dream. (While grumbling about the cover I might as well lodge another complaint about the dress: the book is printed almost entirely in boldface; only the sidebars are in a normal weight which makes them very welcome.)

I believe this statement summarizes everything I disliked about this book: “The computer allows the human creative spirit even more flexibility and greater potential than the printing press because it synthesizes so many other media forms.” On the surface this is a thoughtful sentence that draws an astute comparison. A deeper look causes you to realize the printing press didn’t nurture the human creative spirit at all, though, it simply made sharing and preserving content easier. The quiet pride we feel when viewing Rockwell’s Four Freedoms and the tears we shed hearing Elgar’s Nimrod movement in Enigma Variations, the wonder we find in Verne’s words and the rapture spawned by Astaire’s dance, the ingenuity of those that invented the printing press and computer, the love of our family and our quest for wisdom; these things feed our human spirit, not the machines themselves.

First Sentence:

First, we must define the terms of the struggle.

A Feast for Crows, by George R. R. Martin

This entry in the A Song of Ice and Fire epic feels somewhat different than its predecessors. Apparently Martin had so much material for this book he split it into two volumes, each focused on a separate set of characters. This makes for a tighter, less sprawling narrative that made this the hardest volume to put down so far. (It also spared me from the monotony of Daenerys’ story, although I suspect that means the next novel won’t be nearly as enjoyable.) As an epilogue of sorts Martin explains this in a humorous fashion: “"Hey, wait a minute!" some of you may be saying about now. "Wait a minute, wait a minute! Where’s Dany and the dragons? Where’s Tyrion? We hardly saw Jon Snow. That can’t be all of it..." Well, no. There’s more to come. Another book as big as this one.”

The battle for Westeros is largely over, but winter is coming and with it the return of ancient magic and ancient enemies. A Feast for Crows goes to great lengths to show the ravages of war on the countryside and how unprepared for the long cold season everyone is, much less continued violence. The reader knows that disaster lurks to both the north and the east, making much of the desolation even more poignant. Arya is quickly developing the most interesting plotline, although her characterization seems to waffle between a young noblewoman and a seasoned commoner. Jaime’s quest for redemption makes him my favorite, however; regicide and incest are crimes for which the populace will never forgive him, but he recognizes this and strives for an inner peace.

While not quite as action packed as earlier entries, this was one of my favorites to date.

First Sentence:

“Dragons,” said Mollander.

A Storm of Swords, by George R. R. Martin

Once again Martin spins an exciting tale of treachery and war in the Seven Kingdoms. Even knowing his tendency to kill off or maim key players, I was shocked at the betrayals found here. The Red Wedding is foreshadowed just enough to instill a feeling of dread and disbelief, and then still goes over the top when it happens. The last novel saw Tyrion become a fully fleshed-out character; here it is Jaime’s turn to be redeemed. Known as the Kingslayer, Jaime has been depicted until now as an oath-breaker, a man without honor. Martin takes us inside Jaime’s head, though, and shows him as a man who killed his king in order to save the lives of thousands, and returned to save his former jailer because she treated him fairly and honestly. A nice depth added here, to someone previous shown only as a villain.

Many of the other characters could use this same treatment, though. Cersei, Joffrey, Lysa, and Littlefinger are all embarrassingly singly-dimensional, and I cringe every time Daenerys takes center stage. Jon Snow has a somewhat deeper characterization, but his plotline at the Wall is entirely too predictable—very unlike Martin. I’m still enjoying the series, but am starting to wonder through how many books this story is going to drag out.

First Sentence:

The day was grey and bitter cold, and the dogs would not take the scent.

Naked Heat, by Richard Castle

The second book based on the television series Castle. The first was cheesy but fun; this is more of the same. The plot is nothing special, but the depth this adds to the characters on the show. For instance, it seems Castle has a better-than-average taste in beer; while Fat Tire isn’t my favorite I’m always pleased to see someone that enjoys the finer things in life enjoying a craft beer! Reading this will make you yearn for a real mystery, but if you love Castle, you’ll love this.

First Sentence:

Nikki Heat pondered red lights and why they seemed to last so much longer when there was no traffic.

A Clash of Kings, by George R. R. Martin

The second book in Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series delivers a strong chapter in the political turmoil of the Seven Kingdoms. Tyrion’s character is fleshed out quite a bit, almost redeemed entirely in the eyes of the reader as he is shown to be both cunning and compassionate while maintaining the ruthlessness needed to run a country at war. His sister Cersei doesn’t fare as well, becoming even more of a one-dimensional shrew than depicted in the first book if possible. The four would-be kings battling across the continent is a compelling story, but every time the action goes east to follow Daenerys it drags considerably. Her story will obviously cross with the rest in some future book (although at Martin’s pace, it could be many, many novels away!) so there is plenty of time to save this thread.

Overall, though: another 1000 pages, another winner.

First Sentence:

The comet’s tail spread across the dawn, a red slash that bled above the crags of Dragonstone like a wound in the pink and purple sky.

Mission of Honor, by David Weber

Years ago my stepfather-in-law lent me the first book in the Honor Harrington series and I was hooked. Many volumes later, I still am. Political intrigue abounds, and war breaks out on several fronts. The Solarian League picks a fight with Manticore only to discover they are at a staggering technological disadvantage. Manticore is trying to make peace with Haven to avoid a multi-front war, but is surprised by a sneak attack on their home world. Haven is on the edge of complete collapse, but a faction of politicians is stalling the peace talks trying to extract personal concessions. And a previously secret cabal that has been manipulating all the players into battling each other is finally exposed. A nice twist that builds well on previous novels, Weber is moving into more of a plot-driven phase rather than character-driven. While Honor is undeniably a main participant, instead of revolving around her at a personal level the story expands to a larger geopolitical scale. The cliffhanger at the end is a game-changer, and will certainly lead to exciting future volumes.

First Sentence:

Any dictionary editor stymied for an illustration of the word “paralyzed” would have pounced on him in an instant.

A Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin

I’d heard good things about this series, but nothing that made me think it was anything more than just another multiple volume fantasy epic in the vein of Jordan or Riordan. I don’t subscribe to HBO, but the excitement around their recent adaptation of Martin’s work has been impossible to miss. When a good friend with impeccable taste mentioned she tore through a later 1000+ page entry in the series in a single weekend I knew I had to pick this up. So glad I did!

The intrigue, conspiracies, and familial maneuvering reminded me of The Pillars of the Earth, albeit with dragons and undead monsters here. As with most epics there are several different but loosely connected plot lines, most of foreshadow signs of convergence in later books. The main story is that of a weak king whose death causes a civil war, but the hints of an otherworldly menace and a burgeoning threat from across the sea I found more appealing. The melodrama unfolds from the viewpoint of several of the various characters, with each chapter being told by a different individual. Unfortunately, these characters are generally one dimensional archetypes: noble but dense heroes, venal and calculating villains. While not well-developed, they are compelling, and Martin manages to keep things unpredictable by being unafraid to kill them off.

Enjoyable and entertaining, I look forward to the remaining books in the series.

First Sentence:

“We should start back,” Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them.

Directive 51, by John Barnes

The most interesting part about this book is that Directive 51 is real. Directive 51 states that in a catastrophic federal emergency the existing government can be suspended and replaced by “a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government, coordinated by the President.” Barnes takes this and spins a tale around a deed heinous enough to activate the directive, and then explores the aftermath, including a venal President and a civil war. The end-of-the-world scenario is original if ridiculously far-fetched—a nanotech plague that destroys electrical conductors and rubber, fusion bombs, and moon-based weapons—but the characters are largely cartoonish, falling into broad “good” or “evil” categories. An interesting story but not compelling; Stirling handles this sort of topic much better.

First Sentence:

All the days of the modern world begin at the International Date Line, in the middle of the Pacific.

Imager’s Intrigue, by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

I thoroughly enjoy Modesitt’s writing. In Imager’s Intrigue, the conclusion to the Imager Portfolio trilogy, he again delivers an exciting novel. His continuing theme of examining religion, capitalism, and women’s rights are again on display, but this episode is much more plot-driven than the previous two. Politics takes the central stage here, meaning less action and more dialogue, but at the conclusion all the plot threads from the series are neatly wrapped up with the heroes predictably prevailing. A satisfying end, although I wouldn’t mind seeing more books in this universe.

First Sentence:

Unlike most people, I hated actually going to sleep and looked forward to waking up . . . in a way.

An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, by Brock Clarke

I enjoyed this book, although it was a bit odd. The narrator, Sam Pulsifer, tells the story of how he went to jail for arson and manslaughter, and his unconventional life after his release. It is an interesting tale, but Pulsifer is so passive and detached from his own life it is at times seems as if the story is written in third person instead of first. He doesn’t so much as go on an adventure as he simply lets one happen to him. His one bold move comes at the climax, a sacrifice that illustrates how the sins of the parents cause suffering for their children.

The prose is witty and makes great use of imagery, making for a very visual read. “Instead of clapping, Peter was grinding his right fist into his left palm in such a way that it made me feel very sorry for the palm.” I also liked the clever descriptions of New England throughout. “...I slipped behind another white pine, white pines being as plentiful in New Hampshire as Volvos were in Amherst.” The characters are quirky and unbelievable, but the story is entertaining enough to propel itself past this problem. Smart writing and dark humor make for a good combination here, but the passiveness of the narrator make this a tough read in some spots.

First Sentence:

I, Sam Pulsifer, am the man who accidentally burned down the Emily Dickinson House in Amherst, Massachusetts, and who in the process killed two people, for which I spent ten years in prison and, as letters from scholars of American literature tell me, for which I will continue to pay a high prices long into the not-so-sweet hereafter.

The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

We had to read The House of the Seven Gables in eighth grade and I remember really enjoying it, but virtually nothing else. When my family and I vacationed in New England this summer I wanted to take along a few books set in the area so I picked this up again. Over twenty five years later, though, I found it plodding and difficult to get through. I wish I could go back and ask my younger self what he liked!

The overall theme is hammered home without much subtlety: the sins of past generations are inherited by successive generations. Colonel Pyncheon arranged for a man to be wrongly accused and hanged in order to usurp his land. A massive house is built on the land, but karma finds the patriarch dead at the housewarming party. Nearly two centuries later, the once proud family has seemingly decayed right along with the mansion, never quite escaping the sins of their ancestor. Hawthorne goes on to suggest that this curse may be tied to the original act of avarice; a Pyncheon seeking excessive wealth or power seems to trigger his downfall.

The heavy-handedness with which this fable unfolds I found unappealing; the morality tale is presented much more effectively in The Scarlet Letter or The Picture of Dorian Gray. As much as I’ve enjoyed rediscovering classic literature, I was disappointed in this.

First Sentence:

Half-way down a by-street of one of our New England towns, stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst.

From Hell With Love, by Simon R. Green

A talking dragon head and the Spawn of Frankenstein are two of the stranger allies the Drood’s find here, and some good advice is, “if you see any kobolds, leave them alone!” From Hell With Love introduces the Drood’s arch-enemies, the Immortals. As Eddie explains it, “the Man from U.N.C.L.E. had to contend with the agents of THRUSH. James Bond had SPECTRE. So it really shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me, that a family as ancient and powerful as mine might have its very own dark shadow...”

I thought the mystery here was better than in previous volumes of the series, but the shape-shifting subterfuge was a bit overused. The biggest complaint was the ending, which is one of the more blatant cliffhangers I’ve ever seen. “"I’m sorry. There’s no pulse. No heartbeat. He’s not breathing. We’ve lost him." And then—” Considering when I read this the next volume hadn’t hit the shelves yet, this was maddening!

First Sentence:

In the secret agent business, no one is necessarily who or what they say they are.

Worth Dying For, by Lee Child

Reacher has become one of my favorite characters over the past few years and Worth Dying For doesn’t disappoint. As usual, he doesn’t go looking for trouble, but it certainly finds him. When he runs into a drunk doctor in Nebraska refusing to treat what is almost certainly a case of domestic abuse, Reacher wades with both fists wailing and changes a county for the better, solving a twenty-five year old child abduction case as well. The ending is never in doubt, but the path from A to B is suspenseful and exciting.

A solid story and great characters are the hallmarks of Child’s novels, but I must admit I was a bit frustrated at the cold open. In the previous episode Reacher was caught in an explosion that he seemed unlikely to survive. Here, we find him simple wandering into a motel for a cup of coffee and cheap bed for the night with no explanation of how he escaped—much less avoiding the aftermath undetected. Didn’t hurt the story at all, but Child needs to figure out if these books are going to be isolated tales of cowboy justice or if they are truly a progression through time.

First Sentence:

Eldridge Tyler was driving a long straight two-lane road in Nebraska when his cell phone rang.

Gilligan’s Wake: A Novel, by Tom Carson

This is an amazing book, a true pop-culture smorgasbord. Seven vignettes make up this novel, one for each castaway from Gilligan’s Island. However, the characters aren’t as we remember or expect. We find Gilligan committed to the Cleaver Ward (across the hall from the Burt Ward) of a psychiatric hospital, insisting that he is Maynard G. Krebs and attended to by Dr. Kildare F. Troop. The Skipper describes his time serving in the U.S. Navy with McHale, JFK, and Nixon. Thurston Howell is a naive millionaire that gets mixed up with Alger Hiss and Communist spies; his wife Lovey a morphine-addicted lesbian paired with Daisy Buchanan. That’s when things start to get weird!

Ginger’s story (fittingly titled Hello Nurse) tells how she got into bondage porn with Bettie Page before getting thrown out of Sinatra’s house after a post-coital insult to Sammy Davis, Jr. The Professor is a narcissistic pedophile that was a part of the Manhattan Project, founded a secret society with Roy Cohn and Henry Kissinger that purposefully instigated schemes such as the Suez Canal crisis and the homeless problem, and briefly turns into Godzilla. Mary-Ann dates Jean-Luc Goddard in Paris and discovers she is not only doomed to be a perpetual virgin, but a fictional character to boot.

Subtle and not-so-subtle nods to the television series abound, such as each tale having a character or artifact named with an anagram of Gilligan, or working the word “castaway” and “minnow” into several passages. A man named John Gilbert Egan also figures into each story; at the close of the novel Mary-Ann’s imaginary roommate explains that Egan is actually the author and causes a breach in the fourth wall explaining to us, the readers, how the individual tales all knit together.

Surreal, clever, and inventive, this book was utterly fantastic.

First Sentence:

Skippertoo and get me home, I mean if you really want to hear about it.

The Local, by Paul Jennings

My good friends the PubGuys mentioned this book in one of their daily updates and I thought it looked interesting. It certainly was, although it was typically British—dry, dry, dry. Jennings traces the history of the English pub from the 1700’s to today. A heavy emphasis on statistics makes some passages a bit difficult to slog through; a typical example reads, “A parliamentary return of 1839 showed that 43 per cent of beerhouses were rated at under £10, including 10.1 per cent under £5, and 23.8 per cent at over £15. By 1853 whereas 21.1 per cent were now rated at under £10, 54.7 per cent were now at or above £15.” As dry as the text was, the pictures and illustrations were fantastic! In fact, I dearly wanted to see more. Floor plans of drinking establishments through the centuries were the most fascinating, showing the gradual change from separate rooms for the bar and taps and dining to the more gradual communal space we recognize now.

I was amazed to find that before the World Wars, the temperance movement and government licensing nearly killed the pub, an establishment I’ve always considered idiosyncratic to the British lifestyle. “Having begun the war as the supreme threat to the nation’s survival, drink ended it as a support to morale whose supplies government was keen to maintain.” That said, the conclusion was somewhat surprising to me: “the pub today has a smaller role [in society] that it ever did.” The acceptance of women into pubs starting with the late nineteenth century has offset the rise of drinking at home, but the scene is fragmenting with the rise of food and music establishments and corporate ownership. Older and rural pubs are closing as well; in 1991 in only 205 pubs in the entire UK were found to have historical importance—a staggering difference when compared to churches and other English institutions.

While the pub may be flagging overseas, I’m very glad to report that I at least am doing what I can to keep my locals, places like The Dig Pub and B. B. Rovers (not your typical pretentious American bars) going strongly!

First Sentence:

What is a pub?

Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership, by Gary L. McIntosh and Samuel D. Rima

What can we learn from the failure of other leaders? This is an interesting question, and at times the authors do a good job of discussing it. The dark side refers to motivations and dysfunctions that cause us to succeed or fail. Many motivations can be positive, but then turn negative when taken to extremes. For instance, a tendency to perfectionism can be a great driver for success, but if allowed to dominate it can lead towards needing absolute control of everything and everyone. Leadership requires passion (“If you did the job to just get by, you would eventually pay for it.”), but an excess of passion leads to zealotry which dramatically reduces your scope of influence. Learning to recognize and harness these potentially harmful traits is a good exercise in self-reflection and humility.

Unfortunately (for me, anyway), the context of the discussion is almost entirely religious, and leads to untenable conclusions for my worldview such as, “It is through this process of learning about ourselves and progressively dealing with our dark side that we avoid its destructive paradox and allow God to exercise more control over our leadership.” Becoming an effective leader is my goal, not becoming a pious one. The entire book isn’t a loss, though; while overly preachy, using scriptural references as examples is often fairly effective in several places: Moses is described as a compulsive leader and shown to be status conscious and judgmental; Solomon is a narcissistic leader who overestimates his own achievements while minimizing others.

Overall there are some useful lessons here, but I found myself rolling my eyes entirely too often to actually recommend this. “We gave found an annual performance review to be not only challenging but also extremely encouraging and humbling as we see the ways God is effectively using us.” A similar take on this subject which I will recommend, especially when it comes to identifying types of leaders, is John Hoover’s How To Work For An Idiot.

First Sentence:

Like water exploding from behind a broken dam the words gushed out, laced with a frightening combination of anger and bitterness, “I quit!”

Shadow of the Torturer, by Gene Wolfe

In a strange contradiction, I both didn’t care for this book and at the same time couldn’t put it down. The book has such abrupt direction changes between sections at times it feels more like a collection of short stories with a common hero than an actual novel. The first person narration is flat and unemotional, but instead of being boring it fits the character as his training to be a torturer is supposed to numb his feelings. The plot staggers between vignettes rather clumsily, but an undertone of commentary on humanity is a constant throughout; being delivered through the words of someone causing intentional pain for a living give the analysis a solid weight. Religion, for instance, is aptly summed up: “the authority that punishes no one while there exists a chance for reformation will punish everyone when there is no possibility anyone will become the better for it.”

While I found the plot pedestrian, the writing itself is magnificent. “The vanishing sun, whose disc was now a quarter concealed behind the impenetrable blackness of the Wall, had dyed the sky with gamboge and cerise, vermillion and lurid violet. These colors, falling upon the throng of monomachists and loungers much as we see the aureate beams of divine favor fall on heirarchs in art, lent them an appearance insubstantial and thaumaturgic, as though they had all been produced a moment before by the flourish of a cloth and would vanish into the air again at a whistle.” This rich verbiage kept me enthralled throughout, even where the actual story flagged. The ending is entirely too brusque; I understand this is the first volume of a tetralogy, but the plot simply stops dead with the narrator literally taking a break from the storytelling. “Here, I pause. If you wish to walk no farther with me, reader, I cannot blame you.” Glad to know I won’t be blamed, as I don’t expect to read the next book.

First Sentence:

It is possible I already had some presentiment of my future.

Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson

I read Kidnapped when in grade school and didn’t really care for it; I somehow decided that all of Stevenson’s works would be similar and so didn’t pick up Treasure Island until just now. What a mistake! Interesting and suspenseful, Stevenson’s story starts out with the arrival of a mysterious seaman and and doesn’t slow down until it’s finished. The adventure is the prototypical quest: a mysterious treasure map is discovered, and the ensuing hunt leads to mutiny and piracy on the high seas. The narrator is (save for two odd chapters right in the middle of the book) young Jim Hawkins and while his telling of the tale is fairly straightforward, the underlying coming-of-age tale is interesting in its own right. Jim’s father dies in the early chapters, and he has several different potential role models, including Long John Silver. At first the pirate presents himself as an honorable man, but as the story unfolds Jim begins to see Silver for who is really is and lets his morals guide him to the truth.

This is clearly aimed at younger boys—Jim’s mother is the only female character and she is out of the picture after just a few chapters. The writing is straightforward and uncomplicated, but at the same time quite effective and descriptive. Take this description of Billy Bones, the pirate who initially possesses the map: “A tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulders of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails, and the saber cut across one cheek, a dirty livid white.” The imagery is powerful and makes the character easy to visualize, but the simple words are comfortable for readers of nearly any age. The plot isn’t complicated either, but amazingly compelling—I had a difficult time putting it down! A true classic, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.

First Sentence:

Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17— and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof.

The Execution Channel, by Ken Macleod

In a world right around the corner from ours, our leaders have seemingly stopped the pretense of serving for the greater good and use lies and torture as a matter of course. The Internet is even more prevalent than today, with many WikiLeaks-style sites, some real and some designed for misinformation. There is a cable station on every network broadcasting executions 24 hours a day, both legitimizing and making normal death as an accepted form of governing. When Scotland experiences a nuclear bombing, who can you trust?

Part Nineteen Eighty-Four and part V for Vendetta, MacLeod tells of a dark future, but not an impossible one. While clearly anti-conservative, the author neatly sidesteps being pigeonholed as a leftist by having Gore win the 2000 election and launch a pre-emptive strike on Afghanistan (partly due to bad intelligence, but possibly also as a way of driving up oil prices to stave off global warming) causing Bin Laden to become a martyr and 9/11 becomes a response to Gore’s warfare rather than coming out of the clear blue sky. Regardless of the instigating actions, people cede more and more authority to government resulting in the beginnings of a police state—clearly an allegory for what is happening in our world today. This is an angry book warning of the dangers of our current course, but also tells an entertaining story along the way.

First Sentence:

The day it happened Travis drove north.

When the Air Hits Your Brain, by Frank Vertosick Jr., MD

Normally, arrogant surgeons and a cynical medical industry are not high on my list of interesting topics. Dr. Vertosick’s horror stories of his medical residency in this field held my attention, though. Routine 100 hour weeks, grueling schedules, and cruel instructors are the norm; a far cry from spending more time on the golf course than in the office! The subject did make this hard for me to read at times, however. A neurosurgeon saved my wife’s life in 1998, and this memoir brought back more than a few difficult memories.

Overall, my low opinions of a self-centered profession weren’t changed. “As I resuscitated a heart attack victim in the ER hallway one night, another patient came up to me, pointed to my expiring patient, and asked if I had tried intracardiac epinephrine yet. I curtly told him to mind his own business and sent him to his own ER cubicle, then promptly loaded up the intracardiac syringe and followed his advice. The patient lived.” This anecdote was presented as a bit of humor (it was bookended with what laymen can learn from television) but I just see a disturbing lack of humility. A second story, though, proved much, much worse.

The author is asked to watch over a baby girl just coming out of a touchy surgery, being told if she could live through the night she had a chance for recovery. He spends a sleepless night making impossible choices between drugs with terrible side effects, only to fall asleep before 5am. When awoken, he finds the baby gone and the surgeon standing over him.
     “Where’s the baby? Did she go back to the OR?”
     “No. I shut off her ventilator an hour ago. She’s in the morgue. Actually, her parents wanted her shut off last night before I left, but I forgot.”
Turns out the family already knew their child’s surgery had failed and the kid was going to die. This other doctor, though, ignored their wishes in order to teach a lesson to Vertosick about pressure. Never mind the extra pain and suffering the helpless baby experienced. I can only imagine the hospital charged the unfortunate family for the drugs, bed space, nurses, and anything else they could manage for the extra night. This reinforces virtually every negative opinion about the medical community I have. Meh.

That said, Vertosick seems to understand this negative stereotype and often counters by showing the more human side of medicine. Take the tale of a young woman involved in a serious car wreck and needing immediate neurosurgery; her parents appear in the trauma room. “To me, she was as much a bureaucratic nuisance as she was a patient. To them, she was a first step, a first word, a first bicycle, a first date.” While too many medical professionals seem to focus more on the nuisance than the emotional side, it is nice to see that at least they recognize there are multiple points of view to every situation. The story with the most impact detailed a patient who needed surgery to live, but the operation would require the termination of her pregnancy. The mother-to-be refused to trade her life for her unborn child’s; the narrative ends with the epitaph, “Sarah Clark. Loving Wife. Devoted Mother.” Hard to read that without thinking about how close I came to being a single father.

In When the Air Hits Your Brain, Vertosick demonstrates both the positive and negative aspects of how a neurosurgeon is trained, and humanizes an arrogant profession. While I am clearly not a cheerleader for our health care system, I am thankful each day that Dr. Gormley made it through his neurosurgical residency and was there when my family was in need.

First Sentence:

July 1. Neurosurgery residency.

The Hero of Ages, by Brandon Sanderson

This novel concluded one of the best fantasy trilogies I’ve read in years. Affectations that seemed so casual in earlier novels were shown not only to have a deeper meaning but be critical to the plot. No character is safe, and right up to the last pages it isn’t clear what sort of victory the protagonists will achieve. After all, how can mere mortals fight an omnipotent being? My one quibble would be with the length of time it took the principals to figure out what the numbers of mist-affected people meant. Our otherwise smart heroes comment on the anomaly more than once, but almost willfully ignore the obvious meaning. A minor issue with an otherwise masterful plot, though. At over 700 pages, I simply couldn’t put this down.

As with previous volumes, the underlying discussions give another deeper level to the book; in this case, an examination of what makes people so willing to accept religion. “Most [religions] taught about a god or gods, yet—again—had little justification for their teachings. And every single one of them was riddled with inconsistencies and logical fallacies.” So why do otherwise intelligent people embrace sophistic orthodoxies? Tradition and societal norms are certainly factors, but Sanderson seems to decide simply that religion helps people through the trying times, that it is a comfort in the face of the unknown. “To believe, it seemed, someone had to want to believe.” Faith is making a choice, not something forced upon someone. Interesting that I get more insight into spirituality from a fantasy novel than any number of more “serious” efforts.

First Sentence:

Fatren squinted up at the red sun, which hid behind its perpetual screen of dark haze.

The Well of Ascension, by Brandon Sanderson

Sanderson has written another winner. The Lord Ruler has been defeated, but without a single unifying emperor, the world is devolving into petty political factions and war. Allomancy, the use of metals to grant magical powers, is expanded, with new alloys and powers being discovered. The plot centers around the battle for Luthadel, but the politics are largely black and white: either benevolent and socialistic or dominant and selfish. This weakness is minor, though, as the characters themselves are richly developed with multiple motivations. The ending was telegraphed, but knowing this was the second book of a trilogy and seeing the signs through the eyes of the characters only ramped the tension. A well-written and exciting plot, but even more interesting is the underlying exploration of what love is.

Several of the characters experience doubts in their spouse or themselves, and others are falling in love for the first time. Their discussions and explanations to each other show the various sides of the emotion, and by varying points-of-view we see relationships from all different angles. “Love must be allowed to flow both ways—if it is not, then it is not truly love.” Quite insightful for a mass-market fantasy novel.

First Sentence:

The army crept like a dark stain across the horizon.

This Body of Death, by Elizabeth George

I’ve missed Inspector Lynley and was glad to see another episode. I thought Lynley was a bit out of character here, shunning the instincts of his trusted team and friends to embrace their hated superior, but the actual mystery was captivating. George bounces back and forth between the story of a murdered ten year old boy and an unidentified young woman in a London graveyard. The two threads have seemingly nothing in common, but knowing that they are presented in the same narrative and need to share a conclusion makes it fairly obvious how they are related but no less suspenseful. While interesting, it was disappointing that we spent so much time with folks other than Lynley, Havers, St. James and the gang, and when we do see our friends they are whining about the new chief or at odds with each other. Overall I have mixed feelings here listing towards the negative; a good mystery with atypical character behavior—unfortunately sixteen books into the series I’m here more for the people than the prose.

First Sentence:

Reports from the investigating officers who interviewed both Michael Spargo and his mother prior to charges being filed against him all suggest that the morning of the boy’s tenth birthday began badly.

Ghost Country, by Patrick Lee

I picked this up because the cover led me to believe this was an alternate history novel. It was in a way, but really was more of a time travel adventure pitting two factions against each other, one trying to create a particular future and one opposed. The President of the United States is of course one of the villains, and has the power to order up secret hit squads that will attack armored motorcades in the streets of Washington D.C. without any repercussion. The brains behind the operation (because of course the President will take orders from a former Peace Corps worker) doesn’t want the heroes killed because he abhors violence, but of course wipes out the population of the earth according to plan. The evil minions are equally inconsistent, noticing a few flakes of paint on the ground in once scene and then missing the fact they were walking for miles over gasoline-soaked rubber chips. I’ll admit the MacGuffin that allowed travel into the future was clever, but not much else was. Disappointing.

First Sentence:

Fifty seconds before the first shots hit the motorcade, Paige Campbell was thinking about the fall of Rome.

Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson

The blurb on the back hooked me immediately: “Once, a hero arose to save the world. A young man with a mysterious heritage courageously challenged the darkness that strangled the land. He failed.” A land where the bad guys win is unique, and the promise of this uniqueness was quickly fulfilled in the world Sanderson creates. A tale of class rebellion and long cons unfolds in a delightful manner and reveals one of the more original magic systems I’ve encountered.

Allomancy is the ability to consume metals for a particular power; for instance, tin will greatly enhance your senses and zinc allows you to riot other people’s emotions. The skill is rare in the population, and rarer still is the ability to use more than one type of metal. Not only is Allomancy well thought-out and presented consistently, but the uses of the various skills are original and exciting. Mistborn is the first of a series, and I’ll eagerly seek out the next volume.

First Sentence:

Ash fell from the sky.

Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand

Not long ago I had a brief discussion with friends that reminded me how much I enjoyed this story. I don’t think I’ve read it since high school, but upon picking it up again found it an immediate treasure. Cyrano de Bergerac is unmatched in intellect and panache, but his hideous nose causes him to be overlooked in society. His colleague Christian has the chiseled good looks everyone admires, but is rather dense. Both men love the beautiful Roxanne, although she is only aware of Christian’s attraction. Cyrano agrees to help his friend woo Roxanne, setting up a battle of inner and outer beauty that remains compelling through the decades. “Eloquence I will lend you! . . . And you, to me, shall lend all-conquering physical charm . . . and between us we will compose a hero of romance!”

I had forgotten just how close to a one-man-play this is; Cyrano is the focus of nearly every scene and conversation, and gives every speech of any length. Even when Christian is talking, it is often Cyrano supplying the voice! Other than his appearance, Cyrano is the ideal man: brave, witty, and loyal to a fault. He doesn’t back down from a fight, either verbally or physically, and he keeps the secret of Christian’s courtship of Roxanne long after Christian’s death, sacrificing his own happiness in the process. While Cyrano ends up a broken and unpopular man, he remains true to his beliefs and is portrayed as a better person than his more successful peers that compromised their ideals. In today’s world where politicians, athletes, and performers are the idols of choice, political parties, free agency, and recurring rehab seemingly prevent any honest admiration. Where is Cyrano when you need him?

First Sentence:

A Play at the Hôtel de Bourgogne

I'm a Stranger Here Myself, by Bill Bryson

The description of I’m a Stranger Here Myself depicts the observations of the author returning to America after 20 years abroad. Considering one good friend was an expatriate for many years and another was born in Europe this seemed a selection aimed right at my book club. While the discussion was lively as always, it largely centered around frustration at the misleading premise.

Bryson is an obviously talented writer, and his style of observational humor gets off to a great start by examining the national pastime. “What is the difference between baseball and cricket? The answer is simple. Both are games of great skill involving balls and bats but with this crucial difference: Baseball is exciting, and when you go home at the end of the day you know who won.” Other winning vignettes look at the legal system—“Allied with the idea that lawsuits are a quick way to a fortune, whether deserved or not, is the interesting and uniquely American notion that no matter what happens, someone else must be responsible.”—and our eating habits: “Obesity is a serious problem in America (well, serious for fat people anyway).” Unfortunately this collection of newspaper columns doesn’t stay on topic.

While subjects such as “Being sprayed by a skunk is absolutely the worst thing that can happen to you that doesn’t bleed or put you in the hospital” are damn funny, there isn’t anything here that relates to the promise of the title. The narrative titled Your New Computer purporting to be the installation instructions for a new PC literally had me laughing out loud. “At each prompt, reconfigure the specified path, double-click on the button launch icon, select a single equation default file from the macro selection register, insert the VGA graphics card in the rear aerofoil, and type "C:\>" followed by the birthdates of all the people you have ever known.” I’m absolutely positive this is what my mother hears when I try and explain how to update her virus software! Again, though, while amusing it has nothing to do with how America has changed over the past few decades or how it differs with other parts of the world. I think I’d have thoroughly enjoyed this book if the publisher had written the blurb differently. Disappointing.

I did violate one of Bryson’s Rules for Living though: “27. All reviews of the author’s work will, with immediate effect, be submitted to the author for correction and helpful revision before publication.” Oops.

First Sentence:

I once joked in a book that there are three things you cant do in life.

Beyond Light Bulbs, by Susan Meredith

I recently took a new job at a solar company and have been learning a lot about alternative energy. I spotted Beyond Light Bulbs at Half Price Books; glancing at the introduction I saw that while the author now lives here in Austin she studied at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where our CTO taught. While the subject is more about modern energy management than solar specifically, the coincidences were enough for me to walk out of the store with it.

I found this to be a bit uneven, but overall does a good job of taking a complicated topic and making it accessible. Meredith outlines our obvious dependence on oil and other environmental hazards, and then describes the pros and cons of many alternative energy sources (including solar). I was a bit afraid I’d have to suffer through a lot of left-leaning propaganda, but her approach to global warming was quite refreshing. “Is there global warming or not? Is it caused by humans or natural phenomena? ... Rather than wasting our human energy debating this, ... why not find ways to reduce emissions so that we have good air quality, regardless of how our current problems were created?” Well said.

The descriptions of energy management and the problems we face therein are presented in a well-rounded form and quite useful. The author starts to lose some of her even-handedness towards the end, though. When describing how governments should get involved she does okay, but doesn’t really advocate a single approach. “Restrictive policies and standards can block energy flow. Sometimes this is appropriate. Some policies and standards channel solutions toward particular pathways. Sometimes that’s appropriate. Perhaps there are some policies and standards that need to be relaxed or removed to allow for flexibility in dealing with the uncertainty of the energy path ahead.” Unless you are of the all-government-restrictions-are-evil persuasion, virtually any view can be fit into that description! I think pouring money into corn-based ethanol is neither green nor a viable alternative to oil, but I suspect the farmers of Iowa will disagree; both of us, however, can claim Meredith’s approach fits our worldview.

Where she really goes off the rails in my opinion is her approach to world peace via smarter energy management. “1.6 Billion people in our world have no electricity! If we want to improve global relations, this is an obvious place to start.” The Peace Corps is the sort of agency to worry about bringing electricity to Sub-Saharan Africa; our government should concentrate more on reducing our hypocrisy and arrogance, instead starting to judge ourselves by the same standards we judge others. We improve global relations by being a better neighbor, not by building better light bulbs.

First Sentence:

“When are they going to make a movie that has a positive future?” my husband asked after watching yet another futuristic film showing destroyed buildings, chaos, violence, confusion, and a pervasive mood of despair.

The End of the World, edited by Martin H. Greenberg

The end of the world is an eerie concept, explored in several interesting and unique ways in this book. Jody After the War by Edward Bryant was both melancholy and beautiful, while We Can Get Them For You Wholesale by Neil Gaiman was quirky and somewhat disturbing. My favorite was easily The Wheel by John Wyndham, about a world that has decided technology of any sort is the root of all evil, and the tragic consequences of finding a simple wagon in this society. As with any anthology a few entries were weaker than others; Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels by George R. R. Martin for instance was a scary look at divergent evolutionary paths but I found the ending telegraphed. Robert Silverberg’s When We Went to See the End of the World was another odd one; every character equally shallow and unlikeable, but the backdrop against which the story is told was fascinating. All in all, a great collection of stories.

First Sentence (from the Introduction):

Humankind seems to take a certain grisly delight in stories about the end of the world, since the market in apocalyptic prophecy has been a bullish one for thousands, or more likely, millions of years.

The Case of the Late Pig, by Margery Allingham

My boys have decided that my mother collects pigs, much to her chagrin. Anytime we are out and see something with a pig motif (slippers, figurines, screen wipes, you name it!) the kids inevitably say, “Grandma Elaine needs that!” As a result a good-natured swine-themed gift exchange occurs every Christmas, with mom even getting into the action and trying to turn the tables on us: this past year, I received a copy of The Case of the Late Pig.

I was unfamiliar with the detective Albert Campion before this, but apparently he was fairly popular during the early twentieth century, and as recently as 1990 has been filmed. The story was interesting, including mysterious letters and disappearing corpses, but not really compelling enough to make me want to read other volumes in the series. I love mysteries, but this style where it is virtually impossible to solve the problem along with the sleuth isn’t my favorite. Not improving matters is that Campion’s sidekick, Lugg, spoke with a thick accent and heavy slang that really slowed down my reading: “The bloke ’oo wrote this knew you was always anxious to snuff round a bit of blood, doin’ the rozzers out of their rightful, and ’e kindly give you the tip to come along ’ere as fast as you could so’s you wouldn’t miss nothink.” All in all, The Case of the Late Pig was a pleasant diversion for a short afternoon, but not really my cup of tea.

First Sentence:

The main thing to remember in an autobiography, I have always thought, is not to let any damned modesty creep in to spoil the story.

Assholes Finish First, by Tucker Max

Tucker Max is as articulate and intelligent as he is debauched and misogynistic. I loved his first book, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, so when I received Assholes Finish First for Christmas I was quite happy. Sadly, this outing didn’t capture the same horrifying charm as the first.

There is a lot of humor here, and again some of the phrasing is laugh-out-loud funny. “I love women, I love alcohol, and I love combining the two. If God invented anything better than drunk sex with a hot girl, he kept it to himself.” “She had one of those goofy permanent smiles, like the kind worn by people who watch The 700 Club without irony.” Really funny! Unfortunately, many of the stories here struck me as more vulgar than funny. I’m not pro-life by any stretch of the imagination, but the chapter titled Tucker Max: Baby Killer can only be described as somewhere between dismaying and disgusting.

While there are some high points (especially “Tucker Goes to Campout, Owns Duke Nerds” and “The Capitol City Clown Crawl”), overall it seems this book is more about self-gratification than storytelling. Assholes Finish First is funny, but compared to the promise of I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell ultimately disappointing.

First Sentence:

I went to law school at Duke, and as you may know, basketball is huge there.

The Snakehead, by Patrick Radden Keefe

In June of 1993 a decrepit tramp steamer named the Golden Venture ran aground in the dead of the night near Queens; the police officers who discovered the wreck were stunned to find over 280 Chinese immigrants being smuggled into the country leaping into the water and swarming the beach in an effort to abandon the sinking ship. With this startling opening, the book jumps back in time a bit and begins to tell the true story of the smuggling ring behind the accident and their trip to justice. This is a fascinating read and full of vivid prose; the heartbreaking descriptions of the immigrants take on a greater depth of horror when you realize this isn’t fiction, but actually happened: “It was a primordial scene—an outtake from a zombie movie—as hordes of men and women, gaunt and hollow-cheeked, walked out of the sea. ... There they collapsed, vomiting saltwater, their bodies shaking, they faces slightly purple from exposure. ... They were dressed only in their underwear, and ... they looked like "something from a concentration camp." They were all angles, bones and ribs, not a finger-and-thumb’s worth of body fat between them.”

Keefe does an excellent job of explaining how the smuggling ring worked worldwide, intermixing the stories of the ringleaders, the FBI investigation, and the Golden Venture and its passengers. I was surprised at how complicated the human-trafficking operation was, and how willing the people trying to get to America were to enter the scheme. Many, even after enduring the indignities of being treated like cattle and then forced into a form of indentured servitude, would send for their families via this same illegal channel. “Even an illegal existence in the United States was better than a legal existence anywhere else.”

That said, the one viewpoint that seems to be missing is that of the immigrants themselves. What happens to the group after being rescued is covered, but very little of the journey itself. Sean Chen is the closest we get, but his story largely starts when he is detained after the wreck and his path through INS seeking asylum. Regardless, for anyone interested in either true-crime or the sad state of our immigration laws will find this book difficult to set down.

First Sentence:

The ship made land at last a hundred yards off the Rockaway Peninsula, a slender, skeletal finger of sand that forms a kind of barrier between the southern reaches of Brooklyn and Queens and the angry waters of the Atlantic.