Recent Reading - 2012
2012-12-31
The Lady in the Lake
Raymond Chandler
Maybe style isn't everything.
I liked the writing, and the character of Marlowe is just what I like in a private investigator, but not like all the others in books I've read. Some of the descriptions of California seem dated, but that makes sense. The local sheriff was terrific.
While there were red herrings thrown around, the central story may have been too simple, overtaking the style which I enjoyed. The clues to the eventual outcome seemed pretty obvious, and that kept me from loving the story. This was my first book from Raymond Chandler. It's clear I'll be reading more from Raymond Chandler, though. Glad the library is only a couple of blocks away.
The html source I read (converted to ePub so I could read on my Nook)
was from Russia. The conversion had a bunch of scan errors. They were
disconcerting, to be sure.
Recommended
2012-11-27
The Bowl of Heaven
Gregory Benford and Larry Niven
Earth launches a ram scoop starship. The dust of space is its fuel and
it is headed for a potential new world that has been called Glory. Part
of the way there, the senior science officer is awakened by the
then-current maintenance crew. An odd object has appeared almost
straight ahead. Their drive is also working just badly enough that
they'll never make it to Glory, not alive. What they find is another of
Niven's world creations like Ringworld. This is the first book of a
series.
Highly recommended
2012-11-05
Painted Ladies
Robert B. Parker
Spenser goes to work to protect an art expert during a ransom exchange.
He fails when the art expert is blown up by a bomb attached to the
ransomed painting. Spenser feels compelled to find out who did it. He's
very dissatisfied with failing at a job.
Highly recommended.
2012-10-31
Catching Fire
Suzanne Collins
Book two of the Hunger Games trilogy takes Katniss and Peeta from their
recovery after winning the games in the first book. There's a victory
tour with some significant twists that set the stage for a very strange
set of events at the next Games. The next games are the 75th
anniversary Games, the third Quarter Quell. Nothing goes as expected.
Highly recommended
2012-10-15
The Alchemist of Souls
Anne Lyle
Lyle's first novel got started in a jumble of events, introducing several characters quickly. Once the strange world of an alternate Elizabethan era with new world (as in the Americas) non-human trading partners becomes apparent, the interwoven story of Coby and Maliverny moves right along. There's the intrigue of court, spies everywhere. There's a contest of stage plays to be judged by the ambassador of the "skraylings". Mal has to be his bodyguard, a special request of the ambassador. Coby has to keep the mix of players properly dressed as the tailor of the Suffolk's Men troupe of players. Oh, and there's Mal's twin brother to consider.
2012-09-11
Werehunter
Mercedes Lackey
Short stories, a couple on the same theme fill this book. They are
mainly fantasy or science fiction. The first story, "Werehunter", of
the book's title is the least interesting for me. I liked the S'Kitty
stories and there's even a Bolo story based on the Keith Laumier series.
Recommended
2012-08-30
Lie Down with the Devil
Linda Barnes
Cape Cod and the Nausett Indians feature in this Carlotta Carlisle
mystery book. Investigating a fiancé for a bride-to-be turns into a
search for murderers and connections to the mob, especially Sam
Gianelli, Carlotta's on/off lover. Connections get stronger and others
get broken. Sister Paoulina needs help from the psychiatric staff
at McLean Hospital. This might be a more intense book than some others
from the series.
Recommended
2012-08-22
The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins
Well written and nominally Young Adult (YA), The Hunger Games
has compelling characters, especially the heroine, Katniss, effectively
non-stop action and a story worth reading. The writing is good. It
doesn't surprise me that it has a following.
Highly Recommended
2012-08-20
Grim Companion
Andre Norton
Taking a job as a nanny gets Kilda off planet, but her two charges aren't quite what they seem. When a field trip goes wrong, Kilda must exceed her skills and get the children safely "home."
This mix of space opera and fantasy wasn't quite either.
Skip it.
2012-08-13
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy
A country girl with an ancient family connection. Can she marry a gentleman from a clerical family? What if she has a secret?
This book tore at my heart. Now, should it be assigned as a "classic"
for students in college or even high school? I'd say resoundingly,
"No!" This book is for an adult audience. It needs a reader with a love
of words, willingness to deal with the usage of the late 1800s and
maturity to understand the motives of the characters. This book does
not need to be studied, dissected and analyzed as an assignment.
Highly recommended.
2012-08-01
Dark Piper
Andre Norton
After the intergalactic wars wind down, few return home, but Lugard does. He befriends a group of youth scouts on a peaceful planet, but the remnants of war don't leave them alone.
Written in the 1960s, the science fiction still works.
Recommended
2012-07-20
Rogue Moon
Algis Budrys
Facing certain death is one thing. Facing it over and over is another.
A presence on the Earth's moon demands study, and the only successful
path is to teleport a person to explore it. The problem is that the
person is going to fail. By teleporting two copies, one back to the lab
on Earth, experience will grow with each trip, though.
Good analysis of the effect of technology.
Recommended.
2012-07-11
Three to Get Deadly
Janet Evanovich
Stephanie Plum needs to find Uncle Mo, the burg's beloved candy story
owner. He's missing, besides being a "failure to appear." The bodies
begin to pile up, literaly around Stephanie herself. Joe Morelli is no
help, but Lula begins to be more than a filing clerk. The Buick runs
fine, but Stephanie decides a small truck is better.
Recommended
2012-07-06
The Girl Who Played with Fire
Steig Larsson
Lisbeth Salander takes a vacation. Millenium Magazine plans to publish
a scathing story of the sex trade. Things don't work out. People get
killed and Salander is right in the middle. She needs friends and
effectively doesn't have any. Zala is the key, whoever he is.
I liked the first of the Salander novels, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I liked this one even more: edge of the seat reading.
Highly Recommended
2012-07-02
Little Scarlet
Walter Mosley
Easy Rawlins small office isn't burned out, but the shoe repair shop
downstairs is smashed and gutted as the 1965 Watts Riots tear Los
Angeles apart. In the midst of the general destruction, a black woman
saves the life of a white man and her kindness gets her killed. The
police ask Easy to help investigate to prevent a resurgence of
violence. It isn't a friendly gesture, just pragmatic, get a Negro to
investigage to help keep the lid on.
Highly Recommended.
2012-06-23
Telegraph Days
Larry McMurtry
The "Old West" wasn't, perhaps, as picturesque as movies and dime
novels of the age suggest. However, McMurtry reveals some of its
ordinary and some of its pageant qualities in this easy-to-read story
of Nellie Courtwright, who variously lives in and moves through
Oklahoma, Arizona, Nebraska and eventually California. Along the way,
there are Buffalo Bill Cody, Wyatt and the other Earp brothers, and
other contemporary ruffians and heros.
Highly Recommended
2012-06-10
Burning Cards
M.E. Patterson
Angels and Demons battle with the assistance of human minions. At risk,
control of Hell. Las Vegas is the nexus of the story which also enters
the "not there" world of Hell.
The main character is the luckiest man in the world who survived a
plane crash from 30,000 feet. He's a gambling wizard with powers given
him (apparently in the first book of the series which I have not read).
The book mainly stands on its own, but it is full of references to
events from the first book. There are so many references that it is
clear the second volume isn't independent. It bugged me a bit, though I
enjoyed the writing.
Mildly Recommended
2012-05-15
It Can't Happen Here
Sinclair Lewis
Tongue in cheek?
Did Sinclair Lewis begin the book with the attitude that keeping the book's tone light would keep from ruffling feathers?
He
either seems to be softpedaling or pointing the finger at "everybody",
communists, socialists, laborers, bankers, Republicans, Democrats, so no
one group will be offended. He singled out Upton Sinclair several
times. I read that Upton Sinclair was a guide of sorts to Sinclair
Lewis. It also intrigued me that war preparation was a strong excuse for
the spread of the Minute Men, but oddly no wars occurred during the
book. The sad truth is that Europe was on the brink of war when the book
was written and facism got its hyper-nationalist expression there.
Like some earlier commenters, I was less taken by the first half than the second half of the book.
The
Windrip crowd does seem familiar in our modern US. Some people do seem
to be able to swallow almost any ideology, no matter how inconsistent it
is as long as it gets delivered well.
I did think Doremus Jessup
seemed to be too easily able to sneak around for a very long time,
printing his anti-Windrip paper. While that made the book seem naive,
the cold, swift "justice" handed out by Judge Swan was brutal and scary,
as it was put in contrast with the games that Sissy, Buck and Doremus
seemed to be playing.
I was reminded of The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood which seemed significantly more possible. That book
took only a single state or small territory into the control of an
extreme faction. Still, the title It Can't Happen Here clearly states my feeling that we who vote are smarter than the book's Americans of 1935-36.
Yet...
2012-02-04
Two for the Dough
Janet Evanovich
Dead bodies and a morgue, lots of funerals. Good fun.
Recommended
2012-03-12
Drood
Dan Simmons
Some books are long, and I'm compelled to turn
the pages as fast as I can to get to the next chapter. The next volume
of a trilogy or even a series of that sort can't come out soon enough.
With other books, the next page is words to skim until the last of them is "consumed."
Drood
was not horrible enough. The style is too civilized. While William
Wilkie Collins may have believed there was a monster on the servant's
stairs, I did not. After the train wreck at Staplehurst, the book
wandered. The best parts of the book were the descriptions of the life
of Charles Dickens, but that interesting biographical material was
overlaid with schlock, the story of Collins, the purported author of Drood.
Wilkie
wasn't a sympathetic character, perhaps as vile as his treatment of
Caroline G. suggests. I really didn't care if the pale figure of Drood
"actually" inserted a beetle in him. It made as much sense, that the
beetle and cape shrouded Drood himself were merely silly elements of a
meandering ramble of Wilkie's writing and his drug-fogged mind.
It
appears we are supposed to take the writing at face value, that the
book was written by someone from the Victorian era. In fact, Simmons may
have done such a great job of channeling Wilkie Collins that his own
writing skills were submerged and the story suffered from Simmons'
successful reproduction of Wilkie Collins' style.
Like clong, I'm
going to seek out something by Collins. If, in fact, Simmons has
accurately reproduced the style of Wilkie Collins' writing, I'll
probably abandon the book within 100 pages. Under ordinary
circumstances, that's the limit for a book I'm not enjoying. In the case
of Drood,
the need to go further for the book group kept me slogging on. I'm
reading less than usual these days, and I'm glad this long volume is
over. To be honest, I had jury duty today. I read the final 100 pages
only this morning while waiting through the process of jury selection. I
couldn't keep myself focused on reading even though we were finally
rushing along to the fifth anniversary of Staplehurst and Wilkie's
murderous plans. I admit to skimming quite a bit.
Not recommended
2012-02-23
Under the Dome
Stephen King
Suddenly one afternoon, a dome surrounds the town of Chester's Mill,
precisely along all the borders with neighboring jurisdictions. Sound
and light do travel through, but not objects and not living things. Air
and water penetrate, but poorly. The town is totally isolated in the
fall in Maine.
The story is mainly simple. We follow several characters starting with
the initial shock of a plane crashing into the dome with the wife of a
town selectman at the controls. It isn't a peaceful story, but it stays
"small." It stays the story of people and what they do under stress.
Some handle it better, some much worse. There is a power struggle, some
people get killed and others even commit suicide. Throughout, we are
helped to focus on what people can do to each other when they are
trapped, isolated and insulated from the direct influence of the
outside world.
Strongly recommended
2012-01-03
The Swiss Family Robinson
Johann David Wyss
The Swiss Family Robinson or
"How to raise a God fearing family while learing about all the animals
and plants in the world and building as many dwellings as possible."
As
stories go, this one was pretty flat, considering the circumstances
into which the characters are put by the author. To be fair, I read
elsewhere that the book wasn't really a book originally, more like a
series of object lessons for a minister's sons.
- What would you do to keep safe and dry in a raging monsoon?
- What would you do if you were stranded on an island and an elephant trampled your crops?
- What would you do if you found a woman, also stranded. about your own age?
- etc.
There wasn't strong character development. Skill development seemed more important (except for strong moral development).
I won't recommend the book for readers, but think it probably was good fodder for screen writers.
I think the elements of the book which bothered me most were: Too many settlements and remote building projects. The tree house and Rockhome were enough. Too many animals and plants from all over the globe, lions, tigers, elephants, bears, jackals, wolves, potatoes, wheat, maize corn, cloves, truffles, dates, cocoanuts, cocoa plants, etc.
I had the sense that the various "authors" who contributed to the text were junior naturalists who read widely about the distant shores and had justifiable fascination with what those creatures were all about. The stories covered ground that didn't actually exist: New Switzerland.
Not recommended so much as "expected to be read" as a classic