Tag: pop-fiction

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Black Ops

Well, The Presidential Agent Series may have just nuked the fridge. Yeah, I don’t think it means I’m going to be moving on, but my respect for the series has taken a little hit. Maybe respect isn’t the right word. I’m struggling with how I feel, but I’ll sort it out by the end of this post.

This was a decent thriller, with Charley Castillo and the whole crew back again still sorting through the Iraq arms-for-food scandal that has been present for basically all of the books. The scandal provides good continuity and is a decent backdrop for the action, spy-craft, and political wrangling that Griffin has enamored me with over the last four books. The dialogue is still crackling and characters are still quirkily flawed, but cool.

This book started stretching things a little thinly though.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

In the end, when he meets up with this secret society interested in protecting the interests of the United States, it just seemed to deviate from what heretofore has been something not too far off the charts of the plausibility scale. Listen, I know it’s always been implausible, and I don’t run from implausibility. But it’s clear that the next step is that Castillo continues saving the world on his own dime. Sure, that’s fine.

I find it interesting that this comes as Griffin’s son joins as co-author for the next book. Reading the preview, it really sounds fantastical. I’m okay with that, I’ll change my latitude a little and enjoy it.

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The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

Well, I’m done with the Dragon Tattoo girl series. What an epic ride it was; full of peaks and valleys, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, not boring for a second. I thought early on that my only option was to read all three books this year and I was correct. I had no choice.

There are a ton of things happening in these books and for some readers, I imagine, it may seem meandering to a point of boredom. But I liked the new characters and the plot deviations introduced in this final book of the trilogy. I think Larsson did them justice. Heck, this book may even be able to stand alone, but I would advise strongly against reading them out of order.

What will be the point of seeing the movies? I know how everything ends so there will be no surprises. I guess the visual depiction of this work of art could provide some moments of appreciation. And of course, from a social and pop culture standpoint, it’s probably going to be required viewing. I’ll probably just wait for the video though. We’ll see what Ebert says. My movie viewing nowadays is based on time, place, and situation. I don’t really seek movies out, they just kind of happen occasionally.

It’s a wrap. I’m moving on.

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Starvation Lake

Every time I read a Chicago Tribune article by Julia Keller I remind myself to read her more often. I’ve gotten out of the habit of reading the Trib regularly so I usually end up catching up with her articles on the net after I actually read the Trib in paper form (although the new iPhone app may change this). I happened to read the Tribune a few Sundays ago and Keller made mention of Bryan Gruley.

Gruley is a 1979 grad from ND who lives in Chicago and writes about a fictional town in northern lower Michigan (one of my favorite places on earth). So yeah, I bought this book that day.

I’m looking forward to reading about his main character, Gus Carpenter, for a long time. Hopefully Gruley feels like churning out these books for a while. This Gus character is pretty cool. He edits a small town newspaper after a fall from grace at a big Detroit newspaper. And he loves hockey. Hockey is a huge part of this book, which is cool with me.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

Gruley didn’t shy away from heavy topics in this debut. After about halfway through you could sense we had a pedophilia/pornography issue on our hands (if I had one complaint, Gruley dragged out the “secret” a little too long).

I like the small town setting, I like the main character, I like the potential romantic interest for the main character, and it was a good crime novel. Book two is out and it’s subtitled “A Starvation Lake Mystery.” That’s what I like, a series. I’m on it.

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The Lightning Thief

My niece is a big fan of Percy Jackson so I thought I’d give the first book a whirl. After all, I do like a little other-worldly type of fantasy here and there, like Dune. Plus maybe I’ll be able to relate to my niece better. I’m imagining that our conversations will blossom into deep discussions about human nature and life in general. Or not.

I think back to the books that I was drawn to most as a kid. At first, it was the Western genre that grabbed me. This was mostly due to my Grandfather, who was my main reading influence in grade school. The dude read cowboy books exclusively, so I did too. However, as a kid I also dabbled ever so briefly in mythology. I remember loving this book called Thunder of the Gods, which was a compilation of Norse Mythology (Thor, Loki, and such). I recall liking Norse mythology much more than the Greek/Roman mythology (Zeus, Hercules), which provides the backbone for The Lightning Thief.

This makes me wonder; why don’t kids just start reading non-fiction or mysteries or thrillers set in the present day? What is it about this fantastical or historical setting that hooks young readers? And why do most of us grow out if it? I mean, by the time high school rolled around I was reading standard thrillers and now I read very few sci-fi/fantasy books or period-pieces. What gives? Peer pressure? Evolution? I didn’t grow out of heavy metal. Are musical tastes that much different from literary tastes?

Hmmm.

It could be that many grade school teachers read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe to their students so kids look for the same buzz. I don’t know what grade it was, but I remember being completely enthralled by that book and couldn’t wait for teach to read more to us. But by high school I was reading Robert Ludlum and Craig Thomas. Maybe that’s it; if it happens during high school, it has much more staying power because we are so much more formative then.

I don’t know. I only have a sample size of one.

So let’s get back on track shall we? I liked The Lightning Thief and I can see how kids could get sucked into this. I know I would have. It’s an adventure story steeped in Greek/Roman mythology set in the present day. Picture Zeus and Poseidon clubbing with mortal twenty somethings and having kids all over America (kind of like NFL and NBA players do). These kids have super powers and gather with others at Half-Blood Hill (on Long Island) to learn how to use their super powers to protect the world. I’ve never read any Harry Potter, but it seems comparable.

This young fellow Percy Jackson is the main character, he’s the son of Poseidon and some down-on-her-luck Manhattanite who wants to be a writer. Percy is short for Purseus, and he faces many of the same trials and tribulations as his moniker. Fun stuff. Safe for youngsters I guess.

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Tourist Season

My sister gave me this book in paperback form. I forgot what paper smells like because I’ve been reading only Kindle books for the last few months. It smells nice. Brings back a lot of memories. Ahh, I remember the days of paperbacks and phones that use a stylus and wireless protocol B. Seems like yesterday.

That’s me trying to be funny. Oh to be as witty as Hiaasen. I find just about every word that comes out of his mouth (or off his pen) funny. Some humor just clicks with me and Hiaasen effortlessly touches every nerve I have that translates to laughs.

This book had me laughing a lot. The brunt of Hiaasen’s jokes this time around were:

  • Real estate developers and snowbirds
  • Parents of beauty pageant contestants
  • Terrorists who name causes after days in months
  • Dishonest members of the media and government
  • College football fans, including ND fans

So yeah, he spreads it around a lot. It’s harsh, condescending satire that is very satisfying. And as I’ve said before, he retains some elements of a thriller/crime novel so it’s still exciting and interesting in that respect. I also said before that I would read his golf book next. Well, I just ordered it.

One interesting aspect is that much of the book revolves around a fictional Orange Bowl game where Notre Dame is playing Nebraska for the National Championship. Which is funny because this book was published in 1986, when Notre Dame was a far cry from playing in anything close to a National Championship (Gerry Faust just left, Lou Holtz’s first year). Funny in a sick, twisted way I guess. Which is classic Hiaasen.

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T is for Trespass

A little different style of book for Grafton this time around, but it was great. Her standard beginning is to introduce a specific mystery and rehash Kinsey’s life story for people reading things out of order. Not so this time. Grafton actually starts the book with some third person narrative about one of the antagonists and returns to it frequently. All this, while Kinsey is working a few non-mystery type of projects.

There are three distinct story lines, but one dominates. I don’t recall Grafton juggling that many big stories. The main story includes one of the most sinister villains that I recall from any of Grafton’s books and she ups the ante with a graphic action scene near the end. The villain is a thieving, malicious home care nurse who lands the job of taking care of Kinsey’s 90 year old neighbor Gus (not Henry, who lives on the other side of Kinsey’s place). No other villain has had quite that proximity to Kinsey and this one really hits close to home.

Listen to me, I’m on a first name basis with these characters and I’m talking about them like I know them. It feels kind of weird, but I’m really engrossed in this series. They just keep getting better.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

I’m not sure I’m all that enamored with how Grafton ended this one. After a very exciting double climax, there were still a lot of loose ends. Oh, she cleaned them up, but she did it on more of a retrospective basis, which at times seem kind of hurried and contrived. It could have ended with some loose ends for all I care.

But listen to me, I couldn’t put it down. Once she got rolling late in the book I just blasted through it. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to wait to read “U.”

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The Girl Who Played With Fire

I used to like to space out books in a series, but I’m moving off that trend. The dragon tattoo girl series hooked me on the first one big time. I loved it. So I recently grabbed book two in paperback with a Borders gift card. It was also good and I had trouble putting it down throughout the first half. But in the end, it was not nearly as good as the first one. Not even close, actually.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, I guess. Sophomore efforts rarely meet or exceed stellar first efforts. I was so fired up for book two that there was no way it could live up to my own, manufactured, hype machine. I wonder why I do that to myself. It was still great though.

I can’t really put my finger on the disappointment. Both of the main characters, Blomkvist and Salander, have lost a little of their vulnerability in my view. In this book they are much more in charge. But it’s a natural evolution I guess; they were underdogs in the first book and now they’re rich and famous (or infamous), so where else could it go.

That’s the evolution of the story.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

This book picks up right after the last book and ends with a cliffhanger. It also includes an excerpt of the first chapter of book three, so I already know book three picks up just hours after book two. These three books are shaping up to be one epic story broken up into three manageable chunks.

There is a lot of stuff happening. The story is turning out to be so much more than just a mystery with a little international intrigue sprinkled in. There are a bunch of side stories, a huge back story, and detailed character studies. All of these aspects have loose ends and I’m betting not all of them will be tied up given that Larsson died before book one was even published.

The Blomkvist/Salander relationship is probably the biggest loose end. They spend almost no time in each others physical presence for the duration of book two, which is basically Salander’s doing. In fact, many of the loose ends center around Blomkvist and his success with the ladies. He’s bedding his editor and a member of his magazine’s board of directors, but you get the feeling that both relationships could end with very little emotion on Blomkvist’s end. But he’s clearly distraught about Salander’s lack of interest.

Salander is a one-of-a-kind character. She goes superspy in this book, but it makes sense once her back story is filled in.

I’ll be finishing the third in a few months I think. I don’t think I’ve ever read a trilogy in the expanse of a single year. This one seems worthy.

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The Chicago Way

I wish I could remember the route I’ve taken to each book in my life. Something led me to find this book on my Kindle, but I can’t recall what. Harvey writes crime novels based in Chicago, so any number of reasons could have been involved. And for some reason it was only $1.59, which plants this squarely in the “no-brainer” category.

I enjoyed it. It was funny and full of detailed Chicago stuff. The mystery was solid also. It’s the story of an ex-cop, Michael Kelly, who’s now in business for himself. He’s in his office one day and a former partner walks in and asks him for some help on an old case that was never fully resolved. Then the former partner ends up dead shortly thereafter.

We have crooked cops and lawyers. We have two strong women, one of whom is a love interest and the other a close childhood friend. And we have a serial killer on death row in southern Illinois with some secrets. We also get a solid twist in the end that I didn’t see coming (probably my own fault).

Kelly is a Cubs fan and at times Harvey tries to make it a little too wry and gritty. But it’s endearing, here’s a scene:

I found my way over to the concession stand, stepped inside, and ordered a red-hot drug through the garden. The Packer fans stood nearby, eating a double of order of cheese fries. Each.

I liked it.

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Life of Pi

This book has been sitting on my shelf for a long time folks. I grabbed it from my mom, oh, like 5 years ago or so. I remember a time when it seemed like everybody was reading this book. I would walk through airports and see people reading it all over the place. I grabbed it about 10 times in the last few years with the intent to read it, but it never took.

I finally started in earnest this month.

It’s been a rough reading month. I’m busy with work stuff, home stuff, and family stuff. I’m hoping to finish two books, but it will be tight. I started off this year at my 40 book pace but I’ve fallen off a little. I have some catching up to do huh?

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

I’ll tell you, it’s a cool book. I liked it but I never got sucked into it, so it was a slow read, but still cool. It’s a fantastical story about a boy who’s family owns a zoo in India. They decide to move the whole thing to Canada, but on the way the ship sinks and brings all of Pi’s family and most of the animals with it. Pi makes it to a lifeboat with an orangutan, zebra, hyena, and tiger. The tiger eats the animals but not Pi. The meat of the book is the story of how Pi survived the ordeal.

Then the ending throws a funny and thought-provoking curveball that is so chock full of symbolism that much of it was lost on me. After the fact, I’ve spent a fair amount of time sorting through the Amazon reviews of this book (there are like 2,000 of them) trying to uncover the things that I missed.

Here are the big questions that book could prompt some thought on:

  1. Did Pi just make up the story with the tiger?
  2. Is this book pro-religion or anti-religion, or does it matter?
  3. What does this book say about stories and human nature?

I wonder if I would have gotten more out of this had I gone into this endeavor more aware of the potential messages. Would I have enjoyed it more or less? I certainly would not want to have read any of the Amazon reviews because of the plot killers. But I think I would have liked to have known that there could be widely-varied interpretations. Maybe part of the problem is that I read so many books that are message-free (mysteries, thrillers, non-fiction) that I don’t go into them with an exploratory mind.

For instance, this is a thought-provoking passage (page 28 of the trade paperback):

I’ll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” then surely we are also permitted doubt. Bet we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

This is Pi talking, actually.  It may have appeared, at this point, that we were in for a pro-religion ride. Pi is, after all, a practicing Christian, Muslim, and Hindu and this clearly uses Christ as a role model for the value of doubt. But when the book is finished, no clarity on religion is obtained, and I think Martel is very satisfied with that. As am I. I’m not interested in the implications for religion, atheism, or agnosticism really.

The top two Amazon reviews give the book 5 stars and 3 stars (out of 5). I suggest reading them after reading the book because they promote further contemplation. This idea of stories being so important to how we make sense of the world is the main take-away for me. Tyler Cowen mentioned a similar point about the value of stories in his book Create Your Own Economy but I didn’t write about it in my take (upon reflection, I’m disappointed in myself for that). Cowen seemed to say that stories, regardless of whether they come from books, TV, movies, friends, or the web, are important for general enjoyment in life.

I like stories, a whole bunch.

Another thing I want to mention – an item about the book that made it strange for me – was the trip to the mysterious island of vegetation that Pi and the tiger visited near the end of the ordeal. It felt oddly like The Ruins, which actually kind of ruined (no pun intended) this part of the book for me. I’m certainly not accusing Martel of ripping off another book, especially since Life of Pi was written before The Ruins. But for me, having read The Ruins first, it made the idea of vegetation being killers feel like I’ve already been there, in a horror book nonetheless.

Thanks Mr. Martel for a good read.

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S is for Silence

This is another edition of Grafton’s alphabet mystery series. I enjoy these books on so many different levels. First of all, each book stands alone as a solid mystery novel. Second, I like the main character a lot, mostly because she is so different from the characters in other stories I read. And finally, I really anticipate a fervor as we near the last few books.

I’m missing out on the Lost fervor (and any final episode fervor for that matter) because I don’t watch any “shows.” This series of books, for me at least, replaces that type of fun. Oh, it’s a little different I guess. I mean, the last episode in the life of Kinsey Millhone is still probably 5 years away. A year between episodes would probably blunt a lot of the fervor for most people. Which is probably why I don’t have anybody to discuss this with.

What do you do? I sort through it internally, better know as entertaining myself. But this anticipation stuff is only one aspect of the fun. Besides that, the mysteries are great. For this one, I’m making notes at the 60% point so I can document that I figured it out.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

I’m writing this just past half-way through the book. Here’s my prediction: I think the murder was a plot, amongst no less than four characters, to rid the world of the victim because she had dirt on everybody. I make this prediction because of the retrospective scene in the bar where at least two of them sparred with the soon-to-be victim and others involved were watching.

So there you have it. That ends the real-time aspect of this post.

But alas, I was wrong! However, my prediction added another dimension to the fun of this mystery and it really had me jamming through it this weekend.

Part of me wants to go out right now and buy “T” and “U” and blast through them. But what’s the rush? I’m betting that “V” won’t come out until end of year or early next so that’s the bottleneck. Hmmm…if I did press on right now, it would allow me to read the Amazon reviews and discussions in real time, which would be cool.

I’m not sure what my plan is. I’m not caught up in any of my series so maybe I need to get there with one of them at least. It’s quite a quandary, but I got bigger fish to fry right now. Plus, I have some good biographies and business books that I’m looking forward to cracking through. Maybe a break from fiction will do me good.