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| A Year in Reading: 2013 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | Alphabetical Index The companion piece to my film log, the book log keeps a listing of everything I've read over the course of a year, as well as giving me a place to type up a short review. As a handy reference, the book title of each listing provides links to the Amazon page for the book. Starting in 2009, I began providing star ratings of the books I read. The ratings are out of five stars, with five stars being equivalent to an A, 4½ to an A-/B+, four to a B, and so on. |
| 6-17 | The
Devil's Backbone, by Rae Ann Parker  |
Rae Ann Parker knows her way around YA fiction. As one of the key members of the Mid-South chapter of SCBWI (the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators), Rae Ann has gotten to know a slew of new authors working for teens and children, and gotten exposed to a wide array of approaches to this rapidly growing genre. So it's somewhat surprising how conservative and old-fashioned her debut novel is. In some ways, The Devil's Backbone feels like nothing so much as a "very special" episode of a TV series, one where our hero is forced into learning about his heritage and some local history after he gets in some serious trouble at school. The details may be unique to this book - our hero is taking the blame for a graffiti incident to cover for a friend, he's torn up about the recent separation of his parents - but there's a lot here that feels awfully familiar. You might hope that the inclusion of a ghost would mix things up, but that, too, ends up feeling a little more generic and familiar than you would hope. There's nothing really bad about The Devil's Backbone, to be sure. Parker is a strong writer, and while a lot of the elements are really familiar, Parker executes them well, and she does a good job nailing the emotional payoffs that make the story work. Add to that some good research work, and you've got a decent enough book that could probably have a long life with teachers who are wanting to teach their students about the Natchez Trace. But as an adult reader who enjoys a lot of YA, there's not much meat to The Devil's Backbone, nor is there much that feels unique or especially interesting. What's there is fine enough, but when we're in the middle of a massive renaissance in YA and children's literature, The Devil's Backbone feels like a middling success from an author that I hoped might do something a lot more ambitious and far-reaching. |
| 6-16 | Veronica's
Vengeance, by Adam Bertocci  |
Veronica used to be the head of her school. Boys dreamed of her; girls lived in fear of her judgment; cliques lived and died by her approval. But after a year away from school, Veronica returns to find that her rules and her control have gone away, and the school is now run by a student body president intent on erasing cliques, cruelty, and bullies - like Veronica. And that kind of think just isn't going to fly with Veronica, who begins to plan her revenge. Veronica's Vengeance is the third in author Adam Bertocci's loose trifecta of high school stories, and in some ways, it's the darkest and most cruelly funny of any of them. It's lacking the horror elements of his first (The Fairfield County Friday Night Gridiron Bonanza), and lacks the warmth towards friends that drove the second (The Usual Werewolves); in their place is a narrator who looks at the world around her with scorn, disgust, and disdain. (Veronica's aghast reactions when freshmen have the gall to speak to her and boys stare at her openly are basically worth the price of admission.) It makes for hilarious, scathing reading, and just when you're wondering how long you can sympathize with Veronica, the story takes a wholly unexpected direction, creating a final act that plays out in beautifully ironic and surprising ways. It's hard to pick a favorite among Bertocci's stories, especially when they're all this well done and this entertaining, but I feel safe in saying that Veronica's Vengeance is easily the funniest of the three of them, even if it's very much a pitch-black piece of dark comedy. And it's a perfect counterpart to Bertocci's other books - after all, what's a look at high school like without a look through the eyes of those on top of the social heap? |
| 6-16 | Bad
Chili, by Joe R. Lansdale  |
Bad Chili opens with a chapter in which our two heroes, Hap (a white hippie/Vietnam war protestor) and Leonard (a gay, black Vietnam war veteran) are commiserating over some recent life events when their conversation is interrupted by a vicious, angry, bloodthirsty, rabid...squirrel. And in the anarchy that follows (it all involves a lot of swearing, screaming, and attempted squirrel homicide), I remembered why I love reading Joe Lansdale books. At their core, the Hap and Leonard books are a sort of Texas redneck noir, with our heroes getting involved in crimes, fighting dangerous men, and doing their best to protect those who are dear to them. But to focus simply on the plots is to miss out on so much of what makes these books so rich and rewarding. That's not to say that the plots are worthless; in fact, the story of Bad Chili is a compelling one, as Leonard's quest to check on his ex-boyfriend leads the men into confrontations with a criminal ex-wrestler, a chili tycoon, and a series of video store clerks trading in a horrifying set of underground tapes. But the true appeal of these books is Lansdale's prose - from his gleefully lowbrow analogies to his profane and hilarious banter, Lansdale's words are a joy to read, as long as you don't mind wading through some of the most inventively colorful and profane insults ever written. (Me? They make me laugh uncontrollably.) Lansdale has always been as interested in how his characters react to the events around them as the events themselves, and Bad Chili exemplifies this, as both men are forced to look at the darkest sides of human nature and in themselves, and the results are far from pretty. What they are, though, is entertaining as hell, exciting as anything, riveting to read, and just a burst of fresh air that reads like little else out there. Bad Chili may be my favorite Lansdale book to date, and given how great some of his other books are, that's high praise indeed. But it's completely true: by the time I finished the book, my biggest reaction was sadness that I had reached the end of it - well, that and eagerness to go and pick up the next one. If you've never read any of the other Hap and Leonard books, you can easily start with Bad Chili with no problems. But be warned: once you start, there's no going back. |
| 6-9 | A
Suspension of Mercy, by Patricia Highsmith  |
My exposure to the work of Patricia Highsmith is sadly lacking; although I've read most of the Ripley books (which are outstanding, in case you haven't read them), all of my other exposure to her worlds are through the film adaptations of her work. Having finished A Suspension of Mercy, I get the feeling it might not have been the ideal one to jump back into her books with, but it's still well-written, beautifully crafted suspense with a flair for the ghoulish and the dark. As with most of Highsmith's work, much of the beauty of the book comes from watching the plotting unwind, so I'll just say that A Suspension of Mercy is about a writer who ends up entertaining himself by imagining all the ways he might murder his wife, only to find those "harmless" games resulting in some very real consequences. Several reviewers have commented on some of the more unlikely character actions that drive the book, but by and large, they worked for me; it helps, of course, that Highsmith has such a strong grasp on her morbid and damaged characters, so much so that even the most implausible of actions seems to work within their way of viewing the world. (What's more, so much of it feels like Highsmith's variation on Poe's "The Imp of the Perverse," where a man finds himself reacting absurdly simply out of absurd self-destructive tendencies.) It all builds to an ending that seems to have been a deal-breaker for a lot of people, but worked beautifully for me; it's a gloriously ironic and tense series of events that plays out beautifully, all in the capable hands of Highsmith. I'll concede that Mercy isn't the strongest of Highsmith's work; yes, some of the actions and coincidences strain credulity, and yes, you're going to have to just trust yourself to Highsmith's hands for it all to work. (I can't help but feel that the original title, The Storyteller, would give people a very different perception of the book and shape their reactions to it.) But it's still some beautifully psychological suspense, and it's a joy to watch Highsmith plot it all together like a spider spinning a web. |
| 6-5 | Swann
Dives In, by Charles Salzberg |
Weirdly, having just read Stephen King's latest work on the Hard Case Crime imprint, I can't help but feel that Swann Dives In would be a better fit for what the imprint is trying to do. Despite its relatively modern setting, Swann Dives In reads and feels exactly like a modern version of what Marlow, Hammett, MacDonald, and so many other classic noir novelists did when they wrote private eye novels. There's sharp dialogue; there's flawed and selfish characters; there's a labyrinthine story where so much is different from what you've assumed it to be; and, of course, there's your hardened private eye (of sorts), Henry Swann. Like so many of his classic forebears, Swann's had a hard life, and it comes through more than you might expect; there are glimpses (thanks to Salzberg's fantastic first-person storytelling) of a heart somewhere in there, but it's a heart that's built up some defenses against the world, including a way of acting a lot dumber than it really is. That's a nice metaphor for the book, in some ways; while Swann Dives In presents itself as a hard-boiled crime novel, there's a lot more going on than you might initially assume, from some fantastically unexpected comedy (my favorite involves a couple of tough guys who are following Swann around) to a strong literary background that allows Salzberg to acknowledge his influences in a perfectly meta way. And that doesn't even get us to the ending, which both resolves all the major elements and yet may leave some readers unsatisfied - a choice that I think Swann himself would be okay with. All in all, Swann Dives In is a satisfying, old-fashioned detective book with a surprisingly modern feel to it. It does exactly what you expect, and then, just when you think you've got it figured out, it starts to go in directions you never see coming. In short, it's a fantastic read, and I'm excited to hear that Salzberg is already on the fourth entry in the series - because that means that I can get into the third sometime soon. |
| 6-4 | The
Austere Academy, by Lemony Snicket |
When we last left the poor, unfortunate Baudelaires at the end of The Miserable Mill, the orphans were wondering how much longer all of this could go on - and, to be frank, so was this reader, a little bit. There was a sense of staleness (and meanness) that kept Mill from being as chaotically fun as its predecessors, and you might be forgiven for starting to wonder if the series was worth sticking with. Then, along comes The Austere Academy, and everything starts to change. The orphans, for the first time in the series, make some friends who understand what they're going through. They're free from a traditional guardian, and instead, enrolled in a gleefully bizarre school that looks like nothing so much as a massive graveyard. Count Olaf makes his customary appearance, but his plan remains a lot less clear and far more mysterious than it has in the past, leading the orphans into a minefield of uncertainty. But none of that, though it's all enjoyable, is what makes Austere Academy such a breath of fresh air. No, it all comes down to two key moments in the story: one, another seemingly random story by Snicket that ends up completely changing your perception of his role in the story; the second, a brief clue uttered near the book's end that's going to change the series from here on out. What both of these things mean, I leave it to readers of the series to discover; suffice to say, The Austere Academy finds Snicket stepping up his game and changing what seemed like an entertaining but slight series into something far more complex and fascinating. So, if you were worried about the series, worry no more; from here on out, The Series of Unfortunate Events is going to be much, much more complicated and twisty than you might think - and far, far more mysterious (to put it mildly). |
| 6-4 | Joyland,
by Stephen King |
Stephen King's newest book, Joyland, is being released solely in paperback form (for the time being) as part of the Hard Case Crime imprint, which is the same imprint that previously released King's The Colorado Kid. Like Kid, Joyland boasts a spectacularly pulpy cover, and the book jacket boasts happenings that would make the book a perfect fit for a classic pulp bookshelf - in this case, murderous happenings at a summer carnival. But like Colorado Kid, Joyland works better as its own novel than it does as a traditional pulp story, and its inclusion in the imprint's release titles seems more like a marketing ploy than an indication of the book itself. None of which is to say that Joyland isn't a good book. Like King does so often, Joyland creates a beautiful portrait of a distant era, where a young man still reeling from a bad breakup finds himself caught up in a summer carnival job and the people he meets through the experience. Is there a murder? Yes...but it ends up feeling like a somewhat superfluous section of the book, as though it's tacked in more to fill a requirement than because it was an integral part of the story. But that's okay, because what draws you in to Joyland is the character work and the portrait of life in a summer carnival. As you'd expect from King, the dialogue is sharp, the characters memorable, the ambiance perfectly captured, and the personal drama involving and rich. No, the "story" isn't particularly strong (it's not bad, either; just kind of forgettable), but as always with King, Joyland is less about what it's about and more about how it goes about it. |
| 6-3 | "How
to Talk to Girls at Parties," by Neil Gaiman |
First things first: despite the "eBook original" tag, if you're a Neil Gaiman fan, you'll probably already own this story - it was previously collected in Fragile Things, Gaiman's most recent short story collection (which was still far too long ago for fans). What's new, then, is really just the excerpt from The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which may be enough to drive this up the charts for fans (unless you're a nerd like me who won't read the excerpts because he wants to go in cold). And yet, if you don't own Fragile Things, or if (like me) you've forgotten this particular story, it's still wonderful evidence of what Gaiman does so well. The premise couldn't be simpler: two young adolescents bluff their way into a party in the hopes of talking to some girls, but the party they find themselves in seems to be...well, not what they expected. As with so much that Gaiman does, you can take the story a number of ways - as a social commentary, as an allegory, as a tale of the fantastic, or just as a little piece of magic. Whichever way you choose to approach it, it's a wonderful little tale, one that manages to linger by not saying outright everything it comes close to saying, instead choosing to create an air of mystery and intrigue that leaves us just as quietly haunted as our narrator. In short, then, it's just another wondrous piece of writing from Neil Gaiman - and even if you've read it before, there's something wonderful about revisiting it, whatever the reason may be. |
| 6-3 | Fiend,
by Toletha J. Dixon  |
A young boy is tormented at night by an invisible fiend that beats and assaults him, while his mother and stepfather do nothing. So begins Fiend, setting things up with a classic horror novel premise, or maybe a solid piece of psychological drama/thriller. Instead, what follows is a book that frustrated me largely because it's clear that Dixon isn't a bad author, no matter what Fiend might leave you thinking. Dixon's prose is effective and masterful in its tone, as it mixes unease with the situation and a sense of isolation that drives nearly every character in the short novel. And in the early going, Dixon's portrait of a damaged young boy and a troubled family seems interesting enough. But within a few chapters, Dixon starts randomly jumping in time, introducing characters whose names are far too similar to each other for easy comprehension, switches points of view with no warning, and rushes her story so badly that it becomes incomprehensible before ending in a bizarre (literal) deus ex machina that resolves nothing. Characters die off-screen; plot threads start without warning and go nowhere; characters see incredible things and then forget them by the next chapter...the list goes on and on. There's an interesting book somewhere in Fiend, but it needs to be a lot longer, a lot better paced, and somewhat comprehensible to anyone else in the world. As it is, it's pretty bad, and it's worse because it's clear that Dixon should be able to do a lot better than this. |
| 6-3 | Gates
of Fire, by Steven Pressfield |
There's a lot that authors could learn from Gates of Fire, author Steven Pressfield's depiction of the famous Battle of Thermopylae (most recently depicted in Zack Snyder's film 300), but one of the most critical is the way that minor choices can make all the difference in the world, particularly when it comes to the structure of your story. As Gates of Fire opens, the famous battle is in the past; the conquering king, Xerxes, is continuing his march across Europe. But he's fascinated by the men who stood against him, and he wants answers - which brings us to Xeones, a lone Greek survivor of the battle (of sorts), who narrates our tale. It's a seemingly minor conceit, but by shifting the battle to a fait accompli, by changing the audience to one who needs to know more about the Spartans, by making the narrator not a true Spartan but a loyal servant, the tale is changed in subtle ways, all for the better. There's no denying Pressfield has done his research and then some in writing Gates of Fire; not a page goes by without fountains of information about the Spartan way of life, about the mindset of a warrior, about the political structure of the time, or the ways the society works. But none of that ever makes the work feel like a research project. No, Pressfield makes his tale come to rich and complex life, anchoring his tale in portraits that come to complex, fascinating life and make the sacrifices all the more poignant as they arrive. And if all that isn't enough, there's Pressfield's gift for depicting war: its violence, its terror, its mindset, its power, and more. There are those who criticize Gates of Fire for white-washing the Spartans, which strikes me as an absurd complaint; this is a book written by a loyal Spartan to honor his fellow men, and yet even with that, the darker, more disturbing aspects of the culture come through clearly. But in the end, this isn't a book about the Spartans; it's a book about soldiers and sacrifice, and about what it means to fight and give one's life for a cause you believe to be worth dying for. That it does so while interweaving character work, beautiful prose, historical research, and excitement - that's what makes it a phenomenal piece of fiction. |
| 5-27 | Freaksome
Tales, by William Rosencrans |
Freaksome Tales purports to be a collection of previously unpublished works by V. V. Swigferd Gloume, called in the introduction the most "uneasily regarded author of macabre fiction of the Edwardian era." By the end of the introduction, you've learned about Gloume's overbearing and Amazonian mother, his sickness that kept him often immobilized, his recurring characters, his deep hatred and loathing of every non-British race on the planet (but especially the French) and some of the critical acclaim and analysis of his work. And as you start to read his stories, you're going to start to understand how his background and biases influenced his work and affected the subject matter he wrote about. But here's the thing: Gloume doesn't exist. Everything in the book is false, a mixture of homage and parody of writers like H.P. Lovecraft, all created by author William Rosencrans. But among the many, many brilliant aspects of Freaksome Tales - and let me tell you, this is a thoroughly entertaining, enjoyable, and brilliant book - is the way that Rosencrans never winks or lets on that it's all a joke. From the footnotes to the family history, from the photos to the citations, Rosencrans has created a truly rich and fascinating character, and gone a step further by writing stories in a voice that reads as though it was lifted verbatim from Edwardian times. The resulting stories are often hilarious (particularly if you're a fan of Lovecraft), but also surprisingly effective; look, for instance, as an insane tale of reincarnation gone horribly wrong gradually becomes more and more disturbing as it develops, or how the fear of women that permeates the first tale suddenly becomes horrifyingly literal. It's hard for me to know how to classify Freaksome Tales. It's often hilariously, laugh-out-loud funny - Rosencrans has perfectly mimicked the Lovecraftian world, and in exaggerating everything to extremes, he creates a funny, gleefully odd tribute to the man and his work. But it's to his credit that the stories can often become menacing and unsettling without you expecting it, and without ever losing their comic edge. And if that's not enough, there's the astonishing prose that truly reinforces the illusion that this is a lost author. Freaksome Tales is the kind of book that I love to find - something wholly unique and utterly wonderful, and something that left me entertained, excited, and eager to pass it along to others who can have the joy of discovering so off the wall and wonderful. I can't possibly recommend this strange, weird, and hilarious book enough. |
| 5-26 | Dreamer,
by Daniel Quinn |
Greg Donner is a freelance writer who's got it made. He's got a nice place to live, a solid line on a good project, plenty of friends...it's a pretty good life for Greg. But he's having these odd nightmares: about being pursued through a city, about meeting up with a woman and going on the run together. And then one day, Greg meets that woman in his real life...and from there, things get really, really strange. Talking about Dreamer too much runs the risk of spoiling some of its twists and turns, which are really satisfying ones; this is a book that specializes in pulling the rug out from underneath you again and again, until you're not sure what's truly going on and whether anything you read can be trusted. That alone was more than enough to keep me satisfied reading Dreamer, but once you add into that the fact that Quinn has created a really interesting and rich character in the form of Greg Donner, and that he uses his complex plot to explore Greg's hidden depths...well, you've got a winner of a book, plain and simple. Although Dreamer seems to be classified as a horror novel, Quinn himself argues that it only holds onto the horror genre "by the skin of its fingernails," and I'd agree with that; while there are definitely some creepy scenes, Dreamer is more of a psychological thriller/drama that keeps you engrossed by simultaneously twisting its plot and exploring its character in interesting ways. It's the best kind of thriller: one that you can never truly predict and one that keeps you guessing until the very end, and I was absolutely enraptured by it. |
| 5-23 | Unearthly
Tales from Space, by John Sparks  |
The plot summary that Unearthly Tales boasts - about a mysterious woman who makes contact with Earth scientists, who are still reeling from the discovery of the signal she's been sending from our moon - is a great one, and had me really intrigued to read the book. Unfortunately, the introduction of that connection comes up about 6 pages from the end of the book, after which the book ends abruptly, mid-story, with nothing resembling closure, a climax, or even a cliffhanger. It's the biggest misstep in a book I was already not a big fan of in the early going, and it changed my feelings on the book from dislike to pretty active hatred. I'll concede that Unearthly Tales from Space has a pretty great pulp title, but that's about the last thing the book gets right, from clunky and painful dialogue to bizarre pacing that has characters changing locations/leaving mid-paragraphs without warning, from unclear plotting that goes nowhere to some truly bad character work. And since I've brought up bad character work, let's talk about the sexy Asian scientist who used to be a stripper and prostitute...really. (Does the book have a scene where she lets down her hair and asks a crowd of men for a light, at which point they all pull out lighters? You know it does!) At 144 pages or so, Unearthly Tales feels like the backstory to a much, much better book, but it would have to be written by someone with a much stronger knack for prose, dialogue, pacing, and character work...to say nothing of someone who might actually choose to finish a book he started in the first place, instead of just abruptly ending it all without any warning. |
| 5-23 | SNAFU,
by Glen C. Allison  |
A retired Navy Seal who protects and rescues endangered children, along with his dedicated and dangerous team of specialists, work to unravel the link between a pair of bizarre kidnappings - including one that hits particularly close to home for Al Forte, the book's protagonist. That's the premise behind SNAFU, which is apparently the third entry in the Al Forte series. Don't worry, though; if (like me), the series is new to you, you'll be able to jump in without much difficulty. SNAFU is pretty fun pulp; the characters are manly and hyper-capable, the villain incredibly vile and cunning, the action sequences taut...in other words, it's a perfectly serviceable little thriller. Allison's work at character depth never really did that much for me; while he does an okay job setting up his characters and their pasts, it always feels a bit perfunctory and unengaging - in other words, it feels like the character work in an action movie: necessary for the plot, but not really used much beyond that. I feel like I'm spending a lot of time grumbling about SNAFU, and I don't mean to. No, I don't think some of the dialogue quite works, and no, some of the backstory doesn't quite work for me. But I enjoyed the book quite a bit on a purely "fun" level, and I thought Allison's plotting was always interesting and genuinely surprising a couple of times, especially in a couple of revelations that come out near the end. SNAFU doesn't stand with the best entries in the genre, but Allison has created an interesting hero and a solid premise that kept me quite entertained and involved all the way to the end. |
| 5-16 | The
Miserable Mill, by Lemony Snicket |
By this point in the Lemony Snicket books, we know the routine, more or less: the Baudelaire orphans will meet a new guardian; Count Olaf will appear; a scheme will be hatched; the orphans will use their abilities to get out of the situation. And in some ways, The Miserable Mill fits that outline to a T...but in other ways, it's surprising, with a clever bit of misdirection as to Olaf's identity, some interesting role reversals for the orphans and their usual talents, a more intricate scheme that might surprise you in some ways, and so forth. At the same time, The Miserable Mill is probably my least favorite of the first four books so far; the environment of the book is by far the grimmest and most unpleasant, to the point where the book suffers a bit, and there's a sense that while Snicket is beginning to push against the pattern he's created so far, it's not quite enough for an adult reader. But for readers my son's age, the series doesn't falter a bit. The wordplay is still funny, the images are still brilliant, Snicket's narration still gloriously off-kilter (this is the book that manages to somehow bring up a sign made of severed monkey heads and never mention it again), and the characters so enjoyable that it's hard not to love the book, even if it is a little weaker than the others. And as if that's not enough for you, there's a final duel that makes me sad that we'll probably never get another movie of the series, because that duel would be something really amazing to see them attempt to do on film. |
| 5-15 | Rock
Island Rock, by Eyre Price |
Second books in a series are always a tricky thing. The first book sets up your world and your characters, but the second book shows how the series is going to progress. Is this going to be a status quo kind of series, where each book is essentially a variation on a theme (say, the Jack Reacher books)? Is this a mythology-heavy series, like the Repairman Jack books turned out to be? Or some blend of the two? In many ways, the second book is going to set the tone and the pattern for all of the books to come. And so, in the early going of Rock Island Rock, I was a little uncertain about what I was seeing. Once again, Price's heroes are on the run from people pursuing them; once again, a CD seems to be their clue and their breadcrumb trail; once again, it seems that some of the story is going to be a guided tour of musical history. And while I enjoyed all of those elements the first time, I wasn't sure that Price could make a series out of those ideas without them feeling tired or contrived. But as Rock Island Rock continued, it became evident that Price was way, way ahead of me, because Rock Island Rock soon starts to jettison those elements and transform into something very different. If the first book was about a man discovering his own inner capabilities for violence and investigation, Rock Island Rock is about the effect that discovery has on his life and his relationships, to the point where the book soon becomes a progression of the story, and not just a rehashing. More to the point, the supernatural elements that so intrigued me in the first book begin to develop and flower in unexpected and intriguing ways, going from what seemed like an odd (and somewhat disconnected) element in the first novel to something far more complex and intrinsic to the story as a whole. I enjoyed Blues Highway Blues a lot, but Rock Island Rock is a more satisfying book in almost every way, from the integration of the music history into the plot to the thematic depth of the book, from the character depth to the action sequences, from the supernatural elements to the mystery itself. If there's a grumble about Rock Island Rock, it's that the central mystery almost feels superfluous to the novel as a whole, but by the book's end, it becomes evident that that's a conscious choice on the part of Price (and if you doubt it, check out a passing line from Atibon near the book's end) to let the mystery serve as a MacGuffin to further explore his flawed, violent protagonist. And if he keeps doing it this well, I plan on following that exploration for a long time to come. |
| 5-8 | The
39 Deaths of Adam Strand, by Gregory Galloway |
I'll admit up front that many of the things I love about The 39 Deaths of Adam Strand are going to be the same things that bother other people. When you explain the concept of the novel to people - that it's about a teenager whose depression leads him to suicide, and yet he is constantly coming back to life - they're going to have certain expectations. They're going to think that this is a mystery, perhaps, or that it's a strident anti-suicide tract, or that it's a densely plotted novel about the things that drive Adam Strand to take his own life. And yet, none of that is true. By the time the novel ends, there's no answer as to why Adam Strand can do what he does. His depression may not be solved so much as coped with. And the novel doesn't even really have a plot to speak of; rather, it's almost an impressionistic portrait of a depressed, drifting teenager raging against his small, dying town. But to me, it's all of those things that make this novel so great and affecting. Depression is a hard thing to write about; it's not just being sad, and it's not just brought on by certain events, and it certainly isn't always explainable or solvable. Galloway knows all of that, and it comes through perfectly in the character of Adam Strand, whose actions often seem as unpredictable and inexplicable to him as it does to us, because that's the nature of depression. At its core, The 39 Deaths of Adam Strand isn't an anti-suicide book so much as it's a book about suicide, striving to understand it and to find a way through that doesn't rely on cheap platitudes or easy answers. As I read it, I found myself thinking back to the depression I suffered through in high school, and there wasn't a page of Adam Strand that I didn't identify with and see myself in in some way. That, more than anything, is why I came away so impressed. It's not a typical YA book; this isn't pushing for a series, or focusing on paranormal mysteries. Instead, it uses its unusual premise to explore adolescent rage, angst, and depression, and does so effectively and poetically. I can see why some won't like it, but for those who are open to something so different, they may come away deeply moved by the experience. |
| 5-8 | NOS4A2,
by Joe Hill |
For his first few published works, Joe Hill showed numerous things: a gift for conjuring horrors, a knack for strong plotting, a talent for strong characters, and an ear for prose. What he didn't really show, though, was any indication that he was Stephen King's son. It took me stumbling across the information online to know that it was the case. But in NOS4A2, Hill seems to finally make peace with his father's legacy. It's not just the references and nods to his father's universe; it's the way that NOS4A2 feels like a classic Stephen King novel in many ways: the epic plotting, the blend of supernatural horror and nearly magical powers, and more. And yet, there's no mistaking that NOS4A2 is a Joe Hill novel; while he may be embracing his genetic past, this is entirely Hill's world. As the title implies, NOS4A2 is a vampire novel, but it's far from a traditional Bram Stoker tale. Hill's vampire, in fact, is only a vampire in a very different sense - a traveling predator who kidnaps children and feeds off of their innocence to stay young. But he's not the only psychically gifted individual in the world, and NOS4A2 splits its time between its monstrous villain and its tragic hero, a girl whose gift shapes the course of her often bleak life. If you only wanted to judge NOS4A2 on its horror scenes, you'd still come away thinking it was a masterpiece even if you discount everything in the first 90% of the book (and to do so would be to ignore some knockout setpieces), the final confrontation in Manx's horrific lair is going to go down as one of the legendary scenes in horror fiction. So, yes, NOS4A2 is absolutely terrifying in parts. But there's so much more going on here - a study of parents and children, a look at the toll our gifts can take on us, an examination of what childhood truly is, and so much more - that NOS4A2 works not just as a horror novel, but as a novel, plain and simple. The characters are complex, affecting, and rich (even Charlie Manx, whose actions are not as simplistically evil as you might think they would be), the plotting surprising and compelling, the dialogue sparkling...and yes, the horror will definitely get to you in ways you don't expect. I've been a fan of Hill's since Heart-Shaped Box, but NOS4A2 is his best novel to date, and one of the best horror novels I've read in years. Miss it at your own peril. |
| 5-1 | Glimpses:
The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala, by Rick Hautala |
After Rick Hautala's recent death, his publisher decided to pay tribute to him in perhaps the most appropriate way possible for an author: by making some of his work free for purchase. Glimpses, as its subtitle suggests, is a collection of Hautala's short fiction, and as someone who was interested in exploring Hautala's work, it seemed like a solid place to start. Unfortunately, it doesn't end up being a terribly interesting place to start, either. It's not that Glimpses is bad in any way; to the contrary, Hautala is a decent enough writer, and most of his stories start off promising enough. I love the slow build of "The Hum," for instance, as a mysterious noise starts to take its toll on human relationships. "A Good Day for Dragons" tells a story that feels like a great variation on a story that a child might tell, while "The Call" builds a nicely Lovecraftian feel at its best moments. But many of the stories end up fizzling out towards their ends, either simply coming to an abrupt and unsatisfying ending or often not even wrapping up at all. It becomes a frustrating pattern, and it's one that hurts the weaker stories even more. "Schoolhouse," for example, feels like you're still waiting for the big reveal or some great moment to happen by the time it ends, and much the same could be said for "Iron Frog," which feels like Hautala forgot to come to a point. Hautala isn't a bad author, per se, but there's not too many of these stories that really work on the whole, and a whole lot of them that either end up feeling forgettable or just don't work. I won't give up on Hautala - novels are very different from short stories, and Hautala's reputation all but demands I try again - but Glimpses didn't really make further exploration of his work feel like something I was itching to do. |
| 5-1 | The
Wide Window, by Lemony Snicket |
The third entry in the Series of Unfortunate Events finds the Baudelaire orphans moving in with their phobia-ridden Aunt Josephine, whose crippling fears of everything from water to telephones leaves the orphans in a less than ideal environment - and that's before a thinly-disguised Count Olaf comes back into the picture. By the third book in the series, there's a sense that the books are falling into a bit of a pattern - a new guardian, the return of Olaf, the orphans trying to expose the plan - and you can't help but wonder if there's going to be more to the series than this. (There will be.) But what keeps The Wide Window from feeling like a pure retread is the bigger emergence of Snicket as a witty, hilarious narrator, and his asides and commentary keep the book massively entertaining even when you're feeling a little bored with the main storyline. (My favorite line: "If you are allergic to a thing, it is best not to put that thing in your mouth, particularly if the thing is cats." Although the moral Snicket draws from World War I is right up there.) We're on the verge of the series beginning to dive deeper into the mythology of the whole thing, but taken on its own, The Wide Window is a nice example of how an author can evolve and find his voice as he continues to work. |
| 4-25 | Now
Wait for Last Year, by Philip K. Dick |
One of the many things I love about reading Philip K. Dick novels - and there are a lot of things to love - is the way he constantly takes what could be pedestrian science-fiction ideas and transforms them into something profound and thought-provoking, using them not as a premise unto themselves, but merely as a jumping-off point for something far more ambitious. Take Now Wait for Last Year. At the outset, it's a novel about humanity's role in an interstellar war, a heroic figure uniting the Earth forces, and a surgeon who specializes in robotic organs who's struggling to keep that leader alive. But by the time you finish the novel, you might be hard pressed to recall that any of that was ever in the book at all. Without giving away the book's pleasures and surprises, suffice to say that Now Wait for Last Year is a book about a longing for the past, a desire to change our mistakes, and a wonder at what could have been. And all of that is tucked into a mind-bending novel that turns itself inside out more than a few times. Don't be deceived by the short length of Dick's novels; in his lean works, he manages to pack in more twists, more ideas, more philosophy, and more thoughtful writing than many authors can do in massive tomes. To be sure, the book has a couple of issues, most notably with a tough female character who ends up being uncomfortably one-dimensional and shrewish. But that's offset by the ideas at play here; if you don't end the book thinking about the nature of time and our relationships with our own pasts, well, you're not reading it right. |
| 4-16 | The
Book of Lost Things, by John Connolly |
After reading a fairly unsatisfying "adult" take on fairy tales, I found myself thinking about The Book of Lost Things, John Connolly's take on fairy tales, coming of age, and the darker sides of both of those coins. And so I started re-reading a book I remembered liking, only to find myself not just liking it, but loving it - and ultimately deciding it might just be the best thing Connolly's ever written (and that's high praise indeed). At its core, The Book of Lost Things is the story of a boy coming to terms with the death of his mother and the entrance into his life of a new stepmother and stepbrother (an idea, of course, that has echoes of any number of fairy tales). But as the boy runs away from his new family and into a world of darker, more sinister fairy tales, Connolly turns his tale into a beautiful meditation on coming to terms with death, the power of stories, the importance of love, and so much more. Make no mistake: The Book of Lost Things is driven by "adult" versions of fairy tales, but instead of using them for shock value or to evoke disgust, Connolly uses his fairy tales to explore the mind of his young protagonist, who is scarred by the death he's still healing from and struggling to understand the world around him. Every tale - from the seven dwarves to Sleeping Beauty - that finds an echo here becomes a way of understanding our young hero, but also of getting toward something far more universal and human at the core of it all. More than that, it all builds to a stunning final chapter, one that serves as both a beautiful epilogue and a breathtaking statement about life and what it means to all of us. And as if all of that isn't enough for any reader, there's Connolly's incredible, beautiful, poetic prose throughout the novel. Connolly is one of the most gifted writers I read these days, and his work here manages to evoke the world of fairy tales while still being wholly his own beautiful, optimistically cynical voice, and it's breathtaking. I've been swearing by Connolly for years, but re-reading The Book of Lost Things reminds me again just what an astonishing gift he is to readers everywhere. And when I tell you that The Book of Lost Things may just be one of the best books he's written, consider that high praise indeed - and understand that it makes The Book of Lost Things one of the best books I've read, period. |
| 4-14 | Thursday
|
Several years ago, a video game named American McGee's Alice depicted a "twisted" version of Alice in Wonderland, one where everything was more sinister, more aggressive, and more alien than we associate with Lewis Carroll's classic work. What made Alice work, though, was the game's central conceit: that all of it was the result of Alice's psyche working through a devastating trauma - the death of her parents in a fire that she feel guilt for. Everything, from the Red Queen to the Jabberwocky, represented another aspect of that guilt and psychic damage, which made the game not just a collection of warped visions, but a cohesive whole. What does a decade-old video game have to do with Thursday Thistle? Simply this: without that cohesive narrative and central idea, Alice would have been a tedious collection of "edgy" interpretations for shock value...which is pretty much what Thursday Thistle was to me. A fusion of Alice in Wonderland and a fairy tale collection, Thursday Thistle is the story of a teenage girl who escapes into a world where, she theorizes, we see the original version of fairy tales, not the watered-down versions that fill our books. What those original versions are made up of pretty much jumps all over the place, but mostly, they're violent, nasty, and generally fairly sexual. None of which I have a problem with (Fahren's book Mad Mannequins from Hell was far more nasty and violent, and tossed in sex as needed, and I thoroughly enjoyed it), but here it feels less like it's all used to serve any kind of purpose and more just thrown in for its own sake. Yes, Fahren has a loose story that attempts to tie it all together, but that brings us to the next problem: this is a book that really, really needs a few more read-throughs. And I don't just mean for the story, though that would help - there are characters who wander in and out, confusing plot threads, and a general lack of clarity. No, what's more important is that the book is filled with missing punctuation, wrong word choices, and generally bad writing that left me sometimes reading and re-reading sentences just to parse what they were trying to say. And I'll be honest: I was already frustrated with the book from the story problems, but the grammatical issues kept pulling me out of the book and probably exacerbated my feelings about the poor flow of it all. I liked Fahren's horror novel Mad Mannequins from Hell quite a bit, so Thursday Thistle was a pretty big letdown on so many levels. Here's hoping that this one's a fluke, or that he learns the lessons from this to improve his other work to come. |
| 4-12 | Thumbprint:
A Story, by Joe Hill |
One of my favorite things about reading horror fiction is the way that the best authors have of reflecting the uncertainties of our age in their work. Look at Lovecraft's unease as we explored the universe, or the government paranoia of King's 1970's work, and so forth. So it's no surprise to find Joe Hill dealing with the after effects of Abu Ghraib in his short story "Thumbprint"; what is surprising, though, is how head-on he faces that legacy. "Thumbprint" is the story of a former soldier who's returned home and finds herself trying to readjust to civilian life while also reconciling herself to the actions she took during interrogations and torture while in the service. (And yes, I said "herself"; one of Hill's most intriguing touches is making his protagonist a woman, which plays with our expectations in ways we may not have expected.) In Hill's hands, that legacy becomes far more literal and inescapable than it might be in another kind of story, and throughout "Thumbprint," Hill reminds you just how astonishingly good he is at immersing you into characters and their perspectives. In fact, while there's no denying that "Thumbprint" has some horror/thriller aspects, at its core, it's a psychological thriller/character study about a woman coming to terms with her own worst impulses. That focus may frustrate those expecting a more-traditionally plot-focused story and ending; "Thumbprint" is ultimately more interested in exploring its characters than it is in following its story to its grim conclusion. But that doesn't make it a bad story; in fact, it makes "Thumbprint" harder to shake off so easily. The horror here isn't some malevolent phantom or evil force; the horror, Hill argues, is in ourselves, and that's far more unsettling than any poltergeist can be. |
| 4-12 | The
Fault in Our Stars, by John Green |
There's basically no way to tell people what The Fault In Our Stars is about without it sounding like the worst book ever written. A YA novel about a young girl with terminal cancer who falls in love with a cancer survivor she meets in a support group? That sounds like the kind of treacly pap you might expect from Lifetime or Nicolas Sparks, not a critically acclaimed bestseller from John Green, a widely beloved YA author. And yet, ask anyone who's read it, and they'll tell you that this isn't sentimental, manipulative garbage; this is thoughtful, moving, compelling stuff. And now that I've read it, you can add me to that chorus; The Fault In Our Stars is one of the finest YA books I've ever read, and just a magnificent book, period. But how on Earth does Green avoid this turning into the book we all dread it could be? Much of that has to be chalked up to his main character/narrator Hazel, whose voice is equal parts world-weariness, cynical humor, acceptance of death, quick wit, word lover, and pure teenage girl. Hazel's a wonderful creation, and she's far from the angelic, lesson-conveying manic pixie dream girl that inhabits so many Nicholas Sparks books; instead, she's a rich and wonderful person who has her own issues, her own dreams, her own goals, and her own inimitable voice. The same goes pretty much across the board; there's not a character that even dips their toes into the sea of cliche - these are all rich, complicated characters who come to life thanks to Green's rich prose. And as if great characters and excellent prose aren't enough, The Fault In Our Stars is genuinely, profoundly moving and affecting. It dodges easy, pat answers about death and mortality, avoids the easy routes at all times, and dodges cheap sentimentality; and still, for all that, when it wants to hit you hard, it's going to, plain and simple. Part beautiful coming-of-age story, part teen romance, part meditation on mortality, part hilariously funny dialogue work, The Fault In Our Stars deserves every bit of acclaim it's gotten and then some. It made me laugh, it made me think, and yes, it made me cry, cliched though that sentence sounds. It's a magnificent book, and I'm better off for having read it. |
| 4-10 | Life
Itself: A Memoir, by Roger Ebert |
With the passing of the late, great Roger Ebert (I wrote a long tribute you can read here), I felt compelled to revisit his memoir, Life Itself, just to keep him around for a little longer. When I first read Life Itself, I commented that you could see the influence of blog writing on Ebert's style; his chapters were less focused on any given moment in time, and more organized by themes and ideas, which allowed his prose and mind to wander beautifully. And while that observation remains true, what I really lost myself in this time was Ebert's command of prose and the English language. From his delivery of jokes (the hilarious line he brings out of a comparison between In-and-Out and Steak and Shake is a thing of beauty) or his philosophical musings (from which comes this astonishing, moving, and deeply inspirational quote), Ebert was a writer before he was anything else, and Life Itself gives evidence of that. It's a fascinating, honest, funny, moving, and open self-portrait of a man who changed the way many of us looked at critics and criticism, and it's all done with humility and grace. Life Itself isn't just a must read for those of us who loved Ebert for his reviews; it's a memoir that gives you a glimpse of a fascinating, influential figure who was, at his core, a fundamentally good person that left the world richer for being in it, and less interesting for losing him. And if you doubt any of that, try reading Life Itself's thoughts on religion, or London, or his wife Chaz, or his struggles with cancer, or his newspaper memories, and try to tell me that when the world lost Roger Ebert, it didn't lose an icon and a master of prose, storytelling, and thoughtful humanity. |
| 4-5 | The
Last Policeman, by Ben H. Winters |
By the time The Last Policeman begins, we are into the final few months of Earth as we know it. A massive asteroid will be making an impact into the planet within the year, and as a result, civilization is in upheaval. People are leaving jobs unattended to fill their bucket lists; marriages have spiked; religion is everywhere; and suicides are omnipresent. And yet, Detective Hank Palace is pretty sure that the man whose death he's investigating might not be a suicide after all, and that effort in still doing his job, even as the world ends, makes him one of the last policemen on the planet. Author Ben H. Winters is new to me, but if the books he's writing are as strong, compelling, inventive, and fascinating as The Last Policeman, I'm going to have to dig deeper into his catalog. Like Karen Thompson Walker's exception The Age of Miracles, Winters uses the impending end of the world as a means to explore another genre (here, it's a crime novel, as opposed to Walker's coming of age tale), but that in no way means that he skimps on the creation of a compelling society. Indeed, The Last Policeman is a story inexorably influenced and shaped by the crumbling society in which its set, and whether you're exploring pirated fast food chains, dealing with religious zealots, or watching as characters you've come to know begin checking out from anything resembling reality, The Last Policeman immerses you in a doomed world and invites you to answer the same question so many are asking Palace: if the world is ending, why bother? It's that dedication to what may be a lost cause that makes Palace such an interesting character and gives The Last Policeman its hook, which kept me wrapped up in its labyrinthine tale until the final reveals (one of which made me laugh at its audacity and perfection). I picked up The Last Policeman simply because the idea sounded so interesting, and I'm glad I did; what I got was a great crime novel that felt wholly unique, all while playing with some classic tropes along the way. Apparently Winters plans on writing at least two more books in this universe before ending it all, which suits me just fine; I'm curious to see what else he might have to say and what else might happen in this sadly doomed world that seems all too familiar to me. |
| 4-1 | Swann's
Last Song, by Charles Salzberg |
In an age where every single detective story has to be some new wrinkle on a classic or some fascinating variation on old themes, it's an unexpected joy to read a book that feels like nothing so much as a classic, lost hard-boiled detective story. That's exactly what I found in Swann's Last Song, though - a great detective story about a man who's only interested in trying to make ends meet but finds himself caught up in a sprawling mystery about a man whose death only raises more questions about who he was in life. Author Charles Salzberg immerses you into Swann's psyche, giving readers a hardened man who is exceptionally good at his work - he's a skip tracer - but without a lot of interest in the rest of the world around him, even when it comes to estranged family members. But as Swann gets involved in the life and untimely death of a man named Harry Janus, everything becomes far more complicated, and Swann finds himself pursuing things out of a desire to know the truth at any cost, a choice that ends up changing Swann into a far more complex character than we might have originally assumed. Salzberg has a knack for hard-boiled prose and characters that never veers off into excess; while there's no mistaking the genre that he's working in, it also feels like his own variation on it, not just another retread of stories we've read before. More than that, the story he has to tell is so involved and complex that it's all but impossible to predict, and it ends up leading to some incredibly fascinating figures along the way. To be sure, there may be a few points where you're going to feel a little bit at sea (on top of the already convoluted story, add in multiple characters who have multiple names and you're going to end up feeling a little lost some times), but it all comes together into an ending that's both frustrating and yet absolutely perfect in terms of how much of a payoff it is. I read Swann on the request of the author, but it's a joy to find a heretofore unknown book and author I liked this much, and I'm eager to read the next one and see how well Salzberg can continue the story. |
| 3-26 | Nation,
by Terry Pratchett |
Nation may not be a Discworld novel, but that doesn't keep it from being every bit as thematically rich and complex as any of the books Pratchett has written. After all, how many authors would write a YA novel that deals with issues like faith versus religion, the nature of religious doubt in the face of loss, what it means to be a nation or community, or questions of evolution, science, and British imperialism? And yet, Terry Pratchett does it, and does it every bit as well as you'd expect from any one of his books - that is, superbly. The story is deceptively simple: a young man returns to his tribe from his test of manhood only to find that a tidal wave has killed his entire tribe, leaving only one castaway on his island. That's a heavy beginning to the story, and Pratchett never shies away from the implications that might have, as our hero rages against his gods for letting his people die in such a horrible and meaningless way. And yet, Nation is far from a depressing book; instead, it's surprisingly uplifting in ways you might not expect, focusing on how people can come together to build a nation not because of fear, but just to take care of each other. In doing that, Nation ends up touching on ideas that drive so many of Pratchett's books, all while telling a great story about survival and humanity's ability to persevere in the face of nature's wrath. It's great stuff, and while it's lacking some of the richness that Pratchett brings to his Discworld novels, it's no less thought-provoking, intelligent, moving, and entertaining for that loss. So if you're wary because this isn't a Discworld book, don't be; this is pure Pratchett, with all the greatness that such a description implies. |
| 3-21 | Mad
Mannequins from Hell, by August V. Fahren |
Mad Mannequins from Hell won me over pretty early on - how could I not at least get some enjoyment out of a book whose hero is a special effects expert who loves horror films and splattery makeup work? That's a winning start to any book, and by the time our hero ends up accidentally summoning demons that turn all the mannequins in town into murderous, terrifying monsters, I was pretty well on board for all the anarchy Fahren had to offer. And that's good, because there was lots of gore, splattery violence, and wholesale slaughter to come. Like you might guess from the title, Mad Mannequins doesn't take itself entirely seriously, a fact that becomes pretty evident by the time you realize that every mannequin is alive - up to and including every member in the town's nativity set...and I do mean every member. And that doesn't even get into a most unlikely trio of, shall we say, female religious warriors who appear near the end of the book. Mad Mannequins doesn't always entirely work; there's a somewhat fractured timeline that doesn't really serve much purpose except to leave you a bit confused until you sort it out, there are more than a few editing errors that end up distracting from the story, and the story's ending and final chapter all feel a bit rushed and perfunctory, leaving you a little baffled as to why it all ended so quickly. Even so, I can't argue that I quite enjoyed the book as a whole; there's so much gleeful insanity and so much satisfying mayhem on display that I couldn't help but have as much fun reading it as Fahren did writing it. |
| 3-21 | The
Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell |
Given that the only book by David Mitchell that I had read before was Cloud Atlas, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - I knew it was widely regarded, but little more than that, not even the setting. (And, from what I've read, it's not quite as genre-bending as some of Mitchell's other works, so it may not have been a representative choice from his works.) What I got, in many ways, couldn't be more different from Cloud Atlas, but it's no less beautiful, powerful, and astonishingly well-written, and by the time I finished it, I knew I had read another masterpiece from Mitchell. A historical fiction, Thousand Autumns details the lives of officers in the Dutch East Indies company stationed near Nagasaki right around the dawn of the 19th century. That's a wholly, utterly foreign world to most Western readers, and much of the book's first section finds Mitchell exploring the culture and society through his characters, letting the world come to life as he subtly sows seeds for the plot threads to come. And then, before you know it, you're lost in Mitchell's rich world, entranced by his complicated, utterly human characters, and caught up in his dense plotting, which involves everything from the British empire to a sect of Japanese monks with horrific beliefs. And just when you think Mitchell has lost track of everything, he pulls it together in two astonishing final chapters that left me stunned, moved, and on the verge of tears at his powerful ending. But the plotting is never really the focus of Thousand Autumns; what fascinates Mitchell, and by extension, the reader, are the characters that populate the world, and the way they're governed by their pasts, their cultures, their senses of honor and betrayal, and a desire to make the most of their lives as best as they can. What Mitchell ends up doing here is telling a story that could be told at no other time in history, but making it beautifully, wonderfully contemporary in the emotions and feelings it deals with. More than that, he succeeds in immersing you in a world that you could never experience, and makes it come to life in such a vivid way that you not only picture it, but can feel yourself getting lost in it. And that, along with Mitchell's astonishing, beautiful prose, makes Thousand Autumns a masterpiece worth savoring. |
| 3-20 | The
Reptile Room, by Lemony Snicket |
It seems that the Baudelaire orphans are finally doing well. They've got an intelligent, off-the-wall new guardian, a library full of books, plenty of inventions to work on, and lots of things to bite. But you can't be two books into a series called A Series of Unfortunate Events and have everything go well, can you? And so The Reptile Room details how everything goes horribly wrong for the orphans, thanks in no small part to the persistent and malevolent presence of Count Olaf. The second book in the series finds Snicket settling into the pattern that's going to persist for the next few books - a new guardian, the reappearance of Olaf in a new disguise, the efforts by the orphans to unmask him - but that in no way detracts from the silliness and anarchy on display throughout. More to the point, it's here that you start to get glimpses of Snicket's personality, as he wanders off on derails, spends a page and a half warning people to never, ever play with electric outlets, adds in odd comments about his current whereabouts, and more. Knowing how complicated the series is going to get, it's easy to dismiss The Reptile Room as merely a warmup for the books to come. But doing that would ignore the rich pleasures to be had here, as Snicket begins to develop his characters, expand his story, and play with the audience in ways that are just going to grow more from here. |
| 3-4 | The
Bad Beginning, by Lemony Snicket |
I've begun re-reading Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events with my son, who has been delighted with Snicket's morbid, gleefully odd sense of humor and his willingness to break up any moment with a little bit of anarchic chaos (usually courtesy of Sunny, whose odd outbursts have left my son laughing so hard I've had to re-read paragraphs in their wake). As for me, though, I enjoyed The Bad Beginning well enough, but it's hard to really love it knowing how much better the series gets from this point. Here, Daniel Handler (the man behind Snicket) is still feeling his way into the series, and so much of what makes the series so rich and interesting - the VFD, the intriguing moral shadings, the disguises, and especially Snicket himself - have yet to come into their own. Snicket, in particular, is far less of an authorial presence here; while he occasionally breaks the fourth wall, he's not a character to the extent that he becomes in later books. All that being said, it's still a fun book, and its love of words and reading make it a pleasure for adults who love reading to their children. Handler's a wonderful writer in general, and his plotting here is just sinister enough to keep a young boy entertaining while never being overwhelmingly dark to him; instead, he was constantly begging for just one more chapter, and kept trying to figure out the mysteries and the problems ahead of the characters. That's exactly the reaction I (and I imagine Handler) was hoping for, and it's got us leaping right into The Reptile Room from here. And soon, we'll be getting into the parts of the series that really stuck with me and made me a fan of the whole thing. |
| 3-2 | Phoenix,
by Chuck Palahniuk |
I've been a fan of Chuck Palahniuk's since picking up Fight Club in anticipation of the film, and while his career has had some ups (Survivor, Rant) and downs (Snuff, Tell-All), I find myself coming back to him again and again, hoping that something can hit me the same way his best works do. Phoenix finds Palahniuk writing a short story instead of a novel, and it's a format that I think Palahniuk can do great work in; I think that one of the best things about Haunted was seeing Chuck work with a number of great ideas and not run them into the ground. Phoenix is the tale of a mother who's traveling for work and keeps calling home, only to be given the silent treatment by her daughter. Somehow, all of this ties into the fire that destroyed the family's first house, a story which Palahniuk unfolds alongside the "current day" tale of the mother calling home. Phoenix is simple enough, but still twisted in that usual Palahniuk way that finds people at their most hateful and destructive; more than that, it becomes a tale of the way married couples keep open secrets from each other, only to let those secrets build uncontrollably. Palahniuk eschews most of his usual verbal tics here, working in long paragraphs instead of staccato sentences, keeping the arcane trivia pertinent to the story, and letting his characters drive the story along. Phoenix lacks some of the punch and shock value of Palahniuk's best work, but in some ways, I find that absence comforting; it shows me that there's more to the man than just depraved nastiness, and finds his style evolving with age. It's not essential reading, but it's a solid piece of work, and it's just dark and funny enough to be memorable. |
| 3-2 | What
It Was, by George Pelecanos |
I've seen some people commenting that What It Was is a minor Pelecanos novel, and it's a stance I can somewhat understand. To be sure, it's lacking some of the social commentary that his best work has; moreover, in telling a story of a young criminal who ends up on a bit of a killing spree, What It Was is more the story of a manhunt than the morally complex mysteries of something like The Turnaround or The Sweet Forever. But none of that makes What It Was any less gripping, well-written, beautifully crafted, and generally thrilling - it just means it's not quite up with the best of what Pelecanos can do. Even so, Pelecanos shows off his usual literary talents and strengths here, telling a story of Derek Strange in the summer of Watergate - a summer in which a young criminal named Red Johns decided that it was time to make a name for himself. As usual, Pelecanos specializes in complex, flawed, utterly human characters, so much so that while we may never root for Johns, we understand where he's coming from; simultaneously, even as we see the flaws in Strange and policeman Frank Vaughn, we see them as men doing the best they can, day in and day out. As always, Pelecanos makes his setting come to vivid, rich life, immersing the reader in the summer of 1972 in Washington DC, whether that's through the cars on the street, the music on the radio, or the fashions of the time. And he does it all while telling a gripping yarn that absolutely moves. So, no, What It Was may not be the best work Pelecanos has ever done. But given that it's still very good, very entertaining, very exciting, and very well-written, who cares? It's still a damn fine read from one of the best crime writers writing today. |
| 2-27 | Curious
Anomalies, by Ryan Sean O'Reilly |
Although its subtitle would have you believe that Curious Anomalies is a "novelette," it's pretty evident that it's essentially a short story - you'll zip through it quickly, and the story and characters are more suited to the short form than to anything like a novel. And that's not inherently a bad idea - I'm on record as loving a good short story - but in this case, I think the added length and depth would make the story more successful and enjoyable. The premise is an interesting one: a scientist agrees to take on genetic engineering work in the hopes of easy money, but finds himself working for a dangerous man with a very unusual goal in mind - a very particular kind of guard animal. That's about all you should know going in to best enjoy Curious Anomalies; the story paces out its reveals nicely, letting each one sink in for a bit before bringing the next, and a few of them are genuinely pretty surprising. On the other hand, O'Reilly's writing is serviceable, but not much more; he tends to over-rely on analogies and excessive adverbs, and it ends up feeling a bit padded, even at its short length. Still, it's a fun enough story, and I'd be curious to see O'Reilly try his hand at a novel; he's clearly got a gift for a good premise, and seems to know how to plot things. But I think his writing could use a little polishing, and getting to know the characters a little more than we do would definitely make the whole thing a little more interesting and compelling (as opposed to the stock characters in play here). |
| 2-24 | Going
Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, by Lawrence Wright |
It's hard to find anyone without an opinion on Scientology these days; between Anonymous's war on the organization, South Park's episode about the church's beliefs, Tom Cruise's outbursts, and the constant rumors about John Travolta, it seems almost everyone is aware of at least a little bit of what Scientology is all about. But it wasn't until a couple of years ago, when famed writer-director Paul Haggis publicly broke with the church and spoke about it in a New Yorker piece called "The Apostate," that a celebrity was willing to go on the record about their feelings toward the church. Now, that piece has been expanded into a full-length work of investigative journalism, and the result is an astonishing, gripping, unbelievable read about not just Scientology, but its origins, its secrets, its abuses, and its future. Author Lawrence Wright does an exceptional job keeping his writing balanced, especially as it pertains to L. Ron Hubbard, author of Dianetics and founder of the church. It's clear that there's much about Hubbard that Wright admires - his constant literary output, his ability to inspire people - and yet, Wright never lets Hubbard's shortcomings slide, as he constantly reminds the reader about Hubbard's habitual lies, his constant infidelities, and his apparent hypocrisy regarding what Scientology would allow people to do. The result is a gripping portrait of the man and the birth of the church, done with careful balance that examines both the appeal of the church and its deep flaws. From there, Wright moves on to David Miscavige, the current leader of the church, and focuses on how the church has changed to something far darker, abusive, and more dangerous under Miscavige's control. It's this half of the book that often had me reading with my jaw hanging open, often unable to believe the things I was reading. And yet, it's clear that Wright has done his research; with more than a third of the book dedicated to footnotes and research notes, and the constant reminder that the church often refused to cooperate with his questions, it's hard to doubt the things you're reading, especially as they come up again and again and again. Wright has set himself no small task to accomplish - no less than documenting the history of Scientology, its appeal to celebrities, its shift over time, and a portrait of the two men most responsible for leading the church throughout its history. And yet, Wright does it with skill and aplomb, crafting a gripping narrative and handling his numerous and disparate threads with grace and control, creating one of the most fascinating investigative reporting pieces I've ever read. It both leaves you understanding why Scientology is so appealing to people, and yet never leaves you doubting why the organization is so violently opposed in so many corners; it helps you understand why so many people doubt Hubbard, and yet still see how he could lead people; and it will help you begin to realize just how incredibly structured and controlled the ideas are, whether because of belief or because of control. This is incredible reading; if you have the slightest interest in Scientology, cults, and/or religions, Going Clear will keep you riveted. |
| 2-24 | The
Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien |
Time for another read of The Hobbit with my son, and another chance to get lost in Tolkien's marvelous, wonderful world. This time around, I did a lot less abridging of the text as I read (he's six now, as opposed to being four during our last read), and I was curious to see how he'd react. It was a pretty smashing success; he loved the details and the side tracks just as much as the main story, and never once complained about the extra storytelling. Of course, if The Hobbit wasn't such a great adventure story to begin with, he wouldn't love it as much as he does; luckily, it is - between dragons, killer spiders, goblin kings, five army battles, and more, there's adventure here to last a lifetime, but it's all done with sly humor, grace, and a sense of fun that holds it all together. It's hard to explain to an impatient and hobbit-loving six-year-old why he won't really enjoy The Lord of the Rings as much as The Hobbit; as epic and as masterful as Rings is, it's nowhere near as accessible, exciting, or just plain enjoyable as The Hobbit always was to me. Will we read it sometime? More than likely...but I have a feeling that this won't be the last time I'm reading through The Hobbit with him, either. |
| 2-18 | Pop.
1280, by Jim Thompson |
You could be forgiven for wondering at first if Pop. 1280 isn't an example of Thompson going back to the well; its main character, sheriff Nick Corey, feels very much to be a revisiting of Lou Ford, the main character in The Killer Inside Me. Both characters are sheriffs; both put on a front of simplicity and even stupidity to mask their keen intellects; and, yes, both have some seriously sociopathic tendencies. But the characters are more dissimilar than a first glance might indicate; indeed, Corey's far more complex than Ford in some ways, and he ends up feeling less like Ford's unchecked murderer and more like a truly disturbed individual. Moreover, Pop. 1280 really soars in its complex plotting, which finds Corey juggling a re-election campaign, a hateful wife, a hopeful new love, and lots more. But here's the biggest difference between The Killer Inside Me and Pop. 1280: the latter book is surprisingly, darkly, bracingly funny. I mean, genuinely laugh out loud funny, albeit in such a dark sense that it's going to choke a little bit going down. Pop. 1280 is a beautiful little poison apple of a book, and the best of Thompson's books that I've read so far; it's intricately plotted, amazingly written, acidically funny, and absolutely compelling. More than any of that, it will remind you that, no matter when he wrote, few authors can tap into the darkness, violence, and insanity of human nature better than Thompson, and by the time Pop. 1280 comes to an end, you'll be stunned by how different Nick Corey is from what you originally expected. More importantly, though, you'll also have finished a masterpiece by one of the essential crime thriller writers who ever lived. |
| 2-16 | A
Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness |
It seems to be a major trend in publishing to push everything as a trilogy, and it's a trend I understand; after all, it makes everyone more money, and you can't fault an author for having a story that spans multiple books. What I can fault an author for, though, is creating a book that doesn't stand satisfactorily on its own, and instead feels like little more than a buildup for the next book in the series. Unfortunately, that's the case with A Discovery of Witches, which creates a really rich, intriguing world, sets up lots of rules and histories, gets ready to set them all into motion...and then ends just as things are about to get started. That's a frustrating way to open a series, and it's hard to get motivated to keep going when the first volume feels like nothing but setup. And that's kind of a shame, because Harkness has created a pretty compelling, rich, and inventive world. There's almost a sense that this is Twilight done right; while there are a lot of elements that feel lifted from that world (most notably a vampire lover who is enchanted by our heroine's scent to the point of near-madness), Harkness explores them in a lot more depth and complexity, creating a rich history to her world and interweaving it wonderfully with real history and events. Like Twilight, though, the hero and heroine are almost impossibly perfect; our heroine seems to be capable of just about anything, while our hero has met anyone who's anyone in history and is perfect in every way. It's the rough edges that really make the book work, from one of the vampire's close friends to a wonderful stint in a house with a mind and personality all its own. I don't doubt that the second volume of the series is solid; Harkness has done enough prep work here to get things moving, and the characters and world she's created are rich ones with plenty of room to explore. But when the first volume of a series isn't a satisfying entry on its own terms, it's hard to get motivated to keep moving along. |
| 2-9 | The
Fridgularity, by Mark A. Rayner |
A satirical novel about our (over-)dependency on electronics and technology, The Fridgularity is the story of one man's high-tech refrigerator that decides to become sentient and take over the world, all while being aided by religious cultists praying to see their Twitter feeds again and being battled by MMORPG players gone full-on barbarian. If that doesn't give you some idea of what you're in for in this entertaining, if not entirely successful novel, I don't know what else possibly could. The Fridgularity is almost more interesting for its ideas than its execution, and hardly a page goes by without some intriguing idea or observation about just how much the world has changed as a result of the Internet and social media. Moreover, Rayner never misses a chance to tuck in a joke or a gag, ranging from the childish to the sophisticated, and keeping the tone always light and accessible, even when dealing with some intriguing and complex ideas. (My favorite recurring gag is the group going through Internet withdrawal who play Twitter with a notepad, a pen, and lots of tape to keep their minds at ease, a game that slowly and wonderfully evolves to include more and more social media as the book continues.) Even so, however, I couldn't possibly say that The Fridgularity is a pure success. Rayner has a tendency to run jokes into the ground, and sometimes tucks them in for a gag when they don't really fit into the scene or the ideas at all. (The font commentary, for instance, is an interesting idea that really needed some better execution.) Moreover, the book's main antagonist, a game player who becomes a competing religious leader who then becomes a roving barbarian - well, doesn't that description kind of say it all? It's a character who meanders through the story, changing to be whatever Rayner needs him to be with no regard for consistency or motivation. And yet, I still enjoyed The Fridgularity a lot. Rayner's observations and interactions with technology are well thought out, and his plot, absurd though it is, always managed to keep me intrigued and moving along. And while he doesn't quite do as well mixing his tones as he needs to, I admire the ambition of the book and the effort to do so much. Flaws and all, it's a fun read, and the low price makes it well worth checking out. |
| 2-3 | Cold
City, by F. Paul Wilson |
As much as I love the Repairman Jack books - and trust me, I'm a pretty huge fan of the series - I have to admit that I was a little wary of a prequel trilogy to the books. Too often, prequels turn into fan-service, heavy on the dramatic irony and full of shoehorned-in nods to the fans as minor characters turn up in unlikely ways. It's a relief, then, to find how well that Cold City handles the prequel aspects of its Repairman Jack tale. One of the best of those aspects, of course, is Jack himself, but it's to Wilson's credit that this Jack isn't quite the one we know and love. You can see where that Jack will come from, but this Jack isn't quite as good as fixes, isn't quite as comfortable with his way of life yet. Instead, he's a young man fleeing from a major emotional trauma, doing his best to re-invent himself in New York City as he finds himself making friends and forging a new path. It's a really intriguing, interesting read, and Wilson does a good job balancing setup for Jack's life with an engrossing story on its own terms; at its best moments, the book manages to blur those two ideas together, letting them guide and shape Jack into the man he's become. Yes, Cold City is a satisfying, solid piece of Jack fiction...until the ending. I went into Cold City knowing that it was the first in a trilogy and that some people were upset about that fact; even so, I think I expected at least somewhat of an ending to the book. Instead, Wilson pushes almost every single payoff to the next book, leaving you feeling as though we've read a book of buildup and then cutting us off before we see how it all plays out. It's not that I don't understand that these plotlines will pay off eventually, but as it is, Cold City almost fails to work as an individual book. I really enjoyed the book on the whole, but I'd be lying if I didn't say the complete lack of ending really left me frustrated and irritated at the whole thing. Do I recommend it? Absolutely...but you might want to wait until the next book is out before you get too far into it. |
| 1-31 | In
the Tall Throttle,
by |
Co-authoring is always a fascinating, risky idea; there's always the chance that instead of getting something more than the sum of its parts, you lose the personality or strengths of the authors. But in the case of father-son team Stephen King and Joe Hill, that issue never comes up. Their first collaboration, Throttle, finds them pitting a motorcycle gang against a murderous truck driver in a road battle that's brutal, tense, and horrifying. It's an acknowledged tribute to Richard Matheson's Duel, but by giving a window into the purpose behind the driver's rage, Hill and King transform the story from a horror tale into a suspense piece, one that's driven as much by family and character as anything - a fitting change, given Hill and King's strengths as writers. Throttle absolutely flies, and it's a joy to find King and Hill playing with an intriguing batch of characters and turning it into fantastic suspense. By contrast, In the Tall Grass is an out-and-out horror story, following a pair of siblings who stop to help travelers lost in a grassy field, only to find themselves in far more danger than they expected. In the Tall Grass is pure nightmare fuel, both on a psychological level and on a visceral, violent one as well, and it's that blend between the two styles that really shows how well these two work together as a team. In the Tall Grass hits its ending just a little hard, but the journey to that point is a fantastic one, and one that goes a lot darker, more brutal, and more horrifying than you might expect at first. In other words, it's two horror masters working at the top of their games and making something that's far more than the sum of their individual parts. |
| 1-26 | A
Face in Stephen King
|
After a slew of lengthy books, it was nice to settle in to a few short pieces, and where better to start than a couple of Kindle singles by Stephen King? I'm hesitant to address Guns too much on this page, for fear of getting into political headache territory. And yet, when you read an essay that's this well crafted and written, to say nothing of the fascinating points it lays out, it all but demands to be discussed. In Guns (an essay inspired by the Sandy Hook shooting and its aftermath), King sets out to take a look at not only the shootings themselves, but the politics around them, the influence of the media (himself included), the way society has changed around them, and much more. It's an intensely thoughtful piece, one that's nicely divided into different sections that each address a certain aspect of the issue. The opening segment, for instance, discusses the pattern King sees in the reaction to and aftermath of each shooting incident - a pattern that's going to make you cringe in recognition and horror. Other sections take on King's controversial novel Rage (a Bachman book, now out of print for reasons King discusses here), his own background with guns, a look at the divisive politics between left and right, and much more. And, yes, King discusses gun control, a fact which is going to get the essay ignored by many, attacked by others, and embraced by some who ignore much of what it has to say. Suffice to say, it's a fascinating, compelling piece of writing, one that deserves to be discussed, analyzed, and talked about, instead of being ignored or embraced thoughtlessly. As for A Face in the Crowd, it finds King reuniting with his Faithful co-author Stewart O'Nan, this time in service of a far more typical story for King - albeit one that still revolves around baseball. The story revolves around a widower whose nighttime game watching is disrupted when he starts to see people sitting in the stands behind home plate - people who have been dead for some time. This is prime King territory, but as King and O'Nan let this one spin out, it's equal parts creepy and oddly touching, as the authors use the story as a way to let the widower take account of the actions in his life. In some ways, it's like a horrific version of This Was Your Life, with ghosts filling the place of the guests. The whole thing comes to an appropriate ending that feels right, although a little abrupt; there's a sense that one big reveal almost feels a little bit rushed, and trying to sort out a bit of the timeline after the story concludes is a little difficult. No, A Face in the Crowd may not be King's best short story, but that's a high bar to clear, and it sells shorts the craft and atmosphere that Crowd brings to the table. It's a rich, enjoyable story on its own, one that's well worth the small price. |
| 1-26 | The
Epiphanist, by William Rosencrans |
My good friend Ryan once argued that there were basically only four ratings you could give something: it was good and you liked it, it was good and you didn't like it, it was bad but you liked it anyway, and it was bad and you didn't like it. Most people have no problem grasping three of those, but there's one - the idea of something being good but unenjoyable - that seems to elude people's understanding sometimes. I bring all this up not as a pointless introduction, but to try to explain the situation I'm in with William Rosencrans's self-published debut, The Epiphanist. By any standard, The Epiphanist is an exceptional piece of writing. It's a dense, allegorical piece of science-fiction that's written beautifully, but more importantly, spends much of its time grappling with heavy, fascinating ideas - everything from game theory to the nature of faith and religion, from what it means to redeem yourself to the power of personality. It does all this with a deceptively simple tale about a genetically engineered young man who, after living most of his life in what amounts to exile or prison, is given the hope that he might be able to gain "redemption" and access to the Holy City where "civilization" exists behind reflective walls. Rosencrans is aware of all of the nuances and complexities of these ideas, and indeed, he spends much of his novel having characters debate morality, religious politics, and so much more. And while all of that is fascinating, and intelligently crafted, and masterfully written...it's also so dense that it sometimes becomes a bit of a chore to get through the book. Make no mistake: The Epiphanist is an exceptional debut novel, one that treats its readers with respect and intelligence, and brings to the table a slew of heady ideas and debates. But it's not always a particularly propulsive read, nor a particularly fast one, and there are times when it seems that the book has lost its way in its intellectual forests. That's a good and intriguing problem for a book to have, but it still can make it frustrating to read. Is The Epiphanist a good book? Undoubtedly. But did I enjoy it very much? Not really. |
| 1-21 | The
Wrath of Angels, by John Connolly
|
There are few authors who can unsettle and unnerve me as much as John Connolly; despite the fact that his books tend to be found in the mystery/crime sections, there's no denying the horror influence that pervades his stories, and The Wrath of Angels may be the most terrifying yet. At its core, The Wrath of Angels is about an airplane which crashed into a very dark section of woods, holding a lot of money and a list of names - and it's this list of names which draws the story along, as any number of figures come out of the woodwork in pursuit of this. It would be difficult to characterize any of these people as "heroes"; the closest we have is Charlie Parker, Connolly's private detective who is capable of brutal, stark vengeance and justice that he metes out as he deems necessary (but not, it is worth noting, without that violence taking a toll on his soul). But there are far worse creatures in the mix than Charlie Parker; there is the chain-smoking figure only known as The Collector, and then there are those who may be darker still, including one figure who may have already died once before. That's the setup for The Wrath of Angels, which tentatively explores some of the mythos behind Parker's existence while giving us nothing except a sense of unease and uncertainty. There's no doubt that the Charlie Parker books work as crime novels; Parker is always drawn in by a mystery, and explores and solves the situation using his intellect and his ability to follow a lead. But the horror elements have never been stronger than they have here, most notably in the scenes in the woods, which may be inhabited by something not quite human. Connolly is one of the finest writers alive today, and his gift for prose has always been remarkable. But it's most evident in those wood-darkened scenes, as his words create an atmosphere that's completely chilling and unsettling while never letting you feel like you understand why. And if that's not sufficient for you, there's Connolly's spectacular gift for dialogue and characters - from Parker to his friends Angel and Louis, from the Fulci brothers to the relentless Collector, Connolly brings them all to life, never relying on simple portrayals of anyone, whether they are good or evil. I concede that the Charlie Parker series isn't for everyone; it's too horror-filled for pure crime fans, and not quite horrific enough for those who expect a pure genre book. But for those who appreciate beautiful, astonishing prose; rich, intricate plotting; strong character work; and an atmosphere and intensity that is unmatched in modern crime fiction, John Connolly is the finest crime writer working today, and someone whose books are always a must-read for me. |
| 1-13 | My
Dead Friend Sarah, by Peter Rosch 
|
Despite being marketed as a mystery novel, My Dead Friend Sarah is something closer to the work of people like Peter Blauner or George Pelecanos, who use their mysteries as a way of exploring their characters or social issues. Here, the issue at hand is alcoholism, as our narrator recounts his struggles to stay on the AA wagon and his gradual collapse as the disappearance of his friend wrecks his equilibrium. The problem, though, is that the book ultimately tries to do too many things, and ends up leaving you dissatisfied by accomplishing none of them. Take the disappearance itself: our narrator has dreamed that Sarah will be kidnapped and murdered, and her eventual disappearance seems to lend credence to that idea. But it becomes clear quickly that Rosch is really just using the disappearance as a MacGuffin to get into the mind of an alcoholic. Now, there's nothing wrong with that in theory, but when you add in things like prophetic dreams, it becomes too mysterious to be discarded as abruptly and thoroughly as it is. More problematic, though, is the character of Sarah herself, who remains enigmatic, unclear, and frustrating. Even in chapters where she narrates, Sarah comes across as inconsistent as a character, and given that she drives the plot, she needs to be more understandable as a person for the story to work. There are some interesting ideas here and there in My Dead Friend Sarah, and its window into the mind of an alcoholic is compelling. But the mystery framework is too intriguing to be jettisoned but too weakly developed to support the story, the characters too inconsistent and impenetrable, and the dialogue poorly written and crafted. Give My Dead Friend Sarah more of an ending and flesh out the characters, and you might have something. But as it is, it feels like the first draft of something that could have been much better. |
| 1-10 | A
Memory of Light, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson |
And so, after more than twenty years of reading the series, The Wheel of Time comes to an astonishing, exciting, effective end. The fact that there even is an ending is something to be thrilled about - between the bloat that set in around books 9-10 and the literal death of an author, there were plenty of times when fans wondered if there ever would be an end to it all. And yet, in the capable hands of author Brandon Sanderson, The Wheel of Time comes together in a final volume that depicts the long-prophesied Last Battle in brutal, incredible detail. In fact, "The Last Battle" could easily have been the title of this final book, given that this is essentially a 900+ page account of a single war, even if it is broken into battles along the way. What that means for the reader is a book that's basically action from beginning to end, making this one of the most thrilling and fast-paced volumes of the series to date. And, my God, what action it is. Jordan (and Sanderson) spent years establishing the rules and boundaries of magic, and in A Memory of Light, all those rules combine, break, or stand to create a battle that looks and feels like no other battle I've ever read. And as if that's not enough, A Memory of Light delivers payoff after payoff, as each of our characters finally shows their full potential and fulfills all of the prophecies, viewings, and hopes that we've been experiencing for years. As with any final volume, not everything works as well as you might hope; there are a couple of plot threads and antagonists whose resolution feels perfunctory at best, and one can't help but wonder what Jordan and his military background would have brought to the sweeping tactics on display here. But for every minor issue, there are dozens of other scenes that make the final volume worth every day of the wait. More than that, Sanderson and Jordan do a superb job of mixing the action of the series with the heavy ideas about salvation, triumph, damnation, and what comes next that have always underlay every aspect of the books. The end result is one of the finest books of the series, one that brings everything to a magnificent conclusion that somehow pulls off the unlikely feat of giving a satisfying ending to a series that has lasted more than two decades. Even better, A Memory of Light knows how to strike a balance between ending the series and letting us understand that the world continues after the book ends, and it's telling that as I finished A Memory of Light, I realized that I could read plenty more books about the world of The Wheel of Time - and that's saying something, given how long the series went and how frustrating its bloat could be. But it's better to leave people wanting more than to overstay your welcome, and A Memory of Light leaves the reader exhausted, thrilled, heartbroken, exhilarated, and more than anything else, deeply and richly satisfied with this superb final volume in a series that will go down as one of the cornerstones of the fantasy genre. |
| 1-7 | Towers
of Midnight, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson |
Being the middle book in any series is difficult; being the middle book in the middle of a three-part volume that represents the final book in a 20+ year endeavor is staggeringly complicated. After all, you've got to make the book satisfying on its own terms, while still setting up for the final volume of the series and paying off events that were already set into motion. Add into all of this the difficulty of taking over for a deceased author, and it would be a miracle if Towers of Midnight worked at all. The fact that it holds its own as one of the high points of the series, then, is downright unbelievable, and yet its true. While The Gathering Storm was largely a book about Rand's accepting of his own fate and destiny, Towers of Midnight focuses more on the supporting cast of the series as they move - both by choice and by fate - into their positions for the Last Battle that haunts the future to come. Like Rand, Perrin is forced to reconcile himself to his new role as leader, while Mat is forced to become a hero by facing up to an evil that he hoped to never see again. Meanwhile, other characters - Galad, Aviendha, Egwene, and Elayne primary among them - have to begin to come to terms with how Rand has changed the world, and what the world may be like if the final battle is won. That's a lot for any one book to take one, but Sanderson manages beautifully, guiding the characters into place and delivering some incredible payoffs to stories that have been building for more than a decade. None of these are as satisfying, thrilling, and as unsettling as an incredible sequence near the book's end, in which Mat and two companions undertake a rescue in a place that defies reason, although watching Sanderson allow Perrin to truly push the World of Dreams to its limits in a masterful battle scene is right up there in terms of skill and astonishing action. Towers is a transition book, but it's one that packs lots of action into its pages, closing lots of doors and focusing all of its energy on the final battle to come. Like the best books in the series, though, the action and events here as as much about the characters as they are the destinies being spun, and its that focus on the people at the heart of the series that makes the book so successful. By the end, as characters reunite or mourn their losses, I was beginning to truly feel that we were coming to the end, and the emotional impact that comes with that is hard to ignore. But even without the final volume, Towers is a fantastic read, with some of the best action in the series to date, and payoffs for any fan of the series that will leave you both eager and saddened that it's all coming to an end in only one more book. |
| 1-3 | The
Gathering Storm, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson |
It's difficult not to come into The Gathering Storm with a sense of trepidation - even apart from wondering how the series will begin to conclude, the fact that author Robert Jordan's death kept him from completing the series and necessitated a new author would be enough to make any fan worry. The joy, though, of The Gathering Storm is that those worries were completely unneeded. To be sure, Brandon Sanderson's style isn't quite the same as Robert Jordan's. It's not quite as poetic, at times, and there are a few scenes that seem built for iconic "Hollywood" moments, while Jordan would have downplayed them into fitting more evenly with the story around them. But those are small points, and they really only occurred to me as I attempted to think about the novel as a whole; by and large, while you're reading it, Sanderson does a beautiful job making the transition as smooth as possible, and his first volume of Robert Jordan's world ends up feeling far more like Jordan himself than I ever thought it would. Of course, Sanderson's ability to blend his own style and Jordan's only brings so much to the table; what's more important is how The Gathering Storm functions as a book. After all, this is the beginning of the end, the first volume of the final "book" of the series, and Sanderson has his work cut out for him. Luckily, he rises to meet the challenge beautifully, ending plotlines brilliantly, building to incredible climaxes, making the characters face their own pasts and choices, and tying all of the action in the novel - and trust me, there is a lot of action - inextricably to these characters and their personalities. Sanderson serves up some of the most stunning moments in the series to date - a tense conversation between a father and son, a jaw-dropping method of battling one of the Forsaken, a final battle for the soul of the White Tower - but never drops the ball on the smaller, more character-driven moments, including a conversation with Verin Sedai that became one of the most compelling and powerful chapters in the series so far. It's evident, even from this one novel, that Sanderson was a wise choice to conclude Robert Jordan's world; his respect for the world and characters, his efforts to keep Jordan's voice alive, and his ability to deliver an incredible read that reminds us the end is coming all speak volumes, and had me jumping into Towers of Midnight minutes after I finished this one. |
| 1-1 | Knife
of Dreams, by Robert Jordan
|
I don't know what happened to Robert Jordan between Crossroads of Twilight and Knife of Dreams. Maybe the outcry over Crossroads' inaction got to him, maybe he became aware of how little time he had left, or maybe it was nothing, and it was always planned this way. Whatever the case, Knife of Dreams feels like a reminder of why I started this series to begin with. After several books of gradual plot slowdown and a massive spike in plotlines, characters, and detours, Knife of Dreams hits the ground running and never slows down. More happens in the prologue of the book than in the entire length of Crossroads, and that only begins a book that finds long-running plotlines about Perrin, Mat, and Elayne all finishing, Rand moving into a new form of conflict, the possible return of an unexpected ally, and wars that decisively change the face of the series. More than that, it feels as though Jordan is finally showing his hand and allowing the reader to understand how the Seanchan and the Shaido fit into the bigger picture of the series, and not just stringing the reader along in the hopes of eventual answers. To be sure, Knife of Dreams is still bound by some of the bad decisions Jordan made in the previous few books, but the book finds him cutting his way through plot entanglements and revising plot elements decisively and firmly. Moreover, even when plotlines continue or begin, Jordan keeps the pace strong. Egwene may be captured, but rather than spending the entire book getting her footing, we see her progressing in her plan to destroy her captors from within. Mat may be traveling with Tuon, but we come to understand his mysterious companion greatly, and we see progress, instead of just aimless conversations. And it all builds to an epilogue that makes it seem as though Jordan's claims of finishing the series in one novel could really have happened, were it not for his death. Knife of Dreams is exactly what longtime fans of the series needed and deserved: a book that gets back to Jordan's fast-paced plotting, moves the story along, makes the characters grow and change, and generally reminds us why we started in the first place. It's tragic that it took him so long to get back to it, and more so that he never got to see the end of this world, but the fact that he went out so strong makes me glad that he made it through this last book before his death. |
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