Book Review: The Son of Neptune, by Rick Riordan
I have to say that I'm just extremely impressed with Rick Riordan. When I first saw that he'd gone ahead and written a new Demigod series, The Heroes of Olympus (starting with The Lost Hero), I thought he'd maybe gone back to the well one too many times. (Spoilers for the first book start here.) But in bringing in the Roman side of things, even if obliquely in the first book, and introducing compelling new characters, giving a son of Hephaestus and daughter of Aphrodite interesting things to do, it totally worked.
Well, fine. But how are you going to follow that with a book revolving around a character we've already become well acquainted with over the course of five previous books? It was fine to have Jason Grace be an amnesiac, struggling to regain his memories, because we didn't know anything about him. But how would that work with Percy Jackson?
Totally. Worked.
Again, it was in bringing out the Roman side of things, this time much more explicitly, and introducing the Legion and Camp Jupiter (by the way, Spoilers for Book Two) that made it work.
For those not in the know, the Greeks came first, and when the Romans basically took Greek culture and made it the basis of Roman society, they adapted Greek mythology to their own ways of thinking. So it makes perfect sense that gods who were important and revered in Greece might be less important, or even dreaded or hated, in Rome. So the whole idea of the gods having two different aspects makes, if not total sense, at least some sense.
Again in this book, Riordan introduced us again to demigod children of gods who we'd seen, but gave us new angles on their abilities. Both Frank and Hazel we great examples of this, and they're characters who are easy to love. Ella the harpy was another welcome addition, as was Arion the foul-mouthed super horse.
Also welcome was the tour of the West Coast, from San Francisco to Portland and Seattle and Vancouver and Alaska. Granted, Riordan made a few mistakes in presenting Anchorage and environs in June, but that's probably not surprising. (No, the Chugach Range is not easily described as "snow-capped" during the summer. I proposed to my wife on Flattop Peak in July, and there was only snow in cracks and crevices that rarely saw the sun. And we actually go swimming in lakes in the summer without having to break ice to get to them. Shocking, I know. And yes, the lakes are definitely cold. But I quibble.)
In short, I really enjoyed The Son of Neptune and am now waiting for the next book. And I'll continue to wait, because my impatient son couldn't wait a few months to ease the wait between books two and three. Argh!
We didn't actually do this one as a read-aloud, because my son wanted to read it himself, having just read The Lost Hero by himself (WTG, Pancake Eater!). Funny story: I wanted a copy to read myself that I could drag along to work, so I checked my local online library catalog and saw they had three copies on the bestsellers rack. Woot! I hopped in my car, and collected the book. And a traffic ticket. Think Rick Riordan will foot the bill for me? (He might be more inclined had I actually *purchased* the book, I suppose.)
As usual, it's a fairly slow start to the year for me. I've started five titles already, and at some point I need to double back and finish a few holdover reads from last year. I've got The Passage from Library2Go, though I fear my reading pace isn't sufficient to finish it before my time expires. And I picked up the new Koontz, but it looks creepy enough that I may just not choose to read the whole thing. And then I've got a couple of nonfiction titles I've started. I really don't know what I'll finish next. I just know it'll likely be a week or two. Why?
We've started watching Friday Night Lights on Netflix. Amazing how much reading one can not do when watching the Idiot Box. Sigh. (I blame both Tyler and Sherry from Semicolon Blog. Great show, though.)
Whim Surfing 2011
A quick word about my post title here is needed, I think. I sometimes describe my process for choosing books to read as "Wherever the whims may take me." I don't generally set out to read a lot of specific titles, so I'm often just tossed about by random recommendations and, particularly, Washington County Cooperative Library Services's New Materials RSS feed.
Once again we come to the Book List time of the year. I read a grand total of 63 books this year (most of which I reviewed), not counting audio (73 with audio) and surpassed my goal of 52 books (a book a week) and 20,000 pages by a good margin. Perhaps you've read a bunch of my reviews this year, but perhaps you've missed a few. Here's where you can catch up. Here's the list of everything I read (in print) this year. The title will link to the review (if I reviewed it), and I'll mention where I got it and scrawl down a tweet-length review:
- The Gun Seller, by Hugh Laurie. Library. Hilariously witty, as you'd probably expect from Hugh Laurie.
- Gregor the Overlander, by Suzanne Collins. Library. This was a re-read (linking to last year's review) as a read-aloud. And it's a terrific book. Seriously, pick up this series.
- Pathfinder, by Orson Scott Card. Borrowed from a coworker. At this point OSC is a can't-miss for me. Great science fiction mixed with fantasy.
- The Lost Gate, by Orson Scott Card. Library. That can't-miss thing strikes again. This time more straight fantasy with a nicely realized world.
- Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, by Suzanne Collins. Purchased. I bought the boxed set so we could continue the read-aloud journey. Still awesome.
- Fountains of the Deep: The Creation Story and Mainstream Science, by Steven L. Ross. Review Copy. A new approach to interpreting Genesis for me: Revelation Days. Really good stuff.
- The Last Sorcerers: The Path From Alchemy to the Periodic Table, by Richard Morris. Library. It's about time I read a chemistry book, since my dad's one of them chymists.
- Gregor and the Curse of The Warmbloods, by Suzanne Collins. Purchased. Not, perhaps, the best of the series, but still worth reading.
- Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. Library. Enjoyable and beautifully written, but not quite what I expected.
- Will the Theologians Please Sit Down, by David Bercot. Library. I'd been wanting to read Bercot for a while, and this whet my appetite for more, though I didn't agree with everything in it. But I never do.
- War, by Sebastian Junger. Library. Fantastic and vivid, it drags the reader into the American war experience in Afghanistan.
- What the Night Knows, by Dean Koontz. Library. Just really not my favoritest Koontz. Too dark without enough quirky Koontziness to balance it out.
- Gregor and the Marks of Secret, by Suzanne Collins. Purchased. More read-aloud goodness.
- The Christian Atheist: Believing in God But Living As If He Doesn't Exist, by Craig Groeschel. Not what I expected, but in a good way.
- Armageddon Science: The Science of Mass Destruction, by Brian Clegg. Library. If you're a physics fanboy like me, this is a can't-miss title. A survey of the dangers of high-energy particle physics, atomic physics, nanotechnology, and a bunch of other cool but "is it safe?" topic in science.
- Gregor and the Code of Claw, by Suzanne Collins. Purchased. A seriously good series. Can't recommend it more highlyer.
- Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, by Rob Bell. Purchased. I loved it, because I'm cool with questions, and Hell needs to be questioned, even if we conclude that the traditional view is correct.
- Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up: A New Look at Today's Evangelical Church in the Light of Early Christianity, by David Bercot. Purchased. Fascinating look at some of the mainstream theology that the early church took as heresy.
- Holes, by Louis Sachar. Owned. This was a re-read for me, but a read-aloud for my son. He didn't care for the flashback parts of the book, but enjoyed the ending. (The link is to my review from a couple of years ago.)
- The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book, by Timothy Beal. Library. Not one of my favorite reads of the year, but more for content than style. I'm not impressed with liberal conjecture about the history of the Bible, though the survey of Bible versions was interesting.
- Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms, by Ralph Keyes. Library. Just a terrific and amusing book about our tendency to mince words.
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, by J. K. Rowling. Purchased (used-book sale). First-time read aloud for my boy, and I found it to be a difficult one. Click on through for the explanation.
- Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln's Corpse, by James Swanson. Library. I had high hopes for this one based on the all-out awesomeness of its predecessor, Manhunt. Bummer that it just wasn't as interesting. I recommend picking up the YA adaptation titled Bloody Times.
- The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan. Library. Read-aloud for the boy. And now he commonly makes reference to Greek mythology. BTW, the link isn't a review of the book, but rather why the movie was a stinker.
- Architects of Tomorrow, Volume 1, by William Van Winkle. Review copy. William is a personal friend of mine and lobbed me a copy of his fascinating series of interviews with notable folks from the world of technology. Great stuff!
- And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible's Original Meaning, by Joel Hoffman. Purchased. A great survey of translation philosophy and why it matters, with scads of examples of how things can go wrong.
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J. K. Rowling. Purchased. Not much to say here. Read-aloud. Still fun.
- Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything, by Stephen Baker. Library. Awesome. If you were at all aware of the Watson v. Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter match on Jeopardy, check this one out.
- The Sea of Monsters, by Rick Riordan. Library. Another enjoyable bit of fun, done as a read-aloud for my boy.
- The Magician's Elephant, by Kate DiCamillo. Library. Now this is how to write a book to be done as a read-aloud. Charming and enjoyable.
- Robopocalypse, by Daniel Wilson. Library. A robot uprising retold in oral history format, much like World War Z. Should make a fun movie. A little heavy on language, though.
- Buried Secrets, by Joseph Finder. Library. Mr. Finder is a very reliable source for engrossing thrillers. This is no exception.
- The Language of Science and Faith: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions, by Karl W. Giberson and Francis S. Collins. Library. A terrific FAQ all about theistic evolution, tackling more of the theological implications than such works generally do. Highly recommended.
- Frankenstein: The Dead Town, by Dean Koontz. Library. A bit rushed, but a decent conclusion to a probably unnecessary second series.
- The Cross & the Prodigal: Luke 15 Through the Eyes of Middle Eastern Peasants, by Kenneth E Bailey. InterLibrary Loan. Just a beautiful and insightful book. Really well done.
- The Titan's Curse, by Rick Riordan. Library. Enjoyed it very much as a read-aloud.
- Knuckler: My Life With Baseball's Most Confounding Pitch, by Tim Wakefield and Tony Massarotti. Library. I couldn't go a year without a baseball book, now could I? Nope. Tim Wakefield is one of the Good Guys in the sport, and this account of his life trying to tame the knuckleball is fascinating.
- The Man Who Folded Himself, by David Gerrold. Library. Highly recommended for the quality science fiction, but the moral content is really troubling.
- A Boy and His Bot, by Daniel Wilson. Library/Library2Go. One of my first reads on my NOOK Color. Fun and whimsical as a read-aloud.
- World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, by Max Brooks. Library2Go. Just plain awesome. Not as grim or scary as you'd probably think, and a bit cleaner overall than Robopocalypse.
- Begat: The King James Bible & The English Language, by David Crystal. Library. Took me a while to read, but the short chapters worked really well as bedtime reading.
- The Battery: How Portable Power Sparked a Technological Revolution, by Henry Schlesinger. Library2Go. A great, short popular history of the rise of the battery and the uses to which it's been put.
- The Ruins of Gorlan: Ranger's Apprentice Book One, by Flanagan. Library2Go. Loved it as a read-aloud, and we'll definitely come back to the series in the future.
- The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, by Max Brooks. Library2Go. The technical manual to go alone with WWZ, and quite enjoyable.
- Mr. Popper's Penguins, by Richard Atwater. Library2Go. Didn't even know it existed, and it's completely delightful.
- Cooking Solves Everything: How Time in the Kitchen Can Save Your Health, Your Budget, and Even the Planet, by Mark Bittman. NOOK Book. I guess this was my first official "purchased and read" book for my NOOK, and it's only thirty pages long! Baby steps…
- The Battle of the Labyrinth, by Rick Riordan. Library2Go. More read-aloud goodness.
- The Classics: Everything You Need to Know, From Zeus's Throne to Ancient Rome, by Caroline Taggart. Library. I saw this little book on the New Books rack and knew I'd need to read it. Thumbs up!
- After America: Get Ready for Armageddon, by Mark Steyn. Review Copy. The analysis may be accurate, and the writing is good, but I'm just kind of over political books.
- Dracula, by Bram Stoker. NOOK Book. Maybe my favorite book of the year!
- Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, by Anthony Bourdain. Library2Go. A humorous, horrifying look at what goes on behind the scenes at your favorite restaurant.
- The Red Pyramid, by Rick Riordan. Library2Go/Library. Enjoyable, though not quite so enjoyable as the Olympians series. Tune in later to see if the series gets better.
- 11/22/63, by Stephen King. Library. A pretty fast read for a ~900-pager. The depictions of the charms and horrors of small-town life are the real stars in the book. And I dug the ending.
- Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army & Other Diabolical Insects, by Amy Stewart. Library. Great, creepy bug stuff. Awesome illustrations, too.
- The Last Olympian, by Rick Riordan. NOOK Store. Last of the Riordan read-alouds for the year.
- A Christmas Story, by Jean Shepherd. Library. Awesome, but the movie is still more awesomerer.
- The Strain, by Guillermo Del Toro. Library2Go. Great vampy goriness. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
- The Litigators, by John Grisham. Library. Actually a nice return to standard Grisham fare.
- NLT Study Bible: New Living Translation. From my library. Still a nice, readable translation, but I prefer a more word-for-word version. Next year, it's back to the ESV.
- Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls. NOOK Store. I ambushed the boy with this read-aloud. He loved it but didn't like the whole the dogs dying thing.
- Inheritance, by Christopher Paolini. Library. A nice conclusion to the series.
- Micro, by Michael Crichton. Library. A half-baked premise, half-baked characters, and half-baked writing. Not a good recipe for a successful novel.
- Linux Kernel in a Nutshell, by Greg Kroah-Hartman. From my work library, and totally a work read. But it still counts!
Thanks to everyone who read (and commented) this year. Now, on to 2012!
Book Review: Micro, by Michael Crichton
One of the beauties of science fiction is the fun of suspending disbelief. But there's a reason it's fun: I don't have to turn off my brain to do it. That is, good science fiction makes me think, while bad science fiction requires that I stop thinking. In classic Michael Crichton works, like Congo and Jurassic Park, there was enough sciencey stuff to engage my brain and take me up to the point that he switched from science into science fiction. In Timeline, for instance, the book began with a survey of science and science thought and seamlessly shifted from quantum physics into "look what's possible!"
It's one thing to suspend disbelief. It's something else entirely to kick disbelief out of school altogether. And Micro, unfortunately, required me to do just that. In other words, Micro is bad science fiction.
The premise of the book is interesting enough, I suppose. A company, Nanigen (a nod to Ingen from Jurassic Park?), has developed a technology called the Tensor Core, which uses ultra-strong magnetic fields to miniaturize anything. Machines, objects…people.
The beginning of the book is even quite mysterious and exciting. Several guys die in rather gruesome fashion as their throats seemingly cut themselves. Cool, if yucky. From there, though, it becomes rather obvious that the whole premise of the book was basically half-baked.
At this point I should probably remind my reader that Michael Crichton died in 2008. And he left behind at least one finished manuscript (Pirate Latitudes, which I thought was great fun), and probably several unfinished (half-baked) novels. Micro is one of the latter. So Richard Preston stepped in to, as it were, throw the novel back in the oven. But it didn't work for me, for the most part.
The key problem, for me, was when the novel asserted that miniaturization resulted in a decrease in mass. Umm…what? Because mass is a measure of how much stuff something is made of. And if you decrease the stuff, you decrease complexity. Are we talking about a decrease in the number of neurons and synapses in a miniature brain?
I couldn't get past this for probably two hundred pages of the book. I was even prepared to accept a wild explanation for how gravity affected very small things differently than large things. (The book asserts this, but based on the whole lost-mass thing.)
Here's another one: How would a miniature stomach process normal-sized food? Because the individual bits of normal-sized foods would be made up of normal-sized proteins and such. Could a miniature stomach break them down? This question, at least, gets asked in the book, but not until about halfway through. And it was about that time that I decided that if I was going to finish this book and not feel like it was stealing hours from my life, something had to give. So I gave up my questioning and just went with it.
And do you know what? It worked. The book didn't improve in any meaningful way, but I found that as long as I kept my brain firmly turned off, I could enjoy it. Yes, the group of people who ended up in the micro world were conveniently diverse in their expertise (a bunch of PhD students with varying fields including the study of venoms, bugs, botany, hormones, and pheromones). Yes, the bad guy was a stuffed-shirt corporate goon à la the Giovanni Ribisi character in Avatar. Yes, the prose was actually shockingly bad in places.
But still, what's not to love about a bunch of miniature people duking it out with ants and spiders and mosquitoes and wasps? And dying in various gruesome ways? And micro-planes, people! Micro-planes! Who wouldn't want to fly one of those?
I should also point out that for all my trashing of the physics of the book, the biology parts were rather more well done. Though not being a biology fanboy in the same way I'm a physics fanboy, I'm not sure what kind of judge I am.
In summary, I'm recommending you give Micro a pass, unless you're prepared to shelve your brain while reading it. Read Congo instead. Better yet, The Andromeda Strain is excellent as well. And Timeline is good clean fun. And Airframe is a fun mystery. And none of these require an inactive brain.
Well, this is my last book review of the year. Wow, I did like fifty of them this year. Sweet. My book total ended up at 62, which is a solid total for me. Not close to my best total of 72 in 2009, but I actually read a greater number of pages this year. So that's something.
I'm sure I'll be back with another review to kick off the year next week. And I'll have my 2011 list ready to go later today. Maybe I'll even write up a picks and pans post. Though maybe not. Thanks for reading!
Book Review: Inheritance, by Christopher Paolini
I read (listened to, actually) the first book in the Inheritance Cycle a number of years ago (six years, actually) and found it to be interesting enough that I read all the subsequent books in the series as they came out. Since Eragon, Christopher Paolini's writing has definitely improved, though his need for a brutal editor has become all too apparent. All four books of the series are weighty tomes, but written in a fairly readable prose. There are simply too many notes, your majesty.
The story of the Inheritance Series, of course, concludes in Inheritance, and most of the major plot threads find their ends in mostly satisfactory ways. Though I'm sure one unresolved issue, in particular, will rankle some of Paolini's fans. But it actually worked for me. And that's all I'll say about that part. (I'm going for spoiler-free here.)
The long and the short of it is, of course, that if you liked the other books in the series, you'll like this one, and I think it's probably the best of the series. But not having read the others recently, I could be falling victim to the same condition that causes my son to declare that whichever new movie he's seen is his new favorite. (Though Captain America has recently held off a few contenders.)
Interestingly, as the series progressed, I found Eragon's cousin, Roran, to be my favorite character. Nothing against Eragon, but my preference for Roran is similar to the way I prefer Batman to Superman. Roran has no powers. No magic. He has a hammer, and he beats the snot out of any enemies unfortunate enough to cross his path. Man swing hammer. Me like. And kudos to Mr. Paolini for having Roran basically give voice to the reasons I prefer him.
In this final book of the series, the Sauron/Voldemort/Arawn character finally shows up in a meaningful way, and I have to say I approve of how reluctant Paolini was in revealing him. Hmm…that could be taken as a backhanded compliment. Let me be clear: I thought Galbatorix was fairly awesome and a credible antagonist.
One thing this book fell slightly flat on was Mr. Paolini's continued use of Travel Chapters, detailing a character getting from Point A to Point B. I don't like these. Whether it's on horseback, dragonback, on foot or whatever, fantasy novels seem to be particularly guilty of this obsession. I don't like it in The Horse and His Boy, I don't like it in Lord of the Rings (Tolkein may have invented the Travel Chapter), and I believe every book in this series has had at least one such a chapter. I get it. A dragon/horse/rider/walker gets tired eventually. And the trip is a drag. But a chapter about a drag of a trip becomes a drag of a chapter. Kind of like Tom Clancy's bizarre obsession with boring negotiations (detailed in long, boring chapters about how long and boring negotiations are) in The Bear and the Dragon. (Oddly, The Road is one big Point A to Point B trip, and it's one of the best books I've ever read.)
Other than that, though, it's a fun read, and some of the battles are really quite enjoyable. I thought that one battle between two dragons was particularly full of awesome.
Well, we come to the end of another year of book reviews, so I'll be throwing up my Big List of Books Read in 2011 soon, and it's with the deepest regret that the last book on the list this year will almost undoubtedly be my least favorite book of the year. Micro, by the late Michael Crichton. Which contains less coherent science than Inheritance, which actually cleverly alludes to both mass-energy equivalence and radioactivity.
The story of the Inheritance Series, of course, concludes in Inheritance, and most of the major plot threads find their ends in mostly satisfactory ways. Though I'm sure one unresolved issue, in particular, will rankle some of Paolini's fans. But it actually worked for me. And that's all I'll say about that part. (I'm going for spoiler-free here.)
Book Review: Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls
It's perhaps cruel that I read a book about dogs to my desperate-for-a-dog son, who lives with two we're-so-not-getting-a-dog parents. Crueler still is that I read him one of the great (spoiler alert!) the-dog-dies books representative of so much of the Newberry Award canon.
But read it I did, and very much enjoyed coming full circle with Where the Red Fern Grows. You see, I had it read to me in the fifth grade (by Mr. McConnell), along with Summer of the Monkeys. I loved both books, despite the sad ending of the former. I seem to remember a happier ending to the latter. But I'll probably find out soon, as I'm planning to read it to the boy in the near future.
Where the Red Fern Grows is really a wonderful book, focusing on the relationship between a boy, hard work, and his dogs. I think it's significant just how few person names occur in the book, including the name of Billy Coleman, the protagonist. Because it's really about Billy and his dogs, Little Ann and Old Dan. Oh, I've read other dog books (Ginger Pye and Because of Winn-Dixie being the most recent), but few of them with such compelling dog characters.
The other part that works for me, especially as a dad, is the glimpse into a different time and a very different place. It was a good lesson to my son that Billy didn't have an iPod or a computer, couldn't watch The Clone Wars on the weekends or stop in at Burgerville for a burger and shake. Of course, he replied that at least Billy had dogs. Point for the boy!
Another good lesson for my boy was that a book can have, as he put it, "A good story, but sad." And it sparked an interesting discussion about Heaven and the New Earth, and whether there'll be dogs there. In a classic line, my desperate-for-a-dog son quipped that even if there would surely be dogs in Heaven, "I'll still have to wait like ninety years before then!"
As we recently watched Lord of the Rings together, I've now started reading The Fellowship of the Ring, so that series'll probably tie up my read-alouding for the foreseeable future. (Though we'll hit The Son of Neptune just as soon as the boy finishes reading The Lost Hero.)
Next up, I've decided to put off finishing Micro on account of it's fairly terrible, and moved on to Inheritance, which, while not perfect is at least not insulting to my intelligence. I'm more than halfway through it, so look for that review next week.
BTW, Merry Christmas!!!
Book Review: The Litigators, by John Grisham
I just realized I've now read twenty of John Grisham's books. Whoa. That's a large chunk of my adult reading life spent in his world. And the thing is, I know exactly what I'm getting with each of his new books, and they still work for me. It's a strange thing, kind of like the way Colonel Sanders puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes you crave it fortnightly. (Actually, I haven't had KFC in maybe three or four years.)
When I picked up The Litigators, I wondered how he'd work in an awkward and unintelligent shot at pro-death-penalty people. But he refrained, and the book was the better for it. In fact, I enjoyed the book more than just a little bit. 
The book follows the escapades of the "boutique" (meaning small-time) firm of Finley & Figg, Chicago ambulance chasers, one of whom (Figg) is always looking for the big score, a mass tort case like that portrayed in Erin Brockovich. In Figg's weekly rotation around local funeral homes, he gets a whiff of a looming class action against a major drug company because of a supposedly dangerous cholesterol medication. Of course, he can't resist.
Into the turbulent world of Finley & Figg drops David Zinc, a junior associate for a big law firm who, one day, cracks up on his way to work and realizes he can't do it anymore. He goes on a bender and ends up conveniently signing on with the boutique firm.
More than anything it's David Zinc that pulled me in. I was instantly attracted to his story, and he's what makes the book work. The plot seems to be a critique of the way mass torts are handled, and what little actual evidence is needed to spark a suit, but it's also sort of a denouncement of Big Law. And Big Pharma takes a few licks, too. Having a stake in none of these things, I was able to just enjoy the ruckus.
I still don't think Grisham will ever make it back to the glory days of The Firm and The Pelican Brief, but The Litigators is a step in the right direction after some of his more recent fiction. (Though despite my ripping his political views, The Confession was really quite good.)
In The Litigators, it's like Grisham took the best parts of The Street Lawyer (not his best work) and The King of Torts (my personal choice for his worst work) and made a winning book out of it.
Next up, it's Where the Red Fern Grows. Also, I've got the fourth book in Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Trilogy, aptly named Inheritance. Oh, and Michael Crichton's latest posthumous publication, Micro. (Quick word on that one: Miss it.)
Book Review: The Strain, by Guillermo del Toro
Having recently read Dracula for the first time (loved it!), and being generally attracted to vampire stories (though not emo-vampire stories…never, never, not ever), I've had Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan's The Strain on my To Be Read list for quite some time.
Consisting of about one part Outbreak, two parts World War Z, and several parts Blade, it's got a large amount of awesome in it. I will be reading the rest of the trilogy, which fortunately is already complete. Hooray for procrastination! 
So that's the short version. The Strain is really quite excellent. I won't say there aren't a few stumbles, but the broad strokes of the story and the development of both the protagonists and antagonist are really good.
The narrative is mostly in the present day (or near future), with interludes into the background of the Van Helsing character (Abraham Setrakian) and the vampire, known variously as Sardu and The Master. Setrakian is a nicely compelling character who doesn't lapse into comic-bookishness when he easily could have.
The other main character is Ephraim Goodweather, a CDC scientist called in to investigate the strange happenings that make the beginning of the book read a bit like the pilot of Fringe. (Spoilers here, but nothing you won't get on the front flap.) A passenger airliner lands and quickly loses power. And everyone on board appears to be dead. I really can't go much further into the plot without giving away major spoilers, so I'll just point out some cool stuff without being too specific, and offer basically one criticism of the book. But first, the awesome.
Awesome was the cool and varied (from most vampire stories) anatomy of the vampires. Awesome, and I mean really awesome, was The Master. I was actually surprised that his description didn't impact my sleeping. I guess I got lucky. Also awesome was Vasily Fet, a Russian-American exterminator who factors heavily in the final confrontation.
Now, the not-so-awesome, and it's the whole "let's establish a messed-up family for the protagonist" thing. First of all, what would've been wrong with giving Eph a nice, stable family? Oh, okay, you're right, his job would probably make such a thing unlikely. So I'm willing to let that pass. But the ex-wife, the sort-of girlfriend, and the jerky ex-wife's husband were basically cardboard cutouts. The son was reasonably developed, and so the father-son thing worked for me. But seriously, I could not have been less surprised at where the character arc of the jerky (and here I nearly put a much cruder term) ex-wife's new husband headed. (There's a pun in there that you might get if you've read the book. Do tell.)
I'll keep this short, I guess. Except for minor quibbles, it's a good read. I should probably warn you, though, that there's a fair bit of language, and obviously some fairly bloody violence. Awesome. 
Next up, I just finished Grisham's latest and was pleasantly surprised. I'm also more than halfway through a read-aloud of Where the Red Fern Grows, since I haven't read since fifth grade (a read-aloud by Mr. McConnell). Oh, and I picked up the latest post-mortem Michael Crichton title, Micro.
Book Review: A Christmas Story, by Jean Shepherd
I'm just going to assume that you've seen A Christmas Story on TBS at some point. If you haven't, just tune to TBS (if you have cable, which I don't) on Christmas Eve, and you'll see it. Trust me. It's worth your time.
A little more than a year ago, I noticed a small book at Barnes & Noble on their Holiday Books display, titled A Christmas Story. Could I pass it up? Well, yes, I could. But I requested it from the library. Unfortunately, it didn't come through for me until January. So I returned it and placed a Hold Request on it and set it to activate in November. Clever, no?
So now I've read it, and while the movie is still, to me, the definitive story, the book is highly worth reading. I don't often laugh out loud in response to humorous prose, but this one had my cackling in a few places. The book is actually a small collection of Jean Shepherd's short stories about life in suburban Indiana, and they include the broad strokes of the A Christmas Story narrative familiar to those who've seen the film.
In fact, the film is a terrific example of an adaptation of a short story collection. Some characters are combined, and events are strung together to make a coherent timeline. The two glaring omissions, or perhaps just brilliant additions to the film, are the famous "Oh, fudge" and "Double dog dare" scenes. But much of the other charm is there in full bloom, including the yellow-eyed bully (in the film, a combination of two bullies), the refrain of "You'll shoot your eye out," and the hilarious tale of the Major Award.
And in case you're wondering if the style of language is the same, check this out:
The terror of Grover Dill, the fear of yelling the things that I had yelled, my father coming home, my obscenities…I heaved it all out. It poured out of me in great heaving rushes, splattering the walls, the floor, the sink. Old erasers that I had eaten years before, library paste that I had downed in second grade, an Indian Head penny that I had gulped when I was two! It all came up in thunderous, retching heaves.
An interesting thing I learned while checking out the background of the book and movie is that Jean Shepherd was the wonderful narrator for the film. And this is a thing not to be taken for granted, because some authors are dreadful narrators.
So…what do I have next? I finished The Last Olympian read-aloud, but I won't repeat my review here. I've got the new Grisham, and I'm halfway through The Strain, and I've started reading Where the Red Fern Grows to the Boy. Yes, I'm a cruel dad to read one of those "The Dog Dies" books. But it's still a wonderful story.
Book Review: Wicked Bugs, by Amy Stewart
I guess it might be surprising that as scared as I am of spiders, I actually think most bugs are cool. Just not spiders. But I'm not even slightly afraid of bees (except the Asian Giant Hornet), and roaches and beetles and moths just don't bother me. (My son and I got to pet a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach at the Oregon Zoo. But I'm not sure I'd hold one…)
My weird brother-in-law, I mean one of my weird brothers-in-law, will march right up to a spider web and pet the spider. Am I wrong that that's just, er, wrong? I think not.
But yeah, I think bugs are fairly cool. And I'm also glad I live in Northern America, because as Amy Stewart points out in Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napolean's Army & Other Diabolical Insects, humans are vastly outnumbered by bugs, and so many of the nasties are Tropical. 
The subtitle of the book is a bit misleading, as several spiders and worms make the list, but "diabolical insects" has such a nice ring to it that I'm inclined to let it pass.
The titular bugs fall into several categories of wickedness, including Painful, Destructive, Deadly, Dangerous, and Horrible. In the Painful category there are several winners, including the aforementioned Asian Giant Hornet, which is just absolutely huge. (Go to the link I included earlier. Seriously. The size of your finger.) It can pair up with a few friends and utterly destroy a normal honeybee hive in a matter of hours. Interestingly, the smaller bees use a hope-it-kills-them-before-us defense, by buzzing around and heating up the inside of the hive to the point that the larger bees die. It's a tightrope act, though, because the smaller bees start to drop dead at a not much higher temperature. Cool though.
In the Deadly category, there are such all-stars as the Assassin Bug, which transmits Chagas' Disease, which is on the Red Cross's vast list of pre-donation questions. For the Dangerous category, it's hard to beat the Black Fly, as you can see here:
In some cases the flies swarm so densely, climbing into the ears, nose, eyes, and mouth, that an animal can suffocate or run itself off a cliff in an attempt to get away. The flies have even killed livestock by exsanguination, or the draining of blood…In 1923, along the Danube River in the southern Carpathian Mountains, a ferocious swarm left twenty-two thousand animals dead.
The list of Destructive bugs includes a Who's Who of beetle species, including the Mountain Pine Beetle and the Colorado Potato Beetle. I've always kind of liked beetles, but they can be really quite mean. Another good one here is the Formosan Subterranean Termite, thought to be responsible for weakening New Orleans' levies before Hurricane Katrina exposed how compromised they were.
The Horrible category contains such lovely sub-categories as bugs that burrow under human skin and others that turn other critters into zombies. The evil Tongue-eating Louse makes the list here, and a quick Google Image Search will show you why (it's fish-tongues, by the way).
I won't spoil any more delightful surprises for you, but if you're fascinated by bugs, I highly recommend this book. The illustrations, by Briony Morrow-Cribbs, are also entirely awesome. (Though also creepy.)
Next up, I've got Jean Shepherd's A Christmas Story and The Strain in the works. I'm also finishing up The Last Olympian as a read-aloud, though since I've already reviewed it, I won't post a new one.
Book Review: 11/22/63, by Stephen King
I'd never actually read a Stephen King novel until I picked up 11/22/63 off the bestsellers rack at my local book lender. I listened to The Gunslinger some years ago (and found it didn't suit my taste despite the excellent narration by George Guidall), but I don't consider myself as having read a book unless I've actually, well, read it. Maybe I'm wrong about this. 
(I should point out here that I'm not anti-Stephen King, as The Shawshank Redemption remains one of my very favorite films for its wonderful portrayal of male friendship.)
But why did I pick up King's latest? It's a time-travel thing. I'm a complete sucker for the genre, and it kept popping up on my NOOK Store front page. I didn't buy it, of course. Because I'm cheap frugal at times. Yeah, selectively frugal.
You might call it "tome"-travel just based on it's length, but at 800+ pages, it was still a brisk read with great narrative greed. (I learned that term from Keith Law.)
I've done my best to keep this review spoiler-free, or at least with no spoilers beyond what you'd get from reading the inside flap of the book. But if even that type of spoiler is too much for you, I'll sum up: I likee. I think it was a bit of a change of pace for Mr. King, as there was very little spookiness in it, though there was quite a bit of language, a bit of sex, and a fair amount of violence. But I enjoyed the story and never had to implement a rule like my "No Koontz after 10pm" rule, at least for this book.
The novel follows a high school English teacher, Jake Epping, as he discovers that the local greasy spoon contains a portal to 1958. And thus begins a chain of events leading to Jake's attempt to prevent the assassination of JFK by using the portal. But Jake heads into his mission with at least one side mission in mind, and finds that the past is unwilling to change. In fact, the phrase "the past is obdurate" came up again and again, not quite to the point of "so it goes" in Slaughterhouse-five, but enough to get the message across. "Life turns on a dime" was another oft-repeated maxim.
(Personally, I'm just really attracted to the word obdurate, which is slightly more specific than "stubborn." I'm going to add it to my list of arcane terms, which also contains the word "arcane." Ironic, isn't it, that a word meaning "not generally well understood" should be so generally unknown? Kind of like the word "lisp" having an 's' in it. Hmmm.)
The use of the pantry-time-machine is extremely limited, in that it's a trip to the same moment in time, every time. So while the owner of the restaurant can use it to buy cheap beef, its usefulness in modifying the past is tricky. Because in order to see if you made a difference, you have to travel back, make your change, then come back to the present and see what happened. But then if you go back again, you change everything back, because you always start from the same point.
Most time travel stories don't involve a lot of commitment on the part of the travelers. They just zap in, make a change, and zap out. But here we have Epping going into the past and having to live there for five years or so in order to carry out his changes. And he knows that if he's unsuccessful, it'll take another five years to try again.
Meanwhile, the heart of the story is his interaction with the world of way back. The novel, and his mission(s), take him to two very different small towns and a certain metropolis where the Cowboys play. The two small towns show both the potential charm and potential rot that can exist in a small community, and both towns are almost characters in the story.
I absolutely loved both depictions, of his life in Derry (previously portrayed in It, I'm given to understand) and Josie. For my part, I loved the Josie parts of the story. Ironically, the portions of the book involving his investigations of a certain Mr. Oswald in Dallas were some of the only parts that dragged. But it never dragged to the extent that I didn't want to keep reading. And I found the ending quite satisfying. I'm sure it'll make an excellent film one day.
One gripe I had with the book was the overuse of "awhile" where "a while" was called for. And yes, I just expressed a grammar gripe and ended the sentence with a preposition. How I roll it is. But anyhow, I thought at first that Mr. King could be excused for this flaw on the basis that it was Mr. Epping doing the writing. But Epping is an English teacher. I'm not sure why an editor didn't catch this.
(For those not in the know about "awhile/a while", I'll refer you to my favorite common errors in English usage site. BTW, I discovered this one myself a few years ago and had to dig through my posts and correct my own widespread errant usage.)
Apart from that gripe, though, I rather enjoyed King's writing. Take this example:
For a moment, everything was clear, and when that happens you see that the world is barely there at all. Don't we all secretly know this? It's a perfectly balanced mechanism of shouts and echoes pretending to be wheels and cogs, a dreamclock chiming beneath a mystery-glass we call life. Behind it? Below it and around it? Chaos, storms. Men with hammers, men with knives, men with guns. Women who twist what they cannot dominate and belittle what they cannot understand. A universe of horror and loss surrounding a single lighted stage where mortals dance in defiance of the dark.
Next up is the entirely awesome Wicked Bugs, which could be described as scary, because we are waaay outnumbered in the war on bugs. I've also picked up The Strain from Library2Go, and I've actually made a couple of purchases for my NOOK. But since I've got some stuff on loan, I need to cross those off my list first. In theory.