Moving Pictures - Terry Pratchett

1990; 337 pages. Book #10 in the Discworld series. Genre : Fantasy; Comedy. Overall Rating : 6*/10.

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Moving Pictures is Pratchett's salute to the Motion Picture industry, here called "Holy Wood". The Ankh-Morpork alchemists have (re)-discovered something called "octo-cellulose", which plunges them into making movies (silents, and in black-&-white) and reviving the deserted patch where long ago in a bygone era, film lots and sets were once constructed.

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Going to the movies becomes instantly and incredibly popular in Ankh-Morpork. But something is not quite right. The equilibrium between reality and unreality has shifted. As the people become more enamored with the silver-screen fantasies, some of the real world is slipping away. And in its place...

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What's To Like...

Pratchett pays tribute to all sorts of movies and TV shows. To list a few : Lassie, Tom & Jerry (or is it Itchy & Scratchy?), The Thief of Bagdad, The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, Ben Hur, Jaws, and King Kong. So if movies are your thing, reading Moving Pictures will bring back fond memories.

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A lot of old Discworld friends are here - Gaspode the Wonder Dog (one of my favorites), Detritus the Troll, Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler (call him "CMOT" for short), the Librarian (Oook!), and all the Ankh-Morpork alchemists and wizards, including Archchancellor Ridcully.

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There is the usual plenitude of plotlines. For Mystery lovers, there's something called a resograph, which keeps shooting potentially-lethal pellets around the Unseen University hall for no discernible reason. For you Romantics, there's a trolls-in-love story. And if it's Action you want, how 'bout an Elephant Drive, with 1000 pachyderms tromping over everything, leaving only poop and dust in their wake?

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Quibbles...

The two main cinematic idols - Victor Tugelbend and Ginger (real name : Theda Withel) are kinda blah. Pratchett may have agreed; ANAICT, they're "once-and-dones". The plot is good, but it really doesn't get going until 2/3 of the way through the book. The book lacks the usual quantity of zaniness and humor we've come to expect of Discworld novels.

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But the ending is great. No spoilers here; we'll just say that it's kinda like watching an insane, inverted King Kong flick.

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Kewl New Words...

Crinoline : A hoop-skirt. Languorous : dreamy; lacking spirit or liveliness. Brassica : Cabbages, cauliflowers, turnips, and such (Pratchett somehow is able to turn this into an adjective). Fractious : Stubbornly resistant to authority or control. Pillock : A person whos's not very bright; an idiot.

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Excerpts...

"Now look here," said Rock, his voice winding up like a pitcher's arm. "What you're saying is, is OK for trolls to be shown bashing people with clubs, is not OK to show trolls have finer feelings like squashy humans?"

"She's not saying that at all," said Soll desperately. "She's not-"

"If you cut me, do I not bleed?" said Rock.

No, you don't," said Soll, "but-"

"Ah, yes, but I would bleed if I had blood..." (pg. 202)

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"It's deliquescing," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

"Is it?" said the Chair. "I thought that was some kind of shop." (pg. 308)

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The Movies. The Magic. The Mayhem. And a Talking Mutt.

This is not the finest book in the Discworld series, but an "okay" Pratchett book is still pretty good. Personally, there were too many movie tributes and not enough plot for the first 200 pages. But I'm not a cinema buff.

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When the story finally does get going, Pratchett is back in his element, and it's a great read. But that's a lot of "meh" to wade through first. So we'll give it 6 stars, and suggest that if you've never read a Discworld book, don't make Moving Pictures your first one.

Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson

1999; 1130 pages. Awards : Locus Award 2000 - Best Sci-Fi Novel. Which is strange, since there's no science fiction in it. Nominated for a Hugo and an Arthur C. Clarke Award that same year. Genre : Cyberpunk; Historical Fiction. Overall Rating : 8*/10.

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Cryptonomicon alternates between two storylines. One is set in World War 2, and chronicles the cryptography and counter-intelligence tactics employed against the Axis. There are three main characters - Bobby Shaftoe, a GI grunt; Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, who combines mathematics, code-breaking, and a learning disability; and Goto Dengo, who somehow survives an ordeal that makes Robinson Crusoe's fate seem like a walk in the park.

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The second storyline is set in the present, and follows the descendants of those WW2 characters as they try to set up an electronic-finance company, and their efforts to make it hacker-proof.

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What's To Like...

Not surprisingly, there are lots of descriptive passages. The WW2 parts are well-researched, as is (I presume) the modern-day hacking technology. Its simply amazing how "public" your PC is, thanks to techniques such as phreaking.

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Stephenson creates some vivid fictional places, such as a tropical sultanate called Kinakuta, and a North Sea area called Outer (and Inner) Qwghlm, with its very own Welsh-sounding, vowel-less language. He deftly moves characters all around the world in order to give a comprehensive picture of WW2 counterintelligence and modern day cyber-security. Oh yeah, the compendium of Cryptography, called the Cryptonomicon, is fictional too.

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There is some occasional sloppiness. "Qwghlm" becomes "Qwlghm" late in the book, and there is an unexplained resurrection to addle your mind. Stephenson regularly segues into flashbacks without telling you. There are lots of tangents to deal with, including ten pages about how Ares and Athena are kinda the same god/goddess, except different. Oog.

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Kewl New Words...

Lots of 'em. Here are the kewlest ones. Lissajous : a mathematically-defined curve (like what you see on an oscilloscope). Gnomon : the "arm" of a sundial that determines what time it is. Myrmidons : followers who carry out orders without question. Obloquy : a state of disgrace. Mickle (adj.) : great (here : "a mickle oath"). Tautological : needless repetition of the same sense, but in different words. Colloquy : a formal conversation. Lambency : the appearance of reflected light (as of a sunset on water). Lahar : an avalanche of water and mud down the slopes of a volcano.

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Excerpt...

They gave him an intelligence test. The first question on the math part had to do with boats on a river : Port Smith is 100 miles upstream of Port Jones. The river flows at 5 miles per hour. The boat goes through water at 10 miles per hour. How long does it take to go from Port Smith to Port Jones? How long to come back?

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Lawrence immediately saw that it was a trick question. You would have to be some kind of idiot to make the facile assumption that the current would add or subtract 5 miles per hour to or from the speed of the boat. Clearly, 5 miles per hour was nothing more than the average speed. The current would be faster in the middle of the river and slower at the banks. More complicated variations could be expected at the bends of the river. Basically it was a question of hydrodynamics, which could be tackled using certain well-known systems of differential equations.

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The ship had a band, and the Navy had given Lawrence the job of playing glockenspiel in it, because their testing procedures had proven that he was not intelligent enough to do anything else. (pgs. 26-27)

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Two tires fly. Two wail.

A bamboo grove, all chopped down

From it, warring songs. (the opening haiku)

You will enjoy Cryptonomicon if you're into WW2 history (I am), cryptography (I'm not), pure mathematics (I'm not), and/or computer hacking (I'm not). It is a book for geeks; but non-geeks can still enjoy the subtle humor (such as in the above excerpt) that runs throughout the book; and Stephenson's writing skills.

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The two storylines do eventually tie together, and there is a good ending. The modern-day plot is a yawner for a while - endless meetings, musings, and meandering around Manila. Cryptonomicon is a difficult, long read; so realize beforehand that you will be investing some major hours in this book. I give it 8 stars, cuz the WW2 parts were great, the writing is excellent, and we all really ought to occasionally read a book that's longer than 500 pages.

A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore

2006; 394 pages. Includes an "Are You A Beta Male" quiz in the Appendix, and a cool glow-in-the-dark book cover. Genre : Fiction; Humor. Overall Rating : 9½ */10.

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"Congratulations, you have been chosen to act as Death. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. It is your duty to retrieve soul vessels from the dead and dying and see them to their next body. If you fail, Darkness will cover the world, and Chaos will reign." (pg. 110)

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Thus does Charlie Asher, a Beta Male caring for his newborn daughter (Sophie), learn that he has been given a new job. And which isn't really a spoiler, since you can learn that much by reading the back-cover blurb.

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What's To Like...

There's great humor throughout. Extra credit for making me laugh out loud in a number of places. It's nice to have a Beta Male hero. Even if they don't attract the beautiful girls, remember : "The world may be led by Alpha Males but it is is run by Betas." (pg. 394)

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ADJ is almost a companion book of Moore's vampire books - You Suck and Bloodsucking Fiends. A number of characters from those make appearances here - The Emperor and his dogs, Lazarus and Bummer; the detectives Cavuto and Rivera; and the GF Abby. But there are plenty of new faces too - A tall, black guy in a dapper suit named Minty Fresh; a UE (or so he thinks) named Orcus; two bubble-bath loving hellhounds; and three hilarious harpy-like evilnesses called The Morrigan.

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There are lots of twists. There is Romance for you female readers. There are great metaphors, like "...the great orange towers of the Golden Gate Bridge jutted through the fog like carrots from the faces of sleeping conjoined twin snowmen" or "... the mailman was wearing headphones and listening to something that was inspiring him to bob his head like a pigeon feeding on amphetamines..." (both on pg. 46).

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And just to show you he's not limited to penning wacky humor, Moore inserts a moving interlude of seriousness into the story when Charlie's mother passes away.

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Kewl New Words...

Ramekin : A fire-proof dish (or a cheese dish made with eggs and bread crumbs cooked in said dish, but here it refers to the vessel itself). Shiksa : Jewish, meaning a non-Jewish woman, and a derogatory term. Multifarious : Having many aspects or facets; richly varied.

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Excerpts...

We've given plenty already, but here's one more.

"Why isn't that kid in school?" Rivera asked.

"She's special," Charlie said. "You know, homeschooled."

"That's what makes her so cheerful?"

"She's studying the Existentialists this month. Asked for a study day last week to kill an Arab on the beach." (pg. 70)

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Moore, if you please...

It's hard to think of any negatives. Spoofing Death may not be everyone's cup of tea. The "adult situations" may make some readers blanch. There are several cases of Deus Ex Machina. But who the heck cares? It's a fun read.

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The story has a good ending, yet leaves the door plenty open for a sequel. I'll probably eventually read a Moore book that leaves me "meh", but it hasn't happened yet. So far, he's 3-for-3. We'll give A Dirty Job 9½ stars. If you like Pratchett and Fforde, you will likely find Christopher Moore appealing to the palate.

Minority Report - Philip K. Dick

2002; 290 pages. A tie-in book with the Steven Spielberg movie. Genre : Sci-Fi Short Stories Anthology. Overall Rating : 6½ */10.

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Question : What do the movies Minority Report (with Tom Cruise), Blade Runner (with Harrison Ford), and Total Recall (with Arnold Schwarzensteroids) have in common? Answer : They're all based on stories penned by Philip K. Dick.

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This book is a collection of nine short tales by Dick, the longest of which is only 50 pages. All of them are futuristic sci-fi stories (think Robert Heinlein), and all of them have at least one cool twist in the plot.

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Simply The Best...

The showcase story of course is Minority Report, and it was my favorite of the bunch. The story tackles the subject of "free will vs. predestination", and has several unexpected turns in it.

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Second Variety is set in a world reminiscent of the future time-period in the Terminator movies, but was written way back in 1953. Oh, To Be a Blobel! is from 1964, and focuses on the plight of veterans, in this case hanging out at the VUW (Veterans of Unnatural Wars). What The Dead Men Say is also from 1964, and looks at cryogenics long before it was feasible. Ted Williams shooda read this one before he had himself froze.

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Simply The Rest...

The other five - Imposter, War Games, Electric Ant, Faith of our Fathers, and We Can Remember it for You Wholesale (the story Total Recall is based on) are "meh", but that's because they are mostly the shorter offerings in Minority Report. It's tough to write a memorable epic in 10 pages.

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Kewl New Words...

Vitiated : corrupted. Somatic : relating to the body (as opposed to the mind or spirit). Introject : to incorporate the characteristics of someone into one's own psyche unconsciously. Simulacrum : a vague or unreal semblance of something.

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Excerpts...

"With the aid of your precog mutants, you've boldly and successfully abolished the postcrime punitive system of jails and fines. As we all realize, punishment was never much of a deterrent, and could scarcely have afforded comfort to a victim already dead."

They had come to the descent lift. As it carried them swiftly downward, Anderton said : "You've probably grasped the basic legalistic drawback to precrime methodology. We're taking in individuals who have broken no law."

"But they surely will," Witwer affirmed with conviction. (pgs 2-3).

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The peddler reached, selected a gray paper packet. "Sixty trade dollars," he stated. "With a full guarantee; if it does not do as promised, return the unused portion for a full and cheery refund."

"And what," Chien said cuttingly, "is it guaranteed to do?"

"It will rest eyes fatigued by the countenance of meaningless official monologues," the peddler said. "A soothing preparation; take it as soon as you find yourself exposed to the usual dry and lengthy sermons which-" (pg. 233)

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A couple words about Philip K. Dick...

Although he won a Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1963, for most of his life, Philip K. Dick (his real name, and the "K" stands for "Kindred") was an unknown, starving artist. The Wikipedia article on him is here. His mental health was shaky at best, but it allowed him to meet God (who went by the name of "Valis") and have metaphysical visions. The drugs probably contributed to this.

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He died just as work was starting on the movie Blade Runner. Like John Kennedy Toole, he achieved fame and fortune only after he passed away. Today, his biggest following seems to be out on the Internet, where devoted readers of Dick regularly tout his works.

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The Ver-Dick...

One needs to remember who the target audience was for these stories. Most of them appeared initially in sci-fi magazines and anthologies. Teenage boys care very little about things like character development and literary merits. The only thing that matters is the storyline. That pretty much sums up the style here. Fiction this is. Literature it ain't.

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These are entertaining tales, but only if you're into 60's sci fi. Because of their shortness, there isn't a lot of depth. So I wonder - does he flesh out the plotlines and characters in his full-length novels? Heinlein's novels, of the same genre and written in the same time-period, certainly have substance. I give Minority Report 6½ stars - because it's above-average in what it sets out to do - introduce you to a new author, presumably after you saw the movie. Just keep your expectations in line with whom Dick was writing for.

Thursday Next - First Among Sequels - Jasper Fforde

2007; 362 pages. #5 in the Thursday Next series (or #6, if you count "The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco"). Genre : Fictional Book-Jumping. Overall Rating : 9*/10.

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It's been 14 years since the events in Something Rotten. Thursday Next is now ostensibly living a quiet life with hubby Landen and three kids (Friday, Tuesday, and Jenny). She's working for a carpet company, but the carpet company is a front for the officially disbanded SpecOps, and SpecOps is a front for Thursday's job with Jurisfiction.

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Trouble is a-brewin'. There's a Stupidity Surplus in England and Reading Rates are down. Cheese-smuggling is rampant and the Minotaur is still on the loose. The Hades family is back in action, as is Goliath Corp. Not only is The End Of Time rapidly approaching, but what they do to Pride And Prejudice is absolutely intolerable.

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What's To Like...

It's vintage Fforde - lots of threads and lots of wit. There are multiple Thursdays, multiple Fridays, multiple timelines, and lots of books-jumping. Fforde teases you with oodles of plot detail tidbits, and you have to figure out whether they're red herrings, MacGuffins, loose ends, or integral parts of one of the plotlines. There's some of each.

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Some old friends are back. Uncle Mycroft has died, but his ghost still putters around in the workshop. Pickwick has lost all her feathers and needs a knitted sweater. Even the Cat Formerly Known as Cheshire shows up.

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The book gets off to a slow start. Fforde spends a lot of time with the back-story, especially explaining how all the SpecOps and Jurisfiction departments are set up. After a hundred pages, I was beginning to wonder when the action would begin. I shouldn't've worried. The last 250 pages are fantastic.

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Kewl New Words...

Marram : a type of grass usually found on beaches. Profligate : wildly extravagant. Duvet : a soft quilt, usually filled with down. Privet : a European shrub, commonly used to make hedgerows.

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Excerpts...

"Splendid! I just had an idea for a cheap form of power : by bringing pasta and antipasta together, we could be looking at the utter annihilation of ravioli and the liberation of vast quantities of energy. I safely predict that an average-size cannelloni would be able to power Swindon for over a year. Mind you, I could be wrong." (pg. 18)

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"...and the first classic to be turned into a reality book show?"

"Pride and Prejudice, announced Yogert proudly. "It will be renamed The Bennets and will be serialized live in your household copy the day after tomorrow. Set in starchy early-nineteenth-century England, the series will feature Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and their five daughters being given tasks and then voted out of the house one by one, with the winner going on to feature in Northanger Abbey, which itself will be the subject of more 'readeractive' changes." (pg. 272-73)

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Paragraph Lost...

This was a delightful read, so it rates Nine Stars. First Among Sequels ends by setting up the next book, which is titled "One of our Thursdays is Missing".

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My only concern is whether Fforde's getting burnt out on the Thursday Next tales. This book came out in 2007. He's promised us at least one more book in the "Nursery Crime" series; and his most-recent offering is Shades Of Grey, the first story in a new trilogy. Will he run out of new twists in the book-jumping theme? Is he looking for novel challenges? Oh well. Even if it ends with the next installment, it's been fun following Thursday's exploits.

The Food Of The Gods - H.G. Wells

1904; 254 pages. Full Title : "The Food of the Gods And How it Came to Earth". 1967 price (new) : $0.75.; used-book price today : $2.00. Genres : Classic Fiction; Early Sci-Fi; Edwardian Literature. Overall Rating "B".

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The sci-fi premise : There is a compounf in young animals and plants that causes them to have growth spurts. This discontinues once the organism has reached a certain age or size. But what if that compound could be identified, made, and fed for a longer time to the organism?

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Two turn-of-the-century scientists research and synthesize the compound ("The Food of the Gods") and decide to test it on hatchlings at an experimental farm. It works, but things immediately go awry because the farm custodians - think Ma & Pa Kettle - are incredibly sloppy with the FOTG. Soon wasps, earwigs, and rats get into it and grow to unheard-of size, and when it falls into the soil, gigantic plants result. Then the scientists start feeding it to infants.

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What's To Like...

H.G. Wells is often called the "father of science fiction", so this is primordial stuff. The structure of the plot is different from both modern and 50's sci-fi, the latter of which was my first taste of this genre. There is a subtle, British humor throughout the book (including chortle-inducing names), but the real difference is the switching from one theme to another.

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TFOTG starts with your standard "Jurassic Park" theme. Giant, rampaging critters wreak mayhem o'er the land. Crichton could build this into a trilogy, but it only takes Wells about 100 pages to resolve it.

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Then the story switches to a sociological theme. Wells looks at how the new phenomenon changes the lives of the local humans. Giant rats and wasps that can kill affect our position at the top of the food-chain. So do 40-foot tall humans.

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The last third of the book switches to a political theme. Friction inevitably develops between the "giants" and the "pigmies", especially when the latter expect the former to confine themselves to restricted areas and only do menial jobs. Wells was an avowed socialist, and it is rather obvious that the giants here represent the lower classes.

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Surprisingly, this was a slow-read for me. The sentences are long and complex, with lots of flowery verbiage. Oh well, at least it isn't Milton.

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Kewl New Words...

There were a bunch. Teufteufing : making the onomatopeian sound of a motor (French). Eleemosynary : dependent on, or considered to be, an act of charity. Cavil : trivial objections. Gride : to produce a grinding sound. Almoner : one who distributes alms or takes care of the material and social needs of patients in a hospital. Irruption : a sudden, violent entrance or bursting in. Navvy : a laborer required to do menial work. Intercalary : inserted into the calendar to make it correspond to the solar year (think February 29th). Chalybeate : containing salt of, or tasting like, Iron. Importunate : expressing earnest entreaty. Selvedge : the ornamental border of a carpet, designed not to fray. Adumbration : vague advance portents; an indistinct foreshadowing.

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Excerpts...

They were of course quite undistinguished-looking men, as indeed all true scientists are. There is more personal distinction about the mildest-mannered actor alive than there is about the entire Royal Society. (pg. 20)

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Lady Wondershoot liked bullying Caddles. Caddles was her ideal lower-class person, dishonest, faithful, abject, industrious, and inconceivably incapable of responsibility. (pg. 134)

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"Look at them! And I know their father, a brute, a sort of brute beast with an intolerant loud voice, a creature who has run amuck in our all too merciful world for the last thirty years or more. An engineer! To him all we hold dear and sacred is nothing." (pg. 183)

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A different world...

The thing I like most about The Food of the Gods is the way Wells depicts life in the English countryside 100+ years ago. The first motorcars had just begun to appear on the streets. Most people still rode horseback or in wagons. There were lots of small, rural villages, all essentially isolated. There was no radio and no TV, the news came from neighbors or newspapers. Science was more a hobby than an industry.

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This is not one of Wells' better-known books, but it's still good. I'll give it a "B", content to know that there is some Edwardian reading out there that isn't chick-lit.

Hurricane Punch - Tim Dorsey

2007; 362 pages. Book #8 in Dorsey's Serge Storms series. Genres : Humor, Crime Fiction, Beach Novel. Overall Rating : "B+".

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Serge Storms, a lovable serial killer (he'd prefer the tag "impromptu dispenser of justice") and Coleman, a complete stoner (he'd prefer the tag "complete stoner") crisscross the state of Florida, eliminating obnoxious characters, enjoying the balmy weather in the eyes of hurricanes, avoiding the relentless pursuit of Agent Mahoney, and trying to figure out why a copycat killer is trying to steal the limelight from Serge.

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What's To Like...

The book is laugh out loud funny, as humorous as a Bill Bryson book. There is a nice twist at the end, but as with Stephanie Plum novels, the dialogue and interplay between the characters is more important than the story. Coleman is a hoot (think "Chong" of Cheech and Chong); and Serge is charmingly charismatic.

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There is sex and cussing, but it fits here. Then there are the ingenious ways which Serge devises to dispense his vigilante justice. For instance, the wanna-be-a-black-guy white guy who plays his truck stereo at 2000 decibels is dispatched by converting a hotel room into the inside of a giant speaker, tying the offender to a chair in the middle, and zapping his insides with enough reverb to register on the Richter scale. Hannibal Lecter would be jealous.

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This was my first Serge Storms book. Dorsey doesn't start with a backstory, so I was a bit confused initially about Serge and Coleman's roles. Also, Serge is a veritable walking encyclopedia of Florida history, culture, and geographical trivia. That's great if you're a Floridian; alas I'm not. But I quibble.

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Kewl New Words...

Factotum : an employee who serves in a variety of capacities. (Jeez. I go 50 years without ever meeting this word, and then it crops up in two books in a row). Truculent : disposed to fighting; defiantly aggressive.

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Excerpt...

She covered the phone and gave Serge an inconvenienced look. "Who are you?"

"The new guys."

"I haven't seen you before."

"We're new." Serge looked back at Coleman. "Take note. That's why she's behind the counter."

"What'd you say?"

"I was telling him I can see how you got to be back there."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's a neutral statement, personally subjective, like a psychiatrist's butterfly inkblot. If you feel bursting with success, take it as a compliment. If not, consider it a cultural intervention."

She squinted with cranial discomfort. "What are you talking about?"

"Exactly. And that's the question you have to answer for yourself." (pg. 209)

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It's only funny until someone gets hurt - then it's hilarious.

Dorsey is often (and aptly) compared to Carl Hiaasen. I've read one book by each author, and so far I find Dorsey much more entertaining and funny. Admittedly, he walks a fine line by making a serial killer and a dopehead his two main heroes. But it works.

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There's nothing deep here - so take Hurricane Punch to the beach with you when you plan to work on your tan. Yet it was delightfully entertaining, and I'm sure I'll end up reading more in the series.

Factotum - Charles Bukowski

1975; 205 pages. Genre : Autobiographical Fiction. Overall Rating : "C-".

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Lifestory-wise, Factotum follows Ham On Rye. Henry "Hank" Chinaski (Bukowski's alter ego) has just moved out of his parents' house and away from L.A. The book opens with him arriving in New Orleans. For the rest of the book, Chinaski moves from city-to-city; from low-paying job-to-job; and from one drunken bender to the next. The story is set during World War 2, with Chinaski having been deferred from the armed service.

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What's To Like...

Factotum is a quick read, without any complexity to slow you down. If you want to find out what living on Skid Row feels like, this is the book for you. If you want to feel good about your present employment, the various crappy jobs that Chinaski works at (albeit briefly each time) will make yours look much better.

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The problem with Factotum is there's no progress. Chinaski's life consists of booze, cigarettes, look for a job, booze, sex, cigarettes, get hired, booze, cigarettes, booze, sex, get fired, booze, move to another city. Then start the cycle all over again. Halfway through, you can throw "play the horses" sporadically into the above routine. Repeat the whole process about eight times, and you're done.

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There's also a bit of TMI. There's not enough money for both toilet paper and booze, so guess which one isn't bought? NBD, one can always use the newspaper as TP. Except that it doesn't do as efficient of a job as the real stuff. Or so writes Bukowski. I'll take his word for it.

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It's hard to tell how much is fiction and how much is simply me being naive about the dregs of society. Chinaski only has one pick-up line, and that's, "Hey, baby. How 'bout lifting your skirt?" But it seems to get good results. Hmmm. Is that wishful fantasy, or is that how one really establishes social relations on Skid Row?

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Kewl New Words...

Factotum : a servant employed to do a variety of jobs. (fits Chinaski to a tee). 86'd : To be refused service. (previously, I only knew it as meaning "to be killed").

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Excerpts...

That was all a man needed : hope. It was lack of hope that discouraged a man. I remembered my New Orleans days, living on two five-cent candy bars a day for weeks at a time in order to have leisure to write. But starvation, unfortunately, didn't improve art. It only hindered it. A man's soul was rooted in his stomach." (pg. 63)

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National Bakery Goods was located nearby. They gave me a white smock and a locker. They made cookies, biscuits, cupcakes and so forth. Because I had claimed two years of college on my application, I got the job as Coconut Man. The Coconut Man stood up on a perch, scooped his shovel into the shredded coconut barrel and dumped the white flakes into a machine. (pg. 189-90)

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Even though it follows Ham On Rye story-wise, Bukowski wrote Factotum seven years before he penned HOR. The style is similar - blunt and gritty - but HOR is much more interesting. Maybe it's because HOR is about Chinaski's development as a youth. Or maybe Bukowski in 1982 was just a more accomplished writer than he was in 1975.

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My son had clued me in that reading Bukowski was a hit-or-miss affair. After two "hits" - see the reviews here and here, this one was a "miss" for me. There is some earthy humor, and some insightful musing, but not enough of either. My next Buko book will undoubtedly be either some of his poems or his short stories, but not another part of his 5-volume autobiography.

Un Lun Dun - China Mieville

2007; 471 pages. Awards : NY Times Bestseller; 2008 Locus Award for Young Adult Book. Miéville has won a Locus Award four times. Genre : YA; Sci Fantasy. Overall Rating : "A".

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Un Lun Dun = UnLondon = an alternate dimension London. Geographically, it's in the same place as London, but there the similarity ends. When 12-year-olds Zanna and Deeba inadvertently stumble iacross the dimensional threshold, they encounter all sorts of strange new things - Binja (martial arts-wielding trash bins); Webminster Abbey (watch out for the spider thingies); Unbrellas (this is where broken umbrellas from our dimension migrate to); and giraffes you definitely don't want to cross paths with. Oh, and an evil presence ("the Smog") just happens to be threatening the very existence of UnLondon at that moment.

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What's To Like...

There's a great storyline; some delightful wordplay and fabulous characters to meet. This is kind of a cross between Lewis Carroll's Through The Looking Glass, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, and Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman. You'll find it in the "Young Adult" section of your bookstore, but adults will enjoy it too.

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Miéville has a message here, but there's no preaching and he "shows rather than tells". He also has an artistic touch, and he's sprinkled a bunch of his sketches throughout the book. One drawing shows what a "house-sized fist, carved out of stone, with windows in its knuckles" looks like. Neat.

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Kewl & New Words...

Un Lun Dun is written in "English" (as opposed to "American") so there are a lot of Britishisms here. Miéville conveniently lists of bunch of these in an Appendix at the back of the book. Here's a sampling : bog off; do a bunk, knackered, lairy, manky, minging, sarky, shtum, take the Michael, and yonks. "Knackered" I know; all the rest were new to me.

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Excerpts...

They ran past chefs baking roof-tiles in their ovens and chiseling apart bricks over pans, frying the whites and yolks that emerged; past confectioners with jars full of candied leaves; past what looked like an argument at a honey stall between a bear in a suit and a cloud of bees in the shape of a man. (pg. 36)

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"Where's it going?" Zanna said.

"Crossing the Odd, to some of the other abcities," Jones said."If you're brave enough to try, you might be able to catch a train from UnLondon to Parisn't, or No York, or Helsunki, or Lost Angeles, or Sans Francisco, or Hong Gone, or Romeless... It's a terminus." (pg. 60)

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To be or not to be. That is the quest...

Almost all "quest" novels contain the same elements. There's always a Chosen One, who's almost always the most unlikely one of the bunch. There are always some prophecies, which are true but inevitably misinterpreted. Our hero always assembles an intrepid band of colleagues to help him, who always manage to stay alive at the very least until the climactic ending. If they do die earlier, they always come back as some sort of ethereal ally. There's always an Ultimate Evil, and there's almost always an Ultimate Artifact that amazingly can penetrate the UE's one-and-only Achilles' heel. But to get that UA, there are always a bunch of mini-quests to do.

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Un Lun Dun is a quest story. But it seems as if Miéville wrote it with the idea of violating as many of those sacred quest elements as possible. The result is a refreshingly different read.

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I thoroughly enjoyed Un Lun Dun, so it gets an "A"from me. There are even enough unessential loose ends (is that an oxymoron?) to leave the door open for a sequel. If you like Gaiman, Pratchett, Pullman and Carroll, you'll love this book.

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim - David Sedaris

2004; 257 pages. #1 National Bestseller, whatever that means. Genre : Anecdotal Humor; Semi-autbiography. Overall Rating : "C".

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22 stories from David Sedaris about growing up in a dysfunctional family and coping with a world that still gets freaked out by gays. The time period is roughly from the 5th Grade to the present.

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What's To Like...

As always, there are some laugh-out loud funny tales here. Rooster At The Hitchin' Post is about Sedaris' younger brother's wedding, performed by a psychic found in the phone book, and with music by JD the DJ who by day works in the penitentiary.

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Possession is about looking for the perfect apartment with his partner, Hugh, only to discover the two of them have very different ideas about decor and ambiance. In fairness, David is smitten by Anne Frank's apartment in Amsterdam (which is a museum and not for rent), so Hugh's choices were probably the more sensible.

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For a change, not all the stories are zany. Baby Einstein is about the family coping with the complications at the birth of brother Paul's first child. Everyone survives, but just barely, and Paul's wife, Kathy, can have no more babies. Chicken in the HenHouse is Sedaris stressing out about the public's misconception (at least in his mind) that gay guys are also by definition pedophiles.

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Unfortunately, some of the stories were neither funny nor heartwarming. Let It Snow is about the Sedaris kids, out in wintry weather and bored, convincing the youngest sister to trustingly lay down in the middle of the road in order to make cars swerve to miss her. Mom gets wind of it, comes out and cusses out all her kids, and that's that.

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Kewl & New Words...

Just a couple, and they're mostly technical ones. Delft : a style of glazed earthenware - usually white with blue decoration (think Dutch china). Découpage : art produced by decorating a surface with cutouts, usually of paper. (as a youngster, Sedaris had done this to the electrical wall sockets in his bedroom). Sedaris also assumed I knew who Dorothea Lange was. You're not acquainted with her either? Here's her Wiki entry.

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Excerpts...

He knew how to plan a meal but displayed a remarkable lack of patience when it came time for the actual cooking. Frozen dinners were often eaten exactly as sold, the Salisbury steak amounting to a stickless meat popsicle. I phoned one night just as he was leaning a family pack of frozen chicken wings against the back door. He'd forgotten to defrost them and was now attempting to stomp the solid mass into three 6-inch portions, which he'd stack in a pile and force into his toaster oven. (pg. 167, talking about his brother, Paul).

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They'd been living together for more than a year when I finally met the girlfriend, a licensed hairdresser named Kathy. Erase the tattoos and the nicotine patch and she resembled one of the tranquil Flemish madonnas, the ubiquitous Christ child replaced by a hacking pug. Her grace, her humor, her fur-matted sweaters - we loved her immediately. Best of all, she was from the North, meaning that should she and Paul ever conceive a child, it stood a fifty-fifty chance of speaking understandable English. (pg. 169-70).

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I was on the front porch, drowning a mouse in a bucket...

Before Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004) there was Naked (1997) and Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000). I enjoyed both of the earlier books immensely; but this one felt "meh". Maybe there were only so many hilarious incidents in Sedaris' life, and those got mostly used up in the first two books. If so, that doesn't bode well for his most-recent offering, When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2008), which I haven't read yet.

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I recommend this book to anyone who wants a glimpse of the more human side of Sedaris. But if it's non-stop madcap stories you want, pick up the earlier works. We'll give it a "C", cuz it's not bad overall. But I admit it - I read Sedaris strictly for the humor.

The Husband - Dean Koontz

2006; 415 pages. Awards : NY Times #1 Best Seller. Genre : Crime Thriller, but you'll find Dean Koontz and this book in the "Horror" section of your bookstore. Overall Rating : "B+".

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Mitch Rafferty leads a comfortable but modest life. He owns and operates a small, two-man gardening company, has a couple thousand dollars in savings in the bank, lives in an average house in an average suburb, and is hopelessly in love with his beautiful wife, Holly.

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Then one day, someone kidnaps Holly and gives Mitch 60 hours to come up with two million dollars in ransom money. And to make sure he knows they're serious, they gun down a man walking his dog across the street from where Mitch is working.

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What's To Like...

The story flows nicely, with no slow spots. Koontz creates a number of interesting characters, and they all seem like suspects when you're introduced to them. Both Mitch and I got quite paranoid along the way. Mitch himself comes from a "put the fun back in dysfunctional" family. See the Excerpts section, below.

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Koontz again manages to work a golden retriever into the story. The last time, it was a scrabble-playing dog; here it has no special powers. FYI, Koontz is an avid proponent of dogs in general, and golden retrievers in particular. Oh yeah, and there's a brief mention of Pennsylvania Dutch shoo-fly pie, something I sorely miss from my childhood.

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The story spins to an exciting, if predictable, conclusion. The only negative I can say is that there are some gaping loose ends that remain unresolved. Along the way, Mitch gets framed for a couple crimes to prevent him going to the cops. And on his own, he steals two cars (one's a carjacking), assaults a police officer, and hides three bodies. None of this is ever cleared up. In real life, I don't think the authorities would overlook all of this just so everyone could live happily ever after.

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New/Kewl Words...

Mordant : grim or sinister. Numinous : mysterious, holy, supernatural. Chambranle : the border or frame, usually made of stone or wood, around a doorway. Miscegenation : reproduction by parents of different races (literal) or of different species (figurative).

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Excerpts :

The five Rafferty children, on their thirteenth birthdays, had been expected to stop calling their parents Mom and Dad, and to begin using first names. Mitch's mother, Katherine, preferred to be called Kathy, but his father would not abide Danny instead of Daniel. (pg. 107)

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"Remember when I got caught with the copy of Charlotte's Web?"

"You were almost nine. You spent 20 days in the learning room." Anson quoted Daniel : "'Fantasy is a doorway to superstition.'"

"Talking animals, a humble pig, a clever spider-"

"'A corrupting influence,'" Anson quoted. "'The first step in a life of unreason and irrational beliefs.'"

Their father saw no mystery in nature, just a green machine. (pg. 157)

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What would you do for love? Would you die? Would you kill?

The Husband was my second Koontz book. The first is reviewed here. In both cases, Koontz proves to be a master story-teller. I can see why he's so popular. Be he also manages to squeeze in some delightful imagery. For instance :

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Only the thinnest wound of the fallen day bled along the far horizon, and otherwise the sky was dark, and the sea dark; and the moon had not yet risen to silver the deserted beaches." (pg. 149). Or :

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In the gunman's open and unblinking eyes, the mortician moon had laid coins. (pg. 197).

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It's nice to see that good writing and a good story are not mutually exclusive. I give The Husband a "B+", noting that the only thing keeping it from an "A" are those pesky loose ends.

The Pickup Artist - Terry Bisson

2001; 240 pages. Genre : Fiction; Satire. Overall Rating : "B".

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Hank Shapiro is a Pickup Artist. There's too much art in the world - paintings, albums & CD's, books, films, etc. Some of it needs to be catalogued , archived, and destroyed so that new works can take its place. Hank is part of the "Deletions" division, going around and picking up those items specified for elimination from people who voluntarily turn them in. He might even give you a rebate if you're nice. For the involuntary seizures, there's an "Enforcement" division.

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All goes well until one day when he picks up a Hank Williams LP, and realizes this is who his parents named him after. Alas, HW is on the "Eliminated" list and no one, not even a Pickup Artist is allowed to listen to him anymore.

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What's To Like...

There's a Fahrenheit 451 storyline here, but the main charm is the vividly-detailed world Bisson paints, which is set in New York City as the story opens. He's created some great characters. There's Henry (female), who's 8½ years pregnant and wants to go to Vegas (which has seceded from the USA and is now an independent city-state) to find the father-to-be, who ran off years ago. There's Homer, Hank's lovable old dog, who dies, yet is kept in existence through the wonders of illicit drugs. And there's 77 Indian Bobs, genetically identical clones who were made so that modern man can appreciate the noble Native American savage. Unfortunately, funding ran out before they could clone their 77 female companions.

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And then there's the satire. On a deeper level, The Pickup Artist is Bisson's vision of where American culture is going. He shows us Misdemeanor Bars, where you can go to listen to deleted music and watch deleted DVD's. The authorities are aware of these, but generally let them subsist. He shows us Flee Markets, where anything - legal or otherwise - can be bought and sold. But they only have a 24-hour grace period in any given state, so every night they flee across state lines. There are several drugs in Bisson's world, the most interesting of which is "Dig" (a take-off of meth, perhaps?) whose users have an uncontrollable urge to dig - in old landfills for discarded trinkets - when they're high on it. And although money and credit exist, the preferred currency is Indian casino chips, despite the fact that the exchange rates always rip you off.

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The chapters are short, and separated by "Interludes" wherein Bisson gives the history of the art extermination movement. And he gives some great examples (such as "A Canticle For Liebowitz" by Walter Miller) of worthy artists whose works have already pretty much been forgotten.

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New/Kewl Words...

Midden : a dunghill; a refuse heap. Ephemera : collectible items not originally intended to last for more than a short time, such as postcards, labels, posters, tickets, etc.

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Excerpts...

"I mean the tree of art, unless pruned, will stop bearing fruit."

"We're not just art," I said. "We do music, literature and movies. No fruit."

"I know," she said. "It's a metaphor."

"We don't do metaphors either," I said. Then added : "It's a joke." (pg. 39)

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"I'm dead! I'll be dead from now on. Forever!"

"It's just the deal," said Henry. "It's okay."

"It's not okay!" Though his dessicated body had ceased, or almost ceased, to smell, Bob's breath was fouler than ever. I had to keep backing up just to talk to him.

"He has to be completely dead," said Womack, who was standing in the doorway, shaking his head. "There are regulations, even here in Vegas."

"He really is pretty muich dead," said Henry. "This is just a residual effect of the LastRites which saturates the alveolar tissues." (pg. 197. LastRites is a drug)

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What if...

I enjoyed The Pickup Artist, and it got me to wondering - what if we really had such a regulation? Would it help Kelly Clarkson's career if, say, all of Janis Joplin's music was deleted? Would more people go see The Lovely Bones if Star Wars wasn't around? Would it be easier for aspiring poets and novelists to get published if we no longer had Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller? Maybe Bisson's premise here has merit. Who cares anymore about Frank Sinatra or Walter Miller?

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I give The Pickup Artist a "B" because I always enjoy spending time in his worlds. It's a good book, as long as you're in the mood for well thought-out satire and don't mind the plotline playing second fiddle. Bisson is not for everyone, but you should read one of his books anyway, before he passes away and his works are deleted to make way for newer fiction.

Black Order by James Rollins

2006; 506 pages. #3 in the "Sigma Force" series. Author's real name : Jim Czajkowski. Genre : Action, Adventure. Overall Rating : "B".
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At a monastery in Nepal, the lamas go beserk - killing and eating each other, and drawing weird signs on the walls with their blood. In Copenhagen, Denmark, someone wants an old Bible enough to burn down a bookstore and kill the proprietor. In South Africa, a mythical man-eating beast (a ukufa) seems to be prowling a game preserve, and munching on little old ladies. The prologue is set in the closing days of WW2 Poland, where we find Nazi scientists trying to destroy their secret research project before the Russian forces overrun them.
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How do all these storylines connect, and who or what is the Black Order? That's what Sigma Force wants to know.
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What's To Like...
There's non-stop action and the characters are interesting. The Cri-Fi puzzles are believable and there are some "gray" bad guys (is that an oxymoron?). The Sigma Force folks are kind of a combination scientists and spec-ops agents. How cool is that? And because the storyline follows a team of protagonists (instead of just a single hero), there is bad-a$$ action happening in several places simultaneously.
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At times, the good guys and their exploits can stray just a bit too close to being a Dirk Pitt knock-off. And after 450 pages of constant chases, fighting, mystery, and escapes; the ultimate resolution kind of staggers to a finish.
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Kewl/New Words...
Provenance : a history of the ownership of something. Etiology : in a medical sense, the study of causes. Paroxysmal : accompanied by a sudden outburst of emotion or actions. In this case, it was shivering.
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Excerpt...
"A bit of the old bait and switch. Took me all day to find a Bible the right size and shape. Course I had to tinker with it a bit afterward. But then all it took was lots of tears and shouting, a bit of fumbling..." She shrugged. "And Bob's your uncle, it was done." (pg. 153). What can I say - I love the phrase "and Bob's your uncle".
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And take a little off the top...
This was my first James Rollins book. The heroes, especially their against-all-odds escapes were at times a bit too over-the-top for me. But that's a personal opinion only. The style reminded me of a cross between Steve Berry (who I like) and Clive Cussler (who I find to be so-so). If you like both those authors, you'll probably find Black Order to be great.
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Ditto for the climax, where they're trying to find a cure for what ails one of the heroes. I found it a letdown; you might not. Overall, this was a page-turning book that kept my interest until the very end. We'll give it a "B" and endeavor to see how other books by Rollins compare to this.

Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett

1987; 254 pages. Book #3 in the Discworld Series. Genre : Comedic Fantasy. Overall Rating : B-.

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There are two immutable truths in Discworld : 1.) Wizards are men, and 2.) Witches are women. That is, until a dying wizard bequeaths his magic staff to the about-to-be-born eighth son of an eighth son (which we all know will become a sourceror), and that son instead turns out to be a first daughter. The village witch, Granny Weatherwax, tries to set things right again, but eventually has to admit that it will take some assistance from the stuffy old wizards at the Unseen University.

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What's To Like...

The realms of witches and wizards are introduced into the Discworld saga. There are also some great new "concepts", such as Borrowing (where a witch enters the body of an animal such as a bird, and uses it for a time while coexisting with the animal's mind), and Headology (wherein, if you act like a witch, talk like a witch, and dress like a witch; people will see you as a witch without you having to perform any witchcraft). Finally, Pratchett adopts a new strategy - writing stories with themes and object lessons.

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Where's Waldo?

Waldo isn't here. Neither are Rincewind, Twoflower, the Luggage, and Cohen the Barbarian. All of whom were major characters in the first two books. There are dwarves and humans here, but no golems, werewolves, dragons, or vampires. This is also before any of the Night Watch show up, and there's no sign of the Patrician.

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Granny Weatherwax becomes a major character, and the banana-loving librarian is here. But the two other major figures in Equal Rites - Eskarina and Simon - are once and done. And ANAICT, the major lesson here (Equal Rights) doesn't stick either. In subsequent books the wizards are all men, and the witches are all women.

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New/Kewl Words...

Pratchett books are always vocabulary-builders.

Inglenook : a corner by the fireplace. Jollop : a strong liquor or medicine. Tannoy : a type of public-address system. Heterodyne : having alternating currents of two different frequencies that combine to make two new frequencies. Alembic : an obsolete piece of labware that once was used for distillations. Souk : the open-air market in an Arabian city. Incunable : Ancient books produced in the earliest days of printing. Topiaric : concerning the art of clipping trees or shrubbery into recognizable shapes, such as animals. Pillion : the seat behind the rider of a horse or motorbike (or in this case, a broomstick). Cowin : Some sort of term of familiarity. Evidently a Pratchettism, as googling it didn't help.

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Excerpt...

She let the animal go and looked out at the scenery again for a long time - the barge was passing between high orange cliffs now, banded with so many colours of rock it looked as though some hungry God had made the all-time record club sandwich - and tried to avoid the next thought. But it persisted, arriving in her mind like the unexpected limbo dancer under the lavatory door of Life. (pg. 103)

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"There's no such thing as a female wizard!"

Equal Rites seems like both a once-only tangent and a pivotal book in the Discworld series. Most of the characters won't be seen again. Yet there is direction here - Pratchett seems to be saying the focus will be on Discworld itself, not on a particular character, such as, say, Rand al'Thor in the Wheel Of Time saga. And the zaniness already present will be supplemented by themes and morals.

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Equal Rites will probably never be anyone's favorite Discworld volume, and I don't suggest it as the first-read for anyone new to the series. But it's still an entertaining read. We'll give it a "B-", and recommend it to all geeky readers (such as me) who like to watch the Discworld universe as it gradually adds new personalities, places, and species.

In the Courts of the Sun - Brian D'Amato

2009; 679 pages. Genre : Apocalyptic Fiction; Alternate History. Overall Rating : B+.

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"Beware December 21, 2012!" said the Mayan codex, and no one in the present world took it very seriously. But it also said December 23, 2011 would be a "warm-up" calamitous day, and when that prophecy came true, it was suddenly very important to somehow go back to 664 AD (when the codex was written) and learn about, or even alter, the prophecy.

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What's To Like...

It's got time-travel and alternate history, so you know I'm gonna like it. The storyline moves at a good pace. It's a vocabulary smorgasbord, including lots of German, Spanish, and Ch'olan (Mayan) expressions. D'Amato takes time to bring to light some of the modern-day issues faced by the Mayan descendants in Guatemala - repression, executions, loss of identity, and eviction from their lands. The "travel back in time" technology is clever and believable; as is the prophecying mechanism, a Go-like game called "The Sacrifice".

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I also liked the writing style. It's first-person and has a Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) tone. The protagonist, Jed, has some amazing talents. Give him any date in time and he'll instantly tell you what day it falls on. Or throw a handful of seeds in front of him, and right away he'll tell you exactly how many there are. But said gifts don't have much practical use, and if you bring Jed along on a dangerous mission, he's more of a liability than an asset.

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The best part of ITCOTS is the details. Hey. if you're going to set a story in 7th-century Mexico, I want to hear about every aspect of daily life there - the plants and the animals, the clothing and the culture, the weapons and the pastimes, the politics and the mind-sets.

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OTOH, it does take about 100 pages for the book to get going. And the "mathematical proof" of time travel and the details of playing the Sacrifice Game can get a bit tedious. The ending is logical, but seems a sconch abrupt.

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New/Kewl Words...

There's a bunch of them. Here are a few...

Misprisions : Misinterpretations. Anhedonic : A loss of the sense of smell. Homunculus : A very small, but fully-developed human. Eidetic : Involving extraordinarily accurate and vivid recall. Loblolly : used in the phrase 'loblolly pine' here, but as a stand-alone, it means "a mudhole".

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Excerpt...

I thought I could hear asteroids screeching toward the earth, that I could feel the friction between tectonic plates, the energy building up in granite watch-springs, that I could watch gravity - which is a kind of mulberry-purple color - spreading out from the earth and bunching into dark stars and draining into the abscesses in existence, and that even the black holes were visible in a way, silhouetted against drifts of interstellar dust balls. (pg. 674)

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Q. : How long should an Alternate-History book be?

Answer : long enough to tell the story properly, and give enough details about the setting to where it feels "real".

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ITCOTS does this nicely, much to the consternation of various reviewers that complained it was too long. Personally, I liked the book because it wasn't "dumbed down". This is not a quick read. And yeah, D'Amato could have left out the detailed descriptions and told the story in 500 pages. But then readers would gripe that it didn't have a "real" feel to it.

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So we'll give ITCOTS a "B+", and recommend it to anyone who's tired of reading Alt-History stories written at an 8th-grade level. If this is the future of the genre, then I'm all for it.

Napalm and Silly Putty - George Carlin

2001; 269 pages. According to the cover, it's a "#1 New York Times Bestseller". Genre : Humor. Overall Rating : C.

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A collection of short pieces by Carlin, and for the most part (ANAICT) taken from his past stand-up routines. It is better organized than its sequel, When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?, which is reviewed here.

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What's To Like...

The tone of N&SP is lighter than that of WWJBTPC. More importantly, it's funnier too. The best parts are once again the one-liners, dubbed "Short Takes". Some of the longer routines, such as the "Food" one (pg. 132), will make you laugh. Others, such as the one about "Time" (pg. 163) are both funny and thought-provoking.

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Alas, as with WWJBTPC, a lot of the stuff here is shock comedy. Carlin wants to show you that he can be witty about anything, including topics like rape and OJ Simpson. He wants you to know all the things that p*ss him off, which families he loathes, and why all kids are ugly. There's also a not-so-funny interview with Jesus. Some of N&SP works. Some of it doesn't.

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New/Cool Words...

George Carlin is not a good resource for expanding your vocabulary. The only N/C word was : Zeitgeist - the spirit of an age; the spirit of the times.

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Excerpts...

People who say they don't care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don't care what people think. (pg. 9)

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I hope no one asks me to show them the ropes. I have no idea where they are. Maybe I could pull a few strings and find out. (pg. 189)

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(re airplane announcements) "Place the mask over your face and breathe normally." Well, no problem there. I always breathe normally when I'm in an uncontrolled 600-mile-per-hour vertical dive. I also sh*t normally. Directly into my pants. (pg. 15)

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Good, funny, occasionally smart, but essentially drivel...

That's a snippet out of the "Acknowledgements" section of the book, and probably a good, honest 7-word summation of it. N&SP tapdances the whole way between funny and crude. I have a feeling this is one of those rare books where it's better to listen to it as an audiobook (which I believe he narrates himself) than to read it. George Carlin was a talented stand-up comedian, and an absolute master of timing, wordplay, and inflections. All of that is lost here.

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We'll give this a "C", because it's better than WWJBTPC, which earmed a "D+". Read it only if you don't have access to his albums, DVD's, and/or audiobooks.

The Venetian Betrayal - Steve Berry

2007; 550 pages. Book #3 of Berry's "Cotton Malone" series. Genre : Action-Thriller; Cri-Fi. Overall Rating : A-.

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Someone's collecting a group of ancient medallions that were minted to commemorate Alexander The Great's semi-victorious campaign in India. They're doing this by stealing them out of museums, then torching the buildings to cover up the thefts. Cotton Malone becomes involved when he's included as part of the kindling at one of the heists.

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What's To Like...

It's a "busy" book, with a bunch of storylines. To wit : a search for Alexander The Great's grave; finding a cure for HIV; political intrigue in a newly-formed Alt-History nation in Central Asia made from the various "-stans" there (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, etc.); a secret order of Venetian businessmen; the re-invention of Greek Fire; and last but not least - what's so cotton-pickin' important about those medallions?

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Berry deftly interweaves all these lines. The action is non-stop, there are a bunch of red-herrings, and a zillion plot-twists. The tale teeters on having too many twists - is the one character a septuple or an octuple agent? But it keeps you on your toes.

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All this action and plot comes at the cost of character development - everyone is either black or white. Indeed, one of the main characters, Irina Zovastina, starts out "3-D gray", but towards the end she's "2-D black". One of her (wounded) soldiers heroically saves her, and she rewards him by shooting him in the head. Actually, she ends up killing lots of her fellow black-hats, yet is curiously averse to offing any of the good guys/gals.

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Kewl New Words...

Most of the new words were technical ones - dealing with architecture, medical research, etc. Some of these were : Mullioned (divided by vertical bars of wood or stone, such as a 'mullioned window'); Campanile (a bell tower, usually as a separate structure); Cartonnage (a type of material used for Egyptian funeral masks, consisting of layers of linen or papyrus and covered with plaster).

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Excerpt...

And you, adventurer, for my immortal voice,

though far off, fills your ears, hear my words,

Sail unto the capital founded by Alexander's father,

where sages stand guard.

Touch the innermost being of the golden illusion.

Divide the phoenix.

Life provides the measure of the true grave.

But be wary, for there is but one chance of success.

Climb the god-built walls.

When you reach the attic, gaze into the tawny eye,

and dare to find the distant refuge.

(pg. 130. this is the riddle to be solved)

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It was a Berry good book...

I liked The Venetian Betrayal, even if there were a couple eye-rolling moments. The cri-fi aspect (finding a cure for HIV) was done well enough to where one reviewer felt compelled to tell us why Berry's solution doesn't work. Well duh. Too many twists is much to be preferred over too few. The characters could've been developed a bit more, but then we'd have a 900-page tome. We'll give it an "A-", and note that the next book in the series, The Charlemagne Pursuit, is sitting on my TBR shelf.