Summary: Lessee, how do I describe what happened without giving anything away? Problem is, random plot events keep popping up throughout the first part of the book and then they all turn out to be connected after all. Basically the story follows the adventures of the Oregon's crew as they try to save the world. Only that's not their original objective. Originally, they were trying to find the headquarers of an African rebel group and then save a kidnapped billionaire.
Comments: the phrases that come to mind with regards to this book are "a wing and a prayer", "the fundamental interconnectedness of all things", and "flying by the seat of your pants". There's an unbelievable amount of convenient coincidences and things going badly until the last possible moment when they suddenly achieve victory. Great adventure, gripping storyline, but how they heck do they have that much luck on their side (yes, I realize there's alot of skill and planning ability involved as well, but honestly), and perhaps a few too many "well that's convenient" moments (especially regarding the Chairman's prosthetic leg). Yes, last minute victories are very exciting and all, but honestly, how do they manage to get every single victory at the last possible nanosecond? It seems like sometime the odds would turn out to be against them.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
The Cat Who Talked Turkey, by Lilian Jackson Braun
Summary (at least in theory): There's this guy, and he lives in a small town somewhere in the north, and stuff happens in this small town. And there's even a couple murders that this guy ends up solving purely by accident (This isn't like the books where someone is like "I want to solve this crime, let me just go put myself in a dangerous situation where the killer is likely to show up and then s/he will confess and I'll miraculously escape and capture/kill him/her"; this is the killer shows up at his house and casually mentions it over dinner.). In other words, I have no f-ing idea what the plot was meant to be, and no idea how the turkeys are relevent. Granted this is the 26th book in a series, so maybe it makes more sense as a continuing saga of this dude and his town? That's the only explanation I can come up with. Still, I'm pretty sure every cynical comment my mom has ever made about The Babysitters Club books counts for this series as well, only instead of developing the characters, this book focuses exclusively on the setting. Really, I couldn't care less about the 10 page transcript of this person's fictional radio broadcast about the Great Storm of 1913.
Reaction: I think I already covered most of that in the last section, hehhheh. The book has very little in the way of plot or characters (I mean, there are people and events, but the main thing that kepts me reading the book was that I was waiting for something interesting to happen. And, for the most part, nothing really did. I'm not sure I can come up with a better summary than "stuff happens". I mean, there's a 200th aniversary celebration for the neighboring town, but while that is the closest to a focus I can find for the book, it hardly counts as plot. And I know very little about any of the characters besides the occupations of a couple of them.). It's basically focusing on the town and provides some stories of town history and uses some of the characters to illustrate what the town is like. Oh, and apparently the guy's cat is psychic or something, but nothing ever comes of that. Yano, reading the description of this book, or possibly one of the others in the series made me think that either this series was a rip-off of the Rita Mae Brown series I mentioned in a previous post or vice versa. And it's now very clear which is which. Look at it: both have a protagonist solving a series of murders (this one purely by accident), intelligent animal(s) who try to help (at least in the other one they explained what they were doing), a small town (that used it more for atmosphere; in this one, it basically was the book. I'm not interested in reading a history of a fictional town when said history is being passed off as a novel only they're not going to tell you that.), even the authors' names are similar (Brown vs Braun).
Basically, I consider reading this book to have been a waste of time. Maybe I would've enjoyed it more if the book jacket hadn't implied that something was actually going to happen. But no, most of the book served no purpose to the plot. Er, I shouldn't say that. That implies that I have some idea what the plot is. According to the book jacket, it's the murders and the turkeys. I believe those two between the two of them cover maybe a quarter of the book. Maybe. More if you include the previous scenes involving the people responsible. Ok, looking at it from that angle, I can see how many of the scenes are an attempt at introducing the people responsible and dropping hints about their suspiciousness. But that still means that there was approximately 20 pages (out of less than 200) that were basically setting up a less than 3 sentence exchange. And I still have no idea how the turkeys have any connection whatsoever to anything else in the book other than the cat being special.
Um, yeah. I totally meant to end this after the first sentence of that last paragraph or maybe the second, but I guess my cynicism and irritation with the book kinda took over. Oops?
Reaction: I think I already covered most of that in the last section, hehhheh. The book has very little in the way of plot or characters (I mean, there are people and events, but the main thing that kepts me reading the book was that I was waiting for something interesting to happen. And, for the most part, nothing really did. I'm not sure I can come up with a better summary than "stuff happens". I mean, there's a 200th aniversary celebration for the neighboring town, but while that is the closest to a focus I can find for the book, it hardly counts as plot. And I know very little about any of the characters besides the occupations of a couple of them.). It's basically focusing on the town and provides some stories of town history and uses some of the characters to illustrate what the town is like. Oh, and apparently the guy's cat is psychic or something, but nothing ever comes of that. Yano, reading the description of this book, or possibly one of the others in the series made me think that either this series was a rip-off of the Rita Mae Brown series I mentioned in a previous post or vice versa. And it's now very clear which is which. Look at it: both have a protagonist solving a series of murders (this one purely by accident), intelligent animal(s) who try to help (at least in the other one they explained what they were doing), a small town (that used it more for atmosphere; in this one, it basically was the book. I'm not interested in reading a history of a fictional town when said history is being passed off as a novel only they're not going to tell you that.), even the authors' names are similar (Brown vs Braun).
Basically, I consider reading this book to have been a waste of time. Maybe I would've enjoyed it more if the book jacket hadn't implied that something was actually going to happen. But no, most of the book served no purpose to the plot. Er, I shouldn't say that. That implies that I have some idea what the plot is. According to the book jacket, it's the murders and the turkeys. I believe those two between the two of them cover maybe a quarter of the book. Maybe. More if you include the previous scenes involving the people responsible. Ok, looking at it from that angle, I can see how many of the scenes are an attempt at introducing the people responsible and dropping hints about their suspiciousness. But that still means that there was approximately 20 pages (out of less than 200) that were basically setting up a less than 3 sentence exchange. And I still have no idea how the turkeys have any connection whatsoever to anything else in the book other than the cat being special.
Um, yeah. I totally meant to end this after the first sentence of that last paragraph or maybe the second, but I guess my cynicism and irritation with the book kinda took over. Oops?
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
The Last Templar, by Raymond Khoury
Summary: The story opens with a robbery at the Met by a group of horsemen who steal a variety of objects. The FBI is called in to investigate because many (all?) of the items taken were on loan from the Vatican. The book follows the subsequent unveiling of what happened and why, including many potentially deadly situations for many of the characters. It's kinda like The Da Vinci Code only more dangerous (much higher body count).
I'm not sure how much of the story I can comment on without spoilers, so I'm hiding the rest of my comments. Be warned: I'm pretty much dropping events left and right, so if you haven't read the book it might not make sense, and if you want to read the book there won't be much surprise left if you read my comment, and I think the surprise is one of the best parts. I will say one thing, though. Quite possibly the best part of the book is the characters and how they interact and struggle with moral dilemmas (or don't). I'm not sure how to explain what I like about it. Possibly the fact that I'm pretty sure you couldn't come up with a mold that it fits into without an awful lot of work (and possibly a custom-made mold).
I'm not sure how much of the story I can comment on without spoilers, so I'm hiding the rest of my comments. Be warned: I'm pretty much dropping events left and right, so if you haven't read the book it might not make sense, and if you want to read the book there won't be much surprise left if you read my comment, and I think the surprise is one of the best parts. I will say one thing, though. Quite possibly the best part of the book is the characters and how they interact and struggle with moral dilemmas (or don't). I'm not sure how to explain what I like about it. Possibly the fact that I'm pretty sure you couldn't come up with a mold that it fits into without an awful lot of work (and possibly a custom-made mold).
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Operation Red Jericho, by Joshua Mowell
Summary: The short version is that Becca, Doug, their uncle, his crew, Master Aa, and his followers are trying to defeat Sheng-Fat. No, scratch that. They're trying to destroy his store of Zoridium aka Daughter of the Sun. If that means defeating him in the process, so be it. The longer version would mention the Honorable Guild of Specialists and the fact that Becca and Doug were supposed to be headed to San Francisco to live with their aunt after their uncle got tired of their disobendience. It might also mention their sneaking around trying to figure out what their uncle wasn't telling them in hopes that it would give them some idea what happened to their parents, who disappeared in the Sunkiang.
Reflections: I rather like the style of this book--besides the normal narrative, there's also some of Becca's journal entries and Doug's sketches and little bios of some of the characters tucked into the margians and maps of various places and boats and random (relevent) pictures.
Similar stuff: Doug keeps reminding me of a character in some other book that also has a younger brother who asks too many questions and befriends everyone in sight, but I still haven't figured out what book that might be. The second half of the story in general reminded me of most Clive Cussler books, where the characters miraculously escape a whole chain of sudden death situations by a combination of luck and inginuity (which could be why I like them--it's hard to put down a book where you keep thinking that the main character is about to get killed off by the bad guy (or where you would think that if you didn't know that said character returns in the next book. I think at least one of Cussler's books went so far as to have a funeral for the guy before he turned up again in the last page and a half. But I digress.))
Reflections: I rather like the style of this book--besides the normal narrative, there's also some of Becca's journal entries and Doug's sketches and little bios of some of the characters tucked into the margians and maps of various places and boats and random (relevent) pictures.
Similar stuff: Doug keeps reminding me of a character in some other book that also has a younger brother who asks too many questions and befriends everyone in sight, but I still haven't figured out what book that might be. The second half of the story in general reminded me of most Clive Cussler books, where the characters miraculously escape a whole chain of sudden death situations by a combination of luck and inginuity (which could be why I like them--it's hard to put down a book where you keep thinking that the main character is about to get killed off by the bad guy (or where you would think that if you didn't know that said character returns in the next book. I think at least one of Cussler's books went so far as to have a funeral for the guy before he turned up again in the last page and a half. But I digress.))
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Wish You Were Here, by Rita Mae Brown
Summary: The small town of Crozet Virginia is shocked by several stunning murders, and Harry and her pets are determined to figure out who is responsible. ...That sounds like the kind of summary that would come off a book jacket. But I'm not sure how much more there is to say.
Reaction: Yay, a mystery! A gripping storyline, amusing randomness from the cats and dogs and the small town interaction, and an unexpected killer (not that I had any expectation who it was). What more could I ask for in a book? And better yet, there's a whole series of them!
Reaction: Yay, a mystery! A gripping storyline, amusing randomness from the cats and dogs and the small town interaction, and an unexpected killer (not that I had any expectation who it was). What more could I ask for in a book? And better yet, there's a whole series of them!
Monday, June 11, 2007
2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
Summary: No idea how to summarize it without sharing something important. Basically wierd improbable stuff happened interspersed with someone's view of the future. The very short version is that it's about a space voyage to Sarturn plus some background info [slash] notable events in the fictional past.
Why I read the book: This probably isn't going to be a common heading, but it seems necessary here, considering that I probably never would've read this book had one of my friends not recommended it to me. Or more correctly had I not been at the library the day one of my friends recommended it to me. And I'm now struck by a sudden urge to analyse the grammer elements of that sentence, but that serves no relevent purpose so I shall refrain. Aside from calling it a past contrary to fact conditional statement.
General response: The first part, in which a force from somewhere messes with the minds of primitive man-apes, was rather wierd and unexpected. I thought the book had to do with humans exploring space, not humans evolving by the intervention of something. And I was right; it's just that that doesn't cover the entire book, just most of it.
I'm not sure whether I'd call it a good book. Certainly it was well-written. It does a good job of explaining everything important, but not such a good job of holding my attention. I finished reading it because I wanted to know what happens, not because I was pretty much incapable of putting it down. Maybe that was because I didn't always have that much time to read, but I'm pretty sure I could've gotten it finished alot faster had I really really wanted to.
Response to the ending:
Why I read the book: This probably isn't going to be a common heading, but it seems necessary here, considering that I probably never would've read this book had one of my friends not recommended it to me. Or more correctly had I not been at the library the day one of my friends recommended it to me. And I'm now struck by a sudden urge to analyse the grammer elements of that sentence, but that serves no relevent purpose so I shall refrain. Aside from calling it a past contrary to fact conditional statement.
General response: The first part, in which a force from somewhere messes with the minds of primitive man-apes, was rather wierd and unexpected. I thought the book had to do with humans exploring space, not humans evolving by the intervention of something. And I was right; it's just that that doesn't cover the entire book, just most of it.
I'm not sure whether I'd call it a good book. Certainly it was well-written. It does a good job of explaining everything important, but not such a good job of holding my attention. I finished reading it because I wanted to know what happens, not because I was pretty much incapable of putting it down. Maybe that was because I didn't always have that much time to read, but I'm pretty sure I could've gotten it finished alot faster had I really really wanted to.
Response to the ending:
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown
Summary: I'm not sure how much I can say without giving away anything important, but I'll try. Basically, there's a scientist who gets murdered and branded with the seal of an ancient brotherhood that wants to destroy the Catholic Church. And the sizable sample of anitmatter that he'd created gets stolen. And then this other guy, an expert in, among other things, said ancient brotherhood, and the scientist's daughter have to find the missing antimatter before it blows up the Vatican. And just to complicate matters, conclave is going on and the 4 cardinals who are by far the most likely to become the next Pope have all been kidnapped by someone who claims that he's going to kill them at various churches. So they have to try to save people and stop the person responsible and figure out wtf is going on and it's all very exciting.
Reflections:
Reflections:
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