Frail

Frail

By Joan Frances Turner

Faithful readers of this blog will know that I am a sucker for all things zombie. I've been a fan of zombie lore since I was in junior high school and it has been a pet obsession for the past three decades with no apparent end in site. I don't profess to be an expert on the subject, but I can talk knowledgeably and one thing I love to talk about is what's wrong with the zombie sub-genre. Over the years, I have developed a singular pet peeve in relation to my obsession: that of the endgame in the zombie story arc. It's a dead end (pun intended). Once a writer goes all in with a zombie apocalypse, it is danced near impossible to write an ending that doesn't involve the demise of the human race or the defeat of the zombie hordes. Just look at the situation Robert Kirkman finds himself with The Walking Dead comic and television series. How is he supposed to find an end to that story that doesn't involve the eventual death of all his human characters?

Zombie lore has long been in need of a kick start. Something more nuanced. Something more creative than the simple local militia walking through the field armed with rifles picking off wayward corpses (and giving poorly scripted interviews with local newscasters: "They'll all messed up!"). I was waiting for someone to take zombie lore to another level.

To a certain extent, there is a generation of writers doing just that. Experimenting with the genre, chewing it up and spitting out all sorts of interesting variables to the venerable zombie story. One of my recent favorites is Bob Fingerman's excellent novel Pariah. Another is Joan Frances Turner's exquisite 2010 novel, Dust. At the time, I heaped a good amount of praise on Turner's take on the zombie sub-genre and how she was able to finally add something interesting to the typical war of attrition that all zombie apocalypse stories eventually devolve into. I made some pretty salient points, I must admit, but since I'm not nearly Gore Vidal-ish enough to quote myself, you'll have to suffice with Douglas Preston's decidedly succinct review: "Joan Frances Turner has done for zombies what Anne Rice did for vampires." It's not a perfect encapsulation of Dust or what it entails, but if you insist on not clicking on my review, it will have to do in a pinch. Turner made zombies both more terrifying and more human at the same time. Pretty nuanced, if you ask me.

So here we are in 2013 and Turner has released the much anticipated (at least by me) sequel to Dust: Frail. If you haven't read Dust, I would recommend you read it before attempting Frail as the story picks up at the end of the Dust narrative and Frail refers back to many of the characters and events in Dust without explaining them in the sort of detail that would make anything clear.Turner, I suspect, is assuming that you read the first novel before cracking Frail. Turner takes the zombie lore into the stratosphere in her first book, so jumping into the second will leave you utterly lost, so forewarned is forearmed.

Frail is the first person account of a human named Amy. Left for dead by her mother, Amy is one of the few humans left following the zombie apocalypse and the subsequent evolution of a second species of undead creatures (known in the novels as exes) who are neither human nor zombie but have appetites larger than both (metaphor for crass consumerism, anyone?). The exes are now the clear masters and humans (or frails) have been relegated to slavery and/or food. Amy has managed to stay away from both the zombies and the exes throughout the winter but after being attacked by a starving dog in a small Indiana town, she is rescued and befriended by Lisa, an ex with a heart of gold (who just so happens to be the sister of Jessie, the protagonist zombie from Dust). Amy and Lisa embark on an, at times, surreal journey into what is left of their world and in the process uncover many of the secrets kept hidden by the local Thanological Laboratory, which, in turn, reveals the truth about zombies and exes.

I want so badly to tell you that Frail picks up where Dust left off and fleshes out (pun intended) the intriguing mythology that Turner concocted in her first book. and to be fair, Frail has some legitimately terrifying and disturbing moments, some of which I will carry for years. But I must admit that much of the book is a slow, plodding melodrama between the trails and exes, much of which is shrouded in unnecessarily convoluted dialogue. The characters often talk over Amy's head about things she doesn't understand which, in turn leaves the reader in the same situation. I was literally lost for the fist two thirds of the novel because not a single character was able to make a direct statement about what the hell was going on. Because of this, the novel seems to tread water interminably.

Furthermore, Frail's characters are depressingly forgettable. It's funny that over the years critics have derided the zombie sub-genre as two-dimensional, that zombies make terrible villains due to their utter brainlessness. lack of character, motivation, no possibility of deconstruction. Zombie stories could only be as good as the human characters involved. So it is ironic that Dust, with it's cast of zombies,  has infinitely better characters and characterization than Frail which has no zombie characters whatsoever. I never got any sense of Amy as a character other than she was slowly losing her mind, and she was the protagonist. The rest of the characters were a formless mass of dialogue that ceased to make sense very quickly. Perhaps Turner has a knack for writing from the perspective of a zombie and human frailty (pun intended) is an art best left to others.

The confusion of this novel is all too much, butt does let up. Toward the end of the novel when much of the narrative fog begins to lift, Frail begins heaping on fresh piles of new confusion in anticipation of a third book in the series (no spoilers). So while Frail does (eventually) clear up a number of outstanding questions from Dust, it does so in such a meandering way that I fear many readers will give up (or cease to care) long before the reveals.

I know I did.

it's a shame, really, because deep within Frail's narrative curlicues and cardboard characters there lies a very compelling story but it will take a Herculean effort on my part to muster the enthusiasm to read the third book in this series.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

By Douglas Adams

I have a few reviews coming up this month that have to published on very specific dates, so it was going to be a little quiet around here for a few weeks. But I hate to let too many days go by without some sort of content so I thought it would be a good idea to discuss a couple of novels that I am currently rereading with classes or individual students. These are not new reads, but they are fresh enough in my memory to discuss with clarity and assurance, so let's get to it.

So anyway, I miss Douglas Adams. His death in 2001 is perhaps the only literary death that truly shook me not only due to his age (he was only 49) but because he was my first real literary love affair and the the author of the first book that really, truly made me stagger in awe. More on that later, but first, the story of how The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy very nearly cost me my university education.

Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it did almost make me fail my first year Western history exam (which would have been a disaster because that was my major). Here's the story:

It was the night before the exam and like any good Canadian university student, I was cracking my textbooks for the first time that semester in an effort to cram as much of the course material into my head in the ten hours (give or take) before the exam. I had the books all laid out on my bed OCD style and was just brewing up a pot of extra strong coffee when a friend from down the hall walked by my open dorm room door and tossed an inconspicuous little paperback onto the top of my neat textbook pile. He tossed it in a manner that suggested that he was discarding a chewing gum wrapper or a banana peel. He didn't even stop to tell me what it was.

At first, I thought it was some sort of exam prank. I'd grab whatever it was off my bed and find it covered in goo, or something equally annoying and time consuming. But when I went over and picked it up it was the oldest, most busted up paperback I'd ever seen. What was left of the cover was hanging on by the merest suggestion of a fiber, the spine was exposed, cracked and separating somewhere in the vicinity of page 86, there was no back cover at all and it looked like it had taken a dip in the bathtub on more than one occasion.

A looker, she was not, but something possessed me to flip to the beginning of chapter one to see why exactly my buddy had discarded this dilapidated old novel into my room.

Eight hours later, I finished The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, admitted to myself that it was my new favorite book and proceeded to shit bricks about my history exam that was less than three hours away (textbooks still unopened).

The story ends well. I ended up doing fine on the exam and continued my studies over the next three years without incident, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honours. But I learned a couple of valuable lessons that night. First, I learned the practical usages for a towel, both physical and psychological. Second, never, ever start a novel when there is something pressing to accomplish. I have a difficult time prioritizing anything over books. And third, never underestimate the power of Douglas Adams.

Since then I've read this novel at least a half dozen times and it never ceases to make me smile. Through the fictional notion of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (A tablet-like guidebook for interstellar travelers), Adams prophesied the advent of the Internet, the e-reader, tablets, smart phones... or at the very least, Wikipedia. The Babel Fish imagined in the novel predated translation software (one program that actually bears the name Babel fish, in fact) and we are probably less than a decade away from very practical translation apps that will be able to instantly translate any language into any other language at conversation speed. Hell, Adams predicted (almost to the exact spelling), Google. And he did it with such ease that it seemed as though he were blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back. With such accuracy one might require three pints of bitter to soften the mental blow of his awesomeness.

On a more serious note, Adams was the first author I ever read that put a fine point on many of the questions I had about religion. I've been an atheist since I can remember. The way gay people say they've always known they were gay, that's me except with atheism. My family wasn't particularly devout, but they were church going people. But as far back as I can remember I found the entire ordeal of church, the rituals the forced (to me, anyway) joy and the stories to be deeply unsettling and, at times, creepy. It was Adams through The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that made me realize that I wasn't the only one who thought everyone around me was taking crazy pills. I credit Adams for allowing me to be unapologetically atheist. It's made my spiritual life a lot easier to reconcile.

But what I like most about this The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (and to a lesser extent the rest of the trilogy of five) is that unlike so many science fiction writers (I'm looking at you Arthur C. Clarke!) Adams wrote with a scathingly astute sense of humor and irony and he never once, ever took himself or his story seriously. The fact that the reader navigates Adam's world of morose robots, fjord designers and rock star politicians from the perspective of the mildest of mild-mannered Englishmen is as much a bottomless well of comedic potential as it is a source of comfort in a universe populated by drug and alcohol fueled party animals. Adams had enough sense to ground his readers with Arthur Dent when he knew full well that he was going to send us into a universe so supremely bizarre that there was at least someone we could look to in order to ask the questions we are all thinking about. Want to know the science behind the Improbability Drive? Don't worry, Arthur has you covered, and he'll try to bring along a cup or tea as well.

Thirty years after publication (and ten years after the untimely death of Adams himself) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and its sequels remain not only readable but also as relevant as they were in 1979. There are precious few works of science fiction that can compare to the Hitchhiker series. When so many authors were grappling with the moral, existential and ethical questions of androids, space travel, alien contact and cloning, Douglas Adams threw caution to the wind and made the sci-fi universe safe for those of us who would simply rather bypass the difficult questions, buy a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster and see where the evening takes us.

Here's to Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's series. He made all other sic-fi sound like Vogon poetry by comparison.

Incidentally, I still own that busted up copy of the book. It's one of my prized possessions.

Rasputin's Bastards

Rasputin's Bastards

By David Nickle

I'm not dumb, you know. You might think I'm dumb because of the casual manner in which I write this blog or my persistent use of street language or the fact that I like to grow bushy Appalachian style mustaches, but I'm not. You know why I know I'm not dumb? I mean, besides the fact that I read books? I like crosswords.

I'm good at crosswords, too. Give me a good crossword and a few hours and I'm a very happy man. There was a time a few years back when the New York Times Sunday Crossword was something I could solve with confidence, usually by Thursday. Hell, I even have strong opinions about Scrabble (the U should be worth 2 points and ZA should be stricken from the Scrabble dictionary). Needless to say, I'm a bit of a wordsmith and, to be sure, I've never met a crossword puzzle I couldn't tackle.

That is, except cryptic crosswords.

You know the crosswords I'm talking about. The impossibly difficult crosswords next to the conventional crosswords that are actually solvable? The weird red-headed step-cousin of the normal crossword? The ones with clues such as: Very cold parrot starting a course of action (solution: Policy... (I mean I see where they got it but, seriously... WTF!?!)). I'm convinced that the cryptic crossword is an elaborate joke played on humanity, the literary equivalent of conspiracy theories and free jazz. Only a handful of ultra-hip crossword nerds are in on the joke and they get together on weekends to laugh there masking taped glasses off at the thought of us orthodox crossworders taking half-hearted stabs at otherwise meaningless puzzles.

Yeah, well, that's what Rasputin's Bastards felt like to me.

Well, to be entirely fair, I have proven to be extremely unreceptive to spy novels as a whole. The few times I have delved into the world of espionage fiction I have emerged with severely sprained brain cells and deeper-than-usual brow furrows. I'm no idiot, but for some reason I find the plots in spy novels to be impossible to follow, no matter how articulately I move my mouth when I I read. All those double crosses and good guys in bed with bad girls who are actually bad guys pretending to be good girls pretending to be bad girls (or something like that). I'm not good with that level of plot twisting. Note my complete and utter confusion in response to John le Carre's classic novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I'm probably not the best judge of these sorts of novels but this is what I get for choosing to review a novel based on my love for peculiar historical personalities and a stupid Boney M song.

So Rasputin's Bastards is ostensibly a post-Cold War spy novel that is equal parts Inception and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (with a healthy dash of new-agey metaphysics thrown in for good measure). It chronicles two generations of Soviet spies trained at a place called City 512 that may or may not exist somewhere in Russia. These spies have the ability to dream-walk (step into their consciousness and drive them, so to speak) other human beings (known colloquially as sleepers). Some of these dream walkers know who they are, others do not. None of the sleepers know that they are being manipulated by a mysterious Russian woman known as Babushka. The dream-walkers  can also move about in fabricated planes plane known as metaphors. Along the way there is an undersea laboratory in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean populated by (for lack of a better term) Morlocks, mysterious cities on the otherwise barren coast of Labrador, fourteen story hotels in downtown Manhattan that nobody can see, Turkish gangsters with severe memory blocks and lots of giant squids.

Yeah, well, actually when I put it that way, it does sound pretty freaking cool.

The problem for me was twofold. First, I couldn't muster enough connection with the characters to care what happened to any of them. Perhaps I missed it, but I would have really benefitted from a little more back story about dream-walking, how it was used by the Russians during the Cold War and how, exactly, it connected to known points in history and, of course, Rasputin. All of these issues were explained but never with the depth I thought was necessary for full immersion into the narrative. A shame because I would have liked a clearer understanding of this power and how it played out in the context of geo-political power struggles.

Second, the story is so decidedly convoluted, it becomes hopelessly tangled in itself (my fundamental problem with Inception as well, I might add). Complicated plots are all fine and dandy, but complexity for the sake of complexity is silly and given my lack of feelings for the characters I wasn't all that interested in unravelling the Gordian knot that was Rasputin's Bastards. With each subsequent cross, double cross and double-double cross (is that a triple cross?) I found myself drifting away from the narrative only to be sucked back by something so outlandishly absurd that I had to continue reading.

Which brings me to what is right about this novel. Say what I will about spy novels and complex plots, David Nickle is an astoundingly adept writer with a kinetic imagination. Despite my misgivings about Rasputin's Bastards, I must admit that I never once had any idea where Nickle was going to take me next (an ultra-intelligent, breast-feeding infant born of a virgin dream walker? Why not?). For all the things I disliked about this book, it was never, ever predictable and that, alone in this age of formulaic, pain-by-numbers fiction is worthy of the price of admission.

Judging by the dozens of other online reviews of Rasputin's Bastards that I read before writing this review, I'm certainly in the minority among readers in disliking this novel, though I suspect other reviewers are probably fans of this sort of novel in the first place and probably have far more intelligent things to say about the narrative that I do. I'm not interested in disparaging the hard work of David Nickle (or any author not named Cathy Lamb for that matter). I am almost entirely certain that I missed the boat on this novel very early on and my opinions on the book don't amount to a truckload of dead rats. Regardless of what I might say about Rasputin's Bastards, I recognize good writing when I see it and Nickle is certainly a writer to be reckoned with in the spy/science fiction genre. I just with I could follow his plot.

That's what I get for trying to solve the cryptic crossword.

Cool cover, though.

Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451

By Ray Bradbury

As part of Banned Book Week I am honored to be taking part in an event hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. When she posted the notice a couple of weeks back I was compelled to participate. I mean, how do you pass up the chance to get up on your soapbox and rain invective upon those who would ban books? It sounded like fun and indeed... it was a pleasure to write.

I chose to write about Fahrenheit 451 because I've read it almost a dozen times over the last three years (mainly with students). I have a real affinity for this book and I wanted to take the chance to delve a little deeper into it, flesh out a few of my ideas and theories concerning the novel, why it has gained such a controversial reputation and what it has to offer. In short, this is a long overdue review. Sorry... No giveaways. I'm way over in Asia and sending books off this continent is cost prohibitive.

First, the nuts and bolts...

Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953 at the very start of the television generation. In 1953 television was just beginning to establish itself as a viable mass media. Approximately 44% of American households had televisions in 1953 compared to only 9% three years earlier and over 70% three years later. Certainly, television was at the front and center of American popular culture at the time of publication and obviously a subject of much debate. If you listen to Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 is ostensibly a simple science fiction story about the incursion of television on society and a possible future hyper-focused on the newfound instant mass media. In Bradbury's version of America, books have been banned in lieu of the rise of television and a cadre of "firemen" have been formed to root out and burn all remaining books.

But the novel is also so much more than that. It is a veritable tirade (oft-times strident) against censorship, populism and government control. It is a constant reminder of the responsibility inherent in the concept of free speech and how our worse enemy in this world are not governments or corporations but rather ourselves. The agent of governmental and corporate change always and forever boils down to public pressure. They ostensibly work for the majority whether for votes or profits and they act in accordance to our wants and needs (whether we know what they are or not). In the immortal words of Radiohead: "We do it to ourselves."

And for that, Fahrenheit 451 is one of the most often banned books in North America.

Just imagine this. A book about banning books is a banned book in real life. Sounds to me like there is a host of parents, teachers, legislators and concerned citizens out there that don't understand the definition of irony. Talk about meta-banning! Banning a book about banning books? If it wasn't so infuriating, it would be the pinnacle of hilarity.

So, why is Fahrenheit 451, the book about banning books, banned?

Well, I have heard a few reasons. First, Fahrenheit 451 contains strong language. Second, there are instances of violence in the story. But let's be serious here. These are merely excuses. Books don't get banned for language or violence. If they did, the Bible itself could be banned.

Well, damn! There has to be more, right?

There sure as hell better be!

Montag does burn a Bible at one point in the novel and it has been banned for that particular reason in the past. But that doesn't seem to make much sense either since the main characters are trying so very hard to make sure the Bible is not burned and go to great pains to save it the best they can. The novel itself seems to speak favorably of the Bible and the reader is expected to feel a great sadness when the Bible is finally incinerated. So it would seem that those offended by a burning Bible are missing the point a bit.

Another reason for the ban that I found was the negative portrayal of women in the novel. Admittedly, Mildred and her friends are shallow, callous, stupid and weak to the extreme. When compared to Montag, Faber and even Captain Beatty, these women are nothing more than pathetic, television-obssessed cutouts who represent the pathetic, television-obssessed populace of America in this particular world. Mildred's idea of a good time is sitting in front of her three televisions all day watching inane programming then nagging her husband to buy a fourth television when he gets home. If things escalate with Montag she is liable to head out into the county in her car and run down dogs and rabbits for fun and one of her friends has had ten abortions. But then again, Clarisse McClellan is the catalyst for Montag's spiritual awakening and she's a woman. Furthermore, there are any number of books out there with no strong male characters. Those books surely aren't banned.

Another reason I discovered was the negative portrayal of minorities in the book. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the government itself that bans the books in the world of Fahrenheit 451 but rather it is pressure from the people themselves, specifically minorities (and here Bradbury is referring to literally any group of people who don't represent the majority be they black, white, doctors, hairdressers, cat lovers etc...). Captain Beatty lays it out in explicit detail when he notes that minorities don't want to be offended and the government obliges them in their quest for social equality. In bending to the will of minorities the government is pressured into banning literally every book ever published, owing to the fact that literally every book ever published has the capacity to offend someone, somewhere. In this way, Fahrenheit 451 can be seen either as a polemic against un-fettered democracy or perhaps a reminder that un-fettered democracy can theoretically give rise to populism which, in turn, can give rise to fascism. Interesting notion, that.

But that doesn't really work either, and here's why:

Throughout the novel the populist fascism that has overtaken American society is represented by fire. Fire is the agent of forgetting. It is the force in which the powers that be destroy unwanted social friction (i.e. books). The alternative to this is the ragtag group of intellectuals roaming the country outside the major urban areas. There are thousands of former professors living a feral life in the woods. After Montag hops into the river (Montag's baptism) to escape the Mechanical Hound, this ragtag group seems to be represented by water.

But water, just like fire, has the ability to destroy a book. So what is Ray Bradbury trying to say? Is he saying the the opposite of forced equality is also dangerous? I haven't worked that out. Probably nothing literal, but I'm sure there is something metaphorical in the shift from fire to water. It all sounds vaguely ominous at the end anyway. I've never seen the end of Fahrenheit 451 as hopeful or uplifting. It's as bleak as the beginning. Perhaps bleaker. But Bradbury isn't offering easy answers to these questions.

Anyway, back to why the book is banned.

My guess as to why Fahrenheit 451 is really banned is just as ironic as the the fact that it's banned in the first place. The novel itself is a very long diatribe against censorship. And those in the censorship game, be they parents, teachers, or legislators, would be hard pressed to censor anything with anti-censorship books mulling about. Let's call it a literary pre-emptive strike. Ban the books about free speech before they can gain a foothold in order to pave the way for more bans. One might imply that Fahrenheit 451 was simply banned for promoting anti-establishment sentiments, but I think it goes a bit deeper than that. Fahrenheit 451 is a virtual beginner's guide to critical thinking and the Socratic Method. As a teaching tool, it allows students to use reason, logic and their own judgment to formulate conclusions. Kids that master these skills tend to make up their own minds about things and don't swallow whole what parents, teachers, and legislators have to say. In effect, Fahrenheit 451 has the potential to promote open dialog, create free thinkers and encourage creative and dynamic thought.

Of course, trying to wrap your head around all this irony is akin to watching every episode of Twin Peaks on twelve hits of acid. Perhaps it's not worth the time and effort trying to understand the ban. It's meta-crazy!

If I were designing a one year intensive course in English literature for students between 14-17 years of age, Fahrenheit 451 would be a non-negotiable inclusion on the course syllabus. As far as I'm concerned, Fahrenheit 451 is required reading for all high school kids. As I mentioned about, it's a veritable textbook in reason. It's a brilliant introduction to the Socratic Method (I tend to teach Plato's Allegory of the Cave along with the book) and it literally begs students to think for themselves.

School isn't something to simply be endured for 13 years. It's a lifelong concept of human growth and discovery. The humanities in general (and English in particular) aren't simply a series of bird courses peppered between the job-creation subjects (math, science, business). They are the fundamentals tools that teach us how to remain students long after our institutional schooling is finished. In that respect literature plays an important role in teaching us what it means to be human. We can't simply pick and choose from the human experience.

In an age of ultra-accessible information via the Internet, Wikileaks, Occupy Wall Street, The Arab Spring, the Westboro Baptist Church, scandalous Mohammed cartoons, and any number of other examples, Fahrenheit 451 remains more important than ever. It continues to promote reason, reflection, critical thought and intellectual judgment in the face of irrational belief, superstition, greed and control. We owe it to our students to extol such questioning of authority rather than submission to it. Banning books such as Fahrenheit 451 sends a clear message to our kids that we simply don't trust their judgment.

Their judgment couldn't possibly be worse than our own....

Could it?

Replay

Replay

By Ken Grimwood

(Warning... very mild spoilers ahead. They won't matter, though. This book is too awesome to be ruined by spoilers.)

Most people cringe when they are asked "What is your favorite film?" or "What is your favorite book?"They tend to get angry at the questioner and reply with something like this: "How can I choose just one from so many!? It's not a fair question! Can I choose my favorites based on mood or time of day or period of my life?" And while I empathize with those who can't answer such straightforwardly impossible questions, I have no problem with them.

Granted, I have dozens of favorites films and books, and I can answer these questions in more obtuse tones if the situation requires, but if, for some reason, my questioner demands me to boil it down to one from each film and books, I can do it. I can actually answer both questions with definitive and unwavering answers. Without question, my all-time favorite film is The Big Lebowski and my all-time favorite book is Replay.

Technically, I read Replay four years ago, which means I'm breaking a blog rule (writing about the last book I finished), but not really. I recently finished re-reading this novel with a class of students and since I'm still ankle deep in an especially long novel, I thought I could add a little blog content in the interim.

For anyone who hasn't read (or heard of) Replay, drop whatever nonsense you are reading right now and find this gem of a novel. It won't be easy. It took me a while to track down a copy, but they are out there. And with all due respect to Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov, Replay is simply the best piece of science fiction I have ever read (and, like I said, my favorite novel). Set in 1988, the novel begins with the death of 43 year-old, mild-mannered radio journalist Jeff Winston. Winston is the very definition of ordinary. Until the instance of his death, Jeff had been a middling man of middling ambition living out his mediocre life with his increasingly bitter wife, Linda... no kids. Well, that's the way this mortal coil works, right? We're born, we live as best we can, and we die... the vast majority of us in a haze of relative obscurity. Right?

Well, not Jeff Winston.

Jeff Winston's life begins with death.

In one sense, Jeff Winston does die in his office in 1988, in that his life to that point ceases to exist. but instead of a cessation of existence or some sort of progression into an afterlife, Jeff Winston wakes up as an 18 year-old in his dorm room at Emory University in 1963, complete with all his memories of his past life. A life that has not yet been lived. He has not met Linda. His best friend is still alive and every major event that has happened, from the assassination of JFK, Vietnam, the moon landing, Watergate, Heaven's Gate, etc... are all events yet to unfold. It is as if the entire world resets, save for one man's consciousness, leaving Jeff with a 20/20 vision of future events until 1988.

Once the premise is established, Ken Grimwood essentially begs the question: If this happened to you... what would you do?

The novel is a riveting exercise in what many (if not most) of us would do given the chance to live our entire adult lives over again with all the cheat codes available. Imagine a crystal clear notion of the next 25 years of time. Election results, sporting results, disasters, news stories, financial information, cultural trends, technological advances, Yanni. This isn't simply stumbling upon a sports almanac owned by a weird kid with an orange life jacket in 1955 that provides you with an aspect of future events, but rather all your collective memories and recollections from a world that has not yet caught up with you! It's a variety of reincarnation that is as tantalizing as it is scary. And it has provided me with a little game that I have placed since I read this book back in 2008.

If this were to happen to me I would begin replaying in 1993 (that's when I was 18 and the Toronto Blue Jays were about to win their second straight World Series in dramatic fashion (touch 'em all Joe!)) and on nights when I am having trouble falling asleep I often fantasize about what I would do if this phenomenon did occur (well, it beats counting sheep). There's the good stuff: A good portion of my fantasies surround (like Jeff in the book) betting insane amounts of money on sporting events, investing in sure thing stock (Google, Nokia, AOL, Apple, Amazon, Facebook (giggle) etc...) and I'd probably use the phenomenon in ways that I don't want to explore online since my mother tends to read this blog (though Ken Grimwood goes there with Jeff). But there would also be the bad: It's highly unlikely that I could recreate the exact circumstances that lead to me meeting, dating and ultimately marrying my wife (among other important people in my life) and I wonder whether I would be able to refrain from interfering in the space/time continuum (could I really, in good conscience, sit back and allow the events of September 11th to happen again? Or Columbine? Or Triumph the Insult Dog? Or any number of other tragedies that I know are impending?).

Replay is such an intriguing premise. One with so many variables. And if the premise of this book was simply replaying your life from the age of 18 until the age of 43 it would have been excellent, but Grimwood doesn't stop there. On the exact date and time of his death in 1988, Jeff Winston dies again and begins replaying his life... for a third time. This continues to a fourth and fifth and sixth life, each slightly shorter than the last, but to a human being, an almost infinite amount of living to be done. And just imagine, for a second that perhaps Jeff Winston isn't the only person experiencing replays.

Each time I finish this novel I curse Grimwood for ending it. There was so much more that could have been written. It could have been the first infinite book. Alas, I understand that an artist should always leave there audience wanting more. In this respect, Ken Grimwood is a genius. Rumor has it that he was working on a sequel to the book when he died in 2003, but left us with an unprintable manuscript which he went off to, presumably, replay his own life. Jerk.

There has been rumor of a movie for years (including one that would have starred Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts) but as of yet it has not materialized. It's a shame, too because I think it would make a killer film if done right.

Until such time, there is still the book. I am surprised that it isn't as well known as it should be. Given the premise of the novel I figured it would have been a runaway best seller rather than a cult classic. But what do I know about taste? My favorite movie is The Big Lebowski.

Gathering Darkness

Gathering Darkness

By Chris Allinotte

(Full disclosure: I was given a copy of this book by the author who also happens to be an old university buddy).

It seems to me that Chris Allinotte is writing in the wrong era.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that Mr. Allinotte will be unsuccessful in our own age, but his stories, collected in anthology form, are reminiscent of the sort that populated the golden age of science fiction and horror magazines. One can picture a wide eyed little boy reading these tales under the covers of his bed with a flashlight circa 1948. In fact most, if not all of Allinotte's stories would look right at home in magazines such as Amazing Stories! or Weird Tales. While I'm certain that comparable magazine exist today in the form of e-zines (I'm positive in fact, since a lot of Allinotte's work has been published in such places)

In fact, it's not too difficult to trace the inspiration for Allinotte's anthology of 28 spooky, gory and, often hilarious tales back to the sort of campfire stories we used to tell each other around the campfire when we were kids. Many of the tales in this book reminded me so much of those found a little book I have loved and lost more time than I can count: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. So much so, that I kept turning the page, hoping to see one of Stephen Gammell's highly disturbing illustrations (I didn't, but it would have been cool).

From there I can only guess that, like me, Allinotte grew up on a solid diet of campy 70s and 80s horror and slasher films. Anything from Sleepaway Camp, Evil Dead II and Return of the Living Dead (or any other combination of low-budget horror goodness). While my tastes tended to gravitate toward the work of George Romero and Lucio Fulci, Allinotte seems to have taken a wider approach to horror. Inspiration ranging from Stephen King to Sam Raimi is evidenced in his work which has made for a more eclectic and diversified collection. Within this collection there are aliens, monsters, giant insects, ghosts, zombies, Satan, and any number of other demonic concoctions. It's a veritable cornucopia of horror traditions.

As with any collection of short horror stories (and like the horror magazines of the 1950s and 60s), Gathering Darkness is hit and miss. Given the length of some the stories, it doesn't much matter because if a mutant killer built by the military isn't your thing, the next story isn't far away. Some of the highlights for me included "Postage Due, Pandora", a story about a mysterious box that houses all sorts of madness and "The Cabin Sleeps", a traditional-style urban legend that would be perfect for a recitation around a campfire.

What I liked most about this collection is Allinotte's playful style. What a lot of horror writers of the Creepshow variety tend to forget is that horror in this style doesn't work well without comedy. Gathering Darkness exudes a playful cheekiness that dares the readers to simultaneously gasp in disgust and squeal in delight. The sort of of campiness that has been lost on the current generation of horror writers (though, admittedly, I don't read as much horror as I used to, so I might be entirely wrong with that assumption).

Throughout the collection the characters and setting remain of the two-dimensional variety that all horror junkies understand. There's no sense in broad characterization and setting. It's a waste of time. Why bother when it's a good bet that character will be eaten by a puss oozing blob of goo in three pages. Keep to the essentials and keep the pace lively. The readers can for the blood and Allinotte delivers quickly and efficiently.

I also liked the short interludes between stories. The collection has several centerpiece stories peppered with short shots that are often tongue-in-cheek shots at the horror genre as a whole. I thought these brief interludes added to the collection by breaking it up and jolting the reader away from traditional pacing.

While I enjoyed the collection as a whole I did have a few reservations. Some of the stories do fall off the rails a bit. One in particular, "Devil's Night", tries to throw every possible horror convention at the reader in the span of a few dozen pages and left me a little perplexed as to what had happened. But that, I suppose, is the plight of the horror writer. Throw your ideas at the wall and see what sticks.

Another thing that I felt was missing (and perhaps this is my own problem rather than the author's) was the absence of that one scare that keeps me awake at night. One story, "Kittens for Sale" came very close (and I will probably carry that particular story around for a while) and "Tempting Morsels" did remind me of the very real scare I suffered the first time I read Stephen King's short story "The Jaunt." But the scare never did occur, but I was ever hopeful throughout my reading.

Overall, however, Gathering Darkness is a strong collection of short horror and worthy of a look. If you are a fan of horror fiction, especially of the camp variety, keep an eye out for Chris Allinotte. His brand of horror may be reminiscent of a bygone era of magazines but horror is timeless and we all need a good, rollicking scare from time to time. I'm looking forward to reading his next work.

The Map of Time

The Map of Time

By Felix J. Palma

This book took forever to read! There were points when I honestly thought I wasn't going to finish this one. Not that it was a bad book, in the end it was extremely compelling and I would recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction, horror, fantasy or historical fiction but, Jeez Louise, did it take a while to get going. But more on that later. Let's get down to the nuts and bolts.

Set in Victorian London, The Map of Time is a loosely (but ingeniously) connected series of stories about time travel centered around a fictionalized H.G. Wells and a charlatan by the name of Gilliam Murray. The stories take place in the wake of the publication of Well's first novel, The Time Machine, and London's burgeoning obsession with the idea of time travel.

Murray has capitalized on this obsession by opening a clever time travel agency that allows travelers to visit the year 2000, via a hole in the fabric of time, where they will be treated to a surprisingly choreographed battle to decide the fate of humanity between humans and automatons. Naturally, the London of 1895 eats it up and Murray gets rich beyond his wildest dreams off his elaborate hoax. Much like the novel, Murray's calculated use of smoke and mirrors allow his patrons to believe what they see though, as Murray points out later in the novel, people are prepared to believe anything.

It's this smoke and mirrors that drew me into this novel more than anything else. Time and again throughout this novel, the narrator describes various methods of time travel and presents them as possible ways in which to travel through the fourth dimension only to deconstruct them craftily as the narrative progresses. As a reader, I began to feel as duped as the marks who paid Murray an exorbitant fee to see a musical theater version of the future. But since I had only paid the price of a used book (and since the ultimate payoff in this book is so enthralling) I didn't close the book with the same bad taste in my mouth that Murray's gullible patrons must have had when the discovered his hoax.

And what a payoff! While I will not even hint at the final 200 pages of the novel, I will admit that it was one of the most exciting endings to a novel I have read in a long time. It is here that Palma makes the leap into pure science fiction and never looks back. Palma bends and twists time in complicated folds reminiscent of The Time Traveler's Wife and left me re-reading passages twice (and even thrice) just to make sure I understand the intricacies. Palma's science fiction universe is positively engrossing and extraordinarily compelling. It is of the sort that will have you up late at night salivating over the "what ifs."

But never mind the science fiction. With a cast of characters that includes not only H.G. Wells but also Henry James, Bram Stoker, Jack the Ripper, Joseph Merrick and the Queen of England herself, The Map of Time is also an exquisitely realized piece of historical fiction. The compellingly believable hoax concocted by Murray to explain is version of time travel is a wonderful side step into the realm of fantasy and the chillingly sinister importance of Jack the Ripper to the story adds an element of horror to an already layered novel. For anyone who likes any (or ll) of these genres, The Map of Time is a real treat... once you get into it, that is.

Which gets me to my only complaint about this novel: The incessant backstory toward the beginning of the book. The novel is told from the perspective of an unnamed but fully realized and entirely omnipotent narrator who seems extremely concerned with the reader's attention span but completely confident that the story he is telling is on for the ages. I was more than a little frustrated with this incessant reassurance. If it was such a great story why not simply get to the good story rather than dilly-dally through the Tom Jones of it all. Although it would seem that Palma, in this respect is his own worst critic. At one point Wells is speaking to Murray about Murray's manuscript:

In my opinion, not only have you started out with a rather naive premise, but you have developed it in a most unfortunate way, stifling its few possibilities. The structure of your narrative is inconsistent and muddled, the episodes are linked only tenuously, and in the end one has the impression that events occur higgledy-piggledy, without any inner cohesion, simply because it suits you.

This quote could have easily been a slander of Palma's first 200 pages. What really galled me was that by the end of the novel I discovered that a good chunk of the initial backstories were entirely unnecessary and did nothing to further the cohesiveness of the narrative. It all seemed like literary filler. For what? I'm still not sure.

But once through those first 200 pages, I must admit that Felix J. Palma has indeed written a science fiction novel for the ages and worth the investment in time. For anyone picking this tome up, I impress upon you the need for patience. I promise you that if you keep the faith, Palma will pay out. Oh yeah, and it has a really cool cover.

Welcome To The Monkey House

Welcome To The Monkey House

By Kurt Vonnegut

Interesting. I just finished Welcome to the Monkey House. Two books ago I read Ape House. This is all part of my challenge to read books that refer to primates (other than humans) in some way. Next up: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon. It's all opposable thumbs, all the time here at My Life in Books!

OK.... anyway...

Sitting down with a Kurt Vonnegut book is like easing back into your favorite chair to watch your favorite movie while eating your favorite snack food. After months of treading new ground, it's nice to sit back with something familiar. Something unsurprising and solid. Kurt Vonnegut (along with Tom Robbins and Salman Rushdie) are my Rushmore. They are my chicken soup for the reader's soul. They are my safety reads. Goto novels when I feel like I need a refresher on where I came from. I love to revisit these guys and I do so often.

All this revisitation is a bit of a Catch-22, though, because at last count I only have three more novels left before I have read Kurt Vonnegut's entire bibliography. With Robbins, it's one, with Rushdie, it's two. For as much as I read, I have never finished an author's entire career's work (well... except Harper Lee). And while I will be left with collections of short fiction, essays and opinions for all three authors once I complete their bibliographies, as Welcome to the Monkey House shows, this shall be problematic.

Welcome to the Monkey House is one such collection of Vonnegut's early short fiction that I can only assume was published in what he refers to in Breakfast of Champions as "beaver magazines"(actually, after a cursory look on the Wikipedia entry for the collection, most of these stories were first published in reputable sources such as Collier's, Ladies Home Journal and Esquire, but let's not mess with a good story). The stories are predominantly science fiction, although some decidedly not. As with most collections of short stories, the content of Welcome to the Monkey House is uneven. Granted it's the sort of uneven work created by Kurt Vonnegut, which means it's good. But it's still uneven.

Personally, I enjoy Kurt Vonnegut's more traditional science fiction over anything else. Science fiction was the genre in which Vonnegut rarely failed. This turned out to be true on this collection as well. I most enjoyed a story entitled "The Manned Missiles" (1955) in which the father of the first Soviet man in space writes a heartfelt letter to the father of the first American man in space. Their boys' missions, which culminated in each of them dying in space due to the aggression of their respective nations, culminates in a detente between America and the Soviet Union and hints at the end of the Cold War. The story has both heart and social relevance (at least on the date of publication). Furthermore, this story has relevance considering its optimistic view of the future. Many Vonnegut critics have accused him of being overly pessimistic.

The title story, "Welcome to the Monkey House" (which, incidentally is the only story in this collection actually published in what might be construed as a beaver magazine... Playboy) is the centerpiece of the entire collection. It explores the subject of sexuality and overpopulation. In an effort to de-populate the planet people have willingly been robbed of their sexual urges. Furthermore, people are encouraged to visit government sponsored suicide clinics where they are eased off this mortal coil by suggestively clad virgins. When she encounters a Billy the Poet, a man who has not ascribed to the new system, she is shown the nature of this life, which she deems "pointless."The story is rife with sexual and moral tension and is perhaps one of the best stories of Vonnegut's career.

In another excellent story Vonnegut lays out a story about Thomas Edison and his dog that may or may not be a lie to get away from an annoying small town story-teller. In another Vonnegut elaborates on one woman's pathological obsession with home renovation. In yet another he tells the story of the first computer to express human emotions and how it falls in love with a woman.

But there are a few stinkers in the mix here (and no Kilgore Trout anywhere in sight). Like the rockets on the early space program, some of these stories just never seem to get off the ground. They all have that signature Vonnegut style but just don't seem to get anywhere. As one would expect from a collection of an author's early work, the stories read like a young writer trying to find his voice. As a devout reader of Kurt Vonnegut, it was a pleasure to read the trajectory of his young writing and see the origins of the more mature writer that would emerge in the ensuing years. In that sense Welcome to the Monkey House is just as much a piece of literary history as it is a collection of short fiction.

But if you are new to Kurt Vonnegut, I would recommend you pass on this one for the time being and start somewhere more conventional: Breakfast of Champions or Slaughterhouse-Five. As for me, I'm coming full circle. It's just about time I begin my way through Kurt Vonnegut's titles for the second time.

So it goes...

My Year in Books

My Year in Books

Holy cow, it's 2012! How did that happen? I was still writing 2010 on deposit slips and stuff well into November and now I've got to remember to write 2012. Actually, it only occured to me the other day that the 1990s are over a decade ago now... insanity. Years fly by.

It still seems like only a few weeks ago that I started this blog but it has already been over a year. I have somehow managed to write something (sometimes only just) about every single book I read. I didn't think I would have very much to say after the first few books but I found that I was already crafting many of my blog posts in my head somewhere in the middle of most books I read. It has become part of my reading routine, which I think is worthwhile.

Not all of the books were fun to write about, mind you. There were some real clunkers on my reading list this year and since I always finish what I start, writing about some of these books was far more difficult than I would have expected. It's hard to muster the ambition to write about a book you barely finished, didn't like and would sooner forget. It is even harder to make it interesting. I suspect I failed on more than a few posts over the course of this year.

I started this blog as a bit of a reference experiment, really. I read so much that I often forget about a lot of books I read. I pick books up that I have read and forgotten about and it takes me dozens of pages for me to realize what's happening. This actually happened this year when I picked up How to be Good by Nick Hornby and realized about 30 pages in that I read it a few years ago. It obviously hadn't made an impact.

I wanted a place where I could record my thoughts, snide comments and theories about everything I read and maybe spark up a discussion or two along the way (and I won't lie, I'm more than narcissistic enough to enjoy knowing that people are reading what I write and I love comments). In that respect, this blog has been a huge success for me and I look forward to writing it (almost) every time I finish a book.

Moving forward, I am going to try carrying a notebook with me while I read. I found that I often had great ideas about a book only to forget about the idea when it came time to post a blog. This lack of planning made many of my blog posts feel rushed and superficial. I want to be a bit more astute in the coming year.

That being said, I didn't take any notes on this post and I'm writing it with a New Year's hangover. Even so, I'm going to try and divide my year in reading into a few year-end lists, with some superficial comments to go along with them. I provided the links to the actual posts, some of which aren't terrible. All of these are in no particular order.

Best Fiction of the Year

1. Hater by David Moody

I cannot wait to read the second in this series. What a great take on the zombie mythology.

2. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

This book surprised the hell out of me. I expected to hate it and it blew me away.

3. Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

Who knew that fantasy could be so riveting. Another first in a series that I expect to continue in 2012.

4. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Absolutely sublime. One of the best books I have read in a decade.

5. Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides

If not for Never Let Me Go, this would have been the best book I read this year. It is such a masterful piece of fiction.

Best Non-Fiction of the Year

1. Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer

2. Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom by Peter Guralnick

3. Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace

4. Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole by Benjamin R. Barber

5. Moneyball: The Art of Winning An Unfair Game by Michael Lewis

(I read so much good non-fiction this year that I could have had five more here and I wouldn't have felt I left anything off.)

Worst Books of the Year

1. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max

Blogs don't make good books (My Life in Books: The Movie!). Besides, college humor is so 2000.

2. Henry's Sisters by Cathy Lamb

This book is quite probably the worst book I have ever read. If anyone brings this book up in conversation I still go off on insane rants.

3. The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You by Dorothy Bryant

New age hokum.

4. Endymion Spring by Matthew Skelton

Harry Potter without an ounce of fun.

5. Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

Anyway. Hope everyone had a great New Years (I did) and I look forward to continuing the blog into 2011... I mean 2012. As a parting gift, here is the complete list of my reading this year...

1. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell – Tucker Max
2. Smoke Screen – Sandra Brown
3. The Mirror Crack’d – Agatha Christie
4. The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
5. Peter Pan – J.M. Barrie
6. Life – Keith Richards
7. Blue World – Robert McCammon
8. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden State of Everything – Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
9. Welcome Home: Travels in Smalltown Canada – Stuart McLean
10. The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
11. Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follet
12. The Walking Dead Vol. 13: Too Far Gone – Robert Kirkman
13. The Power of Myth – Joseph Campbell
14. Stanley Park – Timothy Taylor
15. The Face of Battle – John Keegan
16. A History of Violence – John Wagner
17. Three Day Road – Joseph Boyden
18. Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt
19. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
20. The Cider House Rules – John Irving
21. Black Ajax – George MacDonald Fraser
22. In a Free State – V.S. Naipaul
23. Clara Callan – Richard B. Wright
24. Cutting For Stone – Abraham Verghese
25. The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, The Most Devastating Plague of All Time – John Kelly
26. The Rolling Stones Interviews – Jann S. Wenner
27. The Butcher’s Boy – Thomas Perry
28. Henry’s Sisters – Cathy Lamb
29. Flashman – George MacDonald Fraser
30. 6 x H – Robert A. Heinlein
31. Scar Tissue – Anthony Keidis
32. Every Man Dies Alone – Hans Fallada
33. Just So Stories – Rudyard Kipling
34. Dead Famous – Ben Elton
35. People of the Book – Geraldine Brooks
36. Hater – David Moody
37. Think of a Number – John Verdon
38. Thinner – Stephen King
39. Drowning Ruth – Christina Schwarz
40. The Stranger – Albert Camus
41. The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster
42. A Spy in the House of Love – Anais Nin
43. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union – Michael Chabon
44. Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom – Peter Guralnick
45. The Kin of Ata Are Waiting For You – Dorothy Bryant
46. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera
47. I Am Ozzy – Ozzy Osbourne
48. A Long Way Down – Nick Hornby
49. Where Men Win Glory – Jon Krakauer
50. Endymion Spring – Matthew Skelton
51. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
52. Atonement – Ian McEwan
53. Eleanor Rigby – Douglas Coupland
54. Fifth Business – Robertson Davies
55. Formosan Odyssey: Taiwan Past and Present – John Ross
56. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Berniere
57. Helmet For My Pillow – Robert Leckie
58. Why China Will Never Rule The World: Travels in the Two Chinas – Troy Parfitt
59. A Game of Thrones: Book One A Song of Fire and Ice – George R.R. Martin
60. Middlesex – Jeffery Eugenides
61. Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
62. Pygmy – Chuck Palahniuk
63. Consider the Lobster – David Foster Wallace
64. My Life as an Experiment: One Man’s Humble Quest to Improve Himself – A.J. Jacobs
65. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian – Sherman Alexie
66. Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
67. Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole – Benjamin R. Barber
68. Dust – Joan Frances Turner
69. Formosa: Licensed Revolution and the Home Rule Movement, 1895-1945 – George Kerr
70. That’s Me In The Middle – Donald Jack
71. The Education of Little Tree – Forrest Carter
72. Sabriel – Garth Nix
73. Let The Great World Spin – Colum McCann
74. Moneyball: The Art of Winning An Unfair Game – Michael Lewis
75. The Help – Kathryn Stockett
76. The Eyre Affair – Jasper Fforde

The Eyre Affair

The Eyre Affair

By Jasper Fforde

I actually finished this novel a few days ago but I got a strange acting gig on a Taiwanese television program that had me on the set for 15 hours a day for a couple of days. No worries... if I ever had any delusions about being a television or film actor, they are officially gone. I have the utmost respect for those working in the industry, but the hours of tedium were too much for me to handle, even with a good book.

Anyway...

Speaking of tedium, I really have to start reading the second books in the series' I start lest they begin to overwhelm me and reading becomes more of a chore and less of a pastime. Don't get me wrong, I've loved many of these books but I haven't finished a series since The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo this time last year and I've started five series this calendar year. The Eyre Affair, book one of the Tuesday Next novels, marks the sixth series this year and eighth series overall that I have begun without finishing. The others, in no particular order are:

1. The Bandy Papers (read book one)

2. The Hater Series (read book one)

3. Sabriel (read book one)

4. Endymion Spring (read book one)

5. Game of Thrones (read book one)

6. Sea of Poppies (read book one)

7. Twilight (read book one)

Aside for Endymion Spring and Twilight (which I wouldn't finish ever if you put me on a salary to do so), I intend to finish all of these series. Therefore, in true New Year's spirit, I resolve to read at least six book twos in 2012 (that is, if the world doesn't end). I already have the next Bandy Papers book and the second Sabriel book on my shelf and I've got an Amazon gift certificate set aside for the second Game of Thrones and Dog Blood, so this seems like a reasonable goal. Yay for reading goals!

As for The Eyre Affair is a solid piece of alternate-history science fiction that is part Doctor Who and part Monty Python... That is to say it's legit sci-fi with all sorts of tongue-in-cheek humor for sci-fi fans, history geeks and literary types alike. The story is full of sly winks to those in the know from character names to historical figures. But you'd better pack a calculator, a pencil and a protractor before venturing too far into this book because, like all good time travel novels, the chronology will make your head hurt. If there's a test later, you're screwed (probably because you already took it two weeks ago in the future).

The protagonist is Tuesday Next, a plays-by-her-own-rules SpecOp agent working for something called SO-27 (LiteraTec). While the novel doesn't expand on exactly what her job entails, she is responsible for any thing that has to do with literature, and in this world, literature is a far more dicey issue than in our own.

Jasper Fforde has supposed a very detailed world in which vampires and werewolves exist and are a nuisance for law enforcement, literature supplants television and music as the most pop of all cultures and technology exists whereby not only is time travel possible but also travel into actual novels where villains can alter story lines, characters can be assassinated or interested parties can simply wander around for weeks as a tourist (for a price though... and only in Japan). Awesome.

Which got me to thinking...

If there was a single book in which I would like to visit, what would it be? Not to alter the story line, mind you, just to wander around in the world imagined by the author. I'm sure that upon further reflection I will change my answer, but my immediate inclination is to say Island by Aldous Huxley. It's hard to pass up the chance to visit utopia as perceived by the author of one of the greatest dystopian novels ever written. Actually, I'd probably get a kick out of a visit into Brave New World as well. Or maybe Jitterbug Perfume. Wait... how about Replay or... or, or... or...

Ahem. Where was I?

Oh yeah...

As for the second question... If there was a character in a book that you would love to eliminate, who would it be?

I'll have to think about that one before things get out of hand.

Snow Crash

Snow Crash

By Neal Stephenson

Whoa boy, here we go... Some spoilers.

I was inclined to write unfavorably about this novel until, about halfway through reading it, I noticed that it was published in 1992. See, that's the thing with science fiction. The date of publication can actually sway the reader's opinion of the book convincingly. Had this book been written even five years later and I'd be writing a cynical post about all the nonsense espoused by Stephenson. As it so happens, I can't trash this book and I'll tell you why.

Snow Crash takes place in a not-too-distant future of instant gratification and hyper-sensitivity toward personal freedoms. It is a world where the Mafia is a legal enterprise, hyper-inflation has rendered America impotent, the government has become a parody of politically correct mind games while other nations and religions act as corporate entities within its borders. It all feels like a mix of Blade Runner, The Matrix and Idiocracy but without the androids, spoon-bending and Brawndo. A hopeless, soulless dystopia that provides some very dis-spiriting end results based on our current trajectories.

The reader is introduced to a cast of improbable characters: Hiro Protagonist, a katana-wielding super-hacker turned pizza delivery guy, Y.T. (short for Yours Truly) a spunky 15-year old skateboarding Kourier working for the Mafia, and Raven, a freakishly large Aleutian harpoonist turned nuclear threat bent on revenge against America for their attack on the Alaskan islands at the end of World War Two. In Snow Crash we watch as these characters and a host of others prance around reality and something called the Metaverse (a 3D computer world that is eerily similar to the internet, although far more interactive) seemingly at will. Since the police force has been rendered entirely impotent and personal freedoms are a premium and any sort of freedom can be purchased (racist? Come live in New South Africa!), there exists virtually no laws to speak of and thus the characters face very few consequences for their often violent and destructive actions.

And then there's Snow Crash. Snow Crash is at once an extremely dangerous computer virus that can actually physically harm hackers inside the Metaverse and a highly addictive drug in reality. It is the product of one Bob L. Rife who, through an elaborate plan involving an aircraft carrier, ancient Sumerian tablets and an army of Asian refugees is bent on converting America to his own brand of Pentecostal insanity. The rationale for this requires an elaborate descent into Sumerian mythology that reminded me of the Da Vinci Code in its scope. Stephenson suggests that the Sumerian language is some sort of basic operating system hardwired into the human brain. By tapping into the basic functions of the brain via the sumerian language, Rife can control the world.

Confused yet? OK, good.

So what makes this novel so good? Well it was published way back in 1992. Ah 1992! When over-sized sweaters and bike shorts ruled the fashion world. Flat-tops were all the rage and Vanilla Ice had yet to become the ironic icon of a generation and Microsoft launched Windows 3.1. Also in 1992, Delphi became the first commercial enterprise to offer Internet access to its subscribers. While this was certainly a major moment in the history of the internet, it certainly didn't mean we were all online. Not yet anyway.

So when Stephenson published Snow Crash in 1992 with its mention of the Metaverse there was an element of fantasy to the entire idea (at least there would have been from this 12th grader had I read the book then). Stephenson talks of people having homes and offices in the Metaverse and rendering avatars and requiring greater access and tighter security. All sound familiar?

(In fact, Stephenson has often been credited with coining the phrase "avatar" although he downplays this notion in the afterword of the book).

Wait, there's more. Hiro Protagonist uses two programs within the Metaverse, the Librarian and Earth. It takes very little imagination to link these ideas with our understanding of Wikipedia and Google Earth. What's more, Stephenson talks of the financial collapse of the American system and the hyper-inflation that followed. While this certainly has not happened, it is a grim reminder of issues that plague the American Government and the Federal Reserve today.

While I imagine that Stephenson had to stretch the bounds of archaeology to do so, his idea that language is a program and religion is a virus are intriguing, although far-fetched. According to Stephenson the sumerian goddess Asherah created a virus to infect humanity. The virus was stopped by Enki through some form of linguistic inoculation (the disappearance of the Sumerian language) and the need for acquired languages (thus the Tower of Babel). At times, this portion of the book reads like Chariots of the Gods and I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes in a few places.

As with any action flick, Snow Crash ends with the requisite car chase, boss fight, explosion sequence that failed to leave me with any real closure, but that's not really the point of a science fiction novel, is it. I liked Snow Crash if for no other reason than its creative impact on our current world. While parts of this novel descended into the patently absurd, there was enough real, honest-to-goodness sci-fi excellence to balance it out. As the friend that brought this book to my attention said:

"I will remember parts of this book until the day I die."