R.A. Raab's Blog, page 5

Get Out of My Video Game!

A few months ago, when I bought Titanfall for the Xbox One, I put the disc in with great anticipation. This was supposed to be the first great game for the new console. Great anticipation and huge buzz surrounded this title. But when I booted the game up for the first time, my greatest nightmare came true.

It was an online-only game.

I view video games like reading a book. I like to play the campaign by myself, in the privacy of my own home. I don’t want to share my experience with strangers from around the globe, and don’t care to have the fact that I don’t share the same gaming skills a some boy in South Korea that sits at home practicing for twelve hours a day. In short: if I can’t play a two player game with my wife, I’d rather just play alone.

In Titanfall, that wasn’t possible. I was immediately spawned into a world overrun with other online players, working through the same level I was. Could these prepubescent gamers shoot me in the head whenever they wanted? You bet they could. And it happened again and again as teams played against each other while they worked their way through levels.

I listed Titanfall on Ebay in under an hour. Literally.

Fast forward to last week. The second game I was excited about, Destiny, was loaded up and ready to boot. When I started the game, it told me that I was being connected to the server. No problem. That happens often when the game checks for updates. But when I began the first level and saw that it had “Fireteams of 1-3 players,” I was worried. For the second time, it seemed, I’d be forced to play with other players.

I was right. Before too long, a prompt showed up on my screen during a firefight: “WolfBoy217 waved at you.” A second prompt followed: “PutridCorpse pointed at something.” He pointed? Pointed at what? Since my mother raised me right, I didn’t just want to ignore the wave and the gesture by the two other players. I fumbled with the buttons, desperate to wave back. To point as well.

And I got killed by an alien.

I’ve since learned how to do those things, and there have been the infrequent occasions when I’m pinned down in a firefight and another player comes to my aid. But at the end of the day, I wish the companies that make games would allow you to choose to play alone or with other players…like they did just last year.

If video games continue down this path, I fear I may just give up on them and stick with playing pinball. What video game makers are doing by forcing you to play with other players is tantamount to me hitting the Start button on a pinball machine, and a four-player game is started…and three people from around the globe just walk into my house and take over the game. If that happened, I’d have to give up on pinball as well.

Maybe I should just stick to reading a book. But don’t ask if you can read it with me.

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3 Books, 9 Stars

BOOK REVIEW:  You have been warned: The Drop by Dennis Lehane isn’t really a new novel by him. It’s a novelization of a script he wrote for the movie of the same name. As such, it’s the shortest book he’s ever written, which doesn’t give you much time to get involved with any characters. And there’s not much of a payoff at the end, anyway. If you’re a Lehane fan, by all means read this book. But if you’re looking for the next great book by this great author, you’ll have to wait until next March. Three Stars.

BOOK REVIEW:  The Children Act by Ian McEwan is a book that explores society’s responsibility to keep patients alive in the face of religious belief that would otherwise allow them to die. It follows a female judge as she tries to hold her marriage together while deciding whether to allow a 17-year-old Jehovah’s Witness to be transfused in order to treat his leukemia. There is a pivotal scene in the middle of the book when the two meet, but you’ll probably just leave this book with mixed feelings … as well as a healthy dose of depression. Three Stars.

BOOK REVIEW:  It was bound to happen eventually. Thomas H. Cook was bound to write a book that was just mediocre, and A Dancer in the Dust is it. Perhaps I was just turned off by the fact that part of the book is set in Africa. Cook is so good at writing about New York City and the south (where he originates from) that I found myself missing those locales, which become characters of their own in his books. There also was no kick-in-the-behind twist of an ending as is common in his books. A decent effort and still a good book, but not his best. I’m still a huge fan, though! Three Stars.

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Plot Fatigue

When I was in my thirties, I can distinctly remember waking up one morning and thinking to myself, If I never eat another hamburger, it’ll be too soon. I was tired of eating hamburgers. And cheeseburgers. And don’t even get me started on hot dogs. In short, I had reached a point in my life where eating the same foods for so many years was just getting…boring. (Which explains why I was seen eating a sheep’s head in Iceland a few years later.)

It’s happening again, but this time, it’s with books. Perhaps it’s just a function of my ever-advancing years. Maybe I’m just turning into an old crotchety man, and it’s rearing its ugly head first with my patience for rehashed plots. All I know is that when I walk into a bookstore and look for something to read, every flyleaf seems to sound the same to me, as if I’ve read them before. And even when the book sounds like a fresh idea, like Gone Girl did, I invariably wind up figuring out the plot by page 100.

Or maybe I’ve just read too much for too many years. I usually manage to work over a hundred books a year into my reading schedule, and since I’ve habitually read books since about the third grade (when I was already reading Stephen King), you can figure that I’ve read between four and five thousand books in my lifetime…give or take. (Thankfully, I’ve done quite a bit of Ebaying of said books as well, which is why I’m still married.)

The thing is, I find myself sighing a lot lately as I read. Out of frustration. Out of boredom. Out of disgust for having spent money on yet another book that it feels like I’ve read already. And I think back to what agent Sheldon Fogelman said once (which I’ve talked about in a previous post): that it was okay to write a book with a story, plot, or idea that had been done before; just make sure to do it differently. My problem is that I don’t think plots of late are being done differently enough.

How many missing children plots (or plots that have to do with the death of a child) do we have to see every year? Or dysfunctional families (a la Jonathan Franzen)? And don’t get me started on dystopian fiction, vampires, wizards, and all the other stories that have been rehashed to death. Mysteries have been completely overdone: someone gets killed; someone asks questions; someone gets caught. There are only so many ways you can change that formula up.

Right now, I’m reading The Magicians by Lev Grossman (an adult Harry Potter) and Seven Wonders by Ben Mezrich (which is an Indiana Jones rehash). I just finished Dancer in the Dust by Thomas H. Cook and The Drop by Dennis Lehane, both works by great authors that are not up to their usual standards, but still vastly entertaining.

I’m looking forward to reading Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson and We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas, but I fear they’ll be like reading another Jonathan Franzen book, or a book by Cormac McCarthy.

Sure, there are some great books that have original storylines–The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker comes to mind–but it’s very seldom that a book combines great original storytelling with great writing. The last book to do that for me was The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin. For an avid reader like me, it’s only every few years or so that a book comes along that propels me from beginning to end and leaves such a lasting impression on me. (Zevin’s book is the only book I’ve given a five star review to besides The Goldfinch.)

And that means I’ve got quite a long wait until the next truly great book … or at least one that is truly original.

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A Short Victory Lap

Nearly three years ago, I was invited by the New York Times to write a short article explaining why I thought e-books weren’t any threat to the future of the printed word. I’m proud to report that data suggests that during last year’s holiday season, independent bookstores have seen a resurgence in business, and e-book sales have begun to level off. Physical books are still very much alive, and show no signs of extinction any time soon…even if Amazon still retains the lion’s share of the market.

(My own favorite indie store–Sages Pages in Madison, NJ–suffered a devastating flood and was forced to close its doors. If you have an independent bookstore in your area, please support it by buying a book or two!)

Here’s what I wrote back in December of 2011:

During the holiday book-buying blitz, my spirits were lifted by the data presented in “E-Books, Shmee-Books: Readers Return to the Stores” (Arts pages, Dec. 13). As both an avid “Amazonian” and a patron of independent bookstores, I do not believe that online stores and e-books pose a threat to independent bookstores or larger chains.

Each segment of the bookselling market has its own specialty and benefit. I shop in my local bookstore because of the impeccable service, the ease of browsing and the hometown feel of being greeted on a first-name basis. For this, I, like many others, am happy to pay more and support the local economy. Amazon is a viable second option when a book isn’t available locally, but it’s a cold and impersonal way to do business.

In much the same way that virtual stores like Amazon supplement the physical shopping experience, e-books can and will continue to coexist with printed books. I’ve always believed that the predictions about the death of the physical book were premature. If Barnes & Noble thought that e-books would destroy its ability to sell printed matter, it wouldn’t feature the Nook prominently at the front of its stores.

While e-reading is more convenient by far, it has drawbacks: you can have books purloined by publishers and vendors over legal squabbles, the battery can die and you need to turn your e-reader off for airplane takeoffs and landings.

Regardless of how pervasive technology becomes in our literary lives, people will forever long for the tactile experience of reading a tangible book — bought from a tangible store.

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Got A Dog? Make Sure You Still Have Your Cell Phone…

It all began so innocently.

My wife and I decided to avoid the strife overseas (and the risk of intercontinental ebola contamination) and just drive up to Nantucket for two days. Better yet (we agreed) we could take the dog on her first vacation and see how she liked the beach.

Oh, Spanky liked it fine, alright. She settled right in and dug her little doggie toes into the sand. She was so comfortable, in fact, that my wife went for a swim and I went for a lobster roll. When I returned, I found my wife lying on her towel, my cell phone in the sand next to the dog. “Did you move my cell phone?” I asked her. She insisted that she had not. But I was sure I had left it on my beach chair. No harm, no foul, and I forgot about it almost instantly.

Later, we went for a walk around the island and in town. At the old mill, I left my phone on the bench where Spanky was tied up to the armrest and ran to the bathroom for a moment while my wife investigated the mill. Surely, nobody would steal my phone. Nobody did, but the phone wasn’t where I left it. Nor was it in the same place when I sat on a bench outside the town bakery, enjoying a cupcake with my wife, my phone beside me. Or so I thought.

There was the sound of a camera shutter, followed by the sound of my phone hitting the ground. “Did you hear that?” I asked my wife. “Hear what?” she said through a mouthful of cupcake. “The shutter sound. It sounded like somebody took a picture. But my phone’s on the ground now. That’s not possible, is it?” She agreed it was not, and we continued enjoying the view of the Jared Coffin House with our mouths full of frosting, and Spanky sitting up at our feet, begging for a bite.

It was only later, when we visited the island brewery, that things began to turn ugly. We caught Spanky lapping up some spilled beer at one point and realized that we may have a dog with a bit of a drinking problem. Having gotten her from the shelter, we were unaware of what her past history was. We were beginning to realize that the shelter may have actually been a kind of halfway house for our dog.

Finally, the unthinkable happened: Spanky disappeared from our view. We couldn’t find her. For hours, we searched by the food trucks, thinking she was rooting around for a lost nacho chip or a dropped oyster. Since we had just learned of her proclivity for booze, we also sought her out amongst the various kegs that were dispensing large red Solo cups with frothy brew.

No luck. To make matters worse, at some point along the way, I had completely lost my phone…for good this time. We were absolutely beside ourselves. What could have happened to our dear Spanky?

My wife’s phone rang. It was the Nantucket Police Department. The officer told us they were holding our dog and had to bring her in on public drunk and disorderly charges. “The dog had a phone with her,” he told us matter-of-factly. “It has some … well … I think you should just get down here and see this.”

We hopped the shuttle back to town, paid the bail, and sprung our beloved pup from her doggie dungeon. The desk officer handed me my lost phone. “Take a look at the camera roll,” he said. “It’s really unbelievable.”

I did. And it was. Pictures of the beach. The windmill. The Jared Coffin House. The brewery, where the photo showed that our dog was clearly besotted. And finally, with a look that bespoke the trouble she knew she had gotten herself in, a picture taken at the jail.

Spanky, in addition to having a passion for beer, also had a proclivity for selfies.

She’s currently in counseling and doing much better.

 

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Catching Up: 5 Book Reviews

BOOK REVIEW:  Haruki Murakami is one of those authors who I pick up and wonder why I did…until I start reading the book. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is no exception. A short book (they formatted it in a smaller size, presumably to make it look bigger), it follows a man as he tries to reconnect with old high school friends to figure out why they abandoned him as a friend all those years ago. That’s it. That’s really the plot. It’s not Murakami’s strongest book, and he’s not the greatest writer in the world, but he’s still a lot of fun to read…and I’ll read whatever he writes next. Four stars.

BOOK REVIEW:  There’s an old adage when it comes to writing good fiction, and writing well in general: if it sounds like you’re writing, and doesn’t sound natural, it’s likely not good writing. That’s the problem with The Supernatural Enhancements by Edgar Cantero. It just sounds like he’s trying too hard. Some things are described in ways that you find yourself saying, “Whaaaaaat?” That’s not good. You know what’s worse? Textbook explanations of the supernatural that ramble on and on, interrupting the flow of the narrative, as well as a ridiculous plot and characters that you don’t care about and are actually annoying. You’ll be rooting for them to be killed well before page 100. The pages do fly by, however, because in many cases there are only about five words on every page. But don’t be fooled: this is one dull book. I’m glad I got my money back – but what about my time? One star.

BOOK REVIEW:  When I first read Winter’s Tale back when it was released in 1983, I thought it was Mark Helprin’s greatest book. That was, of course, before A Soldier of the Great War, which I now know actually is his greatest book. I also read it the first time when I was only 18 and had all the time in the world. I’m pushing 50 now, and every minute counts. So imagine my chagrin when I was reading this and found myself wishing that something–anything–would happen before I dropped dead of sheer boredom. The movie, which is pretty horrible, cuts out the entire middle section of the book, which I was initially critical of. But it makes the story flow more, and I wish in retrospect that the book was shorter, too. Gorgeous writing. Painfully slow plot. I would have given it five stars in 1983. I give it three stars now. So let’s call it four stars.

BOOK REVIEW:  Night Film is Marisha Pessl’s second book. I read her first and was underwhelmed. Sure, it was just fine, but it didn’t really draw me in at any point, and as such, ended up on Ebay. I figured I’d try this one, and it started off great. Fast pace, short chapters, and I should add that I’m a sucker for illustrations in novels, which this book has plenty of. But around the mid-point of the novel, it takes a turn into satanic cults and seems to continue introducing a seemingly endless supply of characters. The plot gets convoluted, confusing, and downright silly, and I found myself (again) wishing the book had some more stringent editing. The good news? I read it on my Kindle, so I don’t have to sell it on Ebay. Three stars.

BOOK REVIEW:  A Burnable Book by Bruce Holsinger is a medieval murder mystery written in the vain of the Matthew Shardlake mysteries by C.J. Sansom. The plot is a compelling one: a book that foretells the death of all of England’s kings is making the rounds, and Geoffrey Chaucer asks his friend John Gower to find out where the book is, and who is murdering all those that come into contact with it. The twists aren’t very compelling, but the story is, and the fine writing will have you turning the pages while you wait for the next book by C.J. Sansom due this fall. Four stars.

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Distraction Therapy

Okay. So this is my “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” essay. But it’s really about what I did on the best day of summer, which for me was last Wednesday.

I was headed out to the PAPA 17 World Championships of Pinball in Pittsburgh (that’s Professional & Amateur Pinball Association for the uninitiated). I knew I was going to go on Wednesday–a day early–hoping to compete in Pinbrawl, where four people (usually strangers) join up to form a team and combine their scores, competing against other teams for money and really ugly trophies. As for the rest of the competition, I was going just as a goof, to see if I could actually put up scores that would qualify me for the finals Sunday. I wouldn’t be able to stay past Thursday, so I went into it with a pretty lackadaisical attitude.

A few weeks before the competition, though, Joe Newhart from Pinball Star Amusements posted an open invite to anybody going to Pittsburgh on Wednesday. He was welcoming people to come help him set up a Wizard of Oz machine at the Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital. If I decided to go, that would mean no Pinbrawl for me.

This was a no-brainer. I had to go help Joe, and I had to do what I could to make some sick kids happy for a short while. (Also, the fact that nobody wanted me on their Pinbrawl team helped with my decision!) So my wife and I left early–6 AM–and headed to Pittsburgh. I had asked Joe if I could bring a box of my books to sign for the kids, so I had about 25 copies of Captain Vidiot and the Attack of the Gwarks in tow. (I don’t normally foist my books on people to read, which is why I asked first. I always get annoyed when people say, “Hey! You’ve gotta read this!” Uh … no I don’t.)

When we got there, Joe was already halfway through setting up the machine. We helped him finish up, and I put some books out on a table where Joe had also put copies of the Wizard of Oz book and DVD for the kids to take free. For those unfamiliar with Joe’s work, in addition to being an insurance salesman, he also runs PinballStar Amusements, a pinball and arcade distribution company. Since one of his sons was helped by the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, he raised money to donate a machine to that facility last year. Over the last few months (and with the help of Jersey Jack Pinball), he was able to do it again and give one to the Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital. This is what Joe does. This is what he’s about: giving back to the people and institutions that have given to him, and helping sick children overcome their battles in the process. There is no nobler cause.

We then took a tour of the facility, which was impressive beyond all imagination. (They even have a three-story tall projection screen in their lobby that every child’s room can look out at, with sound piped into their room. Who says the drive-in movie is dead?) One of the two members of the foundation who took us around told us that everything they have there–the movies, the toys, the books in the library–all of it is part of the childrens’ distraction therapy. Having a child forget about their illness for a while and just be happy is an integral part of their healing.

I signed every single book that day, some with inscriptions telling each kid how awesome I thought they were, and some just with a signature for the nurses to hand out to children that couldn’t make it. I even signed two books that will be kept in the library there for future patients. Not every child smiled when I handed them a book, nor did I expect them to. But I could see in their eyes that it meant something to them, if only for a few seconds. And that meant the world to me. At the end of the day, as I left the hospital and headed for the pinball competition (where I didn’t do too badly, by the way!), I was as happy as I had ever been. Joe had left a pinball machine in the lobby for countless children to enjoy for years to come, and I had left books in the hands of children who need to think about something else for a while.

As I drove in the car with my awesome wife, I smiled. My visit to the Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital was as good as it gets. For me, it was the perfect distraction therapy.

Joe Newhart on the left and me on the right, with one of my heroes playing one of my favorite games. (And I’m glad to see that my socks are pulled up only marginally higher than Joe’s. Man, do I take some heat about that!)

HEY! WHERE’S THE BOOK REVIEW? I’m getting a little bit lax with the book reviews, I know. I haven’t had much time to read because I’m busy revising a manuscript before the school season fires up again. I’ll have a bunch soon!

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Written a Book? Make Sure It Hasn’t Already Been Written!

A few years ago, when I was attending the SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) Conference in New York City, agent Sheldon Fogelman provided the keynote address and had some words of advice for budding authors that I’ve never forgotten (and forgive me for paraphrasing). He said, in effect, that it was okay to write a book with a story, plot, or idea that had been done before; just make sure to do it differently. (I would add that having said that, you probably want to stay away from anything having to do with boy wizards at this point.)

To wit: how many mystery books can you point to that have basically the same plot, same kinds of characters, or same types of murders, investigation, etc.? It’s all the same, same, same … mostly. (More about the plot fatigue I’ve been feeling in my next post!) But each book has something different going for it, something that sets it apart from others that have gone before.

I recently finished work on a short book that I was very excited about. No, I won’t tell you what kind of book it was–I won’t divulge any specifics at all except to say that the book was relatively short. (The less said, the better–it’s just too embarrassing at this point.)

I was well into my second revision when my agent told me she wanted to do some market research on that type of book. She wanted to see what was already out there; see how it was selling, and see if there was anything similar. “Oh, no,” I told her confidently. “I scoured Amazon and Barnes & Noble. There are other books in that genre, but nothing like this!”

Wrong.

The problem is that I was checking the market before April, when another book, very similar to the one I was working on, came out. I had neglected to do any research on forthcoming books, but thanks to the best agent ever (insert shameless plug for Maria Vicente here), she found the book that was awkwardly, uncomfortably similar to mine.

I knew there was a problem when I sent the revision and didn’t hear right back from her like I normally do. It was that silence, like a neighbor clearing their throat when they’re trying to explain to you just how it is that they happened to run over your cat with their car. But when I got the emailed explanation, I just knew she had to be mistaken!

I ran out to Barnes & Noble, bought the book, and read it cover to cover immediately…

…and felt like I wanted to throw up. Thematic elements in the book sounded like they had been lifted from my book, as if I had spent a drunken night blabbing my plot to a stranger at a bar, only to become the victim of plagiarism. But it was me that looked like I had plagiarized a book, when in fact I didn’t know anything about the book’s existence when I was writing it (in fact, it didn’t really exist yet in print form).  It’s like I had channeled the other author somehow and copied their ideas into my story.

There were many things about my book (the main plot, being the most important) that were nothing like the other book. So I may take those ideas and restart with something completely different, and for a different audience. I still believe that the story I had would make for great reading.

But I don’t look upon this experience as time wasted. It was the second book that I’ve written that I can say with certainty will never see the light of day. But it taught me a valuable lesson, and that’s this:

Going forward, I’ll make sure that the books I write incorporate original, fresh ideas that couldn’t possibly have been done before–more along the lines of my first three books. (The fourth was an old idea done differently, as Sheldon Fogelman advised.) So as I close this post, I’m going to turn my attention to finishing up rewrites of my new book, the subject of which has never been done before. Not by anyone. I’m absolutely sure of it.

I think.

BOOK REVIEW: Do you like business books? Me neither. But when I picked up The Everything Store by Brad Stone, I simply couldn’t put it down. DISCLAIMER: I’m an Amazon Prime member, so I do a lot of shopping there. (And at Barnes & Noble and independent book stores, before anyone starts to flame me!) It was fascinating seeing how the business developed, and of particular interest was the narrative describing the development of the Kindle. I would have preferred if he put the story of Jeff Bezos’ childhood in the beginning, rather than breaking up the forward momentum of the company’s story, but other than that, I was truly riveted reading this book. And it’s a business book! Go figure. Four stars.

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Remembering World War I

I’m spending the bulk of my summer working on a new book, catching up on some reading, and trying to figure out where I’m going to go for a brief vacation. But one thing that’s also on my agenda is taking the time to celebrate (for lack of a better word) the one hundredth anniversary of World War I. This was a horrifying conflict that is frequently forgotten (especially here in the States) because it has been eclipsed in most people’s memory by World War II.

I’m reading a few books to educate myself about it. The first is a straightforward history called A World Undone by G.J. Meyer. Short chapters, pictures, and no-nonsense narrative keeps the book moving forward through its dizzying nearly-800 pages. To complement that book, I’m also reading The Beauty and the Sorrow by Peter Englund, which takes a look at a group of people–from a personal perspective–as they try to survive the war from 1914 to 1918. When I’m done with those two doorstopper-sized books, I’ll read one of the finest ever written: The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman.

For those of you not interested in such a heady refresher of military history, and if you’re into video games, you might want to take a look at Valiant Hearts. This is a game–available on most platforms–that follows a small cast of characters (much like The Beauty and the Sorrow) throughout the war. They frequently help each other, and cross paths as the game and story progress. But here’s the kicker: the letters that are read during cut scenes from one character to another are real letters from the war. Objects you find as you progress through the game are also real objects found after the war. And you can always pause the game to learn a little bit about the battle you’re currently working through. The best $15 I spent all summer, and I recommend you download it as soon as you can (it’s not that hard of a game, either, so you’ll be compelled to finish it!).

And, of course, I’d also recommend reading A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin. In my opinion the greatest book written with World War I as a backdrop. A great romance and adventure that will lift your spirits and have you in tears…all before the halfway point of the book.

My plan was to cap off my summer with a trip to The Netherlands and Belgium and to visit Flanders Field and the Ypres Salient…and maybe even pick a poppy flower to keep as a souvenir. But then a rocket downed a plane over Ukraine, and coupled with the events in Gaza, it’s got my wife and I a little spooked about air travel in the immediate future. We may be overreacting a bit, of course, but better safe than sorry. After all, it was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand that sparked off the first world war; let’s hope cooler heads prevail through this crisis.

Besides, sometimes the best vacations are the ones spent at home with some great books, great video games, and the person you love. Can’t beat the price tag.

BOOK REVIEW: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is a great piece of literature, written for an attention deficit age. Short chapters, most barely two pages, make the book a quick read. (“The pages just fly by!” is a tag line once used to promote James Patterson books. Of course they do…when half of them are blank.) The story follows a blind French girl and a German radio operator - and a gem worth millions. The story takes over 400 pages for them to finally get together, but the journey to get there is one well worth taking. Four stars.

BOOK REVIEW: Those Who Wish Me Dead by Michael Koryta. Maybe it’s just because I’ve read too many thrillers, but for me, they’re all starting to sound a little too similar. I burned out pretty early on mysteries for the same reason: someone gets killed; someone asks a lot of questions; someone gets caught. With thrillers, it’s pretty much formulaic as well. A conflict is established (here, a boy witnesses a murder), a chase ensues (the boy is chased through  the wilderness by two psychos), and really bad things happen to said psychos by the end (no spoilers here!). I really enjoyed his thrillers with a supernatural angle (So Cold the River, etc.), but this just seemed like something I’d read before. Good, but tiresome for this reader. Three stars.

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The Culture of Winning

With the World Cup safely behind us, I want to take a moment to explain why the team I root for every four years isn’t the US … it’s Germany.

I’ve got people accusing me of being a bandwagon fan this year (I’m not), or of somehow being anti-American (I’m not). But the amusing thing for me is that all the people saying those things didn’t even know a World Cup existed until four years ago, when the US qualified on it’s own merits and not because we hosted the World Cup like we did in ’94. (Host nations automatically qualify.)

So why have I always stood behind the German team for as long as I remember? Well, of course there’s my German heritage (which accounts for only about half of me – the other half is Hungarian and Ukrainian, and you never see them in the World Cup). But it’s more because if I didn’t root for Germany, I wouldn’t really have anyone to root for. The US, as I’ve already said, didn’t really make an appearance until 1994. And let’s be honest: even with the US team reaching the Round of 16 this year, my chances of seeing the US win the World Cup in my lifetime is almost nil (and I don’t plan to die soon).

The biggest thrill about watching the US team play this year was watching one of my soccer heroes (football to everyone else in the world), Jurgen Klinsmann, coaching the team. I loved watching him play in the 90s and was fortunate enough to see him play in the quarterfinals at Giants Stadium in ’94 (they lost). I’ve suffered through Germany’s defeat at the hands of Brazil twelve years ago in the finals, and have waited faithfully for my team to get that fourth star on their jerseys since they last won in 1990.

The excitement in the US surrounding this World Cup was called World Cup Fever by the media. I think it was more of a head cold. If you want to see a fever, travel to Europe and South America during the World Cup Finals. Over a billion people think soccer is the greatest sport on the planet. Americans never thought so because they didn’t have a team they could cheer for, or to be more blunt: they didn’t have a winning team to cheer for.

Americans love to cheer for winners. Until the US reaches the finals of the World Cup, you won’t really see soccer fever hit this country. People seem to crawl out from under rocks in this country when their team starts winning. You want bandwagon fans? The US has got tons of them. As soon as their team starts losing, it’s time to head for the parking lot and bury that jersey deep into the bottom dresser drawer, never to be seen again until their team starts winning again.

Me? I think it’s boring when your team wins year after year … really. I could never figure out why anybody would have watched basketball in the 90s when Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls were rolling over everybody, hardly ever losing a game, and winning the trophy at the end of the year. Why bother watching the sport at all? I recently got interested in British Premier League soccer and had to decide which team to follow. Sure, I could have picked Manchester United, the winningest team in the last 20 years. But I didn’t. Out of the twenty teams in the table, I chose from the middle: Newcastle United. In the three seasons since I’ve followed them, they almost made it to the top four, almost got relegated from the league (bottom three), and this year finished right back in the middle where I found them. That’s exciting, that feeling of not knowing what’s going to happen.

With my Dallas Cowboys, I always know what’s going to happen: exactly what happened the last five seasons. They’ll get to the last game of the year. If they win, they’ll be in the playoffs. Lose, and they’re out. And guess what? They’ll lose again this year, most likely. And that’s fine by me … I’ll still be a Cowboys fan next year. I find it ever so much more interesting when you root for the losers, because that one time that they win is all the more sweet.

If you don’t believe me, ask a Chicago Cubs fan. They haven’t won since 1908.

Even for me, that’s a little extreme.

BOOK REVIEW: Mad World: An Oral History of the New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 80s by Lori Majewski has such a long title I don’t have any more space to write a review! This book interviews artists from the New Wave movement in the 80s about the songs that made them famous. It even includes asides where the talk (sometimes nastily) about other artists. If you grew up in the 80s or have a love for that music, there’s something here for you. As with any compilation, even though this book was all excellent, you’ll have to pick and choose which performers interest you. For that reason: Four Stars.

BOOK REVIEW: I wanted to like Next Life Might Be Kinder by Howard Norman. I really did. I enjoyed The Bird Artist and Northern Lights, and this book looked to be a quick read: it has short chapters like another book I’ve recently enjoyed, All the Light We Cannot See. But while I thought I was going to be reading some sort of ghost story (after a man’s wife has been murdered), it turned out to be more of a meditation on grief. There were quite a few elements that turn up throughout the story: books, a chaise longue, etc., but I was never really engaged enough to care about their importance in the plot, or about the characters themselves. It was compelling reading the chapters that describe the lead-up to the murder, though. Three stars.

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