Doug Lewars's Blog, page 22

Chosen to Die

Chosen To Die by Lisa Jackson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


*** Possible spoilers ***

This was a pretty good story. it's a thriller and the author is adept at creating and maintaining tension from cover to cover. It is NOT, however, a whodunit. We don't get a list of suspects and a bunch of clues. There are a few suspects but the first real clue is the killer's name when it appears late in the story. The pacing was excellent and I definitely wanted to keep reading.

That said, it is not for everybody, but then no book is. This story is plot driven. If you're looking for character development you'll find precious little. In fact, if you're even looking for likable characters there are a couple of tolerable ones but plenty who are unpleasant. More importantly, there aren't many interesting individuals. It's a bad sign when the psychopathic killer is more interesting than the protagonist, and by a wide margin.

The motive for the murders was both mundane and questionable. Frankly I think the reader needs to stretch a lot to accept it, but since the author calls the shots, we need to deal with it. As I said, the book is a page-turner and everything moves right along. You may need to stretch your credibility a little but i guess maybe a bit of a stretch from time to time is good exercise.



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How To Rule An Empire And Get Away With It

How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It by K.J. Parker

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

I selected this book because I needed something to read and I was intrigued by the title. It reminded me of the sort of title Tom Holt would create. Only later did I learn K.J. Parker was a pseudonym for Tom Holt. This was by far the best book I've read in a long time. The characters are interesting and the plot provides a number of twists and turns. The pacing wasn't quite as crisp as in some stories but the protagonist provides a running commentary on what he's thinking and it was quite original. It was also humerous. The ending wasn't quite as happy as I might have hoped for but it wasn't a complete downer either. All in all, I thought it was great. On the other hand, if you're a reader who focuses primarily on character over plot you might do better. There is a considerable amount of satire here and as a result, many of the characters are rather two-dimensional. They have a role to play, play it, and the plot advances. Only two really stand out, the protagonist and Hoda. (I'm not sure if I'm spelling that correctly.) She is not a particularly attractive character but well-drawn nonetheless. In terms of character arcs, only the protagonist has one and it's secondary to the story itself.

One thing I've noticed about Tom Holt is he comes up with fantastic, and totally bizarre ideas, but then tends to fade by about the middle of the book. In this case he didn't but sustained the idea of a nobody becoming emperor through an impersonation and carried it through until he risked becoming the individual he was impersonating. I liked that idea and I liked the way Mr. Holt sustained my interest right to the end. This is an excellent book and I highly recommend it.



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The Great Plague: A People's History

The Great Plague: A People's History by Evelyn Lord

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

I quite enjoyed this book but I don't think I can recommend it. It's dry, dry, dry. Most of it consists of naming people who died during the plague and giving some account of their possessions based on their will or some accounting. I think it might be best to treat this as a reference book, useful perhaps for acquiring an academic knowledge of the period and possibly for writing papers, but hardly the sort of thing you'd want to sit and read of an evening. I listened to the audio recording and although I can't say I liked it, it had it's uses. I could do chores and the narrator would be chatting in the background listing events and various deaths. It made for a certain ambient background noise I found quite pleasing. If you want someone to rattle on while you go about other things I think you might find this book quite useful but it's not for entertainment.



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The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith

The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith by Patricia Wentworth

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

When I selected this book I wasn't aware it was published sometime in the 1920s. As a result, it was a first rate thriller for its time. It's not bad now; however, based on the title I thought it was probably a comedy and a take-off on certain early pulp mystery items. Therefore I was a little disappointed; however, as a thriller it's not bad although could use a little work. I think I can recommend it; however, don't expect too much. The villains are pretty villainous throughout most of the book but they become a trifle unbelievable near the end.



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Slaughterhouse Five

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

I read this in the past but had forgotten it until I got a brief way into the book. This time I DNFed it at about the 50% mark. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. uses a droll approach to creating irony and it doesn't work. It may have worked back in the early 70s when the book was possible and such irony was in vogue but it no longer works today. I seem to remember liking it the first time but his technique wears thin awfully fast.



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Congratulations on Everything

Congratulations On Everything by Nathan Whitlock

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

This book was classified as humerous but I think that was quite a stretch. There were a few things capable of bringing a smile to my face but precious few. The pacing was quite slow and the plot, in so far as there was one, pretty basic.

Readers looking for humour, or fast paced excitement will need to look further. Basically the book reminded me of sitting around of a summer's evening very long ago with parents and neighbours. Someone would say something like, "You remember old Joe Marches, you know, worked at the bank around the corner as assistant manager. Well, anyway ..." and there would follow an anecdote. Then someone else would refer to someone, possibly the same person and another anecdote would follow. There wasn't any logical thread to these stories. They were just a way to pass some time. This book reminds me of that. Here we have one person, a bar owner and the incidents related to his business, but beyond that they're just anecdotes, sometimes interesting, sometimes less so. This isn't a bad book if you get it in audio format because you can do stuff and have the narrator rattle on the the background keeping you company but if you want to really get into a story you may want to take a pass.



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In Your Dreams

In Your Dreams by Tom Holt

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

This is possibly the best Tom Holt book I've read. Admittedly the main character is decidedly wishy-washy, but, like Terry Pratchett's Rincewind, he gets carried along by fate into the hero business.

Tom Holt tends to have great ideas but has trouble sustaining them past the half-way point in his books. Even so, his other books are good, just a little flat towards the end. This one sustains the liveliness right to the end. The end isn't perfect, but I suspect he's planning (or has written) a third volume in this series. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed it.



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Everything the Darkness Eats

Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


*** Possible spoilers ***

The plot is a little disjointed but not too bad and the pacing is adequate. True, the author uses a few too many similes and metaphors but that can be overlooked. The problem I have with this book is it seems like the author used a checklist in constructing it. It's almost as if he sat down and thought, let's see, I'll need a gay character, better make that two so they can be a couple. Oh, and one of them should be Moslem to cover off that minority. Now, let's add an individual with mental health issues, and I can make him partially disabled as well. I'll give him a serious inferiority complex. There that's covered. Maybe I'll make him bisexual as well for good measure. But I'm not sure if a cane and a limp is quite enough of a disability so I'll add a little blind girl. That should do it. Now, we'll put this in a small town so I can make everyone homophobic. And for victims, I'll select a few old people. Everyone knows old people aren't too intelligent and can easily be conned by my villain. And on, and on, and on. The best thing I can say about this book is it's fairly short which is the only reason I didn't DNF it.



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Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

This book was published in 1973. Kurt Vonnegut Junior's first novel was published in 1952 so he'd been writing for over twenty years and may have become a little over confident in his abilities. This book is quite consistent with the 'feel' of the early 1970s. He indulges in conversing with one of his characters and presents an omnipotent view of himself in relation to others. I'm sure he was impressed with is creativeness at the time but it comes across as juvenile now. Needless to say he espoused the causes of the day, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalist, anti-white, anti-war and pro environmentalism. In those days the fear was of a looming ice-age. Now we're facing global warming. The causes change but the hysteria remains the same. Those who are squeamish about words might want to avoid this book as Mr. Vonnegut makes copious use of the n-word.

This book is supposed to be humerus but I seem to remember only one amusing line in the entire book so if you're looking to have a good laugh, you won't find it here. In general it's not a bad book, a bit boring maybe and definitely self-indulgent but not terrible. I don't regret reading it but I don't think I'll seek out his other works any time soon.



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Nocturnes

Nocturnes by John Connolly

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

As with all anthologies, some of the stories are better than others but all are entertaining and worth reading. I quite enjoyed the book and recommend it, particularly around now as we're almost at Halloween. Plus the dark November and December nights are ideal for scary stories.



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