Goldfinger

I have been a life-long James Bond fan since before I can even remember, but I'm a little ashamed to admit that I've only recently read my first James Bond novel. I have tried reading the original stories by Ian Fleming over the years, but for whatever reason I was never able to get into them, maybe because they were a little too dry and cold while the movies were over the top and exciting. I finally decided to give the series of books and stories another try because I'm planning a big James Bond movie review marathon at some point in the future and wanted to immerse myself as much as possible in the entire mythology, both cinematic and literary. I wanted to start with Casino Royale and work my way through the series chronologically, but I found a copy of Goldfinger for a dollar at my local used book store, so I started there.

And boy was this book awful.

Of course, Goldfinger is probably the best James Bond film ever made -- which makes it one of my picks for all time best movie ever -- so it had a lot to live up to since my expectations were so high. But then again, isn't the original book always better? Well, not in this case. I quickly discovered early on that Goldfinger might have been the best adaptation from page to screen in the history of film. Fleming may very well be a wonderful writer whose work I won't judge until I've read more, but it was clear that he had an idea for a wonderful villain and an overall concept but lacked any idea of what to do with these things in any real, satisfying way. Frankly, this novel is just a mess.

To begin with, it's so full of plot contrivances, coincidences, and simply unbelievable ideas. This novel opens with Bond accidentally running into some former acquaintance who asks to help him figure out how Goldfinger is cheating at their regular game of bridge, and then, after doing so, Bond is asked by M (his superior at British Intelligence) to look into Goldfinger's smuggling operation. Come on! The film fixes this ridiculous coincidence by having Bond assigned to Goldfinger first, and then using the fixed bridge game as their first introduction. Throughout, the novel is filled with these kinds of plot contrivances and logical oversights that the film smooths out and fixes with just minor changes.

Here's another example: Remember that iconic scene in the film where James Bond is bound to a table and about to be split in two with a giant laser, and he only manages to free himself by outsmarting Goldfinger with a bluff about Operation Grand Slam? Well, in the novel the scene is almost identical, but it doesn't end with Bond saving himself, but with Goldfinger simply deciding not to kill him at all, because he never intended to in the first place. In fact, almost every scene in this novel where Bond almost dies, he is repeatedly saved by another character or some other insane plot device that has you wondering why this stooge is out main character at all. 

And even forgetting the bad plotting and poor writing, but this novel is also incredibly dated, racist, and sexist. I don't want to judge a date novel by current sociological standards, but I find it hard to believe that even in the 50s and 60s people wouldn't have taken issue with how Fleming talks about women, lesbians, and Koreans. Both Goldfinger (or villain) and Bond (our hero) discuss at great lengths how Koreans are a degenerate, evil race of ruthless savages. At one point, Goldfinger rewards his Korean manservant Odd Job by letting him eat his pet cat. I was also surprised to learn than in this novel, Pussy Galore is a lesbian. Well... sort of. It becomes clear that neither Bond the character nor Fleming the writer actually believe that lesbians actually exist, because she ends up having sex with James Bond at the end anyway. She gives some nonsensical explanation that she always thought she didn't like men, but it was just that she had never met one until James Bond came along. Ugh.

I can only assume that by the time this novel was published, Fleming had become so popular and powerful a force in the publishing industry that he no longer allowed for any kind of editorial oversight. I honestly can't imagine any other way such a bad book could get published with some many problems that would've been easy to change. Skip the novel and watch the movie, since the bad book was somehow turned into a wonderful film.

The Last Man on the Moon

Everybody knows who Neil Armstrong is, since he is rightly renowned worldwide and for all time as the first man to set foot on the Moon. Infinitely less well known is Gene Cernan, who, as of September 1st, 2011, is still the last man to stand on the surface of the Moon. Not as impressive as being the first? I suppose. And if (when?) we ever do go back to the moon, he'll no longer be notable as the last and his name will become even less well known as he joins the ranks as such other forgotten astronauts as David Scott, Alan Bean, and Harrison Schmitt (among others) as just some guy who walked on the moon.

But you know what? How many times have you walked on the damn moon? I didn't think so.

First, last, second, or even tenth person to walk on the moon is still one more time than any of us will be able to do it, so no matter the order, that's damn cool. In fact, there is literally nothing more cool in the world than walking on another one. And Gene Cernan was the guy who did it most recently, so I think that makes him a strong contender for coolest guy worldwide.

But forget about the order or even whether or not he walked on the moon at all, since The Last Man on the Moon, the autobiography of Astronaut Eugene, is about life as an astronaut in general. I can't say if this is the best book I've ever read on life as an astronaut since I've read several that have been very good, but this one certainly is one of the most exciting, heartfelt, and well written. Cernan gives an overview of his entire life, paying particular attention to what it was like to go through the astronaut selection process, train to be a pilot for Gemini and Apollo, his horrific space walk in 1966, and his eventual voyage to the moon in 1972.

The events in this book, and the exploits Cernan went through (both as an astronaut and as a man trying to raise a family) are exciting, entertaining stuff, and the book is wonderfully written, either because of Cernan's talents or because of the help of Don Davis. We have heard Cernan's words spoken on the moon and in various other missions as an astronaut, so we know he was an eloquent man with a gift for words, but the book so so polished and so well put together, I'm sure a lot of credit goes to his collaborator, although how much nobody could ever say for certain.

Anyway, it's a good book that's worth reading if you want to learn more about life as an astronaut, or what it felt like to walk on the moon and then come home to the realization you'd never go back there again. Check it out.

Eugene Cernan: The Last Man on the Moon

Packing For Mars

This was a fun book, written for all of the people who want to know what life in space is really like. I've read lots of books on NASA, the space race, and astronauts, but this is the only one that really satisfied my immature curiousity about how astronauts poop, whether or not sex is possible in a zero gravity environment, and what really happens to a person's body after three weeks without showering. Each of these topics actually has its own chapter in this book, along with every other facet of what happens to a typical human being living in space. Like I said, it's a fun book.

Mary Roach is a wonderful, clever, witty writer who thankfully uses her admittedly immature sense of curiousity to ask seemingly beyond reproach people like Jim Lovell and other astronauts and high-ranking NASA officials what happens when somebody farts in space. I won't spoil the answer to that question, but I will say that I was happy to learn the experiment was conducted by a team of scientists in a parabolic jet that simulated a zero gravity environment. Lovell seemed like a good sport, but maybe that's because Mary Roach seems like such a witty, charming lady. And, really, if you're the scientist who designed the first working toilet in a space station, you're going to love to finally talk about it with anybody, let alone a best selling author.

If anything, Roach might actually be a little too charming, since she tends to place herself into the book a little too often, but that was a style choice intended to give the reader a proxy to guide us on this great adventure, but it did some across as a little cloying and cutesy in places, though they were thankfully rare. Also, while her research and interviewing seemed incredibly detailed and meticulous, a few mistakes did pop up here and there. For example, at one point she references the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey where actor Keir Dullea jogs around the circumference of the space ship's centrifuge, but we all know that was actually the character played by Gary Lockwood. This wasn't an error so egregious it made me want to throw the book away in disgust, but it was enough to make me wonder if there were any other mistakes I wasn't picking up on.

But whatever... this is a hilarious, thought provoking, brilliant book that has a unique look at the wonders of space travel. Reading this book over the past week or so was actually bittersweet since the final Shuttle mission just came to a close a couple days ago, so no more manned missions are planned within the next few decades, if at all. There are a lot of brilliant men and women who have worked tirelessly over the years, and much of their work is currently being scrapped because the space program is no longer politically viable. The conclusion of this book is actually a brilliantly written argument in favor of keeping the space program going, and it should be read by Obama and every other politician in Washington. But, really, it should be read by anybody who's the least bit interested in space travel, or just curious about what happens to poop after an astronaut takes a number 2 in space.

Check it out.

Deke!

I just finished reading Deke!, the autobiography of astronaut Deke Slayton. Is this a good book? It is if you like Deke Slayton and want to learn more about his life and career as told in his own words. If you don't like Deke Slayton, well, you probably haven't even read this far down, which is a shame since he's a true American hero who should be remembered and honored along with Neil Armstrong, Alan Shepard, and all the others. But as a piece of literature, it's not exactly a must read up there with the Autobiography of Malcom X or anything, but it's a fun, charming story of an extraordinary man's incredible career at the forefront of one of the greatest adventures mankind has ever undertaken.

Deke Slayton was a the son of a poor Wisconsin farmer who went on to join the military as a pilot, not because he loved to fly, but because he saw a plane once and thought it looked like fun. From there he served in WWII, became a test pilot, and then marched into history as one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts. In case you don't know who the Mercury 7 were, they were America's first group of astronauts, handpicked out of thousands of applicants to become the first American's in space. Unfortunately, the flight doctors eventually learned that Deke had a heart murmur, grounding him indefinitely, preventing him from flying in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions that made his contemporaries so famous. Deke's loss was our country's gain, however, because he was then able to take on the job of Director of Flight Crew operations, essentially handling the responsibility of training, working with, and selection America's astronauts. Deke became the astronaut in charge of all of the other astronauts.

If any of that sounds interesting, either the man's life or the events he was able to witness first hand, this book is a must-read, since there was arguably no astronaut more important, influential, or essential to the early days of NASA's mission into space and the moon. As he said in his introduction, he may not be as famous as Neil Armstrong, but he was the guy who decided that Armstrong would be the first person on the moon, so that's pretty cool right there. Anyway, this is a fairly engaging and charming, if somewhat light, look at the life of the most important astronaut during the most crucial moments in the history of the space race.

Oh, and Deke does finally make it into space, but you'll have to read the book to hear more. I suppose  the best thing I can say about this autobiography is that it's a good story that not only taught me a lot about the man who wrote it, but made me like him even more than I already had before I read it.

Virgil Cole

For the most part, there are two kinds of Western stories: There are the big epic tales of life on the plains, usually involving some sort of cattle drive across the country. Then there are the stories about gunslingers shooting each other. I like the stories about gunslingers shooting each other, and Robert B. Parker writes the best I've ever read, about the greatest gunslinger in Western fiction: Virgil Cole.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a glowing review about Parker's first novel in the Virgil Cole series, but I have since read the remaining three. When I picked up Appaloosa, I didn't know it was the start of a series. Then again, reading through these novels, it's difficult to tell if Parker knew it was going to be a series as well. There are a few details that pass through the novels necessitating they be read in chronological order, but there isn't much of an overall story arc tying the stories together. This books are mostly just the adventures of Virgil Cole and his sidekick (and chronicler) Everett Hitch, as they travel from town to town.

Story-wise, these novels are admittedly lacking. Each book pretty much has the same plot (Cole and Hitch arrive in town, find some trouble, and shoot the bad guy), but that's ok because the books are character-drive more than plot-driven. Actually, I'm not even sure if that's true since there is very little character development from novel to novel. We learn some about the two leads as the stories progress, but I can't say either one changes much from beginning to end. But, again, that's ok because these stories are so much fun, and Parker's prose is so wonderfully rich. These books are held together because of the conversations between the leads are so entertaining, and the various shootouts are so exciting.

Parker writes his gunslingers as though they are Samurai, and they follow certain codes and rules of honor as they meet one another. The worst insult one gunslinger can pay to another is "back-shooter." There are multiple gunslingers that meet up (and, on occasion, are killed by) Cole and Hitch, most of whom are so colorful and entertaining that they could've been the stars of their own series of novels. Of course, Parker makes it clear that nobody could touch Virgil Cole. He's the best there is, and his novels are some of the most fun Westerns you'll read.

That's all.

Literary Casting: Sherlock Holmes

I'm not saying this is going to be a regular installment on the blog or anything, but for whatever reason some casting ideas popped into my head tonight for an awesome Sherlock Holmes movie, and I had to share them with the world on the off chance that somebody in Hollywood might be reading this and might go ahead and make the movie.

So here is my literary casting of the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:

Sherlock Holmes
Christopher Eccleston

Seriously, how has Christopher Eccleston never been cast as Sherlock Holmes? First of all, he's just a really good actor, with the right level of wit, intensity, and quirkiness to pull off the character perfectly. He's lean yet athletic looking, so he could handle the pugilism scenes with grace and skill. And, come on... he has that perfect Sherlock Holmes nose. Just imagine that face in a dearstalker hat.

Dr John Watson
Jason Isaacs

Why not? Jason Isaacs is one of those actors who's always good, but for some reason he has been typecast as the villain even though he's perfectly charming and likable in those few occasions where he was allowed to play the hero. I think he would be a great straight man to Eccleston's Holmes, giving the character the charm and strength found in the original stories and novels. Anyway, I just think he's a cool actor.

Mycroft Holmes
Robbie Coltrane

Mycroft Holmes is the older and smarter brother of the more famous Sherlock Holmes. Mycroft is a little slower, however, and possibly lethargic, since he rarely likes to leave the confines of his apartment or the gentlemen's club the Diogenes Society where he spends most of his time in quite thought and contemplation. I really started casting this movie in my head after it occurred to me that Robbie Coltrane, of the coolest character actors ever, would be incredible as Mycroft Holmes. Maybe Guy Richie will read this and put him in his upcoming Sherlock Holmes sequel. Make it happen!

Inspector Lestrade
Neil Jackson

This is hardly a glorious part for any actor, so I decided to get creative and just cast an underrated actor who I think deserves to be a lot more well known. Neil Jackson is the gymnastics coach on that show Make it or Break it, but I saw him first as the main villain on the short-lived (but awesome) Blade series. He's maybe a little too handsome for the role of Lestrade, but Watson never actually calls him ugly, just "rat-faced." And as handsome as he is, I think Neil Jackson has a look about him that would make him perfectly suited for the dismissive, and possibly uptight and unlikable inspector from Scotland Yard. Anyway, this is my movie and I want to work with Neil Jackson. When you make your Sherlock Holmes movie, you can cast anybody you want.

Professor Moriarty
Ralph Fiennes

This was a tough one to cast, if only because I kept thinking of so many actors who'd be amazing in the role. My first instinct was to go with Patrick Stewart, who would be awesome, of course, but I wanted to cast the role a little younger, even though he'd actually be perfect as the aged criminal mastermind. However, when it comes to playing villains, nobody is better than Ralph Fiennes. I don't even need to say why he would be so good as the ruthless, charming, and brilliant Napoleon of crime, Professor Moriarty.

Irene Adler
Michelle Williams

First of all, Irene Adler isn't going to be in my movie, since she wasn't really a central character, nor did she ever even appear in more than one story. However, she's often used because she is a great character and because Hollywood insists on having at least one strong female lead. I was tempted to just go with Rachel McAdams, since she was so wonderful in the recent Sherlock Holmes film. But I figured I'd be different, so I cast Michelle Williams, if only because I think she's cute and because I liked her a lot in Shutter Island. But I'll admit I'm not 100% sold on this casting choice, since she's probably way too young to play opposite Eccleston.

Appaloosa

I enjoyed the movie Appaloosa and thought it was a pretty good western, but I just read and loved the original novel by Robert B. Parker, and think it is an absolute masterpiece.

I don't have a whole lot to say about this novel, other than that it is one of the best Westerns I've ever read. It isn't as epic in scope as, say, something by Larry McMurtry, nor is it as romantic as something by Louis Lamour or Zane Grey, but it is absolutely brilliant and incredibly entertaining. It's a novel about the dynamics between men and women, set against the backdrop of the old west. Kinda. It's also just a novel about gunslingers and lawmen who shoot at lots of people.

My main problems with the film was that Jeremy Irons was wasted as the villain and Renee Zellwegger was plain unlikable as the female supporting lead. In the novel, the villain is more enigmatic and scary than his counterpart from the film, but his role is also downplayed a bit because the novel isn't really about him anyway, so much as it is about the dynamics between the main characters. And since the character of Allie French in the novel isn't portrayed by the always unlikable Renee Zellwegger (sorry!), she's a lot easier to like, or at least enjoy reading about. Parker gives a lot more subtext and life to the character than we find in the novel, almost as though the writer and director of the screenplay didn't really understand the point of the character. Too bad, since her role in the novel is integral to the overall story.

So, I liked it, and I'm already reading the second novel about the two main leads, Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch. If you like westerns at all, or just fast paced, thrilling novels, check it out. It's a good one.

Game of Thrones Teaser

Here is the teaser for the upcoming HBO series based on George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels. I am sure that this show is going to be amazing, since it is being produced by HBO, has an excellent cast, and is based on my favorite fantasy series (after Lord of the Rings, of course). But... I just wish Martin would finish the damn books already.

The first three novels in the series are amazing, while the fourth was just pretty good. The fourth book suffers in comparison to the opening trilogy because it was growing so long, it had to be split in two, but unfortunately all of the great characters were put into the second half, which still hasn't come out yet even though it's been almost five friggin' years. Maybe this HBO series will convince him to finish his damn series already. But maybe it'll just give him one more distraction that keeps him from writing. Also, I wish the series had been completed before any adaptations were made, if only because the influence of Hollywood and others on his work might force him to change the overall arc of his series.

But, all that considered, it's probably going to be an awesome show. But I'll probably never watch it because I don't have HBO and I loved the books so much there's no way any adaptation -- no matter how well done -- could live up. I've been burned too many times by comic book movies, Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, and other that I just don't care anymore.

Stephen King Career Restrspective Part 2

Here comes the second part of our two part Stephen King Career Retrospective:


Four Past Midnight
A collection of four novellas, all of them terrible. Seriously, they were all just weird, strange, and dumb. Sounds harsh I know, but how else can you describe a story about a kid who keeps a book out too long and then gets raped by the library police man?
Skip it

The Wastelands
The third book in the Dark Tower series, and also the best. This is a straight up mind-blowing, fantasy novel unlike anything I've ever read before or since. This is King at his most brilliant and, more importantly, his most entertaining and enthralling. But don't even think about reading it unless you've already read the first two Dark Tower novels. You'll have no idea what the hell is going on.
Read it

Needful Things
Almost a really good novel, but it was somehow written -- or at least marketed -- as "the last Castle Rock story," which is the fictional town in which King set many of his novels and stories. King spends way too much time on blowing up the town then he does on creating a really great, fully fleshed out story. But I did like it. It reads like King Lite, and it's good if you just want some thrills and action without much substance.
Read it

Stephen King Career Retrospective: Part I

I've already done one of these career retrospectives for my favorite movie star and my favorite director, so it's only fitting that I finally do one for my favorite writer. Or, at least, the man who used to be my favorite writer at one time or another. He's still one of my favorite writers, and he is certainly the writer of whose work I have read the most of (expect for maybe Robert Heinlein or Edgar Rice Burroughs), but I have fallen out of touch with his books as of late, or maybe he had fallen out of favor with me.

Anyway, Stephen King always has a place in my heart as the author of so many of my all time favorite works of fiction. Here is my (hopefully) complete run down of everything of his that I have read. I will try to keep my comments as brief as possible.

Oh yeah, and this is dedicated to by good friend Anna, who is an even bigger fan of his stuff than I am.

Carrie
This is the first novel King ever published, and I'm fairly certain it was the first of his I ever read. I didn't read his stuff in order when I began to get into his work, but it just worked out that way when I started. My sister was a big Stephen King fan and had all of this books, and I chose this one to read first because it was the shortest. I remember loving it, but looking back with an adult perspective, I can't remember why. It's a story about a nerdy girl with psychic powers who gets humiliated at her prom and then kills everybody. I guess there is some subtext to be found, but that's the basic story in a nutshell. And boy is it hard to believe. I mean, I don't care how much of a bitch some kids are, nobody is going to dump pig's blood on your head during prom. And if that did happen, they wouldn't laugh at you, because they'd be too busy throwing up. But I liked it. It's a short, good, fun read, but I don't really recommend it in comparison to this rest of his ouvre.
Skip it

The Strain

This is a non-review of a book I didn't even finish. So feel free to skip this because there's absolutely no point to even post this at all.

I was actually really excited to read this book, being a big fan of horror novels and the films of Guillermo Del Toro. He is one of my all time favorite filmmakers, and has proved to be a master of the vampire genre. Blade 2 was awesome, and Chronos was one of the creepiest, most original interpretations of vampires I've ever seen. He's just a brilliant guy who writes and directs great movies.

So when I heard he was going to team up with noted horror writer Chuck Hogan to write a trilogy of novels that would take the now-watered down vampire genre and return them to the horror genre where they truly belong, I was ecstatic. I love vampires, but only when written by men. I don't mean that to sound sexist, but it's true. Women see vampires as some kind of odd analogy to sex and relationships. Men see vampires as monsters that just want to drink blood and kill people. That's just much more fun than sparkly skin wussies who go to highschool or spend all of their time in villas in the French Alps.

But boy was this book boring.

Well, maybe that's not a fair critique since, as I said above, I never actually finished it. Maybe it picked up after the first hundred pages, which is about where I put it down and just never picked it back up. But it certainly got off to an agonizingly slow start, after a really cool set up where a plane lands at JFK airport in NYC and then just goes dark on the runway. But then we get people calling the plane. And then people looking at the plane. And then people talking about the plane. And then people touching the plane and running away. Then people poke sticks at the plane. Then other people in other locations here about the plane. They don't even open the plane until about 70 pages in. By that point, what was a cool opening became ponderous and annoying. I'm all for building suspense, but get on with it already! And add into that the fact that this was plotted as the first part of a trilogy, and you've got a book that I figured would go nowhere and have no real ending.

And since Del Toro just flew to New Zealand to film The Hobbit, I doubt the next two books will get written or published anytime soon. So maybe in a few years (or more) after they are all published and in paperback, I'll revisit them. The writing was quite good, and the scenes I read were very creepy and well done. But I just stopped caring.

Death Troopers

Death Troopers is a zombie novel set in the Star Wars universe.

As a zombie fan and a Star Wars fan it was never a matter of if I'd read Death Troopers, but when. To my credit, I didn't buy it, but I did request to have it put on hold for me at my local library. I mean... it's a Star Wars zombie novel. Who wouldn't want to read that? And, as far as these things go, it's not a terrible book, though it certainly wasn't a very good one. But I enjoyed it, for the most part.

To begin with, Joe Schreiber is a wonderful writer. His prose is clean and eloquent, and his ability to build up tension is incredible. This is a tense, even scary book. The man knows how to write horror and how to keep a reader on the edge of his or her seat. The first half of this novel was all build up and suspense, and the only problem was that the story just never deliveredin the end. But I enjoyed his writing enough to be interested in checking out one of his non-Star Wars horror novels.

But... everything else about this novel was pretty terrible. It was just trite, cliche, and completely anticlimactic. It takes place on some intergalactic Imperial prison barge that comes across a derelict Imperial starship... that's infected with zombies. The entire "plague" sweeps through the ship in about five minutes, killing off everybody except for the five or so main characters, who are only said to have some kind of "immunity" that kept them from being killed off. And then, of course, the dead eventually start to rise.  The rising of the dead seems selective, however, since out of a thousand or so zombies, the only ones that seem to attack are either family members, friends, or loved ones. Seriously, every time a zombie attacked somebody in this novel, the prose would say something like, "and then the zombie lifted its head and it was Trig's father!"

And then, about halfway through the novel, there was a big reveal of two major Star Wars characters who just happened to be stuck in solitary confinement during the events of this book. I won't spoil it for anybody, but it is odd that Han Solo and Chewie never mentioned in any of the films about how they fought and beat an army of zombie storm troopers. You'd think that would've come up in conversation during the long space voyage to Alderan.

At the end of the day, there is little to recommend this book either for Star Wars fans or zombie fans. Strictly speaking, these weren't really zombies, and their level of ability and intelligence seemed to change from chapter to chapter, depending on the contrivances of the plot the author demanded. And after you take away Han Solo and a few casual mentions of Star Wars details ("that zombie moved as fast as a gundark!"), this was pretty far removed from the Star Wars universe as a whole. I mean, if you're going to have zombies in the Star Wars universe, you'd better have a Jedi slicing some up with his lightsaber. Otherwise, what's the point?

Pirate Latitudes

Over in my obituary for novelist Michael Crichton, I lamented the fact that I would never get to read another one of his novels. As it turns out, I spoke too soon. Just last November, his latest novel Pirate Latitudes was released posthumously, and sometime later this year we'll see the release another novel that is as of yet only described as "Untitled Michael Crichton Techno Thriller." I think they should just keep that as the title. Crichton is turning into the Tupac of the literary world, proving himself to be just as resilient to extinction as the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.

Pirate Latitudes, as the story goes, was found by one of Crichton's assistants as a completed manuscript on his old computer. It's a strange little book, with more in common with one of his earlier historical novels than the multi-titled techno thrillers for which he is best known, and one wonders if he even would've published it had he not passed away at such a young age. It definitely reads like early Crichton, but that isn't a bad thing, since it definitely does read like Crichton. I'm usually suspicious of manuscripts that are "found" after some such writer's death, since they more often than not seem hastily finished and ghostwritten by lesser writers, but this one is most definitely written by Crichton. His is a clean, entertaining style that many writers would endeavor to emulate, but few would be the least bit successful. And, frankly, early Crichton is still my favorite Crichton, since he seemed more interested in entertaining readers than he did educating them on his increasingly questionable opinions and politics.

All of the above was my round about introduction to the following sentence: This is just about the most ridiculously entertaining novel I've read in years. From start to finish, it was an enthralling, exciting, entertaining adventure yarn that never let up on the suspense, melodrama, and sense of humor. As far as Crichton's novels go, the books story was surprisingly simple and straight forward, with a plot that involved one crew's attempt to capture another vessel and then make it home, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth reading and enjoying and loving. Every book doesn't have to be War and Peace. In fact, I'm glad that every book isn't War and Peace, though I kind of wish every book was Pirate Latitudes.

As far as literary value or subtext, I can't say there is all that much. I think Crichton just wanted to write a pirate novel, and the world is better for it. I guess there's some such attempt at dispelling the commonly held view of pirates as rebellious outlaws, but that many were actually commissioned by the various governments at the time, blurring the line between right and wrong, criminals and heroes. And while it is a pirate novel and not a techno thriller, Crichton's signature style or cramming in as much information as possible is well on display. Crichton obviously did a tremendous amount of research on the historical climate at the time, the geography of the Caribbean archipelago, and 17th century sailing in general. And, having done that research, by god he was going to use it all somehow.

The novel has already been optioned by Steven Spielberg for a screen adaptation, and it is easy to see why. The film is paced somewhat like a Hollywood blockbuster, with one action set piece leading up to the next. The characters are all memorable, if a bit cliched, creating a crew that the roots for, even while they do some truly terrible, piratey things. There is lots of gore here, with bodies breaking apart when hit by cannonballs, and brains splattering on people's faces after they get shot in the head. I would image Spielberg will cut down on some of that, so be sure you read the book first because it's awesome.

So go buy Pirate Latitudes. This novel is a booty call I think everybody will want to answer. Ha ha ha ha...

Kindle for iPhone

Or, in my case, Kindle for the iPod Touch, but it amounts to the same thing: A free app that lets you read Kindle formatted ebooks on your Apple iPhone or iPod Touch. I downloaded it the other day, installed a few books, and think it works pretty much as advertised. But I'm not about to give up on books entirely just yet.

The best part of Kindle for iPhone (or KiP, as I'll call it from this point on), is that it's free. Amazon seems to understand the same thing that Gillete and Remington have always known: Give the razors away for free, make a killing selling overpriced razors. You can't install anything on this app that wasn't purchased from Amazon.com.

So that begs the question: Why is the real Kindle $360? I've never understood that ridiculously exhorbitant price and I know it will never take off until it becomes affordable. The Kindle is too expensive, and books are expensive. It's a no win situation.

"But, Donald," some people are probably asking, "the iPod is expensive too, but those are huge even though people have to pay to install content on that as well. So doesn't that prove you wrong?"

No, for a couple of reasons. First of all, you can install your entire CD collection on an iPod. You have to purchase all new material for a Kindle. And if you can't find it on Amazon.com, it ain't going on your kindle. You can put any CD (or almost any music file) on your ipod. Second of all, having an ipod lets you carry around hours or week's worth of music (or more) in your pocket. For most people, one or two books is probably a week's worth of reading (or more). Who really needs to carry around their entire library wherever they go?

But I've digressed from my main review. Yes, nobody needs to have their entire library in their pocket at all times, but it would still be cool. And Kindle does make that a possibility, and KiP makes it an affordable luxory.

But how does it work already?

It works fine. It's mostly just a question of whether or not you can stand reading from your iPhone without getting a headache. I couldn't. It's just too bright. You can go into the settings and turn down the brightness, but then you have to go back in to adjust it when you want to use a different app. Amazon needs to allow you to adjust the brightness within the app itself. The only real functional adjustment you can do is choosing between four or five different font sizes, but none of them are really all that great. Too small and your eyes start to hurt, too big and you're turning the page after every couple of sentences.

But, you know, it's a book... on your iPhone. So it does what it says it does.

Putting books on there is pretty easy, but it could be easier. You have to register the device and make all purchases through amazon.com, either on your computer or through the browser on your iPhone. Once you make a purchase, it automatically sends it to your device, but it still would've been nice to have this built in to the app itself. And why can't I send ebooks from my computer to my device? All books have to be purchased from Amazon.com and sent wirelessly by them to your device. This is needlessly obtuse and means you're out of luck if you don't have wi-fi.

As far as content goes, Kindle is pretty good. For this review (and probably forever), I've restricted myself to the stuff Amazon.com is offering for free. They actually have quite a bit of free content, ranging from older stuff that is in the public domain, and a few newer works by famous authors. Most of their new books cost about ten to seven books, with some stuff being just a few bucks or a few cents. Chances are good, you'll find something you'll want to read.

But for ten bucks, I'd probably just buy a book.

Heir to the Empire

Well, this is why my fans keep coming back to my blog: to read my opinions on Star Wars novels that were originally published 18 years ago. Give the people what the want, that's my motto.

Anyway, long story short... this novel was terrible.

"What," you're probably asking yourselves, "You were expecting maybe... Tolstoy?" Well, no, but considering how much I loved it when it first came out (when I was 14!), and considering how much praise has been heaped on it over the years by my fellow Star Wars fans, I was expecting something special. Or, at the very least, something that wasn't, well terrible.

And, no, I don't think I was expecting too much. There is a stigma against licensed novels, but it is one that isn't necessarilly fair in the case of the "Expanded Universe" of the Star Wars novels. Unlike most licensed novels, the publishers of the Star Wars books actually hire a lot of well respected, established writers, which tends to give them a literary (or at least entertainment) value that would otherwise be lacking. Some of them are actually very good and compliment the films very well. And Heir to the Empire, the first in a trilogy by Timothy Zahn, should have been one of those good Star Wars novels. After all, Zahn was one of those well respected, established writers. He had already written a dozen or so science fiction novels, and had even won the Hugo award for best novella in 1984.

So why did he drop the ball with this novel? Some of its problem may have had to do with the fact that he was already an established science fiction novelist. After all, Star Wars is not science fiction, it's fantasy, and that is a problem many writers have had trouble resolving. Star Wars takes place in space, sure, and features technology and science concepts far advanced from our own, but it is told with a sense of mystery and magic and, well, fantasy, that makes it closer to Tolkien or even mythology than Asimov or Heinlein. Zahn doesn't understand that, and in fact seems to rebel against it. There is even an animal in this novel that is somehow able to repel the Force, almost as though Zahn is telling us that the very concept of the Force is silly and unneeded.

But we can't blame Zahn too much for inconsistencies in tone from the original trilogy of films, because this book was written almost ten years after Return of the Jedi was released, during a time well before the Expanded Universe of Star Wars novels really exploded. In fact, Zahn's novels helped to create that Expanded Universe, which brought the films back into popularity, which helped to generate the excitement that led to the release of the Special Editions and the Prequels. So the impact and importance of Zahn's novels can't be denied, but that still doesn't mean they're any good.

The humor from the films, for example, is something Zahn tried his best to translate to his books, but with little success. The films are very goofy and funny and silly, so Zahn attempted to add some levity, like in the scenes where 3PO is given Leia's voice to trick people over the communications link, or when Luke makes a big deal out of some new drink, that's called Hot chocolate. Hot chocolate? I'm willing to believe that such a drink exists in the Star Wars universe, but its existence shouldn't be used as a punchline to a joke. There is a chapter where Luke is said to be drinking some exotic beverage that Lando told him about. He keeps sipping from it, and then, finally, somebody asks him what it is, and he replies that it is called hot chocolate. I can't quite explain why this was so annoying and weak, but I bet you can kind of understand.

Then there are the huge, ridiculous plot contrivances. There are three huge coincidences in this novel that completely ruin any kind of plot or story flow. There are actually three instances where Luke in his X Wing and Han in the Millennium Falcon independently decide to visit some such location, at the exact moment when the Empire decides to launch an attack. Three times. Three. Once was annoying but forgivable, two was a sign of bad writing and poor editing, but three made me want to chuck the book across the room into the garbage can.

And, lastly, we have to discuss Thrawn, who was unjustly become something of a fan favorite villain amongst Star Wars fans. I saw unjustly because he's actually a really boring, ill-thought out character. To begin with, he has no real personality or defining characteristics beyond his blue skin. We're supposed to believe he's some kind of military genius, but not because we see him do anything remotely logical during battle, but because the writer has characters describe him as such.

But wait, you might be asking, what about his ability to understand the weaknesses of any race by completely studying their art? What about it? It's completely moronic and makes no sense. You really think that an alien culture could defeat Earth in a massive space battle simply because they studied the works of Picasso? It's a cute idea to be sure, and one that amost seems clever and smart, but it falls apart after even a three year old gives it two minutes of thought. Thrawn sucks.

And so did this book.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some Halo novels to read.

Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton died of cancer today. Who even knew he had cancer? Poor guy. Not only did he die of cancer, but he died on the day of one of the most historic presidential elections in US history. It's too bad his death, and his work, won't get the attention that's deserved.

Crichton will forever be one of my favorite writers for Jurassic Park, an absolute work of genius and one of my top ten books of all time. He's also written a small handful of other great works, like The Great Train Robbery, Eaters of the Dead, The Andromeda Strain, and Rising Sun.

He's also written his fair share of garbage, such as Congo, Sphere, Prey, and pretty much everything else. But Michael Crichton's garbage is better than the life's work of most other writers. Even when his work was bad, full of ridiculous ideas, and filled to the brim with bad science (like Timeline, for example!), his books were still compulsively readable and incredibly entertaining.

He was certainly no Shakespeare, though his prose was as impeccably written as any of his peers, and his ideas ranged from the mind-blowingly innovative to the insultingly puerile and naive, he was still one of my favorite writers.

Everytime a famous person dies, there are so many obituaries written by people who claim to be saddened by the loss of a person the writer has never met, and this one is no different. I've never met Crichton, but I'm honestly sad to hear of his death. I'm not sad because I cared about him or knew anything about him personally. I'm sad because I'll never get to read, and thoroughly enjoy, another one of his books. If that sounds callous, don't worry. It's actually the greatest compliment any writer could ever receive.

The Alien Years

The Alien Years

I recently finished reading the Alien Years by Robert Silverberg, which I suppose you could describe as the thinking man's "Independence Day," but as a thinking man, I still noticed that the plot was very contrived, the dialogue stilted and hoaky, and the entire epic somewhat anticlimactic. So It wasn't as brilliantly written as the best of the genre, but I still like it. I still recommend it to fans of Silverberg or of sci-fi in general. It just could've used a really good editor to rework some of the more questionable story elements.

The story is epic in scope opening "7 years from now" and ending... I don't remember... something closer to 100 years from now. The aliens land and all hell breaks out, but unlike in most post Alien invasion stories, there's no mad max like wasteland. Some humans are enslaved and society as we know it is radically altered, but the Aliens stay to them selves or the most part. There is very little real contact made betweent the races because there can be none. The Aliens are simply too alien. Most of their behaviours, actions, and intentions are left pretty nebulous, which was one of the strengths of the book. This was a story about the humans of Earth, not the Alien invaders, about how they were coping, how they were raising their children, and how they were making their way in this new world.

If John Jakes wrote Sci-fi, it'd probably be something like this, a sweeping saga about one family during a time of crisis. That's either a compliment or an insult, I'm not sure which. Anyway, it's a ringing endoresment of how entertaining this book was, how moving in places, and how clever.

Robert Silverberg knows people. There is nothing false about his characters, in my opinion, and the way they act in this new world -- and how they relate to one another -- is fascinating and feels completely real. I bought all of the characterizations and character interactions. Some of the plot elements were too forced, however, since Silverberg seemed to force too many important characters to run into each other seemingly at random. This happened a few times. Not enough to bring down the story, but enough to keep it from being brilliant.

Also, as far as science fiction is concerned, the science was surprisingly lackluster. There was hacker named Master Megabyte. Megabyte? That's still a viable unit of date storage in the future? And, anyway, it's just a gay name all together. All of the sections dealing with hackers and hacking in general (thankfully kept to a minimum) were all either corny as hell at best or impossible to follow along because they were so unrealistic at worst. But, as I said, those sections were kept to a minimum.

Do I recommend the book? Sure, if you like science fiction. If you don't like sci fi, you'll hate this book. Not just because it's science fiction, but it's somewhat poorly written science fiction. But the story is great and the characters really well drawn. I liked it a lot and stuck through to the end. I had a blast.

Anyway, that's what I did this week.