Blood Meridan by Cormac McCarthy Book Review

Episodic yet hypnotic, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridan defies classification or explanation, which makes its status as a masterpiece difficult to explain but easy to understand. Cormac's trademark staccoto prose makes it difficult to pull together a grander narrative or story, but that seems beside the point as Cormac focuses on humanity's violent underbelly. It's both hard to read but also impossible to put down. At one moment, you have graphic descriptions of some of the horrible actions put to print. Yet, in the next moment, you have moments of incomprehensible beauty (such as the burning tree in the middle of the desert). It's so hard to explain but I can't recommend it highly enough. Blood Meridan is a classic and deserves to be read, just make sure that you have an empty stomach.

Vacation Book Reviews

Sorry for the long delay between posts everyone. I've been extremely busy getting ready for my vacation to Hawaii. The vacation is over (sigh) but at least I got a tan and managed to read a number of novels that I had been interested in for a while.  I won't be giving a full review of each of the novels but I am going to give my quick impressions of them. The four books are Ready, Player One, Life of Pi, The Road and Run, Rabbit (unfinished).Ready, Player OneReady, Player One is a science fiction novel by Ernest Cline that follows Parzival in an economically collapsed future as he tries to win the fortune of the eccentric billionaire James Halliday through a scavenger hunt/puzzle in the virtual reality world known as OASIS (good name).  I was alerted to this book by some of my co-workers who noted some of the similarities with my own novel. Aside from the nightclub scene (we both conceived of nightclubs in the shape of a sphere where everyone dances on the inside surface of the sphere with the DJ in the middle - eerily similar but it appears to have happened in parallel. I wrote that scene long before Cline's 2011 publication date. I guess that great minds think alike), the plots and world are fortunately completely different. The story isn't complicated but it is really well done and it's extremely fun. I was continually pulled forward to see what would happen. It's a lot of fun and a great read. Highly recommended.Life of PiWow. All I can say is wow. I got interested in finally reading the book after watching Ang Lee's amazing movie. The book has been well-known for a while but I never had the time. I now wish that I had made the time. The book is stunning. It's unique, it's unconventional, it uses a number of interesting techniques like unreliable narrator and multiple perspectives to really pull together something that is special. It's an amazing book that forces us to consider our relationship to god and what it means. Outstanding and highly recommended. The RoadThe Road by Cormac McCarthy was somewhat of a disappointment. The story of a father guiding his son along the eponymous road in post-apocalyptic U.S., The Road was highly celebrated, highlighted by the Pulitzer Prize in 2006. After working my way through it, I really think that it was overhyped. It is a good novel but it's vastly inferior to McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. It does have some great moments of poetry and other moments of horror but it lacks the broader narrative that keeps pulling the reader forward. I would recommend something else instead.Run, RabbitRun, Rabbit by John Updike was a novel I just couldn't get into and ultimately abandoned. It's about a former star high school basketball player who has a mid-life crisis at age 27. Perhaps it was an important novel for its era (1960) but I just couldn't bring myself to care about a character who is so passive and reactive to the problems in his life. I got through about 60 pages and then I lost interest. Not recommended.That's it for the quick reviews. I'm working myself through Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridan at the moment. It's better than The Road  but still is a little too episodic and the protagonist is too blank for my taste but I'm still reading. I'll let everyone know more when I'm finished.

A Game of Thrones Book Review

After hearing so much about the Game of Thrones television show and the numerous media (such as Skyrim) that cite it as a reference, I decided to finally tackle the massive A Song of Fire and Ice series by George R.R. Martin. After plowing my way through the first book in the series, A Game of Thrones, it is pretty clear that I am hooked on the series. By what really struck me was the similarities between it and the recent book I reviewed, Spook Country by William Gibson.Even though they both use multiple perspectives to tell their stories, I found that my enjoyment of the two books was completely different. Spook Country left me flat while A Game of Thrones drew me in and seduced me into reading further. But why were they so different? What did George R.R. Martin do right that William Gibson did wrong. Because of this conundrum, I decided to do a comparison of the two books rather than a straight-forward review of A Game of Thrones. I hope that by doing so, we might identify some of the general storytelling fundamentals in play.Let's start with their one major similarity: multiple perspectives.Multiple perspectivesBoth A Game of Thrones and Spook Country tell their stories through a third person limited narrative. In short, the narrative focuses on the perspective of a single character, but does not take the voice of this character. The reader is limited to the viewpoint of a single character but the text is written in the third person. This is a fairly standard narrative style, especially in mysteries, as the reader is limited to the knowledge of the protagonist, and thus must follow him or her as they unravel the plot, enhancing the tension. However, what makes both A Game of Thrones and Spook Country so unique in this narrative structure is that the story follows a different character in each chapter. To use the example of A Game of Thrones, the story may follow the perspective of Tyrion Lannister in one chapter and Eddard Stark in the next. Spook Country limits this perspective to three characters while A Game of Thrones changes to whichever character strikes Martin's fancy. The end result is quite different. Whereas Spook Country is relatively dull with stilted, uninteresting characters (with the possible exception of Tito), A Game of Thrones sucks you into the characters lives and involves you intensely with the life and death struggles. Does this mean that the characters of A Game of Thrones are more or distinctively. No, not really. I don't think its the characters themselves that make them so compelling. It's how Martin sets up their stories, creating a sense of ....... AnticipationLet's take a look at some of the characters in A Game of Thrones. WARNING: This section does contain stories.Bran StarkFormerly a strong climber, Bran is crippled when he thrown off a tower by Jaime Lannister for spotting him cavorting with his sister, and Queen, Cersei Lannister. Now a paraplegic, Bran try to find a way to make himself useful to a world that worships men of war. To get around, Bran gets around by riding on the back of Hordor, a slow-witted half-giant. Will he ride Hodor into battle and turn the tide?Tyrion LannisterA dwarf disrespected by everyone, especially his own snooty family, Tyrion gets by on his wits while holding fast to a personal code of honour that far exceeds those of the rest of his family. Will he overcome society's prejudices to find the glory and victory he so rightly deserves?Daenerys TargaryenAlong with her brother, the only two surviving offspring of the former King of the Seven Kingdoms. Daenerys sacrifices greatly for survival, including being married of by her brother, losing her husband and daughter, and her place in Dothraki society. Isolated and alone, she takes her three dragon (which have extinct for centuries) eggs into a pyre and watches as they hatch and bond to her as their mother. Will she lead her dragon children into an assault on the Seven Kingdoms to retake Iron Throne?Eddard StarkReluctantly taking on the responsibility of the King's Hand, Eddard must unravel the mysteries of the attack on his son Bran and the death of the former Hand, Jon Arryn. Will he unravel the mystery or will he fall in the game of thrones.Jon SnowThe bastard son of Eddard Stark, Jon Snow volunteers to serve on the wall to find some place of honour in a world that has none for bastards. Amongst his rag-tag group of ruffians, will he overcome his station to protect the Seven Kingdoms from the unknown threats to the north?Arya StarkA tomboy, Arya is more interested in learning to fight with a sword than the courtly manners of her sister Sansa.  Reluctantly, her failure allows her to be trained by a cunning, yet eccentric sword master. Will she one day grow up to command respect as a warrior, not just as a prospective bride?As you can see in each of the cases, I am filling in the story far off into the future while Martin is still introducing me to them. By setting up most of the characters as weak, unloved, ignored or disrespected, he is giving me an opportunity to fill in the story with how I want things to turn out. We all love underdog characters. We want to see them overcome their challenges and find the respect of their peers because we face these same sorts of struggles day in and day. George R.R. Martin fills A Game of Thrones with underdogs and that is why I have to keep reading. I have to find out what happens to them.In Spook Country, we have a former rock star, a drug addict and a superhuman parkour specialist. They're unique but they're not really underdogs. They don't feel overwhelmed or at risk in the world in which they find themselves. Even at the end when Hollis is captures, the tension is immediately diffused by the secret underworld character asking her to be a witness to their operations. There is simply little sense of danger and even less sense of overcoming the odds.SympathyAnother way in which Martin uses the multiple perspectives well is building sympathy for characters who later perish. When you are in close promixity  in someone's shoes, you feel greater sense of loss when they are gone. It's the reasons that we mourn for family and friends but not for complete strangers. We can react with horror and sadness but its far more abstract then when it's someone you know personally. In the case of A Game of Thrones, we are introduced to a couple of characters who later perish. Walking in their faces, we gain a measure of sympathy for them that makes their later deaths, seen from another character's perspective, that much more powerful. It also makes the world feel like a far more dangerous place. In Spook Country, nobody dies. It brings me to my final point when comparing the two novels.Raising the StakesIn A Game of Thrones, the stakes are huge and growing with each passing chapter. People die, the land is plagued by war and atrocities, and new threats can be sensed over the horizon, across the war and beyond the sea. In Martin's opening book, characters are fighting for their future, Kings are fighting for kingdoms, and humanity in general is fighting for its survival. The growing sense of threat and danger ramp up the tension, pulling us forward and deeper into the book anxious to see what happens next. In the case of Spook Country, danger is muted. Nobody really seems in trouble. Nobody is killed and threats go unfilled. Even the central mystery falls flat, rather than the MacGuffan threatening humanity or even an individual, it comes off instead as post-modern joke. It may be clever or interesting but as a storytelling device, it falls flat. In A Game of Thrones, stakes are simpler, more menacing and easier to feel. The story greater benefits as a result.In short, A Game of Thrones is an excellent fantasy novel that I can't recommend highly enough. It will grab you and never let you go. I hope that by comparing it to Spook Country I've been able to show why it's so effective and how it can serve as a template for aspiring authors. I'm well into the second book of the series, A Clash of Kings, and it's still going strong.

Spook Country Book Review

Among other activities, one of the great things about my recent vacation was the opportunity to sit down on a summer afternoon and catch up on one of the many e-books that I had bought but never finished. Spook Country was one of those novels. I had bought it about a year and made a valiant attempt to read it, but I lost interest in its constantly changing perspectives and gave up.Have finally read it a year later, which necessitated re-reading the earlier chapters, I am finally ready to render a verdict:Skip it.William Gibson is an excellent writer. His work preceded and predicted many of the elements of the information age. He has this unique ability to look into the future and see where we as a species are going. Spook Country is no different. We are introduced to concepts such as augmented reality, which is only now coming to effect in the real world, five years after the publication of Gibson's novel.That said, the look into the now present is not enough to save the story from its own lack of momentum. For the most part, the story is a mystery that when revealed is a little anti-climatic. There's a lot of build-up but not a strong climax, rather a petering out.Gibson uses a unique tactic of switching the narrative voice between several characters but it fails here because none of the characters are really that interesting. The most interesting character is Tito due to his religious beliefs that combine spirituality and physicality in a way that I've never seen before. But the perspective switching doesn't really build momentum in the story as you don't really get too interested in what happens to these people. For a better example of how to use multiple perspectives, I would recommend A Game of Thrones. I'm only 25% through the novel, but I can't wait to see what happens to at least five or six of its characters. But I'll save that for another review.Even though this is a negative review, I can't help but point an amazing sequence in the middle of book. Tito is tasked to meet with one of his associates while expecting to be chased down by the authorities. His goal is to make sure that the authorities capture a usb stick without capturing him. Over a sequence of several chapters, we watch Tito and one of his adversaries prepare for this confrontation. It is nothing short of exhilarating. The preparations build a real sense of excitement and bring momentum to the story. When the confrontation carries itself out, you know what the plan so it's easy to get caught up in the chase. The whole sequence works really well and is a fine example of how to build up to an action set piece.Even though that sequence was amazing, Gibson is not able to maintain the momentum. The story slows down until we are left with a very quiet anti-climax and a rather un-satisfying conclusion to each of the character's individual story arcs.In short, I wouldn't recommend it. Instead you should read Neuromancer. It's a little difficult to read and understand but you'll be surprised by the words that Gibson creates (in the early 80's) that we still use today.

The Hunger Games Book Review - SPOILERS

I read Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games before I went on vacation but didn't have time to write a book review before I left. Considering that the film adaptation has just made a gazillion dollars, it seems as good a time as ready to give my thoughts on the book.First, a short summary. The Hunger Games follows a young protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, who volunteers to represent her district in the annual deathmatch/reality show known as the Hunger Games in order to save her sister, who had been drawn at random. There she fits for survival against 23 other competitors from all 12 districts, including Peeta, the baker's son from her district who she is pretending/actually falling in love with. I know that there's a lot more details such as the pageantry, social-political commentary, and palace intrigue, but that's the basic story. Simple, straight-forward, easy-to-understand. Good stuff.This ground has been well-trodden before with Arnold Swartzeneggar's The Running Man (which I love) and the Japanese  Battle Royale (which I've never seen). It's not the most original material but it hasn't yet been done to death.So, aside from the unoriginal premise, how was the book?Pretty good in fact.While Suzanne Collins is not going to be confused with J.K. Rowling (who I can't read without staying up all night), she does keep the story interesting and the pace brisk. The language is kept simple and easy-to-understand, allowing you to concentrate on the story and not the prose. The characters, while somewhat stock, are likeable and draw you into rooting for them (especially Rue). The only real problems that I had with the story was that romance between Peet and Katniss seemed a bit forced (maybe intentional considering that they also pretending to be in love) and drags on too long in the third act of the novel. Near the end, we are greeted with around 50 pages of the finally re-united pair resting in the woods and mending their wounds while they grow more and more twitterpated. Given the good pace that Collins had maintained throughout the rest of the novel, this break really breaks the tension just when it should be rising to a crescendo. But it ends strong and sets up some interesting conflicts for the next book.So should you read it?Yeah sure. It's not Lord of the Rings but it is fun and enjoyable because it is well-executive. Give it a shot.However, that does not say that it's perfect. There is a couple of things that bugged me as I was reading.The first, is that Katniss does really kill too many people. If my math is correct, she only kills two people directly. The rest are killed by others or inadvertently by actions that Katniss takes. If you include her dropping the tracker jackers on the other tributes, then that makes four. It's an interesting choice in that it helps preserve her innocence (she kills only when necessary and only the "bad" characters) but it also makes her a bit of a spectator for most of the games. I would have loved to see her hunt the other tributes more directly (the "bad" ones of course) in order to show off her superior archery and tracking skills.The second thing that bugs me is the tracker jacker incident. It seems a bit too Deus ex machima for me. Poor Katniss gets treed by the allied tributes and then is saved by a tracker jacket nest that just happens to be there. To this point, we had never heard about tracker jackets (unless I missed something, comments please) until they are needed. It would have been better had we been introduced to them much earlier, say when Gale and Katniss are hunting. This would have given Gale an opportunity to explain what they are to Katniss (and by extension the reader) while setting it up for use later on in the Hunger Games.But those quibbles are relatively minor in the broader context. The Hunger Games is a good read that won't take you long. Go out and enjoy it.PS - Rue is by far my favourite character.

The American Book of the Dead Book Review

While working on my latest draft based on the comments of my editor, Erin Stropes, I decided to check out the last novel that she had edited. "The American Book of the Dead" by Henry Baum was self-published last year and has won a surprisingly number of awards for a self-published title. Henry Baum is also the editor of the Self-Publishing Review and for those of you who remember, recommended Erin to me as an editor based on her work on "American Book of the Dead"."The American Book of the Dead" tells the story of Eugene Myers, a father at the end of his rope, who discovers that the book that he is writing accurately predicts the end of the world. The novel follows his attempts to warn humanity, the apocalypse and the aftermath. In the meantime, Eugene must also deal with his dysfunctional daughter, a disintegrating marriage and a crazy president who believes that he is the messiah.The strongest part of the novel is Baum's writing. Starting with the Douglas Coupland-like opening which straddles bizarre and absurd, the dread of the upcoming apocalypse, the bloody aftermath and the surreal lunacy of the American president, Henry Baum does show that he has some writing skill. Another strength is the uniqueness of the tale. Most stories follow a fairly predictable story arc, Baum on the other hand leads his story down some unpredictable paths. It's great because you never know quite what to expect.That said, there are some glaring weaknesses with the text. Baum's characterization of the president, an obvious joke against George W. Bush, comes off as derivative and uninspired. I did not believe for a second that this individual could become president, or that he would be able to lead America willingly into a suicidal nuclear war. A disastrous war in Iraq, yes, but a world war, not believable. Baum needs the US President to be an idiotic buffoon to start the apocalypse but that is far less interesting than an antagonistic that is smart and cunning.A final weakness with the novel is the ending, which seemingly comes out of nowhere. While I'm not going to describe it here, it does come off as Deus Ex Machina.However despite its flaws, "The American Book of the Dead" is an entertaining read, most due to the excellent prose of Henry Baum. I look forward to reading his next book.

The Name of the Wind Review

Upon the advice of my co-worker Frederick, I recently read through the novel "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss. In "The Name of the Wind", an old barkeeper by the name of Kvothe recounts the story of his exceptional youth to a passing scribe while a foreboding dark menace closes in on their valley. Given that I spent a couple of months reading through the text, I felt that it might be a good idea to write a review about the novel and the lessons that I draw from it for my own work.The book is the first of a planned trilogy whereas each book takes place during one of the three days that Kvothe has set aside to tell his story. In Day One (The Name of the Wind), Kvothe recounts his idealic youth, the brutal murder of his family, years of poverty, and the beginning of his education as a archanist at the University.Koevthe begins his story to the passing scribe, named the Chronicler, by recounting his idealic youth with his parents on a performing troupe that travels the world. Here the author, Patrick Rothfuss, works very hard and spends many pages establishing the young character of Kvothe, the characters in his life, and how happy and perfect everything is in his life. By this time, we know at something bad is going to happen to Kvothe and we anxiously await its occurrence but Patrick Rothfuss takes an extremely long time in order to get there. This establishes a recurring problem with this novel. When everything goes well for Kvothe, the story drags. When things go badly for Kvothe, the novel soars.Once Kvothe's traveling troupe is murdered and Kvothe is orphaned, the story immediately picks up steam. I was enthralled by Kvothe's struggle for survival: first in the surrounding wood and then later when he moves to a city reminiscent of industrial England. This section evoked the best work of Charles Dicksons and we cheer on young Kvothe as he fights for every last jolt (like a penny).After several years of poverty, Kvothe makes his way to the University where he always dreamed of attending. Here he gains admittance through his own inherent brilliance and then wows both students and teachers with amazing feat after incredible adventure after scintillating victory. Once again the novel drags. Some commentators have suggested that this section is more realistic and thus superior to the in-school drama of the Harry Potter series. Unfortunately, I am not able to agree. I found the high school drama in the Harry Potter series (especially in the Goblet of Fire) to be far more engaging then the characters and squabbles that Kvothe encounters. Rowling had this rare gift in creating characters that were extremely easy to visualize and thus remember. After spending twenty hours with Rothfuss' characters, I still can't remember the names of Kvothe's best friends. Kvothe's struggles with his love Denna work much better precisely because Kvothe is eternally frustrated in trying to win her heart. All in all, I found the University section to be slow in tedious precisely because it is too easy for Kvothe to overcome his obstacles.The story picks up again when Kvothe leaves the University to investigate the massacre of a wedding, finds Denna, and then is forced to battle a dragonus (Rothfuss' version of a dragon). This is by far the most exciting part of the novel as Kvothe and Denna are constantly forced to use their wits in order to survive a growing series of obstacles, climaxing with an effective battle with the dragonus in a local village.The Name of the Wind is an enjoyable read but it's biggest weakness is in its structure. There is no single narrative thread that ties the story together. There is the approaching evil but that is saved for the next books in the trilogy. There are some compelling episodes but they don't tie together. Thus we are left without a main storyline. In the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling uses a mystery to tie the events within a novel together while giving her the freedom to establish characters and plot lines that carry on from book. The Harry Potter novels stand well alone as individual books. The same cannot be said for The Name of the Wind. Instead it reads as the first part of really long novel, much to it's detriment.In conclusion, the Name of the Wind has some excellent text but is undermined by its lack of a coherent structure.