'Skinner' by Charlie Huston

Skinner, Charlie Huston (3)

This book was described as a mix between John Le Carre and Neal Stephenson. That’s heady company – though I can see the intent of the comment. The story has the spy angst of Le Carre, with the cyber knowledge and tools of Stephenson. My biggest problem with the book is that it contains relatively complicated passages. Normally something I enjoy, but in this case the complications at the beginning kept me from engaging completely. It was as if Huston wanted to show his cleverness by several flows of buzzword diarrhea. Then, once I got into the story and the pace picked up, I found myself re-reading and stumbling over paragraphs in my haste to finish a chapter. I liked the idea of a spy who has to protect his ‘asset’, in this case a robotics specialist who can also see patterns in the big picture, against all threats. Of course the spy is very broken (his nickname ‘Skinner’ is due to being a real science experiment of his autistic parents by being kept in a BJ Skinner-like box till he was 12 years old), which allows him to do all the bad stuff spies are supposed to do. Once I got into the story and tried to exhibit the patience to read through the complicated bits, I enjoyed the ride.

'Beautiful Ruins' by Jess Walter

Beautiful Ruins, Jess Walter (3)

There were many things about this book that I liked, but something was missing. The story jumps between several locations and characters – all different and interesting. My problem may be with how jarring it was to go from one to another, as if written by alternating authors. Normally, I would applaud Mr. Walter for such a device, but in this case I found it rather annoying. The story starts in a small coastal town of Italy during the early 60’s, when ‘Cleopatra’ was being filmed nearby. A young actress comes to the only hotel, run by a young Italian man dreaming of drawing more tourists to the sleepy town. She was working on the film, but is dying of cancer and has come to meet someone before going to Switzerland for an operation. The story then jumps to present day Hollywood to follow a production assistant with her very annoying producer boss. Multiple characters interact in Italy and are followed to present day. The book had a good mixture of new Hollywood, old Hollywood and Italian travelogue. The wrap-up of characters (how do they all meet again in present day?) felt a bit forced and trite, though it did answer all questions of the mystery that unfolded throughout the book.

'Wool' by Hugh Howey

Wool, Hugh Howey (4)

Hugh Howey is a hero to all self-published authors. What began as a series of self-published short stories became a NYT best seller due to great word of mouth reviews. The book (make sure to get the one with all 5 sections together) deserves the praise – interesting story, fast paced writing style, and somewhat new concepts for a dystopian future. I say ‘somewhat’ as I found it reminded me of ‘City of Ember’, though since it’s targeted for adults ‘Wool’ is more well rounded. The society of the book is completely contained in a 130+ floor silo, buried underground. We don’t know why all of society is in this structure – but the clues are there from the start. As one can imagine- if you know you are buried underground, the view aboveground becomes very important. Citizens who break the law are sent ‘out’ to clean the lenses that allow everyone to see the devastated land above. Unfortunately, the suits they wear to do the cleaning are not robust enough to withstand the elements and the lawbreakers also die outside. In addition to the mystery surrounding this odd crime deterrent, Mr. Howey touches on many other issues with this society such as the hierarchy of those who live on the higher floors, versus those mid-level and those ‘down deep’; and the power of various professions – IT versus Mechanical. While some of the clues seem far too obvious (i.e. how come they couldn’t build a decent suit that allows people to clean the lenses and return to the silo?), there are plenty of surprises to enjoy. It did not surprise me to find out that Ridley Scott has already optioned this book for a film.

'NOS4A2' by Joe Hill

NOS4A2, Joe Hill (4)

I am giving this book a ‘4’ with one caveat. I believe it is a very interesting story and is very well written. The caveat is that it is of the dark fantasy genre and one must be a fan to truly enjoy this book. The story centers around two main characters; both have the ability to travel between places in a magical way. One is a serial killer, who abducts children and takes them to Christmasland, a world where they can live their life somewhat dead and forever in the best place known to children (maybe?). The other is a young girl who can find things by just wishing and using her favorite bike to travel to where the lost things will be. She ends up being the only one to escape from his clutches, but suffers greatly from her affliction/capability. The pace of this story is rapid – it is a ~700 pages and I read it in 4 days! The action never stops. I particularly liked the ending. It was succinct, but Mr. Hill managed to add some fun in the ‘Acknowledgements’ and even a cookie in the ‘Notes on the Type’ that could possibly lead to a sequel. My biggest complaint is that it is very dark. I don’t typically read horror books and this one certainly borders on that characterization. I do believe Mr. Hill has lived up to his famous parents’ (Tabitha and Stephen King) story telling legacy.

'Gulp' by Mary Roach

Gulp, Mary Roach (3)

I guess I should have felt suitably warned of the content of this book since the author herself gave a few warnings right at the start. She is known for her humorous non-fiction takes on relatively taboo subjects (death, sex, and here – elimination). While Ms. Roach definitely writes in this book exhaustively and humorously about our digestive system, over 100 pages on flatulence and poop can cause any good reader to grow weary of the subject. I will admit that I laughed out loud at quite a few places. She makes good use of the footnote – much of her humor is found there as she shares ironies (such as how Dr. Crapo was the one who coined the term ‘dung lung’). I found the first 2/3 the most interesting – possibly the freshness of the subject wore off as we progressed down the alimentary canal – pun intended. There were quite a few interesting points about digestion that I may need to research further. One example is her claim that the push for more fiber in your diet was basically a marketing tactic – that more recent research shows that frequent bowel movements have a higher correlation to rectal cancer than constipation. The new determinant factor of risk is calories, the more you eat, and the worse it is. Who knew? Overall I will give this book a ‘3’ with the warning not to read it before dinner time and be aware of the literal toilet humor.

'Count Zero' by William Gibson

Count Zero, William Gibson (3)

Until I stumbled (literally) across this book at a used bookstore, I had not realized that it was the follow-on to Gibson’s famous ‘Neuromancer’. For those unfamiliar, Gibson is credited with creating cyber-punk, the first to use the phrase cyberspace and even as the predictor of the World Wide Web. Given that he wrote short stories and these novels about plugging into a computer structure, where a whole world connected in the early 80’s, the credit seems due. This story follows 3 protagonists who are each disparately involved in a new, possibly destructive biochip (think of a virus in software that is almost a biological virus too when put into your anatomical ‘jack’ used to access the computer world). Given all the various difficult concepts – which, since written in 1987 don’t necessarily use words that eventually came to be – this book is not easy to read. I muscled through it and found it interesting and worth reading for the historical implications alone. It definitely whetted my appetite, now I have put ‘Neuromancer’ and ‘Mona Lisa Overdrive’ back on my to-reread list.