'World Without End' by Ken Follett

World Without End, Ken Follett (3)

Can there be too much of a good thing? Concerning this book, I believe there can be. This is Ken Follett’s follow on story to ‘Pillars of the Earth’, set a couple of generations later in the same town in England. It has a similar premise of a couple of very capable likable characters struggling through life, battling the incompetent and evil people around them. At one point, I was reminded of Ayn Rand’s ever pounding philosophy (pardon my horrible paraphrasing): that the average will always try to hold back the extraordinary. While the story follows many events for the people in the town (mostly bad, but some good) and the technologies described are always interesting, the characters were too flat to hold my interest over 1000 pages. The two main characters are frankly too easy to like and the evil characters are always bad. Interesting book characters are more complicated and nuanced. I was tempted to give this book a ‘2.5’, but if you liked ‘Pillars of the Earth’, you will probably like many aspects of this one.

'Five Days at Memorial' by Sheri Fink

Five Days at Memorial; Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital, Sheri Fink (4)

This may have to be my last sad non-fiction book for a while. I first heard of this book on ‘The Daily Show’, where John Stewart interviewed the author and highly recommended reading this retelling of the horrific events at a hospital in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina. Though rather long and a bit tough to keep track of all the players, the majority of the book is riveting. The core drama is about the lack of disaster preparedness and the frightening conditions and actions taken by a few staff members of the hospital. Ms. Fink, a former relief worker in disaster and conflict zones, specializes in reporting from a physician’s point of view during such events. As terrible as the situation and the actions of many people were, she tells the story non-judgmentally and from alternating points of view. The first half of the book deals with the events, as seen from a variety of participants. The second half is the ‘reckoning’, the aftermath of all that happened at Memorial and other hospitals in the area. The sadness of this book is not only from the actual events that occurred at this hospital, but of the politics, corruption and incompetence during the aftermath. Some of victims’ families definitely did not get justice for the treatment of their loved ones. This book also makes you consider how different people react during crises and what they use to justify their actions. Given how thoughtful and well educated the doctors in question are, their actions were scary and reprehensible.

'The Bone Season' by Samantha Shannon

The Bone Season, Samantha Shannon (3)

I recently read an article in the NYT Magazine about desperate editors looking for the next ‘Hunger Games’ or ‘Harry Potter’ franchise. ‘The Bone Season’ was one of the examples and I understand why. One of the most surprising things about this book is that it is the first of a projected 7 book series. While it had several interesting concepts, there was hardly enough material to warrant 6 more books! The story is set in a future London where supernatural abilities (such as clairvoyance) exist and are outlawed. One character with remarkable abilities is arrested and taken to a secret prison, managed by supernatural vampiresque beings. There are questions: what are they? How can she escape? Why are the gifted imprisoned? There are also the typical characters: villain, one who seems like a villain- but is really a hero, best friend, evil (weak) peer, etc. The problems with all these are that they are reminiscent of many books (‘Jane Eyre’, Harry Potter’, and even ‘Twilight’) and not as good as any of them.  Occasionally a series will exist where the second book is actually better than the first, but the rule is to wow the audience with the first book in order to secure your readership for the series. I must assume that Ms. Shannon gave interesting outlines for the whole series to warrant the backing of 7 books, but if I read the second one (big ‘if’), it had better come with more.