fifth angel

The Fifth Angel stunk.

Stink, stank, stunk.

The whole premise seems to be based on this thought: Man, child molesters/abusers really burn me up. I wish I could kick some ass, and you know, get away with it.

Tim Green dreams up a main character, who I pretty quickly assume is his avatar in this weird little snuff novel. Protagonist has had it pretty bad, his daughter was kidnapped, raped and abused for a week or something and the bad guy got off with a few years, and is now out of the slammer, and our guy's daughter is still in a mental hospital, and can't stand to see anyone, including dad. Our man is divorced, because the ex-wife blames him for not picking the daughter up on time. Busy with work, our lawyer man is.

Yeah, did you pick up on that? He's got it bad, poor him. Why isn't he spending his time trying to help his daughter? Worrying about how SHE feels? Ridiculous.

So, taking what he has learned being a kick ass lawyer, our guy goes on a killing spree of just molesters who go off easy. Part way thru said spree, our guy meets a beautiful young woman, and starts to re-built his life and a new love. How a corporate lawyer knows so much about criminal law, is never explained.

While killing people on business trips, and one time, while on a romantic get away with his brand new girlfriend. your eyes are like... pools of chum Love nest location chosen specifically to be close to next victim.

Finally gets caught by a die hard cop, with no life, and an FBI agent, who is a crime solving genius, but is having trouble balancing her job and family life. The new girlfriend takes off horrified after the arrest, of course.

Our guy ends up serving a ridiculous sentence for the only thing they can prove, and is out in 18 months, and who is there to pick him up? The estranged girlfriend! what!

'I may never understand, she gushes, but I love you.' what!

Fade to back, with our sick, sociopathic, murdering, serial killer, cum hero (?), thinking: Maybe I can have it all. no, you can't. no one should

And I'm sure he's cured, reticent, and well adjusted, after getting it all out of his system. Right? Are you kidding me!

At one point our man is shot by one of his victims, with a shotgun, from a few feet away, in the shoulder. This is while his girlfriend is sleeping in a cabin on the other side of the lake, where he took her for some romance, right across the water from his, like, tenth victim. I'm thinking; "How is he ever going to explain a shotgun blast to the shoulder, when he gets back in bed, naked, in a few minutes? Never mind not bleed to death! I'll tell her a fell on a branch in the woods, he thinks to himself. WHAT? No one would buy that, HOW is he going to get his character out of this. This is like, the first time, they've has sex together. wow, that was great. you know what I could go for right now...

Seems impossible right? Of course it is. So what does our intrepid writer do? How does he explain this ludicrous happenstance? He doesn't.

That's right, he just skips over it. Doesn't even mention it. End of chapter. A few days later, when thinking back on it, our protagonist thinks to himself, I'm glad she believed that story. Did he even pick the pellets out of his flesh? Don't know, Tim never says.

Weasel.

Don't read this book! Or anything else this guy wrote.

alchemist's daughter

The Alchemist's Daughter follows the life of a young woman in 17th century England who lives alone with her father--the alchemist--on a remote estate with only a husband and wife manservant and housekeeper team. 

Emilie's father is, in addition to being an alchemist, a natural philosopher and a member of the Royal Society and makes an annual visit to London for a few weeks to attend lectures, present findings and papers, etc. leaving his daughter behind, because as a female, she would be unwelcome at the Society's proceedings, irregardless of the fact that since her birth, her father has been educating his daughter as a scientist, and she is at 19, a genius. 

Emilie has her own ideas which in some cases contradict with her father's and we as readers who have the benefit of history to tell us that she is often right, but is so enamored of her father she assumes that she is mistaken. 

Katharine McMahon takes us on an interesting journey through Emilie Selden's life, but I would have liked to hear more about her accomplishments. There is also a bit of Bronte sister's influence to the story as well read romance that seemed a little bit to me, like: 'well, she can't do science, so what will she do in her spare time' Not fair, I know, but then, it isn't supposed to be I guess.

I think I read this one while on vacation. I have a small back up of books I've read, but haven't written about due to the 3 or 4 books I read while away a few weeks ago.

wake of vultures

Wake of Vultures is the first of the The Shadow series by Lila Bowen, a pen name for Delilah Dawson, which sounds like the secret identity of a superhero. Not sure why its not written in her name.

Nettie Lonesome is pretty kick-ass. Orphaned under mysterious circumstances, and raised by the old west equivalent of foster parents--the kind that don't care about you, and treat you like a slave--Nettie uses her affinity for animals to eventually get a job at a nearby ranch, which allows her to leave her abusive home, and finally begin a life for herself. 

What she finds when she leaves is more than she bargained for--beginning with the man she meets the very night she leaves home.  And he ain't right. 

Soon after, Nettie finds that there are lots of folks who ain't quite right. Some good and some bad, but she also finds that there is something special about her too. Something that a shapeshifting brother and sister team agree to help her discover. 

You know, while trying to conquer and evil being that has been stealing children since before she was born. 

Nettie herself is a kind of mystery, she's not quite sure where she comes from, is pretty sure she's half black, and half native American, dresses in men's clothes, and typically passes as male (it keeps the questions to a minimum) and is pretty flexible about which sex she's attracted to.

Wake of Vultures is set in an alternative universe old west, mainly in and around Texas, it just isn't called Texas, its called Durango, in the Federal Republic of America. And there are plenty of monsters to go around. It wasn't great, but I'll read the second one and see where it goes.

domino i

I'm breaking this review into two parts for convenience, mainly because this book was dragging so badly that I decided to give up on it for a while and read something more fast-paced during my vacation. I spent the last two weeks at the beach, I'm happy to report, and I brought a handful of books to read, but Domino just wasn't doing it for me.

Domino is a novel written by Ross King, who is more famous for his non-fiction books, such as Brunelleschi's Dome. my personal favorite of his I have this vague memory of another fiction book by King, which I think is Ex-Libris. I read it a number of years ago, and its not included on this blog. I do, however, remember enjoying Ex-Libris, which is historical fiction, in a similar vein to Domino. Maybe by the time I get to the end of this book, I'll change my mind, and some of the things that have been nagging at me about it will be resolved.

Its taken a little bit to figure out the format of this tale. It is, as I've said, an historical fiction tale, told from the point-of-view (POV) of a young and impressionable painter named George Cautley, who meets a woman shortly after traveling to London to find/make his fortune. Lady Beauclair is above his station, but has a vague and probably checkered past. After agreeing to paint Lady Beauclair's portrait, mainly, we are led to believe, due to his infatuation with her, Cautley is slowly being told the history of another man--a now retired castrato singer from Italy, named Tristano, whom Cautley met briefly at the same party where he first met Lady Beauclair.

Lady Beauclair, in turn tells portions of her story second-hand, from the point-of-view of Tristano, when he was a younger man. Parts of Tristano's story include histories of others, told from their POV.

So here is a little POV tree to explain the Inception-like, story-within-a-story compartmentalization of this novel.

Ross King
-- George Cautley
--- Lady Beauclair
---- Tristano
----- Characters from Tristano's past and/or other characters from Beauclair's past.

The hard part, is keeping track of when the dialog is between Cautley and Beauclair, Beauclair and Tristano, (from Beauclair's POV), Tristano and character's from his past or character's from his present (from Tristano's POV) of between characters in either Tristano or Beauclair's pasts, from either of their POVs, respectively.

King uses quotes, within quotes, and in the deeper branches of the POV tree, he uses dashes at the beginnings of the dialog paragraphs, and forgoes quote marks all together.

There is also at least one mystery character, whose place in the narrative is still uncertain in my mind. I have about a hundred pages to go. The word Domino is from the French for a mask or disguise, which many of the characters wear at various points. This proxy of obscuration should have been more of a clue.

In the meantime I read one other book, and started a second on vacation. Reviews on those will come up first, and then I'll get back to Domino.

diamond age

Neal, Neal, Neal. You've done it again my man. 

The Diamond Age; Or a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is an older book from Neal Stephenson, in the same vein as Snow Crash. Whether or not this narrative takes place in the same, or merely a similar universe, isn't really important to the story.* It does seem to take place slightly further in the future. Technology (read: internet) has nullified the need for centralized geopolitical governments as we know them and world is populated by claves of typically like-minded people who live how they best see fit and guard their borders--and conduct their business--via nanotechnology. It buzzes through the air like smog and courses in their bloodstream. 

But change is coming. What form that change will take and how the people who strive for, and against that change, and how it might effect the societies that may be impacted by it, is where the story lies. Like many of Stephenson's stories, one of the main characters is a young woman, who as a girl derived certain benefits from her illustrated primer. 

The story is well paced, carefully plotted, and even though the prose is jargon rich, the human story shine through and the SciFinese falls away into the background. 

Stephenson has written a prototypical hero story a la Joseph Campbell, and as Campbell postulated in his book, we'll read it again and again. And provided it's well written, we'll enjoy it every time. 

Read this book.


* FictFact.com puts this book in a series with Snow Crash and some others.

girlfriend 44

Mark Barrowcliffe is a funny guy. I guess he's also written some Viking style fantasy fiction under a pen name, and I think he also writes a column, or has written for magazines or something in the past.

Girlfriend 44 follows the escapades of a 32 year old Londoner and misogynist, named Harry. Told in first person, Harry explains why he's currently on the 44th version of a female companion, what its like to live in London as a 'lad' on the 'pull.'

Harry lives in a small apartment/house with his long-time roommate, Gerrard, and their dog. Gerrard is similar to Harry in a lot of ways, but has his own approach to women, based in his theory of naturalness. So natural that I-shouldn't-have-to-try, if-she's-interested-she'll-let-me-know natural. Gerrard has NOT had 44 girlfriends. The naturalness extends to natural body odor vs. wasting water, soap and energy on bathing. Or washing your clothes. and still no dates?

What is funny is the constant bickering between Harry and Gerrard, and Harry's philosophy on life, which he expounds on whenever he has a moment. Harry may spin off on an observational rant in the middle of describing an intense conversation with someone. There may be a page or two of complaining about some demographic or particular type of aggravating person before you get back to where he was in his original tale.

You want to hate him; But he's just so amusing!

Read this book.

notebooks of don rigoberto

I picked up the The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto at a library book sale. This novel by Mario Vargas Llosa—translated by Edith Grossman—is slightly surreal, and sexy enough to be called erotica. I haven’t read Mario Vargas Llosa before, but a search online about him confirms that this seems to be his style. A sort of positive or reaffirming look at the value of fantasy and a sense of adventure in adult sexual relationships.

Perhaps Don Rigoberto represents the author’s alter ego, or maybe even his avatar, as he makes his way through his notebooks each evening in his well healed home on the edge of the ocean at the outskirts of Lima. Rigoberto has sexual fantasies, but they are all about his wife. Some that they act out together.

Rigoberto is a well off, middle aged insurance company employee, who has been with the company long enough to be able to live very comfortably. He fills his house with works of art, but only a certain number. When he acquires a new piece, he has to decide which one goes to make room. This self-imposed discipline gives him pleasure, even if that pleasure is mixed with the pain of letting go of a piece of art he once chose to display in his home. 

Rigoberto also works hard on his theory of life, and uses this strict  set of rules to live by, and shows no patience for those who don't understand him. Going so far as to write letters to people that he sees as living their lives as an antithesis to his own beliefs. These letters are included complete in the text, read from Rigoberto's notebooks. He never sends them, because the recipient would be to stupid, to blind, to pigheaded to understand what he means, so he writes them to relieve himself of the pent up feelings, and doesn't send them.

The Notebooks is pretty dense, relentless, dedicated, and sexy. But it took a while to get through, and t was often difficult to tell where reality and fantasy met, but I'm sure that's the idea.

united states of beer

First off, thanks so much to the folks in Erving, who were nice enough to bring this book for us to help celebrate my office's 20th anniversary. The book came with a wonderful bottle of beer for us all to enjoy as well.

The United States of Beer, sub-titled: A Freewheeling History of the All-American Drink, is by Dane Huckelbridge, and is a follow-up to his previous endeavor, Bourbon: A History of the American Spirit. I think that he learned a lot about beer, doing his research for his bourbon book, and luckily for us, he decided to turn that research into this fun little book about America's beer history.

For the uninitiated, bourbon and beer are related; The first step in making whiskey, is to make beer (without the hops) and then distill it. Beer is therefore whiskey's daddy. It also predates the development of whiskey by millennia. Seems like a good place to start any history project, but just how closely beer is intertwined in the history of this nation is remarkable. But its as simple as one of the first (of many) take-away facts from this book: 

TAKE-AWAY FACT 1: People couldn't drink the water, it wasn't clean in most of Europe. What people drank--men, women, children--is beer. All day, every day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. At home, and at work.

For centuries.

Huckelbridge walks us through the history of the nation from New England, to the South, to the Mid-west, to the coast. Each of the regions begins with its history, and importantly, where the predominant immigrants come from, and the beer styles they brought with them. Huckelbridge describes the traditional European beer, and its own history, and then the version the new American make for themselves when they arrive, working with what they have.

TAKE-AWAY FACT 2: American versions of European beers were (and are) often very different from their beery ancestors, because the conditions, and ingredients in America are not the same as they were in the countries of origin. 

By the time we get to the Mid-west, America has been around for a while, and the Germanic folks who began to move into the Mid-west brought lager beers with them, and eventually the lighter, crisper Pilsner style beers. But these beers were not (NOT) the pale, yellow, watery beers that are the standard American Big Beer company products we have today. So you know what that means...

TAKE-AWAY FACT 3: American pale lager used to be deep, rich, and flavorful. We ended up with yellow, watery American beer--produced, by the way, by some of the same companies that originally produce those better beers--due to mass marketing, and cost cutting to stay in business through prohibition.

There are lots more, and obviously, the changes to the standard American lager happened slowly, and Huckelbridge walks us through it all, ending with the history of beer making on the west coast, and how a small company in San Francisco kicked off the rebirth of American microbrews in the mid 1960s.

Read this book, while drinking a beer.

 

rule of four

The Rule of Four appears to be the first book by Ian Caldwell, which he co-authored with Dustin Thomason. The info on the book jacket indicates that they wrote this over a number of years, in their twenties. I read his more current book last year, and that was terrific. I tried to find this book at the library then, but it was out. The reviews on this book were pretty good, and the publisher was then touting it as DaVinci Code-like. not really

Caldwell and Thomas have developed a really interesting story revolving around a mysterious 500 year old book called Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,* which is the subject of a Princeton senior's research paper. The story, told from the perspective of the researcher's roommate, spins a tale that goes back to his own father's obsession with the same book, and was the spark that united the two roommates to begin with. The researcher, Paul, recognized his future roommate's name from the dedication in his father book; Thomas Corelli Sullivan. [Paul: Are you that Tom? I'm a big fan of your father! Tom: Yeah, I am. But, he's dead. And that book is whack, right?]†

By the time Paul and Tom are seniors, they have two more pals, Gil and Charlie, and all four are fast friends and roommates. Paul has been cracking on Hypnerotomachia Poliphili for 4 years now, and has finally begun to make some headway. His interest in the story is what brought him to Princeton, where Vincent Taft is a scholar on the book, and an old adversary of Tom's father. The two started out as friends before Tom was born, but soon argued over the book, and ended up hating each other. Another guy who was also into the book, and was friends with both Sullivan and Taft also shows up as a patron for young Paul. Everyone is trying to get in on the action as Paul, with some help from Tom, starts to uncover some of the book's secrets.

So its intrigue, mystery, whodunits, back-stabbery, and bumbling campus police; uselessly yelling 'stop right there!' about 20 times throughout the book. The title appears to come from math, rather than the Supreme Court.

It was okay. They took a long time to write it, and it still ended up being a little jerky and fragmented feeling. You don't need to read it prior to The Fifth Gospel, its unrelated. in fact, you don't need to read it at all



* Translates as: "The Strife of Love in a Dream." 
† That's not a direct quote. More of a synopsis.