terminal list

My wife and I watched the TV show based on this book a little while ago, and after we finished it, she found this book and told me she'd read it a few years ago and thought she'd recognized the story. She said it was pretty good so I gave it a whirl.

Jack Carr is a retired navy SEAL, and like some others who have gone this route, Carr set about writing stories about SEALs. Write what you know, if the often heard advice for beginning writers, so its seems that's what he did. In the Preface, Carr tells us that because he's a retired SEAL, that of he wants to write about SEALs, or any other thing he may have been exposed to or knew about as an employee of the United States, he needs to get it cleared first, which he did. The powers that be found a few things they wanted him to take out, and rather than re-write around those items, Carr decided to leave them in and redact them; placing black bars in lieu of the original sensitive text. Its was his opinion that it would add some realism to the story, and I think it does.

When one does a search on the interwebs for The Terminal List, the first thing that shows up is the TV series starring Chris Pratt as Lieutenant Commander James Reece, rather than the book. No surprise there, I guess. Since the first book in this series, Carr has cranked out 5 more, James Reece books.

So what are you in for? Well I don't typically like spoilers, but I will say this; think of Jack Reacher, if he was put in a position like John Wick. In the acknowledgements, Carr takes a moment to thank Brad Thor, who apparently helped him out with advice when he was getting started. Its seems to have worked out pretty well for Carr, I think his James Reece character is a little stronger that Thor's Scot Harvath.

midnight library

I'm not sure when or even why I added The Midnight Library to my reading list. My reading list, by the way, is in a few forms: a list I keep on my public library account, occasionally a written note when I hear something from someone, perhaps on the radio, and most often, photos of book covers that I see in my travels. 

This one came from my library account reading list, and tho I sometimes add a note about where I heard about it, this title has no note. I'm guessing I heard about it on the radio. This book was on the NYT Best Sellers list for a while, and so it probably got some radio time.

A quick look on The Books tab here, confirms that I haven't read anything else by Matt Haig, at least in the last 14 years. This book was located with the travel books at the library, which I though was interesting. I assume that was a kind of marketing ploy, like putting some bananas near the cereal at the supermarket. There was some traveling, certainly, in this book, altho it was mainly confined to the spiritual plane between the infinite versions of the multiverse. I will concede, however, that whilst visiting said alternate realities, the physical location of our protagonist, Nora Seed, did vary on occasion.

Confused yet?

Its simple, really; The Midnight Library is an examination of lives unlived. Its a what-if book, that allows Nora Seed to examine how her life may have been were she to have made different choices; and through her, we are encouraged to examine our own lives, our regrets, and our potential alternate lives. Think of Ebenezer Scrooge, and how he was able to reexamine his past, present and future lives as an outside observer, and to take from that what he could. Nora Seed is given a similar opportunity, sans ghosties. sort of

Its hard to give you a better idea without spoilers, and perhaps I've gone too far down that road for some. This was an entertaining, fast read. It started out rather depressing, but I had a feeling it would be okay in the end (I'm an optimist!) It did get better, but it was cloudy day or two at the beginning. If you are already depressed, this may help, but you've have to slog down into the valley before coming up into the sun on the other side. Stick with it, if you think you're up to it.

Based on some of the other titles from Matt Haig, this is his sandbox. I'll leave it to you to decide if you want to read more of his stuff. If this one helps, the others may as well. For me, I think it helped me to understand depression and regret a little bit more, but, like A Christmas Carol, it puts too rosy of a glow on what the possibilities are for folks that are struggling, and if I were struggling, I'm not sure if I'd see this as a positive, or if I'd see it as sweet, but unrealistic fantasy for those who have to deal with regret and despair. cheer up bunky! it could be worse, and it might even get better!

Yeah, I'm not sure that's the kind of thing depressed and/or despairing folks can effectively onboard, but I'm not an expert, you do what's right for you. On balance, I enjoyed it.

code of conduct

Scot Harvath is at it again, in Brad Thor's new spy/counterterrorism adventure, Code of Conduct. Well, I say new, but its just new to me. The copyright date is 2015, so I'm assuming this book has either been kicking around the house a while, or my wife bought in (along with a handful of other adventure books, I assume) on a more recent outing and I just found it. Either way, this is the kind of book my wife likes to read, and I read by default. 

I'm not complaining, I enjoy the spy/crime/intrigue novel as much as the next person, I just find that this isn't the type of book I actively go looking for at the library or the book store. I do buy books like this when I find them at book sales and the like, because I know that my wife and I will both get to read them. My wife is not likely to read the fantasy, or scifi, or surreal books which tend to be my first choices when I'm doing the aforementioned active looking.

Scot Harvath fills the role of  kick-ass guy in Thor's adventure series, commonly referred to as the Scot Harvath Series. I wouldn't worry too much about what the series is called, it doesn't look like Brad Thor has another series. Its working for him, so why mess with it. Code of Conduct is book 14 in the 22.5 book series. yeah, I don't know, that's just the way its written

This book--again, copyright 2015--is about a pandemic that spreads around the world pretty quickly, infecting folks from the poorest to the rich and powerful. So its a little eerie to think of him banging away on his word processing app writing this story of a pandemic 5-years before COVID, and just to get the conspiracy theory junkies all juiced, Thor's pandemic is a man-made terrorist attack, with some megalomaniacal, new-world-order sauce thrown in there. 

This isn't the first time Brad Thor has written a Harvath book that seems to predict the future either, sooo...

In my review of the last book I read in this series I said that Scot "Harvath is your standard super secret agent man..."* I had the same feeling about the Harvath character in this book, as you can see above. I'm not sure that's a big problem, Thor is writing a pretty good action story and doesn't get too wound up about the backstory or supporting characters so much, but I did get the sense that there was some depth to these characters, its just that I think you'd have to read a bunch of these books in order to understand that.

* Yeah, I just quoted myself. Get your own blog.

 

amina al-sarifi adventures

I was first attracted to this book at the library. It was on the shelf, face out, in the new fiction section, not far from where I had recently found The Priory of the Orange Tree, and then The Day of Fallen Night, both by Samantha Shannon. The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi is by Shannon Chakraborty,* so there is a similarity in the names, but not just that, the illustrations on all three of these books seemed similar, so I picked up Al-Sirafi thinking that it was another book by the same author.

Similar name (Shannon)... similar artwork... but no, this is a different adventure. One I turned out to like, but the similarity in the illustrations was uncanny. I figured that it had to be the same person.

Yep.

Ivan Belikov did the cover art for all three of these books. Belikov does these rich, crisp illustrations of mystical beasts that made him a great choice for all three of these adventures.

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi is the first (I'm assuming) in a new series of adventures for Shannon Chakraborty. I haven't read her stuff before that I can recall, but she established herself with another fantasy series known as the Daevabad Trilogy. I say the first in a series, but this actually read like the first book is a series, which has also intentionally left plenty of room for prequels, if this series does well. I guess you might call that savvy.

This story does--perhaps because of the need to leave room in both the future and the past--spend some time and text on both world building and backstory, but the adventure makes up for that, especially when one considers that there is probably more to come, and that backstory is going to be helpful in the future. and the past? the future-past? past-of-the-future? 

Chakraborty is a fan of history, according to he acknowledgments, and did lots of research to ensure that the travels, the ports, the seas, the ships, and the customs, Amina Al-Sarifi is awash in ring true. There is even a bibliography and further reading suggestions at the back of the book, including some translations of a few of the adventures this stories Al-Sarafi is based on. Most of Chakraborty's research was done in the original language, and she points out that there aren't many of those volumes that have been translated into English, so she has us (sole English speakers) at an advantage there. 

Does this book remind me of The Story of Sinbad the Sailor? Yep. Is that a bad thing? Nope. This one is worth a read, and I'll be looking for the next one.

* Shannon Chakraborty used to use the "author name" S.A. Chakraborty, which she used for the Daevabad Trilogy. Looks like Shannon Chakraborty is the name her future works will be published under.