death in vienna

A Death in Vienna by Daniel Silva is book 4 in the Gabriel Allon Series. I may have read this in the past, but it was probably before this blog, which makes sense given that this blog dates back to 2009, and this book was published in 2003. If I have read this previously, enough time has gone by that it didn't feel like a re-read. It was also interesting to go back into Silva's earlier Allon writing and see how things are different than they are now. There are obviously some similarities in the Allon series books, and the story arc (in more recent books) tend to be similar in a lot of cases, but not as much with this one.

It could be that this is an older, earlier work in the series, and the characters and style were still developing, but it may also be that this book is described in the backmatter as the third in a Holocaust series. It may be a combination of these things that makes things that makes this stand out, and I may be feeling like I've read this because I read one of the other books in that short series within a series.*

Fans of Silva and the Allon series will not be disappointed, and it may be worth while for serious fans to go back and re-read some of Silva's earlier efforts to see if I may be right about the style and story arc items I've pointed out, or at the very least, too see how things have changed, and remind ourselves about where these characters came from.

* I found 13 Daniel Silva books on my list of books read since 2009 on this blog.

river of doubt

At some point in February or March, I read River of Doubt, by Candice Millard, but I didn't get a chance to write about it. It was probably after Wool, but before Shift. I probably spent my time working on my post about why March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb instead of writing about this.

I heard from someone that I should read this, and its been a while since I put it on my list. It even made it to this blog; you can find it in the "notes and scribbles" applet at the bottom right of the page. The link takes you to the hardcover version of the book, so its probably been there a while.

In any case, I can see why, this was a good one. I'm not a big nonfiction fan, but I did like this one. I had no idea about this trip that Roosevelt took into the interior of the Amazon, which he decided to take just after his losing bid for the presidency in 1912. Millard lays out the trip from the early conception and planning stages through to its completion, along with some anecdotal information about the later lives of some of the expedition's members in an epilogue.

Most of the story is based on notes, letters, news stories and reports, and other documents. It seemed to me that very little needed to be glossed over by the author; she was able to find documentation for nearly every event and every day of the expedition. 

I was surprised and how difficult and trying this trip was without my never hearing about it. By the end, I was amazed that the party even made out alive.

shift

Book 2 in the Silo Series by Hugh Howey is Shift. I just read the first in the series, called Wool. I didn't like this one as much as Wool, and I guess I'd call this a prequel, rather than the second in a series, but this is based on publish date rather than a series in the traditional sense. The last in the series is called Dust, and based on what I've read thus far, I'll read that one too. But if my library doesn't have it on the shelf, I won't be running out to buy it, if you get what I mean.

Maybe prequel is too grand for this book. I know right? is this review going to get worse bro? Shift is more like the back story an author prepares for his main book, and then goes back and fleshes it out to make into a book. I'm tempted to say, Silmarillion, I'm looking at you, but that's not right. Silmarillion is a series of stories and lore from the first age of middle earth, and while they help to inform the later stories, they also stand on their own. I'm not sure if Shift came out first, if anyone would have been interested enough to read Wool.

Maybe I'm coming down too hard. There were some interesting parts to Shift, but I'm not sure I needed as much text to tell me what I learned, and I'm also wondering how much more text it would have taken to tell me everything I wanted to know. Here's my less hard critique: Story is pretty good, but it needs some tightening. This book is a lot like me; it just needs to lose 10% of its body weight and it will be fine. The story is pretty grim, and unlike some other stories involving supervillains, Shift gives us a group of villains, who have some twisted views on how to make the world a better place (yep, been there, seen that) and enough power to institute their evil plans (okay, seen that too) but apparently not enough smarts and/or foresight to understand either the short-term, mid-term or long-term drawbacks in their ridiculous plan.

Its as if they all got together and talked about this big, crazy idea, and all the while everyone assumed that it was just them that not only thought this idea was crazy, but that everyone else must be smarter than them and knew better than they did. "Go along to get along" may be a useful tactic in some situations, but a worldwide mass extinction pact is not one of those situations.

march

Clickity Click for a biggerer view

Its March fourth--that's the best day for armies to go to war right?--but for us, what March 4th really means is today is like a Shark. A Shark you say? Doesn't make any sense! But if I were to say that March 1st is like a Lion, and March 31st is like a Lamb, no problem, right?

And if the 1st is ferocious and the 31st is docile, what does that make the days in between? Weeell, now, my friends, you no longer need to worry or wonder, we've got it all worked out for you right here. Here in the Boston area, its currently cold, with a wet snow falling today. A 'wintry mix' they say.* In terms of ferocity, we aren't all that far from the Lion of Winter. not to be confused with the lion in winter, which is a  play by james goldman. 

Birthday on March 9? Celebrate with a Scorpion Bowl?

Going skiing on March 17? Lunch at Elephant Walk?

Anniversary on March 25? Dolphin, 'nuf said.

It all here, feast you eyes...

March 2023

March 1 - Lion: 4-feet tall at the shoulder, 420 pounds.
March 2 - Tiger: 3 1/2-feet tall at the shoulder, maybe 680 pounds!
March 3 - Bear: Grizzly Bears can be 3 1/3-feet tall at the shoulder, and 600 pounds.
March 4 - Shark: 1000 species, been around for 400 million years.
March 5 - Wolf: Biggest in the canine family; males can grow to 180 pounds.
March 6 - Bull: Can get to 6-feet, and 2500 to 3000 pounds.
March 7 - Moose: The big boys are almost 7-feet to the shoulder, and 1500 pounds.
March 8 - Eagle: Seeing more of these in Eastern Massachusetts now.
March 9 - Scorpion: the smaller ones can be worse than the big ones!
March 10 - Dingo: Like a wolf, but smaller... and shifty.
March 11 - Hawk: Red Tail can reach speeds of 120 miles per hour
March 12 - Lynx: The Red Lynx, or Bobcat, is what we've got in the U.S. 16 to 30 pounds.
March 13 - Bat: 9 difference species in Massachusetts; no blood suckers.
March 14 - Monkey: Nearly 200 species from 4 1/2-inches to 3 1/2-feet. HBD Coleen!
March 15 - Snake: 3900 species from 10-inches to 23-feet. Ophidiophobia is the word you're looking for.
March 16 - Ox: Difference between an ox and a steer? Training. Yeah, that's it.**
March 17 - Elephant: African Bush Elephant, up to 13,000 pounds.
March 18 - Raven: "Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore..."
March 19 - Stag: NOT the one Julie Andrews is singing about. Stags are mature, male deer.
March 20 - Crab: Been around since the Jurassic. First day of spring!
March 21 - Goat: Probably domesticated from the Bezoar Ibex in the Middle East.
March 22 - Horse: Large riding horse can be 5 1/2-feet at the shoulder, and 1200 pounds.
March 23 - Pig: Can be over 6-feet long and 800 pounds. And sloppy.
March 24 - Dog: Our third entry from the canine family. Least likely to eat you.
March 25 - Dolphin: Up to 13-feet long and 1300 pounds.
March 26 - Rooster: Domesticated from junglefowl, from Asia.
March 27 - Turtle: Shells are flatted and fused ribs***
March 28 - Toad: They're a type of frog that hangs out mostly on land, at night.
March 29 - Robin: Migratory American Robins are an early egg layer.
March 30 - Rabbit: Does anyone else have 20 rabbits in their yard? HBD Kelton!
March 31 - Lamb: Adorable, and available just in time for Easter.

 

* Why does SUMMERY have an E in it, while WINTRY doesn't? I don't know, man.

** There's your number one take away, right there.

*** Dude, that's a pretty close second.

wool

Wool is one of those books I had on a list somewhere, so that probably means I heard it was good at some point. Maybe Will told me about this one? Wool is the first book in a trilogy that I think is called the Silo Series by Hugh Howey. I don’t recall reading anything by Howey before but I’ll check here on the blog as I’m writing this sitting on a plane to Florida and I can’t check. [Just checked: nope]

Wool falls into the dystopian, soft sci fi box but it differs from a lot of the other stuff in that box in many ways. The premise is pretty original, at least in my experience, and the scope is very limited which I think helps the story because it’s so pared down.

The focus of the story seems to shift from where we thought we were when we first started reading, and then once we refocus, it shifts again. I think that helps to create empathy with the characters in the story as the story arc reveals more about this place, these people, and their situation.

Howey is able to build tension along the way while still keeping tight control of the narrative and how much we learn as we go.

There is intrigue, passion, righteousness, love, rebellion, murder, ingenuity, mystery, and a little taste of the horrifying.

I’ll be looking for the next books in this series. [Update: picked the next one up at the library. Its next.]

Read this book.

dreams underfoot

I’m not sure exactly what list I found this book on, but I’ve had the title tucked away as something to read for a while. I may have had it in an Amazon wish list and forgot about it, but it showed up for Christmas this year from Santa Claus. Maybe he just knew I’d squirreled the title away. thanks santa

Dreams Underfoot is a collection of short stories that all take place in Newford, a small, imaginary city that seems to have elements of both east and west coast cities. It seems to have some of the history and general spookiness of an eastern town, along with the hip, urban attitude--and earthquakes--of a west coast city, and the cross section of people, neighborhoods, and urban blight one would expect in many US cities.* It also has magic.

Charles de Lint would have us believe that all cities have magic, and Newford just happens to be where this collection of stories is focused. The implication, at first appears to be that Newford is special, and that is why the stories are set there. Rather, we come to understand after reading a few of these stories, that Newford is not special, and that magic things exist and occur in all cities, so why not choose a city at random and tell those stories; and Newford is as good a representation as any.

Christy Riddell is a fictional writer who lives in Newford and appears in person or by name in a few of the stories. Riddell is also an author of short-form urban mythology, and many of the characters who appear in de Lint's stories are friends, relatives and acquaintances of Riddell's. So the Riddell character seems like an odd mash-up of self-insertion and story-in-story (think The Princess Bride) that I thought was a little odd, but perhaps that sense of being a little off-kilter is exactly what de Lint is looking for in his readers, priming them for the belief--or at least a suspension of disbelief--required to fully absorb his magical stories. 

On the other hand, maybe that’s giving him too much credit, I’m not sure. I can tell you that his Urban Faerie stories are quite popular, and its seems as though he’s published quite a few since this Newford installment from 1993. [I count 26 Newford books in the series from 1990 to 2022!]

The stories are fun and escapist, each with a touch of delight, heartbreak, or horror. Sometimes all three. Wrestling mythology into the modern age is what originally drew me to this (if I had to guess) as I’ve done a little bit of that myself from time to time. If you enjoy that kind of thing, then de Lint may be worth a look.

 

* Yes, de Lint is Canadian, but the east coast, west coast thing still holds I think. But sure, Canada.

klara and the sun

I read one of Kazuo Ishiguro's novels a few years ago, and it just didn't kick it for me.

Klara and the Sun did. I didn't love this book, but at least I got it. The story is solid, and looks at a potential future we may all experience at some point when robotics and artificial intelligence get to the point that they make it into the home, in much the same way that personal computers, and the internet did. Its not clear to me that Artificial Friends or AFs as Ishiguro calls them will make the leap from page to reality in our homes as quickly as the PC or the interwebs, but I do think its out there as a possibility.

In the future that Ishiguro has created, all AFs are a little bit different. This is what I'd call soft SF, so he doesn't get into why exactly they're all different, but I'm under the impression that its due to their brains. Perhaps they're manufactured in some kind of self-assembling process, which allows for variations? In any case, Klara is different than her peers: she is more observant of the subtleties expressed in the humans she interacts with. She does however remain naive about many of the basic things around her, regardless of how long she spends in the world. There is also a mysterious observational quirk Klara experiences, often when she is in stressful situations, and whether that is just part of what differentiates her from other AFs or if its typical for AFs is also a mystery.

This book was interesting, and the interactions between humans and AFs was examined in interesting ways, that reminded me a little of my post on the emotional ties humans may eventually develop for robots as they take on these important, supportive rolls in our lives.

women of troy

Pat Barker is an English writer that’s been at it for 40 years or so. She’s won the Booker prize and has a few other accolades. When I did a web search for the cover of this book the title hit on this book and two other things, well, maybe it’s two variations of the same thing: The Trojan Women, a play written by Euripides in 415 BC, and a modern play adapted by Jacob Kempfert and Benji Inniger for Bethany Lutheran College. A little more scrolling gave me a movie of the same name about a women’s basketball team.

The story takes place in the aftermath of the War of Troy, as told by Homer in The Iliad. I wouldn't call this a sequel to The Iliad, but a different perspective, focused on the people ravaged by war and typically forgotten. The story is told from the POV of the women living in the camp of the victorious Greek or Achaean army, taken from their homes in Troy and forced into slavery, or in some cases matrimony, by their Greek overlords.

Barker writes of how these women manage to express their wishes, and strive to fulfill their own agendas, even under the strict supervision of their captors, as women have always had to do when living in a patriarchal societies. Barker also shows us is that there is very little difference between women who are stolen from their homes and families, and often their own husbands, who live as slaves and those who are forced to marry the higher echelons of the invading army. The very men who killed their families, and murdered their male children.

This was an interesting read, and the writing is simple and to the point. You can see why Barker has won a number of awards.

rembrandt affair

This Gabriel Allon installment is copyrighted in 2010, so its a step backwards in the overall story arc of the Allon series for me, but I've never tried to read these in order; I've always just read what ended up in my hands at the time. Like this one.

The Rembrandt Affair is number 10 in the series, according to Book Series in Order, so that puts it in about the middle of the story arc as it it exists thus far. Daniel Silva has it down, and I guess you could say the structure of each book in the series is a little reminiscent of the others, but I think that's probably what dedicated readers of series are probably looking for. If the formulas formulae? didn't work, I guess no one would use it.

Allon decides to look into a long lost Rembrandt for a friend, a project he does on his own time, outside his relationship to the organization he works for. That is until he puts his foot into a problem that quickly becomes an international issue. 

Trouble ensues.

This was a good one in the series. While based on the same formula as many of the others, its was fun to see a variation. Dedicated readers of the Allon series will enjoy this one. 

I finished this one a week or so ago, so I'll try and post the most recent book I just finished.