The City and The City by China Mieville

(I'll be merging all of these into one blog soon, but in the meantime...)

This book was an incredibly fun mystery that delivers as only Mieville can. Inspector Tyador Borlu lives in Beszel, a city (presumably in Eastern Europe or thereabouts) that exists simultaneously in the same space with the city of Ul Qoma. Certain sections of each city are "total", but others are overlapping, or "cross-hatched", and in these sections, citizens of each city must "unsee" things in the other city. Failure to do so constitutes Breach, and will bring a swift and severe punishment from a shadowy entity that polices all cross-city transgressions.

Borlu gets the call to investigate the discovery of a dead female, which leads him on a labyrinthine investigation through Beszel and (after some political wrangling) Ul Qoma. He is drawing the attention of government officials, dissidents, and rebels as he gets closer to the truth. The crux of the murder motive hinges on Orciny, a fabled city that exists between Ul Qoma and Beszel.

Philosophy, politics, and Mieville's signature "weird fiction" style permeate this story, and the narrative feels like a genuine translation from a foreign language. The rhythms and slang of these two foreign cities feel complete and real, as if Mieville has visited both. There's more to figure out in this tale than just whodunit, and the theoretical implications of The City and The City linger long after the book is finished. I highly recommend this book for those who like their mysteries a bit on the odd side.

Breaker Boys: The NFL's Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship by David Fleming

Pity poor Pottsville, Pennsylvania...
A proud mining town, one of the most productive of the early 1900s, has little to offer its residents other than work in the mines and an early grave. That all changes when Doc Striegel decides to bring a professional football team to the town. At the turn of the century, college football was considered the true sport, where the pro game was a league of mercenaries and thugs who were paid to injure as many people as possible. It all changed when the Pottsville Maroons formed.
They perfected new strategies and tactics that raised the level of the game. They fielded a team of the wildest characters imaginable, including former baseball stars, monstrous brothers, and one iron-jawed stalwart named Tony Latone, who worked his way out of the mines and onto the field. Latone was dubbed the Human Howitzer, a hard running, hard hitting cannonball that left defenders crumpled in his wake.
The Maroons struggle to stay afloat financially, but put together an incredible record, suffering only two losses heir entire season. They make a few enemies along the way, chiefly in the form of other owners, bitter at Striegel for stealing some of their best players, and large cities who are trying to drum small markets out of the NFL.
At the end of the season, the Maroons are crowned champions, but after they agree to play an exhibition game against a team of Notre Dame All-Stars, a conspiracy is hatched to drum them out of the league and revoke their title. Maroons backers have been trying unsuccessfully since 1925 to have their title re-instated, but through one bad turn or another they've been denied. But for reading this book, you'd have no idea this team existed, so cleanly has the NFL expunged them from the records. This was a team of Hall-of-Famers, a group of men who elevated the game and arguably saved pro football from collapse.

After reading this book, you'll want to give them their due. You can learn how to help the cause of Pottsville Maroons at breakerboys1925.com/

Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

This book reimagines the origins of Peter Pan and Neverland. Barry and Pearson come together to create a narrative that is compelling for young and old alike. Young Peter, an orphan in London, is sent with some of his fellow children on a boat journey to a faraway island. They don't know where they are going or what will happen to them when they get there. Their ship, the Neverland, is holding a very mysterious and powerful cargo that is sought after by the dread pirate Black Stache. After a massive ship battle, Peter and Company end up on a deserted island. The learn the true nature of their cargo: it is stardust, and it gives its users powerful abilities including flight, mind control, and transformation. Peter must race to save his friends from the pirates and fierce natives while keeping the stardust away from Black Stache.
The book reads like a fantastic serial adventure form the early 1900s, always engaging, and with plenty of suspense and twists.

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

Connolly weaves an amazing tale of a young boy who has lost his mother to cancer. Set in England shortly as a World War threatens to ravage the countryside, David's father eventually remarries and David gets a new sibling. David suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, developed during his Mother's lengthy battle with cancer. After his mother's death, his mental condition worsens. He begins to experience blackouts, and stranger still...he can hear books whispering to him.
He withdraws from his family, and one night sets out from his house to examine a plane crash in a nearby garden. As he makes his way deeper into the trees, he leaves our world behind, finding himself trapped in a land of fairy tales. These aren't friendly Disney characters, these are monsters and flawed beings from the original tales of the Brothers Grimm. David travels across the land in search of a King, who he is convinced can put everything right. Along the way, he must flee from wolves, join a band of seven dwarves (who've never been given such hilarious backstories). He is shadowed by the nefarious Crooked Man, the spirit of all things evil. He must learn what it means to be brave, and to stand up for his family if he hopes to get out alive.
At the end of young David's story, Connolly adds a coda of sorts, an extremely moving tale that takes place over a scant few pages, wrapping up an amazingly told modern fairy tale. Highly recommended.

Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff

Bad Monkeys is a slightly confusing headtrip through the mind of a (possible) serial killer. Jane Charlotte, recently arrested for murder, is dealing with a court-appointed psychologist to discuss her crimes. She reveals she works for a secret agency, one of "Them", called the Bad Monkeys. They're a covert group who travel the world killing irredeemably evil people. They do this through the use of secret government technology that makes the killing look like a natural death.

The problems arise when Jane Charlotte discovers the Mandrills, a rival group bent on causing chaos. It becomes a race against time as Jane struggles to find her long lost brother and escape the clutches of the Mandrills.

Ruff begins the novel rather deftly, but by the middle of the novel has gone from stacking plot twists to dumping and dogpiling them. There are double-crosses, triple-crosses, double agents, fake double agents, fake towns, fake organizations that later turn out to be real before they're revealed to be part of a different fake organization, etc. The ending, while providing an interesting twist, didn't do much to clear up the chaos that preceded.

Needful Things by Stephen King

Much like the Dark Tower, Needful Things reaches tendrils into many of King's past works, drawing together characters and events of the past into a small-town thriller about the Devil coming to town. Leland Gaunt has set up shop in Castle Rock, Maine, a little store called Needful Things. It seems to be open whenever customers need it to be, and sells...dreams. Gaunt discovers what his customers desire more than anything else, and then bargains with them, letting the items go for a lower (monetary) price than the buyer can believe. But, as with any good bargain, there's always a hidden catch to the agreement.

Gaunt has come to cause chaos, pitting friend against friend, neighbor against neighbor, Catholic against Protestant. He wants the town to erupt into hate, he slowly stacks the deck against all of the townspeople, leading to one catastrophic night when the town goes to war with itself. Caught in the middle is Sheriff Alan Pangborn, the one force Gaunt seems to fear. Pangborn is haunted by demons in his past, the death of his wife and son. Inside of him lies the secret to save the town as he slowly realizes he'll have to stand face to face with the Devil to do his job.

King doesn't pull any punches in this novel, and where many authors would shy away, King digs deeper. He examines child psychology, sexual desire, suicide, and the seven deadly sins. I was a little let down by the ending, as it seemed a little too easy, with no deep explanation of Pangborns final confrontation with Leland Gaunt. It's a hefty read, but like any King novel, will hook you in from the start.

World War Z by Max Brooks

Ah, the great Zombie War. The plague that infected the entire earth...

Brooks weaves a remarkable tale of the days following the "Great Plague", when an unknown viral outbreak causes the dead to...stop being dead. Zombies, those slow-shuffling, brain-eating, nightmare creatures, overrun the world in numbers too large to control, leaving humanity to seek shelter and fight back.

The accounts span the globe, from Asia to India, the United States to Russia, Antarctica, the ocean floors...you name it, no place is safe. Monster tales like this are little better than popcorn movies at face value. Brooks, however, makes some important sociological and political examinations of our world and its flaws. What kind of government oversight led to the disease spreading so rapidly? What short-sighted bureaucracies helped fan the flames? Brooks plays deftly with the imagination, examining the depths of human depravity and the triumph of the human spirit. This isn't a typical rah-rah-America saves the day survival tale. It's about what kinds of things the people of the world must do, right or wrong, to ensure their own survival. What steps could have been avoided? What horrors were necessary? It's a gripping page turner, one that will keep you reading late into the night...and awake for hours afterwards.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

This is the harowing tale of Chris McCandless, a young man from a well-off family who hitchhiked into the Alaskan wilderness after giving up all of his worldly possessions. He was found four months later, dead, in an Alaska campground.
The accounts of McCandless's life are at once intriguing and infuriating. By Krakauer's description, he seems at times like a petulant, arrogant, whiny trust-fund baby. At other times, accounts of his life show him to be a rugged individualist, a man capable of surviving fairly extreme conditions with little supplies or equipment. Krakauer pieces together diary entries, letters to friends and family and personal accounts of those who knew McCandless to unravel the story of his final days.

Chris begins by donating his trust fund to a charity, burning the money in his wallet, and hitting the road in his car, destination unknown. He takes on the moniker Alexander Supertramp, and makes his living as a migrant worker. When not in solitude, he lives among the homeless, staying only as long as it takes to gather the resourcers to get him to his next adventure. He's able to drive across the country, to travel alone by boat down the West Coast. He's not a lunatic, and by all accounts he was friendly and giving and very personable. He loved to discuss the state of the world with anyone who'd listen. Something inside of him stopped him from making any deep, lasting connections to any people or places. There are hints of family unrest, the pressures of living up to his father's standards. But even this does not seem like cause enough to spur McCandless onto his odyssey.

Krakauer also compares and contrasts his life with those of other outdoor adventurers. He was not the first to attempt such extreme self-imposed isolation, nor is this condition caused by some kind of anti-social mania. Others have taken roads just as extreme, some lived to tell about it, others perished just like McCandless. While many are left with the conclusion that McCandless was simply too reckless and ill-prepared, I was left with the feeling that his arrogance, coupled with a few small planning errors, led to his ultimate demise. That he hung on in the remote Alaskan wilderness as long as he did with meager supplies and only the food he could hunt or forage is astounding. The larger questions loom long after the end of the book: what was he seeking in his solace? What did he know or learn about the world that could benefit us all?

Lord Vishnu's Love Handles by Will Clarke

Travis Anderson, button down boiler plate dot com Yuppie Texan, is not having a good week. His company is on the verge of collapse due to faulty bookkeeping and Travis's own alcoholism. His marriage is falling apart. His life is out of control. And then he discovers he's a psychic.
He's contacted by a secret government agency to become a remote viewer in exchange for forgiveness of his tax debt. Once he joins this little cabal, his life only becomes wors,e and he's faced with one threat after another against his life and his family's.

It's difficult to review the book without giving away spoilers, as it relies heavily on suspense and twist moments, almost to a fault. Beyond alcoholism and a seemingly stagnant upper middle class life, we don't learn much about Travis or any of the companions he makes along the way. It's all motion, point A to B to C in a way that's by no means formulaic, but somehow takes some of the wallop out of the story. Little time is spent on Travis developing his gifts. Too much time is spent on Rube Goldbergian double-crosses and convenient plot twists to move the story forward. While the ending definitely has its share of humorous scenes, the means to get there don't fully justify it. Everything feels like a thumbnail sketch and takes what could have been an amazingly great premise and turns it into merely a fun read. (strange criticism, I know).

Will Clarke is just getting started as an author, and I have no doubt that he will tell many fantastic tales in the years to come. This was a mere stumble out of the gates: entertaining to watch, but in the end, slightly disappointing.

The Dark Tower: Book VII by Stephen King

Roland and his ka-tet finally reach the end of the long road they've been traveling. Stephen King began this journey over twenty years ago, and fans have been clamoring for a conclusion to the story. All it too was one near-fatal accident to get him back in gar (and that made for a nice plot element as well).

The final book is a hefty, sprawling volume that seeks to wrap up several loose ends and move the travelers on to their final destination. It's difficult to discuss without giving away any spoilers. When the ka-tet is broken and people start leaving and/or dying (which has been hinted at since the early books) it doesn't feel momentous or earth-shattering, just...right. We're on this journey with Roland, who's already lost one ka-tet and has continued bitterly on in his quest for the Tower. King handles the death of his new friends very deftly, not sending them out with a bang or a climactic to-the-death battle (well...maybe one of them gets that glory), but rather their demise is just part of a series of events, unexpected, shocking, but "ka is a wheel" ever turning. Roland has to keep moving. The fascination comes in seeing Roland finally become human, finally feel some attachment to people and things other than his quest.

King does keep plenty of tension in the story, with Mordred Red-Heel, Roland's half-human half-son, empathic vampires, and the appearance (at last!) of The Crimson King. The Tower books have relied on magic doors between worlds, and this last tale seems to provide a revolving door for a multitude of King's works (Insomnia, The Stand, It, Eyes of the Dragon, Hearts in Atlantis, and more). The Dark Tower books stand alone as an amazing work, but become even greater with the addition of these branches and ancillary tales in King's body of work.

And the ending...well... I was at once elated, pleased, and crushed with the final turn of events. But what has happened has happened.

Black Sunday by Thomas Harris

A fantastic terrorist thriller from the seventies that feels just as prescient and fresh today (the only thing missing would be cell phones and better computers).
The story focuses on Michael Lander, a disgruntled, psychologically shattered Vietnam Vet who's looking to take out a measure of revenge on the country that he thinks turned its back on him. He's a pilot from a specialized division of the Navy, flying lighter than air craft (blimps). When the blimp program is canned, he becomes a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War, where he becomes a POW. During his time in capture, he is forced to renounce his country - when he's finally rescued, he leaves the military in disgrace. He returns home to an estranged wife, a job flying promotional blimps, and a life in shambles. When he snaps, he decides to make as big a statement as possible. He designs a huge plastic explosive device that will attach to his blimp and detonate it at the Super Bowl, killing himself, 80,000 attendees, and the President of the United States.

Israeli Special Agents Kabokov and Moshevsky, still stinging from the recent Munich terrorist plot, become entangled in Lander's scheme when he enlists the help of well known terrorists from the Black September cell. They're grasping at straws and trying to find answers with time ticking away and little help.

Thomas Harris displays the gifts for suspense and detail that he'd later use to bring Hannibal Lecter to life. Black Sunday is a fast, fun read - makes me wish Harris would give another try at non-Lecter fiction.

Song of Susannah: The Dark Tower VI by Stephen King

Roland's Ka-tet is closer to the tower than ever, and now has to find help in the most unusual of places: author Stephen King. In a plot twist that would fail in the hands of lesser writers, King weaves himself into the story in a way that makes it more alive than ever. It cements the Dark Tower as his tale, his chance at redemption, while simultaneously holding Roland's Quest up to the higher power of the storytelling gods.

Susannah, now possessed by the spirit of Mia (and pregnant to boot) sneaks into our where and when to have the baby away from Roland's group. Susannah realizes Mia is delivering herself directly into the hands of the evil Crimson King and struggles to give Jake and Father Callahan time to reach her. As their story draws to a close, they all prepare themselves to face death, one final battle for the Rose, sacrificing all other things.

In another where and when, Roland and Eddie seek out Stephen King, essentially their God, to see if he can help put the tower back in balance. After surviving a tremendous gun battle with Balazar's men, they venture to find first Calvin Tower (to set him back on the right path) and then on to King. And in their dealings with King, the story unfolds into an amazing trip through King's subconscious, as the origins of all of these familiar and unfamiliar things are revealed. The story pounds towards a climax, with Susannah in labor, Jake and Father Callahan ready to make their final stand, Roland and Eddie seek the final steps to the tower, and King's presence in the story becomes crucial. If the final book can hold up to what's been prepared, this work will be King's magnum opus and one of the great literary works of our time.