Caught In The Whirlwind
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Book 23: Just A Geek
Aug 30th
Title: Just A Geek
Author: Wil Wheaton
Genre: Non-Fiction
Pages: 296
Summary
An actor from early childhood, Wil Wheaton is best known for his roles in the movie Stand By Me and his recurring appearances on Star Trek. However, faced with the prospect of Star Trek becoming his entire life and after an experience of seeing the cast of the original series on a Star Trek cruise, a teenaged Wheaton made the decision to quit the show and concentrate on his movie career.
This self described “worst decision” of his entire life set Wil on a path to self discovery and transition from a famous actor to a person who’s famous because he used to be famous to his current status as a writer.
Notes
I picked this book up after a friend linked me to one of Wil’s appearances on the TV show Big Bang Theory. I was compelled to search the internet to see what he thought of his portrayal of Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: TNG now that he’s older and stumbled onto the fact that he wrote this book.
I knew he had a website and a popular blog and all that but never really followed what he wrote there. So I picked up this book and read half of it the same day. The rest would have been done this weekend if I wasn’t so busy.
The blurb on the front of the book is 100% correct. What this book contains is a very personal, unflinchingly honest (yes I stole that from the book cover) account of what Wil went through in his struggles to distance himself from Star Trek and live his own life. It consists of about 50% blog entries from his website and the rest of it is commentary on those entries. He points out where he was full of crap and just trying to put up a front to make people think he was on the verge of success when, in reality, he was in the clutches of depression and near financial ruin.
In the end though, I think he found the right place. He’s a fantastic writer and his story is told in an extremely gripping way.
Next Book
I’m still reading The Lies of Locke Lamora. I’m about halfway through now, but I got unexpectedly interrupted by this book.
Book 22: Lord of Chaos
Aug 17th
Title: Lord Of Chaos
Author: Robert Jordan
Genre: Fantasy (Epic)
Pages: 720
Summary
The adventures of Rand and friends continues in the 6th volume of the Wheel of Time. Rand as the Dragon Reborn consolidates his strength while fighting of enemies from within and without, while the female leads of the series begin their search for a powerful object that will possibly fix the weather.
Notes
Yet again, my standard Wheel of Time complaints apply here, so if you want to hear about how he writes women, or his tendancy towards gross over-description of dresses, you can read one of my past wheel of time note sections.
This book is all about political wrangling. There’s very little real action until just at the end and what’s there isn’t a huge main plot point as it has been in the previous 5 books, but rather what seems like something that’s there just because the book needed a big action sequence climax.
The story is still interesting once you get to it. This is the part of most series where the pace slows down and the situation is set up for the big climax at the end, so it’s not surprising most of the book is political wrangling with very little progress forward in events. I expect it to be the same for the next several books as there’s a lot of setup that has to get done.
I should also note this is the last book of the wheel of time that I’ve read, so moving on from here I’ll be reading them fresh, for the first time.
Next Book
I’m taking another Wheel of time break, this time with The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, the first book in the Gentlemen Bastard’s series which was recommended to me by my friend Kris.
Books 19 & 20: The Girl Who…
Jul 20th
Book 19: The Girl Who Played With Fire
Author: Stieg Larsson
Genre: Fiction (Crime/Mystery)
Pages: 630
Book 20: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest
Author: Stieg Larsson
Genre: Fiction (Crime/Mystery)
Pages: 576
Summary
A few weeks before Dag Svensson, a freelance journalist, plans to publish a story that exposes important people involved in Sweden’s sex trafficking business based on research conducted by his girlfriend, Mia Johansson, a criminologist and gender studies scholar, the couple are shot to death in their Stockholm apartment. Salander, who has a history of violent tendencies, becomes the prime suspect after the police find her fingerprints on the murder weapon. This launches Blomkvist on a journey into Salander’s past in an attempt to clear her name (if, in fact her name should be cleared).
Notes
These books really should be read as one unit. In fact, the end of The Girl Who Played With Fire is such an evil cliffhanger I would have been a little angry at having to wait for the third book to see what happened.
It’s very much in the same vein as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and if you liked reading that book you will enjoy these two as well. Pretty much everything I had to say in my previous review applies here as well. I was pleased to find that the issues with the translation that I had with the first book were largely gone.
Sadly, my “Oh come on!!!” computer hacking reactions were back here too.
Next Book
I feel behind a bit with my posting so I’ve just finished World War Z by Max Brooks, which will appear in a separate post.
Book 18: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Jun 21st
Title: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Author: Stieg Larsson
Genre: Fiction (Crime/Mystery)
Pages: 608
Summary
Caught in a libel lawsuit, journalist Mikael Blomkvist is forced to take some time away from his magazine. At the beginning of his forced vacation he’s contacted by Henrik Vanger, a wealthy retired industrialist. The reason? The decades old disappearance of a young girl named Harriet, his great-niece. Charged with finding out what happened to her, Mikael is lead on a chase through the past, following a cold trail. Along the way he meets an unlikely partner, Lisbeth Salander, aka…the girl with the dragon tattoo.
Notes
I should preface this by stating this book does contain content dealing with sexually explicit issues if that sort of thing bugs you. Definitely a book for mature readers.
I found this book to be extremely enjoyable and engrossing (like the nice quote on the cover mentions). It’s very dense, packed with information and all sorts of Swedish names and places which I was largely unfamiliar with at first (I’m not really an expert on Sweden) so the beginning of the book was a bit slow. However, once the character introductions were out of the way things really evened out and the book gained momentum. I kept reading just to see what would happen next.
There were a couple things that bugged me though. First of all (minor spoilers ahead here. Nothing too big though), computer hacking was involved in the storyline and…well…it was more like the movie version of computer hacking than something that could actually happen. Considering I’m aware of how computer’s function, there were several “Oh come on! You can’t do that!” moments. The author also has a habit of describing in great detail the specifics of everybody’s computer hardware, which seemed a bit over detailed to me.
The second thing was the translation. Not that this can really be helped or anything, but at points the prose seemed to be fairly bland which made me wonder if this was how it read in the native Swedish version or if something got lost in the translation. It wasn’t something that carried through the entire book or anything. Just certain sections and made me wonder how it read in Swedish.
Next Book
I’m continuing onward with this trilogy, so my next book is The Girl Who Played With Fire to be followed by The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Then I’ll probably jump back to the next book of the Wheel of Time series.
Book 17: The Poisonwood Bible
Jun 10th
Title: The Poisonwood Bible
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 576
Summary
The story of what happens when a Baptist preacher uproots his family of his wife and four daughters of various ages from their lives in the deep south to a small village in the Congo. The bulk of the story revolves around Nathan Price’s attempts to spread the Word to the people of the village and how things don’t work out quite as anyone expected. Told through the eyes of the four children and their mother.
Notes
Wow. What an amazing book. This was another one that was recommended to me by Wassy as a book she read in school that she really enjoyed. I had never read it so I ended up borrowing it from her and digging in.
Basically, it sucked me in and never let go. There’s so much I want to say about this right now, but too much that would be spoilers if anybody hasn’t read it so I’ll refrain from ruining anything.
I will say that Kingslover has a tremendous gift for words. The story is largely told from 4 separate points of view (4 girls ranging from and each narrator has a distinct voice and interpretation of events which is written in such a way that you can pretty much pick out who’s narrating just by the way it’s written.
And the climax of the book? Despite knowing that what happens is going to happen from the beginning of the book…when it actually does happen it’s extremely powerful. Probably one of the absolute best pieces of writing I have ever read.
I’m typically a fast reader but I was compelled to slow down for this one and take in every word. It’s not a book to just speed through, but I wouldn’t call it a difficult read. There’s a lot of subtext to the story that’s worth picking up.
Highly, highly recommended.
Next Book
Man, I’m starting to collect quite a pile of stuff I want to read. My next book is going to be The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. I also want to read World War Z by Max Brooks at some point. And then there’s the Wheel of Time series still. Plus the 6 or 7 samples I’ve collected on my Kindle to remind me of books to check out.
Book 16: The Fires of Heaven
Jun 1st
Title: The Fires of Heaven
Author: Robert Jordan
Genre: Fantasy (Epic)
Pages: 992
Summary
The adventures of Rand and friends continues in the fifth book of the wheel of time. Still, no spoilers so not really giving the story away.
Notes (Spoilers)
This is going to be a short notes section because pretty much everything I said about book four holds true here.
The story remains interesting, but it’s drown in a sea of Robert Jordan cliches. Women saying how wool-brained men are. Men saying how they don’t understand women. One particular character, Nynaeve, companing through the entire book that the dress she was wearing was way too revealing. ENOUGH ALREADY. WE GET IT!!!
At least she didn’t have a braid to tug in this one. Although this book also contains one of my favorite scenes where Nynaeve gets yelled at for basically acting like a stubborn ass all the time. It’s a dressing down that sorely has been needed for the past 4 books.
But as annoying as the characters are getting and the cliches running left and right, the story is still really good. You just have to wade through a lot of crap and over-description to actually get at it.
Next Book
I’m taking another break from the Wheel of Time with a book recommended by Wassy, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingslover. I’m about 100 pages in and I’ve been totally sucked in so far. After that I’ll be reading, as I mentioned before, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
Book 15: Brave New World
May 20th
Title: Brave New World
Author: Aldous Huxley
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 288
Summary
Just copying this bit from amazon here:
Aldous Huxley’s tour de force, Brave New World is a darkly satiric vision of a “utopian” future—where humans are genetically bred and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively serve a ruling order. A powerful work of speculative fiction that has enthralled and terrified readers for generations, it remains remarkably relevant to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying entertainment.
Notes
This book was recommended to me by Wassy who read it in High School and enjoyed it. So, looking to take on some of the books regarded more as classics that I had missed, I grabbed it.
Simply amazing. I read though the entire thing in about 2 days and was riveted the entire time.
First of all, for a book written in the 1930′s it’s world view of eventual technology is surprisingly spot on. Except for the ever present flying cars anyway. But even more terrifying, his vision of the future remains to be entirely plausible. Huxley takes the undercurrents of human progress and development from the early 20th century and has created the vision of a utopian society on the surface. Everybody is happy and can get everything they desire to have (and are conditioned to not desire anything that they can’t).
People are created in gigantic labs with various, predetermined levels of ability which force them into certain castes of society. But they are happy regardless of their position because they are conditioned to be so. Which brings up the question, is this really happiness?
You can see a lot of what Huxley describes actually undercutting events of today as well which makes this book as terrifying to read as it is. Particularly the push towards consumerism. In the book people are conditioned to believe that, for example, if their clothes rip, it’s better to throw them away and buy new ones than fix them. All of their games and entertainment options are specifically created to require them to buy equipment and consume more and more stuff.
You can see that push going on today, brought to light particularly due to the economic recession where the US Government has gotten involved in trying to convince people that the only way out of our economic downturn was to buy more stuff and encouraged such by giving out stimulus checks. We’re being trained to be good little consumers and we don’t even really realize it.
I could keep writing about this book, but I think I’ll stop here. I’ll conclude by saying that even almost 80 years after it was written, Brave New World is no less relevant today than it was then. The book is simultaneously riveting and terrifying and if you somehow managed to miss reading it like I did, I highly, highly recommend checking it out. Lot of food for thought contained within.
Next Book
I’m back on the Wheel of Time bandwagon with The Fires of Heaven. I’m also considering picking up and reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. It’s been getting good buzz from people whom I trust their opinions on books, so I’ve been thinking of checking it out. I’ve got the sample on my Kindle so I’ll see how I like that.
Book 14: The Shadow Rising
May 17th
Title: The Shadow Rising (Wheel of Time book 4)
Author: Robert Jordan
Genre: Fantasy (Epic)
Pages: 1008
Summary
The adventures of Rand al’Thor and friends continue as more prophecy unfolds. Again not going to spoil since it’s the middle of the series.
Notes
Ok…here’s where the wheels on the Wheel of Time bus start to fall off. By far the largest book of the series so far, the first half consists mostly of exposition. Explaining the backstory of the world and some of the characters that had not had their stories explained previously. Things get moving in the second half, but much like Rand keeps saying…things are moving too slow.
The pace of the series does slow down considerably from here on out as we transition from the introductory books to the middle of the story which sets up the ending (whatever that ending will be).
Jordan’s issues with writing female characters and dialog between men and women continues here. It feels more pronounced since it’s been the way things have gone for the past few books and one hoped that it’s something Jordan would have grown out of but it’s not so. Nearly everything bit of dialog from a female character (especially things that Nynaeve says) has something to do with how much of a wool-brained fool men are and a good amount of what the men say are how incomprehensible women are. The 40th time Perrin thinks “Light! I’ll never understand women!” you’ll want to find Robert Jordan (were he still alive) and throw the book at him.
BUT. writing cliches aside, the story is still interesting and the reader is left with a hunger for learning what’s going to happen next.
Next Book
I’m taking another little break from the Wheel of Time to dive into a literary classic. After Wassy and I had a conversation on the way back from our wine country trip this weekend which turned to books we read in high school English class, I’ve decided to read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I need to make a better effort to read some of the more widely held classics that I didn’t get a chance to read in high school. And maybe re-read some of the ones I did for a better appreciation. But not Dickens. Oh god…I’m NEVER reading any more Dickens again.
Book 13: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
May 4th
Title: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Author: Seth Grahame-Smith
Genre: Historical Fantasy/Horror
Pages: 352
Summary
By all accounts, Abraham Lincoln’s life was astonishing. 16th President of the United States, a man who successfully navigated the raging rapids formed by the Civil War and the specter of slavery and set the country on a path leading to the present. But what if history didn’t tell the whole story of the man? What if he was also one of the greatest Vampire hunters of his time and all of the events in his life, including his presidency and the civil war were not what they appeared to be on the surface?
Notes
Ok, this is an odd one. It’s written as a historical fiction kind of book, the premise being that Abe kept a series of secret journals through his life detailing his secret vampire hunting activities. The book is probably half 3rd person narrated novel, half first person journal entry excerpts.
The author does an extremely good job of conceiving a scenario where the existence of vampires fits in perfectly with the other events of Abe’s life. If you can get yourself to suspend disbelief enough to believe that there are indeed vampires, then there’s nothing in the book that jumps out at you and makes you go “Oh, come on now!” with the possible exception of the ending. He accounts for everything from why he broke off his engagement with Mary Todd (his eventual wife) to how he came to run for president, to the civil war and slavery, to even his assassination.
The pacing is a little off in places. It’s a quick read overall, but the action slows down in the middle while Abe is transitioning between growing up and becoming President. His youth is interesting because it sets up the world and explains why vampires are such a big part of Abe’s life. His presidency and the civil war is the obvious climax and what the book was leading up to all along.
But the middle years where Abe was wandering around the country trying to make a living for himself after leaving his father drag on a bit. It’s just a string of events punctuated by “Oh, and he killed another vampire here”. I understand that Seth Grahame-Smith was trying to paint a complete picture of the man, but I could have done with a more abbreviated history of the events leading up to his presidency and more detail once he was actually elected.
Overall though, it’s a great premise and a fun read, even with it’s problems. Highly recommended if you’re into history and horror.
Next Book
Well, I’m all caught up with the posting what I’ve been reading now. Right now I’m diving back into the Wheel of Time series with the 4th book, The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan
Book 12: The Dragon Reborn
May 4th
Title: The Dragon Reborn
Author: Robert Jordan
Genre: Fantasy (Epic)
Pages: 624
Summary
In the third book of the Wheel of Time series, the adventures of Rand Al’Thor and his friends continue, with more emphasis on his friends than Rand himself.
Notes
Well, not much to say about this book except that it’s probably one of the better books in the series. It focuses more on the female lead characters than Rand and his activities, which continues to push him into the background even though one would assume he’s the actual main character.
Jordan’s ability to write females is what limits this book from being a classic. But it’s still very good
Next Book
After reading this book I decided to take a small Wheel of Time Break and do something completely different.
So, to that end, I picked up Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
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