Criticult.Com

True Blood - Book 1.

Labels: Cannonball Read, TylerDFC

Excellent post-apocalyptic story that is more The Road than Road Warrior.

Labels: Cannonball Read, TylerDFC

I'm not usually a fan of true crime, but this book was excellent. Recommended for Preston fans and true crime fans.

Labels: Cannonball Read, TylerDFC

It is difficult to explain a Thursday Next novel without sounding like a goddamn lunatic so I’m going to let the Amazon description of Something Rotten do the heavy lifting. Seriously, I’ve sat here for 20 minutes and tried to write this 5 different ways and it always is as clear as mud in a dark closet. Admittedly, I’m cheating a bit. Deal with it.

(5 MINUTES LATER)

Well, that didn’t work at all. Their description is worse than what I was trying to do. Let’s see what else I can find.

(10 FRUITLESS MINUTES OF GOOGLING LATER)

Nothing. Great. Ok, fuck it.

Something Rotten finds Spec Ops Literary Detective Thursday Next and her 2 year old son Friday still living in the Bookworld. Thursday has been working as the Jurisfiction Bellman (a policing agency inside the realm of books) for the last couple of years, but decides to return to the real world and try to un-eradicate her husband, Landen. She finds things are less than ideal in her real world (an alternate universe 1985 England) as the evil multi-megacorporation Goliath (responsible for Landen’s eradication in the first place) is attempting to become a Church to loophole its way out of a prophecy predicting the corporation’s demise, and the megalomaniacal fiction escapee Yorrick Kaine may be inadvertently going to cause Armageddon because if Swindon fails to win the World Croquet Championship it will set in motion a series of events that will see Kaine become President of England.

Hamlet (yes, THAT Hamlet) accompanies Thursday into the real world to see how he is viewed by readers and his absence causes irrevocable damage to his play as in Hamlet's absence Ophelia decides to merge Hamlet with The Merry Wives of Windsor . The only way out of that mess is to re-write the play into its original version, but where is Thursday going to find William Shakespeare in 1985? How will she deal with the attempts on her life from the Windowmaker, a lethal assassin (and wife) of her friend Agent Stoker? And somehow she still has to find time to locate an on-the-run Minotaur and figure out just what the hell an Obvinator does.

Still with me?

Ok, enough of the plot synopsis. Let’s get this straight. If nothing above made any sense to you, stop reading and go get The Eyre Affair to see where it all began. I promise it makes sense in context but when reading a Thursday Next novel you are taking an E-train to Lunacy Town . Either you are with the madcap insanity or it just ain’t your thing. I loved the series and was rather shocked by Something Rotten’s outcome. I had no idea this was the end to the series. Yes, I am aware there is a fifth book called First Among Sequels but Something Rotten wraps up nearly all of the plot threads of the previous 3 books and does so with impeccable style.

The book is complex, but not overly confusing, and retains all of the charm of the earlier books and all major characters return at some point for the finale. There is one twist that is so good, so well done, so unexpected and so absolutely shattering that I had to read it twice. I’m not going to go into it, but I will say that if you have followed the series from the beginning you will meet this twist with confusion, dawning realization, and finally wonder as you try to piece together this final complete mindfuck. More than anything, you will want to re-read the books again to see the details you missed that possibly portended it.

I was very pleasantly surprised with Something Rotten. I have enjoyed every Thursday Next book but this is the first one since The Eyre Affair that was absolutely satisfying. I have not yet read First Among Sequels, but I know it takes place 16 years after Something Rotten. So I’m treating it as an epilogue. As a finale, Something Rotten excels and easily holds its own among the greats of the fantasy genre. As a series, the Thursday Next books should absolutely not be missed by any fans of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams. If that describes you, you owe it to yourself to dive into this series.

Labels: Cannonball Read, TylerDFC

Some places are too evil to be allowed to exist. Some cities are too wicked to be suffered.

Thus begins Dan Simmons' Song of Kali. This is the third time I have read this book, and familiarity does nothing to blunt the impact of the narrative. What begins as an academic description of the squalor in the teeming city of Calcutta soon immerses the characters and readers fully into the fetid underbelly of the most notorious city on earth.

The year is 1977, and Americans Robert Luczak, his wife Amrita, and their baby daughter Victoria journey to Calcutta so that Robert can acquire the final manuscript of a long suspected to be dead poet named M. Das. Once there he becomes embroiled in a mystery surrounding where the poet has been and why it is so important for this final poem to be published. As the mystery deepens and the Luczaks' become unwittingly pawns by a secret society that worships the goddess Kali, Robert begins to see that there may be no escaping the city's madness.

Simmons describe Calcutta in such a way that there is no room for beauty. From the alleys teeming with garbage and human waste to the upper middle class homes of the Writer's Union there is always some bit of decay that taints even the sunniest of scenes. Like all great thrillers the book begins with a sense of foreboding that becomes suffocating by the final pages. There is no happy ending, not really. There is only chaos, a mystery with no answers, or at least no rational ones.

Song of Kali is a brutal reminder of the anarchy that exists just beneath the surface of humanity. The jacket touts the novel as one the reader will never forget, and for once the blurb whores are right. Any horror fan that has yet to read Song of Kali should do so immediately. This is not a novel of things that go bump in the night and can be easily vanquished, true evil can never be defeated, only delayed.

Labels: Cannonball Read, TylerDFC

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have finally done what not even uber-villain Diogenes Pendergast could achieve: they have killed off a main character. No head-fake like the supposed murder but really just critically injured Margo Green in Dance of Death. No, this is the real thing. In the opening chapter of the slow burn new thriller Cemetery Dance, NY Times reporter and longtime Preston/Child character Bill Smithback is killed. As in dead. Forever. Sort of.

What begins as an intensely personal case for Preston/Child regulars NYPD Homicide Detective Vincent D'Agosta and FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast soon drags them deeper into the most dangerous case of their careers. Given the amount of scary ass shit they have dealt with in the past this is saying something. Trouble starts when the primary suspect in Smithback's murder, seen on multiple security cameras, turns out to have been dead for a month. Soon zombii (the book helpfully points out the double i is the correct spelling) begin popping up in the city and all signs point to a cult of animal sacrificing nutbags that have held residence in a North Manhattan warren of buildings known as The Ville.

Along for the ride are other series regulars Nora Kelly, Smithback's wife, and Laura Hayward, NYPD Captain and on again/off again girlfriend to D'Agosta. Through the course of this adventure all the regulars are in serious trouble and after the initial murder of Smithback you are really kept guessing who is going to survive long enough to figure out just what the hell is going on.

Cemetery Dance is a much more intimate story then the last several Preston/Child novels. Although limited in scope, the murder of their friend clouds everything these characters do throughout the book. They make mistakes, they act rashly, and even the brilliant and seemingly unflappable Pendergast is thrown by the conflicting clues in the case. Preston/Child don't write mysteries, but this one was set up in such a way that you could deduce what was going on (faster than the characters to be honest) but not why it was going on. Rather then making the book tedious it heightened the suspense as you realize just how much danger the characters are in.

After the good but exhausting Diogenes Trilogy (Brimstone, Dance of Death, Book of the Dead) and the fun but nutty Wheel of Darkness, it was great to see a self-contained case that still brought all the thrills that fans of Preston/Child expect.


NOTE:: For new readers to Preston/Child I recommend starting where they did, The Relic. An incredibly good monster-thriller that was made into one of the worst movies of all time. Nora Kelly and Bill Smithback were first introduced in my personal favorite Preston/Child book, Thunderhead, about an archeological expedition searching for the lost city of gold.

Labels: Cannonball Read, TylerDFC

Ah, the continuing adventures of the 70 foot, 100 ton Megalodon shark, Angel, and the family that keep and fear her. Hell's Aquarium is book 4 in the MEG series and it starts with things not going well and ends with things considerably worse.


It has been near 30 years since Jonas Taylor first discovered that the once thought extinct Carcharadon Megalodon sharks have been living in the depths of the Marianas Trench. After 3 books worth of mayhem caused by the sharks they are now safely (HA!) ensconced in a custom built aquarium in San Diego. Trouble brews when Angel's (short for The Angel of Death) truly terrifying brood (Bella, Izzy, Mary Kate, and Ashley...no lie) start turning on each other.

To combat this Jonas decides to sell 2 of the pups (each one 15 foot long) to a Dubai prince for his upcoming Hell's Aquarium, the most advanced, largest sea enclosure, and future home of the scariest fishies in the history of the planet. Ever. As part of the deal his son David goes along to care for the sharks and train a team in the operation of a prototype submersible. Their mission is to go to the newly discovered Panthallasic Sea (hidden beneath the sea floor off the Philippines) to find the many, MANY prehistoric monsters that have made their home there for millenniums for display in the aquarium.

Meanwhile a go-gooder animal rights group, suffering from some sort of brain damage, seem to think that releasing the 30 foot Bella and Izzy into the wild is a good idea and begin sneakily trying to do just that. But Angel is growing restless in her enclosure and drastic measures are needed to control her, which results in Angel getting some unexpected drop ins for dinner.

This is all potboiler nonsense but makes for a hell of a fun read. Alten writes in the present tense which takes a bit to get used to but tends to make everything more suspenseful. It's an interesting trick that works for a thriller. The book gets bogged down in the over-long ending that introduces lots of creatures in a small time frame in a "that one was big, but THIS one is huge!" constant one-up manship that gets a little irritating. The primary issue I have with the book is the extremely sloppy epilogue that fails to wrap up anything but sets up book 5 (to be called Night Stalkers) and the supposed finale to the series.

I've been consistently surprised Alten has gotten as much mileage out of this silly series as he has so I'll happily go along for one last harrowing dive to the depths of the ocean when Night Stalkers comes out in a couple of years.

But I have about 100 unanswered questions I hope he bothers to address this time.

{Further books in the MEG series are: MEG, The Trench, and MEG: Primal Waters}

Labels: Cannonball Read, TylerDFC

I don't know how the game is going to be, but this video for upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic is pretty much what I envisioned the prequels to be and instead got rastafarian rabbit creatures and emo-Anakin.

http://www.swtor.com/media/trailers/deceived-cinematic-trailer

Labels: TylerDFC

There isn't a great deal to say about When You Are Engulfed in Flames. It's David Sedaris so you know what you are going to get and are either a fan or you are not. There are stories about living in France and other countries abroad, there are stories about his family, and stories about the everyday things that he notices. After 6 books the descriptions are all pretty much the same.

However, I would put When You Are Engulfed in Flames second only to Me Talk Pretty One Day. This is his tightest collection yet, and every story has at least 1 or 2 laugh out loud moments and most have several. The focus is off his family this time and really concentrates more on his life with his long time partner Hugh. This helps the stories to not feel like they are treading over the same ground, while still linking nicely to the earlier books.

A large chunk of the book is dedicated to David's attempts to quit smoking and offer a very funny history lesson in how cultural acceptance of smoking has changed dramatically from the 60's until today. After several failed attempts to quit, he and Hugh move to Tokyo for the winter for a change on scenery. Here, David enrolls in a class to learn to speak and write Japanese. The 50 page story expertly interweaves the trials of trying to quit, along with doing something very difficult (speaking Japanese) without the crutch of a cigarette, and also several observations of Japanese culture vs. US and European. It is easily the highlight of the book.

The book is a fast read but just as engaging as his previous works. There was just something here that made me like it more. Naked tread some very dark material and the lighter touch just
works better for the humor.

Labels: Cannonball Read, review, TylerDFC

Despite what is going on at my other site hereRUFKM reviews May 8 West Palm Beach NIN/JA Tour Kick Off Show, I have to admit this video is pretty damn great.

Labels: music, TylerDFC, video

Go Go Girls of the Apocalypse is one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read in some time. Is it great literature? No, it most certainly is not. But that really doesn’t matter because the book is just so damn fun. I decided a while ago that if I happen to luck into a vast fortune I would open my own movie studio and option the rights to the novels I love. This book would definitely be on that list. {Along with Song of Kali, Dies the Fire, The Eyes of the Dragon, Dead in the Water, and The Eyre Affair to name but a very few.}

The blurb on the cover calls Go Go Girls a cross between Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Moore. The book does take place partly in a strip club, but otherwise I don’t know why Tarantino’s name came up. I would say it is a cross between Terry Pratchet, Carl Hiaasen, and the Fallout games.

It has been 9 years since a financial meltdown and nuclear war (among other calamities) decimated the world. All that time, Mortimer Tate has been hiding in a cabin in the mountains in Tennessee with a very healthy stash of supplies and weapons. One day he sees some men coming up the mountain toward his house. He hasn’t seen another soul since the apocalypse years before. He goes out to try and greet them but ends up startling them with his sudden appearance - his cabin is hidden in a cave – and is forced to kill the 3 men. This encounter spurs Mortimer to try and rejoin what is left of society and sends him careening from one adventure to another with his friend Bill, a gunslinger, Sheila, a stripper. He quickly learns that the new economy hinges entirely on Armageddon Dollars, found exclusively at Joey Armageddon’s Sassy-A-Go-Go and its franchise locations. Joey’s is a strip club/brothel that is also a hotel, armory, and supply station and our heroes visit them often, but it is only in the final chapters that the importance of the club becomes apparent from a story telling perspective.

This book is all plot and comic details and unfolds much like a video game. There is little time for deep characterization as Mortimer and his friends get in one scrape after another while fighting (and running) from cannibals, asylum inmates, scavengers, and other denizens of the post apocalyptic world. Just when they seem to be safe some new danger erupts and they have to react quickly. This is repeated throughout the novel. The middle chapters get a little tedious as it jumps from action scene to action scene but the final 100 pages settles down as the plot comes fully into focus and sets the stage for an epic - yet very funny - war.

To say more would be to give away too much. The fun with this book lies in getting sucked into this weird post-apocalyptic world as the little in jokes and references begin to pile up. I laughed out loud several times and had a blast with it and was surprised by the ending, but completely satisfied. Even as I read the last page of the epilogue I could see it unfolding as a movie, down to the final line as the music gets louder and the credits begin to roll.

The next time you are complaining there are no good movies get yourself a copy of this book, a nice comfortable chair, and your drink of choice and read the best summer movie that has yet to be made.

Labels: Cannonball Read, TylerDFC

Labels: Playlists, TylerDFC

In an instant, the world changes. The power goes out, planes fall from the sky, and most frightening of all, gunpowder and gasoline stop igniting. Humanity is sent back to the dark ages in an instant. Welcome to The Change.

Dies the Fire by S.M Stirling follow 2 groups of characters in Oregon that spend much of the narrative apart but their stories run parallel. First we meet ex-Marine and private pilot Mike Havel. He is ferrying the wealthy Larsen family to their mountain home outside of Salem when the Change occurs. All instruments on his plane cease to function and he crashes into a river. Mike rallies the Larsens and they make their way across the wilderness to try and reach civilization.

In Corvallis we meet Juniper McKenzie, folk singer and Wiccan, her daughter Eliir, and bar owner Dennis. She is playing a gig when the lights go out and before confusion really sets in, a boom sounds from downtown as a 747 smashes to the ground and sets fire to the town. People quickly learn it’s not just the lights that are out, but all electronic and electric devices have ceased to function, battery operated or not. As looters smash in a nearby electronic store a cop pulls his gun to dissuade them and fires a warning shot only to be met with a dull click. The thugs see this, pull their own guns and fire and theirs fail to go off as well.

Sensing that it’s time to get out of dodge, Juniper, Eliir, and Dennis head for Juniper’s cabin in the woods outside of town, picking up friends and stragglers along the way.

As the story progresses Mike and Juniper’s groups fight for survivival and attempt to adapt to a world where sword and chainmail have once again become cutting edge technology.

Dies the Fire is the first part in a 9 book (and counting) series called The Emberverse. The series is divided into 3 self contained trilogies. It is tied to Sterling ’s previous series “Island in the Sea of Time ” which dealt with the island of Nantucket being enveloped in a mysterious storm and being transported back to the Stone Age. The Emberverse series is about what happened to everyone left behind.

The strength of the novel comes from Stirling’s detailed descriptions and logical progression of events in the post Change world. Apocalyptic fiction is one of my favorite genres and Dies the Fire stands with the best just on premise alone. Whether or not it is ever explained in the series, it is a stroke of genius to eliminate gunpowder, electronics, and explosives from the equation. This alone is enough to set the novel apart from typical apocalyptic stories. Where it really shines is in the recounting of how Mike and Juniper’s groups grow from a handful of scared survivors to hundreds of battle hardened warriors fighting together in alliance.

The story is detailed without being particularly dense but there are times where the action slips out of control from the narrative. In a couple of instances I had to re-read a couple of pages to catch what happened to a secondary character. Also, the ending seems to arrive with little run up as the heroes join forces in a joint assault on a mutual enemy.

Speaking of the enemy, very little text is given to Professor Norman Arminger, the self proclaimed Protector of Portland and the Willamette Valley . When the change occurs he uses his knowledge of medieval warfare and gang society to convince the criminal element of Portland to join forces with him in order to rule this new world. His building of a fort to try and control the Valley where Mike and Juniper’s groups make their home is the impetus for the final battle. The second book in the series is called The Protector’s War so I am guessing it will go into more detail on Arminger and his plans.

As the first in a series Dies the Fire sets the stage for epic battles to come.

Labels: Cannonball Read, TylerDFC

In honor of the stellar (yes, stellar) ending to Battlestar Galactica this past Friday I have dug up and re-posted my original review of the mini series when it first aired back in 2003. Because really, why not?



"Life here, began out there..."

Lieutenant Starbuck. Captain Apollo. Commander Adama.
If you are in your early 30's then these names should
bring to mind two words: Battlestar Galactica. It
was a cult hit that lasted 2 seasons (actually a
season and a half) on ABC in 1978 and 1979. It told
the story of a "rag tag fugitive fleet", the last few
thousand humans left, desperately trying to outrun the
metallic menace of the Cylon race and reach a mythical
planet called Earth. In the original pilot movie, the
Cylons attack their home worlds called the Twelve
Colonies and force these remaining ships to go on the
run. Led by the warship Galactica and defended by
their fleet of fighters called Vipers, the survivors
tried to maintain order and to use all of their
resources just to survive. Each episode they would
encounter trouble and over come crisis in the form of
supply shortages or one of the many Cylon attacks but ultimately
they would keep on trucking. At least until ABC pulled
the plug midway through the second season.

The thing that always struck me abou t the show was the link to
Egyptian mythology. In the late 70's there was a
revival in all manner of Mysteries of the Earth shows.
Numerous "documentaries" were created about the likes
of the Bermuda Triangle, Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot,
and of course the possibility that Egyptians, Mayans,
and the like were aided by extraterrestrials in the
construction of their most magnificent temples and
monuments. The names of ships and characters on the
show were straight out of mythology: Apollo, Cassiopeia,
Pegasus, etc. The helmet that Vipers pilots wore bore a striking resemblance to the headpiece of
an Egyptian pharaoh, specifically the worldwide tour in the late 70's of the mummy of King
Tutankhamen.

I bring this up to show the differences between the
old version, and the new mini-series that just aired
on Sci-Fi. The Egyptian motif is gone. The hippy
sensibility of the fleet and its leaders is gone. The
humor is gone. This is 9/11 set in space on a grand
scale.

The movie begins with spare text overlapped on shots of
a ship docking at a lone space station. No music. The
starkness and quiet is reminiscent of "2001"

THE CYLONS WERE CREATED BY MAN.

THEY WERE CREATED TO MAKE LIFE EASIER ON THE TWELVE
COLONIES.

AND THEN THE DAY CAME WHEN THE CYLONS DECIDED TO KILL
THEIR MASTERS.

It continues in this vein and ends with:

NO ONE HAS SEEN OR HEARD FROM THE CYLONS IN 40 YEARS.

That is really all the background that is given through
the course of the next 4 hours. This is a human story
and very little is given to explaining how things
work. Some ships have warp drives that allow them to
"jump" to pre-calculated spots in space. Others do
not. The ships seem to fire some kind of bullet, as
opposed to a laser, but little explanation is given.
Radio transmissions suffer from time lag due to
distance, and there is no "future look" to any of the
proceedings. They dress like us, talk like us, have
morning news programs, cancer, nuclear weapons, and a
department of education. Then on the day that the last
remaining warship from the Cylon War is being
decommissioned and turned into a museum, their world
comes to an end.

The Galactica was designed to function with computer
components that were not networked together. The
Cylons had the ability, since they are machines, to
disrupt networks and control them. So the Battlestars
were created where many things are done manually and
non interlaced. Acute fear of technology is one theme
that is prevalent throughout the movie. It is a fear
that is validated early on when the Cylons, fresh from
unleashing hundreds of 50 megaton warheads on the
twelve planets, render powerless the Colonial fleet.

The "how" is explained, the why never really is. In
numerous scenes the Cylons make reference to "God",
and seem to believe they are on a crusade from Him to
wipe out humanity. The religious zeal of Al Qaida
seems to be the metaphor here. Since the Cylons have
twelve models that look and act human, the theme of
"the enemy is us" becomes clearer. When the main
characters, Captain Lee "Apollo" Adama, Commander
Adama, Lieutenant Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, and others
learn of what has happened to their worlds the
reactions are varied and powerful. Some react with
disbelief, others anger, some with panic. Over time,
when the number of humans left is around 50,000, those
emotions coalesce into dread and hopelessness.

This is powerful stuff and I was surprised by how well
it was done. The camera work is primarily handheld and
gives the drama an immediacy much like NYPD: Blue
and The Shield. Early on a space station is
destroyed by a Cylon attack and a large piece of
degree rushes toward the camera. At the point when you
think it will fill the screen and face to black (as we
have seen numerous times before) the camera's view is
wildly shifted, as if the debris smashed into the
camera. It could be dismissed as a gimmick if that
"reality" aspect was not carried through the entire
show.

I know I have mentioned little about the characters,
acting, dialogue, effects, or even the plot. The
acting ranges from understated and intense to over the
top. Some of the dialogue is hammy, but most of it
hits the mark. Edward James Olmos is incredible as
Adama. In his early scenes he portrays Adama as a well
respected and revered father figure to the crew
of the Galactica. As the crisis ensues he transforms
into a battle hardened veteran and is forced to make
decisions that will ultimately take the lives of his
crew and those that depend on him for the good of the
fleet. From the moment the Cylon attack begins he is
desperate to enter the war. His realization at the
end, that the war is already over and they are now in
a battle against extinction, is profound and handled
with nuance.

The special effects are understated and very good.
Ships move as you would assume spaceships should. The
only sound they make is a retro jet firing to turn and
rotate, and a muffle thump from their weapons. The
almost silent battles are eerie and underline the
desperation and futility of what they are doing. The
ship design is all well done, and the "new" Vipers are
sleek and powerful, while looking exactly as you
remember from the original show. The producers pulled
off a neat trick to feature new designs as well as the
ones that fans of the series will remember.

I could keep going on but I would rather leave it to
you to discover. I'm sure it will be on DVD in the
next few months. Do not pass up the chance to see it.
The movie is left with several loose ends and one
large twist in the final frame that leads one to think
that the intention is for the story to continue. Even
if it does not, these four hours are well worth any
science-fiction fan's time. Think of it as the
anti-Star Trek; Humans above technology.

For anyone that has yet to watch the best science fiction series of all time, here is how it all began:

Labels: Battlestar Galactica, TV

I'm a big fan of Wicked, and I'm happy to say that A Lion Among Men gets the series back on track after the meandering and unsatisfying Son of a Witch. This time around Gregory Maguire is focusing on Brr, known to us as the Cowardly Lion.

As Oz prepares for war, Brr is sent on a mission from the Emerald City to gather information from an old nun named Yackle. In order to interview the nearly dead maunt Brr must travel to the Cloister of Saint Glinda, a convent that unfortunately lies directly between the approaching army of the Emerald City and the resistance fighters of Munchkinland. Also caught in the middle is the mysterious fortune-telling Clock of the Time Dragon and its' keepers.

Some background: When Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) and her sister Nessarose (killed by Dorothy's house) were killed, their half brother Shell became Emperor of Oz. He has taken that mantle (after Glinda and the Scarecrow took a turn) and is now obsessed with bringing the sececed nation of Munchkinland directly under Emerald City control.

Brr is trying to gather information on the whereabouts of Liir, Elphaba's son and rightful heir to the throne, but the reasons why and how he came to be a civil servant to Emerald City is all part of the journey. Like every other Maguire book, it isn't so much about plot as it is about the characters.

This is book 3 in the Wicked series and newcomers will be lost if they have not read the earlier books. While much of the story functions as a stand alone tale about the Lion, the ending can only be appreciated fully by those that have been on the journey from the beginning. Questions are answered, but this in turn reveals other questions. The "action" in A Lion Among Men takes place in one night, making this the most urgent of the series so far. The middle chapter always suffers a bit in an epic, and this one definitely is The Empire Strikes Back of the Wicked books. It starts with things going poorly and ends with a declaration to join forces and find/rescue another character.

If you are already a fan of the Wicked series there is a lot to like here. Brr is a fascinating anti-hero, not so much cowardly as he is opportunistic. While I never grew to positively like the character, by the end I at least understood him. His interactions with Yackle supply the most entertaining sections as the Lion attempts to draw information from the old maunt while she in turn is searching for something from him. The final 30 pages or so pack a lot in and several revelations are unveiled one after the other.

I've liked all of Maguire's re-imaginings of old tales, but the Wicked series is my favorite. Something about taking the structure of The Wizard of Oz, turning the whole narrative on its' ear and keeping the tone deadly serious works for me. When A Lion Among Men ended I was already thinking ahead to the next chapter and who it might focus on next time. I have my suspicions but I'm even more intrigued by one of the final lines of dialogue:

"Don't you understand? She's coming back..."

Looking forward to Book 4 already.

Labels: Cannonball Read, TylerDFC

Sometimes I become interested in a book based on title alone. I think it was a blurb in EW that I first read of Say You're One Of Them and I became intrigued by the premise and found the title to be wonderfully evocative and frightening at the same time. So I tried to get the book from my local library but it was on order with no release date. After tiring of waiting, I finally ordered it from Amazon after Christmas. The book was both what I expected and nothing that I was ready for.

The book consists of five short stories told from the perspective of children in Africa and gives a human view of such horrifying topics as ethnic cleansing, child slavery, extreme poverty, and religious warfare. Often the title of a book bluntly describes the contents or a specific subject of the book. However the phrase "Say you're one of them." or a similar sentiment is invoked at some point in all of the stories and underlines the premise of an "us vs them" mentality and in many of the stories the children's only hope of survival is by blending with "them" and hiding their otherness.

The first story, "An Ex-Mas Feast" describes a family on the streets in the slums of Kenya on Christmas Eve, as told by Jigana, an 8 year old boy. It establishes quickly that these stories will not shy away from the horror it describes, nor will it glorify or present it as mere titillation. Like a reporter, Nigerian author and Jesuit priest Uwem Akpan recounts the details of this family's life as simple fact, with little commentary or expression on how the reader should feel. The family expresses gratitude when they are given a gift of glue from one of the other poor families. They take turns, including the children and babies, inhaling the fumes deeply because this holds off hunger. The oldest daughter is 12 and works as a prostitute, a profession that the parents encourage but ultimately tears the family apart.

The second story, "Fattening for Gabon" is really a novella. Told from the perspective of 8 year old Kotchikpa, it tells the story of 2 children and their uncle, Fofo Kpee, who sells them into slavery. The story plays out like a thriller, with the children first delighted by the attention the slave traders lavish on them. They are told these are NGO activists and are coming to take the children away to Gabon where they will live a life of luxury. It is only as their Uncle begins to have doubts that the plan goes awry and the truth becomes clear to the children. Calling the story harrowing is an understatement. The nonchalant nature of the deal, and the way that so many adults work to deceive the children is repellent. But again, Akpan takes no side in the matter which makes the story even more effective.

The longest story in the book is "Luxurious Hearses" and it is here that I was having a hard time shaking the spell of the book. It tells the story of Jubril, a teenage fundamentalist Muslim fleeing northern Nigeria for the southern villages during a religious riot. Because his father was Christian, he is forced to flee his home and ends up on a bus full of Christians also fleeing to the south. He is forced to try and blend in, a task made much more difficult because his right hand was lopped off when he was arrested for stealing a goat months before.

Jubril is a "good" Muslim in that he hates Christians and is a strong believer in Sharia law, the idea that a country should be governed by strict fundamentalist Islamic teachings. On the bus he is forced to confront women in western style clothing, television, and Christian views which challenges his world view. And through it all he has to keep his right arm in his pocket to hide his stump, because if the other passengers see it they will know he is Muslim and kill him.

This story throws the idea of religious way and ethnic cleansing into stark relief, forcing you to change your perspective on right and wrong. There are few things I hate more than religious fundamentalism in any form. Be it Christian, Muslim, or cultist, I simply do not believe that ancient doctrine has any place in modern society. Believe what you want to believe but leave the rest of us out of it. Unfortunately, the very foundation of religion fundamentalism is to spread the word so like a virus these radical views infect millions. "Luxurious Hearses" is about taking that crucial step away from radical intolerance and understanding that we are all at our core human beings. The shattering conclusion just underlines this revelation making what has come before all the more tragic.

The book wraps up with a story set during the ethnic cleansing in Rwanda and as harrowing and horrific as it is, I was numb after "Luxurious Hearses".

Through these fictional stories, Uwem Akpan shines a light on the dark continent forcing western readers to look at the horrors and not turn away. It is a read I won't soon forget.

For further details, and to read the first story in the collection, "An Ex-Mas Feast", please visit www.sayyoureoneofthem.com

Labels: Cannonball Read, TylerDFC

I am new to the essayist/memoir field of writing so I'll admit to being (way) late to the Sedaris bandwagon. This is the third Sedaris book I've read, after Me Talk Pretty One Day and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and I would say it is my favorite. While not as consistently funny as Me Talk Pretty, I found the stories were more interesting and offered something more than just a humorous anecdote.

The emphasis is off the immediate family this time around and focuses more on David Sedaris' personal experiences, especially cross-country hitch-hiking when he was in his 20's. The standard family tales are still present; crazy Ya Ya lives with the family, Lisa gets her first period during the US OPEN, etc., but they have been de-emphasised a bit and this helps to open up the narrative and give it more depth and incite into Sedaris himself.

Of particular note are the hitch-hiking episodes. While played for humor it still didn't make me ever want to get into a stranger's car, I don't care how desperate for a ride I may be. Some of Sedaris' adventures very easily could have killed him, but he blasts past the really scary/creepy parts to get back to the humor and this makes the story feel a bit rushed, especially since we don't actually get to find out how he escaped some of these situations.

50 pages of the book are devoted to one essay called "C.O.G.", a title which doesn't makes sense until the final 20 pages. This monster chapter details Sedaris taking a bus to Oregon to work as an apple picker for the season. After the season is over he is offered a job in the factory that processes the apples and he takes it. There he befriends a co-worker and things go swimmingly until one night he returns to the guy's trailer after being invited for a drink and things get really scary really fast. But as uncomfortable and cringe worthy as the events the stories are always funny.

It takes a lot of skill to make cancer funny, but in the story "Ashes" Sedaris does a brilliant job of bringing both the humor and pathos to a cliched subject. He perfectly captures the helplessness of finding out someone close to you has cancer and how your behavior changes toward that person.

The book wraps up with the title essay, "Naked", in which our neurotic hero decides on a lark to visit a nudist camp (they don't call them colonies anymore). This story is probably my favorite of all the ones he has done. Uproariously funny, insightful, and just a blast to read, I found myself re-reading passages because my eyes were blurring from laughing so hard. It is the perfect capper to a book that is all about mining bad situations for their inherent comedy but sacrificing none of the integrity of the stories themselves.

Labels: Cannonball Read, TylerDFC