The Giver, by Lois Lowry

This book sucks. My son had to read it in his 6th grade class and since he was confused by the dystopian universe of the book, I decided to read it along with him. I have nothing against dystopian novels--Atlas Shrugged and 1984 are two of my favorite books. But it should at least make sense. In The Giver, they all live in a commune worse than anything dreamed up in Soviet Russia or Communist China where the leaders kill babies if they don't develop quickly enough. Apparently there was a big war and to prevent such a thing from happening again, they all decided to live in this new commune where everyone is the same. But, for some reason, the author also decided to mutate humans to some new species which can no longer see color and who can transfer memories by rubbing another person's back (this person is the Giver). Only one person is allowed to know history or have memories of anything outside the commune and this person must pass the information along to a new giver every few generations.

What are we supposed to learn from this ridiculous premise? The commune has nothing to do with life or reality for actual humans, so why are we contemplating these characters? Why not write a story about a group of people living in a commune after a war but without all the silly memory-transfer parts? Having a brave child rebel against the commune would be interesting, although I'm still not sure it would be useful for 6th graders to read.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the novel is that it is not clear that the author believes the commune is a living horror. One gets the impression that the author believes the commune is almost a good idea except, perhaps, for the killing of babies and the inability to see colors and hear music. The book is infused with a strong sense of duty with everyone simply doing what they are supposed to. And the main character doesn't rebel for his own freedom and happiness but instead escapes the commune to prevent a baby from being executed that he has come to love.

The only good thing about this book is that my son and I could laugh at some of the wooden dialogue which the characters are forced to utter by their leaders, such as, "I apologize for inconveniencing my learning community," said by a student to the class for being late. The Giver is a lousy book.

Afraid, by Jack Kilborn

This book was written by J. A. Konrath who wrote Origin and The List which I really enjoyed. Konrath published Afraid under the Kilborn pen-name because it is in the horror genre instead of the thriller one. Unfortunately, I was put off by the gratuitous gore, torture and evil in Afraid, and I didn't like it. The story was fairly interesting: a group of government-created super-human soldiers is dropped into a small Wisconsin town to hunt down a man, and they leave chaos and death in the wake of their search. But every twenty pages or so the story would turn to excessive violence with detailed descriptions and it was hard to get through these passages.

I think I'll just stick to the Konrath thrillers from now on.

Ender's Game, by Orsen Scott Card

This is the second time I read this book because my son is reading it in school.  I probably enjoyed it more the second time than the first, but missed the surprise ending from the first time around.  The first time I was put off by the strange world of the future where people had lost their freedom and the world was run by the military.  The second time through, I understood more about the bugger threat so I wasn't as put off.

Overall, the book could have been more tightly plotted.  The brother and sister of Ender writing their political views was more of a distraction and only contributed to the end of the book and not to the main plot of Ender's journey.

My son's review (age 11) was:  Not the best book, but OK.  I can't argue with that.

The Shining, by Stephen King

I normally don't like horror books, but I'm such a big fan of Stephen King's writing that I decided to give The Shining a shot, and I wasn't disappointed. Once again, the strongest part of this King novel was the characterization, letting us inside the heads of the father, mother and son staying at the hotel and the caretaker who also has the shining.

I had seen the movie with Jack Nicholson many years ago and it was impossible not to picture the actors in the movie while I read the book. For most of the characters, it wasn't too distracting, but the character of the wife, Wendy, was so different that it was a distraction. The character in the book was much stronger and it's a shame the movie changed it.

I'm still not sure how King makes us want to keep reading. There were long stretches where we were inside the father's head when he's thinking horrible thoughts and generally going crazy, but it's compelling. Maybe it's the sheer nakedness of seeing what the character is thinking, even as he lies to himself and then battles with himself to uncover the lies.

Replay, by Ken Grimwood

Replay is a great book--probably the best book I've read this year. I found it by creating a program in java that analyzes book ratings from amazon.com. Basically, I loaded all my book reviews to amazon.com and then downloaded all the other reviews for all the books I'd read.  Then I looked for users who had read the same books as me and that had similar ratings. Once I found that list of people, I looked to see which other books they liked but that I hadn't yet read. One of the top books from this search was Replay, and I was not disappointed! (Another book in the top 5 was Pillars of the Earth which, so far, I'm not enjoying as much.)

Replay tells the story of Jeff Winston who dies at 43 and is reborn as himself in college. He goes through that life up until 43 and then he dies again, and again, and again. You might think that it would get tedious living the same life over and over again, but Grimwood does a masterful job of always keeping it interesting by having Winston continue to learn and grow throughout the novel.

One of the fascinating things about Replay is that it touches on many different subjects throughout the series of lives that Winston chooses for himself:  greed, hedonism, love, family, career and art, to name a few. With such an open-ended premise executed so well, I was worried that the ending would fall flat. However, Grimwood pulled off the perfect ending which made me laugh out loud in delight. I highly recommend this book.

Run, by Blake Crouch

Run is quite a thriller.  It starts off fast and keeps moving throughout the book, just like the family in the book who are running for their lives.  I thoroughly enjoyed Run and it's one of only a handful of books that were literally hard to put down.  Crouch has a great sense of pacing--just when you don't think you can take any more stress and horrors for the family, Crouch lets up and give you a breather.  Just when things get comfortable and the plot starts to drag--just a little--Crouch ramps things up again.

Crouch's style is perfect for this novel.  It's told very close in to the father's and mother's perspectives and almost has a claustrophobic feel.  He also uses fragment sentences which adds to the off-balance feel to the novel and gives a sense in the reader of also being on the run.

Run is a perfect demonstration of Ayn Rand's rule of fiction:  make things as difficult as possible for your protagonists.  Crouch succeeds in this mission without straining plausibility, and in the process has created a very satisfying thriller.

The List, by J. A. Konrath

(Notes at 30%)

So far, I'm enjoying The List--it's funny and I like the premise that a group of famous people were cloned and are just finding out about it.  It gets to the heart of the nature vs. nurture debate and I like that the author has come down on the side of nurture, or at least against nature.

It's interesting that the first plot point--the protagonist finding out he's a clone of a Founding Father--comes at 15% which is earlier that normal (20-25%).  I thought perhaps there would be a bigger event around 25% which would be the real first plot point (FPP) but so far there hasn't been and I'm up to 30%.  The reason the FPP is usually at 25% is to give the reader a chance to identify with the protagonist during the set-up:  to see what his or her life was like before the big change, to identify needs or gaps, and to make us like the character.  In the case of Tom in The List, I'm not overly invested in him so far, perhaps because he didn't have enough set-up before getting into the action.

I'm looking forward to seeing where the book goes from here.

(Notes after finishing)

I enjoyed The List even though the science was suspect and the situations the protagonists were put in strained plausibility.  That's because I read this book to be entertained by pop fiction, not to change my life.  As pop fiction, it had what it needed:  heroic protagonists, interesting bad guys, an intriguing concept, suspense and action that kept the story moving forward, and a good amount of humor from the side-kick characters.

Back of Beyond, by C. J. Box

I really liked the first half of this book.  It was set up well with a cop trying to solve a murder which led him to track down a horse-back trip into Yellowstone that both the murderer and his son were on.  The third quarter set up lots of mysteries and odd behavior from the members on the trip; it turns out this was just too much to wrap up in a natural way.  In the last quarter, a lot of back story was brought in to explain all the odd behavior and it didn't flow naturally from what came before.  It's a good example of deus ex machina and for me it ruined what was a good book up to that point.  I enjoyed Box's previous Blue Heaven because it had all the elements from the first three-fourths of the book come together naturally in a satisfying resolution at the end.  Now I wonder if the success he had in Blue Heaven was more by accident than design.

The Perfect Novel

No, this isn't a review of the book to the left, I'm just using the picture.  Rather, this is my attempt to identify masters of the five elements of fiction that I hope to emulate.  Here goes:

Concept:  Michael Crichton.  All books should start with a killer concept--the central premise of the story, or what your story is about.  Michael Crichton is the master here:  scientists create dinosaurs that get out of control, a swarm of micro-robots get out of control, a new species of intelligent gorilla is found in the Congo which is killing explorers.

Theme:  Ayn Rand.  The theme is the big message of the book.  This one is so hard to pull off, most popular fiction doesn't even have a theme because the author doesn't know what to say.  Ayn Rand definitely had something to say, and she said it in her novels.  She was not only a master of demonstrating her themes with her plots and characters, she also had great themes:  individualism vs. collectivism, the central importance of man's mind in human existence, the destructive nature of communism.

Character:  Stephen King.  King is a great writer who has a knack for suspense, plot, setting and writing voice.  But where he really stands out is character.  He lets us into the character's head and makes us care about him or her.  He has created some unforgettable characters:  Carrie, Frannie in The Stand, Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption, Gordie in The Body, and John Coffey in The Green Mile, just to name a few.

Plot:  A Simple Plan by Scott Smith.  Here I'm giving the nod to a single book rather than the author because Smith's follow up, The Ruins, had a lousy plot (although the movie version fixed a lot of the problems).  What I really liked about A Simple Plan was how the suspense and tension were consistently increased throughout the book in a natural way.  The book followed the time-tested structure of set-up, response, attack and resolution and executed brilliantly on it.  Each new plot point followed seamlessly from what happened before and even though things got crazy, out-of-control at the end, it was all plausible and believable.

Writing Voice:  David Gordon.  This is a tough one because writing voice is very subjective and a writer shouldn't try to copy another's voice; he must develop his own.  Having said that, besides Stephen King, the other writer whose prose I'd love to be able to copy is David Gordon.  He only has one book so far, The Serialist, and a second on the way in July 2013, but I really enjoyed his writing in the first book.  Here's an example from The Serialist:

[My mother] wasn’t dead to start with. She was still quite lively in fact, still in the same Queens two-bedroom where I grew up and where, sadly or perhaps happily, I live again now. Sadly because it is a constant reminder of my life’s extremely limited progress, ten feet from the smaller bedroom to the larger. Happily because of the soup dumplings. The Jewish-Italian-Irish neighborhood where I grew up, and which was on its way back then to becoming mainly Hispanic, had taken a wild left turn somewhere and ended up almost completely Asian. Hence the soup dumplings.

And what are they exactly? Don’t I mean dumplings in soup? No, my friend. Let’s say you order six crab and pork. A few minutes later, they appear, steamed, plump as little Buddhas, sitting on lettuce in their tender skins. But don’t bite. Lift one carefully in your spoon and gently nibble its tip. Out dribbles hot soup. That’s right. I shit you not. Soup inside the dumpling. It’s a kind of miracle, a chaste, doughy nipple dispensing warm broth, the sort of thing that makes life worth living and gives you the strength to hang on, if only for one more novel.

Origin, by J. A. Konrath

I'll admit it, I read this book mainly because I thought the cover was cool.  It's the first time I've seen an animated cover--something that's only possible with e-books--and this book is only available as the e-book.  In addition to the cover, I loved the concept:  the U.S. government digs up Satan and keeps him in a secret government lab for a hundred years.  How can you not want to read that story?

So I downloaded the sample--the biggest and most overlooked advantage to e-books, in my opinion--and started reading.  J. A. Konrath is a good writer and that was apparent from the beginning.  After the sample, I was hooked so I pressed my finger on "Buy Now," shelled out $3.99 (seriously, I spend more going to Starbucks for a coffee and pumpkin bread) and kept reading.  My new Kindle Paperwhite even started the new full version where I'd left off in the sample (my 2nd gen Kindle didn't do this).

J. A. Konrath is a big proponent of amazon and e-readers on his blog, and so am I.  Embrace the future because it's not going away.

So what about the book?  I loved it!  The mystery of finding Satan was a great hook and kept me interested during the set-up and all the character introductions.  At first I thought there were too many characters, but Konrath made them all important and made it work.  He went deeper into the two main characters and even developed a love story between them.  The book was too short and moved too quickly to develop the love story more, but that was fine because I was reading it for the story of Satan, not the love story.

One thing I really liked about Origin was that the plot had a great pace and maintained suspense throughout.  I attribute this not only to Konrath's skill as a writer but also his adherence to the standard plot structure:  set-up, response, attack & resolution.  It's such a pleasure to see a story that follows the time-tested structure for suspense and then executes on it.

Other things I liked about the book:  the humor and creepiness.  Konrath injects a fair amount of humor into the story and it works.  But he also wanted to create a horror thriller, and he did this well with the beast's behavior and speech.  I loved how the beast talked, drawing out certain syllables in a creepy manner.

Origin is a great example of what is possible with e-books and Amazon.  This book was never published as a paper book but it should have been.  It's also good enough to be made into a movie, and hopefully it will be one someday.  I know I'll go shell out $15 to see it!

Behold the Dawn, by K.M. Weiland

(Notes at 25% mark)

I'm a fan of K.M. Weiland's blog and enjoyed her book on outlining, so I was looking forward to seeing her advice put into action in her novel Behold the Dawn.  So far, it's a slow start for me.  All the characters have a mysterious past which seems to be connected by something that happened sixteen years earlier, but I'm very confused by who did what to whom, and I'm even confused as to which characters are good guys and bad guys.

Fortunately, the first plot point was fairly clear and now the main character--a sort of Middle Ages assassin--has to transport a lady to a convent.  The lady was the wife of a dear friend who died and was wrapped up in the mysterious affair from his past.  Unfortunately, since I don't understand any of the back story, the motivations for the heroes and the villains are very thin.  As a result, I'm not very motivated to continue reading at this point.  But I'll press on because I want to see where the author takes it.

(Notes at 53% mark)

This is the point where I should have gotten to the second plot point, the point where the hero goes from responding to the first plot point to offensively attacking it.  It was shaping up nicely.  The hero was falling for the girl and vise versa.  The bad guys were pursuing them and they were on the run--perfect response mode.  Then around 50%, the bad guys caught up to the girl while the hero was off on a side quest.  It was all set up for the girl to get taken and the hero would have to go on the attack to get her back, not only to uphold his duty but because he loves her as well.  But then... the girl escapes on her own and we're back to where we were at the beginning of this section (at the 25% mark).  Maybe something dramatic will change soon and be the real second plot point.  But at least at this juncture, it appears that an opportunity was missed for a solid second plot point.

(Notes at end of novel)

 The girl did get taken later, but it was around the 75% mark so it served as the 2nd plot point.  There was a lot of action--horse-back chases, duels, storming castles--but since I never really understood the back story, it was never more than just action.

Overall, I didn't enjoy this book.  Maybe it was because I got confused early on.  Maybe it was because some of the characters felt trapped by destiny but that idea is completely alien to me because I don't believe in destiny or God.  Maybe it was because I'm not very interested in the Middle Ages so the setting didn't draw me in.  Or maybe it was the missed opportunity at the mid-point to ramp up the suspense by having the hero go on the offensive earlier rather than at the end of the book.

It's too bad I didn't like this book because I really like the author's blog.  Maybe I'll give another of her books a try.

Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand

This is the fourth time I've read this book (!) and I enjoyed it this time as much as the other three.  However, this time around I read it mostly for literary tips and tricks that Ayn Rand used.  Here's what I picked up (there are spoilers below so if you haven't read it, leave now and start reading!):

• She spends a lot of time inside the character's heads and we go deep into their thoughts, especially for Dagney, Rearden and James Taggart.  Conversely, much of the action takes place as exposition and we learn about it as the characters are reacting to it.  This seems difficult to pull off, but Ayn does it.
• The plotting is complex with all the major mysteries and conflicts ending up with Galt.  Even though he doesn't appear until about two-thirds of the way through, he is omnipresent as the destroyer taking away the men of ability, the inventor of the motor that Dagney seeks, the track worker that Eddie Willers confides in, and the man who represents Dagny's ideal who may not even exist.
• The purpose of the speech isn't to introduce Objectivism to the world, but rather to tell the people in the story why Galt went on strike.  It is much more narrow than I realized and I think it is perfectly appropriate for the story.  When I first read it, I was interested in it as an introduction and therefore thought that Rand had included it as such, but it was really put in as a necessary part of the story.
• I think the most difficult job in plotting was to pit the heroes against each other and make it believable, both in the valley and afterwards.  
• She used the same settings repeatedly through the novel, so when we returned we felt at home in some of them, like Dagny's office or Rearden's house.
• The lengthy introductions for Dagny, Rearden and Francisco were time well spent because I learned to love the characters in those scenes and it made my keep reading to see what would happen to them.

Bing Sucks Because It's Not Google

I love my new Kindle Paperwhite--the backlight is great, the text is clear and the touch screen works well (except sometimes at the gym when I'm not holding the back of it).  The other day I found a new feature:  Translate!  I had highlighted "cherchez la femme" hoping it was in the built in dictionary but it wasn't.  Then I saw the option "Translate."  I clicked on it and waited to be illuminated by the wonderful technology of the internet.  And then the translation came back that cherchez la femme in French translates to English as:  cherchez la femme.  What?!  And then I saw the problem:  Translation provided by Bing.  Why Amazon went with Microsoft's Bing instead of Google, I don't know.  But they should know better.  Amazon is one of the best companies out there, along with Google.  And Microsoft has become a joke with the likes of Zune, Vista and Clippy.

Of course, Google Translate gives the proper translation:

More examples: 

wie gehts = how are you (Google) or as gehts (Bing)

caveat emptor = buyer beware (Google) or caveat emptor (Bing)

Feliz Pascuas = Happy Easter (Google) or Happy Pascuas (Bing)

Good work, Bing!  Keep it up.  If you need me, I'll be over at Google.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I read this book in high school and really liked it then.  Unfortunately, my memory of it was better than my view of it today.  It still had it's funny moments, but that's all I came away with this time around.  The plot is very thin and has very little tension.  The characters are thin and are never really developed.

The best parts were entries from the Hitchhiker's Guide, and remembering back, those were my favorite parts the first time I read it.

Oh well, at least it was short.

The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Solution, by John Allison

This is a great book!  Allison steps the reader through all the government interventions into the economy that resulted in the financial crisis of 2008.  Even though I lived through the crisis and paid attention to the news, many of the events were new to me.  Allison puts them in context and demonstrates that the crisis was government caused.  He goes on to show that the solution to our problems is a free market and the elimination of government intervention in the economy.

As CEO of BB&T Bank at the time of the crisis, then the 6th largest bank in the country, Allison is uniquely qualified to explain the financial crisis.  As a student of Ayn Rand, he is also uniquely qualified to present the solution of free markets.

At the end, Allison gives some interesting perspectives on ethics in the workplace.  I enjoyed his insight about experiential learners--people who learn from their mistakes rather than school--and how those people tended to rise to the top within his organization.  He also pointed out that these people were better than most at avoiding evasion, a practice that stops many people from being effective experiential learners.

Lies the Government Told You, by Andrew P. Napolitano

I found this book while I was researching the 17th Amendment, which elects Senators by popular vote rather than by the state legislatures.  I think the 17th Amendment is one of the most damaging Amendments (along with the 16th on income tax) because it has allowed America to become a democracy where the majority can vote away the rights of the minorities (e.g. voting to increase taxes on the rich so the money can be redistributed to the poor).  The Founding Fathers purposely created a system where one house (the House of Representatives) was elected by the people and the other (the Senate) was elected by the states.  This system was to ensure that neither faction (people or states) would gain the upper hand and lead to tyranny.  The 17th Amendment passed the congress in 1912, and it took exactly 100 years for a majority of the people wishing to violate the property rights of the minority to vote into power a President and a majority of Senators committed to carrying out their wishes.

While researching the 17th Amendment on the web, the only author I found with this same view was Judge Andrew P. Napolitano.  I figured that if he got this right, he must have other useful things to say and I was not disappointed.  This book is a long list of ways the government has lied to the American people as a cover for its own increasing power.  It discusses many Supreme Court cases which set the precedent for increasing the power of the federal government and which have changed the course of America for the worse.

The most useful insight from this book is that politicians were no better one hundred years ago than they are today.  It make Obama look like just more of the same rather than a radical departure from previous politicians.  I was especially interested in the duplicity and arrogant power grabs of FDR who probably did more to damage this country than any other president.

After America, by Mark Steyn

After the election of Barack Obama in 2012, I was depressed.  I believe his economic policies are destroying this country and so I've started reading books with the same belief to get a better idea of how the collapse may occur, if it comes to that.  The first book was After America by Mark Steyn.

I enjoyed this book, not only for the information but also because it made me laugh out loud in many instances.  Steyn is an entertaining writer, but also very knowledgeable and honest in his opinions.  One of the best insights from the book is that America took over as superpower status from England in a peaceful manner.  England was in debt to America for about 50 years from the lend-lease program and never really recovered.  America is currently in debt to China and will be for at least 50 years, but if China becomes the new superpower, the transition is likely to be much less peaceful.

I was disappointed that Steyn didn't have any specific details on how an economic collapse might occur from our current policy of printing money, increasing debt and redistribution from producers to loafers.  But as I've continued reading, no one else has very clear ideas on what could happen because the world financial system is simply too big and complex to accurately predict the future.  So I'll give Steyn a pass on not predicting the unpredictable.

The Watchmen, by Alan Moore

I don't normally read comic books, but The Watchmen was supposed to have a great plot so I took a chance on it.  Having finished it, now I'm thinking I missed the qualifier:  a great plot for a comic book.  The book started with an interesting mystery--who killed a former super hero--but then went on and on about other former super heroes and their lives.  There was a lot of filler in the middle and I didn't even know what the story was about until almost the end.  The conclusion did have a master plan with a villain, but it wasn't set up with the plot building up to it in steps.

Even with a lot of back-story, I never cared much about any of the characters.  Perhaps it's because I didn't really know what they were fighting for.

If this is the best that comic books can deliver, I'll stick with regular fiction.