Full Throttle

by Joe Hill
480 pgs

Full Throttle, the most recent offering from Joe Hill, is a collection of twisted, unsettling, and sometimes shocking stories from a writer who is obviously following in his father's footprints, but is doing so with his own style and voice.

A couple of the stories: Throttle and In the Tall Grass, were coauthored with his father, Stephen King. But as big a fan as I am of King, and as good as those two stories are, they weren't my favorite ones in the collection. Throttle was inspired by the story Duel by Richard Matheson, which was adapted into a movie by an up-and-coming Steven Spielberg many years ago. Into the Tall Grass is about two siblings who wander into a field of grass too high to see over and quickly learn they've entered a strange and savage world none have ever escaped from. You are Released (my favorite), is about the passengers on a commercial airplane who find out mid-flight that nuclear war has broken out while they've been in the air.

There are ten other noteworthy stories in the book that I'm not going to say anything about, but that are each well worth the hour or so it takes to read them. They're not the kind of stories that can be forgotten soon after reading.

I became a fan of Stephen King's shorter stories very early on in my discovery of his writing, and I still get a little extra excited when he publishes another collection of them. So, I'm happy to see a similar pattern with Hill, and I hope he follows the example he's been given and continues to write them and compile them every time he has enough.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

A Journal of the Plague Year

by Daniel Defoe
271 pgs

A Journal of the Plague Year is Daniel Defoe's novel depicting the Great Plague of London, which book place in 1665. The book reads just like a journal, and I understand that for some time, the book was categorized as non-fiction, even though he published it in 1722, nearly 60 years after the events he wrote about.

I didn't know much about the book before reading it, but having enjoyed Robinson Crusoe as much as I did, I thought this one was as good an opportunity as any to read something else by Defoe. At the time it was written, Defoe intended it to serve as a warning, of the things both to do and not to do, in the event of a plague. The plague was in Marseilles at the time, and there were fears it would cross into England at the time. Defoe hoped his account of the 1665 plague would help limit its spread, if it did.

Today the significance of the book is the detailed account of life in London in the 17th century, as well as the insight into the inexplicable start and ending of the plague that killed almost a quarter of London's population within 18 months. Today we understand the conditions that resulted in the plague, as well as how it spread and how it can be treated. But back then, it was all attributed to the will of God.

The book is an interesting read, but not what I would call riveting. It didn't have the same appeal Robinson Crusoe had, no sense of adventure or the constant problem-solving dilemmas Crusoe faced, but the book had its own appeal. I enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who has an affinity for history and/or highly-contagious, deadly diseases.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Starsight

by Brandon Sanderson
461 pgs  (Skyward series #2)

Picking up where Skyward left off, Starsight takes Spensa Nightshade, the young, newly-trained, intergalactic fighter pilot, away from Detritus, the human prison colony she's called home her whole life, and onto the massive Krell spaceship. She's there as a spy, her true identity as a human hidden by a holographic disguise. She's there to try to discover and steal the source of hyperdrive space travel and hopefully, save the human species from extinction at the hand of the Krell.

But Spensa is in way over her head. She's not trained to be a spy. She wasn't sent to the Krell ship by her commanding officer, but an unexpected and unique opportunity presents itself to her. Without considering the risks or possible ramifications of her decision, she leaves and travels to the Krell's ship.

Starsight is a worthy follow-up to Skyward. It's full of action scenes (which Sanderson excels at) and Spensa's knack for shooting from the hip and letting motions drive her actions, provides for a very enjoyable story to read. I'm excited to see how things get wrapped up in the next book.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆