Inheritance

Inheritance by Christopher Paolini

In 2002, at the age of 19, Christopher Paolini burst onto the scene with his hugely popular book Eragon. The book was the first in what was supposed to be a trilogy known as The Inheritance Cycle, but as I'm starting to figure out the more fantasy series I read, a lot of fantasy authors can't count. Inheritance is the fourth and final book in a series that I think got better with each book.

Despite the popularity and success of Eragon, I really didn't think it was that great of a book. I fell asleep halfway through trying to watch the video of the movie based on it and haven't had any desire to try again. But to the author's credit, he was only a teenager when he wrote it. By the time I turned the same age as Paolini was when he published his first book, my only vocational accomplishments were bagging groceries, working at a video store, and digging trenches.

So I cut him some slack and tried the second book when it came out. Eldest was noticeably better than Eragon and the pattern continued till the end; each book getting noticeably better than its predecessor. Inheritance was good enough that it had me up reading late into the night. Something I usually don't do.

With Inheritance Paolini concludes his story about the Rider Eragon and the dragon Saphira who have been training in the arts of spellcasting and warfare in hopes that when the day finally comes, and they have the opportunity to kill the evil magician and ruler Galbatorix, that they'll succeed.

The Inheritance Cycle isn't in the same class as Tolkien, Martin, Rothfuss, Sanderson or the other fantasy authors I enjoy reading. But now that it's complete, I can say that I enjoyed reading it. I'm interested to see what Paolini will write next.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The Night Eternal

The Night Eternal by Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan

With The Night Eternal Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan bring their vampire trilogy to a satisfying close. It began with The Strain which was a decent book in my opinion. A little flawed, but an intriguing beginning to their story. Then with The Fall the two corrected what needed to be fixed and got things really moving along. The Night Eternal was my favorite book of the three.

Two years have passed since the events of The Fall. The world is a much different place now. Nuclear winter has settled in as the master vampire used nuclear weapons to bring about nearly continual darkness across the planet. Now sunlight is only able to break through for two hours a day. The rest of the time, the vampires roam unimpeded.

The human population has gone through a mass extinction. The vampires, having first killed off all of the world leaders along with all the most powerful and brightest people, have now segregated the remaining population. The fortunate ones, the ones who possess the vampires' preferred blood type, have been interred in camps where they're fed well and live in relative comfort as they're either bled or bred to ensure the vampires' food supply. The less fortunate ones have either been forced into a life of servitude and compliance with the vampires, or they were destroyed. Only small pockets of resistance remain.

One of these pockets includes Eph, Nora, Fet, and Gus. Dr. Eph Goodweather's wife was turned by the master vampire and she later returned to kidnap Eph's son Zachary whom the Master has significant plans for. It's Eph's search for his son that nearly destroyed Eph but that now keeps him going. Eph's group is the only group remaining that has the ability to destroy the Master and bring about an end to the nightmare that's taken over the earth, but by doing so, he may have to destroy his son as well? That's a decision Eph might not be strong enough to make.

With the trilogy complete I can now wholeheartedly recommend it. The first book started off really strong but then it got a little frustrating as characters started doing things that drove me crazy. The series rebounded with the second book and then finished strong with this conclusion. My understanding is that Guillermo del Toro originally wrote this story hoping it would be a TV series. Unfortunately is wasn't to be. But based on the content, I don't think it would have aired on any channel that I get anyway.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Lunatics

Lunatics by Dave Barry & Alan Zweibel

If a novel has Dave Barry's name associated with it, I'm going to read it. Both of his previous novels written for adults (Big Trouble & Risky Business) were hilarious. The Peter Pan prequels he's been coauthoring with Ridley Pearson for young adults are good too, but they're not the kind of laugh-out-loud funny books that cause people to move away from me while I'm reading them on the train into work that his others were. Pearson is kind of like Ritalin for Barry and my preference is to read Barry uncontrolled.

Lunatics was the first I had heard of Alan Zweibel and he made quite a first impression. If Pearson is Barry's Ritalin, I'd describe Zweibel as NoDoze with a Red Bull chaser. The pace of the book is fast, it never lets up, and it goes all over the place.

The book is about two men; Philip Horkman, a mild-mannered owner of a pet shop called The Wine Store (just go with it) and Jeffery Peckerman, a hot-headed, foul-mouthed forensic plumber (again, just go with it.) Their paths cross one day when Philip, a volunteer referee for a girl's recreational soccer league, calls off sides on Jeffery's daughter at a pivotal point in the game. From that moment on, the two can't seem to unseparate their paths and go back to their normal lives.

The story that follows made me laugh out loud regularly. If I wasn't laughing, I had a big grin on my face. I'm sure people around me when I was reading thought I was challenged in some way. Philip and Jeffery find themselves accused of masterminding a terrorist attack, hijacking a clothing-optional cruise ship, leading a revolution in Cuba, bringing down Somalian pirates, ushering in long-lasting peace in the Middle East, and then on to China.

I'm not going to try to pass this off as high-brow literature. This will not be an Oprah Book Club Selection. What it is is an hilarious book that's for those looking for an enjoyable time, and who aren't self-conscious about making a scene while reading.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Micro

Micro by Michael Crichton & Richard Preston

Jurassic Park meets Honey I Shrunk the Kids. That's the best way I can describe this final offering from the mind of Michael Crichton. Micro was an unfinished manuscript Crichton had been working on when he passed away from cancer in 2008. It was finished by Richard Preston, brother of Douglas Preston, who wrote The Cobra Event, and The Hot Zone. I've enjoyed books by both authors and I think Preston was an excellent choice to finish Crichton's story.

Seven graduate students have come to Hawaii to look into working for Nanigen, an obscure, high-tech company that's at the cutting edge of medical research and nano-technology. Nanigen claims the ability to construct tiny robots, some of which are mere millimeters in diameter. They use these robots to perform research, gathering samples in the microbiological world in order to develop new medications.

What these students learn when they arrive is that Nanigen's technology isn't in creating these minuscule robots. Their technology is far more advanced and dangerous - it shrinks things, and not just the robots it builds, it can shrink anything: robots, equipment, scientists, and graduate students. Unfortunately for the students, they're shrunk against their will having uncovered the sinister side of Nanigen's psychopathic president.

The idea behind the story is outlandish, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment in reading it. The world is a far more dangerous place when you're half an inch tall and have to survive in the Hawaiian forest. Crichton (and Preston) do a great job of creating a sense of what that world would be like and creating the same level of fear for me that I felt for T. rexes and velociraptors only this time they did it with birds, wasps, spiders, and ants.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Get Shorty

Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard

My favorite thing about discovering an author that's been writing for awhile is the fact that there are a backlog of books already written that I can look forward to reading. Discovering Elmore Leonard a couple of years ago is the epitome of that experience. The man is in his mid-eighties and just released his 45th book - Raylan, which is near the top of my TBR stack.

Get Shorty is only the fourth book of his that I've read, and to be frank, it was a let down. With is other books, I came to appreciate his no-nonsense, right-to-the-point writing style, but with this one, I found myself getting restless, wondering when he was going to get to a point. The premise of the book was interesting, but the characters were atypically one dimensional and I didn't form any type of emotional attachment to any of them.

Chili Palmer is a loan shark whose collection activities take him from Miami to Hollywood. He's chasing a man who committed insurance fraud against the airline industry, collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from them, loses it gambling, and then tries to skip town before paying up. Once Chili arrives in Hollywood, he becomes enamored with the seedy underbelly of the movie-making industry and decides he wants to be a part of it. He decides that the story of the man he's actively chasing would make for a great movie, so he starts meeting with movie makers in an attempt to pitch the idea.

Both plot lines play out simultaneously throughout the book, but unfortunately, neither one of them was very entertaining. I'm still looking forward to reading many more books by Leonard, but will probably be a little more selective in choosing them going forward.

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Alloy of Law

The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson
(Mistborn: Era 2 #1)

Technically speaking, The Alloy of Law would be considered the fourth book in Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy - but that's incorrect by definition. Also, according to Sanderson, the first trilogy (Mistborn, The Well of Ascension, & The Hero of Ages) was just the beginning of a much larger series. Sanderson says that he plans to write two more trilogies, each taking place centuries after the events of the preceding one. Would that ultimately make the series a "novology?" In addition, The Alloy of Law isn't a part of any of the three trilogies slated. It's just a little extra something, like the peanuts offered at Five Guys - just there to add to the total level of my enjoyment. So I don't know what to call the series, a "decology"?

I read the first three books before I started this blog, so let me just quickly mention that they're excellent. Those books put Sanderson near the top of my list of favorite authors. They're very imaginative and a blast to read.

The Alloy of Law takes place about three hundred years after the events of The Hero of Ages. The world has moved on to an era consisting of locomotives and the introduction of electricity.  But the different magical systems such as Allomancy and Feruchemy are still present. A small minority of the population possesses the ability to ingest small amounts of various metals and burn them internally, giving them temporary supernatural abilities - Allomancers. Some have the ability to make themselves temporarily lighter or heavier at will - Feruchemists. Waxillium Ladrian can do both.

Wax is a sort of frontier lawman who has had to return to the city of Elendel to set his family's household back in order. He's saved from the prospect of the lifestyle he shunned years ago when he gets involved in the investigation of a string of train robberies that have been taking place. 

Like the first Mistborn trilogy, this book was a lot of fun to read. The battle sequences involving the two magical systems are unlike anything I've read anywhere else and I'm looking forward to the other books to come.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
   

11/22/63

11/22/63 by Stephen King

Ten years ago this month, Stephen King made the announcement that he was retiring from writing. I remember hearing the announcement and feeling a sense of desertion. I've mentioned it in another post, but it was King's book Misery that I read as a senior in high school that started my love for reading. Since then, I have read all of his books and while some have been better than others, I've enjoyed every single one of them. Fortunately, King has not been a man of his word. Since he announced his retirement, King has published a dozen or so more books and there's both another Dark Tower book and a sequel to The Shining coming soon. 

One of my favorite early books by King is The Dead Zone. In it, the main character Johnny Smith wakes from a coma to discover that when he touches people, he has a brief vision of their future. When that ability reveals to him that a local politician will eventually become the President of the United States and start a nuclear war, he struggles with what steps, if any, he should take to prevent that from happening. He asks himself the question: If I had the ability to go back in time and kill Hitler before he became the leader of Germany and caused World War II, should I do it? In 11/22/63, King comes back to that idea of going back and changing the past to create a better future, but instead of Hitler, this time it's Lee Harvey Oswald's life that he explores whether the world would be better off without.

There's a hole in the state of Maine, a hole that a person can enter and arrive at 11:58 A.M. on September 9, 1958. The hole is in the backroom of a local diner, a diner owned by Al who has been going through the hole for quite some time. Initially it was just to buy his food supplies at 1950's prices, but eventually his purpose in going back became more substantial - to prevent the assassination of JFK in 1963. But Al's time is running short. Even though every time he returns through the hole, only 2 minutes has passed in 2011, he has been spending years at a time in 1958 and his life-long smoking habit has put him on death's door. So he introduces Jake Epping, a loyal customer of his, to his secret and wants Jake to try to do what Al has been unable to accomplish.

I should say here that I love stories about time travel. I love the paradoxes it creates and the usually unforeseen ripple effect that comes with it. There have been a lot of great stories that involve it and 11/22/63 is one of the best. As he usually does, King has taken an otherwise ordinary character and placed him in extraordinary circumstances and then just seems to take a step back and watch along with all his readers to see what happens.

It's not rare that I enjoy a book that I'm reading. But what is rare is when a book is so good that I'm tempted to skip to the end of the book to see how things turn out. I've never done that, and I never will, but I was constantly fighting the urge to do it with 11/22/63. The story is fantastic. Needless to say, I'm enjoying King's retirement immensely.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆