The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.

by Neal Stephenson & Nicole Galland
752 pgs

The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. is a collaboration between Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland. While I've never read anything by Galland before, I have read one of Stephenson's books: Reamde. And based on it, I was expecting a book full of big ideas that would entertain me while it made me think. Stephenson's books are smart, serious, modern Science Fiction tomes, and Galland has made a name for herself more recently with her historical fiction books. The marriage of the two authors produced a child that is smart, entertaining, and oftentimes light-hearted and fun.

At its core, the book is a time travel story. Tristan Lyons oversees the U.S. Government's "Department of Diachronic Operations," a small, underfunded department that the government hopes will soon play a major role in ensuring the country's future military dominance. Tristan recruits Melisande Stokes, a Harvard linguist, to translate ancient documents having to do with magic. She learns that magic is real and once prevalent. Witches used to perform it by accessing alternate realities and influencing decisions and outcomes from the different realities to reach desirable outcomes. Now, there is only one witch left and she works for D.O.D.O. D.O.D.O. wants to use their witch to send Melisande, and eventually, other agents back in time in order to "nudge" the timeline in a more favorable direction for the country.

The story is a little reminiscent of the movie Groundhog Day, as Mel and others are sent back repeatedly to specific moments in the past to try to convince people to make different decisions or to do things differently. They must learn from their failures in order to increase the likelihood of success on their next trip, sometimes dozens of times until they achieve their goals.

I had a lot of fun reading D.O.D.O. Time travel stories are usually entertaining because of the never-ending possibilities. And this one didn't disappoint. I'm pretty confident I could tell what each author brought to the story-telling process. And based on that, I plan to continue reading Stephenson's books and will start reading Galland's.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons
636 pgs

Each year, around Halloween, I like to read a good horror story. This year I decided on Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons, which had been sitting on my bookshelf for the past few years waiting to be picked up. It's a sizable book. Which is a good thing. Simmons is a fantastic writer and he gives himself a lot of room to work in with this story.

Carrion Comfort is a vampire story, but his vampires don't have much in common with Bram Stoker's, Stephen King's, Guillermo del Toro's, and thank fully, Stephenie Meyer's versions of the creatures. Dan Simmons creatures are a select group of humans who possess "The Ability," a psychic power which allows them to control people with their minds. Using their powers rejuvenates them and allows them to live indefinitely. They use the Ability to entertain themselves and take pleasure in taking control of people's minds and using their bodies remotely to murder, rape, and anything else they choose.

Melanie Fuller, Nina Drayton, and Willi Borden are three of these creatures. Every year they meet together to boast of the assassinations and murders they've committed. It's become a game between them to see which of them has been responsible for the most notorious and creative deaths over the past year.

Saul Laski is a psychiatrist and concentration camp survivor. He has spent his entire adult life searching for the SS Officer who took control of his mind all those years ago when he was a prisoner, and from whom Saul was barely able to escape. The man's name was Oberst Wilhelm von Borchert, but Saul believes he now goes by the name Willi Borden.

Natalie Preston is a photographer in Philadelphia whose father was killed in a string of inexplicable murders which took place in one night, and she's searching for answers. She meets Saul, who traveled to Philadelphia after hearing about the murders in his search for Willi Borden, and after hearing his story and becoming convinced it's true, joins him in his search.

I mentioned at the start that this is a sizable book. (The version I read is an oversized hardcover edition with relatively small font size, and the paperback version is around 800 pages.) But it didn't seem like a long book. It could have been another 400 pages long and I'd gladly still be reading it. I've said in other reviews of his books that Dan Simmons knows how to write good books in any genre he chooses. Carrion Comfort and Summer of Night are proof that he has the horror genre down pat.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Macbeth

by Jo Nesbø
446 pgs

Hargarth Shakespeare is a project launched a few years ago, which enlisted bestselling novelists to reimagine some of the works of William Shakespeare. Norwegian thriller writer Jo Nesbø is the seventh author to contribute to the project with his take on Macbeth. Gillian Flynn will be next with a book based on Hamlet due out in a few years.

Nesbø's story is set in Scotland, sometime in the early 1970s, during a time of political corruption, rampant drug abuse, and high suicide rates. The city is run by Hecate, an untouchable drug lord who manufactures a drug called "brew," which many of the city's citizens are hooked on.

Inspector Macbeth is a member of the SWAT team, who is promised the position of police chief by three of Hecate's henchwomen as long as he does nothing to interfere with Hecate's operation. After he discusses the message he received with his "Lady," a casino operator, the two of them conspire to murder Duncan, the Chief Police Commissioner and frame his bodyguards. But Duncan's death is only the beginning, and soon Macbeth, egged on by Lady, and fueled by brew-induced hallucinations, finds his life spiraling out of control.

Nesbø does an admirable job balancing the overall framework of Shakespeare's play with the elements of a modern-day crime thriller, and those familiar with the play should enjoy the numerous head nods he gives it. But Shakespeare purists may have some issues with the story. He doesn't shy away from straying far from the source material while infusing it with the high level of grit and darkness he's best at.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Noir

by Christopher Moore
339 pgs

Christopher Moore's latest book Noir is set in San Francisco in 1947. As the title implies, it's a moody crime story in the spirit of Mickey Spillane or Raymond Chandler. The protagonist is Sammy "Two Toes" Tiffin, a bartender at Sal's Saloon who falls in love on page one with Stilton, the blonde bombshell who walks in one day wearing a dress two sizes too small and knowing it.

Because of the genre Moore writes in this time, there's also a dirty politician, a profane rug rat, a boxer, a dirty cop, and a group of gangsters. But, because it's Moore writing, there're also drag queens, a Chinese man obsessed with collecting snake urine, a snake (the supply of said urine), men in black, and a little alien affectionately called moonman.

What I enjoy most about Moore's books is the witty, and frequently hilarious dialogue and descriptions he writes. In this area the book doesn't disappoint. Where I was left feeling a little disappointed however was in the plot. The story never grabbed me. While I enjoyed reading it, I never felt excited and anxious to pick it back up again. This is not the book of his I'd recommend to the uninitiated.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The Listener

by Robert McCammon
332 pgs

Robert McCammon's latest book The Listener takes place in New Orleans in 1934. John "Pearly" Partner and Ginger LaFrance are both lifetime con artists who, separately, have been running their own cons for many years. They arrive in a town or city, scam a modest amount of money out of as many locals as they can, and then move on to the next place on the map. When they both end up in New Orleans at the same time and recognize each other for what they are, they decide to work together on a scheme far more dangerous than anything either of them has done before, with the potential for a huge payoff.

Taking inspiration from the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's baby boy a couple years earlier, they decide to kidnap the two children of one of the wealthiest business men in the city and ransom them for $100,000 each.

Curtis Mayhew is a young black man who works as a red cap baggage handler at the New Orleans train station. Curtis has a special gift that only his widowed mother knows he possesses: he can communicate with others who share his same gift in his mind. When he "listens" he can connect with someone who is broadcasting his or her thoughts to him and they can carry on a conversation telepathically.

For the past little while he has been periodically communicating with a young girl who has recently discovered her own gift and is trying to understand it. He doesn't know who she is or where she lives until one day when she reaches out to him panicked and tells him she and her brother were just kidnapped.

What unfolds is a fantastic genre-bending story told by an author in the prime of his career. Every time I've reviewed one of McCammon's books, I'm sure I've said he's one of my favorite authors writing today, and The Listener is a great example of why. His stories are captivating, his characters are well written (Curtis is one of his best), and while I'm never happy to get to the end of one of his books, I'm always happy about the way it ends.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Dying of the Light

by George R.R. Martin
339 pgs

Nearly twenty years before A Game of Thrones was published, George R.R. Martin's first novel Dying of the Light was released. Having taken a sabbatical from reading his "A Song of Ice and Fire" series until Martin finishes it (or dies first), I decided I'd go back into his earlier catalog and see what he wrote back when he was releasing books at a less infuriating pace.

Dying of the Light is a science fiction story set in Martin's "Thousand Worlds" universe, in which I understand several of his other earlier works also take place. Worlorn is a dying planet. it doesn't revolve around its own star like most planets do. Instead, a decade or so ago, its took it temporarily near enough to a red giant star for the planet to become temporarily inhabitable. Terraformers, biologists, and architects from neighboring worlds came to Worlorn and formed a civilization. But now, Worlorn has moved further and further away from the red giant, the civilization built there has almost completely died off.

The story Martin sets on this unique planet is ambition and quite entertaining. But for myself, I inevitably compared it to the ASOIAF books, and not surprisingly, I ended up feeling a little let down. Martin's potential as a writer and storyteller is evident in this book. But the book shows he had a long way to go before he was ready for the magnitude and scope of the series that solidified his place among the greats in the genre...a series I hope both of us live long enough to complete.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

by David Sedaris
257 pgs

In Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, humorist David Sedaris has compiled 22 of his essays, most of which share the common theme of his family life, both the one he had growing up in his borderline neurotic family and the one he shares now with his partner Hugh.

In "Us and Them," the essay he opens with, he tells the story of the Tomkey family, who lived in his neighborhood growing up, and who didn't own a TV, a fact that fascinated him to no end. The family had other idiosyncrasies as well, like the year their children went door to door for Halloween candy on November 1st, because they were gone the night before, forcing Sedaris to preemptively stuff as much of it in his mouth as he can, rather than give any of it up.

In "Possession" he tells of touring Anne Frank's home in Amsterdam with Hugh and of being obsessed with it from a real-estate-ownership perspective, asking himself "Who do I need to knock off in order to get this apartment?"

"Six to Eight Black Men" is a hilarious comparison between the differences between the American and Dutch Christmas traditions. While the idea of Santa and his sleigh-pulling reindeer might seem bizarre to some, he points out how it pales in comparison to the Dutch's tradition of St. Nicholas and his six-to-eight black men who show up every year.

To the uninitiated in Sedaris's writing, the idea of reading essays about someone else's family life might sound boring and uninteresting. But that's definitely not the case with this collection. Sedaris never pulls his punches, especially when they're directed at those closest to him. And he spares no one--including himself--from his scathing humor and wit. The end result will make you grateful for both the family and life you had growing up, as well as the one he had. Because if he hadn't had his, there would have been nothing worth writing about.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆