Purity

by Jonathan Franzen
563 pgs

Purity, the most recent novel by Jonathan Franzen, at its core, is the story of Purity Tyler and her search for her identity and place in the world. Purity goes by Pip and is a young college graduate living in Oakland, California. She lives rent free in a house shared by multiple roommates, including a married man she's obsessed with. She works for a telemarketing company, where she struggles to earn enough to make the payments on the $130,000 in student loans she's carrying.

Growing up, Pip was raised by her mother, Penelope, in a small remote cabin somewhere in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Her mother is an emotionally unstable woman, who hid Pip's existence from her father. Pip knows that Penelope is not her mother's real name, but her mother refuses to tell her who she used to be, and the identity of her father.

Andreas Wolf grew up in East Germany. He has led a privileged, but deviant life. He has some serious skeletons in his closet, including the killing of the father of a teenage girl he was in love with when he was 27. He's now the founder of an organization called The Sunshine Project, which is a competitor to WikiLeaks and is headquartered in Bolivia.

One evening, a woman named Annagret stops by the house Pip lives in to visit one of her roommates. Annagret is involved with The Sunshine Project and is so impressed with Pip that she encourages her to come to Bolivia to work for them. She informs Pip that Andreas Wolf could probably help her track down the identity of her father, so Pip agrees and takes the job.

The book moves around a lot from this point, as Franzen weaves together the lives of Pip, Andreas Wolf, and those of her parents. Things which at first seem coincidental, are quickly revealed not to be, and the crimes of Wolf's past have, and will continue to play a pivotal role in Pip's life.

Franzen is a great storyteller. This is only the second book by him that I've read, and while I didn't enjoy it as much as I did Freedom, I still consider it a pretty good book. Pip wasn't the most likeable character for me, but fortunately she exists the narrative for significant stretches of time throughout the book, and by the end, she'd redeemed herself enough to leave me satisfied with the book as a whole.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Artemis

by Andy Weir
265 pgs

Andy Weir hit a grand slam with his debut novel The Martian. After self-publishing it and offering it for 99¢ as an e-book, it became so popular that soon an audiobook version as created, production on a major film starring Matt Damon began, and finally a physical edition of the book was released, which was an immediate bestseller...in that order. That kind of success from a first-time novelist would justifiably make any writer envious. But with that level of success comes the not-so-envious problem of what to do next.

With Artemis, Weir doesn't stray very far from the formula that worked so well for him the first time. This time it's the Moon, instead of Mars that he uses for his location. And it's a 26-year-old woman named Jasmine (Jazz), who grew up in Artemis--the Moon's first and only city--who plays the role of protagonist.

Jazz and her father relocated to the Moon when she was only six. Her father, a master welder, provided a good life for the two of them helping to build and maintain Artemis. When she grew up, Jazz took a job as a porter, delivering goods and materials that would regularly arrive at Artemis from Earth, but she found a far more lucrative career arranging and  smuggling contraband to its certain citizens. It was in that role that Jazz was introduced to the city's wealthiest and most corrupt businessman, Trond Ladvik.

Eventually Trond pitches a job to Jazz that is far riskier than anything she's ever been involved in. But with it comes a potential payday that would set her up for life. She agrees to the perform the job, but when things don't go as planned, the consequences end up endangering the lives of the 2,000+ inhabitants of Artemis.

There are a lot of things I liked about this book. The level of science Weir manages to pack into his story is impressive, and he does it in such a way that it adds depth to the story. Jazz, like Watney was in The Martian, is a protagonist easy to get behind and pull for, even though she's essentially a criminal. The story moves along at a good pace, and even though the action takes place at a sixth of Earth's gravity, it's still exciting.

Where Artemis falls a little short is in Weir's character development. For all intents and purposes, The Martian only had one character that Weir had to develop, so the job of doing so was far easier than it was this time around, where there are multiple key and side characters needing to be fleshed out. Weir is obviously a very smart and talented writer, and I'm confident that over time his character development will improve. I'm looking forward to many more books to come, and I'm excited to see where they all take place.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

A Review of 2018

2018 is done. Here's how things went literarily for me.

The ten best books I read this year (in the order I read them):

1.  Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King & Owen King
2.  The Outsider by Stephen King
3.  The Listener by Robert McCammon
4.  Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons
5.  Elevation by Stephen King
6.  Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson
7.  A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
8.  Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
9.  The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams
10. The Farm by Tom Rob Smith

The worst book I read this year was Doomed by Chuck Palahniuk (a repeat accomplishment for Chuck).

Number of books read: 53

Book signings attended:
Orson Scott Card - no particular book
Brandon Sanderson - Skyward

2019 books I'm looking forward to:
Crucible by James Rollins
The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man by Jonas Jonasson
A Labyrinth of Scions and Sorcery by Curtis Craddock
The Thorn of Emberlain by Scott Lynch
Dark Age by Pierce Brown
Early Riser by Jasper Fforde
The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
The Malta Exchange by Steve Berry
Empire of Grass by Tad Williams
The Never Game by Jeffery Deaver
The Philosopher's War by Tom Miller
Fall, or Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson
That one book by that George RR Martin guy???!!!

Legion: Lies of the Beholder

by Brandon Sanderson
148 pgs  (Legion series #3)

Legion: Lies of the Beholder is the third and final installment in Brandon Sanderson's series of short novellas featuring Stephen Leeds, a brilliant (and possibly schizophrenic) man, whose unique mental condition allows him to create and interact with multiple personalities, each of which possesses a highly-specialized expertise or skill set, which he refers to as his "aspects."

This time around Leeds has to deal with two crises happening in his life simultaneously. The first is the disappearance of Armando, one of his aspects. The second occurs when Sandra, a woman from his past who shares Leeds's condition, and who taught him how to live with it by creating his aspects, contacts him with a cry for help.

All three stories in the series are fantastic, fun, quick reads. But for me, the best part of each of them was their overarching concept. I read them separately as they were each published, but all three just came out together in the omnibus Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

by Hank Green
341 pgs  (The Carls series #1)

When April May, a recent art school graduate, stumbles across a 10-foot tall metal statue in the middle of the sidewalk late at night, a statue that wasn't there the night before, she decides, on a whim, to call her friend Andy to meet her there and record a video of her "interviewing" it that they can post on YouTube for laughs.

"Carl," as she names the statue, is something of a cross between a Transformer and a samurai, and while she doesn't think much about it at the time, there's something not quite right with it. Not only has it appeared without any explanation or ceremony in the middle of a New York sidewalk, it also doesn't feel right when she touches it. It's not cold, like it should be on a cold evening in new York. After they film her tongue-in-cheek interview with Carl, she goes home to bed, leaving Andy to edit the video and post it. When she wakes up the next morning, the whole world has changed.

It turns out Carl is one of 64 "Carls" that seem to have appeared simultaneously all over the world. No one knows what they are, who made them, or how they came to be in any of their locations. The Internet is dominated with people speculating about them, and since the first online account of any of them is April and Andy's video, April has become famous all around the world overnight.

In a matter of days, April's life changes from being a recent college graduate with more than $100,000 in student debt, to that of an A-list celebrity with an agent, a book deal, who commands thousands of dollars for each news interview and TV appearance she does.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is the first book published by Hank Green, adn it itself is a remarkable thing. It's a fun and engaging science fiction story, but it's also a very timely reflection on the culture of celebrity, social media, and many people's obsession for collecting clicks, likes, and followers that has become so prevalent today.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Hiddensee

by Gregory Maguire
283 pgs

Those who see the Broadway musical "Wicked," and then go out and read Gregory Maguire's book, which it was based on, are usually confused and disappointed. The tones and feel of the two are polar opposites. The musical is funny and engaging, while the book feels like a chore you have to complete, hoping for some sort of reward by the end. Maguire's books tend to sound like great ideas when you hear high-level summaries of then, e.g. "it's a retelling of "The Wizard of Oz/Snow White/Cinderella/Alice in Wonderland," but I recommend people perform a little more initial due diligence before reading one, to make sure they know what to expect.

Hiddensee is no exception. The high-level summary is it's the backstory of "The Nutcracker." Based on that, one might think it's a great alternative to having to sit through a three-hour ballet, but it's not a story about the magical soldier who battles the Mouse King to protect Clara on Christmas Eve. Instead, it's a dark and often dreary tale of a foundling boy named Dirk, who lives an isolated life in the woods with an old woman and an old woodcutter. An accident in the woods one day knocks him out and he sees a vision. The vision consists of a talking bird, a gnome, and a forest sprite, characters who leave an indelible mark on the rest of his life. When he wakes up, he runs away, out into the world he knows nothing about.

The story follows Dirk's life as he travels throughout Germany. He lives with a small village pastor for a time, running errands and helping clean and maintain the church and rectory. Eventually he becomes a successful toymaker, carving toys from wood, one of which is the nutcracker.

Hiddensee, like almost all of Maguire's books I've read, is a good book. It's highly creative and for some reason, I feel like I'm smarter and more cultured for having read it. But it's not a page turner, nor is it a book Disney is likely to ever adapt into a movie. But it's intriguing and entertaining enough to keep me reading his books when they come out.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The Philosopher's Flight

by Tom Miller
423 pgs  (The Philosophers series #1)

The Philosopher's Flight is the debut novel by Tom Miller. The story takes place during World War I and centers on a young man's pursuit to become the first male accepted to the Rescue and Evacuation Division of the US Sigilry Corps. Empirical philosophers, aka sigilrists, are individuals adept at "Sigilry," the mysterious and unexplained art of manipulating energy to produce a physical effect. Through sigilry, an individual can make innumerable fantastical things happen. They can make plants grow faster, they can send messages from one end of the country to the other instantaneously, they can cause the bones of the enemies to dissolve, and they can fly. Those who master the art wield immense power, and are almost always women.

Robert Weekes grew up in rural Montana. His mother is a philosopher and he's always dreamt of one day joining Rescue and Evacuation and saving peoples' lives. His mother taught him sigilry and he's good at it, far better than any of his male peers, and almost as good as some of the female ones. In fact, he's good enough to be accepted to Radcliffe College in Massachusetts, a school famous for producing some of the best sigilrists. Once he's there though, he learns how formidable achieving his dreams is going to be. No one believes a man belongs in R&E, not his professors, and definitely not his female classmates. He's bullied, picked on, and ridiculed. But he's not a quitter.

As his abilities become stronger, he gets caught up in an even bigger battle, the one that's been going on for many years between sigilrists and "trenchers." Trenchers are those who don't understand and fear sigilry, and who believe those who practice it are a danger and need to be eliminated.

The Philosopher's Flight is part Harry Potter, part The Magicians, and part Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. It's a fast-moving, imaginative book that shows a lot of promise for what's to come from Tom Miller. The sequel, The Philosopher's War, comes out in June, and I'm looking forward to it.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆