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.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

A Review of 2019

2019 was literarily a good year.

The ten best books I read (in no particular order):

1. Recursion by Blake Crouch
2. Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
3. Cardinal Black by Robert McCammon
4. Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky
5. They Thirst by Robert McCammon
6. Stone of Farewell by Tad Williams
7. The Hunger by Alma Katsu
8. Skyward by Brandon Sanderson
9. Tigerman by Nick Harkaway
10. Someone Like Me by M.R. Carey

The worst book I read all year was Adjustment Day by Chuck Palahniuk. If I were to provide Palahniuk with an award every time he's earned this distinction from me (4 times now), he'd be running out of shelf space to display them by now. He will not be in contention for any more of my shelf space and reading time going forward.

Number of books read: 52

Book signings attended:
Brandon Sanderson - Starsight (Although, technically, I didn't really attend the signing, since I didn't stick around for all the chaos. I just grabbed my book and bailed. But since I showed up and had to wait in multiple lines to get my book, I'm counting it.)

2020 books I'm looking forward to:
The Holdout by Graham Moore
The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson
Providence by Max Barry
The Last Emperox by John Scalzi
If it Bleeds by Stephen King
Shakespeare and Squirrels by Christopher Moore
Utopia Ave. by David Mitchell
Malorie by Josh Malerman
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson

Early Riser

by Jasper Fforde
402 pgs

In Jasper Fforde's latest book, he creates an alternate version of earth, in which the Ice Age has persisted to modern day. Because of the inhospitable conditions during winter, 99% of the human population hibernates during it. Just like bears, they gorge themselves in preparation for sleeping through winter, and they're then watched over and protected during their sleep by the Winter Consul, a government agency consisting of those tasked with ensuring their safety and survival during hibernation.

But hibernation is not without its risks. There's the risk of starving to death if you didn't build up enough fats beforehand. There's the danger of being eaten by rats, suffocating from CO2 build up, and the risk of becoming a nightwalker, by waking up too early into a zombie-like condition known as Dead in Sleep.

The wealthy and privileged can afford to take a drug called Morphenox beforehand, which ensures hibernation will be peaceful and dreamless, in order to minimize unnecessary calorie usage during sleep.

Charlie Worthing is a rookie member of the Winter Consul Service who quickly finds himself in over his head. There's an outbreak of viral dreams that affects thousands, there are nightwalkers, monsters known as Wintervolk, and a conspiracy involving HiberTech, a corporation that makes its money from the hibernation industry.

The premise of the story, while good, isn't what makes the book so enjoyable. It's Fforde's wit and mastery of the English language that makes it so good. Fforde's books are never easy to describe, and this one is especially so. But it was a book that I simply enjoyed each sentence it contained.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The Philosopher's War

by Tom Miller
389 pgs  (The Philosophers series #2)

Picking up where The Philosopher's Flight left off, nineteen-year-old Robert Canderelli Weekes has successfully fulfilled his lifelong dream of becoming the first male to join the US Sigilry Corps' Rescue and Evacuation service. It's a previously-all-female military service, which uses expert "empirical philosophers," who use a unique form of magic to fly into battles to retrieve the wounded and fly them to aid stations.

Robert knew life in the R&E Corp was going to be hard, but he didn't know it was going to end up being this hard, what with the long grueling hours of flying rescue missions into battle zones, not to mention the fact that being the first and only male allowed to do it added unique challenges as well. But eventually he begins to win over the respect of his superior officers and other women in his division. Eventually, his natural talents become evident and he catches the attention of General Tomasina Blandings, who recruits him to join a secret--and unauthorized--group of flyers she intends to use for more than just R&E missions. She plans to use Robert and a select group to bring about the defeat of the German army and the end end of World War I.

With these first two books, Tom Miller has created his own unique and entertaining alternative history story, one that is tense, filled with action, and very entertaining. I don't know whether he intends to write more stories featuring Robert after this one, but regardless, I'm looking forward to whatever comes next.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The Judge Hunter

by Christopher Buckley
348 pgs

Christopher Buckley follows up his last book The Relic Master, which was set in the 16th century, with another historical satire, The Judge Hunter. This time Buckley sets his story in the 17th century, but again, uses historical, but obscure characters from that period to tell his story. Samuel Pepys as a member of the British Parliament and a high-ranking administrator in the Navy, but he is noteworthy because he kept a detailed diary every day for a decade, a diary that has provided insight into what daily life was like in England in the mid-1600s. Pepys had a brother-in-la named Balthasar de St. Michel (Balty), whom little is known about, who Buckley has turned into an aimless, bumbling man who gets sent to the American colonies on a wild goose chase by Pepys, who wants to get him out of his hair for a time.

Balty believes he was sent to New Netherland to hunt down two judges, who were responsible for the death of King Charles I. But his real purpose is to be a distraction to the Dutch long enough for British warships to arrive and wrest control of the colony away from the Dutch.

Buckley seems to have toned down his level of satire in these last two books. It hasn't been nearly as in-your-face and entertaining as it was in his earlier books like Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and No Way to Treat a First Lady. And I'll admit, if I had read either of these last two books first, I probably wouldn't have been interested enough to go back and read his earlier ones. But thankfully, I did read those first, and having enjoyed them as much as I did, I'll keep reading to see where he takes things from here. I understand he's planning to set his next four books in the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, respectively. I'm hoping as the settings become progressively more and more modern, that Buckley will increase his level of wit and satire as well.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆