September 7, 2009

Daemon, by Daniel Suarez

Filed under: Light Reading, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Technology, Thriller — Tags: , , , , — david @ 10:59 pm

Great book!

It’s not often that I’ll start out a blog review like that…but this book really surprised me. The story was extremely well thought out, the characters likeable (or not, as appropriate), and the action kept the story moving along.

Now, I have to preface this by saying that this is a Geek novel. There are very specific references to computer hardware and protocols that would probably turn off non-Geeks. Fortunately, I am a Geek (Badge #L33T ;-), and I appreciated this book all the more for the accuracy of the technical details. Suarez is himself a computer security-type Geek, and that comes through in the detail of the book. It was like he was talking both of my primary languages (English and Geek).

Would this book appeal to non-computer types? Maybe. My wife is interested in reading it based on the parts of the book I’ve described. She’ll probably just gloss over the technical stuff that she wouldnt’ find interesting, which is probably fine. It’s not critical to following the story. In fact, you could probably remove it and the story would be fine. I could easily see a movie being made from this novel and the writers/director leaving out the technical details to increase mass market appeal.

So what is so appealing? It’s a typical What If? scenario. What if a computer genius invented a program (the “Daemon”) that could evolve and adapt to new scenarios to meet whatever goal was programmed into it? What if that program was spread across the Internet and couldn’t be eradicated by virus cleaners? And what if the creator of the program was a mad genius bent on changing social norms based on advanced technology?

That’s what this book is. It’s an excursion into a computer doomsday scenario–the typical AI takes over the world–but with so much thought put into it that you find yourself wondering if the Daemon is such a bad thing. Of course, killing people, which the Daemon has no problem doing, is bad…but is targeting evil corporations that make millions by swindling others, is that a bad thing?

That’s the cool part here. Imagine an evil corporation that is run by several generations of a single family and has a small board governing it. Who’s to stop that company from preying on the poor, the weak, the gullible? If it’s a private company, there’s no way to buy youself in. The best way in the door is through the computer. Take over the company’s computers, hold all of its information–and therefore, money–hostage…and you can do what you want with them.

And now, what if the creator was dead so that there’s no legal repurcussions possible and noone to tell you how to turn it off.

On top of that, throw in some other really cool, geeky stuff:

  • A virtual reality that controls the meatspace
  • Self-driving and autonomous cars
  • Secrets to accessing the daemon’s virtual world hidden in maps in First Person Shooter games.

All that raving being said, there are a couple of bad points…but are they really bad? One, there’s a twist at the end that was a bit annoying. Two, that twist–and a couple of other important points–sets up the forthcoming sequel. I’m thrilled that there’s a sequel planned, but it feels like this book is too dependant upon it. I wanted a more definitive conclusion to this book.

Some have compared this book to some of Michael Crichton’s work…I guess that’s fair. But the two things I like better about this book than I do most of Crichton’s work are that 1) the technology is more accurate/believable (which I’m sure some will dispute) and 2) I don’t get the technophobe/”the world is going to end if I use a toaster” feeling that I always get from Crichton (particulary Prey). Of course, I’ll keep reading Crichton since they fall into my favorite genre…but given two books on my nightstand, I’d pick up the Suarez one first!

Daniel Suarez is definitely on my NewBookAlerts list!

August 17, 2009

In the Garden trilogy by Nora Roberts (Blue Dahlia, Black Rose, Red Lily)

Filed under: Detective Novel, Light Reading, Romance, Thriller — Tags: , , , , , , — susan @ 11:17 pm

For some good suspense romance, check out these three books; Blue Dahlia, Black Rose and Red Lily, which together form the “In the Garden” trilogy by Nora Roberts. This is a great easy-to-read story that I found captivating on many levels. First, the romance is divine especially with such strong female leads. Second, you have to love a mystery as entrenched and spooky as a hundred-year-old poltergeist. Third, the interesting development of the characters as they meet, become friends, and then grow to be a family.

Each of the three books covers one of the three different women, all from different stages in their lives. In the Garden is a nursery where all three women work. The three of them become roommates and close friends. In the midst of some major plant analogies and academic gardening technique, you come to understand these womens’ lives, their struggles and their victories. As they help one another, each grows and learns in life and love. Family is a major theme.

I always love it when a good light romance is spiced up with a some excitement, and what better than a ghost running mad around the house? The Harper Bride ghost starts out singing nice sweet lullabies and ends up causing trouble. The ladies must find the answer to this mystery and help out the ghost before it goes postal and brings down the household. The three books are sequential, you must read them in order for the mystery of the ghost to unfold.

The romances are good, all different and interesting, and not cliche. As the lives of the characters intersect with each other the story that unfolds seems very real to me. The different relationships and people’s actions and dialog are authentic. Classic Nora Roberts with her great plots, believable characters, and talented writing skills.

In Blue Dahlia, there is a middle-aged mom who is a widow looking for a new start. She meets a rugged landscaper who drives her crazy. In Black Rose, the lead is the nursery business owner, an established, wealthy, mature woman with three adult children and two previous marraiges. She starts playing detective with an ‘absent-minded professor’ delving into her family heritage to figure out more about the ghost. In Red Lily, there is young new mom just starting out. She has the hots for the boss’s son, and she’s trying to keep her hands off!

All three stories are fun and kept me burning the midnight oil reading to find out what happens next! As someone who does NOT read horror books, The Harper Bride ghost was not scary enough for me to be turned off or frightened. Just enough to keep things interesting. I hope you find this triology as entertaining as I did! Happy reading!

August 1, 2009

Phatoms, by Dean Koonz

Filed under: Horror, Light Reading, Thriller — Tags: — david @ 2:13 pm

This is an old book, first published in 1983. Nevertheless, it maintains a lot of the characteristics I enjoy about Koontz’s most recent books. It’s amazing to me that he’s been at it for more than 25 years and that his first books already had those characteristics I like. Maybe you think this is a bad thing rather than good; maybe it shows a lack of authoristic development that his newest books don’t show radical improvements over his initial ones. I don’t think so.

First, I think the books have improved. While the characters in Phatoms seemed quite accessible to me and I feel like I got to know them, I certainly didn’t develop as strong a connection as I have to more recent characters like Odd Thomas and those in Life Expectancy. It’s also hard to explain, but I think the prose is tighter and more accessible to the general populous. This is a good thing because Koontz writes popular fiction. He doesn’t try to write The Great American Novel (TGAN) with each of his books; it seems that he’s more interested in writing books that people actually enjoy reading. Those that provide a temporary escape from the stresses of daily life. This is important because it’s taken me the better part of 20 years to realize that I don’t need to write TGAN and I would be comfortable writing popular fiction.

On to the actual story…this is more of a straight horror novel than his other books. In fact, in the afterword, Koontz regrets writing this book inasmuch as it got him labelled as a horror writer. That being said, I consider it a thriller more than a straight horror novel. While the basic premise of the story is basic “these people are trapped and the unnatural killer feeds on them and you know that more people are going to die every 30 pages or so,” I was quite pleased with the additional scientific explanations that most horror novels leave out. While the scientific explanations did push the bounds of credulity, I was able to accept them as a bonus to an otherwise fairly standard horror novel.

There were a couple of down points to the book, though. First, there were too many central characters for me to keep track of. While Koontz does put in the reminders you need to remember the characters (e.g. the deputy sheriff said, she shook her long brown hair), I still couldn’t track all of them. The two main characters are a woman and her younger sister. These were easy for me to track and I enjoyed getting to know them. The problem came in with all of the police officers. Most of the rest of the cast are sheriffs, deputies, etc. and were too similar for me to follow. This is one of those things that I haven’t noticed in his more recent books.

*MINOR SPOILERS*

There were also a couple of plot points that I just didn’t understand. There is the whole side story of the biker gang and the wife/child killer. I waited and waited for these stories to come into the main trunk of the story and claim some importance, but they never did. Or, at least, I don’t feel that they did. Both the killer and the leader of the gang do end up talking to the “Ancient Enemy” and promise to carry on his work…but otherwise they seem completely tangential and I would have liked the book better without them.

Overall, this was a reasonably good book and I did enjoy reading it. Nevertheless, I would recommend most any of Koontz’s more recent dozen books over this one. So if you’ve already read most of his recent books (like I have), and you can pick up a copy of this book cheap, do so and marvel at the writing machine that is Dean Koontz.

July 12, 2009

Relentless, by Dean Koontz

Filed under: Horror, Light Reading, Thriller — Tags: — david @ 2:03 pm

If you like Dean Koontz the way I do, you’ll like this book.

The thing I like most about Dean Koontz books is the characterization. I can’t always put my finger on it, but there’s usually something about his characters that draws me in immediately so that I get attached to them and can’t put the book down. This book was exceptionally good in that regard. I listened to this book on Audio CD and I remember thinking about just the first 10 minutes that I was already hooked on the characters.

This book reminded me a lot of my favorite Dean Koontz book, Life Expectancy. I think that was the first Dean Koontz I read and the reason I keep reading them is the great characterization I first found in that book. The main characters in Relentless are so much fun that you can’t help but smile even when they’re under mortal threat by seemingly supernatural bad guys. The fun banter and jokes between the family members (and dog) make you wish that you could maintain your humor under stressful situations.

<possible spoilers ahead>

The other Koontz book this reminded me of was Dark Rivers of the Heart. This connection is due to the conspiracy theorist slant of both novels. In each, a government agency has basically unlimited resources and are on a personal mission to kill the main character(s). There is lots of conspiracy theorist goodies in here like the main female character’s parents who have an underground bunker in the desert complete with deadly booby traps by the front door.

But it keeps going back to the characters. Even the weird parents in the bunker have a great sense of humor and joke and play, albeit in a potentially offensive way to vegetarian tree-huggers.

In all, I think this is not on my top five list of favorite Dean Koontz books, along with Life Expectancy and Odd Thomas. Which is really good, because there have been a couple of books of his recently that didn’t grab me and I was almost getting to the point of expending my limited reading time on other authors. But this book has renewed my love for Koontz books and I anxiously await the next.

June 15, 2009

Cemetery Dance, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Filed under: Detective Novel, Light Reading, Thriller — Tags: , , , — david @ 11:20 pm

As I’ve noted elsewhere in this blog, I enjoy the books of Preston and Child, both together and individually. I (usually) particularly like the Agent Pendergast books because the character of Pendergast has been so well developed and is just fun to read about. His unwavering calm and high-society manners in any situation are always entertaining.

That being said…this has been my least favorite Pendergast novel to date. I think this is for a number of reasons…but it’s hard to pin down. First, and foremost, it’s about zombies. Yes, zombies. Here’s the weird thing…I haven’t had any problem in the past with mythical beasts terrorizing a New York museum or artificial intelligence machines falling in love with their creators. So I don’t think there’s anything wrong with my suspension of disbelief. Nevertheless…I just couldn’t buy the zombies.

There is the whole Voodoo slant to the book that just didn’t jibe with me. While it was interesting to watch Pendergast reveal specific knowledge about Voodoo spells and charms, that could not even come close to eradicating the pain experienced on every page that contained the annoying little Voodoo expert.

There is the whole “D’Agosta is angry” and “Laura doesn’t like/trust Pendergast” lines that get somewhat tiresome since they are carry-overs from the last book.

With all that being said, I was actually quite pleased at the ending. As usual, the ending was well setup by the main content. Preston and Child have the entire story conceived beforehand and everything weaves together into a neat little package. The “bad guy” (or at least the main one) wasn’t a surprise to me; I thought that they telegraphed that one a bit too much, but the intricacies of the plot were nice. The zombie-ness of the book is overturned by a solid ending.

All in all, not my favorite Preston/Child book, but still a good read. It certainly hasn’t deterred me from their work; I look forward to the next release by either author.

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

Another thing that really bothered me was losing Bill Smithback in the first five minutes. Because in those five minutes (and throughout the rest of the book), you find out that he was actually a pretty good guy and the cynical reporter asshole that he normally played wasn’t his true self. He finally shared his true goodness with someone and then he dies. I think what made me most mad about this was that when the book opens with him talking about how in love he is and how perfect his life is, I immediately said (out loud), “Well, he’s going to die.” And so he did. About two minutes later.  It’s not necessarily a bad thing for an author to kill off a character, in fact, I think you have to from time to time to keep it interesting. It just sucked the way that it happened. (This is actually all a nice compliment for the story because I cared enough to be annoyed.)

May 12, 2009

Terminal Freeze, by Lincoln Child

Filed under: Horror, Light Reading, Science Fiction, Thriller — Tags: — david @ 5:26 pm

I’ve enjoyed all of Lincoln Childs and Douglas Preston’s books and I’ve come to expect certain things from them. There’s almost always a remote location…or if there’s not, there’s a way to make a common location seem remote (like shutting up an entire museum so that even the cops can’t get in!). There’s always a super intelligent antagonist, usually some sort of animal or artificial intelligence. There’s a couple of smart people who figure everthing out and survive…and a bunch of dumb people who don’t listen to the smart people and die in the most horrific — and vividly described — fashion.

(Note that even though this book is by Lincoln Child alone, there are a great many similarities to the books co-authored with Douglas Preston that it feels like they were both there writing.)

Terminal Freeze is no exception. It takes place at a remote army installation in the extreme northern part of Alaska where, of course, there is no way to get help from the outside. (And there’s also a blizzard at just the wrong time of course.) And there’s a bad creature who seems to enjoy killing all of the characters.

This book actually started out kind of slowly, which was a little surprising. It did a good job of giving me the feeling that I was stranded in a remote wilderness…unfortunately, the wilderness in this case was the first third of the book. Basically, there’s a bunch of scientists doing random, not terribly interesting experiments. They find a frozen creature (which they think is a smilodon) and a documentary crew comes to film the unveiling/melting of the creature. It seemed to take forever to get to the first bit of action (when the animal inevitably escapes his frozen prison and starts terrorizing the scientists and film crew, but once it started I quite enjoyed the action.

One particularly good note about this book was that I found myself anxiously awaiting the death of a character. As you read books like this you learn to figure out early which characters are going to die based on their personality and actions. In this book, there’s one character about whom I actually caught myself thinking, “I can’t wait until he dies!” That’s when a realized that the character development in this book is as good — or even better — then I’ve come to expect from Child.

The science in this book was interesting and involved different types of ice (I found more info here: http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/petrolgy/Ice%20Structure.HTM) and sympathetic resonance (more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympathetic_resonance). Of course the beast itself is different than any currently existing animal so its description takes advantage of a bit of scientific creative license as well, but I must say that it’s pretty cool.

As usual, the back story ties up nicely at the end and while the story itself seems finished, the characters seem like they’re already on their way to the next adventure/novel.

Overall, Terminal Freeze is not my favorite Lincoln book, but it contais everything you’d expect and everything it needs to be an enjoyable read.

April 22, 2009

The Manual of Detection, by Jebediah Berry

Filed under: Detective Novel, Science Fiction, Thriller — Tags: , , — david @ 10:03 pm

I picked this book off Audible.com on a lark. (For those of you not familiar with Audible, that’s where I download my audio books from for a monthly fee. This allows me to read one book at home and listen to one in the car. I usually point out which method I used for a book as it may affect my appreciation for it.) I had not heard of the author since this is his debut novel. I can’t even tell you what made me click on the link…but I’m glad I did!

If you haven’t seen it, the short synopsis of the book is that a clerk who usually manages the paperwork after cases are solved by detectives is suddenly pulled into the role of a detective to solve the mystery of his missing detective. The main character appears completely unsuited for this, of course, but fumbles his way around and, in a convincing manner, slowly gets the hang of it as the story progresses.

It is this hook that first got me interested. The main character, Charles Unwin, has knowledge of all of the cases and enemies that he needs to solve the mystery, but his knowledge is only second-hand and is somewhat suspect. It becomes clear over time that there are elements of the reports that Unwin removed because he thought they were incorrect, untruthful, or reflected badly upon “the agency.” Over time, he realizes that the world is much stranger than he first thought and those elements he excised from the reports were actually critical.

Here’s the strange thing…since I didn’t have any knowledge of the author and the only thing I knew about the book was the short blurb on the website, I had no idea what to expect. As soon as I started listening to the book, I realized that I made a mistake and I’d probably stop listening and just get a new book (which I’ve only every done once).  That was in the first 10 minutes. One of the problems is that it is set in an older settings, maybe 1950’s or 60’s, but it’s never clearly defined (that I recall). I don’t really care for the “classic” dective novels but I do enjoy modern thrillers. I think once I heard the settings and the “boring” main character (more on this in a minute), I decided I’d had enough.

However, I was already in the car on my way to work and I don’t listen to the radio, so I left it on. At some point in the next 10 minutes before I got to work, things suddenly got interesting and I was disappointed to have to turn it off. I really can’t tell you exactly when it happened, but I think it was when the first dream sequence started.

After the slow beginning, I think Berry does a great job drawing the reader into the characters. Unwin is an intentionally and wholly unremarkable character. As a writer, it is hard to get your audience to associate with such a character.  But over time, I did learn to like Unwin and there were numerous other characters I liked, some of whom were seldom or never actually present in real life. (A quote from one of my favorite characters: “I’ve already remembered too much!”)

All in all, I was very pleased to have picked this book at random. I’ve read some other good reviews of it online and found that other people have had a similarly difficult time describing it. It’s part thriller, part old-time detective story, part fantasy/parapsychology, and a lot of other things you can’t quite put your finger on. Nonetheless, I think it worked very well and I’ve added Jebediah Berry to my NewBookAlerts list!

POTENTIAL SPOILERS

I mentioned the first dream sequence as the point at which I may have gotten hooked by the story. The sequence is completely absured (as a dream should be), but it is described well enough to make you think it could actually happen. As you get further into the book, you learn that this is intentional as the line between wakefulness and dreams is increasingly and intentionally blurred. There were numerous times throughout the book that I had to back up and re-listen to a section to figure out if the scene was live or dreamed. At first I felt silly because I should be paying better attention, but then I realized that this is a critical aspect of the book. There are times when the characters think they’re awake when they’re dreaming (we’ve all had that dream, right?) and those that are awake but can’t tell for sure. The fact that the book was able to confuse me as well is one of the points I now appreciate the most about it.

In the end, I was mostly satisfied with the book. I was very pleased that the little threads shown throughout the beginning of the book all tie into the final story somehow. I also like the fact that I have revisited parts of the story several times in my head and had additional revelations. The only disappointing part for me was trying to keep up with the motive for the bad guys. I say “bad guys” because there’s not just one antagonist–which is usually a good thing. Unwin’s understanding (and yours) of the loyalties and relationships continually evolves throughout the book, which keeps things interesting. However, when the good guy/bad guy merry-go-round stops and you find the last antagonist…I was still unclear on the motive. Perhaps this is because I was listening to the book rather than reading, but I re-listened to a critical section twice to try to find something I missed, but it was to no avail.

March 27, 2009

The Third Secret, by Steve Berry

Filed under: Light Reading, Thriller — Tags: , , — david @ 11:15 pm

I enjoy sweeping thrillers that involve a lot of characters and locations. Steve Berry has, for the past four or five years, been kind of in the middle of my list of liked authors for this type of book. The Third Secret jumped him up a couple of notches.

I’m not entirely sure why, but this book seemed much better to me than the others of his that I’ve read like The Amber Room and The Charlemagne Pursuit. (Of which, I liked the latter quite a bit and the former not so much.) I think it was that this book seemed better thought out from beginning to end. There were many more threads that started from the very beginning of the book and finally tied together into a single piece of cloth by the end. That’s what keeps me excited and presses me to finish a book.

This book is similar to Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons in content. It surrounds secrets in the Vatican and a power hungry pope wannabe. I don’t belong to an organized religion and I don’t usually care to spend my free time studying/learning/whatevering one. It says a lot about a book about organized religion when I can get completely sucked in.

That being said…like the Dan Brown books, The Third Order is critical of the Catholic Church. So if you’re sensitive about such topics, I’d pass on this one. Otherwise, I found it to be a great story that was well-developed and well-told.

March 15, 2009

Inanimate Alice - Chapter 4

Filed under: Book News, Technology, Thriller — Tags: — david @ 7:17 pm

I blogged recently about Inanimate Alice, an online story interactively presented in a web browser. It combines the story with images, video, music, and interactive games to tell the story of a young girl named Alice who is 8 in the first chapter and 14 by the fourth chapter, which my daughter and I just enjoyed today. There are scheduled to be a total of 10 chapters, of which 4 are currently available.

As the chapters progress, the technical improvements in the story presentation are clear. The first two chapters have minimal user interactivity; the third and fourth introduce full games built directly into the story. What impressed me the most about the fourth chapter was that the presentation of the story has improved dramatically. Don’t get me wrong–I’ve liked the presentation in chapter 1-3. Chapter 4 just really takes it up a couple of notches. An example is that the text of the story appears, moves, and disappears along with the scenario. For example, in one scene the text moves up the stairs in the user’s POV, then turns left at the top of the stairs and disappears behind the wall. Very cool.

One other interesting thing in this chapter was a pseudo-marketing-tie-in. I say pseudo because while the product was in the story, there was no marketing, per se, in the story. On the credits screen at the end of the chapter, there’s a link to a website with more information. Unfortunately, the product in question seems to be tied to an Education system that requires previously gathered identification. Too bad…I was actually interested in it.

Again, if you like interactivity stories, I recommend you check it out: www.InanimateAlice.com.

March 11, 2009

Inanimate Alice - Evolving, Online Story

Filed under: Book News, Thriller — Tags: — david @ 8:41 pm

I ran across this site today: Inanimate Alice. It’s a short story told via short blubs of text, music, images, and some basic interactivity. It’s presented as a Flash animation and tells the story of a young girl named Alice and her imaginary friend. It is cleary set in modern time as reflected by Alice’s constant need to plan with her digital companion. So far, there are four chapters available, there are to be ten in all.

The music/sound effects are good and the graphics/images are effective. If you don’t click on the “move forward” arrows immediately, you’ll see an effect on the text similar to what you see in a horror film. There are little bits of interactivity, not enough to be challenging, but enough to be interesting. Like clicking the correct icon on the phone or taking pictures of flowers outside the car window.

The first chapter, “China,” is a bit  simplistic, as told from the POV of a 8 year old girl. I found the simplistic language distracting at first. I found the same in the second chapter, but maybe not quite so distracting. It’s hard for me to get into the story deep enough in such short segments for the voice to stop being distracting.

Alice is 10 in Chpater 2 and the text blurbs get longer accordingly. There are also tidbits that start to stand out like “…snow is falling like a heavy curtain between me and the rest of the world.” Is this type of metaphor in the vocaulary of a shut-in 10 year old girl? Seems like maybe the author is trying to find their voice…but again, maybe it’s just the short blurb format that makes it seem a little disjointed to me.

By Chapter 3, I’m completely hooked. The narration is much more developed and the blurbs are long enough to sink your reading teeth into. There’s also much more interactivity and the option to turn it off. If you play the game in chapter 3, it’s like one of those old “Choose Your Own Adventure” books…you can’t complete the story until you find a doll in every section.

I haven’t read Chapter 4 yet (my daughter wants me to save it for tomorrow) and chapters 5-10 aren’t available yet. But this is definitely a story I’ll follow. If you like the story, you should register for the news letter so you’ll know when the next chapter comes out.

 

On a side note…This reminds me of a web-story I read a long time ago called “Dead Kelly.” This was probably around 1998-9. It was a brilliant story about a recently deceased woman still walking around the city. Sadly, I can’t seem to find it today. I even tried the Internet Archive and the Wayback Machine. If anyone happens to remember this, post a link; I’d love to re-read it.

Surprisingly, I found that I wasn’t terribly impressed with the story after Chapter 1 — there are high expectations in my head from my memory of Dead Kelly — but the second chapter drew me in. I’m quite looking forward to the rest now.

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