Book 9: Black Powder War by Naomi Novik (Temeraire Series)
Book three in what is shaping up to be one of the best fantasy/alternate history series I have ever read. The concept is brilliant: a revisionist view of the Napoleonic Wars in a world where dragons exist. So warfare is done with musket and saber, but also high-flying aerial combat with dragons. It’s a combination of nautical battles and dragon attacks: swooping and lunging claw attacks combined with soldier leaping aboard and attaching themselves to leather harnesses with carabiner straps. It’s fucking amazing. The dragons themselves are different breeds — with special abilities like firebreathing, poisonous bites, night vision.
Laurence, a British officer, is the caretaker and commander of Temeraire, a rare Chinese Celestial dragon, with the unique power of divine wind. The Black Powder War finds Laurence and Temeraire and crew returning from a diplomatic mission to China. Temeraire has essentially become a suffragette for dragonian rights, desiring to recreate some of the conditions and aura of respect afforded Celestials in the Chinese culture. Laurence has been given the mission of flying to the Middle East to obtain two or three eggs from a sultan to aid in the British war effort.
What makes the series so wonderful is the personality of Temeraire. He’s cultured and arrogant, with an overprotective love for Laurence and crew and a massive sense of pride and entitlement. The novel itself reads like Patrick O’Brien. Only, you know, with giant fucking dragon battles.
The novel has plenty of those, with Laurence and Temeraire joining the warfront in Prussia, where Napoleon has joined forces with Lien, Temeraire’s nemesis from Throne of Jade. Lien has vowed not to kill him, but to destroy his life. It’s an awesome setup, Temeraire vs a more skilled Celestial as well as the overarc of the war against Napoleon, who is fucking shit up at current. There are five novels in this series, with the sixth due out summer of 2010. It’s a fantastic series, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. They’re speedy reads, with a delightful combination of humor and military action. I would love to see this brought to the big screen. It’s pretty much what James Cameron would kill at, but you know, with actual characters driven by plot and not just shiny special effects.
Book 8: 9 Dragons (Harry Bosch #15) by Michael Connelly
Disclaimer: A complimentary copy of this book was furnished to me by the wonderful people at the Hachette Book Group.
I steamrolled through the last three books just to get to this book, the fifteenth Harry Bosch novel, and by God, was it worth the wait. Again, Connelly seems intent on shaking the foundations of his own series like an epileptic with a snowglobe. From where Echo Park ended to where 9 Dragons finally comes to a close, you can hardly believe you’ve been reading the same series.
SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN’T READ THE SERIES
Bosch is working Special Homicide when he’s called down to a murder in Chinatown. The liquor store owner from an earlier novel, when mobs swarm the city looking for vengeance and murder one of the crooked cops who had taken Bosch hostage, is found dead in his store. Bosch feels that one of the Triad gangs are involved and traces the murderer to Hong Kong where his ex-lover Eleanor Wish lives with their thirteen year old daughter Maddie. Again, Connelly loves to shelf characters only to bring them back for devastating results.
While trying to corner a Triad henchman, Bosch receives a video on his cellphone of his daughter being kidnapped and held for ransom. What follows is Bosch on a hellacious journey through the underbelly of Hong Kong with Eleanor Wish, who’s become a casino attraction — play poker against the white lady — and her bodyguard. Bosch spends a sleepless insane 39 hour day pouring through Hong Kong trying to find his daughter at any cost.
The action is a little slapdash and punch-drunk, mirroring the feel of the tireless pursuit for justice. But Connelly gets a little lazy with his novel, and the plot goes uneven. Which is insane considering that he continues to eliminate major characters and shake up the plot. From this point, I truly have no idea how the series will continue from here. He’s truly twisted Bosch’s life around, but the series is starting to feel unsure. Connelly is starting to send his main character to foreign lands, to swap out characters and partners ever other book, and to take huge risks and leaps with the plot. Normally, this could be a really healthy shot in the arm for a series as long running as this one, but is starting to feel like Connelly is going to go off the rails pretty soon. I’m scared that Bosch is going to start going all Mafia Wars with his plot and have Bosch tackling the Vory or the Mafiya, or buying unlicensed cabs in Cuba.
Book 7: The Brass Verdict (Harry Bosch 14, Mickey Haller 2) by Michael Connelly
This book actually intersects three of Connelly’s more popular characters: detective Harry Bosch in his 14th book, the third book featuring reporter Jack McEvoy, and the second novel featuring sketchy lawyer Mickey Haller. Since the novel is narrated from Haller’s perspective, it’s really his novel. Connelly loves to weave together the other characters in crossover work. Jeffrey Deaver is the only other one I’ve seen do the spinoff as good, though Preston and Child are pretty much legendary for it. Again, I offer you a review with my usual disclaimer — pointless, Nicole murder, so forth. Read the other novels. The Poet and The Lincoln Lawyer are great novels.
SPOILERS FORTH.
Mickey Haller is recovering from the injuries sustained at the end of the Lincoln Lawyer. He’s a wonderfully despicable lawyer character. While most law books feature noble or just causes, Haller defends the scum. He’s a pill-popping scumbag, and it’s awesome seeing him in action.
In this book, Haller has inherited the caseload of another famous lawyer who has recently died through suspect circumstances. Among his many clients, Haller finds himself defending a famous Hollywood producer from the double murder of his wife and her lover. Meanwhile, Bosch enters the story investigating the murder of Jerry Vincent, the recently deceased attorney. The killer may now be pursuing Haller.
As procedurals go, it’s not too bad. Haller’s sidekicks — the plucky receptionist Dot and her lover and Haller’s investigator Chico — are pretty amusing and interesting, but the entire story feels like what it is: a marketing ploy to crossover multiple characters in his novels. It doesn’t do jackshit for Bosch or McEvoy — it’s actually a little detrimental to McEvoy — but for Haller its pure gravy. The origin of the title is pretty fucking brilliant — but a huge spoil to give away the meaning of a brass verdict. However, the finale is a little stupidly soap opera and completely unnecessary. It does create a nice set-up for the next novel. Which we get to now.
Book 6: The Overlook (Harry Bosch, Book 13) by Michael Connelly
On we go. I would again like to point out the futility of trying to sell you and explain the greatness of the lucky number 13th book of a detective series, but I fear for Nicole’s vengeance. Read Harry Bosch, you dicks. And again, I warn you that after the fact, spoilers will occur.
SPOILERS TO FOLLOW FOOLS
As I said Connelly ended the last novel with a doozy. For no explainable reason, Bosch is suddenly now back on the Homicide Special division with a new commanding officer and a new partner — Ignacio “Iggy” Ferras. Compared to Jerry Edgar (a shadier version of The Bunk) and Kiz Rider, Ferras is a poor replacement. He’s a hungry young dogooder who shirks responsibility for his pregnant wife at home. He’s a poor partner for the gruff Bosch, not offering any of the conflict from either of the previous partners. The only establishing point of Ferras is that he wants Bosch desperately to call him Iggy and that he’s constantly heading home because his wife is pregnant and demanding.
On to the case. A scientist is found dead on a Mulholland Drive overlook — the one that I take everyone to because it has a great view of the Hollywood sign as well as a great view of the Hollywood Bowl and the city. The scientist was a cancer researcher and thus was able to procure several radioactive chemicals that could possibly be used for terrorist activities. And so in comes Rachel Walling, Bosch’s old flame and an FBI Agent. She actually makes an appearance in the previous book, as a temporary flame. That’s one of the things I really liked about the series. At first, it seemed like Connelly was going to fall into the same trap as most detective novels with a Bond like assortment of lovers for the lead. But Connelly has really done a spectacular job with Bosch’s romantic interests. His first love Eleanor Wish gave birth to Bosch’s daughter Maddie, and now Bosch has fallen for a new agent.
The rest of the novel is kind of lame with the obvious Homeland Security/Terrorism red herrings. It’s really hamfisted compared to Connelly’s usual efforts. Bosch saves the day, and the finale is pretty unspectacular. It feels like a particularly lackluster Special Victims Unit episode. But I’m loyal to series, and I know that Connelly won’t disappoint. Everyone’s allowed one slight dip.
Book 5: Echo Park (Harry Bosch Series, Book 12) by Michael Connelly
I was given the newest Harry Bosch novel, number 15 called 9 Dragons, from the kind people at the Hachette Book Group, and so I decided to pound through the three books that separated me from it’s greatness. It’s pretty spectacular to realize how quickly this series warped over the course of these four books. Again, I point to the futility of writing reviews of books in a series 15 deep, but hey, Nicole’s a harsh taskmistress.
Be forewarned, this may be considered to contain spoilers. If you haven’t read the series, I would highly recommend it. It’s hardboiled detective fiction set in Los Angeles, and it does a wonderful job of both demonizing and romanticizing the city. I didn’t start reading this until I actually moved out here, and Connelly does a spectacular job of evolving his character. Bosch starts out before the LA Riots, and progresses as a character through the Watts riots, the Rodney King riots, 9/11, each time adding a new layer and new wrinkle to the plot. Bosch reminds me a combination of Dirty Harry, McNulty and Lenny Briscoe, and I mean that in the highest regard. Start with The Black Echo and catch up. The series stays fresh, and takes some wild turns.
SPOILERS BELOW
Bosch has rejoined the force after retiring and finds himself working the Unsolved cases — basically he went from Homicide to Colombo to now Cold Case. He’s working with his old partner Kiz Rider, who reminds me of the prototype for Kima Greggs on the wire, a young black by the book detective (also a lesbian — besides the point). Bosch is working one of his old cases — the mysterious disappearance of a young woman — when a call comes in. A serial killer was accidentally discovered in the Echo Park area of LA, having been found with several bags of body parts in his van. The killer claims he will lead the detectives to the locations of nine other bodies — including that of the body of the young woman. But they have to allow him to take him to the corpse and they have to take the death penalty off the table.
It seems like it’s going to be a rote by the book thriller, with escapes and red herrings and Bosch getting angry at the injustice of the system. It felt like Connelly himself had no idea what to do with Bosch at this point anymore. But by the end of the novel, Connelly has essentially gone full fucking Etch-a-Sketch shake with his characters. He kills off or eliminates almost the entire cast of folks. It’s pretty impressive and made for a satisfying blast of air into a series that might have starting getting a little long in the tooth. And I continue to love the hell out of Bosch.
Book 4: The Million Dollar Mermaid by Esther Williams
We were watching TCM one night which happened to be an Esther Williams technicolor spectacle. In one scene, the glass to the tank shatters, and Esther Williams gets swept through in a torrent of water. My girlfriend, who had read this book, told me how Esther Williams was horribly lacerated by the shards of glass. Oh, and she was three or four months pregnant. She began to regale me with tales of the pains and wounds she had to endure while making her films. Immediately, I knew I wanted to read this.
It was a fascinating and eye-opening view into not just the studio system, but the life of the glamourous starlets. It totally reformed my thoughts towards how certain actresses get treated — by the media and particularly assholes like myself. Esther Williams was The Million Dollar Mermaid, and despite her desire to find more heady fare or take on dramatic roles, nobody was interested. They just wanted to watch her swim — she was nothing but a dazzling beauty in a swimsuit who amazed people with her athleticism and joie de vive. Her movies made ridiculous amounts of money, because it was a distraction from the war crushing America at the time. So the studios went to ludicrous efforts to find ways of chopping up scripts and cramming her in a swimsuit. Every project she took on suddenly became about a swim instructor, or an Olympic swimmer or a children’s lifeguard No matter how asinine, they found a way to get Esther Williams in a pool. It made me reconsider my attacks on some actors and actresses. It’s easy to ridicule someone like Will Smith for forsaking his Six Degrees of Separation roots, but that’s what people want to see. Larry the Cable Guy — the character — is a mouthbreathing retard, but the man himself is pretty savvy to have hornswaggled the career he did out of playing a hillbilly doofus. I’m sure he stares in the mirror and loathes the scumbum scowling back. Then he climbs in his Hummer and goes and tells Git R Done jokes.
The Esther Williams biography also breaks into the typical starlet relegation of the ups and downs of being a celebrity. She goes through multiple failed marriages. She tells of the insults and tribulations dealt through the contract demands. During one of the Buzby Berkeley razzamattaz numbers, she actually almost broke her neck diving into a pool from great heights wearing a golden crown. She drifted around the pool in agony, while everyone went to lunch, leaving her almost to drown. She dishes the dirt on some of her co-celebs. It’s fantastic to read the salacious accounts of grabass from guys like Johnny Weismueller and Clark Gable. Lucille Ball is a jealous harpie. Gene Kelly is a complete perfectionist dick. Of course, all of this is through the filter of Esther herself. And she’s kind of flawed.
The harshest part was reading about her relationship with Fernando Lamas, Lorenzo’s pop. He controlled her and shoved her in the shadows for over twenty years. She wasn’t allowed to see her children, do appearances, or anything that would take the spotlight from Fernando. This is a savvy business woman, with her own brands and such, who had become destitute thanks to bad business dealings. And Fernando is an incredible asshole. I’m glad Billy Crystal mocked the hell out of him on Saturday Night Live. You look mahvelous, but you’re a dickwad.
It’s a little overlong, but it was a great read. It really did make me rethink my bitchiness towards the predictability of celebrity. It’s not necessarily about quality, but what makes money. It’s a business, as much as we want to decry artistry being cast aside for spectacle, that’s what makes the money. If we became more discerning, we might get quality. But until that day comes, deal with the splashy.
Book 3: Crossroads of Twilight (Book 10 in the Wheel of Time Series) by Robert Jordan
And here we reach an impasse in the Cannonball Read. Because I was so hardcore about my reading last year, I’m now plenty deep into many of my series. So how do you write a review about a series that’s several years old, and that’s already 10 books deep? The final answer is, you avoid it.
Wheel of Time is epic in every sense in the word. At this point, it’s like a game of Risk. It’s nicely broken down into packs of characters, where we watch each individual storyline advance carefully. At this point, Jordan’s sort of been treading water on the last books, so much story to get through that he’s only had time to deal with three or four plot points per book. In some of the middle sets, he’s just had to time to concentrate on moving very little. It’s gotten very formulaic, droning along for 800 pages and then doing everything super quick in the last 25 pages, and always leaving with a huge twist. It’s actually an improvement over the first few books, where Jordan would set up what essentially was a huge battle between Rand and the forces of evil, with Rand killing off one of the bad guys.
At this points, I just want fucking Tarmon Gaidon to happen already goddammit. I’m getting sick of every female character sniffing and grunting about MEN! I’m getting tired of every male character mooning over a woman and bitching about how difficult it is to understand women. For a series that started with probably one of the strongest female characters in fantasy literature in Moraine, Jordan quickly dropped every single female into a terrible Twilight sparkly love ooze. It really is the damn crossroads of twilight, where every damn character is now pining for someone else and spending entire chapters on these self-conscious internal monologues.
Which is a shame, because the straight plot is actually quite good. As I said, Jordan’s done such a great job sort of locking down his major plot threads and then deftly weaving them a few steps at a time. But at this point, it feels like the series has just gotten overlong. It reminds me of most American situation dramas like Lost and Heroes, where they have no idea how long the series is going to run so they just sort of meander for an entire season before dropping the three major plot points they’ve meted out for this season.
Plus, now that I’ve been exposed to George R.R. Martin, and the other descendants of Jordan and Tolkien, it’s difficult to stay attached to the lengthy series. Fortunately, Sanderson has begun the three part wrap up to the series, and it’ll gradually come to a close. But at this point, I just want it over. Please, end, fight the bad guys, die or win, and get this shit over with. For Light’s sake!
Book 2. Hit Parade by Lawrence Block
I love me some hit men. I don’t know what it is about professional assassins that make them so captivating, but there’s nothing like a good hit man story. And Lawrence Block has taken this to almost Seinfeldian levels of hilarity and glory. The humor comes from the mundane and the practical, sharp dialogue exchanges and a desert dry wit, without ever descending into slapstick or over-the-top setups.
In the third installment of the short story collection series starring everyone’s favorite snuff artist, Keller is looking to retire. He’s getting old, and it’s becoming too much trouble to keep killing. His stamp collection still holds his interest, but he wants out of the game. So he teams up with his trusty booking agent Dot, taking practically every job that comes along with reckless disregard for his usual meticulous control, all so he can get that final big score.
Hit Parade is comprised of several short stories that all share a general arc. Think graphic novel series. They all interconnect, some characters in earlier stories paying off in the later pieces, and all framed around the same overall goal of Keller and his big cashout. What fascinated me about this novel is that it dealt primarily with the events of 9/11. Keller lives in New York, and watching the impact of the towers falling adds such a layer of depth and wistful beauty to the stories that I absolutely did not expect. Aside from the concerns for heightened security — Keller can no longer pay cash for flights, getting weapons on the plane is virtually impossible — it has a personal impact on Keller. He ends up volunteering at the food service lines, spooning food to the fireman working at Ground Zero. It’s terrifically honest, and amazingly selfish in it’s portrayal.
The casual back and forth between Dot and Keller is still the bread and butter of this novel. I’m rarely one for asking for novels to be turned into cinema, but this begs for it. It’s beyond the whole Moneypenny/Bond innuendo, as there’s never even the thought of a romantic interaction between Dot and Keller. It’s a business arrangement, but the personal relationship is so strangely intimate without being sexual. Dot cares about Keller, because he makes her money, but because also because he’s her top guy.
There are attempts on Keller’s life, threats, screw-ups, sour deals, and the usual, but it never goes for that ridiculous hyped-up finish: nobody breaks into Dot’s White Plains home to take her hostage to get to Keller. Nobody is hunting Keller for sport. Everything is so casually put together, so matter-of-fact, and yet there are plenty of exquisite twists and plot points. If Garrison Keillor ever decided to write episodes for the Sopranos, this is how they would have turned out.
I’ll probably be reviewing the most recent book, Hit and Run, in the coming months, but you can definitely get copies of the first two books, Hit Man and Hit List. I cannot recommend this series highly enough, as it’s quick, refreshing, and has never disappointed yet.
Book 1. The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan
Fucking vampires. I’ve about had it up to here with fucking vampires. Because I read them “off season” (see: after I finished my first hundred books), you were spared my thoughts on The Twilight Series. Which basically amount to this: if you cut out all the bullshit twee Romeo and Juliet by way of Wentz and Simpson professions of desperate emo love, you’d have a pretty solid novel. Instead, we’ve got kids wandering around the malls in black eyeliner drinking Clamato juice out of silver goblets they bought at Hot Topic. Worse yet are the adults who are fawning over this tepid repackaged kiddie-porn. I can understand a fucking teen falling for this shit, but really, shame on you. Tell me you read it for the articles.
What the fuck does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Nothing. Only to say this. Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan are intent on taking it back. They haven’t, not by a long shot, but they’re goddamn trying. Because the two men have created what amounts to a really well-done Sci-Fi Channel movie about biohazards that turn people into motherfucking real vampires. These cocksuckers sure as shit don’t sparkle in sunlight: they burst into flames as God intended.
A plane touches down on a runway after losing contact with the tower, and everyone save four random folks — a pilot, a rocker, a lawyer, and a computer programmer — are all dead from some mysterious unexplainable malady. The tension of the novel would have worked so much better if — similar ironically to the first Twilight novel — they hadn’t given away that it was a vampire novel. It’s set up like a 28 Days Later, where nobody has any damn idea what’s happened, if the virus is contagious, if it even is a virus, only they pepper it with a combination of old school Dracula type shit (a sinister black coffin) and some really shameful Lifetime melodrama.
The Strain takes it’s time to get into the action, kind of stumbling through the narrative set-up to get to the meaty vampire action. There are a shitton of characters to introduce: from the bioscientist hero to the rat-killing exterminator to the creepy old Eastern European man who portends ill omens when the creatures are unleashed. The characters do feel a little prepackaged, but Del Toro and Hogan give them just enough backstory and depth to raise them above mere cannon fodder or cardboard cutouts. Do I care about these folks? Eh, a little bit. But not really. It’s kind of like Heroes towards the second season. Just as you’re starting to really give a damn, someone else is introduced, and so it’s quite a bit to keep track of. But you quickly figure out who’s gonna stick it out, and who’s not long for this world.
Who you do care about are the vampires. Setting up the mythology of your supernatural is critical to any sort of zombie/vampire novel — even if the story is “we have no idea”. The vampires of the Strain are more like biological oddities, and since we’re dealing with medical professionals, there are plenty of autopsies and scientific data to make it really squishy. Rather than fangs and lack of tan, the vampires essentially develop a cancer that eats the host, turning them into a feeding machine. They develop stinger lashing tongues that shoot out and suck the life out of their victims, infecting them with the virus. They’re susceptible to ultra-violet rays and silver.
Since this is coming to us from one of the forgers of the Blade Trilogy, Del Toro knows what he’s doing. And it’s pretty disgusting and visceral and awesome. It’s a little cheesy and the dialogue gets painful — particularly their insistence on including a subplot involving a painful divorce proceeding and the custody battle. I don’t want people cramming a goddamn Ally McBeal episode into my killfest, you dig? At times, the novel feels a bit like the Jurassic Park sequels, when you want a little more Jurassic Park. There’s nothing going on in the novels that couldn’t have just been as easily set up in script form first. Del Toro’s a talented director, if a bit too overly sentimental for his own good. And since there are two authors, I’m not sure who’s really to blame for which lacks.
I’ll definitely stick with the series, as it’s popcorn fun. And it’s refreshing to remember that you don’t have to be some sort of douchey desperate teenage to be hurt by a vampire you love. It hurts even worse when your family member wants to eat you.
