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| 0671532758
| 9780671532758
| 0671532758
| 3.98
| 1,070
| Apr 12, 1985
| Apr 12, 1985
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really liked it
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 24, 2021
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Jan 27, 2021
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Jan 24, 2021
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Hardcover
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| 1529411696
| 9781529411690
| 1529411696
| 3.63
| 10,947
| 2020
| Jun 16, 2020
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really liked it
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”You don’t have to be very smart to figure that it only takes one infected individual from Vietnam, or Thailand, or Cambodia, to fly into London, New
”You don’t have to be very smart to figure that it only takes one infected individual from Vietnam, or Thailand, or Cambodia, to fly into London, New York, or Paris, and you’ve sown the seed. In this modern age of air travel, we really do live in a global village. And we’ve created the perfect incubators for breeding and passing on infection, in the buses and planes and underground trains we travel on. We were a human disaster waiting to happen.” What makes this novel compelling to me more than anything else isn’t the fact that it is about a pandemic, but because it was turned down by publishers in 2005 because the premise of a London locked down due to a virus was inconceivable to the publishers. The idea was improbable...nay impossible. In 2005, Peter May was not the bestselling author we know today, but a fledgling novel writer, trying to make the transition from screenwriting to full-time fiction writing. He was baffled that, despite the extensive research he could share with them showing that a pandemic could happen on the scale that is depicted in his novel, publishers simply refused to believe it was possible. This is rather amusing considering the fact that, as I write my thoughts on this novel, we are all in various stages of quarantine. May’s conception of the future is not improbable or impossible, but very much a presentiment of a very real future that has become our present reality. I did struggle at first with the book, maybe because we have all become some level of experts on pandemics. I have a bad feeling our collective knowledge will have several more opportunities to increase in the near future. Detective Jack MacNeil is investigating some bones found in a satchel at a construction site. Normally, bones found in such circumstances are more the province of a archaeologist, but given the age of the satchel, it is clear this is a modern murder. MacNeil’s marriage has disintegrated. He is on the verge of retirement, as yet not sure what a post-retirement world in a post-apocalyptic world will look like. 25% of people are getting the virus, and upwards of 80% are dying from it. It is the very worst of times without the reassurement from Dickens that these are also the very best of times. With so many people dying, it seems almost ridiculous to be investigating the potential murder of one little girl. It reminds me of the TV series Foyle’s War; millions are dying from the ravages of war, and yet here is this man in England investigating Agatha Christie-type murders in a world gone mad. (view spoiler)[As the plot unspools, we soon learn that this little girl might be the critical tie to everything that has happened. So my mild irritation with this subplot in the course of all the madness is ill-considered. (hide spoiler)] This large Scotsman has an improbable secret relationship with Amy Wu. A petite Asian woman, a forensic orthodontist bound to a wheelchair, who quickly becomes as immersed in the backstory of the bones as MacNeil. She is my favorite character in the book. The descriptions of the creative ways she has made her life as normal as possible despite her handicaps is truly inspiring. The characters are struggling with many of the questions that we have been struggling with in recent months. ”’We shouldn’t do this,’ he said. ‘I might give you the flu. I’m more exposed than you are.’ ‘Then we might as well stop living now, because we’ll die anyway.’ Amy gazed up at him. ‘And if we don’t live life while we can, then we’ll die without ever having lived.’” Just like the creative ways that Amy has made her life better despite circumstances beyond her control, we, too, have to figure out how to live our lives as fully as we can without endangering our lives and the lives of others. I’ve seen a lot of impatience for things to return to normal, but things may never be normal again, or Covid-19 might disappear like the influenza epidemic in 1917, but regardless, we have to understand that this epidemic might only be a dress rehearsal for something nastier. As the quote to begin this review states, we have created the perfect means for destroying ourselves. Maybe we will discover that the speed of travel is not worth the risk. Maybe we will discover things that are more important to us than running around like chickens with our heads cut off. (Yes, I’ve seen that phenomena first hand. My grandmother had her own hand guillotine to behead the next contribution to her stew pot.) I still have hope that in this new world people will rediscover armchair traveling through the magical realm of books. Peter May, for one, will be happy to guide people through the Hebrides or to China or Italy or through a pandemic. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten and an Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/jeffreykeeten/ ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 24, 2020
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Jun 26, 2020
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Jun 24, 2020
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Paperback
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| 178329177X
| 9781783291779
| 178329177X
| 3.48
| 1,030
| Mar 1968
| Feb 02, 2016
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really liked it
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”’I think I’d like to leave London for a bit.’ ‘The smell,’ she said. ‘I suppose we are indirectly responsible for that.’ Jerry grinned at her somewhat ”’I think I’d like to leave London for a bit.’ ‘The smell,’ she said. ‘I suppose we are indirectly responsible for that.’ Jerry grinned at her somewhat admiringly. ‘Well, yes, I suppose you are.’ ‘This was a gift-wrapped, throwaway age, Mr. Cornelius. Now the gift wrapping is off, it’s being thrown away.’ ‘It’s certainly perishable.’ Jerry wrinkled his nose. ‘Oh you!’” Jerry Cornelius is a Renaissance man of all that is hip and cool, baby. There isn’t a hipper cat in all the kingdom. He is so stylish, so ahead of his time and place that the trends he sets are outdated before anyone else can catch the vibe. He is gay, straight, bi, and everything in-between. If it is physically possible, he has done it. To try and define him by his sexuality is an impossibility because once you put a label on it, baby,...it gets stale. Life isn’t just about looking good and feeling good. A person must stretch their mind, not just with drugs, but with science. Jerry gets high on science. He writes about it. He plucks the strings of the known universe and then chains together some chords that open up new vistas of understanding. Oh, he’s a musician, too. You can call him a rock star, but he is really something more cosmic. The minute you decide he is one thing, he has become something else. Jerry assassinates people. He doesn’t just carry that needle gun as a menacing accessory. Jerry has a brother named Frank, brilliant and demented, who is trying to build a super computer to either take over the world or destroy the world. It probably depends on his mood at the apex moment. Think super villain. Jerry has a sister named Catherine, the love of his life. I mean to say looovvveee of his life. Is he immoral or just refusing to be defined by something as mundane as morality? Once the rest of us put a label on it...Jerry has moved on. He has a partner, an arch-villain type partner...friend or foe? We’ll call her Miss Brunner because we have to call her something. She is constantly hiring new assistants because they mysteriously disappear. She wants to create a superhuman by merging a male and a female, and who is better suited for androgyny than Jerry Cornelius? Keep your needle gun close, Jerry. Those aren’t rubber teeth glinting in her mouth. It is frustrating to see the future so clearly while everyone else is sinking in quicksand. ”Jerry sighed and thought that the true aristocracy who would rule the seventies were out in force: the queers and the lesbians and the bisexuals, already half-aware of their great destiny which would be realised when the central ambivalence of sex would be totally recognized and terms male and female would become all but meaningless.” By the end of the book, we are venturing into a post-apocalyptic age. London is sinking. Jerry has evolved into something quite different. The 1960s are over, and a new party needs to begin. By the time we arrive at the festivities...Jerry will already be through with the 1970s and be looking longingly at the next decade. If we don’t evolve quicker, Jerry is going to lose patience with us. What a mind bending blast it is trying to keep Jerry’s warp signature on the radar. Before you decide to start reading this book, you’ve got to relax, man. If you don’t relax, you’re going to get all twitchy and self-conscious. You’re going to start trying to cram this book into that box in your brain that you call the known universe. It ain’t going to fit, no matter how you fold it or crush it. Disengage the gears, and let your mind glide for a while. Strip away all of your inhibitions, and let your tongue taste the bitter fruit of the unknown. If you are too square, let Jerry round off your edges. If you are saying to yourself right now, I’m not going to read some old book from the 1960s, you need to understand that you can’t put a date on this book, man. It’s time hasn’t come yet. I’m a little giddy that there are three more books in the series. Where will we go from here? Needless to say, Michael Moorcock struggled to find a publisher for this book. He wrote it in 1965 and finally found a publisher for it in 1968. That edition was censored by the American publisher; the ghosts of the Puritans still haunt us today. The book was later published in Britain in 1969. Take a trip, man, blast back, blast forward. It doesn't matter. Time is all relative. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten and an Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/jeffreykeeten/ ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 10, 2020
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Jun 12, 2020
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Jun 10, 2020
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Paperback
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| 0393340457
| 9780393340457
| 0393340457
| 3.55
| 2,704
| 1964
| Jan 01, 2012
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really liked it
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”Far away to the north-west, where the dried husks of the desert merged into the foothills of the night, an animal howled wearily. Its lost cries echo
”Far away to the north-west, where the dried husks of the desert merged into the foothills of the night, an animal howled wearily. Its lost cries echoed among the steel pillars of the bridge, reverberating across the white river that lay beside them, as if trying to resurrect this long-dormant skeleton of the dead land.” Dr. Charles Ransom is caught in a drought. He spends most of his time on his boat, navigating the last of the water on the lake as the river that feeds it slows to a trickle. His wife, Judith, has left him. His practice becomes smaller as people flee to the ocean, giving him more time to ponder and plan for a bleak future. Water becomes the only form of currency. There are rather strange people who have decided to stay. The Lomaxes, a wealthy brother and sister duo who are hoarding water, intending to wait out the drought for when the rains return. I actually shivered when I read this description of the sister: ”Ransom always felt a sharp sense of unease, although superficially she was attractive enough. Perhaps this physical appeal, the gilding of the lily, was what warned him away from her. Lomax’s eccentricities were predictable in their way, but Miranda was less self-immersed, casting her eye on the world like a witch waiting for the casual chance.” Many of us have at some point in time found ourselves strangely attracted to someone whom we find unlikeable, maybe even loathsome. Pondering these improbable desires one can wonder, Am I really so shallow to be fooled by the “gilding of the lily?” There is also a strange boy named Quilter with a misshapen head. He is too bright to be considered special needs, but he is so odd and rambunctious that one must treat him with caution. He is Caliban, striding out of the pages of The Tempest. When Ransom meets back up with him later in the book, he has become a character from the world of Mad Max. He strode off on his stilts across the sand, the furs and dressing-gown lifting behind him like tattered wings.” Ransom stays as long as he can, but when violence erupts over water, he too flees to the coast. Deciding to become a refugee is a difficult decision. It is hard to leave behind all that you have, the mementos of your life, the cosiness of the familiar. Violence or lack of food and water are really the only two things that will force most people to choose to be refugees. Even in our modern world, we are still seeing people forced to flee terrible circumstances. I always think about the book On the Beach, one of my favorite post-apocalyptic books, where the people in this part of Australia have elected to stoically stay instead of fleeing to try and keep one furlong ahead of the nuclear fallout. Most of us don’t know when we will die, but for these people, it is a matter of doing the math. Our sense of what is really important becomes sharply defined when we are faced with our unavoidable death. There is no salvation at the coast. There is only more death. So what did we do to ourselves to create such a massive drought? ”A thin but resilient mono-molecular film formed from a complex of saturated long-chain polymers, generated within the sea from the vast quantities of industrial wastes discharged into the ocean basins during the previous fifty years. This tough, oxygen-permeable membrane lay on the air-water interface and prevented almost all evaporation of surface water into the air space above.” Isn’t it too bad that every other living creature and fauna has to pay the price for our mismanagement of the planet? Here is another evocative scene of this displaced world. ”They had been left there during the tremendous traffic jams the previous week. Stalled in motionless glaciers of metal that reached over the plains as far as the horizon, their occupants must have given up in despair and decided to walk the remaining miles.” I really like the word choice of “glaciers of metal.” Can Ransom survive in this world long enough to feel the patter of rain once again? I don’t think there is another writer who can compete with J. G. Ballard when it comes to describing post-apocalyptic worlds. His creative visions of man’s final destructive influence on the planet are harrowing and yet in some ways beautiful. He makes you want to see it, even as you fear that someday you will. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten and an Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/jeffreykeeten/ ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 21, 2020
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May 23, 2020
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May 21, 2020
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1912240521
| 9781912240524
| 1912240521
| 3.64
| 83
| Apr 18, 2019
| Apr 18, 2019
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really liked it
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”The man fell, his hands clutching wildly at the air, grabbing at imaginary handholds like a desperate climber reverse mountaineering his way to the e
”The man fell, his hands clutching wildly at the air, grabbing at imaginary handholds like a desperate climber reverse mountaineering his way to the earth. The jacket of his suit flapped as he fell, an ineffective parachute that did nothing to slow his inexorable journey toward the ground.” Three of the top government appointees leading the Virus policy of Scotland hold a secret meeting at the Museum of Plagues and Pandemics on Friday. By the end of the weekend, two of the three are dead, and the third is missing. This becomes an issue for the Health Enforcement Team (HET) when the missing person does not show for her health check. Not exactly good for the morale of the nation when one of the leading government representatives on Virus control misses her mandatory health check. If you haven’t read the other books in this series, you are probably a bit confused right now, so let me catch you up. The world has been hit by a horrible pandemic, and the survivors are all issued green cards, which contain their medical history and are used to enter places, such as the Plague Museum, by swiping the card at a green card box reader to show they are virus free. A plague is such an opportunistic time for the government to gain more control of the lives of their citizens, all in the interest of public safety of course. To enforce these medical check ups, a task force is formed to pursue those people who don’t make their monthly health check. Though the primary function of the HET is clear, they often find themselves in the middle of mysteries that are technically outside of their purveyance, but must be pursued to find the whereabouts of their health offender. This often puts them in conflict with the Edinburgh Police Department, who sees them as meddling nuisances. To be honest, the team is rather a motley lot. They’ve sort of washed up at HET due to an inability to land a working home elsewhere. Mona was a real cop, but something went wrong that resulted in a transfer to HET. Bernard is an ex-badminton champ, who is often paralyzed by his view of the world as a large, very dangerous hazard. Maitland is a brash, sexist, blowhard, who is in need of sensitivity training and, well honestly, training in all aspects of human interaction. Carole wants to quit, but soon discovers that the government has decided they are essential and no one is allowed to quit or retire. Let’s just say that recruiting for HET is abysmal. Who wants to work for an organization that most of the population see as healthcare jackboots? The thing that makes these books so interesting is the interactions of these characters. They are very real thorns, insecurities, and incompetencies, all deftly becoming integral parts of the plot. I’m just as interested in Mona’s rather perverse, complicated love life. In this book, she finally gets a date that turns out to be a right-wing, shock jock who says things like…”Why are we spending millions trying to keep our prisons free of the Virus? We should be encouraging it. If it wipes out a few free-loading criminals, that’s a saving to the public purse.” Sounds like something that bloated, prick Rush Limbaugh would spout on his insidious radio show to keep his ratings up. The problem is Mona, despite disagreeing with everything she says, likes her...eh gads! Opposites obviously do attract. I’m also caught up in Bernard’s lack of a social life, but there is hope as he meets a lovely woman at the Plague Museum. Could love spring forth amongst the death and destruction of a millennial of plague? As the team investigates these unfortunate murders and looks for the missing member of the Virus leadership, they are soon up to their eyeballs in a government conspiracy that is way above their pay grade and could put them all in grave danger. Lesley Kelly infuses the plot with some moments of dark humor that certainly matches my own as I am bombarded with COVID-19 news, which I am processing from the confines of my book-lined, ivory tower. I estimate I have at least two years worth of books I haven’t read, so no worries, friends,... I’m fine. What’s that REM song? Some consider it morbid to be reading post-apocalyptic books while a pandemic is sweeping around the world, but I find it strangely calming. Believe me, so far, the projections by apocalyptic writers are still much worse than what we have experienced, and one can take some solace from that. I do wonder how long it will be before we are all carrying around our Green Health Check Cards? Having sex while hermetically sealed in that slippery plastic that grandmother enshrouded all her furniture in? Sending our friends and family virtual kisses and hugs while standing right next to them? Though I suppose you could read these out of order, I would highly recommend starting with the first book, The Health of Strangers, and reading them in order. You will enjoy seeing the development of the relationships between the HET characters. These are rather breezy reads, despite the subject matter. I’d almost call these a cozy post-apocalyptic series. Be smart. Stay safe. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten and an Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/jeffreykeeten/ ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 03, 2020
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Apr 04, 2020
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Apr 03, 2020
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Paperback
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| 1984806920
| 9781984806925
| 1984806920
| 3.56
| 2,484
| May 05, 2020
| Aug 25, 2020
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really liked it
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”A young child knows Mother as a smelled skin, a halo of light, a strength in the arms, a voice that trembles with feeling. Later the child wakes and
”A young child knows Mother as a smelled skin, a halo of light, a strength in the arms, a voice that trembles with feeling. Later the child wakes and discovers this mother--and adds facts to impressions, and historical understanding to facts.” --Annie Dillard, An American Childhood. It all begins with a bioweapon named IC-NAN that is deployed in the Middle East to kill pesky terrorists hiding in rugged terrain. It works. It is supposed to be strategic and controllable. It is not. Nature has the final say. We have f**ked ourselves! The world is soon engulfed in a manmade pandemic that threatens to wipe the human race off the face of the planet. In desperation, scientists begin building robots infused with a mother code that will enable these bots to raise and protect babies who are encoded to survive IC-NAN. ”Early socialization would have to rely solely on the Mothers themselves--the soft ‘hands,’ audible voices, imprintable faces, and unique personalities of the human women whose babies they carried, databases rife with information about life in the world before they were created, extensive programming in the Socratic method--all the elements that Rose had painstakingly built into the Mother Code.” They drop these bots with their precious cargo in the deserts of the American Southwest and hope for the best. Carole Shivers explores what it means to be alive. Are the machines we create living entities? To the kids who are raised by them, these robots are much more than their programming. They are their protectors. They are their friends. They are their mothers. Can they keep their charges alive long enough to survive the plague? Reading this during our COVID-19, state-mandated, stay-at-home quarantine, which, I must be honest, being locked away in my ivory tower is the most normal situation for me, made me feel comfort that the coronavirus is merely a dress rehearsal (USA is failing the rehearsal) for something much more sinister, like IC-NAN. Maybe COVID-19 will scare lawmakers enough that we will be better prepared for the second wave of COVID-19, or for something even more deadly. I see that some readers find the science in here challenging, but I find it to be not only accessible but well explained by the author. It isn’t quite a young adult book, but I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to allow preteens to read this. The violence is minimal, and the story will be compelling for young people to read, especially in this new era of pandemics that we now live in. Read books! Let your mind travel beyond the confines of your sequestration. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten and an Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/jeffreykeeten/ ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 30, 2020
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Apr 03, 2020
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Mar 30, 2020
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Hardcover
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| 3.60
| 4,454
| May 1966
| 1966
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it was amazing
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”What most attracted his attention, however, like that of the rest of the watching group, was the man’s right arm. From the elbow to the fingertips it
”What most attracted his attention, however, like that of the rest of the watching group, was the man’s right arm. From the elbow to the fingertips it was enclosed by--or more precisely had effloresced into--a mass of translucent crystals, through which the prismatic outlines of the hand and fingers could be seen in a dozen multi-colored reflections. This huge jeweled gauntlet, like the coronation armor of a Spanish conquistador, was drying in the sun, its crystals beginning to emit a hard vivid light.” Dr. Edward Sanders accepts an invitation to visit his friends Dr. and Mrs. Clair in a remote area of Africa. The moment he lands in Port Matarre, he is struck by the ”pervading auroral gloom, broken by sudden inward shifts of light.” The travellers are kept from continuing their journey further upriver by the authorities for reasons that are vague and unconvincing. Sanders specializes in leprosy, so there is very little that scares him. He is determined to continue onward to see his friends, thus he hires a boat to take him upriver. Queue Heart of Darkness soundtrack. The forest is turning into something potentially sinister, but it is so lovely, like looking at stained glass lit by dazzling light. It is the most beautiful, post-apocalyptic world that could ever be imagined. ”The sky was clear and motionless, the sunlight shining uninterruptedly upon this magnetic shore, but now and then a stir of wind crossed the water and the scene erupted into cascades of color that rippled away into the air around them. Then the coruscation subsided, and the images of the individual trees reappeared, each sheathed in its armor of light, foliage glowing as if loaded with deliquescing jewels.” The scientist in Dr. Sanders is intrigued by the spectacle and the need to understand it, but the more time he spends in this new glittering world, the less interested he becomes in the science as he becomes enamored with the spiritual. He meets a priest whose church in the forest is slowly becoming bejeweled. Fortunately, the Christian elements are fairly muted in this tale, allowing me to ignore their insertion without losing my enjoyment of the much larger themes of the story. It is evident that this transformation of the forest is advancing quickly enough that the whole world is in danger of being glitterfied by this unfathomable invasion. Not only is the foliage being altered, but so are the animals and even those humans who spend too much time under this sparkling canopy. ”His clothes had begun to glow in the dark, the frost that covered his suit spangled by the starlight. Spurs of crystal grew from the dial of his wrist-watch, imprisoning the hands within a medallion of moonstone.” As we learn more about Dr. Sanders, we discover that his reasons to travel to this remote part of Africa are not exactly as expected. There are other concerns to be considered, and those further compromise his objectivity regarding of what is really going on. Should he really care if the world ends from this dazzling display of glittering beauty? If only the advancing decay of our own bodies was so beautifully rendered. The descriptions of this world by Ballard are phenomenally enticing. I’m not sure what psychedelic drugs he was tripping on at the time, but they certainly put kaleidoscopes in his eyes. We are so used to mayhem and destruction appearing so bleak and scary, but what if it is something that glimmers and shimmers? What if it is something so seductive that we want to submit and be part of its bejeweled landscape? Everytime I read a J. G. Ballard, I always think to myself...why has it taken me so long to get back to reading him? He writes these highly inventive, strangely conceived, intellectual novels that alway shake me out of my perceptions of what I believe reality to be. Kudos to the jacket designer who used Eye of Silence by Max Ernst to convey perfectly the strange world the reader is about to venture into. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 13, 2020
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Jan 15, 2020
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Jan 13, 2020
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Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||||
| 1786331373
| 9781786331373
| 1786331373
| 3.49
| 18,041
| Aug 20, 2019
| Jan 01, 2019
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really liked it
|
***It is impossible to discuss this book with any level of intelligence without revealing aspects that some of you will deem spoilers. Ye have been wa
***It is impossible to discuss this book with any level of intelligence without revealing aspects that some of you will deem spoilers. Ye have been warned. Any childish rants on my thread and ye will be cursed for all eternity. Thy spawn will also be cursed until the end of days. (Which frankly isn’t that far in the future, so as curses go, it is not as dire as it sounds.)*** ”We know that almost every person, including children, was issued with a device that enabled them to see and hear one another, however far apart in the world they might be; that these devices were small enough to see and hear one another, however far apart in the world they might be; that these devices were small enough to be carried in the palm of ones’ hand; that they gave instant access to all the knowledge and music and opinions and writings in the world; and that in due course they displaced human memory and reasoning and even normal social intercourse--an enfeebling and narcotic power that some say drove their possessors mad, to the extent that their introduction marked the beginning of the end of advanced civilization.” The end of the world rests in the palm of your hand. It is probably sitting right next to you at the moment, waiting patiently for you to stroke it and make it come to life, or maybe you are holding it right now as you read this review on the screen. We have the most amazing creation that has ever been invented on this planet resting between our ears, yet we choose to cede control from our own organically grown (they charge extra for that in vegetables and fruit) to a flat, impersonal (just to be clear, you really don’t have an intimate, personal relationship with your device, despite the amount of attention you give to it) rectangular device. I used to be a fan of Steve Jobs, despite his assholish tendencies. Now I’m becoming more and more convinced that the era of Homo Sapiens might be coming to an end, and it isn’t Death riding on the pale horse, but the man from Apple. That is where we are today, but I really need to take you 800 years in the future to meet a young priest named Christopher Fairfax, who has been dispatched to the ass end of nowhere by the Bishop to oversee the funeral arrangements of a heretical (rumored) priest. Fairfax is not happy about these circumstances. He enjoys his life at the Bishop’s court, and being sent on this errand makes him feel like he is actually being punished. He is not going by train, plane, or automobile. Those conveyances are long buried in the past, so buried that most don’t even know they ever existed. He is making this journey Middle Ages style, by horse. The world has “evolved” to the zenith of human capabilities, but because we have become so reliant on computers and other devices to run our lives, we are incapable of picking up the pieces when a catastrophic event happened that turns our electronic devices into expensive paperweights . ”Our purpose is not to propose counter-measures to avert any of these potential catastrophes...but to devise strategies for the days, weeks, months and years following such a disaster, with the aim of the earliest possible restoration of technical civilisations.” Good thought, right? If you can’t stop the speeding train from heading for the chasm, maybe you can unhook a car or two to have something to rebuild with. Something goes very, very wrong, and the age of electronics is over. Those who have curiosity about how the ancients (us) did this or that are risking being branded a heretic. Whenever there is a bobble in the universe, the church is always ready to leap into the breach, and this time they intend to keep control. No more worshiping of idolatrous devices. The plan is to keep the population as ignorant as possible so that they never question the supremacy of the church ever again. Books are burned by the millions. What need do thee have to even know how to read? Fairfax is away from the Bishop a matter of days and suddenly finds himself becoming obsessed with knowing the truth about the past. He is also struggling to resist some very present temptations that could be referred to as the same “apples” that led to Adam’s downfall. ”Faith that cannot withstand the truth is not a faith worth holding.” The problem is, of course, that rarely can faith hold up when faced with the temptations of the flesh or real truth. Fairfax is frankly doomed or maybe finally finding liberation, depending upon what you believe to be the best path for the pursuit of happiness. Ignorance is bliss? I love time travelling forward to go backwards in history. Harris, as always, writes a fast, page turning plot that had me zipping through the book. I do find that his ending is a bit convoluted, or maybe I got distracted by the same “apples” that are so distracting to Fairfax. I actually enjoy spending time with heretics or any people who are questioning the way things are. Is this really the way things should be? What can be learned from the ancients that could make lives better without leading to another downfall of man? Can we stop the inevitable? Take a bite out of the apple. My head is spinning a bit here. By using that symbol for his company, was Steve Jobs revealing his true intentions? Was he opening our eyes to reality or was he barring us from ever obtaining a Garden of Eden? Will the pale horse feast upon the roasted apples in the flames of our own demise? If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 07, 2019
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Oct 10, 2019
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Oct 07, 2019
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Hardcover
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| 1250235227
| 9781250235220
| 1250235227
| 3.52
| 2,364
| Jan 24, 2019
| Aug 27, 2019
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liked it
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”I kept looking. I looked all around the island with a hunger in me to know more about how it was when the world was whole. I read everything. In the
”I kept looking. I looked all around the island with a hunger in me to know more about how it was when the world was whole. I read everything. In the houses, in old papers, there was more of it, signs of people all gathered up. I went further all the time, out to places I wasn’t meant to go on my own, and I ate up the pictures of businesses and towns and cities and countries. I kept going till I first read the word ‘banshee,’ and that was only the start, so it was.” For all of her short life, Orpen has been told what to be afraid of and how to fight what she must be afraid of. The civilized world has come to a screeching halt through an apocalypse of great magnitude. Orpen, with her mom and her mom’s partner Maeve, live on an island off the coast of Ireland. ”From here you can see what remains of the old bridge, a long road over sea between our island and the mainland, built with cement and steel and wire. It used to stretch the whole way to Ireland, and even now it’s packed full of cars, like massive dead beetles, relics from a time long past, all quiet and finished but not a single one empty. Everyone thought a little place like this was a good idea, across water, away from the cities and towns. The bridge is ruined, chopped in half by something so big, something disastrous.” Orpen sometimes paddles out in a boat far enough to see the coast of Ireland. She has a hunger to know what lies beyond, in places she has only read about and gleaned from parents reluctant to talk about what came before. They train her relentlessly every day to prepare for monsters she has never met. There are the standard monsters...men who are assumed to all be potential rapists and killers. There are the walking dead monsters called Skrake, who want to eat human flesh. There are superheroes called the banshee, women warriors, who fight the Skrake. Orpen wants to be a banshee, but more importantly, she wants to see what has become of the world. The Skrake are not the slow, shuffling, George A. Romero type zombies. They are more like Max Brooks type zombies from World War Z. They are fast, strong, and vicious. They are difficult, even with training, for one adult person to put down. If you are not a fan of zombies, don’t worry; they are more of a looming, background threat for most of the book. The real story is about the relationship between Orpen, Mam, and Maeve and how they have learned to cope on their own. There is ongoing conflict as Orpen gets older and feels more and more constricted by island life. She is frustrated by the silence with which her questions are met. Her need to know more is burning her up. The dangerous horizon beckons, and it is only a matter of time before she goes, with or without Maeve and Mam. The battle, of course, is between those who knows what lies out there and one who must see it for herself. This conflict leads to disastrous consequences. Imagine a windswept scene on the mainland with Orpen pushing an unconscious Maeve in a wheelbarrow as she searches for banshees to help her. Yeah, something went really wrong. Interestingly, Orpen meets only one male character in the course of this novel, and because of what she has been told about men, she is immediately in flight or fight mode. He turns out to be a really great guy, but she nearly kills him in the process of figuring that out. I think we all struggle with how much caution to implant into our children. It is a dangerous world even before it becomes a post-apocalyptic world. We want them to be careful and learn how to survive without crippling them with fear and anxiety. We want our daughters and sons to be powerful and self-assured, but also compassionate and helpful. Finding the sweet spot is always a challenge. I must say, I didn’t really like the characters. I never warmed to Orpen, but then without the benefit of normal social interactions, I think she is depicted realistically, so no points off for that. Davis-Goff does a good job of showing the benefits of training hard, but also the difference between training and real life survival. Orpen freezes at several critical stages. Her mind overwhelms her muscle memory. I knew superstars in basketball practice who struggled under the bright lights of game time. The banshees appear near the end of the book and are fascinating. I want more insight into their day to day life. There is certainly a continuous, anti-male thread through the book. I like the way the author pushes back on that with the realizations Orpen makes regarding the one man she meets. Still, the book feels unbalanced with the lack of male characters. In a post-apocalyptic world, it would seem more believable to see more of a mix. I certainly have read many books where I identified with a female character, but maybe my need to see more male characters is to increase the chances of finding a character I could identify with? I distrust that feeling. I did find myself beginning to really like one of the banshee characters, but her time in the book is too short to forge a connection. This is certainly a feminist novel, and maybe it is weighed down with a social agenda that keeps it from rising to the level of those two recent, amazing, post-apocalyptic novels Station Eleven and Good Morning, Midnight. I want to thank Flatiron Books for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 02, 2019
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Sep 04, 2019
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Sep 02, 2019
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Hardcover
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| B07J3CJQK9
| 3.60
| 5
| Oct 05, 2018
| Oct 05, 2018
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really liked it
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***Fair warning. This is a graphic review, not for the eyes of children or those over 18 who are still caught in an extended childhood. Adults, please
***Fair warning. This is a graphic review, not for the eyes of children or those over 18 who are still caught in an extended childhood. Adults, please do check your blood pressure before proceeding.*** ”Patrons spend time in a preliminary meeting with the attendant, fine tuning the details and signing the mandatory liability release docs. At this point the attendant can recommend, strongly advise against, or even refuse certain requests, due to physical impossibility. (i.e. insertion of a stallion penis into 4’6” tall human’s anus). The achievement of ecstasy through pain would be tolerated within carefully constructed guidelines of applied safety standards. In other words, no one can be fucked to death.” If you live on the East Coast, you must be aware that you are long dead before the actions of this novel commence. A chain of nuclear bombs have exploded up and down the coast line, so hopefully, with any luck, you were evaporated into molecules in the first wave and didn’t have to suffer through radiation sickness and the resulting painful death. If it is any consolation, the United States does turn the sands of the Middle East, where the attack came from, to glass. What is left of the United States becomes territories with new configurations. If truth be known, the Western states from The Dakotas down through Oklahoma, out West to the border of California, should all be combined into a few states. Really, we need two Dakotas? I think not. Do we need a Wyoming and a Montana? No, we don’t. The population densities of many of these states are less than a midsized city in the East. So as R. Louis Silva redesigns what is left of the United States, I can’t help but think we should go ahead and do this now. Think of the money that will be saved by having fewer state governments. Taxes will go down. Is that creaking sound the rise of Conservative boners? Though I’m afraid the loss of senate seats will soon have them in their natural state, flaccid, very quickly. So I’ve been talking about all of this so that you will forget about the stallion penis, but truth be known, you are still thinking about it or you blocked it from your memory to only have me remind you of it again in vivid hot pink technicolor. Sorry about that. Before we deal with the stallion penis, I need to move you from thinking about reconfiguring the Western states out to the West Coast. Sidenote: even though Kansas is smack dab in the middle of the US, it is technically a Western state, so yes, in Silva’s world, I would be opting to having my “beloved” Kansas merged with Nebraska. I considered merging with Oklahoma and decided, after much probing, that, with the plethora of ten gallon hats, cowboy boots, pickup trucks, and Skoal chewing residents, they would be much happier merging (insert stallion penis joke) with Texas. So finally, I’ve brought you to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, and you are gazing out at Alcatraz Island, where once the worst of the worst criminals were sent to serve out their imprisonments. The prison has changed hands and is now the Alcatraz Pleasure Facility. Pain has been exchanged for pleasure, unless pain is your pleasure. ”Here at the Alcatraz Pleasure Facility, we applaud erections.” Don’t worry if you are anxious about your visit and unable to achieve lift off. Just stop off at the Barbary Coast Lounge, and Fonda Xylo will whip up one of her special concoctions for you that is guaranteed to even give Bob Dole (Don’t groan; he did do commercials for Viagra, which makes him fair game.) an erection he would be proud of. Maybe you should try a Cocaerotica, a Blue Steel, a Stallion Stamina, a Jupiter Gorge, or maybe you need a Cardiasm Slush. Once Fonda snaps that vitals bracelet on your wrist, she will be able to see what stimulation you are most in need of. (Seriously, this should be the next added feature on the Apple Watch. Think how many lives would be saved every year if anyone drinking had to wear a vitals bracelet so that the servers and the served both know their blood alcohol levels. Heck, I’d like one for at home. I’d like to know if four fingers of Scotch or three fingers of Jack will put me in the happy zone.) Everyone has the best time of their lives at the Alcatraz Pleasure Facility. You could check with Isley Mathieson, the tycoon who is cleaning up the East Coast for the salvage potential and in the process killing thousands of his workers in the name of progress. Well, you could ask him about the good time there is to be had on Alcatraz, if you could find him. He has gone missing. Enforcers Amanda Davidoff and Tyler Hudson are asked by the Steward, Tong, a creepy, constantly spitting saliva, commander of Alcatraz, to investigate the disappearance of such a renowned client. Tyler Hudson would like to change Amanda Davidoff’s name to Amanda Getting Tyleroff, but so far he has been unsuccessful in his quest to experience the bedroom gymnastics of the former Olympic athlete. Until that blessed day happens, he is contenting himself with the vivacious, enigmatic Simone Montaine. ”Her long silver hair, fringed above dark eyebrows, framed her porcelain smooth skin and electric blue cornea shields.” Hudson is making the classic mistake of allowing his temporary, kinky, love bunny get in the way of his long term, soul mate, cuddle buddy. So what exactly are these sensual excursions like, you might ask? I am curious myself. This is where the stallion penis could make its grand entrance. If your desire in life is to have sexual congress, of course, with a horse. It’s all perfectly safe. There are no real stallions who are forced to work as sex slaves or nervous sheep or, for that matter, gigalos or whores who are being paid to get people off. All of the visual stimulation is an interactive program with POV capabilities with lots of room for adaptations, in case what you desire changes midstream. Oh, and that hand on your butt cheek with a seeking finger is not the gorgeous redhead you are visually seeing, but actually a robot. That hand squeezing your breast and flicking the nipple is not the abs ripped, surfer dude, but a robot. If you could peek behind the curtain, your burgeoning desire would evaporate as quickly as sweat from your balls in the Arctic. Hudson and Tyleroff, excuse me I’m getting ahead of myself, Davidoff are going to have to figure out what happened to the rich, immoral asshole before the whole carefully conceived illusion of the House of Alcatraz collapses under the jackboots of outside investigation. ”How everything could be going so well one moment and then crash and burn the next was forever the impending complexities of life.” If you are of a prudish nature, you did not make it through this review to this point anyway, but given the backdrop (dropcloth) setting for this novel, you might guess that there are copious amounts of sex described. There are sexual situations that would certainly have Grandmother clutching her Bible to her chest and muttering about the evils of fornication, but I don’t feel that there are so many sexual encounters that it overwhelms the investigative plot. I did, though, almost forget that this is a post-apocalyptic novel as I got wrist deep into the book . There are seagulls cannibalizing pigeons, which is disturbing, but I’m not sure what the fuck is going on with that. Does it have something to do with rising radiation fallout? There are clearer days and browner days, and one should always keep his filtering mask close to hand, but what happened on the East Coast doesn’t seem to be intruding too much on the West Coast. So I originally queued it to read because it was a post-apocalyptic novel with some potentially stirring sexual interludes, but kept reading it because it is a novel of stirring sexual interludes set in a post-apocalyptic world. Elyse Walters and I decided to do a buddy read of this book. We don't generally do buddy reads (well...with anyone) so it was sort of our own version of a Book Pleasure Excursion. Please do check out her awesome review as well. Elyse's Kingdom Come review If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 31, 2019
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Sep 2019
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Aug 31, 2019
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Kindle Edition
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| B005T54IAY
| 4.29
| 69,202
| Jun 01, 1987
| Oct 18, 2011
|
it was amazing
|
”The sky was filled with waves of moving, blinking stars. Wheels of light rolled across the darkness over the trailer court, and streaks of yellow fir
”The sky was filled with waves of moving, blinking stars. Wheels of light rolled across the darkness over the trailer court, and streaks of yellow fire zigzagged upward into the haze that obscured the moon. Thousands upon thousands of fireflies were passing overhead like galaxies in motion, their signals forming chains of light that stretched from west to east as far as Swan could see.” [image] It would be pretty, right? All those missiles streaking across the midnight sky. The end of the world wrapped in the gossamer of sparkling, awe inspiring enchantment. Once the guidance system tells these glowing tubes to descend to the earth, they explode into these nearly perfect, cylindrical, fiery mushroom clouds that reach for the sky. ”It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.”---R.E.M. (Oddly enough that song was released in 1987, the same year as this novel.) Well, maybe not so fine. I’ve had debates about end of the world scenarios. People talk about what they would do to survive, but my hope is to be at ground zero. I like culture and civilisation and don’t really want to scramble about in a Mad Max world. Of course, if by some chance my book lined ivory tower were to survive, I would really appreciate it if someone would drop off a bit of food and a bottle of red wine occasionally. Josh Hutchins, a world weary professional wrestler known as the Black Frankenstein, is on his way to Garden City, Kansas, for a match when the world decides to end. Someone would think that Kansas would be a good place to be for a post apocalyptic event, with its small population and lots of desolation. It would be my state of choice, especially for a zombie apocalypse, for those reasons and the fact that the horizon goes on forever in every direction. Line of sight, right? From my tower window I can see those lurching, slobbering brain eaters coming from miles away. Unfortunately, there are strategic military reasons why the Russkies would want to blow up Kansas, and they have more than enough of these glowing tubes of destruction to wreak havoc in every state of the Union. Josh finds himself, after the fallout, the guardian of an orphaned nine year old girl, whose trailer trash name is Sue Wanda, but fortunately, she has been nicknamed Swan. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Well, try having an apocalyptic event, and you will find out. Now Swan is a very special young lady, and as she grows up over the next seven years, her natural affinity for growing plants evolves into something quite spectacular. “‘Everything can think and feel, in its own way,’ she replied, and she looked up at him. The eyes in her young face were very old, Josh thought. ‘Bugs, birds, even grass—everything has its own way of speaking and knowing. Just depends on whether you can understand it or not.’” Josh, in the midst of all this destruction and hardship, has had his own epiphany about life. ”Josh opened his fist and drew his arm back. The insect kept going, out of the light’s range and into the darkness on its purposeful journey. Who am I to kill such a thing? he asked himself. Who am I to deliver death to even the lowest form of life?” Swan, you see, can bring apple trees back to life. She can plant corn seeds in infertile, radiated soil and make it grow. She is the most important human being on the planet, and there are people looking for her. There is Sister Creep, well not as creepy as her name would imply, is seeing visions and knows she must find Swan to give her something she will need desperately in her coming battle against pure evil. There is Colonel Macklin who, with the help of his teenage henchman, Ronald Croninger, has built what they call the Army of Excellence (AOE) and are marching across the midwest killing all who refuse to join them and stealing the food and supplies of everyone they encounter. Assimilate or perish. There is one creature more insidious than Macklin and Croninger and their whole army combined. You can call him Friend, *shudder*, or The Man with the Scarlet Eye, or The Man of Many Faces, or if you want to try to think of him as something more human, you can call him Doyle Holland. He knows he has to destroy Swan because she is a beacon of hope amongst the chaos. “‘Hope hurts me,’ he said. ‘It’s a disease, and you’re the germ that spreads it. We can’t have disease at my party. Oh, no. It won’t be allowed.’” So what is Doyle exactly? He isn’t a man. A demon? The devil? He can shape shift, manipulate, control minds. He takes credit for all the chaos and evil in the world. Doyle can feel the power of Swan, and she can feel his weaknesses. It is an unsettling meeting. ”He blinked uncertainly, and in his eyes Swan saw fire and savagery, a core of pain past human suffering and so furious that it almost ripped her own heart to shreds. He was a scream wrapped up in straw, a little, weak, vicious thing gnashing inside a monstrous facade. She saw what he was made of, and she knew him very well.” Swan is also suffering a radiation inspired malady, as are many people, that is called a Job’s Mask. ”Her head was covered by gray growths that had begun as small black warts, had thickened and spread over the passage of years, had connected with gray tendrils like groping, intertwining vines. The growths had covered her skull like a knotty helmet, had enclosed her facial features and sealed them up except for a small slit at her left eye and a ragged hole over her mouth through which she breathed and ate.” They can feel their faces shifting under the growths. (view spoiler)[Once the masks come off, their true natures are revealed in their beauty or in their ugliness. (hide spoiler)] The epic post-apocalypticThe Stand by Stephen King was published in 1978, and this novel was published in 1987. Some could say Swan Song is an ode to King; some will say it owes a lot to the King novel, and some would say they enjoyed The Stand more. I have read The Stand recently, and I must say that I enjoyed Swan Song much more. The writers chose different ways to destroy the world. It doesn’t really matter what destroys civilization the point of post-apocalyptic stories is what the writer makes of the wreckage and hopefully the redemption. King had his religious prophets, and McCammon had, for me, a much more compelling character in an earth goddess trying to lead humanity back on the path to civilization. I liked the plotting and flow of Swan Song better than the plot devised by King for The Stand. They are both epic length novels each weighing in at around 1000 pages, but for me Swan Song was more smooth sailing than The Stand. I read Swan Song extremely quickly, in just a few days, while I lingered over The Stand for a couple of weeks. In this heavyweight bout, the winner is…Swan Song in the glowing green trunks. May there really be an earth goddess among us waiting to save us from ourselves. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 28, 2019
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Jun 08, 2019
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May 28, 2019
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Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||||
| 1912240084
| 9781912240081
| 1912240084
| 3.81
| 64
| unknown
| Apr 19, 2018
|
really liked it
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”It was a horrible noise, the kind of unnatural high-pitched squeal that Bernard often found punctuating his nightmares. The fact that he was currentl
”It was a horrible noise, the kind of unnatural high-pitched squeal that Bernard often found punctuating his nightmares. The fact that he was currently wide awake didn’t make the noise any less excruciating. It took all his self-control not to stick his fingers in his ears. Mona, the creator of the ungodly noise, pulling the remaining bits of shrink-wrap off the stab-proof vest, provoking yet more shrill squeaks. Bernard shivered. ‘Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.’” The North Edinburgh Health Enforcement Team is back! In this post plague world, they have the unenviable task to make sure the remaining population shows up for their health checks on time. There are people who survived the plague who are now immune, which would normally be a time for personal rejoicing, but of course, the plague has struck so deeply that few, if any, have not been personally affected with the losses of those they love. Yeah, I lived! is more like, I lived, now what? There are also people who have never been infected, usually by dumb luck, who are still at risk of not only getting the plague but starting up a whole new round of deaths. Thus the health checks. Needless to say, there are all kinds of reasons why people don’t want to go in for a health check. Bernard and Mona’s day starts with trying to find a young woman who has missed her check up and soon find themselves knee deep in a prostitution ring that is also the focus of a burgeoning drug war. Bernard quickly finds himself in an involuntary meeting with a new Baron of the drug trade, who needs a favor from him. If you have read the other novel and short story available in this series, you will know that Bernard is the most unlikely of the HET squad to break any rules. Doing a favor for a drug dealer is definitely outside the department’s guidelines for proper officer behavior. Meanwhile, the face of the plague, not one of the four horsemen, of course, but the man who made himself a leading world expert on the pestilence, Professor Alexander Birsham-Fowler, goes missing. Mona and her boss Paterson are dispatched to find him. They are asked to do so while on the pretense of a holiday so as not to arouse the suspicions of what remains of the press, or for that matter the other enforcement agencies. Not unexpectedly, things get much, much worse before they have a chance to get better. I am frankly flabbergasted that I like this series so much. I don’t really identify with any of the team members, but as a group, they are just impossible not to adore. They screw up a lot, usually trying to do the right thing, but I couldn’t help rooting for them as they slip and slide into solving the crimes that they always seem too inept to solve. Wonderful escapism that somehow chased away the tax doldrums for me...well at least for a little while. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 09, 2019
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Apr 11, 2019
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Apr 09, 2019
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 4.35
| 770,395
| Oct 03, 1978
| Jun 24, 2008
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really liked it
|
“None of us want to see portents and omens, no matter how much we like our ghost stories and the spooky films. None of us want to really see a Star in
“None of us want to see portents and omens, no matter how much we like our ghost stories and the spooky films. None of us want to really see a Star in the East or a pillar of fire by night. We want peace and rationality and routine. If we have to see God in the black face of an old woman, it’s bound to remind us that there’s a devil for every god—and our devil may be closer than we like to think.” A plague has escaped a lab killing most of the population, only a few, a mere fraction of the whole, has immunity or manages to survive being infected. It is over in a matter of weeks. Civilization grinds to a halt, then collapses, and then falls into chaos. A Mad Max world is born. A virus that kills 99.4% of the people it infects is a very stupid virus. Even the Black Plague had a 20% survival rate, so for a virus to act this stupidly, it would have to be man made. The last thing any virus should do is kill the host. Death of the host leads to death of the virus. ”Now most of the young folks and old folks were gone, and most of those in between. God had brought down a harsh judgment on the human race.” Invariably, we can’t help bringing God into any situation where we think a judgment has been handed down on humanity, but he/she doesn’t have anything to do with this. This is man destroying himself. Some would make the case that God could have interceded, could have saved us if we had been worthy, but then when have we ever been ‘worthy’? Since we are made in his image I do think sometimes what God, if he exists, likes least in us is what he likes least about himself. The whole theory of God is built on good and evil. If evil exists, then oddly God exists. The Vatican has been working relentlessly to prove for centuries that pure evil exists to justify the whole need for their continued existence. The proof might be rising out of the ashes of this virulent plague. ”He was coming, Flagg was coming like some terrible horror monster out of the scariest picture ever made. The dark man’s cheeks were flushed with jolly color, his eyes were twinkling with happy good fellowship, and a great hungry voracious grin stretched his lips over huge tombstone teeth, shark teeth, and his hands were held out in front of him, and there were shiny black crow feathers fluttering from his hair.” The survivors are dreaming about the Dark Man, and they are dreaming about the old black woman in the cornfields of Nebraska. These dreams are as vivid as they are confusing. There is a battle for their souls going on. They must choose. Do they go to Randall Flagg, or do they flock to Abagail Freemantle? You would think it would be an easy decision. Don’t most of us think of ourselves as good people? Of course, we would join Abagail, the self-anointed prophet of God. Except, maybe it isn’t so clearly cut; as the two groups grow, it is starting to look like an even split. Abagail brings her flock to Boulder, Colorado, wanting to use the natural barrier of the Rockies to be the dividing line between her “good people” and the evil people following the Dark Man. Not to mention that she knows there has to be a reckoning. But are they evil? When people from the Boulder Free Zone mingle with those from the Dark Side, they find them to be normal people, just like the people they left back in Boulder. The biggest difference is that they are afraid, and fear, as we know, is the most insidious and easiest way to control people. It becomes very clear that Abagail’s army is really only fighting one man, one man with supernatural powers. ”Nevermore. Tap, tap, tap. The crow, looking in at him, seeming to grin. And it came to him with a dreamy, testicle-shriveling certainty that this was the dark man, his soul, his ka somehow projected into this rain-drenched, grinning crow that was looking in at him, checking up on him.” So it is sort of interesting to speculate about whether there are truly evil beings like Randall Flagg in the world, waiting for their opportunity, waiting for people to need someone larger than themselves to lead. Their power grows as people choose to believe in them. As long as civilization exists and people are reasonably content, a person like Flagg is never given an opportunity to thrive. We through our own discontent empower evil. This novel is one of the King epics. A fan poll on Goodreads, The Best of Stephen King Poll, shows that his fans still believe this is his best book. My favorite book, and the one that I feel will be considered his masterpiece, is IT , a book that I feel really brings together all of his best skills in building characters and shows off his gift for creating twisty, scary plots . IT is #2 on the Goodreads poll. Pennywise, in my opinion, might have had as large an impact on reading/watching audiences as Norman Bates in Psycho. Once you have been introduced to Pennywise try walking past a storm drain without giving it a wide berth. The Stand has a large cast, and most readers will have a favorite character. I liked several characters, actually, and wondered if I was going to find myself in a George R.R. Martin universe where identifying with a character was tantamount to self-inflicted grief. I was fortunate to stick with Stu Redman. He is a hick from Texas who continues to show hidden depths as circumstances shape and reveal his character. He made me smile with the following response, when it looks like dire circumstances may lead to a slow death: “Ralph came over to Stu and knelt down. ‘Can we get you anything, Stu?’ Stu smiled. ‘Yeah. Everything Gore Vidal ever wrote—those books about Lincoln and Aaron Burr and those guys. I always meant to read the suckers. Now it looks like I got the time.’” Gotta love the thought of a redneck from Texas reading the unabashed New York homosexual. In the forward, Stephen King talks about the meeting he had with the publishing group about the size of The Stand. It was originally published at about 800 pages, but then when they decided to reissue the uncut version, he was able to put back in about 400 pages that he had been forced to excise. ”I reluctantly agreed to do the surgery myself. I think I did a fairly good job, for a writer who has been accused over and over again of having diarrhea of the word processor.” He agreed to the cuts because the publishing team made a compelling case. They were able to show him the sales from his previous four books, the profit margin, and if he sold the same number of books of The Stand, how much slimmer the profit margin would be, because of the cost to produce the 400 extra pages. So the cuts were not made for editorial reasons, but for common sense accounting reasons. King was very happy to have the orphaned material reunited with the rest of the book. The book does bog down at times for me. I think that is inevitable with a book this size. King is taking on some larger themes here and for the most part keeps all the plates spinning in the air. I read a lot of post-apocalyptic books, and I’m sure if I ever let myself be put on a couch, a psychologist will explore those reasons thoroughly, but one thing I notice, while I am immersing myself in The Stand, is that I have a greater appreciation for my life and the cocoon that civilization wraps around me to keep me safe and provide me with the necessities so that I can have the time I want to read, putter, and write. Maybe I’m not as obsessed with the END OF THE WORLD as much as I am finding new ways to appreciate the wonderful life I do have. I have to admit, though, that I had to agree with lifestyle philosophy of the sociologist Glen Bateman. ”But Bateman himself hadn’t wanted to get in on the ground floor of society’s reappearance. He seemed perfectly content—at least for the time being—to go for his walks with Kojak, paint his pictures, putter around his garden, and think about the sociological ramifications of nearly total decimation.” I would hope I could ignore the siren calls of the ancient, wise woman in Nebraska and the seductive pull of The Dark Man and just enjoy the peace and quiet of a more tranquil world without the constant noise of people talking on their cell phones, music blaring from cars, planes taking off from airports, and millions of electrical lines humming. It is truly amazing any of us can think. f you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 03, 2019
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Feb 08, 2019
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Feb 03, 2019
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ebook
| |||||||||||||||||
| 1976957109
| 9781976957109
| 1976957109
| 3.96
| 24
| Feb 12, 2018
| Feb 13, 2018
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really liked it
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”Since the war of 2026, the world has been blocked into Red and Green Sites. Red Sites were uninhabitable. Most of Russia, Japan, and China had gone R
”Since the war of 2026, the world has been blocked into Red and Green Sites. Red Sites were uninhabitable. Most of Russia, Japan, and China had gone Red--and not from any type of deep-seated communist tendencies. Most of what used to be the U.S. was listed as Red too, though the mountainous regions had faired okay, and some of the northern states. I’d been born into war. Never knew the world at peace. Almost overnight, the War on Terror--that’s what they used to call it--turned into the War of 2026. The War to end the world. There may have been a clear divide once. In the end it was about survival, not patriotism or alliances.” The Some of those advances come in the form of biological weapons, which brings us to Felix and Conor Quinn. There are twins, and then there are the Quinn twins. My father is a twin. I can remember noticing, one time in a room full of people, that my aunt caught my father’s eye across the room, and a whole conversation passed between them. My father went and retrieved more ice out of the freezer in the garage. He handed the bag to my aunt and went back to talking to his friends. I asked him about it. He shrugged and said: “We have known each other our whole lives.” Felix and Conor’s connection is MUCH closer. Now what makes Felix and Conor even more special than normal twins is that they are what is called a chimera. This might bring to mind this image: ”a fire-breathing monster with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail.” Well, not exactly, though some of Conor’s tendencies have been called monstrous. ”A chimera is essentially a single organism that's made up of cells from two or more ‘individuals’—that is, it contains two sets of DNA, with the code to make two separate organisms. One way that chimeras can happen naturally in humans is that a fetus can absorb its twin.” Two cognizant human beings in the same body. This goes beyond split personalities. They are adopted by Rian Connell, an illegal trades mogul, who uses their special skills on certain assignments. When he discovers that his niece Kaitlyn Henderson is in danger from other powerful organizations, he dispatches Felix to find her and bring her home. It turns out that Kaitlyn is bait being dangled so that GDI, a nasty agency that is one of the last surviving government entities from the post war world, can capture Felix. What about Conor? you might ask. Well, he has been deemed more violent than Felix, too violent. A special cocktail of drugs was keeping him chemically suppressed, but when Felix is dosed with a plague virus that Conor is immune to, Conor has to take the wheel. No more tagging along. He is not happy with anyone, especially not Rian. “You never gave me the chance to be someone, anyone, just tried to keep me hidden because you knew you couldn’t control me like your golden boy. So you all but killed me with your fucking meds and brainwashing.” I get a little flash of Marlon Brando in that speech from On the Waterfront. ”I could have been a contender!” I like Felix, so when Conor takes over, I don’t know how pleased I am about it either, but as Conor works his way through this minefield of contending entities, I start to think to myself that maybe the wrong brother has been suppressed all these years. One thing that is clear is Conor is not going to let anyone use him as a biological weapon. I am completely sold on the post-apocalyptic vision that P. J. Plant conjured. Like her vision of a revitalized Stockholm: ” Buildings were being reinforced so more floors could be built on top in a patchwork of primitive towers. The community had even begun using rope bridges to travel between the taller buildings due to the congested streets. The woven ropes and beautifully carved boards contrasted with the glass and steel and brick structures. The marina’s piers were crowded with boats that had been cobbled together from the destroyed vessels scattered about like so much scrap, wood and aluminum, acrylic glass and plastic all thrown together in a Frankensteinian naval fleet. This was the type of place I’d have chosen to live in.” I like the way Plant moves the characters around the world from Dublin, to Edinburgh, to Stockholm, and to Alabama and other parts of the United States territories so we can see what the wars have done to different regions. For part of the book, you might want to keep a breather handy. The other thing I am especially impressed with is Plant’s command of dialogue. It is snappy, funny, hardboiled, and certainly gives us a chance to get to know the characters more intimately. So will Conor prevail? Or will he find himself back living in a chemical haze? Will he become a creature used to kill the enemies of his enemies? Can he even trust his virus riddled brother? Can he really trust anyone in a world conducive to self-interest? It is a wild ride that kept me flipping pages long after the clock struck midnight. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 13, 2018
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Sep 15, 2018
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Sep 13, 2018
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1912240394
| 9781912240395
| B079WZGXN8
| 3.46
| 54
| Feb 22, 2018
| Feb 22, 2018
|
liked it
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”A foot was sticking out from behind the sofa, bare and twisted at an angle that suggested the person hadn’t just lain down for a quick kip.” The North ”A foot was sticking out from behind the sofa, bare and twisted at an angle that suggested the person hadn’t just lain down for a quick kip.” The North Edinburgh Health Enforcement Team is not designed to investigate crimes or mysteries, and yet this quirky band of health investigators seem to always find themselves knee deep in police business. Since the virus hit, there has been a shortage of manpower in all government departments, so calling the cops is about as useful as yelling for help as you are falling from a skyscraper. Help is going to arrive too late. So when the HET are faced with criminal activity, they know that the only real hope these victims will have is if they gird their loins and jump into the fray. Oh, and of course, the coppers get pissy when they find out the HET has been “helping” them with cases. One of the aspects that really impresses about the first novel, The Health of Strangers, is the way Lesley Kelly makes me care about her characters. Bernard, Mona, Maitland, and Carole are all very real people, with very real hangups, and frankly, most of them won’t last a day working in a different department, despite the labor shortages. They are high maintenance and get on each other’s nerves, and I can’t help smiling as yet another verbal spat breaks out as they try to work together while pulling in opposite directions. In this short story, that falls between the two novels, we have the team investigating a lost purse with not only the person’s ID but also his green card. ”Since the Virus had arrived, Green Cards and the data they held about a person’s health status, had become an essential part of everyday life.” Misplacing your green card is about 100 times worse than losing your car keys. So the team is concerned to find a green card without an owner. The other half of the team is investigating a roguish art dealer who owes the wrong sorts stacks of cash. He misses his health check in because he is trying to avoid the knuckle draggers who are definitely a direct threat to his HEALTH. The first rule in the HET handbook is don’t get dead. Somehow the team ends up flirting with that possibility every time they step out of the office. This turns out to be a tasty treat laced with dark humor that reignited my desire to join the team in their next outing in Songs by Dead Girls. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 18, 2018
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Jul 18, 2018
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Jul 18, 2018
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Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||
| 031626783X
| 9780316267830
| 031626783X
| 3.26
| 4,876
| May 15, 2020
| Jul 28, 2020
|
really liked it
|
”’And you’re returning to South Africa after your vacation?’ ‘Yes, that’s where we live,’ proud of the fact of it. Away from everyday Nazis and school ”’And you’re returning to South Africa after your vacation?’ ‘Yes, that’s where we live,’ proud of the fact of it. Away from everyday Nazis and school shootings so regular they were practically part of the academic calendar along with prom and football season, away from the slow gutting of democracy, trigger-happy cops, and the terror of raising a black son in America. But how can you live there, people would ask her (and Devon, her American husband, especially), meaning Johannesburg. Isn’t it dangerous? And she wanted to reply, how can you live here.” We’ve all been convinced of the exceptionalism of America since we were wee lads and lasses. Not just us Americans, but Europeans, and all across the world. America, the great beacon of hope. We might need to tweak things a bit. For Cole and her husband, Devon, and their son, Miles, America is an opportunity to make some money through a lucrative temporary job for Devon and also be able to experience America, before returning to South Africa, but then disaster strikes. The MANPOCALYPSE. Well, heck, there is no place better to be in the world than America during a pandemic. Look how well we’ve done with Covid-19…. We might need to tweak things a bit. In a matter of months, men are nearly extinct from an aggressive, contagious form of prostate cancer, including Cole’s husband, Devon. 3.2 billion men dead, leaving about roughly 30 to 50 million men in the world. Most of these men are locked up for their own protection. Every man alive is living the life of the rock god Jim Morrison, with women quite literally willing to tear them apart to have them for themselves. It seems cool in the abstract, but in the practical, it becomes pretty damn dangerous to be one of the few remaining men. ”You can’t imagine how much the world can change in six months. You just can’t.” Well, maybe we can. I think we all had a taste of what it would be like if a high death rate contagion raged across the world. Nothing like this, of course, but I fear that Covid-19 might be just a dress rehearsal for something much worse. Before that happens... We might need to tweak things a bit. This is dire. The world is obviously going to take another huge dip in population the longer it takes to find a vaccine. The Reprohibition Act has made it against the law to reproduce. The fear is that the virus will mutate in some new male child and kill off the rest of the men who have so far proven to be immune. I kept thinking to myself as I was reading this...Can a destabilized government really dictate, whether the females who are fortunate enough to still have a dick available to them, to not get pregnant? Hormones are a powerful thing, and I can only imagine the alarm bells going off in women’s heads, with nature itself driving them nearly insane to reproduce. There is also that very natural desire to want to replace those you’ve lost. Once the collective governments of the world allow “breeding” again, it won’t take that long to rebuild the population. Losing 3.2 billion women would have put the human race in much deeper jeopardy, but I know from growing up on a farm that a herd bull can impregnate 30 cows with ease, and even as many as 50 without a negative impact on the conception rate. A young male human is capable of far eclipsing those numbers. Sperm is suddenly...priceless. This quote from a cult nun, well not a very reverent one, made me chuckle: ”’I think about that now, all that semen wasted. Worth a goddamn fortune now, on the black market.’ Michelle rubbed her belly with both hands, ruefully. ‘I must have swallowed a million dollars’ worth in my time.’” Women are in charge of everything now, and of course, they, without the heavy hand of males around, are going to build a feminist utopia, right? Well, maybe not. Power vacuums by nature have to be filled, and there are stronger women and weaker women. Stronger women start acquiring the same bad characteristics that women didn’t like in men. Cole has a situation where she feels that power. ”The weight of the shotgun, the cold tang of the metal against her palms, the soft give of flesh as she pressed the wooden stock into the woman’s shoulder, pinning her to the ground. She wanted to do more. She wanted to hit her across the face with it. Feel her nose break.” We are, by nature, a violent race of people, and women abhor those violent tendencies in men, as they should, but they may prove to be equally susceptible to them if men are no longer in the equation. I feel that Lauren Beukes did a wonderful job balancing the gains and losses in this book. An unbalanced world is a scary place, no matter who is in charge. A feminist utopia might prove more difficult to achieve than we first imagine. Cole has been one of the few lucky ones to have a son who is immune. The female gestapo of America lock him up and start doing tests on him. The only pathway to a cure is finding out why some men are naturally immune. She realizes that, if Miles is going to have any kind of life, she needs to break him out and somehow leave America and get back to where they belong, in South Africa. If one is going to be oppressed, one would much rather have it done by their own government. Her sister, Billie, her most staunch ally, has become her worst enemy. As Cole and Miles flee across the country, hiding out with anarchists and then a cult of nuns, her sister pursues them relentlessly. Twelve year old Miles has one of the most valuable things in the world sprouting between his legs. Cole is determined to give her son as normal a life as she can in this chaotic world. She is going to do her best to make sure he doesn’t end up a sex object, a reproductive source, or a stand in son for some rich asshole who will pay anything to have a replacement son. Billie realizes that Miles is her only chance to hit the lottery, and her sister is just going to have to get out of the way, one way or another. This chase across the country gives Beukes a great opportunity to show the state of things under the new female regime. I like the bar scene where women are sitting around drinking and watching nostalgia porn...otherwise known as football games, where they can watch men, long dead, clash like titans on the gridiron. There are also bars full of women dressing as men with moustaches, mutton chops, and beards, at least providing the illusion of a man for a male-starved population. This is being marketed as a feminist, noir thriller, which it certainly is, but I hope men are going to read it as well. I found it to be a fascinating, enjoyable read that left me with much to ponder. Unfortunately, the cover doubles down on a female readership, with the pink and light blue motif, but men, gird your loins and march this book up to the counter and buy it. If I hadn’t already had a relationship with Beuke’s books, which have been great, I probably wouldn’t have given this cover a second look. I would feel the same way as I do about 90% of the commercials on TV...I’m not their target audience. I want to reassure readers, there is as much for men in this book as there is for women. Stephen King raved about this book, calling it a ”splendid new thriller”. I couldn’t agree more. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten and an Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/jeffreykeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 30, 2020
|
Sep 06, 2020
|
Jun 08, 2018
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 191098566X
| 9781910985663
| 191098566X
| 3.86
| 120
| Jun 15, 2017
| Jun 15, 2017
|
really liked it
|
”’By our adultery, by our degenerate behaviour, we have turned from the Lord. By our behavior we have brought death to the innocents.’ Speak, for yours ”’By our adultery, by our degenerate behaviour, we have turned from the Lord. By our behavior we have brought death to the innocents.’ Speak, for yourself, she thought.” Pandemics are great recruiting drives for religion and pubs. Women seek solace in the church, and men seek solace in the pubs. 80% of attendees to a church service are women, and 80% of the patrons of a pub are men. Now if some bright young lad would figure out how to merge a church (with plenty of sacramental wine) and a pub (with cheap pints), he’d really be onto something. There have been two waves of a virus that have thinned out the world population considerably. This virus creates a cytokine storm. ”A cytokine storm is an overproduction of immune cells and their activating compounds (cytokines), which, in a flu infection, is often associated with a surge of activated immune cells into the lungs.” Those with the most aggressive immune systems, the very young, are the most vulnerable. Those who survive the virus become immune. Where we pick up this story is after the worst has happened. The virus is still around, but the cases have thinned enough that the hospitals can now keep up with those getting sick and even save most of them. The world never reached the tipping point where the loss of life was steep enough to lose our hold on civilization. It was a dicey thing. A new law enforcement division is formed in Scotland called the Health Enforcement Team (HET). Their job is to track down those individuals who have never had the virus, who miss their required health checkup. HET is a cross between law enforcement and social work. When Mono Whyte transfers from being a cop to HET, she doesn’t have any illusions that it is a promotion, but she thinks it is at least a sideways career move. Until she meets her workmates. Mono created a kerfuffle at her last posting and was assured that what happened was not going to impact her career. They fibbed; well okay, they lied. The ineptness of HET is frustrating for her, but the fact that they really need her is made evident very quickly when they start investigating a missing German national and the recent suicides by a number of women associated with the Church of the Lord Arisen. They also cross paths with an organization called the Children of Camus (the writer), who believe the government is in league with the German pharmaceutical companies, and that there is a cure for the virus with a mixing of two drugs, referred to as Loopy and H. The ineptness and unprofessionalism of her colleagues actually adds some nice layers to the story. Maitland is a sexist pig who uses innuendo to skate just below the line of sexual harassment. Carole is an aromatherapist flower child. Bernard has maybe too much empathy and fears conflict. Mono believes that people just need to comply with the rules, while Bernard believes that people deserve to be told the reasons behind the rules. ”Maybe some us prefer people to comply because they understand why we’re doing something, rather than doing it because they’re scared of us?” In my many years of managing people, I can say that I usually get better results from people with the more information I share with them. Sometimes they even have wonderful suggestions on how to make something better. I became very fond of this gang of misfits as they become caught up in an investigation that is way over their heads. They have been given the power of investigating almost to the level of the regular police force, but there are lines, blurry though they be, of when a situation is no longer an HET concern. Mono takes full advantage of the blurriness. The immunes are well aware of the ability of this virus to mutate and become viral for everyone again. The fact that it moved from chickens to humans shows that it is adaptable. Society has become even more isolated as people have become concerned about the health of strangers. Oddly enough this society resembles what a social media dominated society would look like. We don’t even have a pandemic excuse for spending less time with the people in our community or for keeping our friends and family at arm's length. Edinburgh is one of my most favorite cities in the world. If I have one request for Lesley Kelly, it is to sprinkle in more references to the famous architecture and history of the city. Mentioning the Walter Scott monument on Princes Street, for example, brought back a flood of memories for me. I’m on board for more HET quirkiness and look forward to sharing more adventures with a most unlikely team of almost heroes. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visithttp://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
|
Apr 27, 2018
|
Apr 28, 2018
|
Apr 27, 2018
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0399167498
| 9780399167492
| 0399167498
| 3.54
| 2,345
| Jul 10, 2014
| Jul 10, 2014
|
None
|
Notes are private!
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0
|
not set
|
not set
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Mar 02, 2018
|
Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 0060134216
| 9780060134211
| 0060134216
| 3.93
| 9,402
| May 1974
| May 28, 1974
|
it was amazing
|
”We are a long way from Earth. Our home planet is one I doubt we shall ever see again, but if we are to survive here we must maintain ourselves as a m
”We are a long way from Earth. Our home planet is one I doubt we shall ever see again, but if we are to survive here we must maintain ourselves as a microcosm of Earth. We are in desolation and isolation. All around us is a hostile world that daily threatens our survival. As long as our buildings remain, so long shall man survive in this place. Protection and preservation of our home is paramount.” ---Destain’s Directive [image] There is certainly the ring of Winston Churchill in this directive, but what Churchill understood better than anyone was finding a cadence which allows each sentence to build nicely on the one before it. Churchill wanted to rattle the cage of nationalism, prick their eyes with tears, and bring them to their feet. ”...We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. Still Destain, not bad. You make a good case that the inhabitants of this city you have created are truly alone. Reliant only on one another. They are bonded together by a common goal to reach a mathematically created goal of optimum. Are you confused yet? If you are confused, then the author of this book, Christopher Priest, has you right where he wants you to be. I would like to tell you, fair reader, that you are going to be parachuted into this world with plenty of time to gaze upon the terrain, chat with a pretty bartender about the local scene, and wander the streets with a mystifying smile upon your lips. The problem is... this is no holiday. It is going to be more like being dropped into a swampy pond with your legs tucked up against your chest in true cannonball fashion. The world is a swirling blur just before you feel your puckered ass break the surface of the water. We have a guide, a Helward Mann, a young lad just 650 miles old, who is making his way through guild training. He is made of soft clay. It will be many more miles before he is fired in the kiln and ready to assume his duties as a full guild member. He has been raised in The City, in a creche, on a steady diet of synthetic food, sheltered from the world, completely oblivious of what exists out there beyond the walls of The City. That is about to change. Part of Helward’s guild training is achieving a deeper understanding of the function of The City. He works on the crew which lays the tracks that The City moves on. They lay track, move The City forward, tear up the track, and lay it back down so The City can move again. They are, after all, chasing the optimum, and if they fall too far behind optimum, the world they are escaping will crush them, destroy them. They use Took labor, tribal starving cultures along their route, who need food and will do whatever The City needs to help alleviate, even temporarily, their subsistence existence. They even lend their fertile women to The City. To put it mildly, things are out of balance, and a certain level of desperation is starting to guide the decisions of The City. Morality is set aside in the interest of protecting The City, but the real question that haunts Helward and a growing number of people in The City is, are those decisions protecting The City or protecting the directives? With growing unease, Helward is starting to question everything, including the whole concept of chasing optimum. He meets a young Englishwoman on one of his excursions away from tTe City, and the way she sees things casts even more doubt in his mind. We get to see through her eyes exactly what The City is. ”She had heard the men refer to it as a city, and Helward too, but to her eyes it was not much more than a large misshapen office block. It did not look too safe, constructed mainly of timber. It had the ugliness of functionalism, and yet there was a simplicity to its design which was not altogether unattractive. She was reminded of pictures she had seen of pre-Crash buildings, and although most of those had been steel and reinforced concrete they shared the squareness, the plainness, and lack of exterior decoration.” [image] We accumulate more understanding right with Helward as he uncovers the warped truths, sometimes in the midst of psychedelic apparitions. We start to question along with him what is really going on with The City and with the world that surrounds it. Is this a post-apocalyptic society or something else? Why is the sun squished instead of round? What happens to the world behind them? What happens when they catch optimum? Why? Why? Why? Does anyone even remember the truth? Christopher Priest has a vibrant imagination, and he certainly had me muttering to myself as I was trying to understand the concepts of this inverted world that I willingly allowed myself to be cannonballed into the middle of. I can now safely say that I can navigate The City with some level of acquired street sense. Ahh, yes, and for those travelers that find themselves in similar circumstances, do bring a supply of your own protein bars and a bottle or two of good bourbon. You will thank me later. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 15, 2018
|
Jul 20, 2018
|
Feb 23, 2018
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0062676083
| 9780062676085
| 0062676083
| 3.55
| 1,829
| Feb 13, 2018
| Jan 25, 2018
|
it was amazing
|
”Life is so tenuous on Luna’s desiccated expanse that staying alive is an endeavor practiced with almost religious fervor. No one ever deserts another
”Life is so tenuous on Luna’s desiccated expanse that staying alive is an endeavor practiced with almost religious fervor. No one ever deserts another man on the Moon. Race, creed, religion, flag---none of that crap matters. Dechert would risk his life for any Chinese digger in distress, as long as they were within range. And he knew they would do the same for him. At least until what happened to Cole.” [image] The Moon---”Earth’s naked shadow.” When survival is paramount, we are drawn together in the interest of mutual survival. We forget all the things that divide us. It is only when we have the luxury of existing at a certain level of comfort that we start to figure out ways to separate ourselves. There are plenty of natural resources for everyone on the moon. There are several countries participating in mining the moon, but the two elephants are the Chinese and the Americans; all the nations of the world have a stake in extracting enough Helium-3 to keep the lights on back on Earth. And the Earth is still in recovery from an apocalyptic event. ”Asteroid collisions you can prepare for, carbon emissions you can legislate against, but who expected a subsea methane eruption would plunge us back into the Dark Ages for more than a decade?” As if I don’t have enough things to worry about, now I have to add methane eruption to the list? Caden Dechert is the chief of the U.S. mining operation on the edge of the Sea of Serenity. He is a veteran of wars in the Middle East and is reminded of his tour of duty with every breath he takes. ”The gunpowder smell of moondust filled his nostrils.” Dechert has a good relationship with his counterpart over on the Chinese side of the moon. They have similar military backgrounds and both have no illusions about the simmering politics on Earth that could spill out into the universe, even to the moon. They have enough to worry about keeping some catastrophic event from wiping out their stations, such as solar flares or something as seemingly mundane as moondust crippling their power supply. They don’t have time for murder. But murder is what they got. When that hatch explodes and kills the first surfer dude on the moon, the ramifications go well beyond just the extinguishing of a life. Dechert has dealt with death his entire adult life, but never has he had a death mean so much. ”The dead settle in our mind like cooling embers. After a time they diminish, snuffed out by the immediate, and then a puff of memory rekindles them and for a moment they are hot and near once again.” [image] A boot print is one of the few clues. That explosion that blew that hatch on the moon is the equivalent of the bullet that killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914. The tinder is so dry that it only takes a spark to light a conflagration that could burn up not only all the progress Earth has made recovering from the methane eruption, but could level us back to the Stone Age. Dechert has experienced being in the middle of a war, but he has never been at the flashpoint of the beginning of a war. Was it the Chinese? Doesn’t make sense. Then who was it? Before everyone dies on the moon, maybe we should take a moment to look at the sky.”How to explain the Moon’s thunderous star field to the uninitiated? It would be like describing the yellows and reds of Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows to a blind man.” Maybe we all need to look at the sky more often and clear our minds of the deluge of testosterone driven patriotism. Dechert’s loyalties, never in question before, are wavering as he tries to sift through the evidence and find a solution before there is no turning back. The American marines arrive. The Chinese equivalent of super troopers arrive. Weapons that have never been allowed on the moon are now bristling on every person’s body. Who killed Cold Benson is becoming irrelevant to everyone, except Dechert. How many times does a war start and, within a short amount of time, everyone forgets how it ever started? Why are we fighting? Ask the Hatfields and the McCoys why they hate each other. It is like we are all just waiting for a reason to give in to our most primordial instincts. The smell of fear on the moon is mingling with the acrid stench of gunpowder, like lovers reunited over the expanse of history. [image] The Sea of Serenity is not so serene after murder comes to visit. What I really enjoy about this book is how real it feels. This isn’t some science-fiction universe that exists in some future that is beyond our own scope. This future is tomorrow or next year or certainly within our life spans. President John F. Kennedy asked us to go to the moon; now all someone has to do is ask us to go to the moon and stay. I was very aware of the constant danger of eminent death. One mistake and not only will you kill yourself, but you might kill your whole team. It is a fragile and invigorating way to live. Where David Pedreira really shines is in his descriptions of pulse pounding, moon blasting action. I was so involved in what was happening that I needed my own space suit to monitor my vitals. ”Mayday, mayday, mayday”was a metronome that blasted through the comms in my dreams for several nights after finishing this book. Buckle up, squeeze your cheeks together, pour a pitcher of Tang, and put your cell phone on silent. You won’t have time for Earthly concerns once you land on the moon. I want to thank Harper Voyager for sending me a free copy in exchange for an honest review. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 18, 2018
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Mar 10, 2018
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Feb 18, 2018
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Paperback
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my rating |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| 3.98
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really liked it
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Jan 27, 2021
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Jan 24, 2021
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| 3.63
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really liked it
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Jun 26, 2020
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Jun 24, 2020
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| 3.48
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really liked it
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Jun 12, 2020
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Jun 10, 2020
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| 3.55
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really liked it
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May 23, 2020
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May 21, 2020
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| 3.64
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really liked it
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Apr 04, 2020
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Apr 03, 2020
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| 3.56
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really liked it
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Apr 03, 2020
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Mar 30, 2020
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| 3.60
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it was amazing
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Jan 15, 2020
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Jan 13, 2020
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| 3.49
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really liked it
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Oct 10, 2019
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Oct 07, 2019
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| 3.52
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liked it
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Sep 04, 2019
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Sep 02, 2019
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| 3.60
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really liked it
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Sep 2019
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Aug 31, 2019
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| 4.29
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it was amazing
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Jun 08, 2019
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May 28, 2019
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| 3.81
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really liked it
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Apr 11, 2019
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Apr 09, 2019
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| 4.35
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really liked it
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Feb 08, 2019
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Feb 03, 2019
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| 3.96
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really liked it
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Sep 15, 2018
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Sep 13, 2018
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| 3.46
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liked it
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Jul 18, 2018
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Jul 18, 2018
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| 3.26
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really liked it
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Sep 06, 2020
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Jun 08, 2018
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| 3.86
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really liked it
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Apr 28, 2018
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Apr 27, 2018
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| 3.54
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not set
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Mar 02, 2018
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| 3.93
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it was amazing
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Jul 20, 2018
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Feb 23, 2018
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| 3.55
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it was amazing
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Mar 10, 2018
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Feb 18, 2018
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