What I've Read (sorta): Dead Zero

This was a leftover from the holiday drive from Kentucky. I was going through the iPod and realized I left about 7 hours left on the audiobook. So after closing out the unfortunate Guinness book, I strapped on the chesticles (hey, it's Kelly's term not mine) and got through the rest of Stephen Hunter's continuation of the Bob Lee Swagger saga.

Gotta say, though, I wish I had stopped where I had originally left off. Look, I'm never going to hate on a Bob Lee Swagger novel. That character has been with me longer than most friends I have. But this was one of the weaker outings in the franchise, and I have a sneaking suspicion and I can see where this thread is heading that Hunter started in the final third of the book. These stories have generally lacked crazy plot twists and instead relied on good page-turning action and witty writing. This was not that book.

Instead it was a bunch of rather ridiculous gotcha moments and bizarro set pieces that make no narrative sense of warp the sense of space and time that is rather akin to the stuff you saw in Enemy of the State where Will Smith somehow ran from Georgetown to Dupont Circle in about 11 seconds. Anyway, the point is that leaps of logic were taken and missed terribly.

Hunter has another new novel out, and it's all focused on the secondary character from this novel, so I'm a little worried about what this means for my hero Bob Lee. I'm sure I'll check it out eventually but I'm not sure how excited I am about getting familiar with this new guy who may be a badass but isn't Bob Lee.

What I've Read (sorta): The Affair

I didn't get a chance to read Lee Child's new Jack Reacher novel before the annual trek back to Kentucky, so I figured it'd make a great book on tape to bide the time through the mountains as we made our way home for the holidays. Typically we've ended up listening to books we don't know much about or just things to pass the time, but now we had the opportunity to catch up on one of our favorite fiction authors and kill the time of the long drive all at once.

How could this possibly go wrong?

Well, it yes ruined when you end up with the worst book narrator I've ever heard. This dude, Dick Hill, reads a book like a crusty old man who puts periods after every word he says, which makes comprehending the action nearly impossible. I. Mean. How. Could. You. Understand. What. Is. Happening. If. Every. Word. Such. As. I. Walked. Through. The. Door. And. Turned. And. Closed. It. Silently. In. Order. To. Go. Undetected. Be. A. Way. To. Listen. To. A. Novel. I thought this was something wrong with the audiobook quality or something, but apparently tons of other listeners had the same reaction, all bashing Dick for being a horrible reader. He then took it up a notch when the book got to the sex scenes, which he read in a way that had me convinced he drives a white panel van on weekends. It was creepy and I just had to fast-forward past them. Creepy, dude, creepy.

The book itself isn't bad, since it's a prequel or sorts to the Jack Reacher legend, but having it read by Creepy McCreeperston means I need another Reacher novel out soon so I can burn the sound of Dick Hill from my mind.

What I've Read (sorta): The Devil's Light

Once the Summer of Klosterman ended, I had a chance to catch up on one of the few fiction writers I read regularly. I've written about Richard North Patterson books before (trust me, you can find the reviews on the blog). I had gotten it originally as an audiobook to listen to on the drive to a from New Jersey for my aunt's wedding, but it was way longer than I thought it would be so I held off. Was going to listen to it when I took my long flight to Hawaii next month, but figured why not just get it over with now.

This book didn't do it for me at all. It's premise is pretty simple: Osama bin Laden devises a plan to steal a nuclear weapon and detonate it above Tel Aviv. Spies from the CIA and Mossad try to thwart said plan. Sounds interesting, but it just wasn't, and for a number of reasons. Part is bad luck for Patterson; bin Laden is dead, and that reality just sucks the wind from the book. The plot is still fascinating and eerily plausible it seems (the bomb is stolen from Pakistan, which has the stability and security of a wet paper towel).

Besides the whole bin Laden thing, the book also reads almost exactly like a book I listened to when we drove back to Kentucky for the holidays last year. So reading the same kind of stuff twice in 8 months is a little bland for me. Further, this is a far departure from the novels Patterson got me hooked on in the first place. I got sucked in by all his in-depth courtroom thrillers centered on political topics. Now his recent books have been more military-themed novels that I feel are already done ad nauseum. Everyone seems to had written the "bin Laden nuclear bomb" plot so I just feel bummed that he's treading into well-worn territory and not taking a unique viewpoint.

So I hope he goes back to what I liked about his first 10 or so novels because I'd hate to dismiss him from my reading list. One book doesn't ruin it for me, but I'm actually going to pay more attention this time to the plot instead of just buying it without even needing to read previews.

What I've Read (sorta): Bossypants

Last weekend was my Aunt Honora's wedding. It was a fine affair. Splendid weather, good food, the chance to see my grandmother and other New Jersey family folks, and even the miscall stylings of a belligerent DJ who decided to cater to the 8% of attendees under the age of 30 and treat a noon wedding like an all-night rave. OK, so the DJ was kind of a pain in the ass. But I digress, it was overall a most wonderful time.

The drive to NJ was punctuated by a car ride tradition, the audio book. This time out, we listened to Tina Fey read her autobiography/memoir/life lessons/career guide/all-around funnybook, Bossypants.

We're big Tine Fey supporters here in my household. Her time on SNL doing Weekend Update and a few random skits were the only things I bothered paying attention to during her SNL time. I have always been a huge 30 Rock fan, as evidenced by it's appearance several times in the Friday Funnies. And the wife naturally became a huge fan three years ago during the whole Sarah Palin impersonation bits during the '08 election.

The appeal of Bossypants can be best summed up by the wife. She loves that it's a book about a star female comedian (a small club) and successful women who runs a Hollywood show (another small club). She loves that Fey doesn't want to explain her scar and doesn't feel she has to in order to be accepted and understood. She loves that Fey openly mocks the lookism and sexism of the workplace and Hollywood, and challenges the still-too-often held belief that women can't be funny without men guiding them. There's a lot to Fey, and we enjoyed it all. So much that the wife read the book, then sat cheerfully for 5 hours and listened the book all over again just so she could hear Fey read it herself. I think that makes her a fan. A good read for men and (especially) women, so I recommend checking it out.

What I've Read (sorta): World War Z

As much as I try to deny it, I guess I am part of the zombie-loving society as well. Can't get enough of it. At least True Blood is my only foray into the vampirefest overrunning America (fuck that abstinence-spewing Twilight bullshit).

Several years ago a video game company sent me the Zombie Survival Guide as a perk to alongside one of the zombiefest games it was promoting. Hey, I don't deny myself a free book, so I read it and laughed and enjoyed it. Last year I heard Max Brooks wrote a sequel of sorts called World War Z. I just didn't think it was worth the time so I ignored it. But when we were looking for audiobooks to listen to on the trip back to Kentucky for the holidays, I downloaded it in case we were feeling up for it. Turns out, the book we chose took up the whole damn trip, so when I finished reading Bloody Crimes last week, I thought it was time to chill out for a week and listen to an easy book instead of jumping right back into something else.

World War Z was fun to listen to, and as a book at least it approaches the zombie material from a different perspective. It assumes we've already experienced the war with zombies, and is written as a first-person look back at the proceedings. It's more of a collection of interviews with various people throughout the world: military leaders, survivalists, politicians, economic leaders and so forth.

The book is definitely a harsh look at America isolationism and takes some typical cracks at consumerism and classism. And while the book is probably a bit more detailed, the audiobook comes with some fun actors doing roles like Alan Alda, John Tuturro and Mark Hammill. It's a short audiobook, just around 6 hours, so it gave me entertainment for a week while riding to and from work on the train. And as someone who always has conversations with Kelly about how we're going to survive the apocalypse (zombie-filled or not), it's a funny reminder of what we need to do be prepared.