The Five Greatest Warriors by Matthew Reilly (1 star)

The Five Greatest Warriors is the even-more-silly sequel to The Six Sacred Stones that ended on a cliffhanger with Jack West Jr falling into an abyss. Despite the clumsy over-the-top cliffhanger, I certainly wasn't rushing out to buy this book, but thought I'd read it to finish off the story. So let the criticism begin (some spoilers ahead).

When Jack and Zoe are watching Pooh Bear's pulse as he breaks into the Israeli prison, isn't it convenient that they are waiting for it to take a sudden dive and the attackers oblige by drugging Pooh Bear? What if they had just decided to beat the shit out of him instead? Lame.

Reilly uses the 'traitor' plot twist far too often, by the end of the book most of Jack's team have turned out to be working for somebody else.

Counting JC as one of the 'Five Greatest Warriors' was ridiculous, and only done so that Reilly could make finding Jesus' tomb one of the tasks to be performed in the quest. Here is the shitty justification:

'Jesus Christ is not commonly called a warrior. He was a man of peace.'
'He carried a sword', Wizard countered, 'and at one famous point in the Gospel of Luke, he urged his followers to go and buy swords.'
'And many of those followers were revolutionaries urging insurrection against Rome,' Julius said.

Weak.

The descriptions of how the rest of the world is getting through the chaos of the dark star appearing are so tokenistic - a couple of paragraphs strewn here and there in-between action:

At the same time, the National Weather Service reported unusual weather patterns all over the world: fierce flooding in Brazil; sandstorms in China; cyclones in the Pacific; even a weeklong rainstorm in the Sahara Desert.

Meteorologists were confounded.
It was as if the world had gone mad.

Wow, what a shitty description of what is supposed to be the end of the frickin world.

At the third vertex there is a lava trap. Come on!

As soon as Jack set foot on the first step of the second tower, lava began oozing out the top of the third one, so that now three separate rivers of lava were pouring down from the peaks of the first three towers, all at different stages in their descents.

So what if someone had triggered this trap sometime in the previous few thousand years? The lava would have cooled, formed rock, and the intricate channel system would be blocked and never work again. What if the lava was a different temperature than the designers expected and didn't flow at all? Of course this is all assuming that building a giant intricate tower city inside a fricking volcano is a good idea. Nevermind the practicalities of how you actually build something that big inside a volcano in the first place, what are the chances the volcano won't erupt or damage the system in any way over the next few thousand years?

Continuing the completely implausible vertex locations, Reilly picks Diego Garcia, a coral atoll with maximum elevation of 6.7m as the perfect spot for yet another giant underground space. We're told that the entrance:

...resembled an open-cut mine, at least seven storeys deep...

I'd like to see someone try to dig a hole like that into a coral atoll; it would be a good way to make a big seawater swimming pool.

Of course the biggest problem is why the designers of the machine made it so ridiculously hard to turn on. And more to the point - if they knew exactly when disaster was going to occur, why not make it turn on automatically? If you went to all the trouble of making a machine to save the world would you really hide the keys to it all over the planet and booby trap their locations such that it is pretty much impossible for anyone to gather them? Sigh.

Given that Reilly wants to go even bigger with his next novel:

I'll have to make sure that it's a huge story idea. To my mind, any new Jack West Jr novel will have to be bigger and bolder than the three I've already written. And if I do decide to write it, I will do so with a plan to creating a story that will count down all the way to a seventh and final novel (The One Something Something).

I think my Reilly journey has ended.

1 star.

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult (3 stars)

Jodi Picoult loves to twist the knife. Your daughter Kate is dying of an aggressive form of cancer. Your other daughter Anna is a donor being harvested for spare parts, and she doesn't want to do it anymore so she is suing you. Your son is an arsonist, which is even more complicated because your husband is the Captain of the fire brigade. Kate stays alive long enough to meet her soul-mate, who then dies suddenly (also of cancer) without a chance for her to say goodbye.

Could it be any more tragic? It's like Picoult tries to think up the most horrendous family situation she can, then writes about it with the goal of making you cry as much as possible.

I also found some of the characters fairly unbelievable. I doubt a teenage Jesse lighting fires for attention would have been smart enough to create chemical accelerants and hide his tracks so effectively. Anna was also unrealistically mature for 13, and able to hold up witty repartee with adults that would be far beyond any real 13-year old. Anna is able to pick that Campbell is lying about why he has his dog:

"You're lying."
Anna croses her arms. "Well, you lied first. You hear perfectly fine."
"And you're a brat." I start to laugh. "You remind me of me."
"Is that supposed to be a good thing?" Anna says, but she's smiling.

And argues like a debating champion or a politician:

"It doesn't work that way," I say. "You started this lawsuit. You wanted to be someone other than the person your family's made you for the past thirteen years. And that means you have to pull back the curtain and show us who she is."
"Half the grown-ups on this planet have no idea who they are, but they get to make decisions for themselves every day," Anna argues

Having said all that, even though it is incredibly sad, I enjoyed most of this book.

Until the ending.

The ending is horrible, and compromises the entire book. Picoult spends 400 pages discussing an incredibly tough moral and ethical dilemma and then throws it away with a trite 'happily ever after' ending where everything works out way too conveniently and Anna doesn't have to make a choice.

I wanted to see what choice Anna was going to make! Would it be possible for her to look beyond the risk to herself and possible health complications in the future for the sake of her sister? How would she weigh a small chance of extra time with Kate against her own health? If she didn't donate the kidney how would she live with that decision for the rest of her life? Would she respect Kate's wishes if Kate asked her not to donate?

3 stars.

Cross Stitch (aka Outlander) by Diana Gabaldon (1 star)

Time travel you say? I'm willing to give it a shot, even though the cover is a suspicious shade of pink with flowery writing...

It turns out the time-travel construct is an un-explained crutch to write a soft-porn novel for middle-aged women who have a thing for big Scottish red-heads in kilts. This 863-page novel is chock full of sex and disturbing sexual violence. It isn't long after Claire arrives in 18th century Scotland that Gabaldon invents a bizarre reason for her to marry Jamie so the sex can kick off:

...the only way I can legally refuse to give ye to Randall is to change ye from an Englishwoman into a Scot...Ye must marry a Scot. Young Jamie.

It annoyed me that Claire slotted perfectly into Scotland in 1743 after being transported from 1946. She effortlessly recalls dates, obscure names and customs from history lessons, and isn't surprised by anything she encounters. She doesn't complain about hygene, clothing, backward customs, women's rights (she takes a beating from her husband), or anything else you might expect to shock a modern woman thrust into life in the wilds of Scotland 200 years earlier. Also, the few people who do know she is from the future show only a mild interest in the future. What the hell? If I seriously believed someone was from the future I would be hammering them with questions.

I also got sick of reading passages like this:

'Aye, I mean to use ye hard, my Sassenach,' he whispered. 'I want to own you, to possess you, body and soul.' I struggled slightly and he pressed me down, hammering me, a solid, inexorable pounding that reached my womb with each stroke. 'I mean to make ye call me "Master", Sassenach'.

Why does Jamie continue to call Claire 'Sassenach'? It is pretty much like calling her 'English', which he continues to do after they are married and declare their love for each other. Weird.

I can't believe how many people on Amazon gave this 5 stars.

1 star.

Magician by Raymond E. Feist (4.5 stars)

This book is always in top 100 lists. I had a vague feeling I had read it before, but I thought I'd take it on anyway. I bought the 10th anniversary "author's preferred edition", in which Feist has taken the unusual step of adding back in all the words he was told to cut by the original editor. Turns out I had read it before, but I barely remembered anything - not because it was boring, I just read it a long time ago.

It is a great story, and the addition of another world (two maps!) does wonders to change what would otherwise have been fairly formulaic fantasy: magic, dwarves, elves, goblins etc. Having said that, there are still some times I thought I was reading Lord of the Rings (mines of Moria anyone?):

There is one mine that passes completely under the mountains, coming out on the other side of the range, only a day's march from the road to Bordon. It will take two days to pass through, and there may be dangers.

I liked that Pug really sucks at being a magician at first, thus avoiding being a Mary Sue like Kvothe, although his name is almost as bad. Similarly I enjoyed Tomas' struggle with the armour that gives him amazing powers but is also dangerous. The explanation of magic by Feist pales in comparison to that in The Name of The Wind.

The idea of two human-like races happening to chance across each other in the vastness of the universe at a similar medieval stage of development is completely implausible, but I'm willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of a good story. I also think that such powerful magicians (and particularly the Warlords' pet magicians) would have come up with better weapons than swords, and have better transport for troops than moving forces by foot.

At 681 tiny-font pages it is definitely epic, but I think Feist mostly gets the tempo right. The beginning is fairly slow, but once the invasion starts it is pretty relentless. Potentially boring sequences such as travelling over the same ground are skipped, although the time jumps are occasionally a bit heavy handed. It is obvious that the book was written to stand alone, and Feist confirms in the foreword that the original editor wasn't keen on a sequel. I think I would have preferred to have more loose ends to motivate reading the next in the series.

4.5 stars

The Hunger Games - Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (3 stars)

After the amazing first Hunger Games book, I was looking forward to this one. Unfortunately it is nowhere near as good.

The book begins by tidying up the aftermath of the Hunger Games: life as a 'victor', the victory tour, and Katniss' re-uniting with Gale. All are given fairly boring treatment, with much of it in narrative summary, and missing the sense of urgency for revolution I was expecting from the ending of the first book. Katniss faffs around and Gale, supposedly the rebel, spends the whole novel working in the coal mines being a good little oppressed peon. It wasn't long before I was thinking the only way this book was going to be any good was if they got back into the arena.

Obviously Collins or her editor thought the same thing, and so we end up with basically the same novel but written worse this time. The new arena is reasonably interesting, but not enough to make it a great book. The ending is not bad, but we could have arrived at the same point if Katniss had decided to throw her lot in with Bonnie and Twill, saving us the mediocre plot re-hash.

Despite all that criticism I still quite enjoyed the book, and I hope the third one is a return to form.

3 stars.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (4.5 stars)

I'm told it's the 'best book ever written' by a friend - better read it then. It is a pretty amazing debut for Rothfuss, I just hope he doesn't leave us hanging for years for the sequel.

The story and characters have some very strong Potter overtones - the whole section of the book at the University where Kvothe, the improverished student, struggles to learn as much as possible despite the interference from his enemies Ambrose (Malfoy) and Master Hemme (Snape), is vintage Rowling.

Kvothe is also a just a tad too awesome for my liking: not only is he a faster learner than everyone else at University and an artificing genius, he is also a musical prodigy, has a photographic memory, is an accomplished actor, is fluent in most languages, and attracts the most beautiful women in the city. The only things that save his character are his arrogance (how could someone like that not be arrogant!), his occasional bad decisions and child-like pettiness, and his complete lack of a clue when it comes to women.

I think Elodin is the coolest character in the book, and I loved it when he gets Kvothe to jump off a roof and watches him splat on the ground.

The explanation of magic (sympathy) is a particularly cool idea, much better than the vague latin bastardisation for spells dreamt up by Rowling.

Not the best book ever written, but pretty good.

4.5 stars.

Generation Kill by Evan Wright (4 stars)

A friend lent me this after I raved about the HBO miniseries of the same name created by the brains trust behind The Wire (my favourite TV show of all time) - Ed Burns and David Simon. The HBO series is brilliant and, like The Wire, struck me as a brilliant warts-and-all exposé.

I usually don't like reading the book after watching 'the movie', because I find myself inserting scenes from the movie in my head instead of using my own imagination. I felt the same in this case, although I think this is one of the very rare situations where the TV show is as good as, or better than, the book. As an aside: Sgt. Rudy Reyes plays himself in the HBO series!

The full title of the book is Generation Kill: Living dangerously on the road to Baghdad with the ultraviolent Marines of Bravo Company. It was written by a Rolling Stone reporter who travelled with the elite of the American Marines: the Recon Marines that were at 'tippity-tip' of the pointy end of the initial invasion of Iraq.

The marines are all complex characters. Many of them are conflicted and disillusioned, some extremely well educated, while others occasionally fit the mold of stupid killing machines that love war. The latter produced some of the most horrible and memorable quotes:

[Trombley:]"I was just thinking one thing when we drove into that ambush," he enthuses. "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. I felt like I was living it when I seen the flames coming out of windows, the blown-up car in the street, guys crawling around shooting at us. It was fucking cool."

Tonight he entertains his fellow troops by pacing the tent, reading letters aloud sent by schoolchildren to boost morale. He opens one from a girl who writes that she is praying for world peace. He throws it down. "Hey, little tyke", Person shouts. "What does this say on my shirt? 'U.S. Marine!' I wasn't born on some hippie-faggot commune. I'm a death-dealing killer. In my free time I do push-ups until my knuckles bleed. Then I sharpen my knife."

"They kill hundreds of people, those pilots. I would have loved to have flown the plane that dropped the bomb on Japan. A couple of dudes killed hundreds of thousands. That fucking rules! Yeah!"

[Person:]"I just read that all these pussy pop stars like Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears were going to make an antiwar song. When I become a pop star, I'm just going to make pro-war songs."

In the TV series, the Marine senior leadership appears totally incompetent, they constantly endanger the lives of First Recon in ways that seem astounding. They frequently send the marines into known ambushes and against suspected tank battalions in open-top un-armoured humvees without air or artillery support. In the book the strategy actually gets explained, and the author has a grudging respect for it:

The rationale makes sense when it's explained to me by [General] Mattis after the invasion: The small force [First Recon] races up back roads ahead of the big force rolling behind on the main road. The enemy orients their troops and weapons on the small force (not realizing it's the small one), and the big force hits them where they're not looking for it. It's a trick that works best when you're going up against an army like Iraq's, which has no air assets and bad communications and will have a tough time figuring out that the small force is just a decoy. I admire the plan when Mattis and others explain it to me. And in a way, I'm glad I didn't know about it in advance, because it would have been scarier to remain with Second Platoon. Perhaps this is why they didn't tell the Marines in the platoon about this plan either.

The most depressing part of the book is reading about the continued tolerated incompetence of key officers that constantly endangers everyone's lives, and results in civilian and Marine casualties. 'Captain America' abusing a prisoner and 'Encino Man' calling in a 'danger-close' artillery strike that would almost certainly have killed the platoon come to mind. Thankfully most of the time the other officers and enlisted men can negate the stupidity and incompetence.

Very interesting book and miniseries.

4 stars.