For Memorial Day weekend, I went to WisCon 34, the worlds leading feminist science fiction convention. I’ll write more about that later. But for travel to and from Madison, Wisconsin, I needed something light to read. Something that would be complicated enough to be interesting, yet not so complicated that I couldn’t interrupt my reading lots while running from airport gate to airport gate. When looking through my ebook library, I realized this would be perfect. I love a good police procedural.

The serial killer’s modus operandi is to duct tape women to their beds, surgically remove their uteruses while they are still awake and unanesthetized, wait a day, then slit their throats. It’s very brutal, and if you have trigger issues about male on female violence or gory mutilation, do not go near this book. Thomas Moore is the detective on the case, widowed 6 months and grieving, but known as the unflappable uncorruptible cop. Jane Rizzoli is the up and coming, uber-competent homicide detective with a well deserved chip on her shoulder over how she’s been treated in the police department. Catherine Cordell is the E.R. surgeon who treats some of the victims, and also the one who got away from a serial killer with the same m.o. in another city.

The killer is really after Catherine Cordell. Why is a whole nother story that isn’t revealed until late in the book. He taunts her with messages written in magic marker on victim’s bodies. He allowed another victim to live so that he can kill her under Cordell’s nose in E.R. And he knows details of the original killer, who is quite provably dead.

For the most part, I really enjoyed the book. It’s paced well. The police work seemed more tedious and realistic than exciting, which I like. The tension is built around the stalking behavior, with a few moments of he’s calling you from inside your house!

One thing that I ambivalent about was the budding relationship between grieving Thomas Moore and shell-shocked Catherine Cordell. While Cordell has lots and lots of good qualities, Moore seemed most attracted to her when she lost her shit and became vulnerable. I’m sure that happens in real life, but it sure seems like a bad idea to begin a relationship by having to be the emotional support immediately. The two partners don’t come in as equals. I’m not too critical of this because Gerritsen had no-nonsense Rizzoli become critical of this beginning as well. The author wasn’t portraying it as an ideal way to begin. Still, I kept wanting to scream at those two characters, Are you idiots??!

And with that, I find that I don’t really have much more to say about the book. It’s well written but well within standard crime fiction tropes. Definitely fun and readable and I’ll look for more Gerritsen.

Title: The Surgeon
Author: Tess Gerritsen
Cover creator: Carl Galian (designer)
Series: Rizzoli/Isles; 1
Imprint / publisher: Ballantine Books / Random House
Format: PDF download
Length: 350 p.
Publication date: 2008
ISBN-13: 978-0-345-44784-5

I used Flashforward as a palate-cleanser. A quick and easy read that wouldn’t be too hard to digest. Characters take a back seat to the plot and the big ideas. There’s some flaws, and it touches some hot-button issues of mine. However, like watching a Michael Bay movie, I didn’t expect too much so in the places it didn’t pull through, I didn’t care so much.

Deap in the heart of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, physicists are about the conduct the experiment which should create a Higgs boson, a previously mythical quark (I think it’s a quark…). But at precisely the moment the experiment should run, everyone blacks out for 2 minutes and 21 seconds. More accurately, they experience a vision of themselves about 21 years in the future. But then it turns out it’s not just the people at CERN, but everyone in the world. Meanwhile, the cars they are driving and the planes they are landing don’t have anyone doing those things anymore, and they crash. Lots and lots of mayhem.

That’s the setup. The rest of the book looks at basically two things: philosophically, what’s your response if free will doesn’t exist? What appears to be free will is an illusion. The choices you make tomorrow are fixed. In 10 years, you will be a barista as Starbucks. You will make that decision. You have made that decision. It is ummutable. What do you decide to do now? (Keeping in mind that that decision is already fixed.) It doesn’t matter what you do, because you will have already done it. On the other hand, you still have to experience that choice, and it appears to you in real time as if it’s a choice.

The plot basically revolves around who is responsible for all the catastrophes that occurred while everyone experienced their visions. Can CERN be blamed despite not knowing and having no way of knowing and indeed, if the future is pre-determined, being unable to make a different choice? Would you blame them? One physicist on the experiment has no vision, but other people’s visions say he is killed several days prior to time of everyone’s visions. So now he has a solve his own murder before he’s murdered kind of problem.

That’s the Robert J. Sawyer version of Michael Bay’s explosions. That’s the stuff that is fun and cool and all explodey.

The bad stuff. Really flat characters. Who breaks off a we need to talk discussion with their significant other to argue physics with them instead? All of these characters are one dimensional.

The book also fails the Bechdel Test. Sawyer has multiple smart driven women in his cast of characters, so a reader may think they are more than window dressing. But no. Then they do all their relating to the men, rather than the physics or each other. Two women never have a conversation together in the book. They get to talk some physics with their significant others, but not each other. And every single female character ends up in bed with a man, while generally the men get to be around for stuff besides relationships.

If you’re the type of person who can watch Michael Bay movies without noticing that the plots make no sense, then you’ll be fine here. Basically fun entertainment, but I couldn’t bring myself to really enjoy it.

A few other blogged reviews:

• Aurillia
• Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review
• Soliloquy in Blue
• S.R. Jarrett
• Wendy Palmer
• My Friend Amy

Title: Flashforward
Author: Robert J. Sawyer
Imprint / publisher: Tor / Macmillan
Format: Paperback
Length: 319 p.
Publication date: 2009 (originally 1999)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-2413-9
Subject: Higgs bosons — Fiction
Subject: Time travel — Fiction
LC classification: PR9199.3.S2533 F58 1999

Three young revolutionaries buck the establishment — in an exciting story that closely parallels where it’s at today …

So sayeth the cover of this amazing television tie-in novel based on the popular (canceled after one 15 episode season) Screen Gems — ABC-TV series. ABC thought it would be a good idea to write something that would interest the radicalized 1960s youth (in 1970), but they couldn’t write something set in the 1960s. Too soon and all that. So they set it during the revolutionary war, with a small group of young patriots fighting the good fight against the British. Undercover. Not only do they work against the enemy British, they must contend with the collaborationist older generation of colonists.

The Hedgerow Incident isn’t (so far as I know) based on any particular episode. The flamboyant son of the town mayor Jeremy Larkin, freed black blacksmith Isak Poole, and chubby pharmacist Henry Abington travel to a nearby town where the British are storing supply barrels with a very small contingent of British troops guarding them. Their mission, find out what’s in the barrels and if they are important destroy them.

The important conflict isn’t between the rebels and the British. It’s between the young rebels and the establishment types in the town of Hedgerow. They don’t want any trouble with the British. If they help, the British will retaliate. So even though they sympathize with the patriots, they want them to go away.

Moral of the story is all well and good, but the writing sucks. Big time. You mean General Lafayette can’t spare any men to secure a major gunpowder (ooops, spoiled that) depot even when his siege of the British in another location depends on it? He’s going to let three not very bright 20 somethings who have no plan wing it? So rather than burn the town (first ringing the church bells so no one dies) and being sure, these guys decide to persuade the townspeople to help? Seems like a little bit of wishful thinking on the part of the producers. If only our own radicals would just sit down and talk with the older generation everything would be all fine!

Mostly, I read the book because I suspected it wouldn’t be very good and I could rip on it in good conscience. Sometimes I just need to be contrary and mean.

By the way, that’s a young Louis Gossett, Jr. as Isak Poole on the cover.

Title: The Hedgerow Incident
Author: William Johnston
Series: The Young Rebels; 1
Imprint / publisher: Ace / Charter Communications
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 157 p.
Publication date: 1970

Halfway through Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy I had no idea what was going on. I was confused. Too many characters. Too much jargon. And very obtuse writing style that doesn’t explain what the characters are actually doing. Stuff like dialogue that would imply a character at Brixton (city or building I don’t know) wasn’t happy about it but no explanation why Brixton is bad.

It’s pretty rare that a book that starts off so poorly for me turns out to be a good book. I can’t think of another case off the top of my head. But it happened. Right around page 190 things started to change. Fewer characters. Less dependence on subtle rivalries between Brixton and Sarratt etc.

There’s a mole in the Circus which I take is part of the British intelligence services. Or perhaps the entire service. I don’t know. Anyway, the mole is pretty high up. A botched spy job in Czechoslovakia forced out the director and most of the high ranking personnel. The mole is one of the four newly in charge people. So word gets to the government minister whose portfolio includes intelligence that there’s a mole, and he goes to former spy George Smiley (forced out because of the botched job) to root out the mole. Since the mole is effectively running things, Smiley can’t actually do anything from within to find him.

A lot of reviews I saw online warned that this book doesn’t have a lot of action. I wasn’t too worried about that, and it really isn’t an issue. Smiley does all his work by research (that part is pretty inscrutable) and interviewing people. Every interview is fraught with the danger that Smiley’s quest for the mole will be discovered. The turncoat could turn the tables, or disappear. Psychologically, that was pretty good.

If only I understood the first half.

One other blogged review:

• Nick’s Café Canadien

Title: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Author: John le Carré (David John Moore Cornwell)
Series: George Smiley
Imprint / publisher: Bantam Books
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 369 p.
Publication date: July 1975 (originally April 1974)
Subject: Smiley, George (Fictitious character) — Fiction
Subject: Intelligence service — Great Britain — Fiction
LC classification: PR6062.E33

I’m not sure exactly when I first read Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time. Even though I purchased this paperback copy in 1999, I’m pretty sure I didn’t re-read it when I bought it or after, until today. Very quickly, it all came back. But it didn’t hold up as well as I thought it would.

As the story opens, Meg Murry is a misfit child teased by classmates, teachers, and even her principal about her missing father. Everyone assumes the reason he’s disappeared is that he’s taken up with another woman. But for a couple of years Meg and her family haven’t given up hope. Then Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which appear in the neighborhood, taking over the local haunted house, and promising Meg and her precocious little brother Charles Wallace that soon they will all attempt to rescue their father.

What held up really well was the coolness of the places the children get to visit, as well as the method of transport. And the world of Camazotz is still one of the creepiest places in children’s literature. (I won’t spoil why, but you’ll see when you get there.) The explanation of folding space as well as a two-dimensional world is fun. I’m pretty sure it was my first introduction to Einstein’s theories about space, though I’m not sure how it works in the story fits with the actual theory.

What didn’t hold up was some of the plotting. The three Mrs. make the children wait before going after their father, and there was never an explanation as to why. Neither was there ever an explanation as to why they could only help the children so far. It was cheap drama building on this go-around. The other thing that didn’t hold up was the moral of the story. Individuality goes with love goes with good. Conformity goes with hate and pain which goes with evil. Love can defeat evil because evil doesn’t know love. It’s all about as two-dimensional as you can get.

With this reading I still think the positives outweigh the negatives. I think it still might hold up even better for teen readers who might not have read more nuanced moral tales. For this well-read adult it did lose a bit of its luster.

Title: A wrinkle in time
Author: Madeleine L’Engle
Cover creator: Cliff Nielsen
Series: Time quintet; 1
Imprint / publisher: Laurel Leaf / Dell / Random House
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 198 p.
Publication date: 1997
ISBN-10: 0-440-99805-0
Subject: Science fiction — Juvenile fiction
Subject: Space and time — fiction

Though written for the young reader, I think Le Guin‘s Earthsea stories work well as adult novels and reveal some of the major flaws in the high fantasy books to which it is sometimes compared.

This is the coming of age story of Ged, who will become the Archmage of Earthsea someday. Earthsea is an island and sea world. Thousands of islands make up the land. Though travel by boat between islands is quick, few make the journey in the wooden galleys. Ged is born Sparrowhawk on Gont, famous for it’s wizards. But he is born a goatherd. He learns a charm or two from the village witch, including some minor weather-working. When men from Kargad attack Gont, Sparrowhawk saves the village by enveloping it with fog, whereupon the villagers pick off the invaders. This brings him the attention of the island’s wizard, Ogion, to which he soon becomes an apprentice.

The fun begins because of Ged’s impatience and pride. Goaded into several boastful acts, he releases a shadow creature from the land of the dead. Fearful of what would happen to Earthsea should this shadow possess him, Ged begins a quest to right the wrong. At first the shadow hunts him and he runs and hides. Eventually though, Ogion counsels him to become the hunter. On doing so, the shadow turns and runs. It feeds on his fear. Ged chases it to the ends of Earthsea to confront it. He defeats it with its true name (how all magic on Earthsea really works, a true name gives one power of something). The shadow’s true name is Ged, his own. It is part of him and he becomes whole.

The language and descriptions aren’t overly flowery. The story features people who aren’t kings and princes. I also like that, while it’s swords and sorcery fantasy, it doesn’t resemble too heavily King Arthur-style stories. The morals, while clear, aren’t laid on too thick. One other thing as well: the main characters are black, red, and other colors. The only white people in the novels are the Kargish invaders. I kind of like the fact that the only non-civilized people in the book are white. They aren’t exactly uncivilized, but the small piece they have in this book shows them to be ruthless and somewhat bloodthirsty.

And at less than 200 pages, what does anyone have to lose?

Title: A wizard of Earthsea
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Cover artist, illustrator: Ruth Robbins
Series: Earthsea ; 1
Imprint / publisher: Bantam Books
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 183 p.
Publication date:
ISBN-10: 0-553-23461-7
Subject: Magic — Fiction
Subject: Fantasy
Subject: Wizards — Fiction
LC classification: PZ7.L5215 Wi

During my days in the recovery movement I ran into a lot of people like Stuart Smalley, the ostensible author of Al Franken’s semi-parody of that same movement. Stuart Smalley is an indecisive spineless man with no sense of self-esteem. Supposedly a book of daily affirmations, it’s more a diary. And over the course of the year’s worth of entries, Stuart gets better and more in control of his life. Which is why I label it a semi-parody. My experience with these kinds of folks is that they never become decisive, confident people through repeating contradictory daily affirmations to themselves. In the end, it’s less a parody and more a caricature.

So while I don’t like the underlying message that the book gives about how to recover it is funny! So read it for that. Everything from Stuart’s story of his dad trying to take a family picture but getting Stuart hit by a car at the moment of the picture to his friend Julia’s numerous breakups with the same man (and a couple with other men) to meeting his ex on a plane (the ex is a flight attendant) are all funny. Especially if you have spent much time with people like Stuart Smalley. You aren’t laughing with him. You are laughing at him.

Title: I’m good enough, i’m smart enough and doggone it, people like me!: daily affirmations with Stuart Smalley
Author: Al Franken
Imprint / publisher: Dell / Bantam Doubleday Dell
Format: Paperback
Length: 352 p.
Publication date: November 1992
ISBN-10: 0-440-50470-8