Summer 2008 reading

A bit late on this, I know, but I'm about to start posting some more detailed reading notes from summer 2009, so I thought I'd clear some of this really old stuff out of the "to be posted" pile.

Here goes:

Clancy, Tom. The sum of all fears. New York: Putnam, 1991. 798pp.

Last summer I read A Clear and Present Danger and it was starting to show some of the signs for Clancy's patented literary bloat. This summer, it's The Sum of all Fears and the bloat has pretty well set in. Overall, it's a solid novel, telling the story of Jack Ryan's involvement in some pretty exciting standard Clancy thriller elements like terrorists, submarine tactics, lost nukes, scheming politicians and incompetent and naive liberals. Mostly pretty good stuff, exciting and involving. However, at nearly 800 pages, the book is easily 200 pages too long. Whole sub-plots could have been removed with no difference to the story. The big, explosive climactic event happens around page 600 with 200 pages to go but should have happened at page 200 with 400 to go.


Turtledove, Harry. End of the beginning. New York: Roc, 2006. 519pp.

Last summer's cottage reading included the first part of this two part series, Days of Infamy. Like with Tom Clancy, summer reading always seems to include a Harry Turtledove novel for me. They're quick and easy to read, light but very involving. The large cast of characters and multiple viewpoints make for quick and lively reading. This one is no different.

To quickly set the stage, Japan invaded Pearl Harbor in December 1941 rather than just attacking the American base there. Days of Infamy told the story of the invasion and initial stages of the occupation. End of the Beginning picks up where Days of Infamy leaves off, following the same diverse cast of characters, both American and Japanese, over the next couple of years, until the US bounces back and re-invades.

A bit slow-starting, I did ultimately enjoy the novel. It does a good job of showing the brutality of the Japanese Imperial forces in WWII, something that's certainly not as well known as Nazi brutality. POW camps and comfort women brothels are among the aspects that are well portrayed. If Turtledove's narrative seems somewhat boilerplate, well, that's the nature of what he does. He churns them out pretty quickly, all using the same basic plan. Knowing what to expect, he doesn't disappoint. On the other hand, I do often wish he would be a bit more ambitious.


Now for some super-capsule reviews:


Clapton, Eric. Eric Clapton: The autobiography. New York: Broadway, 2008. 344pp.

Entertaining, frank and surprisingly humble autobiography of guitar hero Eric Clapton. I enjoyed this one a lot, as would anyone interested in guitar players or the classic rock period.


Smith, Scott. The ruins.New York: Vintage, 2007. 509pp.

Good and creepy, a high quality horror novel with a great ending.


Hill, Joe. Heart-shaped box. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. 354pp.

Very good first novel by Stephen King's son. A quick read with some good characters.


Hassel, Sven. Comrades of war. London: Cassel, 2004. 362pp.

War is hell. Dirty, messy, ugly, violent, not for the faint-hearted, not Hollywood at all, this is a provocative read from a controversial author. Supposedly based on his real experiences in WWII, Hassel stretches credibility quite a bit, but much of it rings true.


Latimer, Jonathan. Soloman's Vineyard. London: Xanadu Blue Murder, 1990. 160pp.

A good period hardboiled noir novel. Snappy dialogue, dangerous dames, perverse plotline, at least for the 1940s when it was written. It's all there.


Slaughter, Karen. Triptych. New York: Dell, 2007. 480 pp.

Yikes. This is one violent and intense thriller. A solid cast of characters, tons of action, good suspense, lots of twists and turns. I look forward to sequels -- and must more Slaughterific summer reading. Yes, the aptly named Karen Slaughter is the perfect summer thriller reading.

Turtledove, Harry. Days of infamy. New York: Penguin Roc, 2005. 520pp.

A pretty typical Turtledove alternate history novel, nothing more, nothing less. Interesting premise, large cast of viewpoint characters on both sides, lots of plot threads to make room for a bunch of sequels, a fair amount of padding in the text itself in the form of endless repetitions. And most of all, not much plot for a lot of pages.

This one is set in the Pacific theatre of WWII, with Japan invading and occupying Pearl Harbor in December 1941 instead of just mounting a surprise attack. The occupation that Turtledove presents seems suitably brutal, mostly in sync with what we know about the Japanese military during the war. Since Turtledove always has some characters conflicted by their situation in his alternate histories, this one is no different. This time it's the substantial population of Hawaiian Japanese, with the older generations tending to favour their homeland and younger siding with the USA. Of course, the Yankee characters are generally fairly arrogant and self-assured about their innate superiority and it's nice to see them taken down a peg by the superiority of the Japanese forces, leading me to at times root for the Japanese (if only temporarily, the occupation is truly brutal). I imagine that we'll see the American forces get the upper hand in later volumes.

Novik, Naomi. Thone of jade. New York: Del Rey, 2006. 432pp.

This is the second in Naomi Novik's Temeraire series of novels, the first being His majesty's dragon. The series is an alternate history fantasy set during the Napoleonic wars, the different being that the various warring factions have dragons that they use more or less like flying warships, complete with rigging, crews and naval jargon and naval tactics.

The first got terrific reviews and was one of the serious buzz books in 2006 and I'll admit to being fairly positive myself. Throne of jade was a different story altogether. It got altogether mixed reviews most saying it was pretty boring compared to the first. I'm more or less in agreement with those sentiments though perhaps not as strongly as many.

The basic plot is that the Chinese government was the dragon, Temeraire, back from th e British, who captured him as an egg from a French ship.The Brits, and in particular his British captain, Will Laurence, disagree and want to keep him. A complication is that the government would seem willing to give the dragon up to secure the Chinese cooperation against the French. So, Laurence, Temeraire, a Chinese delegation and some British government officials set off on a boat for China to see what deal can be struck. Around page 100. And arrive around page 300. Two hundred pages on a boat. This is what everyone complains about with the novel, that those 200 pages are filled with, well, filler. And they are. The voyage should have been compressed into 50-75 pages and the wheeling and dealing in China made the true focus of the novel. I agree. The last 100 or so pages were great, very tense, very exciting, full of intrigue and drama. Everything the voyage was not.

So, not a great book, but not so bad either. There were a few good battles and crises on the slow boat to China to keep me somewhat interested but I do definitely hopw that the third book is much more focused and keeps it's eye on the dragon.

McDougall, Sophia. Romanitas. London: Orion, 2006. 607pp.

This is a perfect example of a novel where the execution doesn't live up to the idea. Oh, the book isn't terrible. It's just not anywhere near as good as it could (should?) have been. The premise is quite interesting: what if the Roman Empire didn't decline and fall and survived into the present day, with institutions such as the emperor and slavery intact? The plot built around this setting is also interesting: what if the presumptive heir to the throne favours abolishing slavery and is assassinated, making it look like an accident? What will happen when the new heir, that person's son, also has an attempt on his life and flees with a bunch of escaped slaves to a secret escaped slave hidaway, from which to plan a return to Rome and rescue by the emperor? Lots of potential here, but sadly the novel never really takes off. Too much shuffling around without much actually happening; at 575 pages of story, the book is at least 100 pages too long.

In any case, this is a first novel, and McDougall does show promise. I'll very likely end up giving the second volume a chance one of these days.

Novik, Naomi. His majesty's dragon. New York: Del Rey, 2006. 353pp.

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik is the first book of a new series, one of the real buzz books of the last several months, with great reviews and lots of hype. The setting for the series is the Napoleonic wars, but with a difference. There are dragons. Big ones. And both sides use them as sort of a cross between fighter planes and sailing ships, with an odd array of battle tactics to boot.

This novel is the story of Will Laurence, British ship captain, who captures a dragon egg from a French sailing vessel. The egg hatches before they can get to shore and give it to the authorities and the dragon latches on to Will as his combination mommy and trainer. Kinda weird, but in a good way. Dragons in this universe are highly intelligent and articulate. This novel mostly sets up the rest of the series, with a lot of time spent on the care and training of the dragon, Temeraire, paying particular attention to the close relationship between Temeraire and Will.

There are a few good battle scenes at the end, a little unrealistic in their construction. For example, they often use their dragons (which have crews of a dozen or more "sailors" strapped to their complex riggings) to come up beside and actually attempt to board other dragons. Just try to imagine it and you'll see how unlikely it seems -- couldn't the dragons just fly away when the other one got close?

Anyways, enough quibbling. This is a good, solid first novel. I look forward to the sequels. The one worrying thing is that Novik has apparently signed up for at least 5 more books and I often get worried about quality in long series.