"The Five Greatest Warriors" - Matthew Reilly

BLURB:
"It Began With Six Stones
Jack West Jr and his loyal team are in desperate disarray: they've been separated, their mission is in tatters, and Jack was last seen plummeting down a fathomless abyss.
IT FINISHES HERE
After surviving his deadly fall, Jack must now race against his many enemies to locate and set in place the remaining pieces of The Machine before the coming Armageddon.
WHO ARE THE FIVE WARRIORS?
As the world teeters on the brink of destruction, he will learn of the Five Warriors, the individuals who throughout history have been most intimately connected to his quest.
OCEANS WILL RISE, CITIES WILL FALL
Scores will be settled, fathers will fight sons, brothers will battle brothers, and Jack and his friends will soon find out exactly what the end of the world looks like..."


REVIEW:
I have to say, I was disappointed with this one. And I feel disappointed that I'm disappointed, since I was really looking forward to reading it, and I felt as though us readers were definitely owed something after the completely unfair cliffhanger ending of The Six Sacred Stones.

But unfortunately, to me this book felt like one long, drawn out, tired, well-used, and VERY predictable formula:
Team of Heroes must place pillars into vertexes to save world.
Team of Heroes are actively being pursued and trying to be stopped in this quest by Various Villains.
Team of Heroes encounter various challenges at each vertex. Team must fight Various Villains. Team must place pillar against all odds.
At some point, Member of Team is captured by Villain. Villain has some unspeakable fate for Member of Team. But never fear! Member of Team is rescued by other Team Heroes. Before the end of the story, the Villain responsible meets some ghastly end, either through the actions of one of the Heroes or just bad karma.
At one point in the story, Pivotal Character dies. Everyone is briefly sad. Lily sobs and cries. Then Team of Heroes grimly continue with Mission To Save The World.
At some point in the story, Key Fight To the Death occurs between two key characters. One dies. The other does not.
At one point in the story, Key Hero Jack West is seen meeting certain death. However he manages to escape this by an Implausible Reason and then Astonishes people by coming "Back From The Dead".
Throughout story, Astonishing Revelations about Historical Stuff and Places make everyone Gasp in Astonishment.
Climax of story involves Saving the World. World is saved. Villains are dead. Team of Heroes (minus a few) celebrate in peace and quiet in Remote Location.
Short Interview with Author at back of book.

OK. Now, formulas are fine, and every book / song / movie / creative work needs to start with some kind of base formula as its foundations. But the book (or whatever 'creative work') only becomes really good when this forumla is extrapolated, built upon, tweaked, changed, and ultimately crafted into something new and unique.

The Five Greatest Warriors, much like songs by Simple Plan, seemed to me to be just one long formula. I became a bit bored, despite all the perilous running around and actionable scenes. I didn't care for the characters and felt nothing when a key character died. This, to me, shows just how much Reilly's writing has changed since embarking on the Jack West Jr series. When characters died in Contest or any of the Shane Schofield series (especially Scarecrow!) or Temple, I felt sad (in some way) that they'd died. (No, I didn't burst into sobs and drench the pages of the books with my hot bitter salty tears. You know how it is when a good character dies.)

I also didn't really like the inclusion of Jesus as one of the major parts of the plot. (I don't feel as though I am giving any crucial spoilers away in saying this, since it's mentioned fairly early on in the book that Jesus Christ is one of the 'five warriors'.) I won't say anything else, and in fact the book doesn't make any great factual claims (it's allllll fiction, folks), but it just seems like a tacky grab for controversy on the author's part. "Ooh, look at me, I'm talking about the history of a major religious figure and making Implications! How controversial and risky of me! FREE SPEECH!"

In short, I really miss Reilly's earlier works and style. Bring back Schofield. Bring back aliens in the library. Just let Jack and his Team of Heroes feel all pleased with themselves for Saving the World and leave them to retire in peace in their Remote Location.


RATING: It was an OK way to spend two afternoons, but a lot of the reading felt curiously like a chore. Disappointing. 3 STARS

"Size 12 Is Not Fat" - Meg Cabot

BLURB:

"HEATHER WELLS ROCKS!
Or, at least, she did. That was before she left the pop-idol life behind after she gained a dress size or two—and lost a boyfriend, a recording contract, and her life savings (when Mom took the money and ran off to Argentina). Now that the glamour and glory days of endless mall appearances are in the past, Heather's perfectly happy with her new size 12 shape (the average for the American woman!) and her new job as an assistant dorm director at one of New York's top colleges. That is, until the dead body of a female student from Heather's residence hall is discovered at the bottom of an elevator shaft. The cops and the college president are ready to chalk the death off as an accident, the result of reckless youthful mischief. But Heather knows teenage girls . . . and girls do not elevator surf. Yet no one wants to listen—not the police, her colleagues, or the P.I. who owns the brownstone where she lives—even when more students start turning up dead in equally ordinary and subtly sinister ways. So Heather makes the decision to take on yet another new career: as spunky girl detective! But her new job comes with few benefits, no cheering crowds, and lots of liabilities, some of them potentially fatal. And nothing ticks off a killer more than a portly ex-pop star who's sticking her nose where it doesn't belong . . . "

REVIEW:

After being a dedicated Meg Cabot fan through my teens, and then being less-than-impressed by her short story in Prom Nights from Hell, I decided this adult chick-lit offering was her last chance to win me back. Her last chance to impress.

Well, I didn't completely hate it - but I definitely didn't love it. In fact, 'Size 12 Is Not Fat' ended up being annoying more than anything else.

The protagonist, Heather, really started to grate after a few chapters. Despite the book's implication that she is, in fact, smarter than she thinks, I didn't buy it. I mean, she's ditzy. She's completely obsessed about her size. She makes an enormous deal about minor occurences ("she looks like a showerer, not a bather". Who gives a damn, honestly?). She's just...ugh. Rather than warming to the stereotypical chick-lit-heroine-with-whom-women-can-identify, I found her incredibly frustrating and just wanted to slap her by the end of the book.

What is it with the size obsession, anyway? I realise the title of the book is a slight giveaway as to what the contents will feature, but I found it unbelievably annoying to be reading about sizing throughout the book. Why does Heather constantly obsess about being size twelve? If she's obsessing about body image, why isn't she obsessing about the fact that she perceives herself to be fat? Why is it all about the numbers? And the constant bleating about "size twelve is the size of the average American woman" definitely started wearing thin (HA! PUN!) after it was repeated the first fifty or so times. OK, Ms Cabot, we get it. You're trying to write a book that deals with body image concerns. But don't you think you overdid it just a bit? And don't you think the end message - girls who aren't stick thin can still prevail - was more than a little trite?

The only thing keeping me reading was the crime/mystery plot, which, once it got going, chugged along quite nicely underneath the thick veneer of shallow chick-lit slathered copiously over the top. Once a mystery makes itself known to me, I feel compelled to find out who did it. It did provide some interesting scenes for our size twelve amateur investigator to get caught up in, and while the end result (and the motive for the crime) proved to be completely ludicrous, I didn't feel entirely cheated. I mean, after all, it is chick lit.

Needless to say, the book did not make me laugh once. Not that I was expecting as much. I don't think I'll be reading Cabot again.

RATING: The crime/mystery plot was good. Everything else was not. 3 STARS

"The Eyre Affair" - Jasper Fforde

BLURB:

"Meet Thursday Next, literary detective without equal, fear or boyfriend.

There is another 1985, where London's criminal gangs have moved into the lucrative literary market, and Thursday Next is on the trail of the new crime wave's Mr Big.

Acheron Hades has been kidnapping characters from works of fiction and holding them to ransom. Jane Eyre is gone. Missing.

Thursday sets out to find a way into the book to repair the damage. But solving crimes against literature isn't easy when you also have to find time to halt the Crimean War, persuade the man you love to marry you, and figure out who really wrote Shakespeare's plays.

Perhaps today just isn't going to be Thursday's day. Join her on a truly breathtaking adventure, and find out for yourself. Fiction will never be the same again..."

REVIEW:

I got tonsillitis while reading this book. I don't think this was actually caused by the book though, so don't worry, you'll probably be able to read it without becoming ill. However sitting up in bed for an entire day with a crazy fever allowed me to get through quite a sizeable chunk of this book in a short amount of time, which turned out to be a good thing.

This is one of the most bizarre books I have ever read, and trying to describe it without sounding completely delirious is quite a challenge. I mean, how would the ordinary person respond to a book description like this:

"Well, it's like a futuristic story...but set in 1985, in Britain...and people have pet dodos and stuff. And there's this big hierarchial law enforcement system that's divided into groups, according to what they deal with, like terrorism and stuff...and the main character in this book is a LiteraTec, meaning she works with any kind of literary crime, like people messing with important literary works etc. Oh, and her name is Thursday Next. They all have weird names in this book. There's another character called Jack Schitt. Anyway, some people can travel in time too, and the big villain of the story is trying to alter the original manuscripts of some important works, so that by altering the originals, all the copies of that work in the rest of the world get affected too...and Thursday Next has to try and stop him...and...yeah. It's kind of strange."

I swear, the author must be either a creative genius or a raving lunatic to have come up with most of the ideas in The Eyre Affair. It's just so 'out-there' and original, and with a deep undercurrent of absurdist whimsical humour throughout (the descriptions of the pet dodos made me smile, in particular). I can see how it's one of those books that would really divide people's opinions - you either love it or hate it. I belong to the former category.

However, there were a couple of things that I didn't like quite so much. First, the title implies that the book is based on (or at least makes a lot of references to) Jane Eyre, which is why I read this straight after reading Jane Eyre. However, references to Bronte's most famous work make up just a small (albeit significant) part of the story, and it doesn't even get to the 'Jane Eyre has been kidnapped' part until the last few chapters, so it doesn't fully live up to the implications its title. Also, there seemed to be a lot of different characters, and for a while I had a bit of trouble remembering who was who and what they did, etc. The weird names didn't help in this matter, occasionally detracting from the flow of the story (eg, you'd meet another weird name, and then you'd be thinking "Huh. 'Filbert Snood'? What kind of a name is FILBERT SNOOD?" for a while, rather than concentrating on the story.)

Or maybe that's because I was feverish.

At least this book provided something interesting to do!

RATING: On the whole, it was a very enjoyable, quirky read - and certainly very unique. However, despite its charm, I don't think I'd feel like reading it again, so I'm giving it a comfortable 3 STARS

"Next" - Michael Crichton

BLURB:

"Is a loved one missing some body parts? Are blondes becoming extinct? Is everyone at your dinner table of the same species? Humans and chimpanzees differ in only 400 genes; is that why a chimp fetus resembles a human being? And should that worry us? There's a new genetic cure for drug addiction--is it worse than the disease?

We live in a time of momentous scientific leaps, a time when it's possible to sell our eggs and sperm online for thousands of dollars and to test our spouses for genetic maladies.
We live in a time when one fifth of all our genes are owned by someone else, and an unsuspecting person and his family can be pursued cross-country because they happen to have certain valuable genes within their chromosomes...
Devilishly clever, Next blends fact and fiction into a breathless tale of a new world where nothing is what it seems and a set of new possibilities can open at every turn.
Next challenges our sense of reality and notions of morality. Balancing the comic and the bizarre with the genuinely frightening and disturbing, Next shatters our assumptions and reveals shocking new choices where we least expect.
The future is closer than you think. "

REVIEW:

This is such an ambitious sort of book I doubt it would have succeeded if it weren't for Michael Crichton's best-selling status and reputation. In fact, my mum (also a fan of Crichton) tried reading it but put it down quite quickly as it "was just too complicated". I have to admit, it was.

This is not the kind of book you read as you're getting ready to fall asleep - it requires concentration. It was even getting to the point where I felt like writing down a list of the main characters and a short description for each, just for reference. Crichton juggles many lead characters at once, with many complex scientific scenarios as well, not to mention the fully fleshed-out personal lives of each character - their career paths, their wealth, their upbringing, their various sex partners, the lot. Their stories are all told 'at once' so to speak - a chapter about Rick, followed by a chapter about Josh, followed by a chapter about Lynn, and it's five chapters before we get back to Rick's story, which has since moved on slightly, and then we're back to Josh again and then a new character with a new situation is introduced and - you see what I mean. (There are even two different primary-school-aged boys called Jamie. Confusion city.)

These characters and their stories all interweave and connect as you move through the book, so the experience is sort of like watching a tapestry being constructed, but only seeing one distinct section being worked on at a time. The issues tackled in this one are also pretty hefty - it's all about genetic researchers and their crazy experiments and the big pharmaceutical companies who just want to make money. Occasionally, some elements of the story became slightly ludicrous - a genetically modified parrot with incredibly high intelligence levels who can perfectly mimic voices and sounds, do arithmetic, and hold coherent conversations sometimes provided comic relief, but other times was simply too ridiculous and the situations seemed contrived.

Because of all the different plotlines being juggled and told at the same time, I felt that there were too many loose ends not tied up at the end of the book. Following all these different storylines proved difficult, but possible - as long as you were concentrating very carefully.

RATING:

Thought-provoking stuff that raises many questions about issues that arise in today's genetic industries, but the sheer amount of different plotlines and characters muddled the message. 3 STARS

"The Andromeda Strain" - Michael Crichton

BLURB:

"Five prominent biophysicists have set up the Wildfire Project, to investigate the frightening possibilities of a biological emergency. They send an urgent warning to the President of the United States, that sterilization procedures for returning space probes may not be adequate to guarantee uncontaminated re-entry to the atmosphere.

Two years later, Project Scoop sends seventeen satellites into the fringes of outer space to 'collect organisms and dust for study'. But the real aim of the mission is kept secret - they have been sent to discover new biological weapons of war.

Then in the middle of the night, one of the probe satellites from Project Scoop crashes onto the tiny town of Piedmont, in northeastern Arizona. Soon after, all but two of the inhabitants are found dead from a strange disease that dried the very blood in their veins and caused death in minutes...The Andromeda Strain.

Time is running out for the scientists...they must discover the biological link between the two survivors and trace what is causing the horrifying virus. For they know it is only a matter of time before it will spread through their country, killing millions, and only they have the knowledge to stop it from doing so..."

REVIEW:

I particularly enjoyed Crichton's "Prey" and "Timeline" - I liked how they managed to combine suspense and science (hence the 'techno-thriller' genre) and how they seemed to read like I was watching a movie. So I mooched this one from Book Mooch and ended up reading it in a day.

From my point of view, it seemed quite different from the Crichton books I'd read previously. Whereas the others interspersed passages of science and technology with action-driven scenes, The Andromeda Strain was very heavy on the science, to the point where the entire book seemed like one long explanation.

However, it was saved from sounding like a textbook by the fascinating sense of mystery that ran throughout the novel right up to the final chapters. The reading experience was almost like a book Agatha Christie may have written if she had a PhD in science. From my perspective, it was also saved by focusing on the area of science I'm most interested in and know comparatively the most about - that is, biology (rather than chemistry or physics). To someone utterly uninterested in the world of science, this would undoubtedly be the most boring book in the universe. However for someone who actually wants to pursue science as a career path, and hence actually understood approximately one-tenth of the science jargon mentioned in the book, the story was fascinating and I couldn't wait to get to the end and have the mystery solved.

The ending was classic Crichton, with an actionable ticking-clock climax and the hero racing to save the day, however the solving of the 'mystery' wasn't entirely satisfying. Still, it was a good read and I'm glad I managed to get hold of it.

RATING:

The science was interesting, the mystery was intriguing, but the lack of action was irritating. 3 STARS

Svalbard - Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard

BLURB:
"Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean north of mainland Europe, about midway between Norway and the North Pole. It consists of a group of islands ranging from 74° to 81° North, and 10° to 35° East. The archipelago is the northernmost part of Norway. Three islands are populated: Spitsbergen, Bear Island and Hopen. The largest settlement is Longyearbyen. The Svalbard Treaty recognises Norwegian sovereignty over Svalbard and the 1925 Svalbard Act makes Svalbard a full part of the Norwegian Kingdom."

REVIEW:
I'd never heard of Svalbard until today! While perusing a world map and looking at various little islands and forgotten countries, I found a place called Svalbard, and as I do whenever I want to find out more about something, I hit Wikipedia.
Who knew that Svalbard has a doomsday seed vault bank to store seeds from as many of the world's crop varieties and their botanical wild relatives as possible? Or that it has a unique road sign warning people about polar bears over all of Svalbard? It sounds mighty chilly, too, with an average summer temperature of 5°C and in winter, −12 °C.

I didn't know all of this, and I'm going to blame the stupid curriculum in place for educating Australian students about history and geography. It seems that Australia is (once again) mimicking America in thinking that most of the stuff outside of Australia and it's immediate neighbours doesn't really matter. In grades 9 and 10, we only study Australian history (a lot of which is usless - 'Australian Life between 1900 and 1920'. Try finding books about that, it's almost impossible!) and Australian geography (which isn't really geography as most people know it - we learn about coastal ecosystems and...I can't even remember what else, but certainly not where in the world stuff is.) I feel so ignorant not knowing basic facts that my parents' generation know - I only found out recently who actually won World War 2 (I had a rough idea though) and for a long time I thought Rome was a country. Despite this, I was runner-up dux of my grade in year 10.

Of course, there's nothing stopping me getting my own education about worldly facts via the Internet. But who could be bothered to do that unless they had a piqued interest in world history and geography? Not me.

I'm not saying every Australian student should learn about Svalbard, though. However it was interesting.

RATING: Wikipedia is, more often than not, biased and inaccurate. But I learnt about Svalbard. 3 STARS

"Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales" - Stephen King

BLURB:

"In his introduction to Everything's Eventual, horror author extraordinaire Stephen King describes how he used a deck of playing cards to select the order in which these 14 tales of the macabre would appear. Judging by the impact of these stories, from the first words of the darkly fascinating "Autopsy Room Four" to the haunting final pages of "Luckey Quarter," one can almost believe King truly is guided by forces from beyond.
His first collection of short stories since the release of Nightmares & Dreamscapes in 1993, Everything's Eventual represents King at his most undiluted. The short story format showcases King's ability to spook readers using the most mundane settings (a yard sale) and comfortable memories (a boyhood fishing excursion). The dark tales collected here are some of King's finest, including an O. Henry Prize winner and "Riding the Bullet," published originally as an e-book and at one time expected by some to be the death knell of the physical publishing world. True to form, each of these stories draws the reader into King's slightly off-center world from the first page, developing characters and atmosphere more fully in the span of 50 pages than many authors can in a full novel.
For most rabid King fans, chief among the tales in this volume will be "The Little Sisters of Eluria," a novella that first appeared in the fantasy collection Legends, set in King's ever-expanding Dark Tower universe. In this story, set prior to the first Dark Tower volume, the reader finds Gunslinger Roland of Gilead wounded and under the care of nurses with very dubious intentions. Also included in this collection are "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French," the story of a woman's personal hell; "1408," in which a writer of haunted tour guides finally encounters the real thing; "Everything's Eventual," the title story, about a boy with a dream job that turns out to be more of a nightmare; and "L.T.'s Theory of Pets," a story of divorce with a bloody surprise ending.
King also includes an introductory essay on the lost art of short fiction and brief explanatory notes that give the reader background on his intentions and inspirations for each story. As with any occasion when King directly addresses his dear Constant Readers, his tone is that of a camp counselor who's almost apologetic for the scare his fireside tales are about to throw into his charges, yet unwilling to soften the blow. And any campers gathered around this author's fire would be wise to heed his warnings, for when King goes bump in the night, it's never just a branch on the window. --Benjamin Reese"

REVIEW:

I know I reviewed one of the short stories from this book previously, but now that I've finished all of them, I can give an 'overall' review for the entire volume.

I like collections of short stories. When you finish reading them, you get the feeling of satisfaction that comes whenever you finish reading a book, but without the sense of depression and wistfulness that also usually comes with it (because the book's over, there's no more left, goodbye). Also, you can easily digest one short story, and then shelve the book for weeks at a time and not have to remember the plot! A good deal, all in all.

This particular collection, however, wasn't as satisfying as others I've read (I can recall a volume of short stories by Roald Dahl that I read once which were excellent, also a book I found lying randomly on a misplaced shelf in the library containing short stories about cats which was also very entertaining...I'll have to track these down again.) This book was inconsistent: three of the stories were fantastic tales that I thoroughly enjoyed; most others were boring or ended with too many questions still up in the air; still others were just crap. It was also very depressing to read, since almost every story that involved a couple or a marriage involved the breakdown or breakup of the relationship. It's as though King thinks that in the real world no marriage can ever last. Cynical.

My favourite story was definitely "The Road Virus Heads North," a suspenseful read about a painting that keeps changing. I also enjoyed the title story, "Everything's Eventual", despite disliking the narrator. "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away" was quite intriguing and interesting in it's own right as well, however, most of the other stories offered much less than those three standouts. My thought upon finishing the book was "For all the hype that goes on about Stephen King, he's good, but nowhere near that good."

RATING:

If I was rating the individual stories, the ratings would vary. However, for the book as a whole, those three stories I've mentioned in the review manage to save it from being a mundane two stars, lifting my rating to 3 STARS.