Derek
A very interesting peek at the life of young (13 years old) Jack Reacher.Reacher admits to a military-base bully that he's probably a psychopath, and he's probably right — but as [a:Elliott Leyton 129962 Elliott Leyton http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-e89fc14c32a41c0eb4298dfafe929b65.png], author of [b:Hunting Humans: The Rise of the Modern Multiple Murderer 1072369 Hunting Humans The Rise of the Modern Multiple Murderer Elliott Leyton http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347703286s/1072369.jpg 2102131], tells us, the majority of psychopaths aren't Hannibal Lecter. As with any psychological diagnosis, there must be a range of psychopathy, from those who are merely empathically challenged to those who have no empathy at all. Young Jack Reacher exhibits many of the signs of psychopathy, but he does care for his family. Can he empathize with them? Perhaps not, but he fakes it well.Another Canadian Elliott, Elliott Barker, says of The Partial Psychopath: “For about half a century, we have known one unfailing recipe for creating psychopaths – move a child through a dozen foster homes in the first three years.” I wonder if it even requires foster families: could moving a child as frequently between military bases, even with a loving but emotionally stunted mother, have some of the same effect.This story shows that, even at 13, Reacher was dividing the world into Us & Them, and consequences to “Them” were never important, while he would protect “Us” (his family) at all costs. For the rest of his life, the attitude clearly never changes, though his definition of family does.
First things, first: If you belong to any of the Abrahamic religions, this book is seriously heretical. Please, demand that it be banned: there's nothing quite like a good book banning to drive up interest in a book!
I was pointed to this book by one of my GoodReads friends, who was admittedly trying to drum up interest in his friend's book, but it was well worth the time.
Set in the context of the eternal war between God and Satan, this is a humorous (though not outright comedic) romp through the seven (well, now only four, but that's another story) levels of Hell. Along the way, we learn that not all Angels are good, not all Demons are evil, Lucifer may be really bad-ass - but so is God when she has to be.
The astute reader will no doubt figure out who our hero Joe is, long before Joe does himself, but Joe is deep in denial. It takes the impending apocalypse to start him questioning his role in Creation, the purposes of Angels, Demons, and even neighbors.
Biblical purists will be annoyed at an Archangel's use of the colloquial “Revelations” to refer to what they like to call The Book of Revelation, but, hey, they won't be reading this book anyway!
I always considered myself a biblically knowledgeable person, but I had to resort to Wikipedia to check some of Marie Browne's mythologic references, and I've got to say she knows her stuff.
Impressed. Some twenty volumes into the Witch World Series, I was getting pretty annoyed with the “sameness” of it all. Hero (or more likely Heroine) is driven by forces beyond his or her understanding to save the world from Evil.
In this story, we actually feel that the characters mostly accomplish their feats through their own abilities, without being pushed by mysterious forces outside their (and our) experience.
And of course, along the way, they learn a great about themselves; True Love is revealed; and everybody lives happily ever after ... until the next volume...
For the first time in this re-reading of the Witch World novels, I'm disappointed.
As noted in the last review, there's an awful lot of “geas”, men & women unable to do anything but what is fated. In this story, we come to a really annoying denoument when Norton, apparently completely misunderstanding the point of the three-part Goddess, allows the devotee of the Maid to be forced (despite protestations that it's only happening by her own will) to give herself to the hero. Gag me!
Finally finished. It's not very long - some 40 short pages - but when you can only read it in your browser (or at least, when I can...) it's too easy to ignore it. I've managed to keep a tab open in my browser for a whole month.
What can I say: not Atwood's best work. Funny (how on earth Wattpad managed to class this as “horror” is completely beyond me), and occasionally poignant, but on the whole, boring and pointless.
My wife pointed me to Casteel's website a few months back, so when a friend of a friend (I think) posted a review here, and I discovered there was a book, I just had to get it (reasonably priced too!)
It's not very long, but her reaction (and mine, when she let me look at it) was priceless. Even if you think you know dogs, you have never seen pictures like this until you've seen Casteel!
I understand that there's so little crime in Sweden that a mystery writer has to look to redder fields, but the whole Latvian plot is so incredibly unbelievable! Why on Earth would Wallander agree to help a bunch of people who repeatedly refuse to tell him what's going on? How could he ever trust them.
I'll stick to Brannagh's Wallander, thanks.
A tiny little novella that explores the boundaries between man & machine, being & not-being. What makes a human? Along the way, a robot introduces us to the memes behind myths, from the Sumerian creation to Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel & Gretel & Snow White (and even “Old Macdonald had a Farm”).
“Love is the Turing test”, says Valente - but is it? Through the whole story, Elefsis the house/robot, makes it clear that he isn't human, doesn't have feelings, and only mimics others - and yet, you're left with the unmistakable impression that, yes, he's human.
A little different from the usual Sandford: this is no mystery - we know whodunnit from page one.
And I was disappointed that Virgil was not once referred to as “That fuckin' Flowers”, which is the way he is usually introduced.
Still, Sandford's characters are, as always, well drawn and funny, and there's nothing quite like spending a few short hours ripping through another episode in the lives of Virgil, Davenport and their colleagues.
NORTH, EAST, SOUTH, WEST...
The offspring of Simon Tregarth, half earthling, half witch-brood, realized that they alone could perceive the four directions - for everyone else, there was no East!
It was a blank in the mind, a blank in legend and history.
And when new menaces threatened, the Tregarths realized that in that mental barrier there lay the key to all their world... somewhere to the unknown eastward must lie the sorcery that had secretly molded their destinies!
Gotta love Deon Meyer. I hate the way so many fictional cops are such broken characters - particularly alcoholic - but somehow Bennie Griessel is completely believable and lovable. Perhaps it's because he's an alcoholic but NOT a drinker. He's reformed and trying to do right, and while he does try to explain WHY he became a drunk he doesn't try to excuse his drinking.
Benny suffers from a lack of self esteem, but he doesn't let it stop him from doing his job. In this story, Benny's splitting his time between his job and trying to keep his new girlfriend sober. Alexa is a mirror to Benny's own problems. Benny can't understand why someone as talented as Alexa would be plagued by the demon of self-doubt, but of course he's equally talented in his own field, and has the same feelings of inadequacy.
In the end Benny solves his crime, but not fast enough to suit him. People are hurt, people die, and Benny even gets credited for what he thinks is other people's success, but the fact is, they wouldn't have succeeded without him.
Now, I really like Alan Dean Foster. Sure, he's the undisputed king of movie novelizations ([b:Star Wars: A New Hope 599090 Star Wars A New Hope (Star Wars, #4) George Lucas http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1349016127s/599090.jpg 123227], [b:Star Trek 6344943 Star Trek Alan Dean Foster http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348936238s/6344943.jpg 6531205], [b:Alien 35125 Alien Alan Dean Foster http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1332019229s/35125.jpg 35062]) but when he writes his own novels, they range from delightfully entertaining (Pip & Flinx) to very good ([b:Midworld 171487 Midworld Alan Dean Foster http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328056838s/171487.jpg 924590]). So I was looking forward to this.I should have known it was too good to be true when I read the blurb: “This gripping adventure reveals a place where criminals are punished through genetic engineering and bodily manipulation—which poses profound questions about what it means to be human.“Wow, I'm currently rereading [b:Perdido Street Station 68494 Perdido Street Station (New Crobuzon, #1) China Miéville http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327891688s/68494.jpg 3221410] by [a:China Miéville 33918 China Miéville http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1243988363p2/33918.jpg] where they do exactly that. It would be interesting to see their different takes on the issue. It still would be, but I don't think it's an unreasonable spoiler to tell you that if criminals are ever punished that way in Foster's books, it isn't in this first volume of the Tipping Point series. In this book, the genetic engineering and bodily manipulation (“melding”) is all voluntary.But in another, very telling, way, there's a surface similarity to Miéville. Miéville plays with words. He delights in using words he's almost certain you'll never have read or heard before, and when you look up a word in your best dictionary you'll see that if it has four possible meanings, he's used it in a way to make the best use of all four. In this book, Foster also delights in using words I'm certain you've never read — because they don't exist! At the very beginning, two young thugs murder a man for his artificial hand. But they don't just cut it off his dead arm, oh no! They “ampuscate” it. Never mind that, as far as I can tell, ampuscate is only a word in Romanian, Foster proceeds never again to mention the artificial hand without calling it the “ampuscated [hand/appendage/organ]”. So, the writing was bad, the plot pitiful, the characters barely one-dimensional and he's no China Miéville. Sorry, Alan, you may have just caught me at the wrong time, but I won't be reading volume two.