Bite Me: Win The New Christopher Moore Novel

Posted on April 12, 2010 by AJ

Bite Me by Christopher Moore The good folks at HarperCollins and Wiredset have provided me with a copy of Bite Me, Christopher Moore’s newest novel. I’m a big Christopher Moore fan so I jumped at the chance to snag an early copy.

I’ve read nearly everything Moore’s written and reviewed a few of his latest right here on the Used Books Blog. You can check out reviews for A Dirty Job and You Suck to wet your appetite for more Moore.

Now, here’s where it gets good for you. I also get to give away two other copies of Bite Me to Used Books Blog readers.

Win a Free Copy of Bite Me

Here’s how you can get one. Simply comment on this blog post with:

The title of your favorite Christopher Moore novel
Why it’s your favorite Christopher Moore novel
Your current toothpaste brand and flavor

C’mon folks, this is Christopher Moore it has to be a little off beat.

Comments (aka entries) must be made by April 23, 2010. At that time I’ll review and qualify the comments (toothpaste flavors better be the real deal!) and then randomly select the two winners.

Don’t like the rules? Bite Me! (Too easy, I know.)

Enter today for your chance at a free copy of Bite Me by Christopher Moore. I’m reading mine right now.

The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez

Posted on January 17, 2010 by AJ

The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez is a smart, entertaining science fiction romp that satisfies even though initial brilliance fizzles into mediocrity.

Mack Megaton is a robot or ‘automated citizen’ of Empire City, who has evolved because of a freewill glitch in his programming. Mack’s not like other automated citizens since he was created by a mad scientist of sorts who was hell bent on taking over the world. The government and his psychologist keep a close eye on the nearly indestructible robot as he integrates into society.

The beginning sequences, as we are introduced to Mack, are simply fantastic. This isn’t your typical artificial intelligence type of of fare. It feels like a real look into what a self-aware robot might actually deal with as it evolves.

I dreamed. Not in the same manner of biologicals. My dreams weren’t confusing and symbolic. They were replays, tours of my memory matrix, dissections of every single nuance as my evolutionary program sought to adapt to better functionality.

The exploration of Mack’s personality, how he thinks and how he deals with the world are the best parts of The Automatic Detective. They alone make it worth reading.

Mack hesitantly intervenes in a dispute at his next door neighbors. Soon after, they disappear, he’s attacked by drones and his apartment blows up. Mack feels compelled to find his next door neighbors, particularly April, a purple-eyed child who took a shine to Mack. Of course, Mack wouldn’t mind a bit of revenge too.

This simple plot device puts Mack on a collision course with an assortment of mutants and other robots. At first, the action scenes involving Mack are interesting and fun. Mack calculates odds before smashing things and inventories damage by percentages. It’s a bit like what I think Spock would be like in the midst of ‘roid rage.

The problem is that once the decisive turn in plot is reached, the rest is paint by numbers with more brawn than brains. It’s not bad really, but it pales in comparison to the first half of the book.

It almost felt like two books, the first part an intriguing, intelligent mystery with a truly unique protagonist and the second part a Transformers 2 like sequence of action devoid of real thought. Did Martinez just run out of good material? Or did he get caught up in his own creation, birthing it and then just wanting to watch it run wild? Was Mack his Frankenstein?

I’m being hard on Martinez, but only because the first half of The Automatic Detective made me think I’d found the literary equivalent of a Hope diamond. So pick up The Automatic Detective and get ready to be entertained in a variety of ways.

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

Posted on August 15, 2009 by AJ

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore is a quick, engrossing, macabre and hilarious novel. It is everything that Moore’s next novel, You Suck, is not. A Dirty Job remains original while still drawing on many characters from previous Moore novels. Where You Suck felt like a recycled paint-by-numbers affair, A Dirty Job feels fresh and is brimming with ideas and unique insight.

Moore is a master satirist and combines his satire with blazing creativity and a healthy dose of the absurd. Be forewarned, Moore is not for the easily offended. Nothing is out of bounds and he’ll regularly write the things you might be thinking but would never say.

A Dirty Job follows Charlie Asher, a recent widower with a young baby and a second-hand store to run. If this wasn’t enough, it seems that his wife’s death has changed him – and his daughter Sophie – into agents of … Death. Yes, Charlie is in charge of transferring the souls of the dead to new owners. The ‘soul vessels’ can be anything, from a cane to converse sneakers to breast implants.

Did I mention that The Morrigan – a trio of supernatural ‘sisters’ who take the form of large birds – are after these souls as well?

The battle between The Morrigan and Charlie is what moves the plot along. It’s the action/adventure portion of the novel. Moore does a fantastic job of bringing these creatures (and the Squirrel People) to life in gruesome detail. There’s a clear enthusiasm to these descriptions that makes it easier to read.

Charlie’s self-discovery of what he has become and his trips to retrieve the soul vessels give Moore ample opportunity for his uncensored social commentary. He aims at the natural inclinations of the Beta Male, goth girls, Internet relationships and other Bizarro Seinfeld observations.

Yet, A Dirty Job is more then just a smart action comedy. The main subject matter of death surrounds the novel. Death … is the topic of the novel. So, while you’re chuckling Moore is also telling you about how people come to terms with death. He provides a portrait of what it is like for a family to wait for the impending death of a loved one. There is a hard-edge of pain in the middle of A Dirty Job that Moore seems almost panicked to hide, which is in itself interesting.

Don’t get me wrong, A Dirty Job is not a downer. It’s Christopher Moore for Pete’s sake! So, grab a copy of A Dirty Job and hang on for a roller coaster ride of ‘eww’ inducing action and laugh out loud comedy with a chaser of thoughtful reflection on mortality.

Going To See The Elephant by Rodes Fishburne

Posted on May 2, 2009 by AJ

Going To See The Elephant by Rodes Fishburne Going To See The Elephant by Rodes Fishburne is a pleasant and readable first novel with colorful characters and interesting ideas. However, it lacks depth and a consistent tone that would have made it a truly great book.

Going To See The Elephant follows Slater Brown, a budding writer who has traveled to San Francisco to launch his career. He winds up writing for a long-standing but third-rate newspaper, gaining scoops through a unique and strange method.

Brown becomes a local celebrity, incurring the ire of a colorful and voracious mayor. He also falls in love with a beautiful chess player, who is on a collision course with Milo Magnet a eccentric inventor.

Fishburne does an admirable job in creating interesting characters, from grumpy, gruff, grizzled newspapermen to an eager government entourage. He creates small worlds which resonate with the reader. The newspaper. City Hall. The mad scientist’s lab. Alone, they are actually quite good. Together they begin to lose focus.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to like in Going To See The Elephant. The pacing is spot-on and you can’t help but be carried quickly through the story and enjoy the characters.

Yet, the theme of the book is about self-discovery and being true to your dreams. This subject matter deserves greater attention. It is in these instances where Fishburne seems to tell instead of show the reader how the characters deal with these internal conflicts.

In addition, the tone of the novel is uneven and is not cohesive. Is it supposed to be playful and humorous or is it supposed to be heartfelt and introspective? I’m not saying you can’t have both, but one should be consistent throughout, letting the other be the surprising and infrequent foil.

Science. Politics. Media. Love. There’s a lot packed into Going To See The Elephant and I can’t help but think what might have been. Could Fishburne have held back some of the ideas and used them in a future novel? Perhaps fewer concepts would have made it easier to keep Going To See The Elephant focused? I could easily have read an entire novel about Milo Magnet and his experiments.

So I chalk this up to a writer finding his voice. Going To See The Elephant by Rodes Fishburne is an interesting novel. Flawed but enjoyable.

Woken Furies by Richard Morgan

Posted on March 8, 2009 by AJ

Woken Furies by Richard Morgan mixes hard-edge science fiction with sociology, politics and philosophy as the Takeshi Kovacs saga continues. Though a bit formulaic, Woken Furies is pure Morgan, equal parts slam-bang action and cerebral dissertation.

This is one of those instances where it’s probably best if you’ve read the other books in the series.

Woken Furies hits the ground running in a rich world of Morgan’s making. It’s a world where your essence is written to a ‘stack’ – a microchip of sorts at the base of your skull. Should your body die, your stack can be retrieved and you can be ‘re-sleeved’ in a new body.

If that’s confusing … well, then you should read Altered Carbon and Broken Angels to get your bearings.

Like most Morgan novels the plot is a pursuit. In this case the pursuit seemed to be secondary and was a device for Morgan to explore the impact of the innovations he’s introduced into his world.

How would our relationships change if we were able to re-sleeve and live for centuries or longer? How would you approach the world if you could live in a virtual construct?

These are interesting topics because they actually relate to modern day issues. How are we dealing with our growing life span and the ability to hop-scotch around the globe. How does that effect our current family dynamic? I live 3000 miles away from most of my family. That’s not something that happened much even 100 years ago.

How will ‘life streaming’ on sites like Facebook and FriendFeed evolve? What about those MySpace and Facebook pages that continue long after the user has died. Is virtual sex cheating?

We’re putting more and more of ourselves online so couldn’t the endpoint be something like Morgan’s Renouncers, a religious group who have renounced the flesh, live in a virtual construct and are awaiting Upload.

And then there are the more blatantly obvious parallels Morgan draws with his political and religious themes. He explores revolution, dynamics of economic class and politics, and weaves a type of religious extremism into the heart of the story.

Yes, there’s a lot to think about in Woken Furies.

In between you get high doses of well crafted, bloody fight sequences and raunchy sex scenes. The dichotomy between the action and cerebral are more pronounced in Woken Furies. It feels more forced then in Morgan’s other novels and was distracting at times.

Despite this criticism, I enjoyed Woken Furies. I read it quickly and enjoyed both the sizzle and the steak. I recommend Woken Furies but be warned, Morgan is not for the timid.

Libraries by Candida HÃ¶fer

Posted on December 19, 2008 by AJ

Libraries by Candida HÃ¶fer is essentially porn for literary, photography and architecture buffs.

Here’s an excerpt from publisher Thames & Hudson.

This sumptuous volume contains HÃ¶ferâ€™s famously ascetic images of the British Library in London, the Escorial in Spain, the Whitney Museum and the Pierpoint Library in New York, the BibliothÃ¨que nationale de France in Paris, the Villa Medici in Rome and the Hamburg University Library, among others.

Thanks to the nonist (with assists from Google Reader and FriendFeed) I became aware of this collection and got to preview many of these gorgeous photos there and at artnet. Description would only get me so far, so instead I’ll let you decide with a sampling of her work.

HANDELINGENKAMER-TWEEDE-KAMER-DER-STATEN-GENERAAL-DEN-HAAG

Handelingenkamer Tweede Kamer Der Staten-Generaal Den Haag

TRINITY-COLLEGE-LIBRARY-DUBLIN

The Trinity College Library in Dublin, Ireland

REAL GABINETE PORTUGUES DE LEITURA RIO DE JANEIRO

Real Gabinete Portugues De Leitura Rio De Janeiro

The photos showcase a passion for history and for literature. They are cathedrals built for knowledge. And I can’t think of a better subject to celebrate.

I can picture myself in these libraries, or picture others silently flipping through well thumbed tomes. HÃ¶fer helps you do this by photographing these places sans people. You become the interloper, the one whose shoes are echoing down the hall or chair scraping across the floor.

Conversely, there is a part of me that ruminates on a potential Armageddon when looking at these empty libraries. The world condensed and preserved for someone to stumble into from a blinding (nuclear) winter snow. And of understanding the very small place you have in the universe.

That’s why these photographs work, because they aren’t just buildings. They evoke thought and emotion. I hope they dazzle you and spark your imagination as they have mine.

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

Posted on December 17, 2008 by AJ

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis was a disappointment. Did this actually win a Hugo Award? I can’t see how unless every other novel was written in Pig Latin that year. Okay, that’s harsh. But really, To Say Nothing of the Dog was a rambling, slow, predictable book with one-dimensional characters and little in the way of new thought on time travel.

Perhaps it would be more enjoyable if I’d read Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome, of which Willis leans on heavily in the plot. Or maybe if I liked Jane Austen style etiquette and dialog. Yet, I don’t think either of those are the real culprits. I’m not a huge fan of Jane Eyre but I thoroughly enjoyed The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde.

No. Instead I think To Say Nothing of the Dog is a literary gimmick gone awry.

The story revolves around locating something called the Bishop’s Birdstump in a nearly manic effort to rebuild the Coventry Cathedral. To do so, they send Ned Henry back in time to the 1940s, just before the Cathedral was damaged in a bombing raid.

Soon Ned is pulled off of this dreadful project to help rectify a potential incongruity in the time continuum, caused by bringing a cat (extinct in the future) back from the Victorian era. Predictably, this new mission intersects with finding the Bishop’s Birdstump. At the same time, Ned falls for Verity Kindle, the operative who accidentally saved the cat in the first place.

Yes, it’s contrived. In addition, there’s little to no background or depth to Ned or Verity which leaves the romance absolutely dead on the page. Willis should look to the moving The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger on how to effectively weave romance into time travel.

There is one small theme in To Say Nothing of the Dog that does work and deserves attention. Willis explores the idea that very small things can have large consequences on history. Could indecipherable handwriting have changed the course of history at the battle of Waterloo? While I can’t say that this is a new concept, Willis presents many interesting examples for the reader to ponder.

But that’s not nearly enough to offset the pages and pages of predictable, dull and shallow material. Willis seems to have a good reputation so I may give her another try, but I simply can’t recommend To Say Nothing of the Dog.

The Happy Isles of Oceania by Paul Theroux

Posted on November 26, 2008 by AJ

The Happy Isles of Oceania by Paul Theroux The Happy Isles of Oceania by Paul Theroux is a fascinating synthesis of travel writing and history seen through the eyes of an acerbic narrator. Theroux documents his trip by kayak through the Pacific, from New Zealand and Australia all the way to Hawaii. But it’s the stops in between, in places like the Trobriands, The Solomons, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti and The Cook Islands that really make The Happy Isles of Oceania so special.

Don’t expect a shiny-happy travelogue that makes every place visited seem like a must visit destination where there is no trash, no crime and the sun shines all the time. Nor should you expect the feisty Theroux to think kindly about most of the people he meets on his trip. In fact, it’s usually the opposite.

Instead readers are treated to what I expect are far more accurate views of these destinations, both in terms of the scenery but also the culture and local life. Theroux goes a step further by unearthing the history behind many of these places and it’s these sections that stick with me long after finishing the book.

For instance, Theroux does a splendid job of explaining and analyzing the Jon Frum Movement in Vanuatu.

Was Jon Frum a friendly American pilot who had brought supplies here and shared them around? And perhaps he had said, I am John from America. And then had the war convinced the villagers on Tanna how wealthy America was?

It hardly mattered now. The dogma of the movement seemed to suggest that Jon Frum was a sort of John the Baptist, preceding the savior which was a redeemer in the form of cargo-every nice and useful object imaginable. And the important aspect was that it had come to the island directly, without the help of missionaries or interpreters. No money, no tithing was involved; no Ten Commandments, no Heaven or Hell. No priest, nor any imperialism. It was a Second Coming, but it enabled the villagers to rid themselves of missionaries and live their lives as they had before. It seems to me a wonderfully foxy way of doing exactly as they pleased.

Theroux has done his homework on these anthropological studies. He’s done the required reading. What’s impressive is that he then strolls right into these villages to do his own first hand research. This isn’t always the safest thing to do! First, lets remember that he’s paddling a kayak between most of these destinations. And the natives can be welcoming, indifferent, unsettled or even aggressive.

But that’s the other context to The Happy Isles of Oceania. Theroux is at a crossroads in his life. He’s recently parted ways with his wife of 25 years and is awaiting the results of a cancer test. Theroux runs, or paddles, away. His mindset of impending doom makes him both a bit reckless but also more open than he might have been previously.

Other reviewers have said Theroux found happiness on this trip. I can’t say whether he did or not. He still seems hyper-critical and skeptical of the motives of others but there is a greater sense of peace as he ends his journey.

The Happy Isles of Oceania is also notable because of who Theroux meets on his journey. He never seems to actively seek out these notable personalities, and yet there they are, bumping into each other half way around the world. In that way, there is a pleasing juxtaposition between the foreign nature of the surroundings and the ‘it’s a small world after all’ mantra.

I highly recommend The Happy Isles of Oceania by Paul Theroux for anyone with an interest in travel, history or anthropology. Not only will you enjoy the trip but you’ll learn a thing or two along the way.