The Bookworm's Apple

Until one summer afternoon by the sea in 1976, the McKotch family seems on top of the world, despite the growing fractures and fault lines running invisibly beneath of the surface of a quietly dysfunctional New England family. Watching his daughter swim next to her cousin, it becomes apparent to Frank that something is seriously wrong with her. Twelve year old Gwen is far too small for age. She has Turner syndrome, a genetic disorder that would keep her in a child's body all her life. The discovery of her condition triggers the gradual unraveling and self-destruction of the family, setting in motion the plot of the novel "The Condition" by Jennifer Haig.

Matthew Reilly is one of the growing number of self-published authors whose works attracted enough attention to get picked up by a mainstream publisher. His first book, “Contest”, written at 19, originally saw publication in a limited 1000 book run. “Ice Station”, his second book and the first book of his I ever read, put him on the map as a player in the action/adventure genre. “Scarecrow Returns” is the sixth book in the Scarecrow series, which focuses on the adventures of a Marine named Captain Shane Schofield, code named Scarecrow. Shofield, like other Reilly heros, inhabit the mantle left by Doc Savage, The Shadow, and others. Pulp sensibilities are the lifeblood of the books and it is never more apparent than in this particular adventure, a mission to stop a mysterious group of terrorists, the Army of Thieves, from using a secret weapon at an abandoned Russian research facility hidden in the Arctic called Dragon Island. The catch is Schofield and his team, a mismatched group of Marines, scientists, and a little robot named Bertie, have a deadline of five hours to stop the Army of Thieves from using the weapon to destroy the northern hemisphere. A team of French assassins sent by the French government to kill Schofield in retaliation for actions in an earlier book in the series complicates the mission.

In an unexpected development, Honor Harrington had spearheaded a peace mission to Haven resulting in the end to the war. “A Rising Thunder” picks up with the aftermath of the successful peace mission, which couldn't come too soon. Manticore still reals from the devastating attack on their home system that occurred in the previous volume. Mesa and Manpower have started moving against Manticore using the Solarian League as their stalking horse. Manticore finds itself faced with a possible war with Earth, their war infrastructure critically damaged, and the only unlikely ally able to help is the Republic of Haven, their former enemy. Against the backdrop of steadily rising political tension marked by economic warfare and public relations positioning, “A Rising Thunder” is a long, slow prelude that features Manticore, Haven, Mesa, and the Solarian League engaging in a deadly game of maneuvering as each prepares for the inevitable clash of arms, although the tension soon turns hot when the bureaucrats running the League decides to bypass the Assembly and send a putative expedition to Manticore.

Chronologically, “The Rope” stands as the first book in the Anna Pigeon series by Nevada Barr. The novel focuses on Anna as she flees Manhattan in the wake of the sudden death of her husband, Zach, and takes a seasonal job as an assistant in the National Park around Lake Powell, Utah. Anna goes on an impromptu solo hike without adequate preparation or telling anyone where she's going. She stumbles across three men raping a young girl. Next thing she knows, she wakes up naked at the bottom of a solution hole or natural sinkhole with a bruised skull and dislocated shoulder. Fear sets in when she discovers the body of the girl with her in the hole, who is identified by a bracelet as “Kay”.

Doc Savage # 7: The Lost Oasis and the Sargasso Ogre

First published back-to-back in 1933, “The Lost Oasis” and “The Sargasso Ogre” stand as two of the great early Doc Savage pulp novels. Some fans consider “The Sargasso Ogre” to be one of the best, if not the best, Doc Savage adventure. I tend to agree. While both are highly imaginative and inventive, intensely colorful, and full of great action and suspense, “The Sargasso Ogre” sticks in memory and lingers with you. Yes, they are pulp novels, but they are also fun. You get the impression Lester Dent, the man behind the pen name Kenneth Robeson, had a blast writing these tales and it shows.  Even the main characters have that same enthusiasm and enjoyment.

The Name of the Wind (Kingkiller Chronicles, Day 1)

A brilliant and precocious young boy named Kvothe becomes determined to follow the path of magic and music after the murder of his parents by a mythical and mysterious set of supernatural entities called the Chandrian. “The Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss, first in a trilogy, chronicles the boy's youth and first years at the University. Told as a first person narration by Kvothe years later while working as an innkeeper, the tale manages to charm and delight through a combination of excellent prose, vivid characters, consistent world building, and good plotting. The combination even manages to overcome all the parts that leave a “seen this, done that” impression, giving instead the feeling of reading something fresh despite all the many elements that border on cliché or familiarity. That alone makes the book stand out. The result is a literary tour-de-force.

This horror novel from 1981 focuses on Scott Gardiner, a young man obsessed by a role-playing game called “Hobgoblin” based on Irish mythology. Affected by the simultaneous unexpected death of his father and the “death” of his RPG character, Scott retreats into the game, finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish fantasy from reality. The process accelerates when his mother takes a job as curator at an authentic Irish castle imported to America. Strange things begin happening, leading Scott to believe real hobgoblins and other supernatural creatures haunt the castle.

Most people would recognize the movie “The Ninth Gate”, which starred Johnny Depp and featured Roman Polanski in the director's chair, before associating it with the original book, “The Club Dumas”. Readers familiar only with the movie will find a number of important divergences between book and film. The film keeps the opening act of the book but ditches everything else, including the plot line that gives the book its title. Viewed through the prism of the book, the film comes across as lightweight and confusing because it ignores or leaves behind some of the more interesting material, scenes, and character connections. By the same token, critics and readers alike seem to have trouble with “The Club Dumas” due to its complex inter-textual nature, weaving books and the love of books through several separate and distinct strands that come together only in the end without ever quite connecting. The two most prominent strands seems to puzzle readers because of how they contrast: the hiring of Lucas Corso by Varo Borja to recover a rare book called “The Book of the Nine Doors” which supposedly allows the reader to summon the devil, and the acquisition by Corso of the original manuscript for a chapter from “The Three Musketeers”. Each strand drives the story but it's not always clear how or why and many readers (and critics!) seem to prefer the first strand to the second, considering the Dumas strand unnecessary and distracting when in fact it may be essential to the plot. Stir in some lengthy – if fascinating to a bibliophile – meta discussions about books, authors, and great novels (which presumes more than a nodding acquaintance of Dumas, Melville, and Sabatini), garnish with a dash of the supernatural, and the result is a real love or hate it affair for many readers.

For my money, volume three is the point in the series where Girl Genius gathers full steam and blasts off.  This volume, and the next three, are among the highlights of the series so far.  This is the volume that turned me into a fan, impressing me on several levels.

Synopsis (spoilers)

The volume opens where the last one ended, with Agatha holding the talking white cat, who introduces himself as Krosp, the King of Cats. In the next scene, the Baron has Othar strapped to a table, about to perform a procedure. In the dialogue, the Baron mentions his wife, an important plot point late in the series. After several interruptions, Bangladesh DuPree, everyone's favorite maniacal psychopath, arrives with information about a mysterious apparition appearing in midair, which looks just like the blue window from the first volume, only featuring Agatha, Gil, and von Zinzer. This window, assumed by many fans to be a time window, remains an unsolved mystery as of the current volume.  Sometimes the Foglios set something up and wait several volumes or more before paying it off, often to good effect.