The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Stieg Larsson:

Stieg Larsson was a radical journalist who began his career working for the Kommunistiska Arbetareförbundet or Communist Workers League, in Sweden. He later became interested in the growth of neo-Nazi groups in Sweden and founded the Swedish Expo Foundation and it's magazine, Expo, which sought to expose them. Larsson received death threats from various members of these groups and became very secretive about his movements. He was also a leading science fiction fan and edited of several fanzines.

Larsson died suddenly of a heart attack in 2004. Naturally, rumors abound that he was really murdered by neo-Nazis. He had written three crime novels, for his own amusement, and had just contacted a publisher about them before he died. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the first book in the series.

The girl for whom the book is named (in English, the Swedish title translates as "Men Who Hate Women") is Lisbeth Salander, a 25 year old high school dropout who dresses in black leather, rides a motorcycle and has several tattoos, including a dragon, and piercings. She is a computer hacker. Salander is hired as a research assistant by a journalist that has a remarkably similar resume to Larsson's own, Mikael Blomqvist, who is researching the disappearance of a 16 year old girl forty some years ago. Blomkvist is in the pay of a Swedish industrialist, much to his own chagrin.

You will not be surprised to find that Nazis, old school ones from the 1930s and 40s, are part of the story and, considering the Swedish title, misanthropes who abuse women. There are also big corporations that do bad things but also some surprisingly sympathetic characters who are corporate big shots. I am going to be good and not spoil the plot for you, though.

Despite the fact that Larsson lays it on a bit too thick for me sometimes, I am going to run right out a get a copy of The Girl Who Played with Fire, the second book in the series. I guess that you could interpret this as a positive review.

P.S. I heard that someone made a movie of this story. I haven't seen it.

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keywords: fiction, thriller, Sweden, Stieg Larsson

Shades of Grey

Jasper Fforde

Shades of Grey is a novel about an imaginary future in which people have developed a very strange sort of color blindness. The society is structured on the basis of a caste system which is graded by each individuals ability to see a specific color. Some are reds, yellows and blues others are greens, purples and oranges. The degree to which one can see ones color, or combination of colors in the case of the non-primaries, determines one's place in the social order. The greys, who can see no color at all are at the bottom of the heap.

The purpose for all this, and the cause of this strange color blindness is revealed in dribs and drabs throughout the book. I found it somewhat frustrating at first because Fforde did not seem to be in any hurry to fill in the details of the strange science fiction world he had created, leaving me, the reader, in a kind of limbo. Fforde seemed to be violating one of my tenants of good science fiction: Make your fictional universe internally consistent and understandable to the reader. Of course nobody pays any attention to me anyway.

In the end, the world of Shades of Grey is shown to be very consistent and clearly understandable. It takes most of the book to do that because the consistent structure of Fforde's world turns out to be the major driver of it's plot. The book is written like a mystery novel, but one in which figuring out the significance of the strange sci-fi premise is the mystery to be solved. Fforde's protagonist, Eddie Russet, only begins to realize that this is his task, along with the reader, near the end of the novel.

It is also written in such a way as to lend itself to being the first installment of a series. I hope Jasper Fforde knows this. Perhaps there will be people who are hopelessly unable to spell in the second book of the series.




keywords: fiction, science fiction, crime fiction

Conspirata

Robert Harris

Comspirata is the second book in a trilogy on the life of the famous Roman orator, Cicero. The first volume, Imperium, was a kind of 75BC John Grisham courtroom drama. Conspirata is more of a Tom Clancy thriller. Cicero has just begun his year as Roman Consul when the book begins, when he discovers a vast right wing conspiracy, led by prominent members of the Roman Senate, who are planning to murder him and destroy the Roman republic, in order to despoil it for their own gain. Julius Caesar is the shadowy puppet master behind this conspiracy, planning to pick up the pieces and rule the world.

Harris weaves real historical events and people through his story of Cicero's manoeuvrings to save the republic from these enemies within. The cynical manipulation of public opinion through which the conspirators try to overthrow Cicero and destroy the republic is an object lesson for our own republic. In our own time there are a number of issues over which people attempt to appeal to emotion, distort the truth and gain power over us. I leave it to you to decide which issues and what people.

Cicero's only weapons against them are words. He has made his reputation as an orator , and he uses his skills, logic and the truth to, temporarily, overcome his enemies. His downfall in the end is due to his own pride and weakness, which causes him to compromise his principles. The book ends as Cicero is leaving Rome, to go into exile, imposed on him through the worst sort of demagoguery, by then newly elected Tribune, Clodius.

There will be a third volume in the Cicero series, once again written in the voice of Tiro, Cicero's slave and secretary. I am anxiously awaiting it.

Pompeii and Imperium

Two books by Robert Harris

Robert Harris is an English gentleman, which, of course means that he is fascinated with ancient Rome. In preparation for reading his newest book Conspirata I checked out his first two Roman novels, Pompeii and Imperium. Harris has also written an alternate history novel, Fatherland, some thrillers and some books of real, non fiction, history.
Pompeii, not surprisingly, has to do with the eruption of Vesuvius and the destruction of the city of Pompeii. Harris peoples his book with both fictional and historical characters. His protagonist, Marcus Attilius Primus is a hydraulic engineer, or an "Aquarius" as he is titled. He has an adventure suitable for Indiana Jones in the process of repairing the Aqua Augusta, the aqueduct which waters Pompeii, Neapolis and other towns in the area. In the process he uncovers corruption in the local government, not to mention a murder, learns that Vesuvius is about to erupt,and finds a love interest in the daughter of the ex-slave who serves as the villain. Pliny the Elder who was Naval commander in the area at the time figures prominently in the book. His nephew, Pliny the Younger makes a cameo appearance, as a callow youth and the Emperor Vespasian plays a part off stage.

Imperium is the first volume in a proposed trilogy on the life of Cicero. (The new book Conspirata is the second) Imperium is a John Grisham like courtroom drama, featuring Cicero as the up and coming young lawyer who beats the more experienced and wily older man in an important case. It is also a historical novel that attempts to document the early career of this important Roman statesman. The story is narrated by Cicero's slave and secretary, Tiro, a real person, who is believed to have actually written a biography of the great man, which has been lost. Other real people, including Julius Caesar, and the famous generals Pompey and Crassus play roles in this novel.

I found subtle references to the controversy over climate change in Pompeii and even more subtle comments of the invasion of Iraq in Imperium. Harris uses the Roman Empire as a mirror to hold up against contemporary society. He does it in a way that the reader doesn't have to notice if one does not want to. For the record, Pliny the Elder is a climate change skeptic.

Serpent Gate

A Kevin Kearney Novel
Michael McGarrity

Michael McGarrity was recommended to me on a "what are you reading" thread on the FDP. His Kevin Kearney series of crime novels are set in New Mexico. Beyond sharing a state, they bear no resemblance to Tony Hillerman. Kevin Kearny is a reluctantly violent action hero. The death toll in Serpents Gate is Shakespearean in scope.

Years ago, when I was planning a visit to New Mexico, someone introduced me to Tony Hillerman's novels. Reading them colored my expectations of the visit. Other than the violence, Kearny's New Mexico more accurately reflects my actual experience. His Santa Fe is full of tourist traps, art galleries and corrupt politicians. His small towns have empty store fronts and cheap cafes. Kearny did not visit the Navajo reservation in this story, and neither did I.

Serpent Gate involves the theft of art from the office of the Governor of New Mexico, a Mexican drug lord a homeless schizophrenic and a large animal veterinarian. It was interesting to see Santa Fe and the small town of Mountainair (which I didn't visit) through McGarrity's eyes. The story wasn't bad either.

The reader has a semi omniscient point of view so there is no mystery involved. I guess that makes this a "police procedural" novel, although no police would ever proceed the way McGarrity's protagonist did, not if they wanted to stay out of jail themselves, possibly one in Mexico, but I digress.

The Year of the Flood

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood's new novel is set in the same imaginary space as Oryx and Crake but told from the point of view of a minor character in the first book and of a senior member of the religious group "Gods Gardeners," mentioned only in passing in the first book. The Year of the Flood gives a rounder, fuller view of the imaginary but plausible future that Atwood has created for us. Having read Oryx and Crake first, it was easier for me to follow, although I think it would be a less confusing read, even without knowing the basic premise from the start.

Atwood has extrapolated on climate change, genetic engineering, privatization of government functions and corporate irresponsibility and immunity, all trends we can see today, to create the distopian future of The Year of the Flood. Her two narrators are Ren, the former girlfriend of Jimmy, aka Snowman from Oryx and Crake and Toby, a senior member of God's Gardeners. Gods Gardeners are an eco-religious communal group, growing there own food in a rooftop garden on top of one of the buildings they occupy in the middle of the urban chaos of a "plebe," the word Atwood uses to describe a city outside of the walled and gated communities where the wealthy corporate executives live, under the protection of CorpSeCorps, the Corporate Security Corps, which has become the privatized police, army, courts and prison administration of Atwood's unnamed future nation.

 In the future world Atwood has created, large corporations, many of them in the business of bio-engineering, run everything. These corporations are answerable to no one. They create and spread new diseases in order to sell the cures they have made for them. They build new creatures, combining the genetic materials of different species. Many technologies of energy efficiency are used, but were unsuccessful in reversing the trend of global warming. Solar provides the electricity for many building which are off the grid, biomass is rendered to make a petroleum substitute. Organized crime is rampant in the plebelands and regularly uses these rendering devices to dispose of bodies, or just takes their saleable organs and leaves them in a vacant lot.

Atwood goes to some length fleshing out God's Gardeners, their theology and rituals, including the words to  hymns, which end each chapter. There is a CD of these songs available through Atwood's website. One amusing aspect is their saints days. Like Roman Catholicism, Gods Gardeners structure their calendar around a list of saints. Francis of Assisi is one, but most are people like Rachel Carson, Al Gore and Jacques Cousteau.  Euell Gibbons gets a whole week.

Through the stories told by Ren and Toby, Atwood fills in the missing parts of Oryx and Crake. We learn that there is a connection between God's Gardeners and MaddAdam, the online game/eco-terrorist group and that Glenn/Crake, who formed MaddAdam and created the plague, known to the Gardeners as the Waterless Flood, was inspired by the Gardener's doomsday prophecy to create the plague and the genetically altered post-humans that he believes should inherit the Earth from us.

The end of The Year of the Flood coincides with the end of Oryx and Crake, leaving Toby, Ren, Ren's friend Amanda a couple of sociopathic criminals and a colony of blue bellied post-humans to fend for themselves.  How will society evolve from here? Is Atwood so enamored of this particular distopia that she would write a trilogy? Perhaps she means to leave it up to the reader's imagination. It would be nice to know what happens next in the lives of the well crafted characters left stranded on the beach at the end, but I think that the speculative propositions presented in the two books have been played out. Going further, to see whether traditional humans or the new blue-bellies will inherit the Earth, or perhaps the pigoons, would be a venture too far into science fiction for Margaret Atwood's taste.

Book Review Blog Carnival the 33rd Edition

Due to a series of unfortunate events, not attributable to Lemony Snicket, I am posting the 33rd edition of the Book Review Blog Carnival here, on my own book review blog - a day late and a dollar short. While you are here you might want to click on the little MP3 player icon over in the sidebar and listen to the new recording I made of Jimmy Durante's song which I named this blog after. Please visit and leave comments on some of the many blogs that have submitted book reviews to this carnival.

Without further ado, here is the 33rd Book Review Blog Carnival.

fiction

Jim Murdoch at The Truth About Lies, has written a review of The Invisible City by Emili Rosales. Jim says "The narrator receives an old manuscript about an ambitious project dreamt up by King Charles III. The manuscript contains hints about a lost masterpiece by the Venetian painter Tiepolo, and the site of the Invisible City is where he used to play as a child. The Invisible City is a gripping historical mystery and a compelling examination of the forces of power and love."

KerrieS reviewed  Executive Lunch by Maria E. Schneider at MYSTERIES in PARADISE. "This is the first time I have reviewed a book you can only buy as an e-book. crime fiction, with a larger than life heroine Sedona O'Hala, offered the chance to try an executive lifestyle in return for catching some thieves."

KerrieS also reviewed If the Dead Rise Not by Philip Kerr posted at MYSTERIES in PARADISE. "Crime fiction set in Berlin in 1934, in a Nazi Germany hoping to host the Olympics in 1936."

Stephen Shaw of Craving Books has reviewed The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood."The Year of the Flood" is fine literary speculative fiction." I can't read his review because I'm in the middle of reading the book - one of my silly rules.

Stephen Shaw compares In a Perfect World by Laura Kasischke, to The Year of the Flood which he calls "Romantic and haunted."

A.F. Heart writes about Knockout by Catherine Coulter   at Mysteries and My Musings. "13th in the FBI Thriller series opens with FBI Agent Dillon Savich as a customer in a bank when it gets robbed. It is a gripping read from the first sentence with two plot lines."

A.F. Heart also reviewed Sand Sharks by Margaret Maron. "#15 in Deborah Knott Mysteries. While at a legal conference, Judge Knott finds the body of a fellow judge and investigates."

Nymeth reviewed In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, at things mean a lot."In the Time of Butterflies is a fictionalized account of the lives of the Mirabal sisters. In the 1950's, the sisters opposed the regime of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, and as a result three of the four were murdered."

Surbhi Bhatia reviewed A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce at The Viewspaper.

Surbhi Bhatia reviewed A Case of Exploding Mangoes also at The Viewspaper .

Siddharth Garud, at Indian Eagle's Diary, presents 2 States by Chetan Bhagat.

emancave reviewed The Law of Nines by Terry Goodkind at e-ManCave.com.

Sarah at SmallWorld Reads reviews The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver posted. It's in my to be read pile. Guess I'll skip this one, too.

children's books

Jeanne of Necromancy Never Pays, host of our last carnival, reviewed The Box of Delights "This is a book for all ages, particularly good for reading out loud on dark December evenings."

non fiction

Serena presents New Rules for Mortgages at Taylor-Brown Real Estate Talks.

Sparky Bates read Predictably Irrational - by Dan Ariely and reviewed it at Accidental Reads.

Rick Sincere brings us some holiday cheer with Christmas Carols: The Odd and the New at Rick Sincere News and Thoughts, saying, "A review of "The Daily Telegraph Book of Carols," by Ian Bradley"

BWL found a great sounding title: How to Smell a Rat by Ken Fisher. Read about it at Christian Personal Finance.

jim presents Frequent Flyer Master at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.

Effortless Abundance reviewed The Soul Truth  bu Shiela and Marcus Gillette at Effortless Abundance.

Susan Gaissert wrote about The Accidental American on her blog at My Political Side. "This is an excellent book about immigration from the viewpoint of immigrants who exemplify the American dream and American values."


Jim Murdoch must be talking about me in his review of Whiffling in Liff or what to buy a constipated logophile for Xmas  at The Truth About Lies." Everyone who loves words loves books about all the weird and wonderful words there are out there that hardly ever get used: foreign expressions, colloquial terms, slang words, gobbledygook, technobabble, queer place names … and every year new books come out that collect these under various guises. A discussion of the work of Adam Jacot de Boinod with nods to Douglas Adams and the plethora of bathroom readers out there."

Terry Holliday reviewed Walking in This World - Starting Over by Julia Cameron at My Creativity Blog. Terry says "Terry Holliday begins a series of articles based on Julia Cameron's book titled, "Walking in This World". Terry challenges readers to work through all 12 weeks with her." Is she related to Bob Dole?

Rhiana read  Saving Ben by Dan E. Burns, PhD. Find out who Ben is at A Frugal Life - Just the Two of Us.

biography

Clark Bjorke, that's me, read Pops byTerry Teachout. My review is at I'll Never Forget the Day I Read a Book!. I have included some YouTube clips of Satch, so plan to spend some time with it.

Rod reviewed Andre Agassi's autobiography, Open on his blog Tennis Chump."Andre Agassi's book chronicles his journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance in transforming himself from the kid who hates tennis to one of the game's greatest ambassadors - well worth a read."

Rain Gods

James Lee Burke

I am attracted to James Lee Burke's characters despite their dark nature. Each of his protagonists is a veteran, scarred by his experience in war. Private detective Dave Robicheaux and lawyer Billy Bob Holland in Vietnam. In Rain Gods Burke introduces Sheriff Hackberry Holland a 74 year old former prisoner of war in Korea and young Pete Flores, severely burned in an attack on his tank in Baghdad. Once again Burke's characters are be alcoholics, either active drinkers or recovering ones in AA, although God only knows what their higher power might be.

Burke holds his fictional universe together, bringing some New Orleans organized crime figures to Texas, displaced by hurricane Katrina. He adds a truly evil caricature of a Russian mobster, a motley collection of colorful freelance killers for hire, a young beautiful folksinger and a female deputy who rubs up against the elderly sheriff to add another complication to his life. The freelancers, working for the Russian, in the first of a series of odd and comical mistakes, hire the unemployed Pete Flores, for $300, to drive a truck containing a group of smuggled illegal aliens, who are hiding balloons of uncut heroin in their stomachs. When the balloons begin to leak and cause a medical emergency, inconvenience and loss of the Russian's product, solve their problem by shooting all of them and burying them, using a bulldozer, in a remote corner of Hack Hollands county - for storage. Pete, after getting drunk on bootleg mescal, makes an anonymous call to the Sheriff, setting the course of the bloody adventure.

Burke attempted to create a metaphor for the struggle between good and evil, creating a Character, Preacher Jack Collins, who believes himself to be living an old testament life, one of cosmic importance and who kills on impulse, justifying himself in the name of his vengeful God. Sheriff Holland is set against him, showing compassion for the weak, being kind to animals and resisting temptation, provided by his deputy, all while feeling sinful and unworthy right up to the final confrontation where Collins is defeated but vanishes without a trace. It feels more than a bit contrived, which, of course, it is.