Category Archives: Fiction

Fiction, Reviews

The Truth of the Matter, by Andrew Klavan

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The Truth of the Matter

If what you’re looking for in a book is subtlety and nuance, Andrew Klavan’s Homelanders series of young adult novels is not the place to go.

If, on the other hand, you’re looking for a book to appeal to young males (the explicit target market for the books), you’ve come to the right place.

These are books for boys who like video games (at one point Charlie West, the book’s hero, even gets to use an actual weapon that works like a video game controller) and extreme sports. “Extreme” describes The Truth of the Matter well—not in the sense of extreme shock content or extreme edginess, but in the sense of action that never slackens, but constantly ratchets up the dramatic tension. Poor Charlie barely gets a chance to grab a nap or anything to eat through the whole story. Wherever he turns, he’s got enemies on his tail. The premise isn’t terribly realistic, but that’s the whole point. This roller coaster of a story isn’t intended to give you time to consider its plausibility. The only drawback is that it’s so compelling that it’s hard to stretch the reading of it longer than a day and a half or so, and you want more. On the other hand, Charlie’s earned some rest. Continue reading The Truth of the Matter, by Andrew Klavan →

Fiction, Reviews

Play Dead, by Harlan Coben

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Perhaps with a little embarrassment, author Harlan Coben prefaces this new edition of his first novel with “A Note From the Author.” He begins the note, “Okay, if this is the first book of mine you’re going to try, stop now. Return it. Grab another. It’s okay. I’ll wait.”

Words in season. I like Coben’s books very much, but Play Dead is a classic example of that deadly subgenre, the badly overwritten first novel. One of the many temptations to which unproven authors fall prey is the one to tell the reader too much, to put everything into the book. Clearly, on the evidence of his later work, Coben has learned a lot in the intervening years. But Play Dead (he says in his Note that he left it as it stands because he considers it dishonest to re-write an earlier book) is too long, too verbose, and awkward. It’s like a teenager who’s outgrown his muscles, impressive in his height, but bad in his coordination. Continue reading Play Dead, by Harlan Coben →

Fiction

Lee Unkrich of Toy Story 3 Talks Movies

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Unkrich: First of all, we don’t make movies for kids, we don’t think of it that way. We try to make good movies, period. We know that kids are going to be part of the audience, and we have a responsibility to make it appropriate for them, but we’re not trying to create quote-unquote kids’ entertainment. Yes, I think a lot of kids’ entertainment has gotten more antiseptic over the years, and parents have gotten more and more protective — and for a lot of good reasons — but I think it has been too much.

When you look back at the origins of children’s literature and entertainment, you have stuff like Grimm’s Fairy Tales, which are very dark, and they were about teaching kids about the world, and that there are bad things about the world, and gave examples of kids overcoming those bad things. We’re not trying to teach anybody any lessons in this film, we don’t have a message, but we do put characters in situations where they do behave in a very emotionally truthful way, and I think it’s good for kids to see something like that.

Fiction

No Ordinary Family: Good, Lots of Potential

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I’ve been watching ABC’s No Ordinary Family online since it debuted. My wife and I saw the premiere on an actual TV while on vacation, and we’ve been enjoying it. The show was given a full season in late October, so I guess ABC is uncertain of its reception. I think it has great potential. I can’t write about it here without at least minor spoilers, but even then I want to spill my guts on deeper issues too which will amount to major spoilers, so watch for the notation if you care to avoid certain things.

If you’ve seen any trailers for the show, you’ve seen about as much explanation they’ve given us for why the Powell family has super powers (which is a word the show writers’ use too much–powers. I’m using my powers right now, but I call it typing or writing. I would love to see and hear less of this word in the show.) In short, the family goes to Brazil for a vacation. Their plane crashes, and sometime after they return home, they discover they have changed. It went by about that quickly in the pilot episode.

ABC's No Ordinary Family

Jim, the father, is a police sketch artist and not respected by the rest of the department. When he becomes incredibly strong and bulletproof (nigh invulnerable as The Tick would say), it’s like a dream come true. He has said he failed as an artist before taking up the police work, but I gather he is drawn to the strength of these civil guardians. Now with his great strength, he can help them, but as it usually goes, he works undercover. He has the help of George, a district attorney friend, who is probably the kind of friend every average-man-turned-superhero needs. Continue reading No Ordinary Family: Good, Lots of Potential →

Authors, Fiction

Jeffery Deaver Writes Next Bond Novel

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Author Jeffery Deaver is writing the next James Bond novel, saying it’s set in the present and that Bond will be a late 20s, Afghan War vet. Deaver appreciates the appeal actors like Daniel Craig have given to the most famous spy in the world, “but the original Bond was a very dark, edgy character.”

Fiction, Reviews

Much Obliged, Jeeves

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Bertie Wooster loves his Aunt Dahlia, even though she has an ugly habit of leveraging him into some kind of theft. It would be for a good cause, of course, but if you’ve ever read Wooster’s adventures in the world outside his London flat, you’ll know it won’t go well. In this book, however, he is spared such pressure from his beloved Aunt–who employs the best French chef in a hundred miles (no small benefit). Instead, she wants him to knock on doors for one of his old university friends who is running for the House of Commons. That doesn’t prevent him from being accused of being a theft by the Lord of Sidcup, that Baron of Black Shorts, Roderick Spode.

I have been reading the stories of Wooster and Jeeves in relatively the order of their writing, but this is the first one which referred to events I didn’t remember, despite the familiar characters. And the familiar story too. This one didn’t surprise me a few times, and while it was wonderfully fun, it didn’t have a few zany scenes like others I’ve read.

One thing I love is Wodehouse’s style of having a character comment on something that isn’t described in the text. For instance, Jeeves was telling Bertie how something surprising unfolded, then in the same paragraph without pausing for description, he says, “I wouldn’t jerk the wheel so sharply, sir. It could alarm the other drivers.”

Perhaps, you’d have to be there to get the feel of it.

Much Obliged, Jeeves is not a good place to start reading Wodehouse’s terrific stories about Wooster and Jeeves, but it is a recommended part of the series. I enjoyed it.

Fiction, Reviews

The Book of the Dun Cow, by Walter Wangerin

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Despite all of the praise I heard for The Book of the Dun Cow, I still smirked through the first few chapters. It has a great setup for a terrible challenge to the earth, even the galaxy, but the characters are farm animals. How terrifying can a story get with a proud rooster for a leading man? But then if I understood myself properly in relation to the God of heaven and earth and the fatally wounded enemy who still plots our defeat, I may think of mankind in the same way–mere animals standing between the Almighty and the Lord of the Flies.

Let me briefly give you the plot. Chauntecleer, the rooster, is lord over a patch of farmland, field, and forest. He is king and cleric to the animals who live there, crowing canonical blessings throughout the day to give their lives order and spiritual purpose. Far away, another farm and another rooster have slacked off holding the order of the day, giving a profound and powerful evil an opportunity to fight for its freedom. The animals are called Wyrm’s Keepers, though I doubt they would recognize the label. By keeping their proper order, they unknowingly keep the evil Wyrm imprisoned, so when one farm has grown tired of the cares of the world, Wyrm exploits his opportunity. Gradually, you might say, all of something breaks loose.

I love most in this story the animals leaning on their daily order, their time-honored tradition. It gave their dirt-scratching, grub-hunting, cleaning, and sleeping greater meaning and consequently greater peace. From Lauds to Compline, Chauntecleer crows through the day, usually because that’s how its done, but when their world become overcast with troubling clouds, he crows to bless those creatures he cares for. In a somewhat comical way, it’s glorious.

And there’s a good bit of comedy throughout the book too. John Wesley Weasel and Mundo Cani Dog are hilarious in their own way as is the rooster’s obnoxious pride.

I have to wonder how much of this fantasy is reality. How much or what kind of grace does the Lord give us through liturgy and the mental transformation he calls us to by meditating on his precepts throughout the day? What is robbed from us when we think of our lives and world in secular terms, when we see the planet instead of creation, when we look into space instead of the heavens? Would we keep the evil imprisoned a little more if we gave ourselves and our families lauds and vespers?

Fiction, Reviews

Rough Country, by John Sandford

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Minnesota mystery author John Sandford (John Camp) has not given up his hugely popular series of “Prey” novels featuring millionaire cop Lucas Davenport, but Davenport’s getting a little domestic and long in the tooth these days. In order to continue writing books with sex appeal, Sandford has launched a new series featuring Davenport’s associate Virgil Flowers. While Davenport fulfills male fantasies by having powerful, expensive cars that he drives very fast, Flowers’ fantasy appeal is more organic. Aside from his remarkable clearance rate as a detective, Flowers is apparently walking candy to women (although the author derives a lot of comedy out of frustrating his desires in this particular story).

Readers tired of sex in novels are advised to stay away from Rough Country, the latest Virgil Flowers. Its very setting—a women-only fishing resort in northern Minnesota, frequented by a number of lesbians—guarantees a large degree of sexual tension, and a certain amount of discomfort when a male detective—even a fashionably broad-minded one like Flowers—starts investigating its affairs. Continue reading Rough Country, by John Sandford →

Authors, Fiction

Shop Talk: Crime, Class, and Money

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Thomas Mullen, author of The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, interviews Jess Walter, author of Citizen Vince and The Zero,. Walter says, “Real, organic-seeming characters can illuminate any event—whether it’s timely, the way I’ve worked recently, or steeped in history, like your novels. I like what Emerson said: ‘Fiction reveals the truth that reality obscures.'”

Then Mullen asks about the blend of literary and crime fiction, and then he brings up class descriptions . . . read more.

Fiction

Interview with Director Randall Wallace

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Randall Wallace, director of Secretariat and writer of Braveheart among other good movies, answers a few questions for World. “If anything feels like it’s a Sunday school lesson, that would drive me away from a theater, let alone someone who isn’t disposed to the same viewpoint. When I go to the movies, I’m not looking to be exposed to somebody else’s dogma. And when I make a movie I’m not looking to explain my intellectual arguments of faith to somebody else.”