Category Archives: Reviews

March 9, 2013 · 10:36 am

Review: “Cyclops”

Cyclops (Dirk Pitt, #8)Cyclops by Clive Cussler

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I picked this book up at a charity book swap for a dollar. After that last book, I figured I needed something fun and easy on the brain. I mean, Dirk Pitt is Indiana Jones + James Bond + water! Several Dirk Pitt books have made an appearance as family road-trip fodder, because, while basically predictable (What, this story involves a secret treasure that’s probably in the ocean somewhere?! Who would guess!), it’s fun. What’s not to like?

So when I tell you that I basically enjoyed this book until I hit one completely abhorrent scene 3/4 of the way in and considered dropping the book completely–and that that one scene so disrupted my positive feelings for the rest of the book that I never enjoyed it again from that point onward–you know we’ve got problems.

Now the book is 30 years old, so I’m not going to bother with spoiler tags (plus I don’t think you should really bother with it anyway), but if you don’t want to know what happens, turn back now.
…

Okay. So the book somehow manages to combine a secret moon base, a massive lost golden statue (La Dorada), a missing millionaire, CIA agents, and a terroristic plot against communist Cuba and Fidel Castro personally.

It’s important to note that this was written in 1983 and set in 1985.

Essentially, these plot lines aren’t actually at all related, except that it made the President pretty damn unhappy and almost killed our hero Mr. Pitt at least a half-dozen times. This is one of the reasons I almost dropped the book; once one plot line was resolved, there wasn’t a lot of reason to continue. Plus it’s hard to believe Pitt made it most of the way through the novel without requiring serious medical attention. But he’s Aquaman meets Harrison Ford, so that’s not such a big deal.

What was a big deal was the way Cussler treated his ONE female character (seriously. There are, like, 8 prominent male characters. There is one woman with a name who is important; one other appears briefly to give background and returns to her retirement home).

If you think I’m just being melodramatic, consider this scenario:

You’re an incredibly beautiful, intelligent woman married to a millionaire (her only fault is her inherent woman-ness. Gag). You can speak 5 languages, are a skilled SCUBA diver, and, oh, yes sure, you can fly the extremely rare and challenging blimp your husband managed to get kidnapped from. You make the mistake of traveling with Dirk Pitt. In the process, you are captured by evil Soviet KGB agents and tortured (the details are fuzzy, but you’re naked and thoroughly bruised). Then, your husband is killed in front of you and you make a mad dash for escape. You end up on a beach in Cuba, wearing the wet and stinky uniform of a Cuban militia. You spend the night hiding in a storm drain with Dirk Pitt. What would you do next?

…If your answer isn’t “have sex with Dirk Pitt, a man who maligned your dead-not-even-12-hours husband for his adultery,” then you clearly are a sane person and not in this book.

There are so many things wrong with that scene!

I threw the book across the room when I read it. It was less than 2 pages, but that scene ruined the entire book for me.

But I’m not one to abandon books, generally, so I finished the danged thing, but wow, it never got better, and Jessie LeBaron (Ms. Richy-Rich herself) just got more ridiculous and whimpering helpless woman the farther I read. If this were the only Cussler book I had ever read, I’d think he’d never met an actual woman.

Now, there were some great things writers could learn from this book. For example, the level of detail for ships and cars was incredible. You can tell where Cussler’s real interests lie. That was super! …it did become a failing when he screwed up some really fundamental information about the moon (like that the “back side” never faces the Earth. And that people couldn’t hang out on that side anyway, because it’s really freaking cold). I don’t know if that information just wasn’t available in the 1980s, but I feel like maybe it was; the US had been on the moon for nearly two decades at that point.

Another thing I think I could learn from was the level of brutality that Cussler is willing to throw at his main character. Seriously, Dirk Pitt got hit with everything under the sun. It reads like something out of a soap opera when listed out, but in the book, it’s great for keeping things exciting.

But all in all, there are far better Cussler books out there. If you’re interested in his writing, go read one of those instead. This one would be better off on the bottom of the sea.

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February 23, 2013 · 9:18 am

Review: The Power of Myth

The Power of MythThe Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I came to this book via the serendipity of the bookstore and a nudge from a great TED talk. (Go watch it, I’ll wait… really marvelous, isn’t it?)

I mean, I love mythology, I love stories, I’m interested in learning more about the hero’s journey–what’s not to like?

Let me tell you, I really wavered on those stars up there. It was thisclose to earning a 2. In fact, I almost gave up on this book a third of the way in.

First, the problems:
In my opinion, Bill Moyer, esteemed journalist that he is, completely failed in his duty in this book. I understand that it’s a transcript of a conversation, and perhaps it would have worked better in a visual medium, but Moyer is so transfixed by his subject (Joseph Campbell) that he loses the ability to control the flow of thought and respond critically to anything Campbell says. He says as much in the introduction; he is enamored of this interview.

Maybe, on TV, it isn’t as clear how frequently conversation derails, but in print, in a straight transcription, it’s a trainwreck. Had Moyer taken the time to construct a real book–with transcriptions, and sources, and clear structure–this book would have been dramatically easier to follow. As it is, the reader is just expected to hang on and sort of passively observe the literature, to sort of be transformed by its aura.

And that’s my next criticism: if you didn’t know (because Moyer says so) that Campbell is a leading scholar, you’d think he was a crackpot. He relies heavily on a swill of mixed metaphors and images pulled from whatever story happens to be handy for his current theme.

Seriously, you get things like this:

“If you undergo a spiritual transformation and have not had preparation for it, you do not know how to evaluate what has happened to you, and you get the terrible experiences of a bad trip, as they used to call it with LSD.”

If you didn’t know a professor said that, wouldn’t you think you were talking to an inebriated hippy? And that was actually a milder example; others were too long to transcribe.

Other problems with the text are products of the time it was written and Campbell’s (and Moyer, since he can’t help but butt in all the time) experiences as a child. Campbell especially has a sort of obsession with the “noble savage,” idealizing Native Americans to such a degree you lose a sense that they were a real people. He seems to apply the same idealization to “Orientals” and non-Western religion.

Paradoxically, much of the book revolves around Christian theology and ideals–in fact, it would probably be hard to understand this book without being able to reference the Bible and Christian tradition.

In a sort of one-two combination of these and a 1950s upbringing, you also get a lot of negative depictions of women and their role in society. Campbell’s pretty clear that a woman’s place is in creating children, and that requires a necessary sacrifice of any other priority in her life. He doesn’t even seem aware how these references, again and again, deprioritize women’s personal drives–heck, any sense of women as people with any desires outside of getting hitched and producing heirs for her husband–because he’s so busy deifying the process. It’s hard to argue that you aren’t meant to raise children when you’re being compared to the Virgin Mary at every turn.

Mix all that in with a giant dollop of “Back in MY day,” and you’ve got The Power of Myth.

Positives
And yet, despite all those problems, I kept reading. Weirdly, this is a book that does well if you don’t think about it too much as you’re reading, but let it marinate in the back of your head. It’s good as a general philosophy (though thank goodness no one ever thought to make a religion out of Campbell’s beliefs!) and has some good overall messages.

For example, his message for everyone, no matter who they are is “Follow your bliss.” Now that’s a nice big ebullient idea, but it’s a lovely sentiment and can be a good motivation.

Because of the philosophizing nature of this book, it’s also rife with juicy inspirational quotes of all kinds. This is the one that stood out to me:

“”Do you think I can be a writer?”
“Oh,” I would say, “I don’t know. Can you endure ten years of disappointment with nobody responding to you, or are you thinking that you are going to write a best seller at the first crack? If you have the guts to stay with the thing you really want, no matter what happens, well, go ahead.””

I’m sure anyone, regardless of their personal bliss, could find a similarly provocative quote in this book.

I wouldn’t recommend this book to most people. It’s twisty, poorly constructed, and full of sort of New-Age-y mumbo-jumbo. But I wouldn’t talk you out of reading it, either; it might provide just the right magic words for you. And besides, the message that we are all heroes traveling our own mythic journeys is pretty nice.

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February 12, 2013 · 11:00 am

Review: “Publishing & Marketing Realities for the Emerging Author”

Publishing & Marketing Realities for the Emerging AuthorPublishing & Marketing Realities for the Emerging Author by Christine Rose
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The good thing about Christine Rose’s book is that she is telling the truth that she lived. The bad thing about this book is that, whether because the industry is changing too quickly or because Rose can only report on the way she’s done things, it can be inconsistent, daunting, and overwhelming.

I found a recommendation for “Publishing & Marketing Realities” on an agent’s blog, which seemed like a pretty solid endorsement. Right from the start, I was surprised by Rose’s definitively negative outlook on traditional publishing. It seemed to be a case of “the lady doth protest too much.” Granted, her concerns seem valid–long, slow process designed to slow incoming writers down and keep them out–but that negative view from the outset tainted my perception of the rest of the book.

She publishes through her own independent publisher, which she earnestly claims makes her something in between an “indie” publisher and a self-publisher, all while claiming that self-publishing no longer has such a stigma. Rose does an excellent job of listing out her perceived pros and cons of each style of publishing, and it was a great beginner’s guide to an overly complicated system.

I would have liked a more clear analysis of the amount of money she spent creating her own press and marketing herself. While she does drop dollar amounts periodically (and they all seem absolutely astronomical), it’s hard to get a sense of how much she is spending, on what, and whether she is even seeing a return on her investments–or if we should all just stay home and learn basket weaving instead.

The book really shines when it gets to the second part, explanations of all the marketing avenues available and how to use them. She has really done her research (though I had to laugh at the bit about how exciting a Kindle might be…while I was reading the book on a Kindle), and was extremely detailed in her how-to portions. It’s a great synopsis of what’s available (though, again, the industry is changing in great leaps and bounds right now).

I’m glad I read her book, but… I’m not sure I trust all of her advice. There are some inconsistencies throughout that make me question whether this is a “how to” book (as it is advertised) or more of a personal memoir of how she did it. The detail she devotes to her cross-country caravan to sell her books (at a cost of $65,000; don’t even get me started) is confusing when you realize later that she made more by staying local. Additionally, her schedule for marketing sounds exhausting, like a recipe for certain burnout. I’m okay with hard work, but this recommendation seems both expensive and improbable.

There’s just not a lot of “life” in her work-life balance.

There doesn’t even seem to be a lot of writing, for that matter.

Her chapters on working a day job while performing all these writing and marketing activities also seems ludicrous…until she reveals that her day job is as an English professor at a community college. That makes a little more sense.

I was also concerned about her revelations about her secondary persona, O.M. Grey. While earlier she says not to latch on to a trend just because it might be marketable, this is exactly what she does by adopting the Steampunk genre. I don’t participate in that culture, but I would be pretty insulted by the way she talks about it, particularly the conventions. I believe she means it to be endearing, while also showing authors who haven’t ever been to a genre con what it’s like, but her teasing references to men in superhero costumes struck me as unkind. Furthermore, she seems to have adopted the trappings of the Steampunk genre just for money-making purposes; she doesn’t seem to really “get” it. This rankled me; it seems to lack integrity to co-opt someone else’s interests, but apparently she’s been quite successful, so perhaps it is my compass that is wrong.

In summary, this book has a lot of information, but whether or not it will actually be useful is going to depend a great deal on the reader. That said, I thank Ms. Rose for her courageous and thorough work on how-to-be-a-writer, and I’d like to gently recommend she take a short vacation. It will be good for her mental health, and I’m sure she needs the rest.

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February 12, 2013 · 3:35 am

Review: “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking”

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop TalkingQuiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Quiet is a well-deserved NYT Bestseller. It is thoughtful, well-paced, peppered with supporting anecdotes, and provides a much-needed voice of support for introverts.

As an introvert, I spent much of the book nodding. “Oh my gosh, I thought that was just me!” moments were pretty common. I liked progression of the book, from an explanation of what introversion is, the evolution of the extrovert ideal (with plenty of historical references), an analysis of whether introversion and extroversion are inherent or learned, how people can modify their natural tendencies, and how to deal with introversion in yourself at work, at home, and at school, and how to help others.

I mean, wowza, this book is packed!

I’ve read a few reviews that suggest the information is biased (particularly the chapter on Silicon Valley), and, while I can see where that conclusion may be reached, it seems that Cain really did her due diligence, talking to a number of people and representing both positions. I think she’s on to something about the unusual nature of that area.

Most of all, this book validated me, and I’m sure others who see themselves reflected in its pages will feel the same way. I feel like it was fair to extroverts while also championing the introverts, and providing tangible methods to invoke personal change–for both types.

This book would be particularly useful for teachers–the chapters on schoolwork and school performance resonate, and Cain gives excellent examples for ways a classroom could be built to appeal to both introverts and extroverts, while teaching each the advantages of the other. And because so much of what happens in school early on can have such an impact on the future lives of introverts, perhaps the people at the fore of so many children’s lives should take the opportunity to learn from Cain’s able and thorough research.

A fantastic read for anyone interested in psychology, even in passing.

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February 12, 2013 · 3:33 am

Review: “Cold Days”

Cold Days (The Dresden Files, #14)Cold Days by Jim Butcher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While the writing of this most recent Dresden novel was outstanding, the story was weaker than some of the prior books in the series. Butcher has undoubtedly become an expert verbal craftsman, but–perhaps because this story was supposed to be so epic?–the plot was all over the place. As a reader, it was hard to keep track of every which direction. At one point, I counted at least 5 major crises happening simultaneously, and several of them seemed just thrown in “because,” without an obvious purpose or direction. All of this meant the story overall became muddled; characters were introduced, given importance, then dropped so Butcher could go and touch base with all the prior characters, in a way that made the whole thing feel rushed and disjointed.

The story did come to a sufficiently awesome-wizard conclusion, which was satisfying, but it felt more like an obligation than the natural direction of the story. I would have much preferred this book, I think, had there been a lot fewer Epic Problems for Dresden to deal with. I mean, the main problem–he is told to kill the Winter Lady, under command of the Winter Queen–is pretty humongous on its own. And the problem with Demonreach made sense, as a baseline. Okay. If we could have flushed away all the extra parts, the story would have made more sense. I don’t need extra things to worry about, and neither does Dresden. Though our hapless wizard hero has a penchant for surviving when things are impossible, facing the towering stack of issues in this novel really made it seem unlikely he’d have made it out, even considering all the “superpowers” he’s been adding on lately. I mean, come on, he’s pretty much dead in the end of the epic fight, but a short nap and a bowl of crappy soup and he’s up and on his feet again? Sorry, I just don’t buy it.

That’s the book overall. But I have a bone to pick about a particular subplot: Dresden’s angst about his daughter, Maggie.

Maggie is the young daughter (I believe she’s between 6 and 9 years old) that Dresden didn’t even know he had. He got the partial-vampire mom knocked up, then she vanished and didn’t tell him they had a child. She hid the child in the protection of some surrogate parents, and things were more or less fine. Then a Big Bad hunted out the kid and was going to use her in a horrible ritual to get back at Dresden. Ok. So that’s when Dresden found out he had a six-year-old daughter, who probably spoke only Spanish, by the way.

He goes, does awesome wizard stuff, and saves her. He decides (probably correctly) that life with him is just too dangerous, so he gives the kid to the secret society of priests in the Catholic church to find a safe place for her. Pretty good decisions, all the way around, good deal. But then he finds out that the super-secret safe place is, in fact, with his BFF Michael, who has legitimate angels watching over the family. Michael may be the best adopted-dad of all time, too.

That seems like a pretty good arrangement for this kid, whom, by the way, he has spoken to for *maybe* two hours, tops, and part of that time he was murdering her mother (in a complicated attempt to save everyone else).

And yet! And yet all the secondary characters in Cold Days take time out of their overburdened crises to lecture–lecture!!–Dresden about him needing to go see Maggie, because he’ll “always be her only, her real, dad.”

What the what?! Seriously?

I’ll leave room for Dresden’s head to still be spinning because he just discovered, saved, and traumatized his child. Okay, that’s reasonable.

But when all of his friends know the kid is in an absolutely perfect, loving, safe home, and that adding Dresden to her life will make her a big fat target for danger of many kinds, and by the way that he has been nothing but a genetic contributor to this kid before, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM that they would bitch at him about not being some kind of absentee father?

I just don’t understand why it can’t be accepted that Dresden is making the best choice for Maggie by staying away from her. And even if they can’t accept that, for some stupid reason, can they at least accept that it’s a sore spot for Mr. Wizard, and they shouldn’t be lecturing him? Particularly taking time out of a chaos-filled schedule to lecture him?!

This trope that “adopted parents aren’t REAL parents” is very frustrating. There are times when it completely works–like Cinderella, for example–but when we know that the adopted parent is the closest thing to Christ-like on earth, it just doesn’t hold up. It’s unrealistic. And it shows just a bit too much of the author manipulating characters–I truly can’t imagine Murphy ever having that conversation with Dresden, and yet she does…twice. Good lord.

Further, I think it’s a really detrimental message for adopted readers/readers who have adopted children–literally no matter how awesome the parents are, and no matter how bad the situation with the ‘real’ parent would be, the story is not “right” until the child is with the biological parent. Really? Is that the message we want to send?

This was a relatively minor subplot, but it was so jarring and wrong that it took me out of the book several times. If there was a reason–something beyond “But it’s your kid!”–for this behavior, I could accept it, but this forced affection for a kid Dresden has never even know (and certainly wouldn’t know how to handle; can you imagine Dresden dealing with diaper changes?!) is just overdone.

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February 12, 2013 · 3:29 am

Review: “On Writing”

On WritingOn Writing by Stephen King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was leery of this book: It was recommended a lot, and I don’t read Stephen King (it’s his fault, his stories scare the bejeezus out of me), and I was afraid it was going to be full of platitudes and useless, generic advice.

I have never before been unable to sleep because of a book, nor have I ever finished a book only to immediately go back and read it again — until now. This book is outstanding, both as a memoir and as practical advice for writers. I recommend it to everyone who is literate. I’m serious.

“On Writing” is 2/3 memoir and 1/3 writing advice, and it will leave you feeling as if you’ve just enjoyed a long and intimate chat with repeat-best-selling novelist Stevie King over a cup of tea on the back porch. In some cases, it’s as if he actually unzipped himself and let you step in and see the world from his eyes. It’s incredible.

While I loved the introductory “C.V” section on his childhood and his life up until the publication of “Carrie,” the book really endeared itself to me when King proclaims he does not believe every person can be a good writer, or that any good writer can become great. This was the first time in all of the many writing blogs, tools, etc., that I’ve read that someone has admitted that not everyone is cut out for this work.

WHAT A RELIEF! (Of course, I’m fervently hoping that I DO make the cut one day, but at least I can believe King because of his honesty). I am beyond exhausted with this “everyone can be a great storyteller!” meme because it’s so patently false–even in an age where loose spinoffs of “Twilight” see mass publication and sales, not everyone can get that (and in some cases, those that do shouldn’t).

He doesn’t say it is easy even for those who are writers, but he opens the door for hard work and practice. Even though this sounds like negative advice, I found it uplifting and energizing.

Even though much of his advice runs directly counter to other advice I’ve heard/read/picked up along the way, I believe him wholeheartedly. Perhaps it’s because I’m a wannabe writer born in the wrong time period, making my belief in his methods self-serving.

Some of his thoughts:
-He doesn’t put much stock in writing seminars or criticism groups.
-Write “with the door closed” (I interpret this as counter to the “post everything immediately!” trend in blogging)
-It’s ok to do your research after you’ve already completed a draft.
-You ought to expect to (sometimes) change your draft based on your first readers’ reactions.
-He recommends a general form letter for query letters (I have a feeling these would be rejected now, but my attempts to ask agents have gone unanswered so far. Still, it’s a relief that even those who know what they’re doing seem to have no idea how best to get an agent’s/publisher’s attention. It’s all a crapshoot).

And, which resonates most of all:
-Don’t write a story just because it’s currently popular or trendy or selling. Write it because you love it.

It’s possible that if Mr. King were an aspiring author today, his experiences would be different–but I hope that isn’t the case. This book invigorated and inspired me more than any other I’ve read, and I hope to replicate well the lessons here learned.

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