Oct. 2nd, 2015

[identity profile] dantheman23.livejournal.com
The Affair
by Lee Child

This novel takes us back to the very end of Reacher's military career; it takes place immediately before the first book in the series. It was fun seeing lots of allusions to various staples in the Reacher world such as him buying his first travel toothbrush, making the decision to buy new clothes instead of washing his old ones, not bothering with a bag or suitcase, deciding there was a lot of country out there for him to see, etc. So I liked that, but the story itself was not up to par. The pacing was a little off, the mystery wasn't that mysterious, and even the fight scenes weren't up to snuff. Still good, but not up to the usual Reacher standards. 3/5

The Year of Fog
by Michelle Richmond

My parents lobbed this book at me. Abby takes her fiance's 6 year old daughter to the beach, looks away for a minute, and little Emma is gone. She spends the entire rest of the book looking for her, trying to figure out what happened. I started this at work yesterday on my break and ended up staying up late last night to finish. I was tempted to skip to the end just to see how it resolved. Very compelling book that looks at memory, relationships and the strain they come under, determination, and tough decisions a parent has to make in that situation. The end was a little flat, but not enough to take away from what is a great story. 4/5

Wanted Man
by Lee Child

Ah, now this is a good Reacher book! While hitchhiking Reacher stumbles into an undercover FBI operation and a terrorist organization. He ends up taking the bad guys on single-handedly in order to pull off a daring rescue. Great Reacher novel: nice little mystery, good pacing, nice action-packed conclusion. I think I'm down to three books in this series : ( : ( : ( 4/5

Never Go Back
by Lee Child

...and yet I keep plowing through them. Been on a bit of a dry spell with the library; everything I've ordered is taking forever to get so I keep going back to Reacher (I snagged the last few books from a book exchange). In this book Reacher finally makes it to Virginia to meet Susan, who we were introduced to several books ago and he's been trying to meet in person ever since. Of course when he gets there she's in trouble and Jack had to break her out of prison, figure out a conspiracy, and kick butt along the way. 3.5/5

Separation of Power
by Vince Flynn

The third book in this series wraps up the ongoing storyline started in the first book. I know the series really jumps around chronologically; I keep seeing lists online of the chronological order of these books. This one was really good and I read through it pretty quickly. I just realized recently that these remind me a lot of the Tom Clancy books as far as style, realistic use of military jargon and specs, tone, etc. Looking forward to reading more about Mitch Rapp and his exploits. 4/5

How to Write a Damn Good Mystery Novel
by James Frey

Frey's How to Write a Damn Good Novel is a really helpful guide and one of the books I've added to my collection, but this one didn't jive with me as much. Partly because the mystery I'm thinking about writing is a little different than the standard novel so some of his advice wouldn't fly. I also kind of read it disjointedly; a reread may be in order at some point. Heck, maybe I'll even pick it up someday to add to the collection; I'm sure it would offer some help for mystery or non-mystery writing. 3/5

Timeline
by Michael Crichton

I love the concepts of time travel and alternate dimensions. Most of my favorite episodes of Star Trek: TNG involve one or the other, and I'm always ready to watch more shows or movies that have them. But after reading this book and the Time Riders series from earlier I've realized that while I love time travel and alternate dimensions on screen, it's not so great in books. The reason is because on the screen you're only got an hour or two to tell the story, so it has to be crisp and tight, but with a book the author can prattle on as long as he likes. And the problem with that is instead of a book about time travel what you end up with is a book that's 10% time travel and 90% adventure in some other timeline or era. In this case it was some college students traveling back to medieval times to rescue their professor who was trapped back then. As usual for Crichton books everything was very well researched, but almost the entire book was spent following the kids in the past, and there was very little actual dimension hopping involved. So it ends up being basically a story taking place in the old times, and I wasn't particularly interested in following all the nobles and their schemes and all that. Just didn't hold my interest. 2/5

Books for September: 7
Books for 2015: 55

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