Still posting my book reviews from my Goodreads page, I am turning to famous characters in history--one from fiction and one from history. My quest for a visit with these characters was left a bit wanting...but I still managed to enjoy at least one of these stories.
11/22/63
by Stephen King
Tacos. Reading anything by Stephen King is like eating tacos for me. I love tacos, I could eat tacos every day, and there is no such thing as a bad taco. I haven’t read anything by Stephen King in, oh, about 15 years, and returning to his fold with 11/22/63 was like having the best taco feast of a lifetime.
I’m sure you’ve had one of those college dorm room conversations—if you could travel back in time and change one moment in time, what would it be? It’s a great conversation to have over coffee, a beer, or whatever is floating your boat. And certainly that’s the kind of conversation you will have after watching movies like Back to the Future,Ground Hog’s Day, and Millennium (which was based on the novel by John Varley).
Thankfully, Stephen King took this concept and flew with it. The title is a dead giveaway to what will happen, and so you have to ask yourself—do I trust Stephen King to tell this story, a story that my college friends and I could have created ourselves? And do I trust him to play around with an infamously treasured moment so permanently marked in our culture that people can tell you exactly where they were when they heard JFK was assassinated? I certainly do trust him, as much as I love tacos.
What’s great about this book:
• Time is a character. Like many of Stephen King’s books, the setting becomes a strange, mystical influence that can’t be explained but is a formidable force in the story. Don’t mess with Time, he’s much bigger than you. He can rip the very fabric of your world.
• The world in which this takes place is wonderfully familiar if you have read other Stephen King books, especially It. It was great to visit creepy old Derry once again.
• Everyone in this story has a purpose. And depending on which way the butterfly falls, that purpose can change in an instant.
• The time jumps provide a compelling piece of historical fiction with a lot of fact thrown in. In fact, I would have liked to see more interaction between historical characters, but that wouldn’t have been possible given that the story is written from the point of view of our high school English teacher. A trip to the Rose Garden would have been cool but wouldn’t have fit in with the story. That phone call from JFK was such a teaser—I wanted to see more of him. *sigh*
• You really have to think about it. Would you change history if you could? Should you?
• Dang it—it’s just fun to read.
What’s not great about this book:
• Jake's return to the dystopic 2011 is somewhat disappointing in its skimpiness and extreme ugliness. I was hoping for something a little more subtle. On the other hand, since he took the advice from the brilliant Doris Kearns Goodwin of putting George Wllace as president, maybe this kind of horrible dystopia could happen! Just kidding. Really, the effect of Jake's changes in the years 1958-63 were so profound that it almost completely pulled apart the fabric of the universe, thereby rendering our world with earthquakes galore? That part was a bit hard to swallow, but since the other 830 pages of the book were so very excellent, I’ll allow Mr. King that transgression.
Really, we don't get to this final part until the last 1/8 of the book. Stephen King has no trouble writing thousands of words at the blink of an eye; why did he spend so few words on the punchline? After all, weren't we waiting to see what the world would be like if JFK had lived? He spent just a few pages on that point, and as I said before, they were a little extreme. What I think, though, is that this book is less about JFK and more about making moral choices. We see such a complete character arc for our hero George/Jake that the JFK stuff is forced to take a back seat. Isn't that what we love about Stephen King, though? It's his ability to forge a complicated character and make us privy to everything that character is thinking. So, even though I was a little disappointed in the lack of detail in the last part of the book, it forced me to frame the theme of the book in a different light.
Well, anyway, Mr. King, thank you so much for the most excellent ride. I guess since I’ve had a 15 year hiatus, I should revisit some of your recent work. Why? Because I love tacos.
I’m sure you’ve had one of those college dorm room conversations—if you could travel back in time and change one moment in time, what would it be? It’s a great conversation to have over coffee, a beer, or whatever is floating your boat. And certainly that’s the kind of conversation you will have after watching movies like Back to the Future,Ground Hog’s Day, and Millennium (which was based on the novel by John Varley).
Thankfully, Stephen King took this concept and flew with it. The title is a dead giveaway to what will happen, and so you have to ask yourself—do I trust Stephen King to tell this story, a story that my college friends and I could have created ourselves? And do I trust him to play around with an infamously treasured moment so permanently marked in our culture that people can tell you exactly where they were when they heard JFK was assassinated? I certainly do trust him, as much as I love tacos.
What’s great about this book:
• Time is a character. Like many of Stephen King’s books, the setting becomes a strange, mystical influence that can’t be explained but is a formidable force in the story. Don’t mess with Time, he’s much bigger than you. He can rip the very fabric of your world.
• The world in which this takes place is wonderfully familiar if you have read other Stephen King books, especially It. It was great to visit creepy old Derry once again.
• Everyone in this story has a purpose. And depending on which way the butterfly falls, that purpose can change in an instant.
• The time jumps provide a compelling piece of historical fiction with a lot of fact thrown in. In fact, I would have liked to see more interaction between historical characters, but that wouldn’t have been possible given that the story is written from the point of view of our high school English teacher. A trip to the Rose Garden would have been cool but wouldn’t have fit in with the story. That phone call from JFK was such a teaser—I wanted to see more of him. *sigh*
• You really have to think about it. Would you change history if you could? Should you?
• Dang it—it’s just fun to read.
What’s not great about this book:
• Jake's return to the dystopic 2011 is somewhat disappointing in its skimpiness and extreme ugliness. I was hoping for something a little more subtle. On the other hand, since he took the advice from the brilliant Doris Kearns Goodwin of putting George Wllace as president, maybe this kind of horrible dystopia could happen! Just kidding. Really, the effect of Jake's changes in the years 1958-63 were so profound that it almost completely pulled apart the fabric of the universe, thereby rendering our world with earthquakes galore? That part was a bit hard to swallow, but since the other 830 pages of the book were so very excellent, I’ll allow Mr. King that transgression.
Really, we don't get to this final part until the last 1/8 of the book. Stephen King has no trouble writing thousands of words at the blink of an eye; why did he spend so few words on the punchline? After all, weren't we waiting to see what the world would be like if JFK had lived? He spent just a few pages on that point, and as I said before, they were a little extreme. What I think, though, is that this book is less about JFK and more about making moral choices. We see such a complete character arc for our hero George/Jake that the JFK stuff is forced to take a back seat. Isn't that what we love about Stephen King, though? It's his ability to forge a complicated character and make us privy to everything that character is thinking. So, even though I was a little disappointed in the lack of detail in the last part of the book, it forced me to frame the theme of the book in a different light.
Well, anyway, Mr. King, thank you so much for the most excellent ride. I guess since I’ve had a 15 year hiatus, I should revisit some of your recent work. Why? Because I love tacos.
Sherlock Holmes: The
Breath of God
by Guy Adams
If you are expecting a facsimile of Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle's prose and approach to Sherlock Holmes--drop your expectations.
This isn't that kind of book. More than being a crime fiction book, Sherlock Holmes: The
Breath of God is more like a book about the supernatural and
paranormal.
That's okay if you don't have any expectations. Holmes plays a relatively minor role in this story and disappears halfway through the book, only to reemerge at the end. His departure is reminiscent of his disappearance in The Hound of the Baskervilles, to which the author alludes when Holmes makes his disappearance. I was okay with that, especially since the Baskerville book is one of my all-time favorites.
What I had to do, though, was drop expectations that this was a crime novel and treat it more like an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I enjoyed the magical aspects of the story, especially the appearance of Alistair Crowley. The addition of Holmes as a character, and his approach to solving crimes, seemed like an afterthought. What do we want from a Holmes story? We want to see his attention to details that lead him to bold speculation that is almost always spot-on. We didn't find that in this book (maybe only a couple of times), and so I am wondering why Holmes is in this book at all.
Having said that, this story reminded me so much of the Rod Serling series Night Gallery that I even imagined Mr. Serling himself making introductions to the various chapters. That was a big plus. Another big plus was giving the story various perspectives in the form of letters and stories presented by various characters. That reminded me of Dracula, so the book gets another plus. The gruesome details of the mysterious deaths were deliciously horrific, reminding me of Stephen King. Another plus.
I do want to say one thing about the editing of this book. I found so many editorial mistakes in this printing that I began to wonder if it was edited at all. I had to pinch myself--was this a problem with differences in standards between British and American English? Was this due to the fact that this was told in the first person from the viewpoint of John Watson? I started to dog-ear the pages with mistakes. For example, I found a simple typo where the word "to" was used instead of "too." Also there were numerous grammatically challenged sentences that I had to read several times before I understood them ("Nonetheless, Mycroft has insisted that Holmes returns to London immediately"--really???). And finally, there were so many sentences with comma splices that I wanted to cry (I have not been a resident here for many months, I bought the house from the previous owner due to its suitability for a ritual I had in mind. For God's sake, don't be afraid to put a semicolon in there!). Certainly John Watson would never make these mistakes. Anyhow, I thought it was my own peevishness until I read this sentence: SIlence looked concerned. (sic) Note that the second letter in the name "Silence" is capitalized. This is obviously a typo, which makes me think that the editors did not give this book the once-over or twice-over it deserved.
Don't get me wrong--I did enjoy this book. I would give this book 3.5 stars because of the fun I had reading about the supernatural aspects, but I'm knocking it down to 3 (instead of raising it to hallowed 4) because of misleading me into thinking that this was a story in the Holmes tradition (i.e. looking at subtle clues to draw grand conclusions) and for the poor editing, which is sadly not the fault of the author.
That's okay if you don't have any expectations. Holmes plays a relatively minor role in this story and disappears halfway through the book, only to reemerge at the end. His departure is reminiscent of his disappearance in The Hound of the Baskervilles, to which the author alludes when Holmes makes his disappearance. I was okay with that, especially since the Baskerville book is one of my all-time favorites.
What I had to do, though, was drop expectations that this was a crime novel and treat it more like an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I enjoyed the magical aspects of the story, especially the appearance of Alistair Crowley. The addition of Holmes as a character, and his approach to solving crimes, seemed like an afterthought. What do we want from a Holmes story? We want to see his attention to details that lead him to bold speculation that is almost always spot-on. We didn't find that in this book (maybe only a couple of times), and so I am wondering why Holmes is in this book at all.
Having said that, this story reminded me so much of the Rod Serling series Night Gallery that I even imagined Mr. Serling himself making introductions to the various chapters. That was a big plus. Another big plus was giving the story various perspectives in the form of letters and stories presented by various characters. That reminded me of Dracula, so the book gets another plus. The gruesome details of the mysterious deaths were deliciously horrific, reminding me of Stephen King. Another plus.
I do want to say one thing about the editing of this book. I found so many editorial mistakes in this printing that I began to wonder if it was edited at all. I had to pinch myself--was this a problem with differences in standards between British and American English? Was this due to the fact that this was told in the first person from the viewpoint of John Watson? I started to dog-ear the pages with mistakes. For example, I found a simple typo where the word "to" was used instead of "too." Also there were numerous grammatically challenged sentences that I had to read several times before I understood them ("Nonetheless, Mycroft has insisted that Holmes returns to London immediately"--really???). And finally, there were so many sentences with comma splices that I wanted to cry (I have not been a resident here for many months, I bought the house from the previous owner due to its suitability for a ritual I had in mind. For God's sake, don't be afraid to put a semicolon in there!). Certainly John Watson would never make these mistakes. Anyhow, I thought it was my own peevishness until I read this sentence: SIlence looked concerned. (sic) Note that the second letter in the name "Silence" is capitalized. This is obviously a typo, which makes me think that the editors did not give this book the once-over or twice-over it deserved.
Don't get me wrong--I did enjoy this book. I would give this book 3.5 stars because of the fun I had reading about the supernatural aspects, but I'm knocking it down to 3 (instead of raising it to hallowed 4) because of misleading me into thinking that this was a story in the Holmes tradition (i.e. looking at subtle clues to draw grand conclusions) and for the poor editing, which is sadly not the fault of the author.
