What is it with books that are pretty well written, pretty engrossing, yet seem to let you down when all is said and done?

A short time ago (you can read it here) I reviewed Glasshouse, a science fictional mystery/action novel that ended with such a big, BIG hole in its plot that it was difficult for me to understand how the author had missed it.

Seven days later, and after letting it sit on my shelf for a while, I decided to give The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo a try.  The book has a seriously fascinating background.  Author Stieg Larsson, a journalist from Sweden, delivered three novels (this was the first) and, before they any were published (the third and last of them, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest will be available in the U.S. on May 25th), died.

A background story like this was bound to draw interest, and early reaction to the first novel was quite positive. This word of mouth prompted me to buy the first book in the series, but it wasn't until a couple of days ago I finally sat down and read it.

Like Glasshouse, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (for brevity's sake, I'll refer to it as TGWTDT) was a good read.  In some ways, its central mystery reminded me of Fredric Brown's far superior The Far Cry, which I've strongly recommended before (check that out here).  TGWTDT focuses on a crime committed years before, and our protagonist(s) solving of this crime.

But what ultimately hurts TGWTDT are things that are apart from the story itself.

As I noted before, Stieg Larsson, the book's author, was a journalist.  I suspect that TGWTDT's main character, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, is a thinly disguised proxy for Mr. Larsson (or, as James Cameron has recently made the term popular, an avatar).  His character and his situation (and life in general) is presented as such a fantasy that at times it took me away from the novel's story.

Allow me to backtrack just a little bit:  When I was much younger, some of the first "adult" novels I read and enjoyed were those by Clive Cussler.  Specifically, I was blown away by Vixen 03.  Many years later, when my wife was looking for something to read, I recommended she try the book.  She had a far different reaction to it than I did as a youth.  She was totally turned off by the novel's main character, Dirk Pitt.  Author Clive Cussler presented Dirk Pitt, she felt, as if he were some kind of God: irresistible to women, incapable of doing any harm (or anything wrong), and pretty much the greatest guy on the planet.  Shocked by her statement, I re-read the novel after all those years and, to my great surprise, she was right.  As a young man I missed it, but as an older reader it was so obvious...and annoying...the way Clive Cussler went out of his way to mythologize the character.  From that point on, I simply couldn't read any Clive Cussler book.

Sadly, the character of Mikael Blomkvist falls into that camp.  Author Larsson presents him as this great guy who women find simply irresistible.  Further (and most unbelievably), he's had a 20 or so year sexual and business relationship with a married woman.  The woman's husband knowns of the affair but he's an artist, so therefore doesn't mind "sharing" his wife (how likely is that?!).  But that, my friends, isn't enough.  In the course of the book Mr. Blomkvist beds another couple of women and gets sideways/longing looks from at least another few.  Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not a prude, but these sexual (fantasy) forays became as distracting as they are unbelievable (trust me, Blomkvist doesn't deliver any superlative seduction lines to the women he encounters, either!).  But even if we ignore this aspect of the novel, we stumble upon the next part: Blomkvist is some kind of journalistic knight errant, out to slay the financial scoundrels, and becomes a victim of one of his own reports.  He needs to cleanse himself, to show he's on the side of right, and by the end of the novel he does just that in the most magnificent way possible, further presenting him as the everyman Superman.

The second "main" character in the novel, Lisbeth Salander, is a far more fascinating character.  She's an emotionally troubled 24 year old who also happens to be a terrific computer hacker (this part of the novel, sadly, reminded me of one of the more lucid criticisms offered regarding, of all things, figure skater films, which I talked about here.  The point that author made is that in those films the "good" figure skater has some kind of "innate" talent in this sport.  Such a thing simply cannot exist.).  Salander and her story are, moreso than Blomkvist, the reason I would ultimately recommend the book despite the criticisms presented above.  She is such an interesting, unique character that you are drawn to her just as I was drawn away at times from Blomkvist and his too perfect characterizations.

However, (and, SPOILER!!!!) when Salander falls for Blomkvist, I just about lost it.  The man, as he himself says in the book, is old enough to be her father, therefore noting any relationship with Salander could be viewed by others as...icky.  Besides that, the girl is emotionally unstable and, indeed, even something of a ward of the state.  Blomkvist must be aware of at least the emotional "strangeness" of the girld, yet this picture perfect journalist has the girl (of course) fall for him.  I guess ordinary moral women (even the emotionally damaged ones) simply can't resist.  To make it even worse (if that's possible), it is Salander who subsequently demands (demands!) he sleep with her.

What's our poor picture perfect journalist to do?

This, more than any other event of the book, felt...wrong.  Again, I don't want to come off as a prude, but we are dealing with someone who, while she's incredibly resourceful and more than a handful, is still not all there.

Anyway, enough of the bad:  What was the good?

Well, the book was reasonably well written although it was clear that we were reading a translation.  As such, some passages came off as oddly constructed, but that actually proved beneficial.  After all, I wouldn't want to read a novel set in Sweden that "sounds" like it was taking place in New York.  The mystery is also good, although again I wouldn't put it up there with Mr. Brown's The Far Cry.  The prolonged epilogue could have been trimmed a little, but it also worked reasonably well (this is the part where, after the primary mystery is solved, Blomkvist comes out triumphant against the financial wizard/rogue who messed him up in the book's opening).

So, all in all a recommendation with reservations.  I am curious, I admit, to see the Swedish TV version of the book, if only to see how the actress chosen to play Salander handles that particular role.  My understanding is that an American version of this novel is also in the works.

Great advice to those interested in writing:

http://www.salon.com/books/writing/index.html?story=/books/laura_miller/2010/02/23/readers_advice_to_writers

In particular I like #4.  For years I was struggling with the idea of what good "writing" is.  I always felt I could come up with an interesting plot and characters, but I wondered if my skills in actually describing the events were good.  Over time, I've refined what I've done, and the dreaded "re-write" is a chore that nonetheless cleans up and enhances what I do.

Clarity, at least to me, is the key.  (And, no, I haven't -not by a long shot- succeeded as much as I want to in this regard, as some might attest to with some of my posts!)

Reviewing books can be a funny thing.  On the one hand, you can be so positively overwhelmed by the writing skills of the author yet let down by the book's story/plot.

In the case of Charles Stross' Glasshouse, I was impressed as hell with his writing skills.  He had me there, in this (very) oddball future, then a retro-future, with a main character whose memories have been wiped and has taken part in a bizarre experiment wherein other memory wiped subjects like him get to live in Earth, circa 1950-2020.  But there is a mystery here...past memories intrude upon our protagonist as a sinister sheen intrudes upon the experiment's proceedings...what goes on behind the scenes, both in the experiment and in our protagonist?  Is our protagonist an innocent, or does his/her appearance within the experimental reality serve some purpose?

And if so, what?

The writing, as I said before, is incredible.  Mr. Stross dances a fine line, explaining some genuinely odd things in a logical, clear way.  The main character, first a man and then a woman (!) is sympathetic even as his/her past is mysterious.  And without getting too SPOILERY, there comes a section where our protagonist isn't quite right (If you've read the book you know what I'm talking about) and that bit is also handled extremely well.

Which makes the fact that the story essentially falls apart in the end all the sadder.

As I said before, reviewing a book can be a funny thing, and how do you review a book like this?  As a reader, I really, really enjoyed reading it.  Normally, giving a book like this an enthusiastic recommendation is a no brainer...and yet in the back of my mind I can't help but recognize that the book's plot falls apart upon closer examination.

Again, I don't want to give too much away.  But the book presents and amplifies on a concept very similar to the transporter in TV's Star Trek.  The idea of the transporter, if examined closely, is that it somehow breaks a person apart into molecules and then somehow reassembles those molecules (or perhaps others it takes from the area) into that same person it is transporting.  To push this to its logical limits, one could envision the Star Trekian transportation device as a fantasy device.

But to try to interpret this device in a scientific/rational way, we envision it not only breaking down people into molecules, but also somehow retaining the information on the broken down person in its memory banks.  After all, it has to know what it broke down to recreate it, right?  Now take this a step further:  If it is conceivable that the people using the transporter are broken down into some computer code and then "reintegrated" elsewhere using (I'm guessing) elements taken from the area around where they are transported to, then would they need to be actually "transported" at all?  Wouldn't it be safer, and more convenient, for the transporter to "scan" a person's body (but not break it down) and then replicate their entire being onto the destination within whatever planet they're currently exploring?  And taken even further, a transporter could conceivably recreate not only humans, but equipment, from guns to food to books to tanks to...whatever you wanted.  And couldn't you also use the transporter to create a person who had all your intellect, your "soul", but looked nothing like you...the perfect spy.  Finally, the transporter could be the fountain of youth...each time you use it you could retain your memories but inhabit a more youthful "scan" of your body, thus never aging.

Such a device plays a key role in Glasshouse, and these possibilities of its use play a large role in the story's plot and resolution, which makes the ending so troubling because there comes a point where I wondered why the "bad guys" bothered with their subjects when they could have simply replicated themselves over and over and over and over again and then had the amount of subjects needed to perform the act they intended.  (Please understand, I'm still trying to be as vague as possible here and not give away too many details present in the book).

So there you have it.  A well written, incredibly enjoyable book that is also a victim of a plot that falls apart at the very end.

Still, I recommend this book.  It was a very enjoyable read.  But the above reservations stand.

While people express plenty of frustrations with the Internet, one of the joys of this new era lies in finding articles like the one linked below, which offers a fascinating review of The Lost Books of The Odyssey.

http://www.slate.com/id/2244933/pagenum/all

I've always found The Odyssey a great tale, and this new twist on it is, to say the least, intriguing.  I will have to hunt this book out!

I generally love her articles for Salon.com (her reviews of TV shows are never less than very clever...and sometimes brutally devastating).

Here, she ponders our current information age:

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/frontline/index.html?story=/ent/tv/iltw/2010/01/30/frontline_digital_nation

Somewhat off topic, but it is something that's eating at me:

A few days ago Apple introduced the (very unfortunately named) IPad.  There was much rejoicing among those present at Mr. Job's announcement, even if many critics subsequently found reason to complain about the machine's deficits.

But the thing that sent shivers down my spine was that Steven Jobs felt this machine would be a rival to other e-readers.

Those who read this blog, and I know the number vary wildly from day to day, do so, I hope, because I offer interesting links to interesting articles.

I am also an author of, to date, five works available on amazon.com (the link to them can be found on the upper right of this page).

For my latest novel, Mechanic, I decided to release it both in regular print and through Amazon's Kindle.  I figured that would open up the possibilities of wider readership.

What I didn't realize was that it also opened me up...possibly...to the dreaded reality of illegal downloading.  One day, either a google or bing search by me found one of those file sharing sites that allegedly had the book (in four different versions) there for download, and, according to the site, the novel was downloaded a little over 26,000 times.  At $5.99 a pop for the legal download at Amazon, a purposely low price, it nonetheless means I'm out an awful large amount of money...

...if this is indeed the case.  I haven't downloaded the files and can't help but wonder if indeed it is my book there, or someone simply labeled a file as such and posted who knows what in its place.

So, as I near completion of my latest novel (I'm hoping to finish it up in the next month) and will soon enough post it on Amazon, I'm left wondering if its worthwhile to offer the book via its Kindle services, or if by doing so I'm essentially slitting my own wrists.

Like the music industry, it appears the book market is also facing off against the juggernaut that is the internet.

I can't say I was a huge fan of author Robert B. Parker, although I most certainly loved his deceptively "simple" writing style (and further admit great envy at how well he pulled it off!), but it's always sad to hear of the passing of someone who gave pleasure to others through their work.  In the end, I've read perhaps a handful of his novels, including Poodle Springs, his conclusion to Raymond Chandler's unfinished final Phillip Marlowe novel.

As I've said before, I'm a HUGE fan of Mr. Chandler, and I'd be lying if I said I originally approached Poodle Springs, knowing full well Raymond Chandler only wrote the first four or so chapters, with more than a little trepidation.  In the end, the novel wasn't too bad, although it certainly wasn't as memorable as the best of Chandler.  Then again, what is?  I suppose its a tribute to Mr. Parker's skills that he made the endeavor entertaining enough, and one has to give him props for the courage to step into the shoes of a giant such as Chandler, in the first place.

Mr. Parker will perhaps be best known for his Spenser novels, which became the basis for the Spenser for Hire TV show as well as the Jesse Stone novels which, similarly, made their way to TV and featured Tom Selleck.  He died "sitting at his desk", perhaps contemplating (or in the act of creating) his latest work.

I may have to stock up on a few more of his novels.  Soon.

Things are slowly normalizing themselves after spending an inordinate number of hours setting up the new computer.  In fact, there were a couple of hours available to catch up on some TV...

Fringe: "Unearthed" aired this past Monday (January 11th) and another episode will air this Thursday so the question is: Why?  It would appear Unearthed is an unaired episode from the show's first season (it even has appearances by the now deceased Agent Charlie Francis).  However, many, including myself, wondered if this was an "alternate universe" episode, ie one that featured the characters on another of those multiple worlds the show has already acknowledged exist.

Nope.

I suspect this episode, which they say was filmed during the show's first season but wasn't aired until now, was kept away from the airwaves (and the first season DVD boxed sets) because it featured the very touchy subject of religion.  It was revealed in this episode that Anna Torv's Agent Dunham is a(n)....atheist.  Or at least an agnostic.  Further, it was hinted that Peter Bishop also doesn't think much about the whole thing (although he doesn't come out and say it like Agent Dunham).  While I think its interesting to reveal this about Agent Dunham's character, the show's producers and writers eventually had to reveal the "whys" of her non-religiosity, and in this they chickened out, methinks.  I suspect most people who are agnostics/atheists didn't develop these ideals because their mothers/fathers were very religious and their religion proved not to help them stop abuse/disease/any-other-very-bad-thing.  In the case of Agent Dunham, she states her mother was very religious but her prayers were ineffective against an abuse father and, therefore, she turned away from religion.

While I suspect the whole religion angle was what made Fox store away this episode and finally dump it on a Monday (not the show's regular time slot) and without much fanfare, the episode itself, alas, wasn't all that good, either.  There were interesting elements in it, for sure, but overall the episode didn't gel quite as well as I had hoped.  Then again, of the J. J. Abrams TV shows I've seen (Alias, Lost, and Fringe) this one, while it remains entertaining enough, also remains the least of this group of three.  Still, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't good enough to keep watching.  Even non-knockout J. J. Abrams is better than most TV shows currently airing!

Dollhouse: "Getting Closer" aired on the 8th, and it is the third from the last episode of the show that will ever air.  I've made mention many times before how this show kept letting me down, and there were too many times I was ready to walk away from it (and one time I actually did).  However, I'm glad that I'm here for the show's finale.  Say what you will (and I have) about the too-many very horrible episodes aired before, the show's lack of focus and direction (at least before), and the general confusion of what its all about, but the fact is that to me the show is going out with a bang.  The only real complaint that can be leveled against Getting Closer is that there was almost TOO much plot in it.  However, given the fact that Joss Whedon and company are trying to give the show a proper finale and tie up everything, they can and should be forgiven for presenting us such a rich, full meal.

The reveals about characters (not to mention the shocking death of one of the characters) had me breathless.  In some ways, and without getting too out there, this show reminds me a little of comic book legend Jack Kirby's New Gods book (and I am referring here solely to the original 11 issues of the New Gods while ignoring the other series tied into this book and the various reboots and graphic novels).  While the New Gods feature some of the comic book legends all time best stories (IMHO, and this coming from someone who loved his Marvel comics work as well!), I felt that the first few issues were hit and miss, almost like Jack Kirby jumped into this project with plenty of ideas but it took him a few issues to find his "footing" and deliver the best at the end, when the book was, unfortunately, headed for cancellation.

And so it is, it seems to me anyway, with Dollhouse.  Joss Whedon is most assuredly capable of great TV shows, but the fact is that Dollhouse began very badly, with only a few episodes here and there worthy of watching.  When the second season rolled around, it felt like Mr. Whedon and company were still trying to get their footing.  Now, at the very end, and like Jack Kirby with the New Gods, you almost wish they were given a chance to continue, to see where they go, but that is not to be.

Unlike Mr. Kirby back in the 1970's, Mr. Whedon was given enough lead time to wrap the whole production up.  I hope the end is as good as the episodes thus far leading up to it.

(Just a little random note here:  My all time favorite Jack Kirby comic book has to be New Gods #6, "The Glory Boat".  Seldom has a single issue of a comic book given me chills.  This one has.  For those curious, the issue can be found reprinted in the second volume of Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus.  For those really curious, I recommend all four volumes).

Although, from the sound of it, the memoir was more intended to focus on the poet/rocker's relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe:

http://www.salon.com/books/patti_smith/index.html?story=/books/laura_miller/2010/01/10/just_kids

Of the people in the music business, she remains one of the more curious to me.  Her music is at times brilliant, at times corrosive, almost always very enjoyable (can you ask for more?).  The review of her book is intriguing, to say the least.

It's always been a source of amusement/curiosity to me when we reach the dates of science fictional works, famous or somewhat forgotten.

The two biggest works and the year their events were to take place carried those (then) far flung future in their titles: George Orwell had Nineteen Eighty-Four, Stanley Kubrick/Arthur C. Clarke had 2001: A Space Odyssey.  When originally conceived, Nineteen Eight-Four's events were 35 years into the future.  In the case of 2001: A Space Odyssey, director Stanley Kubrick and author Arthur C. Clarke were imagining events 33 years into their future.  Note, however, that 2001 was based on a short story by Mr. Clark entitled The Sentinel.  This short story was written some 53 years before the far flung future of the year 2001.  I don't believe, though, that the short story had a fixed date when it was meant to occur, unlike the movie/book 2001.

Other famous dates we've passed?  How about the date Skynet becomes self-aware, bringing on the events of The Terminator films?  Skynet goes on-line on Monday, August 4th, 1997 and becomes self aware at 2:14 a.m. August 29th, 1997.  For the original Terminator film, those events were 13 years into the future.

Another favorite of mine, Escape From New York, also featured the then far flung future of 1997.  The movie was released in 1981, which meant the events within were some 16 years into the future.

On TV, there was Space: 1999, wherein the Moon is shot out of its orbit and the inhabitants of the Moon's solitary base experience adventures a la Star Trek.  That show appeared on TV between 1975 and 1977, which meant the future it speculated about was some 22-24 years away.

So, to add to all these imagined futures that we've reached, one can add the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke's 2010: Odyssey Two.  The book was released in 1982 and the movie (renamed/simplified to 2010) a couple of years later.  The future Mr. Clarke envisioned this time around was 28 years in the future, but its here today!

I suppose it was only a matter of time...

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/01/01/ebook.piracy/index.html

In many ways, its a terribly depressing time to be someone trying to make a living via creative endeavors such as music, art, or writing.  While the internet and the technology related to it has afforded authors/musicians/artists a means of getting the word out about their works in a way that was impossible before (check out my very own ertorre.com for information about my books or art or whathaveyou!), the fact is that internet piracy and file sharing have also cost the same creative individuals plenty of residuals they should be making but are not.

I recall back in the stone age, ie at the dawn of the CD, when people noted how Pink Floyd's album The Dark Side of the Moon was a regular heavy hitting seller via records.  Why?  Because records eventually got scratched or developed hisses and pops and those who loved the album had no choice but to buy it over and over again to hear it as it was intended to be.  When the CDs took over, word of continuing sales of that album all but ended, I suspect because now people were able to buy the beloved album once and not have to return to their local music store (remember those?!) to pick up a new, "clean" copy.

But with the internet and piracy, you don't even have to buy that album, or any album, should you be of the mind to simply "get it" free.

Movies have been appearing online, even before they reached the theaters (see the Wolverine film) and it comes as little surprise, given the rising popularity of e-books, that now novels are starting to show up.

My own novel Mechanic is available as an e-book via Kindle, but I've been reluctant to make my other novels available as well.  And I've been debating whether to go that route with my new novel, which should be ready in the next couple of months.

The world changes quickly, and I suspect that this problem will only get bigger with time.  The only real solution is for the authors/artists/musicians to find alternative ways to make up for the lost revenue...or hope for some future, better protection of their copyright material.

What better way to start the new year/decade with a nostalgic and fascinating look back at the futuristic Omni magazine, one of my favorites from years past:

http://www.slate.com/id/2239740/pagenum/all/#p2

The magazine had some really great covers.  That alone had me buying more than a few issues!

Fascinating list from Newsweek, predicting what might happen in the coming year, entertainment/cultural-wise:

http://2010.newsweek.com/top-10/cultural-predictions/someone-dies-on-reality-tv.html

Some of their predictions are pretty good (like the first one, which you can see in the link's "name" already).  Some I'm not so sure about...

Still, worth a look!

That rather unique dishonor falls, shortly, to Laredo Texas, population 230,000:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34452179/ns/business-retail/

Allow me a moment to get on my soapbox:  It's sad that books, today, appear to be in such dire shape.  While I love the huge mega-bookstores (like Borders and Barnes and Nobles) I worry about the smaller booksellers.  In the case of Laredo, the last remaining bookstore is one of the big ones and, granted, they may have another bookstore in a little over a year's time, its just sad that a city of that size somehow got itself in the position of having only one, and one alone, bookstore.

Books are a passion for me, and to find that a city could be without a single bookstore simply amazes, and depresses, me.

Until this fascinating article, I didn't realize there was doubt:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/books/12/02/jane.austen.death/index.html

Not to beat a dead horse (though no doubt that's exactly what I'm doing), but one other thing occurs to me regarding the works of Michael Connelly, and this may in some part explain my general disappointment with 9 Dragons.

When you've read a certain author's works for a long time, as I have with Mr. Connelly, you begin to pick up on certain elements, whether they be familiar characterizations or plot retreads.  Author Clive Cussler may be the ultimate plot repeater: All his books seem to revolve around a) showing us an ancient tragedy involving real or imagined vessels, whether they be trains, planes, or ships and b) in the "modern" times, our hero (Dirk Pitt) is in a race to find the sunken train/plane/ship etc. because it has within its cargo hold something vitally important or dangerous that may destroy/save the world.

With Mr. Connelly, I've come to realize that one aspect of his novels that repeats is that he likes to give the readers multiple plot twists at the tail end of his novels.  He tends to reveal in his book's final pages that characters within had hidden motivations or were somehow involved in whatever mystery is played out in ways designed to surprise us.

To me, though, the only big surprise in 9 Dragons is the unpleasant one I dealt with in my previous notes about the book (just scroll down).

However, when focusing on the book's central mystery(s), I had the suspects of the original crime pretty much pegged from the start.  Please understand: I'm not trying to boast.  I only fear that my familiarity with Mr. Connelly's writing style may be getting in the way of my enjoyment of the same.

Further, I found myself anticipating the novel's second big plot twist, the one delivered on the final pages of the book and involving Bosch's daughter.  Before those revelations were made, at least twenty some pages before getting there, I knew where Mr. Connelly was heading.  Again, the reason for this insight may well be my familiarity with Mr. Connelly's writing style.

Regardless, I point this out because these elements ultimately detracted from my enjoyment of the novel (that along with the unpleasant surprise mentioned before and the fact that the central mystery wasn't all that great, IMHO, to begin with).  However, someone who may not be as familiar with Mr. Connelly's work may find the plot twists both engaging and surprising.

As I said before, according to Amazon's reviews (and a looks around other reviews of the book) my negative opinion of the novel seems to be in the minority.  So please take that into account should you find yourself interested in picking up this book.

A while back (You can check here and here) I noted I was a fan of author Michael Connelly.  In the later link, I stated I was very curious to read his latest novel, 9 Dragons, which was just recently released in hardback.  It is, incredibly, his third novel released in a span of one year, and the reviews of the work seemed more divergent than other novels he's released.

As a fan of his work, of course I was curious, so instead of waiting for the softcover (which I usually do...space around here is tight enough as it is!) I went ahead and picked up the hardcover and, eventually, read it.

I'll be getting into SPOILERS, so be forewarned:  If you want to read the book and don't want certain aspects of it revealed, READ NO FURTHER!!!

SPOILERS BELOW...


....YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!


There are times I've wondered what a popular writer or filmmaker or singer might think about themselves if, somehow, they could examine their later work while still young and in the prime of their career.  For example, what would David Bowie, fresh off of making The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders of Mars, think of himself if he were given the opportunity to spend a day with all the albums he created from that point on?  Would the younger David Bowie be confused by all the different directions he eventually followed?  Would he find certain albums perplexing, and wonder how he could have released them?  Or would he be proud of the work, knowing that life has its ups and downs, and that at the very least there was a consistency to the work?

Similarly, what would a Jaws era Steven Spielberg think if he were allowed to sit through all the films that followed, both good and bad.  Would the younger Spielberg, like the younger David Bowie, also wonder how it is this older version of himself got to where he was?  Would he take certain films and recognize their genius, but feel he could do better...or at least differently, than the man he would become?

I ask these questions for a reason, because I wonder what the Michael Connelly who introduced the world to LAPD detective Hieronymous "Harry" Bosch in Black Echo back in 1993 would think of the Michael Connelly who just released Bosch's latest mystery, 9 Dragons.  I ask this because Black Echo not only introduced readers to Bosch, but also to Eleanor Wish, a fascinating female FBI agent who was the second lead in the the story and who subsequently appeared in several other Bosch novels, including this one.

I ask these questions because apart from Harry Bosch, Eleanor Wish has been one of the most interesting characters in the series, and her progression from that first novel on has been well crafted and interesting.  So interesting that there have been times I've found myself as interested in what is happening in her life as I was with Bosch's.

Which makes what happens to her character in 9 Dragons so incredibly appalling.  Once again I ask: Did the Michael Connelly of 1993 envision this was the way her character would eventually go?  Doubly sad is the fact that the plot in this novel isn't one of Mr. Connelly's stronger efforts.  The central mystery is rather weak and the author resorts to the cliched idea of the bad guys "going after my family".  Eleanor Wish's character in 9 Dragons is there, it seems, to be alternately hysterical and angry before being killed off.  She isn't so much the character I've grown to enjoy seeing in the books as a plot device: Reader, you must now be sad that she's gone.  And that, at least to me, is a terrific shame.

As Jennifer Reese, the reviewer for Entertainment Weekly put it (you can read her full review here):

Connelly dispatches an important character so randomly that you wonder whom he wouldn't kill to energize a fundamentally inert narrative.

Now, if you haven't read the other Connelly books as I have, you may find enjoyment out of 9 Dragons.  Indeed, going by many of the reviews in the Amazon listing, my opinion is in the minority.

However, I reiterate what I've said before: It's a shame such a dynamic character had to be dispatched in what is ultimately a minor work of an otherwise great author.

Here's hoping the next one is better.

Interesting article regarding a phenomena I hadn't heard of before, that of the so-called "third man" (and in no way related to the Orson Welles' movie):

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/11/08/third.man/index.html

After reading the article, my feeling is that an explanation to this phenomena is pretty close to this line, offered by the author of the book "The Third Man Factor: Surviving the Impossible," John Geiger:

Maybe the Third Man is a coping mechanism, Geiger suggests. The brain creates a companion to help a person survive a terrible situation. Or perhaps there is an "angel switch" in the brain that's activated in life-or-death struggles.

Johann Hari at Slate.com offers a review and blistering comments regarding the philosophy of Ayn Rand, perhaps the far right's philosophical darling:

http://www.slate.com/id/2233966/

I've always been intrigued by Ms. Rand, and Mr. Hari's comments offer a scathing look at what may lie behind her philosophies, as well as the paradoxes, self-loathing, etc..  While reading the article, I couldn't help but find comparisons between Ms. Rand and another pretty well known author turned philosopher, who himself has brought about what many consider a cult.

In the last paragraph of this article, Mr. Hari himself makes that very same comparison, so at the very least his essay was successful in bringing about his ultimate point.

Still, the only thing I've ever really been exposed to, at least concerning Ayn Rand, are reviews of her philosophy (and articles both pro and con) and seeing the Gary Cooper starring The Fountainhead movie (which was, of course, based on Ayn Rand's novel).  The movie was decent enough, although the philosophy was spread rather thick, which is evident even in this trailer for that movie.

A little while back (you can read it here) I mentioned I was a big fan of author Michael Connelly.  His latest novel, 9 Dragons, is out (I have it, but haven't read it yet) and the author, while researching Hong Kong for the novel, afterwards discovered he was in the area when an apparent crime was committed that has some similarities to what he was writing.

The article follows:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/29/michael.connelly.fact.fiction/index.html

My heart goes out to the family of Ani Ashekiar.

As for Mr. Connelly's novel, as a fan of his writing I'm eager to read it, but the reviews have been pretty divergent.  The critic at Entertainment Weekly wasn't too impressed at all with the novel (http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20310556,00.html).  However, other reviewers (like the one here: http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/story/1301193.html) felt it was one of his best books.

I'll offer my opinion after I read it!

Just stumbled upon this review posted a couple of years ago regarding my graphic novel The Dark Fringe and thought I'd share...

http://www.comicsbulletin.com/real/106577993166743.htm

If you're reading any of the other nonsense I post here daily, a belated thanks for the kind review, Glenn!

Absolutely fascinating article regarding the unattributed play The Reign of Edward III.

For years (centuries!), the author of this play was suspected as being William Shakespeare.  Now, and with the aid of computer software intended to detect plagiarism in college students' papers, Sir Brian Vickers, a literature professor at the University of London, has concluded the play was likely a collaboration between Mr. Shakespeare and Thomas Kyd, another popular playwright of the era:

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1930971,00.html

It's always fascinating to me to read things like this, where modern technology may provide insight into old mysteries.  Even ones involving authorship of plays.

Fascinating stuff!

Fascinating article concerning underground comic book artist Robert Crumb's take on the Bible, and what, if anything, he learned during the experience:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2009-10-18-r-crumb-old-testament_N.htm

My wife (and bookshelf) can attest to the fact that I'm a fan of the books of Michael Connelly.  He's released a bunch of them, and Harry Bosch, LAPD detective and general pain in the ass to those in positions above him, makes for an intriguing principal character in most of those novels.

I say "most" because Mr. Connelly has written quite a few novels set in Harry Bosch's "universe" but have not featured him.  One of these novels, Blood Work, boasts one of Mr. Connelly's most intriguing plots and might well be my favorite of his books.  However, the 2002 movie version of Blood Work, starring and directed by Clint Eastwood was a major disappointment, given the talent in front of and behind the camera (Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential) wrote the script).  The intricacies of Mr. Connelly's plot weren't successfully transferred, IMHO, to the screen, and the changes to the novel's ending were also ill advised, something Mr. Connelly himself had some fun with in a subsequent novel.

Which leads us to The Lincoln Lawyer.  Like Blood Work, this novel does not feature Harry Bosch as the principal character, although he makes a minor appearance.  It's to be made into a film, directed by Tommy Lee Jones (who will take a secondary role...perhaps that of Bosch himself?!) and starring Matthew McConaughey.

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/10/14/tommy-lee-jones-to-direct-and-co-star-in-the-lincoln-lawyer/

Now for the bad news: As much as I love the Mr. Connelly's books, I have to be honest and say that The Lincoln Lawyer simply isn't among his best.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that its one of his lesser works, featuring a rather forgettable mystery that isn't all that intriguing or surprising.  Hopefully the movie will improve upon the book (the inverse of what happened with Blood Work) and we'll have something worth seeing.

Anyway, for what its worth, the trailer to Clint Eastwood's Blood Work:

Let me put this up front: I love Robert E. Howard's Solomon Kane.  While Howard is best known for Conan, his most famous creation, I've always felt Solomon Kane, his combination Puritan/Dirty Harry, was far and away his most intriguing creation.

When I read about a movie being made centering on this character, I was intrigued.  However, when the trailer came out...I was less so.  It looked OK, but in my mind the world of Solomon Kane should have been far, far more shadowy.  Further, the man playing Kane didn't strike me as a good fit.

Anyway, someone over at Ain't It Cool News saw the film, and they liked it...quite a bit:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/42638

However, instead of exciting me, the review has made me even more nervous about the final product.  For you see, rather than adapt a Robert E. Howard story, the filmmakers have devised, according to this review, an origin story.  An origin story?  I can't help but scratch my head.  Solomon Kane doesn't need an origin story.  Did we need to find out why Dirty Harry was like he was (there were hints in the first movie, but nothing too elaborate).  Granted, perhaps today's culture requires some explanation, some reason for someone to be what they are.  But is it really required?  Especially if you whatever you come up with is obviously nothing that Robert E. Howard created?

This line from the review makes me the most nervous:

(Before becoming the character Robert E. Howard wrote) Solomon Kane isn’t a nice guy. He’s a scoundrel, a pirate and a murderer. But when he’s busy sacking a city and spilling the township’s blood for a fistful of gold, the Devil’s servants catch up to him eager to drag him screaming into the pits of hell. But Kane will have none of that. So he turns to God and becomes a man of the cloth; but that ain’t exactly right either. And once it becomes perfectly clear that the Devil has no intention of letting him off the hook, Solomon blends the lifestyles together and dedicates his life to sending the Devil’s minions back to him – sans a few limbs and several gallons of blood, of course. Just as Howard intended.

This former part seems to dispel one of the greatest Solomon Kane stories (a poem, actually), Solomon Kane's Homecoming.  I just don't know if I like the idea of Solomon Kane once being "bad", then turning good.  I always viewed him as good...although grim as hell.

We'll see.

On of the oddest bits of news I've read in a while:

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/09/29/stephen-king-novella-the-colorado-kid-to-become-tv-series-called-haven/

I'm not a huge Stephen King fan.  In fact, I've read very few of his novels.  The Colorado Kid happens to be one of them.  I'm with the author of the article linked above.  The novel, which many consider pretty bad, is a story about an unsolved mystery that, in the end, isn't solved.  What's the point of that?

It features a couple of characters talking about this mystery but in the end we're left with the mystery as it was.

I suspect author Stephen King was experimenting when he wrote this book.  He was walking in the footsteps of Agatha Christie (or any other mystery writer) but for whatever reason felt that he should provide a story with no resolution (somewhere else, perhaps even in the notes after the slim novel, he pointed out that he had a resolution theory, but didn't include it in the book).  Regardless, the only feeling I had after reading The Colorado Kid was that it was a well written waste of time.

From the description of the show that's coming, it seems the producers simply wanted to use Stephen King's name on this project and had no intention of making a "faithful" (or even a passing) adaptation of the book.

As such, I once again wonder what's the point.

On November 17th, Vladimir Nabokov's unfinished draft of The Original of Laura will be released.  The draft, which Nabokov tried to finish before dying, was originally intended to be burned.  These were Nabokov's instructions, should he not finish the work before passing away.

But the work was preserved and, after a time, a decision was made by the famous author's sole surviving heir, Dmitri Nabokov, to finally publish the work.

Here's an advance review (although it does not go into too many details about the work itself...the publishing company wants to keep that secret, until closer to the release, both in Playboy (which will publish excerpts) and the release of the actual novel).

Still, an interesting read:

http://www.slate.com/id/2229224/

Love him or hate him, an interesting mini-interview with Ralph Nader about his new book (a progressive/liberal utopia in modern times and featuring real life people) and about other topics:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1925576,00.html

Fascinating article from CNN regarding Google's custom printing offer for public domain books.  Having heard about their attempt to scan old books, one now sees their endgame:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/18/google.books/index.html

It's an interesting concept, and allows readers access to books long gone or hard to find.  On the other hand, the collector's market might take a hit!

From Time Magazine comes this interview with Alix Strauss, author of Death Becomes Them: Unearthing the Suicides of the Brilliant, the Famous, and the Notorious.

The subject matter covered in the book is...odd, but I find it fascinating.  There are many famous figures who ultimately opted to commit suicide, and I for one might well pick this book up, if only for morbid (and it is that!) curiosity...

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1922179,00.html

This article, from CNN, notes that, slowly but surely, there seems to be building interest in so-called e-books.

I suspect that the reader is key: At this point I don't know which one is considered the best, and I'm not inclined to spend the money on one that may become obsolete.

And this coming from someone who has one of his books available through the Kindle!

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/14/ebooks.ereaders/index.html

A while back Amazon.com came under some fire for soliciting/selling illegal copies of legitimate books through their electronic Kindle service and, more importantly, the way they dealt with the problem.

They dealt with the problem by remotely "deleting" copies of the books in all the users Kindle machines (those, obviously, that paid and downloaded the surely unknown to them illegal copies).

Anyway, Amazon is making restitution.  Better late then never:

http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/04/amazon-returns-deleted-kindle-books/

If you've seen all those "Fall Film" guides (I know I have!) here is another guide, that of books coming out in fall.  Some big names are included:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2009-09-02-fall-books-main_N.htm

Very humorous posting.  Very little for me to add...just click the link!

http://scifiwire.com/2009/08/how-twilight-should-have.php

And most of them are quite amusing:

http://open.salon.com/blog/bob_eckstein/2009/08/21/cartoons_nobody_will_see_back_to_the_drawing_board_2

Interesting article from USA Today.  Steven Spielberg is developing a film version of the soon to be released, posthumously of course, Michael Crichton novel Pirate Latitudes.

I've noted my admiration for Steven Spielberg before.  Duel, his first big hit, was the first film I recall sitting through and watching from start to end and understanding what I was seeing.  It wasn't until years later I realized this was because the film was originally conceived as a silent film.  While there is dialogue within the finished project, it is mostly redundant.  Still, the film remains one of my all time favorites and is an obvious early thematic take of Jaws.

As for Michael Crichton, I'm somewhat a fan.  I think the man was capable of coming up with some truly brilliant ideas, but his novels were at times good and at times pretty mediocre, at least to me.  I loved The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man (two rather early novels subsequently made into feature films).  I liked the ideas behind Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, and Prey, but the novels themselves were, at least to me, only so-so.  At times Mr. Crichton seemed intent on preaching certain philosophies or worldviews rather than offering satisfying entertainment (His novel State of Fear, for example, pushed a little too strongly an anti-global warming message and failed, at least to me, as entertainment).  Of his movies, Westworld and The Great Train Robbery are my favorites.

Regardless, I'm always curious to see new films from Mr. Spielberg.  The idea of making a more "grounded in reality" pirate film intrigues me:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2009-08-26-spielberg-crichton_N.htm

Yesterday I posted the trailer of Shutter Island and offered my (negative) opinion of the book's plot.  Today, I found an early review from someone who saw the movie and enjoyed it.  Note that the review is spoiler free:

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/08/20/martin-scorseses-shutter-island-japanese-poster-and-early-reader-review/

As I said before, I read the novel the movie is based on and found it a pretty big misfire.  The book tries hard to present a "Holy shit!" type plot twist but, in the end, it was pretty damn silly.

On the other hand, and as I've said before, I haven't seen the film.  Images from the trailer look quite good, and maybe, just maybe, Martin Scorcese and the screenwriters have made something better out of what was in Lehane's novel.

Here's another review, this time of the book, and it falls close to my views:

http://januarymagazine.com/crfiction/shutterisland.html

The most pertinent line, at least to me:

The driving tempo of this novel seems to evaporate by the end, like the calm after a storm. Lehane drops plenty of clues for his readers, as he leads them toward significant shifts of direction and perspective. However, the big twist on which Lehane's tale ultimately turns is more likely to incite a shrug than a shock. What was once pertinent and compelling is turned into a type of parlor-trick emptiness.

http://movie-critics.ew.com/2009/08/19/movie-trailers/

Interesting article from Entertainment Weekly online that (very briefly) examines movie trailer's effectiveness.  They present the trailer for the upcoming Martin Scorcese/Leonardo DiCaprio film Shutter Island and the author notes that:

I’ve already seen the trailer for Shutter Island two or three times, and I have no clue about the movie’s story or artistic style.

Well, I've read the Dennis Lehane book the movie was based on and though it pains me to say this...its simply not all that good, in my opinion.  The opening act and setting are intriguing as hell, but once you get to the book's big reveals, the story deflates quicker than a popped balloon.

Of course, I (nor most anyone else) has seen the film yet.  However, I'm assuming, for the trailer gives me no reason to believe this is not the case, that the film and book follow the same general storyline and will feature the same "twist" at the end.

I envy the success of Dennis Lehane.  Already three of his novels have been turned into movies (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, and now Shutter Island).  However, while I have all the respect in the world for those first two works, I'm more than a little surprised such big names have attached themselves to Shutter Island.

The book was, again in my opinion, really that weak.

Of all the thousand books or so I've read in my lifetime, there is only one that I've come back to and actually re-read more than once: Fredric Brown's The Far Cry (1951).

Mr. Brown (1906-1972) is today probably best known as the author whose science fiction story "Arena" was the eventual basis of the same titled Star Trek (the original series) episode.  You know, the one which featured Kirk versus the reptilian Gorn in a death match on a desert world.

In his lifetime, however, Mr. Brown was known for both his science fictional works as well as his mystery novels, and The Far Cry is an example of the later.

The story involves one George Weaver, a man who isn't in the best mental shape.  He and his wife are very heavy drinkers, and Mr. Weaver is recovering from a nervous breakdown.  He is in repose and, at the beginning of the novel, rents a house outside Taos, New Mexico.  In the course of time, he discovers that a young lady was brutally murdered at that house, and that her identity, and that of the murderer, are still unknown nearly a decade later.

Mr. Weaver is soon obsessed with solving the crime.  He is also haunted by his vision of the victim, to the point where one could say he falls for in love with what he feels she was.

Mr. Weaver's obsession leads him into very strange territory indeed, and the novel's conclusion is nothing short of jaw dropping.

I believe all of Mr. Brown's works are now out of print, which is a great shame.  However, if you sniff around Amazon.com (specifically here) you'll find some of his works.  Should you stumble upon any of his novels or collections of short stories in a second hand bookstore, give them a try.  While I haven't read them all, so far I haven't been disappointed.

But the crown jewel of his career, in my opinion, remains The Far Cry.

Hopefully one day this beautiful, haunting murder mystery will again be in print.

Found this story regarding the upcoming storyline featuring a "future" Archie proposing and marrying "future" Veronica, and how his choice irks at least one reader to the point where he's selling his copy of the very first Archie comic.

The man's a fan of Betty, obviously!

http://my.att.net/s/editorial.dll?pnum=1&bfromind=7404&eeid=6750818&_sitecat=1479&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=2&ck=&ch=en&rg=blsadstrgt&_lid=332&_lnm=tg+en+topnews&ck=&l=hm

Many years ago, I used to enjoy the Archie comics.  To this day, however, one of my strongest memories involves not the Archie book, but the 1954 Mad magazine parody of Archie, "Starchie".  I read that story in one of the many reprint "Special Editions" Mad Magazine released either in the late 1970's or into the 1980's, and its stuck with me ever since.  It could well be the walking definition of a "savage" parody.

You might want to wait just a little:

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/08/12/harry-potter-movies-to-get-rereleased-in-extended-editions/

Seems there might be extended editions of the films on their way.  Just how "extended" these films will be remains to be seen...

(Just for the record: I have not read nor seen any of the Harry Potter books/movies, so I don't know how good the movies are versus the books or how potentially good an "extended" cut of the film will be versus the theatrical cut and the book).

It's always been a source of curiosity to me, perhaps since Jaws premiered but certainly by the time the original Star Wars appeared in theaters, what makes people "herd" around something.

I recall the long lines of cars waiting to enter a drive-in theater (in Venezuela no less), and people actually standing on roofs of their cars, to catch a glimpse of the earlier showing of Jaws on theater screens.  Fast forward to the arrival of Star Wars, and the incredible hoopla that suddenly turned almost everyone into a fan.

I admit to being fascinated by this sudden need to be part of some thing...be it music (the Beatles, when they first appeared, sent fans screaming), books (Harry Potter and, now, Twilight), TV (most recently American Idol), and, of course, movies.

As customers, we lurch from one product to another, without any visible rhyme nor reason.  Sometimes, we herd around one particular product, to the point where its a...frenzy.  I still recall hearing vague whispers, after Harry Potter's final book appeared in the stores, that the "next" hot series might be this one written by a Mormon mother, a series that involved a young girl and vampires and first love.  I didn't think much about it, but it seemed like the very next day everyone heard of Twilight.

Anyway, the Twilight frenzy is taking up the San Diego Comic Con...

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/07/22/twilight.fans/index.html

...if you're an author, that is.  It seems that George Orwell's 1984 was made available as a Kindle book through Amazon.com (I've used the service for my book, Mechanic, and was thinking of adding the others as well).

Only problem?

The people who own the rights to the book were not the ones selling it.  Seems some shady third party sellers offered the book through the Amazon Kindle service, choosing 1984 because it wasn't available in that format and recognizing there might be a desire out there to purchase it as a Kindle book (I heard a rumor that the book was considered a literary classic or some such ).

Anyway, the folks at Amazon realized they shouldn't be giving their clients the opportunity to purchase pirated material, so they have discontinued the listing and returned the money to those who bought the Kindle edition of this book...

http://my.att.net/s/editorial.dll?pnum=1&bfromind=7404&eeid=6696514&_sitecat=1479&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=-2&ck=&ch=en&rg=blsadstrgt&_lid=332&_lnm=tg+en+topnews&ck=&l=hm

You may have heard that J. D. Salinger successfully sued to have 60 Years Later, the unauthorized "sequel" to his famous novel Catcher in the Rye, taken off the shelves.

I was unaware that it made it to the shelves in the first place!

Well, here you have a review of the unauthorized sequel, and, if you go by this critic, it looks to be not worth your while:

http://www.slate.com/id/2222831/

Sanctum Books is re-releasing the old Doc Savage (and The Shadow, The Whisperer, and The Avenger) pulp novels.  Their latest tome, #26, features what many consider the best of the original Doc Savage pulps: The Annihilist, originally presented in 1934 (the second feature is Cargo Unknown, from 1945).  Both of these books (indeed, most of the Doc Savage novels) were written by Lester Dent, a man who produced a literal truck load of material during his years of writing.  Alas, the "credit" for writing all the novels was placed upon the fictional "Kenneth Robeson".

Now, I point this particular reprint book out not because I wish to plug the Sanctum Books' releases (although they are fun reads), but rather to focus on the pulp novel's original 1934 cover, re-used for the Sanctum Books reprint and presented below:
What's so intriguing to me about the original cover to The Annihilist is that, if you were reading the novel, you can be forgiven for wondering if and when the cover scene would appear, at all.

Why?

Because most of this novel is set in New York City during a cold, cold winter.  Indeed, Lester Dent often notes the chilly conditions, the snow falling, etc., yet the original pulp covers shows what looks to be a summer scene with an injured (and shirtless) Doc Savage next to a river or lake...and not a speck of snow is to be seen around him.

Anyway, the scene does eventually show up very close to the novel's end.  I suspect Lester Dent was forced to do some creative problem solving to actually include it.  For you see, back in those days it was not uncommon for a cover to be conceived and created for a specific issue of a pulp magazine before it was actually written.

In this case (and without getting into too many spoilers), Lester Dent has Doc and crew fly out of New York and to the woody country just outside the big city for the novel's climax.  Mr. Dent further states that, as they are flying, a "warm front" blows in, causing a storm which, luckily for Doc and the crew, is gone just as they land.  The storm and warm front's purpose, it would seem, is strictly to allow for the cover image so curiously devoid of any trace of snow and ice.

Perhaps not the most elegant solution, but when you are expected to produce a 60,000 word novel almost every month (there were other authors filling in on the Doc Savage novels here and there) and have the added pressure of making your novel fit into a sometimes dissonant cover, you do what you can.

Their names are pretty well known to those who frequent the bookstores (even if you're not a big fan of their works).  Here is an interesting list of 15 novelists and surprising stories regarding them...

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/worklife/07/13/mf.suprising.facts.bestselling.authors/index.html

While I am no big fan of her books, Danielle Steele's background (and two listed ex-husbands!) might qualify as the most peculiar of the stories presented!

Once in a while, an article you stumble upon simply blows your mind.  Here is that article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/09/hemingway-failed-kgb-spy

Now, to be fair, Hemingway was, according to this article, recruited by the KGB in 1941.  In other words, he joined up in the early stages of WWII.  Perhaps his recruitment, as noted in the article, was more related to working against the Nazis (Hemingway was known to patrol the waters off Cuba in search of U-boats) than actually working for the KGB in the cold war (which, obviously, came after the end of the second world war).  On the other hand, the article notes that:

contacts with Argo (Hemingway's KGB codename) had ceased by the end of the decade.

As I said, a doozy of a story!

As an author, I feel sympathy for the other authors mentioned in the article below and can, to some degree, understand their sometimes very hostile reaction to critics.  Writing a novel can be a pretty damn intense affair...you're all alone, sweating out each word, each sentence, each paragraph, sometimes for years before you feel comfortable enough to declare the work "done", and then you sit back helplessly as someone takes maybe a weekend or so to read this book you've put so much effort into and then devotes maybe another hour or so to write a brief review demolishing your baby.

Writing is a tricky bit of business.  Given the amount of time and effort it may require to write a book, you inevitably produce something you're interested in, but that doesn't mean others will find it as interesting as you do.  After writing a book and going through the arduous process of revising it, I've often found myself analyzing my work as if it I was another person, my theoretical customer, reading it for the first time.  The exercise has proven useful to "cutting the fat", but it is, at best, an inexact science.

Consider Stephen King and his first successful novel, Carrie.  According to Mr. King, as he was writing the novel that would eventually take him to superstardom, he thought he was writing a genuine piece of shit.  According to Mr. King, so disenchanted was he with the novel that he actually threw it out.  His wife picked the book out of the trash and told the then struggling author his novel was good and encouraged him to finish it.  The rest, of course, is history.

But having said all this, my sympathy for authors and their reactions to critics only goes so far.  In the case of this article, you've got some examples of authors who went just a little too far:

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2009/06/30/critic_fight/

Like many out there, I read Catcher in the Rye during my High School years.  Enjoyed the book, especially with its powerful (to me) ending.  Author J. D. Salinger's last published work happened an awful long time ago, and I've read rumors the reclusive author may have other works he's done since then, stored away and (possibly) intended to be published after his death (he is currently 90 years old).

Add to the mix the intriguing new lawsuit Mr. Salinger has made against an author who apparently was trying to publish a "sequel" of sorts to Catcher and you've got an interesting article filled with interesting speculation:

http://www.slate.com/id/2219768/

Great link to an article featuring multiple videos of well known authors recommending books to read (not just their own!).  If you're hunting for some summer reading and are stumped (hey, you could also look up some of my works, if you're curious!), then click the link below:

http://www.salon.com/books/summer_reading/2009/06/05/bea_authorsrecommend/

While the article I'm linking to (from The New York Post) is light on details and seems to offer little more than speculation, nonetheless I wouldn't be surprised if the author was dead on.

Playboy, like all magazines, is facing some very stiff (ahem) competition from the internet.  The primary draw of Playboy for many years, let's face it, was seeing a beautiful woman nude, something you can now do very, very easily on the internet.  As for the other features within the magazine, from the articles and interviews (you know, the stuff everyone says they read it for)...they may be good, but again the competition of the internet is fierce.

The article:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05222009/business/playboy_in_market_for_a_sugar_daddy_with_170437.htm?&page=1

When Warren Ellis' first novel, Crooked Little Vein, came out, I was curious but unwilling to pay $21.95 for a relatively lean hardback book by an author whose comic book works have been somewhat hit and miss for me.  Then I noted a stack of them on clearance at Barnes and Nobles and picked it up.

What a strange trip.

As I mentioned before, I know of Ellis from his mostly out of left field comic book work.  Crooked Little Vein was his first stab at making an actual novel and he acquits himself well.  The book is a page turner with plenty of hilarious scenes (My favorite has to be the Falconer and his fate).

But, and its a big 'but', the "mystery" within the novel is quite slight.  Our protagonist moves from setting to setting with such ease that one wonders what was the point of hiring him for the job when his employers could/should have been able to do everything he did but probably far, far better.  The McGuffin (an alternate constitution of the U.S.A. that was written on some weird, hypnotic alien paper...or somesuch) is interesting enough that you want to find out more about this weird item, but Ellis disappoints in this respect.

Still, despite these two quibbles I would, in the end, recommend the book.  If you're in the mood for some extended weirdness and humor, and don't mind reading about some very, very perverse sexual practices, then this book is for you.

It ain't The Heart of Darkness or The Compleat Works of William Shakespeare, but then again, what is?

I mentioned before that I'm a fan of the pulp novels of the 1930's and 40's.  Here are some links to sites that provide images as well as reprints of the Pulp novels:

Doc Savage:

http://popculturesafari.blogspot.com/search/label/Doc%20Savage

http://www.radioarchives.org/DocSavage.htm

The Shadow:

http://popculturesafari.blogspot.com/search/label/Shadow - this site includes the Steranko illustrated covers from the reprint novels

http://www.radioarchives.org/TheShadow.htm

...to say that Mechanic, my new novel, is now available as an e-book through Amazon's Kindle.  The link is as follows:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=node%3D154606011&field-keywords=e.+r.+torre&x=16&y=16

...we now return to whining about the quality of Dollhouse and lament for the possible demise of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

The cover:

Some blatant self-promotion (we'll return to regular programming shortly)

Mechanic, my latest novel, is now available for order from Amazon.com.

The link is:

http://www.amazon.com/Mechanic-E-R-Torre/dp/0972911545/ref=sr_1_3/189-7232495-9832209?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239280024&sr=1-3

For those using Kindle, the book will be available in that format in another week or two (sorry, don't have a specific targeted date).

To those interested, I thank you for your support.  Check out my home page link on the upper right.  I should have a more detailed page devoted to Mechanic up soon.

By the way, all four of my novels and one graphic novel can be found on Amazon by clicking this link (the technical books in the lower half of the page, alas, I had nothing to do with! ):

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/102-0032426-5772966?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=e.+r.+torre&x=18&y=21

An intriguing article about the possible discovery of some early works by Shakespeare:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/5005557/Academic-discovers-six-works-by-William-Shakespeare.html