Book Review: Armchair Safari, by Jonathan Paul Isaacs

This showed up as a recommendation on Amazon, and it had lots of good reviews, so I took a chance on the Kindle edition.  I saw some reviews that referred to this work as:  "an inferior implementation of Neal Stephenson's REAMDE".  I have not read REAMDE, so I can't speak to that.  But, I took a chance on it - anything that involves a virtual world sounds interesting.  My initial reaction to this book was that it would be something like Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline, but the only similarity is the online game.

I have to say, I had some trouble getting into this, but I stuck with it.  The description of the book refers to the character Megan and her exploits in the multi-player online game called Armchair Safari.  Her character becomes involved in a quest to obtain a major jackpot which will free her from crushing debt.  Initially, the story jumps around between several different characters, and much of it seems unrelated to the description of the book.  At the start of the story, there is very little content about Megan.  Gradually, she becomes more involved in the story, but it is really unclear as to how everything else is related to Megan and Armchair Safari, and I have to say the book was not holding my attention for the first 50 to 100 pages, and I considered giving up.

Somewhere around the halfway point, things started to become clearer and more interesting, and then with each chapter I wanted to see where the story would end up.  There were a few surprises, and you do learn how everything is connected, so the story ended up in a good place for me.  I'm not sure why the first half was a struggle to get through, but this ended up being a rewarding read.  Was the writing style different?  Maybe.  Did it change halfway through the book?  Maybe.  Did I have difficulty because I was expecting a story like Ready Player One?  I don't know.  Is the story similar to REAMDE?  I won't know that until I get around to reading it.

There are a few things that really stood out for me.  First, there are some characters that are kind of nasty, and do some nasty things to other people - be warned.  Second, the game Armchair Safari had some really interesting elements to it, and the characters in the game had some really interesting ideas regarding protecting their fortunes in the game.  Third, there are some story elements that I totally did not see coming, which is always nice when an author can pull it off.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes stories with many complex elements which end up being woven together into a complete story - it just takes a while to get there.

Lost at Sea, by Bryan Lee O'Malley

I was originally on the fence regarding reading this one.  The graphic novel Seconds was the first work I read by Mr. O'Malley, and I really enjoyed it.  I found it to be as engaging and appealing as Scott McCloud's The Sculptor.  After reading Seconds, I learned that he was the author of the graphic novel series that the film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was based on (a film which is on my "to see" list, but I still have not gotten around to watching).  So, I read that entire series and enjoyed it.

I was looking for whatever else this author had written, and found only Lost at Sea (although Snotgirl was being worked on, but was unreleased at the time).  Immediately, the book didn't look as appealing to me, and I waffled about getting it for quite some time.  In the end, I broke down and got it in paperback.  I figured it must be just as good as his other works.

I figured wrong - at least for me, since this does seem to be a highly regarded story.  The recommendation on the back cover is:  "If you've ever been eighteen, or confused, or both, maybe you should read this book."

Well, I've been both, and now I've read it, but in the end I just couldn't identify with Raleigh.  For me, the story just wasn't as engaging or interesting as Seconds or Scott Pilgrim.  This is in line with my initial reaction to the story in this book - but, I frequently take a chance when I am hesitant about a book, because more than half the time it does pay off.  In this case, it didn't.

I'm not saying this is a bad book, because I do see how others could identify with this, but it just didn't work for me.  Perhaps I'm too far beyond the age of 18 to identify with it?  I don't feel that should be the case.

Anyway, I will end with saying that this story is extremely different from Scott Pilgrim and Seconds as a warning to potential readers that this book just might not be for you if that is the kind of story you are looking for.  Or, you can take a chance like I did, and maybe it will work out for you.

Book Review: Deck Z: The Titanic: Unsinkable. Undead. by Chris Pauls and Matt Solomon

This is the second story I've read that uses the Titanic disaster as the backdrop to a horror story.  The first was Carpathia by Matt Forbeck, which involves vampires.  This one involves a zombie outbreak.  I have to say, for some reason seeing how an author mixes a story like this into the timeline of the sinking of the Titanic is interesting and appealing.

The story starts in a similar way to James Cameron's film Titanic - people on a submersible are collecting relics from the wreck at the bottom of the ocean, and they come across a flask.  Then, the story steps back to 1912 to a German scientist who flees with a virus that he is concerned elements of his government are trying to weaponize.

Ultimately, our protagonist attempts to escape on the Titanic, hoping to hide and develop a cure.  But..as the proverb goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Ultimately, things don't go as he plans and the virus ends up spreading through the ship shortly after it sets sail.  He comes to realize that some people have been infected, and he enlists the help of the Captain to put a stop to things.

I have to say that this story was very appealing, and was very engaging right up until the end.  There were some nice surprises along the way, and I was really interested in seeing how this story would map to the real events that took place on Titanic, as reported by survivors - I didn't see how it could be pulled off.

In the end, aside from a few relatively minor changes (such as the reason why the final boilers were lit to speed up the boat - it wasn't to arrive earlier than expected to prove that Titanic was truly the fantastical ship of dreams), there is little impact to how Titanic encounters the iceberg.  I was expecting there to be more of a connection.  I had to assume that anyone who knew anything about the zombie outbreak simply would not be among the survivors, which would explain why the knowledge of the outbreak was not known.  For the most part, this is the case.

The story wraps up rather suddenly, which was a bit of a surprise.  As I mentioned above, I expected there to be more of an explanation of how events impacted the voyage of Titanic, and perhaps even contributed to its encounter with the iceberg, but my expectations were not met.  The ending leaves things open to a potential sequel.

While the story itself ultimately fell short of my expectations, I did thoroughly enjoy this story.  The writing style was engaging, and the origin of the zombies was new and different.

Book Review: The Wrenchies, by Farel Dalrymple

Ok, let's get the good stuff out of the way first.

As Mike Mignola (author of Hellboy) says, the artwork is beautiful.  It is dark, gritty, and relatively unique (and, apparently, water-color, which I would not have guessed, but this is what the author page on Amazon states).  I've seen something like it before, probably many years ago, I'm guessing on the pages of Heavy Metal magazine.  I found the world interesting, and some of the characters were interesting.

That's pretty much where my enjoyment ended.  When I first saw this book, I did notice the mixed reviews.  But, there has been very little graphic work I've read recently that I haven't enjoyed on some level, so I took a risk.  In this case, it didn't pay off for me.

While I enjoyed the artwork, in the end the story just didn't work for me.  The main problem was in trying to understand just what exactly is going on.  A few times, I felt that I was starting to understand it, and then another curve ball would be thrown.  By the time I reached the end, I had no idea what had happened.

I have to say, this was one of the more disappointing reads this year, but I have to assume that the point of the story just slipped past me.  I did not make it through this particularly quickly - I had to take several breaks from the story, and in the end that may have contributed.  But, the story was not engaging enough to keep me reading through it in larger chunks.