Book Review: Alien Hunters, by Daniel Arenson

After trying to get through a very slow fantasy novel, this story is just what I needed.  Alien Hunters is a fun, light, action filled and interesting novel.  I came across this on Amazon as a "free" kindle download, so I took a chance on it.  I'd never heard of this author before, and I don't believe I have ever seen any of his books at the book store (seems to be the case for many authors these days).  But, it is hard to argue with "free" - the only cost is an investment of time.

I am very glad I took a chance on it, but the book isn't quite what I was expecting.  From the title, I was thinking this might be a story of bounty hunters, or tough Han Solo types hunting down rogue aliens (at the time I downloaded it, I was anxiously awaiting the SyFy Channel show Hunters, based on Whitley Strieber's Alien Hunter series of books, which ended up not being very good - no, I haven't read the books).  Boy, was I wrong!  The blurb on Amazon revealed that the Alien Hunters handle "small critters", so they are really along the lines of a pest control team (I didn't read this fully when I downloaded it).

The general story is similar to other stories you may have read.  Riff Starfire doesn't care about much except his music, he is estranged from his family, lost the love of his life years ago, and is barely getting by.  And then, in the tradition of Star Wars, he gets unexpectedly pulled into an adventure that he cannot avoid.  All of a sudden, he is running for his life, and ends up the Captain of an old ship with a crew of alien hunters.  In the course of the story, they get involved a potential invasion from the alien skelkrin.  I will also say that the whole "alien hunters" concept contains a surprise or two.

The crew is an interesting mix of humans, human-derivatives, and one non-human.  By human-derivative, I mean humans who colonized another planet with higher or lower gravity, and other different elements, the ultimately changed the human form slightly.  I will say that the non-human character is quite interesting, and I'm very curious about their origin.  By its very nature, the character seems somewhat out of place in a space opera style novel, and I have to say that the characters personality seems somewhat familiar to me, but I'm not sure why.  I won't reveal more, so you'll just have to read the book.

This story reminded me very much of the books of Alan Dean Foster, most of which I read during the years 1980 - 1990.  Simply put, a good adventure story in the form of the original Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers TV shows (meaning that the story is a good mix of action, interesting character interactions, humor, and not too heavy - unlike the Battlestar Galactica remake which started in 2004, which was really a drama).  I would also liken the style of the story to the movies The Last Starfighter and Krull (interestingly, Alan Dean Foster wrote the novelizations of these films as well).  I wonder the author drew inspiration from these sources.

If you are looking for a light and fun book, with hopefully more of the same in the rest of the trilogy (which I plan to check out at some point), I recommend this book.

Book Review: Area 51: The Reply, by Bob Mayer

This is the second book in the original Area 51 series by Bob Mayer.  There are also two spin-off series (Nightstalkers and Time Patrol) - I'm not sure how interconnected the stories are, so I'm staying away from the spin-off books until I make it further into this series.

Unfortunately, I've been delinquent in getting this review written - it has been over a month since I read this book - so I'm going based on what I can remember (having read a few other books after this one).

The story picks up almost immediately after the first book one ended.  Mike Turcotte and Lisa Duncan have their plates full as they scramble to understand what the mysterious reply to the Guardian's message at the end of the previous books means, and what the mysterious organization STAAR is all about (is it US government, is it the aliens, some combination of the two, or something else entirely).  Very quickly we start to learn that things are not as they appear.  The characters are operating on limited information and there is a lot of speculation and assumptions based on that information.  Some questions left open at the end of the first book are resolved, while new questions are raised.

I liked how real-world mysteries are involved in the story.  For example, photos of the Cydonia

region on Mars taken by NASA's Viking 1 and 2 seemed to reveal a face (see inset picture), and nearby what appeared to be a pyramid, and a ruined city.  These photographs sparked speculation of aliens and visitations to Earth.  Photographs by later NASA probes, with better camera technologies, showed the original photos contained data flaws.  These elements are brought into the story in the guise of the original photos - there are aliens on Mars!  I understand that this kind of thing is frequent in Mr. Mayer's books, where it becomes difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.  Bravo!

As the story progresses, the characters are faced with multiple concerns, including the aliens and their agenda, the contents of the tomb in China, and the organization STAAR itself, which noone seems to know much about.  Although the members of STAAR seem to have the highest security clearance - so high, that many government and military officials are not even aware of its existence!

Once again, as in the first book, the story resolves some of the open questions, raises others, and leaves things open to continuation in the next book, and it shows what a feisty lot we humans can be when our back is against a wall.  The part of the story where old satellites in Mars orbit are put back into use reminded me very much of the films Apollo 13 (the creative ways that problems with the Command Module and Lunar Module were solved), and The Martian (where the main character had to find a creative way of communicating with Earth) - if you haven't seen this movies, I highly recommend you do so (the book version of The Martian contains even more details, so I recommend that as well).

I did like this story, but I didn't find it quite as gripping as the first book, which I could hardly put down.  But, I am interested in what will be happening next.  At some point, after I get through some other books (such as the next book in The Expanse series - Caliban's War - which I need to finish before the second season starts in a few months), I will likely check out book 3:  The Mission.

Book Review: Death Check by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

This is the second book in the Destroyer series.  Before reading this book I read Created the Destroyer and The Day Remo Died (a prequel to the series) back to back, and quickly noticed how different the writing style was and how different the characters were in the two books.  I then learned that book one was first published in 1971, and the prequel was published in 1983 (as a novella in a book called The Assassins Handbook).  I believe there was also a foreword in The Day Remo Died explaining the difference in the characters, and the different tone and content of the first two books in the series.

So, I came into book two knowing all of this.  I have to say, I did not enjoy this book as much as the first one.  This was for several reasons.  First, if I remember correctly (I read this sporadically over the last month), this story takes place eight years later than book one - that is a pretty sizable gap where Remo is trained more by Chiun.  Second, Chiun is hardly in this story at all.  In fact, he never physically appears - it is all in Remo's memories.  Third, almost the entire book takes place at Brewster Forum (I kind of thought of it as a think tank country club for geniuses).  To me, this was kind of like filming an entire James Bond film at a golf course - the concept didn't work very well for me.

The story is kind of like a mystery.  It is believed that this think tank of geniuses as come up with a "simple little plan to conquer the world", and that someone is attempting to manipulate/control the group to obtain this information, which CURE sees as very dangerous - big national security problem.  So, Remo is sent in to discover what is going on, and potentially kill everyone to prevent anything bad from happening if he gets the order.  He spends most of his time interviewing the members and getting their backgrounds.

I did not find this book as interesting as the previous two books I read.  I'm still going to read book three, Chinese Puzzle, to see if the series changes for the better.   This is the point where Chiun becomes more involved and the characters become who they will be for the rest of the series.  If I don't find it any more entertaining than the first two books, I will likely stop reading the series.  However, given that there are at least 150 novels in the series, there must be a major upturn coming, so I'm optimistic.

Book Review: The Didymus Contingency by Jeremy Robinson

The Didymus Contingency is the first book that Jeremy Robinson wrote, originally as a screenplay, which after not being optioned by Hollywood, became a self-published novel.  This review is for the Tenth Anniversary Edition (currently only available as a Hardcover or Kindle book), which contains many edits to the original book.  The plot is something that may not appeal to everyone - after discovering time travel, a man decides to travel back in time to Biblical times to prove that Jesus is a fraud, and bear witness to the fact that Jesus will not resurrect after he is crucified.

This isn't the first novel I've read which deals with the question of the divinity of Jesus - The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is probably the most famous at this point in time, and that is already thirteen years old.  There have even been novels and films with non-terrestrial assumptions of Jesus, and I've enjoyed those as well.  (There are stories out there where someone goes back in time to meet Shakespeare, so Jesus doesn't stand alone).  There are likely others out there.  But, most of the stories I've read dealt with characters speculating and/or uncovering evidence in the present day.  However, this book is something else entirely.

I'm not really a religious person, and I don't identify with Christianity or Jesus as the savior.  However, this story concept was interesting to me.  Just the thought of going back in time, even to see if a figure like Jesus was real or not, putting aside the question of his divinity, is an amazing idea.  My main concern was the religious content of the book - would it be overbearing or preachy?  After reading six other books by Robinson, I thought it safe to say it wouldn't be the central part of the story.  Also, I read a blurb by Robinson which stated something along the lines of "assuming the Bible was accurate", so I figured some key scenes would be present in the story (I don't have a great familiarity with the Bible, but these are events that are pretty well known).  After reading the book, I can say with confidence that any kind of religious message is a relatively minor part of the story.

I don't want to reveal too much of the story, but I will say that this is an adventure story of the greatest kind.  The characters are very interesting, and the interaction between Tom, the doubter, and David, who has a very strong faith in Jesus, is very well done.  It is also interesting that both men were born in Israel, and David changed faiths.  I will also say that I loved the portrayal of Jesus.  He is not a person who acts like a divine being - he is very much a regular guy who has fun with his friends.  There are several surprises that Tom and David encounter along their journey to learn the truth of Jesus - I'll leave all of this for the reader to discover on their own.  I highly recommend NOT doing any research into the title of the book before reading it, as it will spoil something that was a surprise for me.  I couldn't wait to get to the end - not to learn the outcome of the quest for the divinity of Jesus, but to see how other things came out.  As with most time travel stories, there are some interesting and strange things that happen which are then made clear later on.

After reading several of Robinson's books, I have to say that The Didymus Contingency is a monumental first effort - even with the warts the original version had that Robinson's admits to (the story is the main thing here - not typos, grammar, and other problems).  I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a fast paced, interesting story with very believable characters - completely putting the religious element aside, since this is a work of fiction.  Apparently, people of many different faiths have a great love for this book, which is a testament to the story, and it appears to be one of Robinson's most loved books.

Book Review: Pulse by Jeremy Robinson

I just discovered the works of Jeremy Robinson this year.  I was browsing on Amazon and Project Nemesis was recommended.  I saw that Island 731 was listed as book #0 in the series, so I checked it out and quickly became a fan.  Pulse is the sixth novel by Robinson that I have read this year.  It is the first book in one of his most popular series;  the Jack Sigler "Chess Team" Thrillers.  Here is the list of previous books that I've read, in order:

• Island 731 (Nemesis Saga #0)
• Project Nemesis (Nemesis Saga #1)
• Project Maigo (Nemesis Saga #2)
• Raising the Past
• Torment (written as Jeremy Bishop)

Before writing this review, I also finished The Didymus Contingency, which is Robinson's first book.  I enjoyed all of these books, and they all had a similar writing style which kept you wanting to read.  Island 731 really got my interest after about 50 pages - I didn't want to put it down.  The same with the rest of the books once I got around 30 pages into them.

However, I found Pulse to be a somewhat different.  For some reason, I found the writing style to be less engaging, which is interesting, since this book was written after The Didymus Contingency and Raising the Past, and before the rest of the books on my list.  For lack of a better word, Pulse had a different "voice".  Perhaps the style and tone of this book is consistent with the rest of the "Chess Team" thrillers.  I don't know, since I haven't read any others - yet.  I'm not sure if I will read the rest of the series .  I'm on the fence as to whether I will enjoy them as much as the other books on the list above.  At some point, I may check out book #2, Instinct, but that will likely be after I read several of his other books, which currently include (at a minimum):

• Project 731 (Nemesis Saga #3)
• Project Hyperion (Nemesis Saga #4)
• Beneath
• Unity (first in a new series)
• Apocalypse Machine

Overall, Pulse was a good story, and I did find it entertaining, and I liked the characters - but I just didn't find it as easy to read or enjoy it as much as the previous books that I read.  I'm not really sure why.  I enjoyed The Doomsday Key by James Rollins, which also focuses on the escapades of an elite military unit - so it isn't the content of the story.  For some reason, I just didn't find it as engaging.  I think that this book also had a slower pace for a longer period than the other stories - the pace does eventually pick up, at which point I was able to get through the material more quickly.  If I recall correctly, this was somewhere around the halfway point.

It is a good thriller, and it does cover a lot of material.  In short, the Chess Team takes on a powerful organization planning to create invincible, regenerating soldiers using the DNA of a creature from Greek Mythology.  There is an excellent mystery in the story, and I was pretty satisfied with Robinson's very original viewpoint to the mythological aspect.  That's about all I want to say about it - I don't want to spoil anything for future readers.

I will say that the characters are consistent with Robinson's other books.  They are all interesting, some of them have interesting pasts, and some of them need to deal with some very interesting personal problems.  This contributes greatly to the story, as they seem like real people.  They aren't super heroes, and they make mistakes - the good guys don't always win in this story.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys thrillers, especially those that involve a military team fighting to save the world from disaster.  After finishing the other books on my second list, we'll see if I turn my sights to book #2 in the series.

Book Review: Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines

This is the first book in a series of five about a world that suffers a zombie-apocalypse, but which also had some interesting super-heroes around at the time that it happened.  About 3 years ago I came across the second book in the series, Ex-Patriots.  The concept sounded interesting, and it had a blurb from Ernest Cline raving about it, so I checked it out.  Only after reading it did I realize that there was a previous book - but there was not really an indication that this was the second in a series.  Now I've finally gotten around to reading where everything started.

The book is just as good as Ex-Patriots, and has flashbacks to the origin of several of the heroes, as well as to a few things that have a bearing on the story occurring in the present.  The flashbacks also deal with the start of the outbreak, and how disbelief largely contributes to it getting out of control.  Similar to Ex-Patriots, the story starts a little slowly and then builds to the point where you don't want to put it down.

I have to say, this story has a very interesting catalyst for the zombie outbreak.  In fact, one of the most original that I have seen in any zombie story, and it ties in with the rest of the story structure incredibly well.  It was a very big surprise for me when it was revealed.  Very well implemented.  Bravo!  Encore!  Encore!  Oh wait - this is followed by Ex-Patriots, which I've already read.  But, that is followed by Ex-Communication, Ex-Purgatory, and this year Ex-Isle was released.  So, there are plenty more zombies in my future.  Well, in this series they are referred to as "exes" (as in ex-humans), and they are caused by the "Ex" virus.

The heroes are interesting and their powers are fairly original - at least to me.  St. George, or The Mighty Dragon, is pretty much invulnerable, can breath fire, and has somewhat limited flight ability.  Zzzap is a man who can transform into an energy form, capable of very fast flight, and a few other things.  Gorgon has a vampire-like ability to drain the life out of people.  Regenerator has the ability to heal himself and others, but in the present his ability is all but gone.  Stealth has the ability to move quickly and silently, like a Ninja, and she has fierce fighting ability.  Cerberus isn't really a hero - it is a woman inside a military exo-suit of her own creation.  But, it is resistant to zombies and really packs a punch.

Things start off with the characters on a mission to scrounge food and medical supplies from the city outside the Mount, which is an old movie studio in Hollywood that has been fortified to isolate the population being protected by the superheroes.  Pretty much an expected problem in any zombie story which is about survival - the world is radically different.  Things quickly get complicated when they run into a rival group called The Seventeens, which was a former gang in the area before the outbreak of the Ex-virus.  They are a competitor for the limited resources of the city, and they constantly cause problems for the survivors in the Mount.  The survivors quickly learn that things have recently become much worse, and they are facing a very alarming and unexpected threat.

The portrayal of the Seventeens very much reminded me of the Humungus and his group of bandits in the film Max Max 2:  The Road Warrior - they essentially want to be the number one group and annihilate anyone else who gets in the way or doesn't get in the way for that matter.  When the depth of the threat is realized, and the "normal" people start to realize what they are up against, they have the typical expected reaction:  they have a strong desire to get the heck out of dodge!  Of course, the heroes succeed in showing them that they are only motivated by fear - there is nowhere they can go without being destroyed by the zombie horde, and staying at the Mount and fighting is the best choice.  This is all very believable.  The final battle is filled with action, desperation, and a few surprises.

One of the best things about this series is that all of the characters, even the heroes, are very human.  They are just as flawed and imperfect as the rest of us, and in some cases just as unsure, and they make mistakes.  This puts the reader on the same playing field as the heroes - they could be someone that you know.

In typical classic hero form, Stealth and the other heroes have the lofty goal of not only keeping their own people at the Mount safe - they want to save as many people as they can.  This really seems like an insurmountable task given that the majority of the population is made up of zombies.

This is a great start to the series, and I'm looking forward to reading the remaining three books.

Book Review: The Day Remo Died, by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

This book is a sort of prequel to Created, The Destroyer, which is the first book in The Destroyer series.  This is a novella was published in 1985, several years after the first book.  It takes place during a window that surrounds the material in the first book, and it is told from Chiun's perspective.  The characters in this book are quite different than the characters in the first two books in the series, and are apparently consistent with the characters in book 3 onward.

I read this immediately on the heels of Created, The Destroyer, and found Chiun's side of the story very interesting.  There is much more detail about various aspects of Remo's training, as well as why he is apparently so easily trained by Chiun, who believes that an inferior white man could not possibly master the art of Sinanju, which should really only be taught to those of Korean descent.  That being said, the novella is only 85 pages long.  Anyway, Remo surprises Chiun at every turn, and ultimately the story takes a somewhat mystical turn which is not seen in the Remo Williams film at all (though, since they planned a series of films, it is quite possible it may have been explored at some point had the film series continued).

By having characters which are more consistent both with the film, and with books 3 onward, this book has interested me in reading at least through book 3 before deciding on whether to continue with the series (the whole series is 150+ books, so it is a considerable investment).  In fact, I believe some of Chiun's dialogue in this book is fairly close to some of that in the film, although I still remember many lines from the film which have not yet appeared in my reading.

I highly recommend this to anyone who has read the first book, as it does make the series more interesting.  Chiun has motivations that no other character in the series is aware of at this point, and I wonder if it will all come out at some point.

Book Review: Created, The Destroyer, by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

I saw the film Remo Williams:  The Adventure Begins in 1986 on a VHS tape that I rented from a video store several months after the movie came out at the theater. I enjoyed it very much, and was surprised that it didn't do better at the box office.  The character Chiun had many funny lines, and his evaluation of American soap operas was interesting (I won't reveal in case you haven't seen the movie).

About 4 or 5 years later, the film came up in a discussion at work.  It was at this point that I learned that the film was based on a series of books called The Destroyer (IMDB didn't exist back then).  I sought out these books at bookstores, but was never able to find any.  At some point over the next several years, I did come across one, and I believe it was in the early 100's - far to late to start reading the series.  So, I gave up and have not seen any books in the series since.

I just happened to come across the first book on Amazon, and noticed it was available not only in a Kindle edition, but was also re-issued in a paperback (it also appears that all of the books through #151 are available as Kindle editions).  I immediately downloaded the Kindle version and started reading.

This is a good origin story, and it definitely fits the time period when it was written, which is 1971.  What I found most interesting is how different this is from the film.  Aside from the character names and a few other details, the two stories are extremely different.  A few of the major differences are:

• In the book, Remo Williams is the characters real name.  In the film, this is his new name given to him by his employers at CURE.  How they gave him the name is amusing in the film.
• The method of his faked death is different.  In the film, it was an accident.  In the book, it was a faked execution after he was framed for killing someone.
• In the film, Joel Grey is amazing as Chiun, and he has many funny lines.  In the book, not quite as many.  I think the best stuff was in the movie.

Aside from a few similarities in the above, the are no others between the film and book.  I suppose it is possible that the film was like the Doc Savage movie by George Pal, which was an amalgam of a handful of the original 181 stories (though I have not read anything to this effect anywhere on the internet).  This was a big surprise to me.  However, when I read the novella The Day Remo Died (a kind of prequel seen from Chiun's viewpoint) I learned that Remo and Chiun are very different characters in the first two books of the series.  By book 3, they become consistent for the rest of the series, and match their portrayal in The Day Remo Died (which wasn't written until 1985), which I found to be more consistent with the characters in the film.

I really liked how the book started off with a foreword by Chiun, calling the story "lies".

Something of interest, at least to me, is that Warren Murphy was a writer on Clint Eastwood's The Eiger Sanction film, and on Richard Donner's Lethal Weapon 2, which are both good endorsements of his writing.

I do plan on reading this series at least through book 3, where there characters evolved into who they will be for the remainder of the series.  By book 3, the ratings for the rest of the books are consistently higher.  I'll make my decision on whether to continue the series based on my enjoyment of that book (though, 151 novels is a good investment of time and I do have plenty of other stuff to read).

Book Review: Torment, by Jeremy Bishop

When I saw this book, I read that it was a "controversial" novel.  I will say, even though this is a zombie story, that is in fact the case - there are definitely some disturbing elements to this story.  Let me first say that Jeremy Bishop is a pseudonym (pen name) for Jeremy Robinson, who is responsible for the Nemesis Kaiju series and the Jack Sigler Chess Team adventures (I have not read any of these yet, but Pulse is on my list to read soon, and I understand it might be made into a movie).

Now, let's get some of the story basics out of the way (you can glean some of this from the back cover).  A small number of people survive a nuclear apocalypse and then must fight for their lives in a world overrun by zombies apparently produced by the conflict.  You don't often have the words "nuclear apocalypse" and "zombie" used in the same sentence very often, and I'm not aware of any zombie stories that start with a nuclear war.  Usually it is something like a virus, or in George Romero's original Night of the Living Dead, it was speculated to be radiation from Venus which was reanimating the corpses.

This book is unlike any other zombie story I've seen, in book or film.  The way the nuclear conflict starts is a frightening idea.  It reminded me of one of Tom Clancy's books where a plane is used to take out a joint session of Congress.  The start of the nuclear conflict in Torment is an equally frightening concept.

A small group that is with the President of the United States launches into space to avoid the nuclear devastation.  Upon returning to Earth, the survivors quickly learn that the devastated world is not what they expected, and from the moment they touch down they are running for their lives.

I won't reveal much more of this story, but I will say this.  The breed of zombie found in this story is immensely creative, horrifying, and unlike anything I have seen before.  The pace of the story kept me reading until the end.

I will say that I was not a huge fan of the ending, and I have to say I'm not entirely sure what happened.  Note that this is not necessarily a major strike against this book. I have read many books that I enjoyed until the very end (one that jumps immediately to mind is Stephen King's Under the Dome - the story was great up until the final resolution at the end, and I understand that I'm not alone in this assessment).

One other item that bothers me, but may not bother others, is the fact that the state of the world after the nuclear apocalypse is left as a mystery.  There is no scientific explanation for how the zombies came into being, or more specifically why fallout isn't a problem when the survivors return to Earth such a short time after the devastation.  Typically, these kinds of things are explained in novels - it is part of the story.  This isn't so much the case with movies, which have a much more restricted time period in which to entertain an audience, and there is a larger expectation that you will suspend your disbelief.

Even with these two relatively minor flaws, I still found this to be a very enjoyable read, although I would not put it at the same level as the other books I've read by Mr. Robinson.

Book review: Raising the Past, by Jeremy Robinson

As James Rollins said in the cover blurb, this is an adventure not to be missed.  This story is an interesting mix of several different themes in adventure and science fiction:  an arctic expedition (somewhat reminiscent of the film Iceman), the discovery of impossible technology found buried in the ice from 10,000 years ago, aliens, etc.  I've seen many of these things before in different guises, but this story brings them all together in a way that I haven't seen before, and it does so very well.  Mr. Robinson, as usual, manages to pack a large amount of story into a small number of pages.

The story starts off in the past, with a prologue setting the scene for what is to come in the present day.  This is a common enough mechanism used by many stories.  In the present, the Mammoth is discovered in melting ice, which should not be possible given the location and time of year.  The mystery deepens as the mammoth is freed.  The group involved in the dig involves an interesting group of people, ranging from the man who funds the dig, to the "experts", to the film crew there making a documentary.  The author does a great job of showing how each group does what is necessary to get what they want.

Ultimately, it comes down to a race against time, because there is a force working against them as they travel across the ice towards their destination.  As is typical in this type of story, not everything is as it seems, and the characters end up having a realization of a ethical dilemma of epic proportions which will test the moral compass of each of them.  As the characters reach their destination, I couldn't wait to find out what would happen, and I was fairly surprised by what the team encounters.  Things frequently aren't as simple as they appear to be.

When the story ended, I felt that while the immediate crisis is averted, things were left pretty open for a sequel, but there wasn't one in sight.  I later found out from the author that this story ties into the Project Hyperion story-line in the Nemesis series about Kaiju (Japanese for "strange beast" - most excellent series).  I'm not up to Project Hyperion yet, so I'm looking forward to it even more now, and I'm glad the story of Raising the Past isn't over.

Book Review: Sleeping Giants, by Sylvain Neuvel

I'll start off by saying that this is a most unusual book.  Note that this is not a comment that is negative, derogatory, or intended to dissuade people from reading this book in any way.  I'm saying that this book is different.  Let me explain.

This book is not written like a typical novel, with prose and dialogue.  Sleeping Giants reads like a dossier or case file, like you may have seen in various TV shows or movies that involve the FBI, CIA, or some kind of government project - in particular, ones which are told from an "interview" standpoint.  One that immediately jumps to mind is The Usual Suspects, with Kevin Spacey - he is being interviewed, and everything other scene in the movie is a flashback of what his character is describing.  Aside from the prologue, every other chapter is presented as a "file number" which is one of the following:

• a journal entry by one of the characters
• an interview conducted by a mysterious, unnamed character who appears to be running things from the shadows
• a recorded conversation from a telephone call or a mission which is being monitored remotely.

An interesting aspect of this is that, while the files are consecutive, we are apparently only getting a glimpse - there are many gaps in the numbering, representing missing or omitted files.  For me, an interesting question is:  what is contained in those files, and does it matter to the story?  That is, will we find out about some of these files in the sequel?  Then again, this might just be how the author decided to arrange things, assuming that the missing files contain tedious and mundane elements of the story that don't offer much into the big picture.

The story begins simply enough, and the pace is a little slow at the beginning, but gradually the pace picks up and the story becomes much more interesting.  During the course of the story, I was surprised by several events, and there were a few things that I guessed would be coming.  Although this book is relatively short, at just over 300 pages, it deals with some pretty complex issues.  Without revealing much of the story (all of this is available on the jacket of the book):

• a giant metal hand which is thousands of years old is found buried under the ground - we are not alone in the universe, and it is obvious that the architects of the hand were significantly more advanced than humanity a LONG time ago.
• world politics and cold war attitudes play a part.
• the ethics of taking human lives and/or promoting suffering to further scientific progress - this is something that is repeated several times.
• with access to such powerful technology, would humanity ultimately destroy itself.

The last item reminded me of Jeff Goldblum's character in the movie Jurassic Park, Ian Malcolm, who made three disturbing statements about the technology being used to create the dinosaurs:

• it didn't require any discipline to obtain it
• you didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it
• your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.

If you've seen the movie or read the Michael Crichton book on which it is based, you now how well such uninformed meddling plays out.  All of these statements apply to the technology in Sleeping Giants; if you don't understand what you are dealing with, you shouldn't be messing around with it.  While many of these themes have been explored in other works of fiction in the past, I feel that they are explored somewhat differently here.  After all, there is no typical action as you would find in a normal story, due to the story format - you learn of just about everything second hand, after it has happened.

There are also plenty of twists in this story, some of which I saw coming, but most of which I didn't.  I found the characters to be very real, and I appreciated that several of them had to deal with very real problems.  There are no super-humans here.

By the end of the book, the potential direction of the story becomes much more complex, there are many unanswered questions, and there is a "holy crap" cliffhanger ending.  It is going to be a tough wait for book 2 to be released in April of 2017 - at least its not on a George R. R. Martin release schedule.

Over the years, I have only read one other book that executes this story format to this degree.  That book was Exegesis, by Astro Teller.  That story is constructed as a series of email exchanges between an artificial intelligence researcher and their program which becomes self-aware.  Back when I read this book, the email format really drew me in - and, when this book was first published, email would probably have been the only way a program would be able to communicate with a person once it was on the network.  While I initially found this format took a little getting used to, I ultimately felt that it worked very well for Sleeping Giants.

Sleeping Giants is a very successful debut by a very promising new author, and the fact that this "dossier" format was attempted was pretty daring.  The fact that it was inspired by UFO Robot Grendizer, known as Grandizer in the US (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_Five), made it all the more intriguing.  Here's the interesting article where I first read about this (shared with me by the author):  http://io9.gizmodo.com/sylvain-neuvel-tells-us-how-anime-grendizer-jumpstarted-1774962665.

I'm really looking forward to the continuation of the story in Waking Gods next year, but I am left wondering if this will be an ongoing series, or if it is possible for things to be wrapped up in a single sequel.

Book review: The Lazarus War Book One: Artefact, by Jamie Sawyer

When I first came across this at the bookstore, it immediately interested me - I thought it would be space opera.  However, reading the description made me feel that this was military science fiction, which I typically don't enjoy as much.  So, I was on the fence, and did not make the purchase.

The next time I encountered this book, the comments on the back cover from Neal Asher and Gary Gibson were encouraging.  I've read Angel Stations by Gibson and Gridlinked by Asher, and I enjoyed both, so I decided to give this a chance.  In the "extras" section, which is pretty common to Orbit books these days, it was also encouraging that Sawyer is an avid fan of the Alien and Predator universes, which was an additional plus.  I was looking forward to "a gripping read" that was "action drenched".

The start of the story was familiar - something I've seen before in many books and movies, although the opening action ends somewhat unexpectedly.  Once the group learns of their mission, and head into the Maelstrom, there is some more action, and then the pace of the story changes - it becomes much slower.  This pace shift made the story more difficult to follow for me, and I found my interest waning.  For about half of the book the team is stranded on the planet Helios, with the mysterious Artefact which seems to have so much influence on the enemy Krell, and the pace does not pick up again until the final battle, which, for me, was somewhat reminiscent of the movie Aliens.  I don't mean that a "queen Krell" is encountered, but I'm referring to the general pace of the story - the tension gradually builds until the final showdown and escape.  But, for some reason, there was not enough interesting stuff to engage me during this slow period, and I found the flashbacks into Harris' past, which ultimately reveal much about him and his interest in what is found on Helios, to be disruptive to the pace of the story.

I was disappointed that the team did not use their "remote avatars" more often - I think this only happened three times in the story.  While I don't remember an explanation for how they can remotely control the avatars over vast distances, I did like the explanation of the mental and physical toll that it takes on their operators - after all, each body is effectively a disposable tool which is, more often than not, killed during an operation.  Also, when the avatar is killed the operators really experience it - being ripped apart by the enemy Krell, limb by limb, or dying in the vacuum of space.  When the operator transitions back to their real body, they even suffer physical effects to their body for a period, in addition to the mental anguish of the ordeal.  I also enjoyed the position that Captain Harris is put in near the end of the story - it is unique to his personal struggle in the story, and impacts him alone and not the rest of his team, and it ties in well with his background which is revealed in the flashbacks.  So, from the standpoint of the full story, the flashbacks work and deliver what is necessary to flesh out the story - but for some reason, this particular execution did not work for me.

The Krell are an interesting "hybrid" alien race, kind of a combination of things I've seen elsewhere.  They live in the vast, uncharted Maelstrom, which is largely inaccessible to humanity due to lack of star data which would allow identification of Q-points for them to jump to.  All of their technology is organic - even their ships are grown,  They have a hive-mind.  And, for me at least, they are somewhat similar to the creatures from the Alien movies - but not identical.  These are all concepts I've seen in other works of science fiction, and it was interesting to see them joined together.  I also found the Krell to be interesting due to their apparent duality.  They are savage creatures that operate as a hive-mind, with different forms like the creature from Alien, and yet they posses amazing technology.  It could be argued that the Klingon race from Star Trek is similar, but I wouldn't agree with that - the Krell seem to have more in common with the savagery of the world of insects than they do with sentient species.  But, they must be intelligent, if humanity was able to make a treaty with them.  I think it will be interesting to see further exploration of such a race in the next two books.

Regarding the mystery of the Artefact, I'm not sure we really know what it was, or why it was built - I view the ideas postulated by Kellerman to be theory - I don't recall any physical proof of the findings.  But it is made clear that a third-party is responsible for its construction, which probably speaks volumes to what may potentially be coming in the future.  I didn't think that the effect the Artefact has on the Krell was adequately explored, although there is potential that we may learn more in the last two books of the series.

This book was different enough from what I consider to be mainstream military science fiction that I enjoyed it, although the story stretched out in a few places where it almost wasn't holding my interest.  Overall, I feel that this is a successful debut novel, and it was well written, and it does deal with very human issues - addiction, loss, and most importantly that war is hell and its impact on soldiers.  I've got a long list of books to read, but I'll probably be checking out book 2 at some point.

Book Review: Area 51, by Bob Mayer

I believe I first came across this when it was originally published back in 1997.  The title immediately interested me, but then after reading the back cover it just didn't appeal to me for some reason - I can't remember why.  It could be that the text was different back then - I've seen this happen to republished books over the years - but it just didn't sound interesting.  It may also be that there was an abundance of books with this kind of subject matter around that time which just weren't very good.

Fast-forward to 2016.  I see a social media post (facebook/twitter - I can't remember which) about  'Area 51 Time Patrol:  D-Day' being published soon.  I thought:  isn't that the book I saw quite a long time ago?  So, I looked into it.  Not only is it the same Area 51 that I saw years ago, but the series has grown (and, it was originally published under the pseudonym Robert Doherty).  There are nine (nine!) books in the main Area 51 series (7 books in the main storyline, plus two that appear to be prequels to the entire series), there is a Nightstalker trilogy, and then the Time Patrol series, which appears to be an extension of the Nightstalker series.  The series has grown over the years, but I don't recall ever seeing any of these books past the first one at my local bookstore (and I'm usually there a few times every month).  I'm finding this happening quite a bit recently - various books are becoming increasingly difficult to find a bookstores.  A bunch of bestselling authors I've recently started reading appear to have almost no presence in bookstores - but, thankfully, you can find just about everything at Amazon.

I noticed that all of the books had very high ratings, so I read the blurb on Area 51 again.  This sounded very interesting, and since 2015/2016 are years where I have been taking a chance on many authors I have not heard of before (and have gotten quite a bit of enjoyment reading as a result), I decided to take a chance yet again.

I'm sorry I didn't pick this up years ago!  This story has several elements that I enjoy - ancient civilizations and their mysteries, aliens, conspiracies, etc.  This story covered all of the bases, and addressed many mysteries of the ancient world:  Atlantis, the Egyptian pyramids, Easter Island, etc.  The story involves a journalist, an archaeologist, a former Nazi, UFO conspiracy theorists, and powerful military groups. I was surprised by a few things which were really unexpected.  Events do get wrapped up at the end pretty quickly, but I am very interested in what is going to happen in the next book, and I'll definitely be checking it out at some point.

Book Review: Scott Pilgrim Series, by Bryan Lee O'Malley

I kind of missed this whole thing.

Yep, that's right.  The graphic novels.  The movie.  All of it.

I wasn't even aware it was a thing.  When the movie came out I my kids were ages 8 and 4.5.  I wasn't reading as much as I used to, and I wasn't seeing as many movies as I used to.  Life kind of got in the way - not that it was a bad thing, just different.

I just recently became interested in reading the series after seeing a review of Seconds (by the same author), which I also read recently and enjoyed very much.  For me, Seconds was at just about the same level as Scott McCloud's The Sculptor.  I was seeing that reviews for Scott Pilgrim were even higher, and many reviews for Seconds also claimed it wasn't as good as Scott Pilgrim.  Plus, Joss Whedon had good things to say about Scott Pilgrim.  So, I just had to read it, and I went through it pretty quickly - all six volumes in about a week while reading some other books.

Impression:  while I did enjoy Scott Pilgrim, I think I liked Seconds slightly better.  Of course, I wouldn't exactly say that these works are quite the same genre.  Seconds is more of a serious story, and Scott Pilgrim is more of a zany catch-all of many different things (video games, Kung Fu, twenty-something angst, relationship and self-identity issues, clubs, music, and too many other items to mention).  It kind of brought me back to the days when I used to read Rumiko Takahashi's two popular series Ranma 1/2 and Maisson Ikkoku.  Perhaps there is some influence there - in the afterword to one of the books I did see that Mr. O'Malley claimed to become obsessed with manga while writing the series, so its possible.

As with Seconds and The Sculptor, this series shows me yet again the importance of comics as literature (for a full definition of what this entails, you really need to read Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud).  Yes, you read that right - literature.  This word does not only encompass those works which are commonly referred to as "classics" - you know, Moby Dick, Ivanhoe, Oliver Twist.  Here's part of the definition from www.dictionary.com:  "writings in which expression and form...are characteristic or essential features".  The definition specifically calls out novels, biographies, and even poetry and essays - if essays can be considered literature, then comics can be as well!  Graphic works like this are important because they can convey aspects of a story in ways that words simply can't handle effectively.

Comics are also a great source material for movies and TV shows - someone first imagines a concept as a comic series or a graphic novel, and then Hollywood gives it the film treatment.  The graphic form is more accessible than wading through hundreds or thousands of novels ranging from 300 to 800+ pages each.  And I'm not referring to Batman and The Avengers, or even Spider-Man here, as those are all related to comic books (the kind that I grew up with).  I'm talking about other comics that dared to do something different.  Men in Black, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Priest, The Walking Dead - they all started as a comic series, and they are quite different in nature from the comic books that I grew up with.

The comic form is an important piece of literature, and I look forward to future efforts from Mr. O'Malley.

Book Review: Project Maigo, by Jeremy Robinson

This was an excellent continuation of the Nemesis series.  The stakes are raised, because there are now five additional monsters to deal with, and General Gordon is still around, and we find he has become a bit more than just his usual nasty self.

Poor John Hudson has way more to contend with than in the first book.  The story moves quickly, and is filled with power struggles, hidden agendas, further background on the main characters, and multiple conflicts with the other Kaiju.

Elements of the story connect back to Project Nemesis, and the different plot threads become more complicated, and we learn that there is much more going on than we were aware of in the first book.  We learn more about the original creature discovered at the beginning of Project Nemesis, including hints of where it may have originated, and who currently has the body.  This is now becoming like a mega-Kaiju movie, in the vein of Destroy All Monsters (the 1968 Godzilla movie) -  I would not be surprised if there was some influence there.

As is detailed on the back cover, Boston has already been destroyed, and Washington D.C. is next on the list!  Everything comes to a head, and I was not sure where things would be going, so I was very surprised with how things ended.  Some interesting technology is also used by some of the characters, and led the story in a direction I didn't expect.  For me, the book ended like a good horror movie with a twist ending - let's leave it at that.

Some characters from Island 731 also make an appearance in the story, and played a larger part than I was expecting, and it looks like they may be appearing again in the next book, Project 731.  If you started with Project Nemesis, and are moving on to this book, I would recommend reading Island 731 first.  I really enjoyed this book and I'm looking forward to the next installment!

Book Review: Seconds, by Bryan Lee O'Malley

This is the second serious, thick, hardcover graphic novel I've read in the last year (before you ask - no, graphic novels about superheroes like Batman don't count).  The first was The Sculptor, by Scott McCloud (just follow the link to see my review).  In short, that is a powerful story of a man who makes a deal with death to be able to sculpt anything with his bare hands, but at a price - he will only have 200 days to live.  Naturally, as deals with death (and the devil) typically go, things are made worse by discovering the love of his life immediately after he starts sculpting.

While Seconds is not precisely the same type of story, it is very similar in nature, but very different in implementation.  Both stories deal with difficulties in relationships, as well as personal goals that always seem to be out of reach, no matter how hard to try to make progress - even when you cheat or break the rules to try to get ahead and achieve that goal.  And not only do you still not achieve the goal, but things continue to get worse.

The meaning of the title was an unexpected surprise for me.  This was a great story.  Initially, I didn't find the artwork particularly attractive, but once I started to get twenty or so pages in, I found that it fit the story, and it fits the mood of the story as things become darker.  When bad things happen, Katie simply needs to write something down, eat a mushroom, and go to sleep and things change.

There were so many endearing things in this story, and I'm guessing there is influence from many sources - I'll name a few that came to my mind:

• The main character, Katie, has a hairstyle that reminds me of Lisa Simpson from The Simpsons TV show.
• The "multiple second chances" reminded me of the films Run Lola Run (German) and Sliding Doors (American).
• Katie lives *outside* of the changes she makes to past events, which reminded me of Ashton Kutcher's character 'Evan' in the film The Butterfly Effect.  Wereas 'Evan' suffers physical change as the result of his tampering, his memory is unaffected - he has no memory of how or why things changed.  Katie suffers *no* impact, as she is never physically affected, and she has no memory of the changes that have occurred, just as if she just stepped back into the picture after being gone for a while.
• The relationship of a gourmet chef reminded me of the movie Funny About Love with Gene Wilder and Christine Lahti - although, Katie's love interest is not a cartoonist, but a chef like herself.
• As the story gets darker, I was reminded of elements of films like Flatliners (Kevin Bacon) and Event Horizon (Sam Neil), or Fright Night (William Ragsdale) - characters are faced with the unshakable feeling that "they brought something back with them" or they have "invited something nasty into house".

Whether these influences are real or imagined by me makes no difference.  All of the different elements make for an entertaining and thoughtful story and makes us think about our own choices in life.

Bryan Lee O'Malley is also the author of the Scott Pilgrim series of graphic novels.  I kind of missed that boat.  I never saw the movie (which was released in 2010) - despite the fact that it stars Michael Cera, whom I have enjoyed in the films Juno and Superbad (still haven't seen Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist - which I should have seen since "Nick and Norah" was the name of one of my wife's favorite stores).  I didn't even know that the movie was based on a set of graphic novels.  But, I'm attempting to remedy that by reading them now, and I do hope do see the movie at some point.

Anyway, if you have read and enjoyed The Sculptor, I would recommend Seconds.

Book Review: Project Nemesis, by Jeremy Robinson

This is the second book I've read by Jeremy Robinson, and it was another good read!  I had previously read Island 731, and it was a rapid read - it took around 50 pages or so for the story to really get moving.  So, I read Island 731 first, but it was published second.  It is kind of a prequel to Project Nemesis, includes a character who is mentioned in Project Nemesis, who I believe makes an appearance in a later Kaiju thriller - but Island 731 itself is not included as part of the Nemesis/Kaiju Saga, and can successfully stand on its own.  Whew!

All right, now that the prologue of this review is finished...Project Nemesis is a "Kaiju" novel.  "Kaiju" is Japanese for "strange beast", and is typically associated with Japanese movie monsters like Godzilla, Gamera, Mothra, etc., and was more recently popularized by Guillermo del Toro's 2013 movie Pacific Rim, which I have not seen, but is now on my list of films to watch, even though it didn't get superb ratings.  The word "Kaiju" does appear in Island 731 (after all, there are some strange beasts in it), but giant Godzilla-like monsters are reserved for the Nemesis saga.

I will say, it was fun to revisit some fond memories of my youth.  Like Mr. Robinson, I spent many Saturday afternoons watching Creature Double Feature on WLVI Channel 56 in the Boston area, and I enjoyed many of the Godzilla movies back then.  I still remember the suspense of watching the evolving form of Hedorah in Godzilla vs. Hedorah (vs. The Smog Monster in the USA), and wondering what its final form would be.  I remember this so well because of the great disappointment I felt when our watching of the film was interrupted for us to go home and we missed the last 15 - 20 minutes of the movie, only to see Godzilla walking off into the distance when we returned home.  I think it was several years before I finally got to see the ending.

Anyway, Project Nemesis has a start that is similar to Island 731 - we get a glimpse into the past to view two events that ultimately lead to the creation of Nemesis later in the story, and some time is spent setting the scene for this.  But, once things start going downhill, they keep heading in that direction, and as is typical for this type of story you are left wondering how they could possibly defeat this monster.

With regard to the Nemesis creature, I liked that it didn't have any traditional "Kaiju" attacks - nothing like Godzilla's Atomic Breath, or Monster Zero's lightning, or any other type of beam attacks, but eventually we learn that Nemesis does have something pretty devastating in the form of bright orange areas, though it wasn't what I would have expected.

The origin of the monster is fairly original.  Although, unless I'm mistaken, I believe I sense the influence of the film Frankenstein Conquers the World, as well as Godzilla vs. Hedorah (the evolving form of the monster).  There may well be other influences, but these are the two that really stood out for me.

I also really liked the fact that the main protagonist, Jon Hudson, feels that his job is ultimately a joke - after all, he spends his days investigating Sasquatch sightings that never really amount to anything.  Of course, once Nemesis arrives on the scene, he fights for his jurisdiction with pride.  The cast of supporting characters are also fun.

As I write this, I'm already halfway through the sequel, Project Maigo, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.  I've also added a few other of Mr. Robinson's books to my current reading list and I'm looking forward to them.

Michael Crichton Replacement Wanted

Every year I go through a phase where I miss seeing a new Michael Crichton novel on the shelf at the bookstore every 1 - 3 years. Nobody else was able to instantly pull me into the story from the first page and make me not want to put the book down and stay up way to late too finish it.  He had a way with words.  And dialogue.  And science.  And technology.  And current events.

Many authors cover one genre or theme in their writing:  horror, fantasy, science-fiction, adventure/thriller, mystery.  There are a few authors who change genres every few books - Dan Simmons leaps immediately to mind.  His works span horror, real crime, and science fiction on a regular basis, and he often includes some historical element (The Terror, The Abominable, and Drood are excellent examples).

Authors of fantasy, adventure, and thrillers may change the details in their books, but the essential stories are typically the same.  Sometimes this can be a bad thing if the stories are too formulaic.  For example, there is a great evil and good sets out to defeat it - too many stories in a row like this and it is like the author just changed the names in a previous story.  To some extent, Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series is kind of formulaic (there is something bad and Harry needs to stop it), but in that series the devil is in the details, and the series is FANTASTIC!

But some author's work I see as being pretty much the same.  For example, I've seen James Patterson's 'Alex Cross' stories - I've seen the movie Along Came A Spider, I've read Cat and Mouse, and I've read the back covers of several more - seems like there's always a serial killer, and the story is typically similar enough that I won't be picking up any more of his books.  Given his popularity, many people apparently like this, but I'm not one of them.  I will say that both stories did contain a twist at the end, but this wasn't enough of a payoff for reading the story - at least, not for me.

However, Crichton's books are different.  While his stories are typically adventurous or dramatic, they had a wide range.  For example:

• The Great Train Robbery deals with the first theft from a moving train in the 1800's.
• Rising Sun involves a corporate murder and cutting edge technology
• Sphere involved the investigation of an alien ship that crashed at the bottom of the ocean.
• Jurassic Park involves a theme park where science has produced living dinosaurs
• Disclosure is about a reverse sexual harassment case, also in the corporate world with cutting edge technology
• Airframe is about a company that builds passenger jets, and an investigation into an accident
• Timeline is about time travel to medieval France
• Prey is about a cloud of nano-particles that has been programmed as a a predator
• State of Fear is about global warming and climate change and eco-terrorists
• Next is about genetic research
• Micro is kind of like the movie Fantastic Voyage, but instead of being shrunk to the microscopic level, people are shrunk to a half an inch in height and thrust into the Hawaiian jungle and must deal with the hazards of nature that that size

Some of these books, such as Disclosure, State of Fear, and Airframe, followed on the heels of similar world events (Disclosure was a few years after a famous sexual harassment case, State of Fear followed concerns about global warming and climate change, and Airframe included an accident similar to the China Eastern Airlines accident from a few years earlier).  Some other authors follow this pattern as well (James Rollins refers to genetically modified crops and colony collapse disorder in honey bees in his novel The Doomsday Key), but there aren't many of them - to my knowledge anyway.

Most of his works typically included something that was cutting edge.  Even in the Great Train Robbery, stealing from a moving train had never been done before.  Sounds pretty cutting edge for the year 1854.  To top if off, the story is partially based on fact (there was a real train robbery).

I remember reading Sphere when I was in college.  I didn't want to put it down, and I ended up staying up all night to finish it.  It was not only a science fiction story, but was also a fast paced psychological thriller.  It also includes some underwater action that rivals James Cameron's The Abyss, although Sphere was published first.

The stories of Michael Crichton always involved very realistic, human characters (not super heroes), facing realistic challenges (even when surrounded by seemingly impossible things, like nano-particles or dinosaurs).  He was an amazingly talented writer who had the ability to get you hooked on a story within a handful of pages, and there are very few authors who exhibit this talent these days, and his death in 2008 left a gaping hole in the world of storytelling.

Jodorowsky's Dune

Over the past year I have seen blurbs about this movie in various places.  The picture of the strange ship (above) in the advertisements certainly interested me.  It was unlike anything I'd seen before - it has a very psychedelic look.  After seeing this a few times, I definitely wanted to see this movie - not just the documentary, but the film itself.  This is a documentary about a movie that Alejandro Jodorowsky wanted to make back in 1975 - but it was never made.  This documentary aired on Starz recently and I had an opportunity to watch it, and I have to say it was very interesting.  Jodorowsky's vision was to make a film that was like an LSD trip - but without the drugs.

There were some pretty big names associated with this film.  Well, let's say that in 1975 some of them were big names, and others would *become* big names in the very near future.  Dan O'Bannon was personally selected by Jodorowsky to do the special effects for Dune after seeing his work on John Carpenter's Dark Star.  O'Bannon would be responsible for some big movies in the near future (Alien, Heavy Metal, and Blue Thunder among them).  During preproduction, the following people were also hand-picked by Jodorowsky:

• Jean Giraud (aka Moebius) for storyboard art and set design, who would work with Jodorowsky on comics for many years to come.
• Chris Foss, who was best known for science fiction book covers.
• H. R. Giger, for set and character design (yeah, the guy who worked on Alien)
• Salvador Dali (yeah, the melting clock artist!) to play the Emperor Shaddam IV
• Orson Welles (yeah, Citizen Kane)
• David Carradine (Kwai Chang Kane from Kung Fu!)
• Mick Jagger (lead singer for The Rolling Stones)

In addition to artists, he also specifically wanted rock music for some of the film, and he selected Pink Floyd and Magma to do the some of the music (after looking into Tangerine Dream, among others).

This project was described as extremely ambitious.  It was discussed that Jodorowsky had plans to do things that George Lucas didn't even attempt in the Star Wars prequel movies more than 20 years later.

The script and storyboard book

The script, pictured here with Jodorowsky in the documentary, was HUGE - larger than several phone books.  Frank Herbert himself, the author of the science fiction book Dune, felt the script would result in a 14-hour movie, but Jodorowsky didn't really care.  Ultimately, movie companies loved everything about the project - they just didn't want Jodorowsky as the director.

Storyboards inside the script

The project was also deemed too expensive.  In preproduction alone, about two million dollars had been spent, out of a projected fifteen million dollars, which was quite a bit of money in 1976. So, the project died.  Oddly enough, just a few years later, O'Bannon, Foss, Giger, and Giraud would all work together on Ridley Scott's Alien, which was history in the making, given the revenue generated by the Alien franchise of books, comics, and movies.

When this project failed, Jodorowsky turned to comics, with Moebius as a partner, and elements of his Dune concept ended up in works like The Incal and The Metabarons.  The Incal apparently influenced the work of many others over the years - there was even a lawsuit filed that Luc Besson's The Fifth Element borrowed heavily from The Incal (the case was lost).  Many future films were influenced by Jodorowsky's Dune, including (among others):

• Blade Runner
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Masters of the Universe
• Prometheus

In my opinion, it even had influence on David Lynch's 1984 version of Dune - specifically the Emperor's ship which lands on a pyramid-like base on Arrakis.  Jodorowsky saw this version when it came out and thought it was terrible - he called it a failure.  I've seen both this version of Dune, and the mini-series that was created by SyFy.  I don't remember much of the SyFy series, but there were elements of David Lynch's Dune that I quite enjoyed, even though it was not 100% faithful to the book - in fact, some of the things I really liked weren't even in the book (the extended version is the only one to see - the original theatrical release leaves out too much detail).  Apparently, Jodorowsky took some liberties with the story as well, but from what I've seen that is fairly typical of Hollywood.

Jodorowsky's Dune

In my opinion, it even had influence on David Lynch's 1984 version of Dune - specifically the Emperor's ship which lands on a pyramid-like base on Arrakis.  Jodorowsky saw this version when it came out and thought it was terrible - he called it a failure.  I've seen both this version of Dune, and the mini-series that was created by SyFy.

Lynch's Dune

I don't remember much of the SyFy series, but there were elements of David Lynch's Dune that I quite enjoyed, even though it was not 100% faithful to the book - in fact, some of the things I really liked weren't even in the book (the extended version is the only one to see - the original theatrical release leaves out too much detail).  Apparently, Jodorowsky took some liberties with the story as well, but from what I've seen that is fairly typical of Hollywood.



I recently bought a copy of The Incal, knowing that it influenced The Fifth Element and other works of fiction.  I had also heard of Moebius in the past, so I thought it would be an interesting read, and it would be interesting to see what helped influence many works of science fiction that I have enjoyed.

The book came with the pictured sticker on it - the bold statement reminds me of a book I saw in a book store in the late 1980's that was something like "The Greatest Lines From the Worst Books That Were Never Written".  I have to say I really wonder what this movie would have been like had it been made.  I also wonder if anyone will ever attempt to make Jodorowskys Dune as a TV series or series of movies sometime in the future.  Certainly, aspects of his vision are 40 years out of date (the whole psychedelic LSD thing may not be so popular today), but I think it would be interesting.

Book Review: Quantum Night, by Robert J. Sawyer

Mr. Sawyer once again explores the human condition in Quantum Night.  Consciousness has been a central theme in several of his previous novels; e.g. artificial intelligence in The WWW Trilogy (Wake, Watch, Wonder), and uploading the human mind into an android in Mindscan.

Now the focus is on:  psychopaths.  I have tried to write this review to reveal some of the scientific elements of this novel in the hope of generating interest without revealing much of the core story itself, and I hope I have been successful.  Due to the content of this novel, I found writing this review somewhat difficult.  If you want to experience the novel without knowing any details beyond what is on the inside of the dust cover, I would stop reading now.

Building on data that suggests that the number of psychopaths in the world is actually much larger than expected, Mr. Sawyer weaves a disturbing tale where the members of humanity who are actually conscious with a conscience are in the minority.  The majority of people in the world are either psychopaths or philosophical zombies (can be likened to automatons who do as they're told and simulate everything perfectly but are not actually conscious), with the last group being the "normal" people.  The book contains a "Further Reading" section listing many non-fiction works that provide empirical evidence which is the basis for the ideas in this novel - even some evidence that philosophical zombies, previously used as a thought experiment, may actually be in our midst.

First, a few definitions from www.dictionary.com:

• psychopath:  a person with a psychopathic personality, which manifests as amoral and antisocial behavior, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, failure to learn from experience, etc.
• psychopathy:  a mental disorder in which an individual manifests amoral and antisocial behavior, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, failure to learn from experience, etc.

And, from wikipedia.com, some information about philosophical zombies:  
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

In this story, the world population of 7 billion people is made up of (read the book to get the actual numbers):

• philosophical zombies who are not conscious and have no conscience
• psychopaths who are conscious and have no conscience
• normal people who are conscious and have a conscience

The concept of a philosophical zombie seems to support the concept of mob (or herd) mentality, which seems pretty mindless.  Also, a significantly larger number of psychopaths who lie, feel no guilt, have no empathy or love for others, and are only interested in themselves, seems to match our "real" world which has so many problems with greed and antisocial behavior.  (Keep in mind that not all psychopaths are serial killers - it is a scale ranging from antisocial behavior to violence).  Such a world seems like a scary place for you and I, who are "normal".  You are normal, aren't you?  At least in the three choices that this book sets out, right? <grin>  In such a world, it would seem that we "normal" folks are the newly hatched sea turtles trying to scramble from their eggs to the ocean across a beach strewn with flocks of psychopathic seagulls and zombie followers just waiting to devour the majority of us as we try to sneak by.  Not good!

This novel also deals with the morality and outcome of scientific testing with human subjects.  It plays a large part in the story, which centers on Jim Marchuk, an experimental psychologist who has developed a way to detect psychopaths.  Jim attempts to live a utilitarian life, trying to achieve the most happiness for the most people, which leads to some controversial beliefs that come up from time to time.

Certainly, this book contains a large amount of scientific information, but despite this the story keeps the reader interested from the very beginning, and the science is not complicated or overwhelming - it is described in easy to understand terms.  The story contains many twists and turns, and for me there were several "Holy Crap!" moments that I did not see coming (a trademark for most of Mr. Sawyer's books).

Quantum Night ranks up there with some of Mr. Sawyer's most popular works, and I would not be surprised to see this book nominated for a major award.  His books are always crammed with references to many different scientific efforts (for example, CERN plays a part in many of his novels), world events (both past and present), and to some of his favorite works of science fiction (such as Planet of Apes).

I understand that this may be his last novel, which does sadden me - and I do hope he writes more in the future.  At present, I have not read his two previous novels, Red Planet Blues and Triggers, and I will need to stockpile these for when I need a guaranteed good read (typically after attempting to read a bunch of novels that don't hold my interest).  Although, I may need to move Triggers nearer the top of my list - I know that he's been working on a script for either a movie or TV-show based on this book, and I'll want to read it before that comes out.  I enjoyed both the book and TV-show for Flashforward, but they were both very different.  Despite the difference, I think reading the book after seeing the show would have made it less interesting - at least for me.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone to enjoys a rollicking scientific thriller that is easy to understand.  It is a fast, engaging read, just like many of Mr. Sawyer's other works.

I'm open to and welcome comments and discussion about this book.