Month: June 2021

Cold Storage by David Koepp – Book Review

by
Cold Storage by David Koepp – Book Cover

Cold Storage Delivers a Cinematic Experience

The guy who put this book on the table is the screenwriter behind movies like Jurassic Park and Spider-Man. What does that mean? Clearly, that Cold Storage feels like a movie.

A B-movie.

A low-budget B-movie set in a few locations.

But hey, wait a minute!

It’s one of the good ones. Okay, the basic premise of Cold Storage is entirely clichéd: a new, aggressive fungus starts spreading in an abandoned military storage facility. The smooth-talking underdog with a good heart, his dream girl, and the slightly over-the-hill, retired problem-solver take up the fight against it.

David Koepp’s main antagonist is a mushroom – and no joke!

Read more

The Forbidden Door by Dean Koontz – Book Review

by
The Forbidden Door by Dean Koontz – Book Cover

Dean Koontz and Jane Hawk Are Starting to Tire

In The Forbidden Door the fourth book in the series, Jane Hawk continues her battle against a conspiracy at the highest levels of American political and economic life. Our favorite vigilante starts from the unenviable position of being the USA’s number one public enemy. And she’s pretty exhausted.

The same can be said for the initial chapters of Dean Koontz’s book: the writing is undeniably sloppy. The text is dripping with pathos from the very first scene, overflowing with exaggerated positive descriptions of the protagonists.

Then, interestingly, the situation suddenly normalizes, and these anomalies mostly disappear. How did that happen? Who’s ever heard of a book’s beginning being thrown together? Whatever.

Dean Koontz Is Still Aiming for the Nobel Prize in Literature

Read more

The Fox by Frederick Forsyth – Book Review

by
The Fox by Frederick Forsyth – Book Cover

The spy comes out of retirement

In The Fox, retired thriller writer Frederick Forsyth brings back a retired intelligence operative for one last mission. The WORLD’S BEST HACKER, a British lad with Asperger’s syndrome, manages to breach the super-secret database of the American intelligence. (Not good news, by any means.)

Now, if you think it’s all about hacking from here on out, you’d be mistaken; the world’s best hacker doesn’t utter a single word throughout the entire book. And the recalled spy? Well, he’s precisely 70 years old.

The book’s larger-than-average font size also raises suspicions, as it’s usually not a sign of a meticulously detailed story.

All the main characters are miserable Brits! (Alright, this doesn’t really matter.)

The thriller writer comes out of retirement

But let’s see what’s on the other side of the scale! On the other side sits Frederick Forsyth himself, one of the world’s greatest espionage writers. Undoubtedly. Starting with “The Day of the Jackal,” I’ve been reading his books for about thirty years, and he has never disappointed me. Ahem, until now.

Read more

One Shot by Lee Child – Book Review

by
One Shot by Lee Child – Book Cover

My role model (see Die Trying), Major Jack Reacher, makes his first appearance in One Shot on page 42. How is that possible? I have no idea. Moreover, I thought I had already read this book before. But no, I missed this volume, and that’s great news because in this early installment, the Major is at his best. And of course, so is Lee Child. And naturally, this is the book that was adapted into the cool movie Jack Reacher (IMDb: Jack Reacher) where Tom Cruise does everything to RISE to the role.)

Child’s book is thrilling from the first page.

How can you tell? Well, despite our beloved hero’s late appearance, you find Lee Child’s story unputdownably exciting from the very first page.

Then Reacher barges in and once again sticks his nose into something he shouldn’t. And once again, he’s nosy, impertinent, and unshakeable… And once again, it turns out that things that seem entirely obvious aren’t so obvious after all.

How does Jack Reacher do it? Using the good old Sherlock Holmes method. Things that would mean nothing to you, spark something different in his mind. Things you would immediately declare as black, he flips around and proves to be white.

Read more

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu – Book Review

by
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu - Book Cover

The first chapter of The Three-Body Problem stands alone brilliantly, akin to a superb standalone short story. It offers a brief retrospective on the madness of the Chinese Cultural Revolution from the perspective of one of the characters, providing a great foundation (or so it would seem) for the rest of the story. It’s a real pity that not a single moment in the rest of Cixin Liu’s book lives up to this initial promise.

Casual MMO game with robot-like characters

Are scientists dropping like flies? Yes, especially those involved in fundamental research. This reeks of a foul conspiracy, so our protagonists set out to investigate. That is, until a virtual reality computer game takes center stage in their inquiries – from that point on, no one gives a damn about the dying scientists anymore. Instead, we get lengthy descriptions of in-game adventures wrapped in physics and mathematical jargon. Does all this sound interesting? Well, actually… IT. IS. NOT.

What’s even less interesting? The Chinese characters. In The Three-Body Problem, with one exception, everyone is completely unremarkable, as if they were brainwashed robots controlled by a single central will. Ahem. The exception, an overzealous police inspector, is like a half-deaf uncle who loudly tells nonsensical stories at a supposedly restrained family gathering (say, a wake) and occasionally spits on the floor with great gusto.

Read more

Tiamat’s Wrath by James S. A. Corey – Book Review

by
Tiamat’s Wrath by James S. A. Corey – Book Cover

With a hefty volume released every year, in James S. A. Corey’s Expanse series, the pace has become somewhat relentless; by the eighth installment, you might think the whole thing has turned into a soap opera. Well, it hasn’t; it’s actually SPACE OPERA, with the soap opera motifs more characteristic of the first few books, where characters whined about “emotional” stuff, but then events expanded so much that whining was no longer necessary.

However, after the two previous, chillingly brilliant books, you realize that many of the viewpoint characters in Tiamat’s Wrath seem completely uninteresting (led by Teresa). They seem to exist just to fill space. Then suddenly, the characters in the book also recognize what you, the reader, have been realizing for some time: they have no chance against Laconia. From there, the plot becomes even more weightless.

And indeed, in the Wrath of Tiamat, some completely lame plot twists occasionally appear. (The friendship between Teresa and her best buddy, Timothy, is the least believable moment in the entire series.)

But then Duarte, the enlightened dictator – who more or less lets things go as they would naturally, but occasionally orders a few heads bashed in – starts poking the sleeping lion. But he does it without anything in his hands that he could use as a weapon against him, except his own, protomolecule-enhanced, mere dick. Yes, it’s called hubris, and it NEVER ends well.

Read more

The Other Woman by Daniel Silva – Book Review

by
The Other Woman by Daniel Silva – Book Cover

Can a spy novel series still hold up when it’s on its 18th installment? That’s the question. I jumped into Daniel Silva’s series around the 7th book mark, and even though critics often label the series as formulaic, there’s something about it that keeps you turning the pages. Once you get past the first 100 pages of any book, you find yourself hooked. And as you get accustomed to the rhythm, a few books down the line, you don’t even need those 100 pages anymore. It’s as if the author becomes more adept at captivating you right from the start. (Even though the basic structure of the stories remains pretty much the same from installment to installment. Quite intriguing, isn’t it?)

Now, The Other Woman is the first book where this formula doesn’t quite click. Obviously, you can’t always pit your protagonist against Arab terrorists who want to blow up this or that capital city; a bit of variety is necessary from time to time. However, the pursuit of a Russian mole within British intelligence seems rather lackluster compared to the series’ earlier, far more significant events. Not to mention that the involvement of the Israeli intelligence agency, and our protagonist, Gabriel Allon, feels somewhat forced in this case, as if the Israelis are being nudged into an unpleasant, stinky mess, saying: “Here you go, guys, it’s our mess, but you clean it up!”

Is it all bad? No, not entirely. The Other Woman feels more like reading a crime novel than a spy thriller. It’s a crime novel that’s occasionally quite thrilling. Even the legendary Kim Philby (that jerk) makes an appearance, much to the delight of long-time spy fiction enthusiasts.

So, there’s no major issue with having a slightly subdued, slower-paced episode with less action mixed into the series.

Read more

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang – Book – Review

by
The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang - Book - Cover

China a few thousand years ahead in the future? In a military academy-style fantasy? Sort of. Mythical emperors, superhuman warlords, shamanism? Yes, in the second half of The Poppy War. In the first half, you’re at school. The characters are teenagers, so it’s young adult fantasy, but fortunately, it SEEMS to be of the better kind.

Rivalries, a jerk of a teacher, and rotten classmates, all checked, but nothing’s overdone. The focus is on training: martial arts, tactics, strategy, and the like. Love and sex at ZERO level. It’s not that R. F. Kuang is prudish, but both are completely absent, as if nobody had ever heard of them. The strongest emotion between characters is lukewarm friendship. So, those of romantic disposition will struggle with a strong sense of lack.

Some very cautious criticism of the system can also be observed from R. F. Kuang regarding present-day China: if you strive for excessive uniformity in everything, you give up a lot of useful things. In the case of The Poppy War, this useful thing is shamanism.

In the second half of the book, the tiny Mugen Federation (exerting strong Japanese influence) attacks the mighty Nikan (China) for the third time within a few decades. And R. F. Kuang’s story collapses in on itself. Numerous mythical creatures emerge, a bunch of shamans, lots of hysteria and sensitivity break out, and Kuang, who previously constantly alluded to every strategist’s grandfather, Sun Tzu, is unable to describe a military maneuver without it being childishly simple.

Read more