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
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.
The story of the Libyan terrorist and the Corey couple continues. And even if you missed the previous book by Nelson DeMille, like I did, you won’t feel lost because everything is well explained. The problem, however, is that the beginning of The Lion is mostly from the perspective of the scumbag Asad Khalil, who is an even more fanatical terrorist than the usual breed, and cares about nothing but killing. Seriously. Nothing else.
By about a third of the way through The Lion, you start getting fed up with Khalil indiscriminately slaughtering his remaining enemies from the previous book, as well as his own associates to prevent them from identifying him. This excessive caution is SOMEWHAT contradicted by the fact that the mischievous Khalil calls the police for fun to taunt them. Plus, the police already have a ton of files on him.
On top of that, Khalil even takes on a job from Al Qaeda, although he leaves it for last, after dealing with his personal matters. Sure. („Never mind, Khalil”, his comrades at Al Qaeda might say, „take care of your business, it’s no issue if they start a nationwide manhunt against you, 6-star wanted level. No problemo, we can always detonate our bomb later!” – And these poor Al Qaeda guys don’t even realize Khalil has this aversion to witnesses. Thanks a lot for that kind of help!)
Would you dare not to pick up a book endorsed by Chuck Norris on the cover? Obviously not, especially if Jack Carr’s “The Terminal List” promises to be an excellent action thriller.
A full SEAL unit led by Major Reece is blown up in Afghanistan. If that weren’t bad enough, Reece finds himself entangled with NCIS, who turn out to be a bunch of fools. (Hey, isn’t that what we learned from the TV series!) Reece is then whisked back to the USA, where another pech hits him: his family is slaughtered. There’s a smell of a nose-tickling conspiracy here! Blood is demanded!!!
And then what happens? NOTHING. Although Jack Carr relentlessly drills into Reece and into you that the Major must seek revenge, instead of opting for a more civic approach like filing a police report, still NOTHING happens.
You’re just plunged into a long and monotonous buildup, during which you realize that the main character of “The Terminal List” is sorely lacking in charisma, just a template of a thick-necked, tough, and kind-hearted American patriot (God, country, family!). His wife is GOOD and BEAUTIFUL too! (I admit, from this point on, I myself fondly reminisce about the idyllic family life of Reece and set it as a shining example for us, especially when the fucking Screaming and Yelling starts here at home.)
The evil conspirators turn out to be very evil. Moreover, they’re idiots like hell because they turn SEALs into guinea pigs for their conspiracy, who are known to be the elite commandos of the US Navy. Instead of, say, trying with Mexican immigrants, where it might not even be noticed if a dozen of them blow up.
When the Major finally takes action… Ta-da-dam… the novel remains just as sluggish. There’s no one among the adversaries who could match Reece’s weight class, except maybe Holden, but the author doesn’t even exploit him. Although you would rightfully expect Reece, driven by righteous vengeance, to occasionally whack the bad guys with a club before GENTLY sending them off to a better place, the confrontations in “The Terminal List” lack any tension. Nobody is chasing Reece at all, so he just strolls forward and neatly shoots everyone down one by one.
The author perhaps attempts to offset the naive perspective of his somewhat clumsy and drawn-out work by sporadically interjecting rather simplistic right-wing propaganda into the narrative (Similar to the wise, thoughtful, and far-sighted President Trump, he probably watched Fox News too much as well.) The essence of which: no matter how many filthy scumbags his bad luck throws his way, by some strange coincidence, they always seem to turn out to be filthy Democrats.
The STUPIDEST SENTENCE IN THE BOOK is uttered in the context of the over-idealized, perfect American family, concerning the Major’s declining mother:
„…to put her in a place that would take good care of her, and she had quickly become a staff favorite.”
Ah, of course, she must have won the esteemed title of “Demented of the Month” in a row…
Overall, except for a few more exciting scenes, “The Terminal List” is like a simple „Shopping List”: 2 kilos of potatoes, a liter of cooking oil, four pieces of bratwursts, etc., which Major Reece ticks off happily after putting them in his basket. (But it would be better if good old Chuck didn’t hear about my opinion!)
6.7/10
The Terminal List (Terminal List #1) by Jack Carr 407 pages, Hardcover Published in 2018 by Atria/Emily Bestler Books
It starts off well, I must say, the first 20 minutes of Ready Player One, even with significant changes, capture the spirit of the novel. And the moment when Wade Watts’ name first appears on the Oasis leaderboard is ALMOST as impactful as it is in the novel.
The story unfolds in a near, dystopian future where life revolves around obtaining the hidden, inheritable key of a virtual reality that dominates every aspect of life (education, work, entertainment). However, the changes, which were obviously necessary for the story to work as a film, and even more so as a visually stunning one, gradually overshadow the narrative.
From the overwhelming computer animation that makes up 99-100% of Ready Player One, your head soon starts to buzz, and you feel like you’ve sunk into a Japanese role-playing game filled with manga characters, watching with increasing boredom from the sidelines as the avatars of other characters duke it out.
It’s like being in one of those muddled Transformers movies.
The youth-level black-and-white characters and childish humor don’t help much, nor does the shivery programmer god, Halliday, who seems to look like he’s pooped his pants at every appearance. But the worst is clearly the ultra-lame main antagonist.
If you haven’t seen the 1978 first installment of the film series, where old Max (Mel Gibson) zeroes out a motorcycle gang due to the murder of his family, it won’t be easy to identify with this new Max (Tom Hardy). This new Mad Max is mostly just some random dude, whom Immortan Joe’s somewhat anemic-looking subordinates drag out of his car and reclassify as a pedestrian in the first few minutes of the film. Might as well call him Jimmy the Pisser. Okay, the new Max is still a tad more than your average Jimmy constantly wetting himself, having developed parkour and acrobatic skills in the INFINITE AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK, which come in handy as he’s forced to jump around on various speeding vehicles for the remainder of the film.
And this new Mad Max falls short of the old Max (and Jimmy) in that he’s a jerk.
After realizing they’re in the same (motor)boat with Furiosa (Charlize Theron), Immortan Joe’s silently departing, disgruntled employee, and his former girlfriends, instead of giving them a nod and saying, “Hey ladies, what’s up? Let’s be best buddies from now on,” he pulls a gun on them, robs them, and lets them beat him senseless.
Not that Furiosa is much of a thoughtful personality either: after all, she drags Joe’s supermodel-like concubines out of their comfort zone into the ENDLESS AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK – and the foolish geese blindly follow; when all they should be doing is lounging around in the only remaining habitable place amidst the apocalypse, looking stunning, and occasionally delighting the grateful Immortan Joe (the poor man’s Darth Vader) with a new offspring. Joe, okay, really isn’t the most charming gentleman, but still isn’t lacking in charisma; and after all, they could easily end up with someone a hundred times worse after judgment day.
Immortan Joe
The film’s main merit, the visual world, is okay, and mostly thanks to the former, the film’s atmosphere is as well: Desert, Sunshine, Apocalypse, although Little “M” angrily resented the excessive use of blue filters in the night scenes.
However, the action scenes are very hard to follow, the cuts are too fast, and the camera shakes as if there’s no tomorrow (or yesterday). You might find this especially problematic because the film “Mad Max” consists EXCLUSIVELY of action. If there’s an occasional brief break, it’s used to push you even deeper into boredom with sappy and sensationalist dialogues. And that’s the biggest problem with this film: after about half an hour, the constant action becomes deadly dull, and you can’t wait to finally be done with it.
George Miller couldn’t resist including the biggest cliché of the lonely and tough hero at the end of the film: Max, accompanied by Furiosa’s beseeching gaze, turns his back on his new friends and sets off into the sunset. But you know it’s all just a show, a projection, plain screwing around, because after just 27 minutes of wandering, Max will have to recognize that he’s in the last habitable place in the INFINITE AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK, so he’ll have to turn around and walk back to Furiosa, who, after pulling him close, whispers in her ear:
6/10
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) (IMDb) Director: George Miller, Stars: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron
You have no idea what anime is? Neither did I, really. (It’s a cartoon, basically.) But Little EM nagged me for a whole year—well, if you can call open and shameless blackmail nagging—until I had to give in. “Attack on Titan is the best anime! Everyone’s watching Attack on Titan!” claimed Little EM. Maybe so, although the real question is how long they’re watching. If you want what’s best for yourself…
How does the series start anyway? It starts off damn well. Humanity has been living behind enormous walls for a hundred years. Outside the walls, there are naked, androgynous, and horribly stupid giants who hunger for human flesh. It’s like zombies, only bigger than apartment buildings. In the first episode, the giants break through the wall. After watching it, you’ll probably just gawk and say, “I’ve never seen a stronger series opener, not even Lost or The Shield, compare to this.”
Unfortunately, it’s all downhill from there. It feels like the creators locked a bunch of twelve-year-olds in a room, had them compete to come up with the dumbest idea, and the winner’s idea got passed along. There’s no sense to the story; it’s like they’re always trying to make something big happen, and as quickly as possible. The first two seasons could have easily explored how humanity recovers from the initial shock, how they slowly gear up for an unequal fight against the almost unbeatable enemy. Instead, they throw in two twists, right at the beginning (the first being the protagonist’s, uh, transformation, and the other involving the giant girl), which completely undermine the otherwise strong premise. And don’t even get me started on the Abnormals, special giants with unique abilities. Armor, teleportation, who knows what else. All these elements successfully reduce the series to a stupid fairy tale.
And believe it or not, that’s the lesser issue. The bigger problem is that the creators of Attack on Titan are incapable of writing sensible dialogue. All the conversations are garbled, pompous repetitions. Plus, most of the characters, whether necessary or not, SCREAM AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS. Especially Eren, the protagonist, who can ONLY COMMUNICATE BY SCREAMING. So, if his little buddies in the Scout Regiment disagree with him, they don’t politely ask,
“Hey, what the frakkin’ hell are you doin’, chimmy-chummy?”
Instead, they SHOUT in his face, “You’re preparing for the downfall of humanity with your actions. Admit that you’re an enemy of humanity!” And so on. This compulsive grandiloquence renders every conversation completely unbelievable and ridiculous.
But the childishness and thoughtlessness extend to every other aspect of the series as well. Whenever the characters find themselves in a crisis (which happens quite a few times), with about 10 seconds to avert the crisis, you can bet 500 yen against the armored giant’s left testicle that they’ll spend AT LEAST 10 minutes lamenting, philosophizing, or struggling with themselves over what to do—while you angrily pound the armrest of your chair in front of the TV and start SHOUTING yourself: “Your time’s up, you miserable idiots!”
At least one recruit participating in military training has a HYSTERICAL BREAKDOWN due to the bleak future ahead, and a third of the episode is spent with the others comforting them. Meanwhile, in sharp contrast, and only incidentally, it turns out that due to overcrowding behind the walls, 250,000(!) civilians were driven out to fight against the giants—to reduce the population inside. The brilliant plan was a success. The giants ate them all. Problem solved. It couldn’t have been easy to convince these 250,000 civilians to join the action; they were probably all forcibly pushed out the gate and weapons were thrown after them at the end, to prevent any recklessness inside. Or if not, they all were probably EASILY INFLUENCED retirees.
Ridley Scott’s 2010 creation is, without a doubt, the most baffling Robin Hood movie ever made (yes, including Men in Tights), which, after a reasonably well-executed opening battle scene, quickly devolves into a weird, multi-threaded mess:
Warning: major spoilers ahead! But honestly—don’t worry about it.
—Robin Hood Steals, Cheats – and Plants Wheat
Robin Hood, the SIMPLE ARCHER, under the alias of Sir Loxley, ends up delivering King Richard the Lionheart’s crown to the Queen Mother (but only by accident, because he and his bros GOT HAMMERED while sailing and forget to make a run for it).
Then Robin, the SIMPLE ARCHER, using the Sir Loxley alias, infiltrates the Loxley family, and at this point the story turns into The Taming of the Shrew, with the understandably reluctant Lady Marion (who, by the way, spends her free time ploughing, sowing, and reaping alongside peasants, and feels an irresistible urge to personally drag the common folk’s goats out of the muck.).
Robin, the SIMPLE ARCHER, secretly sows the grain he EXTORTED from Friar Tuck — in the DEAD OF NIGHT.
Since hardly anyone reads this blog anyway, I think I can safely admit—without becoming a public laughingstock—that Major Jack Reacher is one of my all-time role models! Yep, I said it.Big words, I know. But anyone who reads the thriller Die Trying will definitely find themselves admiring Lee Child’s ex-military cop hero from that point on.
Jack Reacher. Role Model. Period.
My role model, Major Jack Reacher, in the second installment of Lee Child’s excellent series (which I picked up again after some 20 years and accidentally reread) finds himself in the back of a van—alongside a very attractive FBI agent. She’s been kidnapped. My role model, Major Jack Reacher, just so happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up in the van by accident. The hopelessly dumb kidnappers in Die Trying don’t just toss him out of the van—they drag him with them. These poor fools have no idea what kind of trouble they’ve just signed up for.
Because my role model, Major Jack Reacher, is strong, smart, highly trained, cunning, and more Sherlock than Sherlock Holmes himself (see: The Hound of the Baskervilles). (Just watch how he analyzes the girl at the beginning.) His sense of justice is off the charts. He’s also the best sniper around. (You can bet a few people are gonna take a bullet to the head.)
A Scandinavian Crime Novel, With a Touch of Robbery
Jonas Bonnier’s book is roughly the chance meeting on the dissecting table of Scandinavian crime and documentary fiction. Or something like that. Not entirely, though, because the genre is mostly referenced through the setting, but the usual whining is nowhere to be found. (You know, when the noble Nordic characters are relentlessly depressed from page one, yet their names and genders remain a mystery for ages.) And if you’re worried – since the book is based on a true story – that it’s just a list of facts thrown together, you can forget that, too. The Helicopter Heist has been streamlined into a full-on novel.
In 2009, a few guys robbed the G4S cash logistics company’s Stockholm depot using a helicopter. (Hundreds of millions of kronor were flying around.) The novel tells the story of the planning and the heist.
Bad Guys? Interesting!
Bonnier’s book isn’t as thrilling or full of twists as the heist genre would lead you to expect. The part of the book dedicated to preparation, unsurprisingly, takes up most of the story and could be described as, at best, moderately interesting. (Obviously, things pick up during the action part.)
