Chris Carrel

Child murders are grim enough, but when set against a very stark, very real Stalinist Russia where even spouses can denounce (and send to their death) each other, it makes for a novel that is not for the faint of heart. Yet, the story of Leo Dimidev, one of Stalin's secret policemen, as he tries to find the truth about a serial killer in a society that doesn't want to acknowledge such crimes, is a story of redemption. The characters are full-fledged and nuanced, the narrative tautly paced. This is a thriller with its share of surprises, not the least of which is how redemption and some level of optimism is found in such a grim, dangerous place.

This is an amazing work of fiction that I highly recommend. The author weaves together an epic yet very personal story that spans decades and two countries, telling a story that begins with the failed 1976 assassination of singer Bob Marley and ends up with the 1980s crack epidemic in Brooklyn. The narrative connective tissue joining these two points is articulated by a shifting cast of characters from Jamaica, America and Cuba, among others. The plot is so well constructed and interwoven through the various characters' perspectives that the alternating voices never confuse, and always propel the story forward. And the voices are distinctive. I listened to the audiobook (with excellent narration by at least 5 voice actors) and I found myself frequently repeating pieces of the often musical dialogue. This book recently won the Man Booker prize and a host of praise. It is well deserved. This is a dense story that seems compact and tight, populated by three dimensional characters so rich and colorful that I feel like I know them. As I passed the halfway point of the book I found myself both wanting to hurry up to reach the end and see what happens and to slow down so that I could enjoy the pleasure of reading this book longer.
Now, off to read James' other work.

Robert Charles Wilson is one of my favorite sci-fi writers, and while I enjoyed Spin, the sequel Axis, left me a little flat.

It's a decent read, but the characters are just not that engaging and ultimately, the story of the Hypotheticals - the mysterious alien force that enclosed the Earth in a time bubble in Spin - is pretty pedestrian.

A welcome return to form for Tom Perrotta after the somewhat disappointing ‘The Abstinence Teacher.' Leftovers' plot device is refreshingly original and thought-provoking: what would happen if a Rapture-like event (inscrutably mysterious and secular, with non-Christians and bad eggs just as likely to have disappeared as Rapture-believers) occurred causing millions to just suddenly disappear from the world? The story takes place two years after the event and follows a ‘typical' suburban family through the aftermath.

Perrotta excels at developing multiple characters and propelling a story through those characters' alternating takes on the narrative. The characters in The Leftovers are nuanced and believable, while being sympathetic. The Garvey family and those in their near orbit are real enough that their mistakes are both cringe-worthy and horrifying, and their suffering palpable.

The plot bogs down slightly in a couple of places late in the book, but was otherwise a page turner (or rather button pusher). The Leftovers is both an entertaining read and, at a deeper level, a remarkably unsettling story. While the mass disappearance that propels The Leftovers doesn't engender easy parallels with the real world, I found the widespread breakdown of both society and individuals disturbingly familiar.

A future with wearable computers, wireless Internet connections everywhere, user-designed “views” of the world, a famous poet medically rehabilitated after Alzheimer's Disease, his teenage grandaughter and a white rabbit that appears from time to time. Normally this sort of story wouldn't appeal to me and I picked it up only because the author is one of my favorite SciFi writers, Vernor Vinge.
Unfortunately, I have to tell you that Vinge comes up short on this effort. Too many characters and plot lines made for a sluggish read; and the future world Vinge describes just wasn't that compelling for me. In the end...I couldn't make it to the end and dropped this book halfway through.

The narrator gets hit over the head by a mysterious falling object, and wins an outrageous amount of money in the settlement. Ok.

Then, he begins to use his newfound wealth to create experiences that remove his sense of artificiality with his life. He does so with a series of staged reenactments of real life events and places.

While at first a weird but interesting read, Remainder began to strike me as repetitive and just a bit too weird for my tastes. This was a tough read for me; I eventually finished, but it was tough to get there.