Sunday, July 29, 2012

EXIST*ENCE by David Brin

I'm not a big sci fi fan but there are some books I loved in the past. All the books by Douglas Adams were just wonderful. His imagination stunned me with his creativity. So once in awhile I'll try to read one that's not part of a series. I chose this because the title was intriguing. The inside cover sounded like a book I would enjoy.
I was wrong. So confusing with some kind of space guy gathering space junk. He finds something shiny is where I'm at now but then I have to read something about two people having what....um...text sex or whatever? I don't even know because it's so confusing. Here's some copy:Immigrants stirred things-the big S music scene was raki and manic arts flourished, encouraged by a faint glow surrounding old downtown on the quay was lively as three sailors haggled with a smoke artist whose delicate portraits couldn't be reproduced by nanofax or shipped my omail. They forked over cash and watched her puff a gel-hookah, adding clots of fast congealing haze.
It's just so out there with the stupidest details. I might not mind the story but the sidetrack stuff is killing my interest. I just cannot get into it at all.
Not going to finish past page 21. It's sooooo confusing. No stars.

HOT WATER by Erin Brockovich ***

AJ gets involved/hired by a company that runs a nuclear plant to figure out why someone is tampering with things there. Which is caused (if I read this correctly) by a religious nut who wants profits from the growth of the facility. Meanwhile back at the ranch, her boyfriend and a cop girlfriend are watching her wheelchair bound genius son.
The son's grandfather is very wealthy and for no reason I can figure out wants everyone out of his way so he can raise the child. So he has hired a gunman to kill everyone who can deter him in his evil plan. This part actually is half the book, the nuclear plant the other half. No where in the story is anyone ever able to telephone mommy and tell her all the courtroom drama, grandfather tampering. They call her for like days and hourly and something is wrong with all the phones, the area has no towers. I don't know seems fishy to me but that's the story. I really didn't get why this kidnapping/courtroom child thing was going on to the point where the granddad was going to KILL THE MOM???!!!??? WTF?? No motive I can see. I had a difficult time swallowing this entire half the book.
The best character in the story is Morris who naturally gives his life to save the nuke plant from decomposing and radiating the entire state of VA.
Entirely not my style of writing or reading topic. Didn't particularly care for it. Not a murder mystery. Not even a real mystery. Just a slowly unfolding story.

Monday, July 23, 2012

DEAD LAST by James W. Hall ***

I read it, and it was sort of slow going. It was no page turner and lots of time was spent stepping out of the story for some detail or other I had to flip pages thru so I wouldn't be forced to read them.

The actual best character in the story was Buddha Hilton, a small town cop who was connected to the case in Miami by a death in her town. She followed the leads and ended up meeting with Thorn (some idiot cop wannabe who knocked up a teen a long time ago, was never told about it then accidently ran into her and the family). Nothing was ever DNA'd to prove anything and the mother was sort of a slut so I personally was hesitant to believe the kids (twins) were even his. I didn't like Thorn, I didn't like any of the family he was hanging with.

Too bad Buddha was knocked off she was the most interesting person in the story and when she died; for me, so did the entire interest in the murders and rest of the book. Lost it and didn't care any more.
I can't understand how someone can create such an interesting creature as Buddha was and knock her off first chance author got. Was she too strong a character for him to deal with? He uncomfortable with strong women?

The rest of the women were wimpy little nobodies. O and DeeDee the belle of the ball totally LOVED cleaning toilets.....see? He can't handle strong women in his books. Knock em off. Keep the domestics.
There was a confession of mommy's boyfriends tossed into a river with a block of cement on their feet and that was NEVER investigated. Disappointing really. The end was a non-ending.

Not impressed.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

LUNATICS by Dave Barry/Al Zweibel **

It's similar in storyline to Forest Gump. A pair of local idiots are forced on trips around the world while causing all kinds of havoc that turns them from terrorists to heros. I had a lot of trouble separating them, they're too similar, as are their names: Peckerman and Horckman.
Readers are forced to follow them thru one stupid act to another. Begins with a loose Lemur, goes on to a lost insulin pump the lemur took, cop chases, being shot at, boarding a ship by stealing IDs, ending up in the desert or Africa feeding poor people bananas from a tipped over ship......blahblahblah.
I didn't find much of it amusing. Urinating anywhere, diarrhea in inappropriate scenes that are supposed to be humorous. The Donald running for president, one of them peeing on Sarah Palin. One of them who hasn't changed his pants for about a year and he has a wife. Like that'd happen. Lots of b.s. going on constantly, from accidental escapes, being met by terrorists or black ops or whatever. It's way overboard and I didn't find it the least bit entertaining.  Then the end was about politics (yawn).
The killing of animals pissed me off, or losing them, or hurting them or speaking about hurting them or killing them.
For me....blah

Friday, July 13, 2012

THE DROP by Michael Connelly ****

An older cop is assigned a newbie and has to sort of train him, meanwhile they do old unsolved cases plus he gets hired to do a Senators son's death as well. The stories move back and forth between the two but not in a difficult to follow way.
One looks like a suicide, the other is a pedophile and one of his victims gets to help the older cop Harry Bosch by ID'ing him, giving history etc. Got some good stuff, wouldn't call it a major page turner but good writing, easy to follow, not too many characters and the story lines are interesting.
I'm not sure I'd buy it but good library find.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

SOFT TARGET by Stephen Hunter ***

This was a trapped-in-the-mall takeover by foreign guys hired by some white kid with too much time on his hands. Not really anything of interest to me.  People screaming, shots, bad guys killing people in the mall while a couple snipers figure out how to end the takeover. The higher ups free some stupid jailbirds and all it does is make the white kid happy for no reason in particular. He has no goal cept to die like he's in a video game. That's all the whole thing was to him, a game.
Not really a fan of so many people, so many killers and all the thousand of hostages. For me it wasn't really good reading, I skimmed over so much of it because it was boring for me. I think maybe it's a guy book? It sure ain't a girly girl reader.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

DEFENSIVE WOUNDS by Lisa Black ****

Kind of a page turner with some breathing room for breaks. There are a lot of people in this and some of them are related to each other so keeping track is sort of important yet non-thrilling. It has to do with lots of weird murders of lawyers at a convention with no evidence (how likely is that?) must be a miracle killer you'd think and for a novice murderer it is very unusual. So anyways there are some red herrings, and some tense moments for the lead character who is overly dramatic about most things. There are a lot of boring little details about collecting evidence esp. since they never find anything at all but cat hairs.
Good library find if you want to take your time reading and learning all the people's names and relationships.