Okay, I know I swore in my review of the previous book in Laumer's "Imperium," Assignment in Nowhere, that there was "NO WAY I'm going anywhere near tOkay, I know I swore in my review of the previous book in Laumer's "Imperium," Assignment in Nowhere, that there was "NO WAY I'm going anywhere near the 4th and final book in the series" (largely based on my growing disappointment with the series overall as well as the hellacious cover). But after my previous book - The Black Bats: CIA Spy Flights over China from Taiwan 1951-1969 - proved to be a bit challenging and textbooky (albeit fascinating), I decided I needed to follow that with something fluffy and dumb; and so when I saw this staring out at me recently at McKay's Used Books…well, 99 cents later there I was, and here we are.
Sadly, "fluffy and dumb" doesn't begin to describe this stinker. I wish I could say it was so bad that it was good in some sort of goofy or kitschy way, but in truth it was really so bad that it was just really bad. Plot makes no sense, characters make no sense, English- and Swedish-speaking rat/aliens make no sense…
The first three books of the "Imperium" were written in 1961, '65 and '68, before Laumer suffered a massive stroke in 1971. He eventually returned to writing, but as Wikipedia diplomatically puts it, "the quality of his work suffered, and his career declined." For whatever reason, Laumer returned to the Imperium in 1990 - a 22 year gap - for one of his final books; but, well…the world could have easily survived without this one.
That said, Laumer's concept of the multiverse "blight" is still pretty solid (see my review of Assigment for a quick summary of how that works), and so it would be nice to see a different author pick this up and run with it. But please - no more rat-people!...more
Sweet Jesus, but this might be the stupidest book I have ever read - I actually feel a few IQ points lower than when I started. Was apparently supposeSweet Jesus, but this might be the stupidest book I have ever read - I actually feel a few IQ points lower than when I started. Was apparently supposed to be funny - but then so was "A Night at the Roxbury," which was also an endless slog based on a single lame joke, (in this case, mind-numbingly repetitive and singularly unamusing wordplay with the word "nothing"). By the end, I was literally angry at the book for its failed potential…could say more, but I'mma end here because I already wasted enough time reading the damn thing. ...more
Very misleading library blurb, noting that Metaxas "warns of the haunting similarities between today's American church and the German church of the 19Very misleading library blurb, noting that Metaxas "warns of the haunting similarities between today's American church and the German church of the 1930s," and "exhorting his fellow Christians to repent of their silence in the face of evil before it is too late." So first thought: oh, an open-minded Christian pastor concerned about our growing attraction to Far Right autocratic/strongman/cult-of-personality politics that rallies people to hate the already discriminated against "other," whether they be Muslims, gays, immigrants, etc. - count me in!
But of course, I should have done my homework first and read some of the negative reviews here on GR, because (of course), this book is NONE of those things; but is instead a typically Christian Nationalist call-to-arms against BLM, CRT, LGBTQ+, and other right wing culture-war issues. So, yeeeaah…no.
Luckily, borrowed not bought (and quickly returned), so no harm/no foul. But discouraging that one can read that initial blurb on "Germany in the 1930s" and "silence in the face of evil" and still have no idea which direction it's going to go in…...more
I know others may disagree, but I'm sorry - this was just a total waste of time. It was like an endless Forrest Gump story without any of the interestI know others may disagree, but I'm sorry - this was just a total waste of time. It was like an endless Forrest Gump story without any of the interesting plot points - shrimp, Elvis, tennis, Vietnam, et al. Even the bit about Joanne, "the chicken with a college education" (which is always mentioned in any description of this book) only appears well beyond the 3/4's point for just a coupla pages and otherwise plays absolutely no role in...well, was gonna say "the plot," except that is just being WAY too generous.
If you haven't already, PLEASE read True Grit - it is an outstanding book and one of the best Westerns out there. But then take my advise and tell Mr. Portis "thank you and goodbye," because based on this and Dog of the South, ol' Charlie is the Billy Ray Cyrus of Southern lit - an absolute one-hit wonder....more
ANOTHER ENTRY IN THE "I READ THIS SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO" CATEGORY - you're welcome!!
Was curious to see what 17th Century science fiction looked like...ANOTHER ENTRY IN THE "I READ THIS SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO" CATEGORY - you're welcome!!
Was curious to see what 17th Century science fiction looked like...so now I know, and it's not pretty. Maybe groundbreaking (...?), but otherwise like something a sugared-rushed kindergartner might come up with: "there are Bear-Men and Fox-Men and Geese-men and and...LICE-Men and Worm-Men and Spider-Men (ok; so ahead of her time here)...oh, and real people too except they're green, and there's diamonds everywhere..."
The whole "plot" as explained in the first para of the GR description - lady gets kidnapped and carried to the arctic, where everyone else is killed and so she enters another world - takes place IN THE FIRST FOUR SENTENCES;* and so then just mildly interesting for the next few pages before devolving into endless monologues about how 17th Century science worked, and what 17th Century spirituality looked like...just yikes.
Okay, so this was the early days of the novel, but still - this came out a good half century after Don Quixote, so hard to blame everything on its being "a product of its time;" and so I'm sorry, but this was just bad :(
Amazingly, Hoopla has five different audiobook versions of this available, but I gotta believe even one is barely justifiable.
* Okay, so a couple of those are just insanely run-on...but still all in the first paragraph!!!...more
UPDATE: And just when I was starting to think I'd maybe been a little harsh on this guy, he announces today that despite all the negative things he's UPDATE: And just when I was starting to think I'd maybe been a little harsh on this guy, he announces today that despite all the negative things he's said about Trump over the past three years (including calling him a "brazen criminal") - this $%@#! comes out today and announces that, yup, he's still going to vote for Trump in November. The former two-time Attorney General, whose job it is to uphold the Constitution, is going to vote for someone that he has repeatedly admitted has no dedication to the rule of law. There. Are. No. Words.
ORIGINAL REVIEW: Okay…so "read parts of" as in "skimmed it over a cup of coffee at Barnes & Noble*," but that was already more than this piece of self-serving dreck deserves. At least Hitler's inner circle had the decency to hide in Argentina or even shoot themselves when they finally realized the jig was up, rather than submit the world to convoluted, fact-free 600-page** attempts to claim that somehow they were the voice of reason in the bunker.
I'm starting to believe that politicians of a certain age really don't understand today's digital world - do they really not know that all their former statements, interviews, press conferences and tweets are STILL OUT THERE, like forever, and so are easily discoverable by anyone with a laptop and an internet connection?
Sadly, the damage done by people like Barr - and Michael Flynn, Tucker Carlson, the My Pillow Guy, Marjorie Greene, ad infinitum - isn't limited just to domestic politics here at home, as damaging as that already is. As Dana Milbank says in his excellent Washington Post book review:
"If you can convince the public that free and fair elections are illegitimate, it's not much of a leap to convince the public that a democratic neighbor…" (i.e., Ukraine) "…is a Nazi regime. Mass deception is the tool of the autocrat. And Bill Barr gave it his blessing."
* Sorry, me again. Just wanted to clarify, as this has been called out in a comment chain on someone else's review of this book. I didn't just skim the book. Sure, I did skip the initial "blah-blah-blah" on Barr's childhood and early career to get to his time with Trump - the only part anyone really cares about - and then spent a couple hours reading several full chapters and pieces of others, which I believe was enough to get a taste of where the rest of this was going, (i.e., a self-serving attempt to clear his name after serving two years as Donald Trump's wingman, personal legal advisor, and Enabler-in-Chief.)
** I mean, seriously? What kind of narcissist (or sweat-soaked villian suddenly concerned about his place in history) in ANY field thinks that ANYONE give a 600-page fuck about his or her life story? Talk about "methinking the lady doth protest too much"......more
Were this written by anyone else, I would say it is 2-star bad in a fun, kitschy, slightly (okay, fairly overtly) racist way; kinda like the second "IWere this written by anyone else, I would say it is 2-star bad in a fun, kitschy, slightly (okay, fairly overtly) racist way; kinda like the second "Indiana Jones" movie. But this is L. Ron Hubbard we're talking about here, so you have to consider the whole package. Because while I can see how people might enjoy the ramblings of a harmless, goofy hack writer with an outsized sense of his own importance, I CANNOT understand how they then elevate that same man to be the spiritual leader of a worldwide religious cult. (But then, I also don't understand how people could elevate a goofy hack egomaniacal businessman to be Leader of the Free World; so obviously humanity is stranger and darker and more overall fucked-up than I would like to believe.)
The most interesting thing about the book is its fawning, 9-page hagiography on Hubbard, which makes him out to be one of the greatest authors of all time across multiple genres, and a major influence on Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, King and others. Which I gotta say, made me just a little suspicious…and sure enough, a quick Google search showed that "Galaxy Press" is owned by the Church of Spiritual Technology, a Scientology-owned spinoff set up solely to publish Hubbard's non-Scientology early fiction.
Please don't think I was specifically looking for something like this; I just found it at our huge local used bookstore, where $2 got me both this and Louis l'Amour's West from Singapore, which was similarly written and set in Asia during the 1930's, (but which I am expecting to be much better). Love visiting that place; I never find what I went in looking for, but always find a lot of other strange books I'd otherwise have never heard of. But I guess you can't expect them all to be winners......more
Dan Reid has certainly led a unique life, and he used at least the second half of it to become an acknowledge authoritBELOW REVIEW IS PROBABLY RATED R
Dan Reid has certainly led a unique life, and he used at least the second half of it to become an acknowledge authority and writer on such topics as China/Taiwan travel, Chinese cuisine, herbal medicine, "chi-gung" (qigong), colonic cleansing, (the secret of which is apparently plenty of psyllium, coffee enemas, and shitting into a strainer), and numerous other exotic/esoteric subjects.
So if like me, you are a fan of Reid's other books on any of the above, then good for you...and I encourage you to stop reading this review right now.
(view spoiler)[Because sadly, he is also (at least as appears from these pages) a pompous, sexist asshole.
POMPOUS: From the beginning, the entire book is one long list of just how frickin' cool he is: "everyone marvels at my Mandarin fluency!," "I am unmatched in the Chinese kitchen!,""look at all the drugs and alcohol I've consumed!," "my sexual conquests and stamina are legendary!," (and yes, I know "sex and drugs" are in the title, but I thought he was being ironic or humorous).
SEXIST: I found this the most objectionable aspect of all, and I cannot imagine a single female reader who would not be grossly offended by this book. While seemingly not a misogynist, he is at the least an unrepentant chauvinist, objectifying women literally from page 1 with statements like this:
"I'll never forget my first whiff of sex steaming up from the saddle the first time I rode Carol." (page 1)
"Turning my head, I saw a naked girl asleep beside me, and the scamp between my legs perked up and raised its head to have a look too...despite a pounding hangover I rolled on top of her and let the scamp slide inside and discharge his load."
"For dessert I went...to the Mayflower Club and picked up a tasty tart to go, taking her home as a midnight snack and having her for breakfast in bed the next morning."
"For a while, I took compulsive interest in keeping count of my trophies in a desk diary, noting the date, place, and - when I could remember it - the name of the girl I hooked...I kept count for nearly three years and tallied a score of 380 girls before I stopped counting. At that rate during the nine years I kept up that pace I must have gone to bed with over a thousand Chinese girls in Taiwan, plus another 500 at the slower pace I maintained over the following six years."
...and oh-so many more.
ASSHOLE: See above.
And as if this isn't bad enough, for a professional writer the book itself is just not well written. Published by something called "Lamplight Books" of Mulumbimby, Australia (zero Google hits), Shots From the Hip bears all the hallmarks of a vanity or self-published project. It shows no signs of editing and is full of typos, double words and/or bad grammar - "American musicians learned to play a new way to play music" - as well as annoying repetitions, (every mention of LSD - and there are many - refers to it as "Lady Sky Dancer;" while every mention of opium - and there are many - must include the phrase "smoked in the Chinese style"...WE GET IT).
In addition, like many non-fiction writers Reid has a tin ear for dialogue, recalling decades old snippets of conversation like "This is truly a stroke of good fortune! Thanks for the timely tip," "I must say, dear fellow, you become more interesting and worth knowing every time you come to Bangkok," or simply "Holy Mother of God! Let's go!" And at times, he even manages to be both sexist and a bad writer in the same sentence:
"It was the first time I'd ever laid eyes on a naked Chinese girl, and 'jeepers creepers' my peepers liked what they saw."
I've written earlier reviews where I am critical of the story, but I don't think I've ever attacked the writer before. However, with a memoir the author casts himself as the main character, and so at that point I believe he/she becomes fair game. The back jacket blurb calls this book "unvarnished" and Reid "eccentric," but in hindsight I now interpret that as marketing-speak for "unedited" and "a jerk."
I honestly regret having read this book, as I had a much higher regard for Mr. Reid before doing so. I too lived in Taiwan for almost 15 years, and neither the place nor the people I experienced there are the same ones depicted in this tawdry tale. On the plus side, your local library definitely won't have a copy - it can only be purchased online - and so it should be easy to avoid. (hide spoiler)]...more
Wow, this was just a huge disappointment on so many levels. First, the blurb implies that this is a story of Tibet - which it's not. True, it starts oWow, this was just a huge disappointment on so many levels. First, the blurb implies that this is a story of Tibet - which it's not. True, it starts off with one (and only one) nice scene of a British mercenary flying weapons into some Tibetan rebels, and then there's even a twist regarding which side this particular group of rebels are actually fighting for...and then that plot-line and the rebels and Tibet itself all disappear from the story. Like completely, like for the rest of the book.
Instead, Higgins moves "the action" (heavy sarcasm there) to the fictional khanate of Balpur, an unnecessarily made-up "buffer" between India and China, (confusing in itself, as there is a real Balpur in India, but it is deep in Uttar Pradesh and well south of Nepal, much less Tibet). Flying is done now (regardless of the book jacket); the Himalaya are done, all mention of any Tibetan struggle against China is done, to be replaced instead by a plodding, predictable story of getting easily captured, then easily escaping, and then easily crossing some mountains into the waiting arms of India...the whole thing was just so BORING. Oh, and slightly racist too, since all the Chinese are stereotypical villains, and anyone remotely resembling a "local" gets quickly killed off, with only Drummond's one Indian companion among the few survivors, (which otherwise consist of the obligatory beautiful American nurse/platonic love interest, a crusty Irish missionary/doctor, and some McGuffin of a kid they have to get across the border for whatever reason, and who is either unconscious, asleep or otherwise speechless for the whole story).
And then there's the the bad writing, atrocious dialogue...and yet another totally meaningless title! I hate when writers just throw something Asian-y in there - "tiger this" or "dragon that" or "jade whatever." (And it's only as I write this that I realize...hang on, let me check...that yes, some 8-9 years earlier, Higgins wrote another real stinker nominally about Tibet, Year of the - you guessed it - Tiger, which was equally bad and had an equally dumb title...just frickin' lazy. )
Anyway...Somewhere out there is "the great Tibetan spy thriller" waiting to be written, maybe about the CIA training and dropping Khampa tribesmen back into eastern Tibet, or a Civil Air Transport (CAT, forerunner of Air America) black arms flights going down deep in the mountains, something with sword-wielding Tibetan cavalry charging Chinese tanks and heavy artillery...but it definitely ain't gonna come from Jack Higgins. So...still waiting, still looking, with Lionel Davidson's darned good The Rose of Tibet probably coming closer than anything else so far.
Wow, this has not aged well. Fleming wrote his last Bond book, Octopussy (actually a set of four short stories) in 1966; and aside from Kingsley Amis'Wow, this has not aged well. Fleming wrote his last Bond book, Octopussy (actually a set of four short stories) in 1966; and aside from Kingsley Amis' 1968 outlier Colonel Sun, License Renewed was the first book to bring back Bond (and launch Gardner's own 14-book series - four more than Fleming himself wrote). Despite the decade-plus time jump, Bond remains pretty much the same age, and pretty much the same sexist jerk, still inseparable from his brand names and snobbish affectations. And while I cut Fleming some slack here - he did invent the character and largely reinvent the genre - Gardner missed a huge opportunity to update Bond into a more relatable and realistic secret agent.
(Although to be fair, the early 80's were not kind to Bond in general. Hollywood was just coming off the disastrous "Moonraker," with the first half of the decade seeing an increasingly creaky Roger Moore eke out three more increasingly creaky adventures before an under-rated Timothy Dalton stepped in and did to the character what Gardner should have been doing in his books - check out any of the many "Why Timothy Dalton Was the Best Bond" websites.)
Anyway...as to License itself, Gardner gets off on the wrong foot by trying to closely mimic Fleming's format. A short summary of its characters tells you all you need to know:
Anton Murik: a short, villainous millionaire-slash-nuclear physicist-slash-Scottish "laird" who (of course) also raises race horses, giving Bond the opportunity for a really lame bump at Ascot Racecourse and get himself hired as a mercenary. Lavender Peacock (I know, WTF?): Murik's innocent and very sexy "ward" (a term I haven't heard since TV's "Batman"), who in her first appearance is described as having "firm and impertinent breasts"...as opposed to what? Firm and sarcastic breasts?
Ann Reilly: the new "Q," who is of course immediately given the nickname "Q'ute."
...and so on; I'm sure there's more, but my mind is still stuck on "Lavender Peacock." I got about 100 pages in and still hadn't learned what the actual plot was yet, and so decided to just toss it and consider it a 65¢ lesson learned, (thanks, McKay's Used Books!).
HA - and also just now noticed: that is one busy jacket design!!
QUICK SELF-INDULGENT UPDATE: With coronavirus still here and me still working week on/week off, out of boredom I recently borrowed both Timothy Dalton movies from the library. And yes, while Dalton himself is pretty cool and less weirdly-intense than Brosnan, the movies have not aged particularly well, either in terms of story, action, special effects or overall writing. So yeah, you can give these a pass and skip straight from any "first go-round" Connery (since both Diamonds Are Forever and Never Say Never Again absolutely suck) to the first two Brosnan films, and then fast forward again to Casino Royale, Skyfall, and - I hope I hope - No Time To Die, (although another inane title with the word "die" in it isn't a good sign). Hope I've saved somebody some time here......more
Ugh...literature. Worse yet, Japanese literature. Depressed 60's college students who are either busy offing themselves, boinking, or reading F. ScottUgh...literature. Worse yet, Japanese literature. Depressed 60's college students who are either busy offing themselves, boinking, or reading F. Scott Fitzgerald. Or as Wikipedia more diplomatically puts it, "a nostalgic story of loss and burgeoning sexuality."
This was the last of four read-and-toss books I brought on my current trip to Taiwan, the other three being pretty decent (if slightly pulpy) thrillers/spy stories. So this didn't really fit my current mood - although I can't really imagine any circumstance in which I would have liked this any better. I frankly would have never even considered this book, except that for some ungodly reason it was in a box of my son's books from college, (although he had no idea why it was there - probably required for a class he skipped). Anyway, I'd heard of Murakami's more loopy-doopy books like Wind-Up Bird and 1Q84, and since this wasn't that long, I thought I'd give it a chance before heaving it. However, couldn't get past the first 100 pages, and even though I now have nothing to read on the flight home, I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy United's safety instructions more than going any further with this one.
TWO MINOR COOLS THINGS, HOWEVER: My previous book was a spy story called Quiller, whose very last sentence (which I can't remember exactly) was something like: "No," said the sailor. "Norwegian." And since neither book really has any connection to Norway, I thought this was a nice bit of synchronicity.
ALSO: Interestingly (to me at least), one of the last real "high-brow" books I read was Cloud Atlas, which - while having nothing to do with Japan - I actually bought at a bookstore in Fukuoka, because I'd already burned through all my books for that trip, and this looked like the least terrible book available from their very limited selection, (although it turned out to be amazing). So anyway, as a result I seem to have a fairly complicated relationship with Japan and literary fiction - it's okay if I buy it there; I just don't want it set there, (although I did enjoy Yōko Ogawa's The Housekeeper and the Professor - most definitely not to be confused with 70's sitcom "Nanny and the Professor")....more
Oh, dear. I always knew there was some good Laumer, and there was some bad Laumer, but I never knew there was this.End As a Hero reads like a first dOh, dear. I always knew there was some good Laumer, and there was some bad Laumer, but I never knew there was this.End As a Hero reads like a first draft written by a high schooler the day before it was due to be turned in, with no real thought, direction or editing.
The first two thirds of this "story" take place on a spaceship under psychic attack by the evil and disgusting Gool (described as "five hundred pounds of liver at the bottom of a dark hole"), and consists of endlessly repetitive scenes of people pointing blasters at the hero, then realizing they'd been under Gool mind control, and then immediately re-pointing their blasters at the hero, and then re-realizing - it's like an endless GIF of Humphrey Bogart taking Peter Lorre's gun away in "The Maltese Falcon," and then giving it back to him, and then taking it away again…
Plot (or lack thereof) aside, while this story obviously takes place in some distant future, Laumer seems increasingly incapable of making even a minimal attempt to place his characters in any time period later than the 1950's. People still call each other "buddy" or "Fats" or "sucker;" they read mimeographed reports and pack Samsonite luggage and take $1.50 cab rides and say "what's yer beef?" or "everything's jake;" (although that's still better than the Gool, who speak rarely but in all caps as they exclaim things like "THE STRANGELIFE IS ELUSIVE, MASTER! IT WRIGGLES LIKE A GORM-WORM IN THE EATING TROUGH!").
I picked this up for 65¢ at our local used book warehouse, but only when I got home did I remember to check the publication date (1985). Sadly, Laumer had a stroke in the early 70's, and according to Wikipedia "the quality of his work (subsequent) suffered, and his career declined." And also sadly, that decline is all too visible in Hero.
That said, of course I'll continue to read the occasional Laumer (most of which take less than a day) - but I think I'll stick to his pre-1973 work....more
There is some 5-star Laumer (notably Dinosaur Beach), there is a lot of 3-star Laumer...and then there is the occasional, lamentable 1-star Laumer - aThere is some 5-star Laumer (notably Dinosaur Beach), there is a lot of 3-star Laumer...and then there is the occasional, lamentable 1-star Laumer - and this one is really bad, 1-star Laumer. Instead of a plot, we have 4-5 competing storylines thrown together in an ungainly mash-up of Norse mythology, "The Highlander," "First Blood," the first "Wolverine" movie, HAL from "2001," a freak storm (that's never explained), some revolutionary new power-generating technology (that's kind of explained)...it's just a mess.
Plus, it's a poorly written mess. There's a cast of 100s, but zero character development. Published in 1969, the story apparently takes place in the early 80's (based on one vague mention of World War II plus 36 years), and so there are some "futuristic" touches like the above power plant and...maybe some advanced weapons? While Laumer's writing style usually works when it's first-person-tough-guy, it's awkward and clunky here, and sounds more like some corny 1940's than the 1980's:
The counterman at the all-night beanery waited until the quiet man in the gray slicker looked over the menu chalked on the dusty blackboard. He shifted the broomstraw to the other corner of his wide mouth.
And the dialogue's no better, all "nyahh, a wise guy, eh?" lines like "go knit a sweater, copper!" or "cripes, the poor boob'll drown!"
So...yeah. That said, will I still read more Laumer? Probably - because I'm still hoping there's another Dinosaur Beach out there!...more
GOOD ADVICE: Skip the book completely and go straight to the film version, and then fast forward over anything with Kate Hudson, where Riz Khan doesn'GOOD ADVICE: Skip the book completely and go straight to the film version, and then fast forward over anything with Kate Hudson, where Riz Khan doesn't have a beard, or that looks like it was set anyplace other than in Pakistan.
EVEN BETTER ADVICE: What the hell - skip the movie too, and just enjoy this awesome soundtrack cover of "Dhol Bajay Ga" by Meesha Shafi, which you can listen to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz4El...
But an okay movie and a great song aside, I DO NOT THINK I COULD HAVE DISLIKED THIS BOOK MORE.
I'll give it a very slight benefit of the doubt, because maybe it reads better than it listens - since in addition to the story itself, I really had a problem with the smarmy narration. But even on the page, I would imagine that Changez and Erica ("Changes" and "(Am)Erica" - get it?) come off as the same shallow and completely unsympathetic characters. I think the title misled me into expecting some le Carré-type terrorism-related story (i.e., what the film tried to provide), and indeed the World Trade Center bombing is oh-so-briefly mentioned about midway through - but what should be a focal point of ANY story with 9/11 as a backdrop is immediately pushed aside by these two ostensible New Yorkers who without missing a beat return to their self-absorbed preoccupations: his high-paying finance career, her unpublished novel, his creepy/stalkery obsession, her dead boyfriend...pretty much anything and everything except what the entire rest of the world was trying to deal with at that time in one way or another.
As to the "clever narrative device" of having the entire story told as a monologue over the course of a night market-style meal in Lahore between Changez and an unidentified (at least by disc 3) American - again; maybe this reads well on paper but in the audio version it comes off as a particularly bad radio series from the 1940's, where every action has to be spelled out to the listener since television hasn't been invented yet:
"But I observe, sir, that you are watching me with a rather peculiar expression. Possibly you find me crass for revealing such intimacies to you, a stranger? No? I will interpret that movement of your head as a response in the negative..."
I just cannot describe how annoying that is to listen to over and over and over again.
Obviously, I am neither young nor Pakistani nor Muslim, so may lack a certain empathy here - but it's also a little hard to feel too much sympathy towards a country that we now know harbored Osama bin Laden with at least some level of complicity for close to nine years before he was finally caught, (although be aware that this book was published in 2007, when bin Laden's reabouts were still unknown)....more
Good Lord, but this is a bad book. The plotting is simplistic, the characters are barely one-dimensional, the action non-existent, the cliché dialogueGood Lord, but this is a bad book. The plotting is simplistic, the characters are barely one-dimensional, the action non-existent, the cliché dialogue endless, the MacGuffin "space technology" laughable...
Tibet from 1958 through the 1960's is screaming out for a great spy story - but this sure ain't it. In fact, the story has no relationship to the Tibetan situation at all; Tibet just serves as the poorly-researched backdrop for a story that could have just as easily been set in Cold War Yugoslavia or Nazi-occupied Belgium or bloody anywhere.
Like so many or the more poorly written heroes in this particular spy/action genre, Paul Chavasse is in fact terrible at his job - all he's really good at is escaping, because he's had so much practice getting captured over and over again. Otherwise, he has no influence on events whatsoever - everything hinges on either lucky breaks, bad breaks or his frequent mistakes (getting lost and riding around in circles; having his important conversations overheard because he never checked who might be listening; realizing too late that "he should have known...the whole damn thing had been too easy...").
I usually don't comment on a book until I'm finished, but this one is really pulling me in opposite directions.
A female CIA analyst uncovers a disturI usually don't comment on a book until I'm finished, but this one is really pulling me in opposite directions.
A female CIA analyst uncovers a disturbing secret, and reacts by making the first in a string of horrible decisions. Indeed, the whole story is a downward spiral of bad choices that lead to more bad choices, but in a totally believable way. This is going to end up either a 1-star or 5-star review, depending on whether or not Ms. Cleveland brings it to a satisfying conclusion - but in the meantime, I am totally hooked!
(SPOILERS - WHICH IS TO SAY WARNINGS - FOLLOW): And turns out I was right, but not in the way I was hoping. I really wanted this to turn out well, but...
A good protagonist doesn't have to be heroic, but he or she should at least be sympathetic, capable or vaguely intelligent. But Vivian Miller is one of the most indecisive, incompetent and overall selfish characters I've encountered in a long time. I'm not a woman and so perhaps I can't totally understand her "wolf mother" point of view - but if everyone in positions of power put family above country, national security and the personal safety of those brave foreign agents who risk their lives working for the U.S. the way "Viv" does, then probably half the government would be working for the Russians by now, (which may well be the case; but that's a different topic). It's only halfway through the final audiobook disc that after trying EVERYTHING else she decides to "finally do the right thing," (which is what she should've done way back in Chapter One) - and then when she does finally fess up to all the illegal and unethical things she's done, she gets...rewarded with a year-long tropical vacation?? Hope that's not MY tax dollars at work there...
Other characters don't rate much better. Her husband's no winner either - right up until the very end, you're never sure if he's really a ruthless Soviet illegal or just an overall asshole; but that's not a great choice either way. And the main villain - the only other character who is fleshed out to even two dimensions - is a sneering, chest-hair-and-gold-chain stereotype that makes Boris Badenov look complex.
And THEN, finally, there's the whole "epilogue," a last-minute monkey wrench that wants to be Shyamalan-esque but which instead is more "oh #@!%, come on!..."
I'm sorry; I know this is a particularly harsh review, even by my sometimes grumpy standards. But I just had such high hopes for this, and then it went so completely off the rails. Hard to believe this was actually written by a former CIA analyst, because it reads like someone who's just watched "The Americans" and read a few hokey spy novels rather than someone with an insider's knowledge of how the Agency actually works - unless, of course, it was intentionally written as disinformation, to make the CIA look particularly stupid and thereby lull the Russians into a false sense of security...
And I wish that were the case, I truly do. But I'm afraid that more likely, it's just a dumb story.
FINAL NOTE: "Need To Know" is a specific government term - but it has nothing to do with this particular book; and so ends up being a generic and meaningless "spy title" like the latter Pierce Brosnan Bond films - "Tomorrow Never Dies," "The World is Not Enough," "Die Another Day." Sigh......more
Good Lord, this is just the worst - I have never listened to a dumber book about two such stupid women falling for such a creepy and obviously psychopGood Lord, this is just the worst - I have never listened to a dumber book about two such stupid women falling for such a creepy and obviously psychopathic douchebag. I didn't read Fifty Shades of Gray, but I'm imagining it was a lot like this..I'm by nature a huge feminist, but if this is what women are REALLY like, then God save us all. I'm only still listening to this until something else on my list arrives at the library - hopefully any day now!
...and not only didn't it improve, it actually got worse! the creeps got creepier; the idiots got more idiotic (as did the plot); the sex got rougher, (although according to the characters, that's how women "really like it" anyway)...I guess the ending was supposed to be a surprise, but - nope.
One star only because that's as low as you can score. This one actually left me feeling yucky...
I'm 7+ CDs into this 10 CD story, and it had better get really good really fast, because so far it is AWFUL!! I'm a big fan of Lehane's and it's just I'm 7+ CDs into this 10 CD story, and it had better get really good really fast, because so far it is AWFUL!! I'm a big fan of Lehane's and it's just hard to believe this is the same guy who wrote Shutter Island, The Drop and Gone Baby Gone.
(PROBABLE SPOILERS FOLLOW, BUT REALLY, YOU SHOULDN'T CARE BECAUSE YOU SHOULD GO READ SOMETHING ELSE?) And yeah...did not improve, although I did stick it out to the end as I had a lot of driving to do this weekend. So, quick review:
The entire first half is long, boring and unnecessary backstory - the main character had a horrible mother (totally irrelevant); she was looking for her father (equally irrelevant); she spent time covering Haiti as a reporter and then had an on-air meltdown (irrelevant, irrelevant, IRRELEVANT!). The actual plot per se (yet another version of the "messed up chick stumbles across the perfect husband who may not be what he appears to be" cliche) doesn't kick in until well past the halfway point, and then it consists of unbelievable/stupid characters doing unbelievable/stupid things that get them into unbelievable/stupid situations. I enjoy a good, conflicted antihero as much as the next guy - where would Shakespeare or Game of Thrones be without them? - but I hate douchebag antiheroes, and one of the two lead characters here is about the biggest d-bag I've read about in years, (not the messed up chick; she's just super annoying).
This probably deserves 2 stars rather than 1, but I was doubly disappointed by this book after listening to Lehane's 5-star The Drop just a couple of months ago. And while Julia Whelan's narration wasn't actually bad, it didn't really add anything to the story and her male character voices were all pretty weak.
Anyway - go elsewhere, find something better. Consider this one of those "I read this book so you don't have to" deals...you're welcome....more
Oh, this was bad - horribly bad, stupidly bad, 4th-grade-writing-project-and-still-gets-a-D bad. Inane plot, inane characters, inane dialogue...plastiOh, this was bad - horribly bad, stupidly bad, 4th-grade-writing-project-and-still-gets-a-D bad. Inane plot, inane characters, inane dialogue...plastic masks and disguises that make Mission Impossible seem plausible by comparison; people using ventriloquism to literally throw their voice to the other side of a prison cell and fool their guards...just badbadbad. Makes me want to go in and give all my other negative reviews of the actual Man From U.N.C.L.E "legit" paperback books an extra star, just so this is rated lower by comparison.
And yet...back when I was not-quite a teenager, I read all these books back in the mid-60's, one a month for over two years - and then saved them all for half a century. Go figure.
A Google search of "author" Robert Hart Davis shows he only wrote these monthly stories and a few Charlie Chan's before disappearing into oblivion. More interesting is publisher Leo Margulies, who launched the "MFU" magazine late in a career that included serving as editor for more than 70 publications. Indeed, Margulies was known as "King of the Pulps" during the 30's and 40's, when he was the highest paid and best known pulp magazine editor in the country and buying some two million words a month for his various magazines, (which I hope were better than this one!).
To call this an unrelenting load of crap would be to give unrelenting crap a bad name. This was about the worst book I have ever read - orOh. My. God.
To call this an unrelenting load of crap would be to give unrelenting crap a bad name. This was about the worst book I have ever read - or at least begun to read. The writing style ranges from non-existent to awkwardly textbookish ("such a matching trio of firearms was known as a garnish of guns") to blatant xenophobic ("he could hear their terrible war cry of 'Allah Akbar! There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet!'," which I can only assume is 'terrible' in the same way as "God is great, and Jesus is his only Son" would be?).
But worst of all is the sex, which at best sounds like it was written by a never-seen-a-naked-woman teenager ("she wore nothing beneath it, and her buttocks were pale and round as a pair of ostrich eggs"), and at worst like a five-year-old ("His tammy is singing to my quimmy, she thought, and my quimmy likes the tune").
The whole thing - or at least as far as I got - just reads like a horrible James Clavell spoof. Spoiling it further is the fact that I am actually in Khartoum as I write this, and visited the tomb of the Mahdi in Omdurman just this afternoon (long story) - only to then return to my hotel and read about the British slave girl Rebecca exchanging 'oral favors' with the Mahdi himself; an image I can now never disconnect from my otherwise once-in-a-lifetime visit, thank you very much Wilbur.
So...an extremely reluctant 1-star, only because I cannot give it negative stars. To all who know and trust me, please avoid this like the plague....more
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