well after a somewhat unexpected pause in such it is so that me (moi) and reading is once again a thing. there are indeed reasons (or a reason, look you see) for the delay in posts on this subject, but i have every confidence i will be referencing that as i go. or we go, if you keep reading.
as would be (reasonably) usual, then, a look at the two (2) novels what i have most recently gone done read, followed by a "spoiler free" overview. from there on one of them rather exciting spoiler warning things should be considered as existing. but, as usual, i would imagine the overwhelming majority of people with an interest in either would already have read them, and there's not that many inclined to go read something on my suggestion.
from the left (if i have got that right) it's a return to the world of a "proper" and real time tale of Charlie Parker in The Instruments Of Darkness by John Connolly. this one was mostly all right, which is a worrying thing to say when usually the are breathtakingly brilliant reads. and then it was on to what i believe (or think) is going to be the final posthumous novel from Michael Crichton (completed, it says here, by James Patterson), Eruption. not a bad novel, per se (if that means what i think), but one has the sense that the much missed Mr Crichton didn't get round to finishing it off with good reason.
once again, for the dozen or so people who will read this (and my thanks for doing so), you are given every caution that a **SPOILER WARNING** is here for you to note or ignore. should for some reason you have an interest in my reading habits, indeed these two did skip merrily over a rather large pile of books what i have here to read.
plot? a lady is accused of murdering her son, despite no (to be blunt) corpse (or body) and somewhat scant evidence (more on that in a bit). her lawyer is entirely convinced of her innocence, and so enlists haunted (to put it mildly) private detective Charlie Parker to help him work the case to prove her innocence. doing so sets them against public opinion, a prosecutor and law enforcement agents set on getting her convicted for purely political reasons and an apparent malevolent force hiding in plain sight. unexpected help comes in the form of someone who shares Parker's gift or curse for having the troubled deceased communicate with them.......
hmn. my reading of this novel was, alas, interrupted for a bit due to that medical intervention where i suspected i might end up no more. i did indeed (for now) live, and was eventually able to resume reading this novel. not sure if that affected, or otherwise tempered, my reading of it. certainly i would have liked to read it without any unpleasant medical interlude, but there we go.
his novel had all the key features of a classic Charlie Parker novel, just assembled in a way that was dangerously close to "colour by numbers". by no means is this any sort of insult, but at times it felt a bit too much like Connolly was trying to be "a bit Stephen King" with the structure. this i felt mostly when it all went off on a tangent with quite a lot of pages dedicated to a back story of a side (but important all the same) character, which is kind of what King does. undoubtedly Mr King was a profound influence on Mr Connolly, of course, for it cannot be accident he based the protagonist of so many of his novels in Maine.
my main irk, or disappointment, with this novel was the flimsy, patently obviously false bit of evidence which was grounds to arrest the mother. appreciating something was needed to push the political agenda on the go in it (and move the plot along) it was so obviously misleading that it became a distraction. also there was Louis and Angel turning up towards the end purely, it seems, to shoot some people. that is what they do, after all, sure, but it felt like having them there was a "do i have to put them in" moment from the author, or a misguided idea of "fan service". still, a decent enough read, and nowhere near being close to a big massive "f*** you reader" from the author as, say, The Year Of The Locust turned out to be.
above is an image i threw together on the off chance i search my own blog (doubtful but still) for something like "what John Connolly novel will be in paperback 2026". there was indeed a temptation to pick this hardback up, but rather let me wait. also that new Stephen King one looks quite class, and so will likely get that next year too. if, of course, i make it to 2026. such things i no longer take as a given.
plot? scientists monitoring seismic (which i think is the fancy or posh way of saying volcanic) activity become aware that a big massive huge eruption is about to happen in Hawaii. this is rather bad in itself, but gets made a good deal worse when it turns out that the US military has something hidden on the island which will get hit the worst, and the consequences could be the end of life on a global level........
fairly standard, if (sadly) possibly for the last time, stuff off of Michael Crichton, then. by that i do indeed mean that this is mostly humans vs science vs technology vs nature. nearly all of his novels can be broken down as that, i suppose, except maybe Disclosure, which in retrospect brilliantly (and frighteningly) predicted just how much impact all that (at the time) new "anonymous electronic messaging" stuff would have on the world. one doesn't really need me to point out that Jurassic Park was his crowning glory in terms of this theme. no, alas, this isn't even close to that.
the problem here, oddly, is that a volcano erupting being at the centre of a plot is quite dull. no, hear me out. it doesn't give much of a sense of tension or drama, does it? what else can you do with a volcanic eruption except get the f*** out of the way of the lava and try to keep the lava away from things that it would be quite bad if it hit. running away from lava holds only a finite amount of interest and can only be done a finite time. proof of this was them two "big budget" films, i think late 90s or early 00s, on a similar subject which didn't make as much money as hoped.
yet it's not a bad read at all, really. whilst not as riveting or exciting as one may have hoped, there's still a fair bit going on. scientists vs eccentric billionaire and annoying tv personalities, for instance, was enjoyable enough. also the bits when some went "woo hoo, volcano erupting, let us fly over it, what could go wrong". in regards of how it all ends, and you were given a spoiler warning, well, Michael Crichton was always rather fond of that "nature finds a way" line......
both of these novels have (or had) what i call the "100 page syndrome". it's that feeling one gets when there seems to be a fair bit to cover (or wrap up) yet only a hundred or so pages of the novel remain. you fear that it will either be a "to be continued...." thing, which i always feel like short changes readers (there is no law on how long a novel may be), or it's all going to get finished off in a hurry. with both novels it was more in the area of the latter. again, though, i would not say i regret reading either.
well, as ever (or usual) with posts like this i have not much else to add except to say if any of this was of some use, or passing interest, to any of you, so much the better. many thanks indeed for taking the time to read, or to just have a gander at the pictures.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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