William Gibson has abandoned cyberspace for the present day. No matter. The same elements of paranoia, adrenalin, and technospeak are present.
His story follows three sets of characters, all of whom ultimately intersect, chasing the same mcguffin.
Enjoyable, if confusing.
The SPECTRE-like Stockholm Syndicate is ruthlessly spreading terror among the European governments. The shadowy Telescope organization, led by former cop Jules Beaurain, is fighting it.
The plot is preposterous but engaging in a classic Cold War thriller way.
After the events of The Letter of Marque, Jack Aubrey is reinstated as a post-captain in the Royal Navy. He and Stephen Maturin are sent on a diplomatic mission to the South China Sea. Stephen gets to indulge in both a great deal of natural history and in behind-the-scenes political intrigue during the negotiations. Soon after their departure from Pulo Prabang, the Diane beaches upon a reef and breaks up during a storm, marooning them on a remote island.
The book stands on its own merits, …continue.
Jack Irish is a one-time lawyer who makes a living doing odd jobs—investigations, racehorse handicapping, cabinet making—in Melbourne. A former client, who went to jail years ago while Jack had crawled into a bottle, tries to reach Jack and promptly turns up dead. Jack starts looking and what he finds isn't pretty: corruption all the way up into the state government.
Jack isn't stupid, but he is naïve and out of his depth for much of the book. Temple combines the Australian backdrop, social commentary, a decent plot, and …continue.
In Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula relocates from Transylvania to London. Asking themselves, what would Dracula have done in London before he was killed by Van Helsing, 18 authors wrote unconnected short stories. Dracula meets the Prince of Wales, he is observed by the servants, he terrorizes Aleister Crowley and Charles Fort and Ellen Terry, he even takes the lead in the Pirates of Penzance.
The stories are uneven. None is outstanding.
Kevin Kerney, deputy chief of the New Mexico State Police, has just inherited a high-country ranch, where he finds a dismembered skeleton.
An old-school police procedural (by a real cop) with believable characters and a not implausible plot. The prose is a little clumsy, but the story pulled me along.
Inspector Henri Castang of the Police Judiciare investigates the apparent kidnapping of a politician's mistress and discovers a far-right conspiracy.
Written in Freeling's characteristic idiosyncratic style, this is as much a meditation on corruption and compromise as it is a police procedural.
Das Barbecü is Wagner's Ring Cycle transplanted to Texas for comic effect. We saw it at Seattle's ACT Theatre tonight. The Ring Cycle is currently playing at the Seattle Opera, who commissioned Das Barbecü in 1991.
I'm no opera buff and certainly no Wagnerian. After sitting through four hours of Tristan und Isolde years ago—Ach du lieber Gott! Mein Arsch! Meinen Ohren!—I told Emma that my limit for opera was two-and-a-half hours. I have never seen any part of the Ring Cycle and had only cursory knowledge of the story, and it detracted not one whit from my enjoyment of Das Barbecü.
Wagner …continue.
Jack Aubrey was disgraced in The Reverse of the Medal. He is now a civilian privateer, bitter at having been framed. Two extraordinary actions do much to recommend him to the general public and make him wealthy, and by the end of this book, it seems certain that he will soon be restored to the Navy List. Stephen Maturin's own fortunes improve as he effects a reconciliation with his wife.
The Letter of Marque is the twelfth novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series. O'Brian once again …continue.
Patricia Teeling wants to experience more of life than farming and university, and moves to Dublin to be a science teacher. She quickly finds herself adrift, belonging no more in her country home yet not of the city. She is soon drawn to the married Englishman who lives downstairs. His wife is murdered after she receives obscene telephone calls. Then an attractive man with a limp—dubbed the Goosefoot—appears.
While the author has an enviable command of English, I found his characters to be tiresome and inscrutable yet unaccountably eloquent. Patricia is improbably untouched by …continue.