I’ve read Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series, and had long been meaning to get into the Big Over Easy. As we’re now reading most of these nursery rhymes over again (and again, and again) to our 1+ year old, it seemed even more appropriate. I ran across the audio book in the Winchester library, picked it up, and listened to it over a few weeks on the short drive into work.

What an excellent, excellent book. The audio book is cast perfectly, Jasper Fforde is back with sparkling writing again, for the most part. I’m guessing the little break from the same characters and scenarios he’d done so well over and over again in the Thursday Next series was a major relief for himself, who, by the latest in the series, seemed to have hit a little bit of a rut.

Now this is what I imagined the godawful Gregory Macguire novels could have been. As it was, I struggled through Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and don’t think I’ll ever touch another thing written by Greg.

The book is funny, fun, and a great read. Or listen.

“I’d pick up a Matthew Reilly before I picked up this one…”

referring to a Thomas Greanias book (Raising Atlantis).

Well. I may have to amend that statement. Because, so far, this book is okay… it just… well, it feels like a picture book. There are a lot of diagrams and pictures drawn out in this book so far. And not in the crude, sort of amusing Vonnegut-style.

Trying an experiment with this one: listening to the abridged audio version of a book for the first time.

Since the Globe review of this one wasn’t exactly glowing, I don’t think I’ll be missing too much.

Just a short review, this book can be summed up by the following:

Ugh.

I wanted to like this book, I really did. I thought it would add a little depth to a show (Lost) that has sort of lost its way.

But, for whatever reason, they got stuck with, or picked, an author, writing as Gary Troup, who hates the mystery/thriller genre.
Actually, I wanted to verify that, and did a quick dig to find out who ghost wrote the book, and it turns out he is a mystery/thriller writer. Doh. Maybe he’s just not very good. Or was thinking about writing in another style too much. Needless to say, I won’t be picking up any Laurence Shames books anytime soon.

Maybe it’s because I was “reading” the audiobook on the way to work, maybe it’s because I took a peek at an Amazon review or two (which you shouldn’t, by the way, unless you want to be hit by a spoiler without warning). For whatever reason, I ripped through this book (handy, when you’re sitting in a little bit of traffic each day in and out of the office), laughing, sometimes snorting, sometimes slapping my head.

It was a good enough read. A pacey sort of thriller adventure story in which the characters are not incredibly likeable, nor do you really care, one way or another, what happens to the kids. The language… well, let’s just say the phrase, “Damn you, Yeats,” or “Damn you, insert name of damned here” is repeated far too often, even for a running gag, which I suspect, giving Thomas Greanias the benefit of the doubt, is what it is. The characters eat nails for breakfast, and a bullet wound, kick to the groin, drop down a pit to the very bowels of the Earth (warning: contents hot) is nothing to this international cast of glory hunters.

The audiobook was even more unsettling/annoying than I imagine the hard copy book would be, as the narrator does his best to do a female Australian accent on good old Sister Sergeti (she reads 189 languages, speaks 191, including three made up ones, arm wrestles crocodiles, is capable of withstanding the most brutal torture AND cryogenic freezing, oh, and is pretty and photogenic in her Armani suits on camera). It’s feckin’ awful. Conrad Yeats becomes “Cone-rad! Cone-rad!” Which would have been fine, if she said his name a normal number of times. However, in an unscientific measuring, she says the name Conrad Yeats approximately three MILLION times over the course of this book. It pisses you off, after a while. You notice yourself getting tense when she hasn’t said it in a while, because you know it’s coming up, and you know it’s going to hurt. She’ll probably say it in an urgent manner, which will only underscore how BAD the narrator’s accent is. Oh well.

The true downer on this book, for me, was the spoiler I caught on Amazon from a reviewer. For the first so long, it was a passable thriller. High on cardboard characters, high on exciting things happening. Antarctica, ice, frostbite, dogs, international intrigue. The Vatican. Cool. Check, check, and check. Double check.

But then.

And here comes the spoiler, from me (so look away, if you don’t want to see it):
SPOILER< SPOILER< SPOILERSPOILER< SPOILER< SPOILERSPOILER< SPOILER< SPOILERSPOILER< SPOILER< SPOILER

SPOILER< SPOILER< SPOILER

SPOILER

But no, Thomas Greanias was sitting at home, thinking, “We’re doing well. Looking good, Tom old boy. Let’s UP the stakes.” And he rolls up his sleeves, and types the following: Conrad is an Atlantean. He was found in an ice capsule by his adopted father, General Yeats, on the Antarctic Ice Shelf. Right on. What?

END SPOILER

END SPOILER END SPOILER END SPOILER END SPOILER

END SPOILER END SPOILER END SPOILER END SPOILER

So anyway, it’s a good enough read, I suppose. It will keep you entertained, though, once I hit the spoiler part I was listening to the book more to get it over with, already, than because I was thrilling with excitement about what was around the next corner. And the tie in at the very end, which was not in my spoiler, well… it seems just… weak. At the end.

I’d pick up a Matthew Reilly before I picked up this one, but if you’ve exhausted your normal pool of thriller writers, and don’t feel like re-reading a Clive Cussler, well, this one’s just about the same sort of thing.

On the train this morning I got stuck into the part where Slothrop gets let back out into London, and runs into Darlene and goes with her to visit with old widow Quoad (In this edition of the book, it starts on page 116). The description of him in the sitting room with the widow, eating her horrific wartime candies is one of the brilliant scenes Pynchon has a knack for—the absolute horror of this foreign and frightening experience of eating chocolate, hiding their multitudinous delights (?) is so well conveyed… it’s one of those Pynchon-esque passages you wish you’d written, yourself.

This falls shortly after the incident in which the Dutchman is writing back about his time exterminating the dodoes, and the reasoning for doing so, which is a great little sidestep… this isn’t so much of a story about this book, more of an endorsement, I suppose.

You might be put off the by the sheer weight, or its weighty reputation, or any number of things related to how heavy a thing might be, but it is well, well, well worth it.

In a time when people shell out good money for a Neal Stephenson (thick) pile of excrement about the 17th century (Hello, Quicksilver), you’d be much better off investing in Mason & Dixon and Gravity’s Rainbow by this fella.

This was a good enough read… it passed the time on the train quickly, at any rate, and it fits really well into that Crichton space of dinosaurs, science, and adventure.

Like Crichton, sometimes the explication is a little painful, but overall the pace is really good, and it keeps you sitting in your seat perhaps a little longer than you would have, after the train’s pulled into the station.

I don’t know why I’ve put off reading any of his books for so long… I know I was very tempted to pick up Amsterdam and even this one, Saturday a number of times… but never did.

Like I was afraid I was going to be allergic to it. Or maybe it was that Booker thing… Or maybe his picture had always frightened me (true, sort of… I hadn’t really thought of it until I wrote that just now—I suppose his jacket picture does scare me a bit… go figure).

But I’ve done it. And my face hasn’t swollen like a potato. Nor have my breathing passages been cut off. No hives. Nothing.

And damn, what a great writer. Saturday was an excellent read… stuck in this neurosurgeon’s head you feel slightly claustrophobic, and I couldn’t help but feel the urge to look forward with a sense of dread… just from reading the jacket you knew something bad was going to happen, and it seemed to loom just around the corner, and you were stuck in his head, wanting to scream out, “Hey! Man! Look out! Don’t… umm… listen, just go pick up your wife at the office and go out for dinner or something!” But you can’t, because it’s a book, and you’re not actually in anyone’s head, nor are you capable of warning them.

And Mr. McEwan keeps up the pace throughout the book, navigates through the tricky uneven cobblestones of the narrative he’s come up with without missing a beat… it’s a great, engaging read.

Eh. I can’t bring myself to have much more of a reaction to this book.

Some bits were funny. But the funny parts were quickly defused by some writing or scene or another that made you go, “Eh?”

The manufactured love between the two main characters (caricatures?) seemed forced, possibly because, and I’m so excited to use this, the characters really had no emotional depth. And I know whereof I speak, seeing as God Coffee will never be successfully sold due to a similar issue. :)

Not going to be on the lookout for any more Bill Fitzhugh books for a while, at any rate.

Okay, so in the review for Market Forces I said that it was good, but not quite Takeshi Kovacs… well, Morgan comes back to Kovacs, and continues his development in this story in which he’s double-sleeved, hooks up with his longtime mentor Virginia Vidaura, and is still a broken hero… a great read… I was rushing to the end, frustrated my train journeys were coming so few and far between, and then missed it when it was over.