A Successful Sequel

Sequels get a bad rap. Especially if they're in a series of more than two - the second one is often seen as the weak link, just a placeholder til the creator gets to the "big finish." This book breaks that mold, though I had my doubts in the first couple of chapters. (Jack's and Gitmo's never-ending smart-aleck bantering seemed forced, and got to be annoying). Whirlwind continues the story of Jack Danielsen, who in Firestorm discovered that he was sent from the future because he is the only one able to save the world from an ecological disaster. His "parents" (actually just people who posed as his parents and raised him in a small Pennsylvania town) were killed by superhuman people from the future who came back to stop him. But others came back, too, and they taught Jack about his powers and prepare him for the battles ahead. These partners included a talking dog named Gitmo and a beautiful martial arts expert named Eko. Firestorm ended after a nearly fatal, but ultimately successful battle with Dargon, the bad guy in this story.

In Whirlwind, Jack , who has been on the move since the end of Book #1, returns to his hometown to apologize to his girlfriend P.J. for just disappearing without notice. But he finds out that she has been kidnapped by the Dark Lord, the father of Jack's old nemesis Dargon. To find and rescue her, Jack must follow the trail to the Amazonian rain forest, where the Dark Lord is engaged in an all-out effort to eliminate the rain forest, thus destroying the Earth's atmosphere. When Jack's meditative trances transport him to the place where P.J. is being held captive, he sees that the Dark Lord has the ability to transform himself into a huge tarantula that tortures and torments his prisoners. Jack discovers that in this battle, he is not destined to be the "chosen one" who will save the day. Instead, the Dark Lord speaks of a wizard with unimaginable powers.

By the end of this book, I was anxious to get started on #3, Timelock. 3 out of 4 stars!

Can't Stop Readin' Those...

As addictive as Jay's potato chips, the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins has gripped RB's reading world. The 1st book in the series was selected as the Eng. 10 summer read, and several sophomore classes are embarked upon a research project based on the 2nd book, Catching Fire. The 3rd and final book in the series, Mockingjay, was just released a couple of weeks ago, and true fans have "flocked" to purchase or borrow it. I myself had to wait for my husband and daughter to finish our copy before getting my turn.

The tone of Mockingjay is different from the first two. While they were based on the to-the-death games imposed on the other 12 districts by the ruling "Capital," there was still an element of adventure and suspense. This third book gets right to the point and doesn't let the reader escape from the absolute control and unrelenting terrorism practiced by the Capital. Yes, people died in the other books, but we weren't slammed in the face with the brutality, torture, and genocide. Mockingjay makes it clear that Collins was writing about war, violence, and totalitarian governments. While The Hunger Games could have been compared to the TV show "Survivor," there is no chance that Mockingjay can be considered light-hearted fun. Still well-written and gripping, though. And the love triangle between Katniss, Gale, and Peeta continues . . .

I give this one 3 1/2 stars out of 4.

Back in time -- to look forward?

I have always loved the short stories of Ray Bradbury. From Something Wicked This Way Comes to Martian Chronicles, his stories combine vivid descriptions of life-as-we-know-it with realistic portrayals of space exploration. And beneath those "flights of fancy" is a shared conviction between Bradbury and his readers that no matter where humans go or to what extent we advance our technologies, we will carry with us our human failings and faults. Which will bring about our downfall.

By telling the stories of individual characters, he communicates his opinions about issues of the day, such as racism and civil rights, technology, class systems, the importance of creativity and freedom, and the importance of the arts. In many of his stories, it is evident that he believes that science, big government, and "progress" are trying to quell creativity, fantasy, and fun.

But I like his books mostly because he doesn't make any grand pronouncements. His themes don't blast the reader too strongly. Instead, we get drawn into the lives of his characters. Like the astronauts flying through space in "Kaleidoscope" -- without the benefit of a rocket, after theirs has blown up and thrown them out into space. They are flying in different directions at hundreds of miles per hour - some destined to re-enter Earth's atmosphere in a trail of fire -- others to collide with meteors or to continue moving toward other planets. Their communications technology allows them to continue to talk to each other as they fly along, and in a few short sentences we have a clearly-painted image of their personalities and what they've gone through to get to this point. And what a title -- doesn't the word Kaleidoscope immediately conjure up an image of little dits and dots twirling against a background? To think of those random images in a black sea of space as being humans creates a quirky (humorous and yet horrific) mental image.

Another story, "Zero Hour," raises memories of the long days of childhood summers spent outside playing with friends. And the mother inside doing her chores or attending to the kids when they run in and out looking for something, getting a drink, or telling her about their games. They are playing 'invasion," which sounds very creative and imaginary -- but we soon come to realize that the kids are more in touch with reality than the adults. Martians really ARE planning to invade -- tonight. The kids are prepared to help them take over the Earth -- and that is unbelievable, horrible, and yet fits into every kid's childhood fantasy.

If you haven't yet tried out a Bradbury, stop by the library and check one out. We have 5 of his books.
I'm rating Illustrated Man 3 1/2 out of 4 stars.

Uglies, Pretties, Specials - a whole new world

Tally Youngblood is almost 16, the age at which teens in The City have the surgery to make them Pretty. In this world, young kids are known as littlies, and pre-16-year-old teens are called Uglies. Their noses are too big, their skin might be flawed, they may be under- or over-weight, their eyes too squinty -- or some other imperfection may mar their "perfect" appearance. All of that is corrected in the surgery. Pretties live in Prettytown having nothing but fun -- drinking, partying, having sex, and doing outlandish stunts. During the summer before her 16th birthday, after hef best friend Peris has left for Prettytown, Tally meets a new friend, Shay, who introduces her to the idea that she needn't have the operation - she could remain Ugly but free. She tells her about the Smoke, a group of people living in the wild. Shay runs away to live with the Smoke, but Tally really wants to be Pretty. Just as she is in the hospital awaiting the surgery, she is taken instead to the headquarters of Special Circumstances, the police force for The City. They are convinced that she knows where Shay has gone, and force her to follow Shay into the wild in order to betray the Smoke. Thus begins the big conflict for Uglies, which is followed by at least two sequels (Pretties and Specials) as the free-thinking Smokies continue to recruit new rebels from the City, and Special Circumstances continue to try to trap and capture all the rebels and control their minds and bodies through the surgeries they can order to be done. And somehow, through all these books, Tally Youngblood is in the middle of the action.
I just read these books over Spring Break, and couldn't put them down. The way that so many of the characters idolized good looks and popularity was way too similar to our society. I loved the inventions that the characters use -- like when they dash through the forests on their hoverboards (mostly solar-powered!), leap off tall buildings wearing bungee jackets, choose their clothes from a revolving closet that brings them whatever they ask for, and stuff like that. There was romance, suspense, intrigue, and friendships. The series has spun off into websites, online forums, and the first movie in the trilogy will be released in 2011. How would you like to be cast as one of the Uglies?!

• 4 out of 4 stars

Ghostwalk: don't look behind you!

I know, I know, this is the wrong month for ghost stories, but this is the book selected by the teacher's book club for February. To appease those who insist on love stories for Valentine's Day, this is also a love story -- but not your ordinary kind. Writer Lydia Brooke agrees to complete the unfinished book after her ex-lover's mother dies unexpectedly. She moves into his mother Elizabeth's house and is soon enmeshed in research on the life and career of Sir Isaac Newton, the subject of the unfinished book. Sure enough, Lydia and the married Cameron soon resume their affair, but they both have many secrets. Cameron, a scientist who develops pharmaceuticals in a lab where they use rats for their trial experiments, is always in danger from an animal rights terrorist group -- but he doesn't tell Lydia about the true purpose of the drugs he's developing, nor of his involvement with a world-wide group pulling the strings. Lydia, conducting research on Trinity at Cambridge University in the 17th century, doesn't share information about the mysterious lights that appear in his mother's house, the odd disappearances, the man in a red cape she keeps seeing just out of the corner of her eye, nor the woman who approaches her to channel the spirits of contemporaries of Newton who died in unexplained ways.
The story takes meandering paths and leads Lydia into dangers she can neither foresee nor avoid. This is a book full of historical facts and scientific explanations -- but always with that surreal twist. Do you believe? This books makes it seem so possible that by the end you're not sure which explanation to believe -- the scientific or the supernatural.
I liked it okay, but it wasn't a totally-awesome thriller.

I'll give it three stars out of four.

Chilling yet Possible?

After reading a couple of "have-to" books, I was hungry (get it?) for a just-for-fun good book. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, fit the bill perfectly. It encompassed a cautionary tale along with a romance, adventure, a suspenseful conflict, and plenty to think about along the way.
The story takes place in a country that used to be the United States, which is now divided into twelve "districts" ruled by the Capitol. In punishment for the attempted rebellion of the twelve districts, the Capitol enforces an annual "Survivor"-like competition in which a boy and girl representative from each distrist must meet and fight to the death. 17-year-old Katniss is a hunter, responsible for putting food on her family's table since her father's death in the coal mines six years ago. Two names are drawn from a large ball to determine the district's representatives, and when Katniss' 12-year-old sister's name is drawn, Katniss rushes forward to volunteer in her place. Peeta, the son of a baker whom Katniss knew from school -- and also from an incident when he saved her from starving -- is the designated boy. They are whisked off to the Capitol to prepare for the Games. Soon the 24 competitors are locked into the "arena," which this year includes a forest with a stream, a lake, a grassland, and a large open meadow. All her life Katniss has been forced to watch the Games, and she knows some of the strategies that have helped former competitors survive. But she, and all the competitors, are at the mercy of the all-seeing Capitol, which has cameras stashed everywhere, and which can manipulate the weather inside the arena, can introduce natural disasters, predatory creatures, and other things to force the competitors to come together for battle -- for the sheer entertainment of the "viewers at home." I really got into this story, and saw many parallels with today's reality TV "entertainment." The environmental situation which brought the country to the conditions described in Hunger Games are reflected in almost every disastrous prediction you read in today's paper. So -- this COULD happen. And what would you or I do to survive, if this all came to pass?

I highly recommend this book, and give it 4 out of 4 stars!