Annihilation

So far I haven't reviewed many horror books, and by "many" I of course mean "any at all." I do read and enjoy horror stories, but I mostly go for short horror stories rather than book-length narratives, and even the narratives that I do enjoy tend to effectively be collections of loosly-related stories. See, with longer horror stories, I'm never able to stay within the same frame of mind throughout the entire thing. Eventually I fall out of the story and start nitpicking events, trying to find simple ways for the characters to survive. This quickly unravels the horror, and the book turns into a sub-par action novel.

This did not happen in Jeff VanderMeer's novel, Annihilation. For the entire book, I found myself drawn into the surreal pale-blue world of Area X. (I'm not actually sure what the "pale-blue" in that sentence is exactly referring to, but it seems appropriate somehow.) The oppressive atmosphere of apprehension and tension and offness pervades every single page, and it's as terrifying as it is wonderful.

Annihilation centers around the experience of the narrator, a biologist who remains unnamed. (That's one way VanderMeer keeps his unique atmosphere going: none of the characters are named, and I could probably count the proper nouns in the book with one hand; it makes everything very off-putting.) The biologist is joined by an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a surveyor, and together they explore a mysterious location known only as Area X. You now know about as much as the biologist knows going in. Except, of course, for the fact that the previous 11 expeditions all ended in catastrophic and generally unexplainable failure.

So with that cheery setup, the book opens, with the biologist determined to figure out what this whole thing is about. The four members quickly discover a mysterious "tower" that goes downwards into the ground. This is approximately the point at which everything starts to go terribly, terribly within acceptable parameters and nothing is wrong. Everything then continues to be fine, and eventually the book ends.

Sorry. I had to. So yeah, it doesn't turn out to be a walk in the park for our nameless friends. As they explore Area X, we learn more and more about the biologist's background and the real reason she agreed to go on what was almost certainly a one-way trip. It's not the best characterization I've ever seen, but it helps frame the events of the expedition while somehow maintaining the same ever-present tone.

I realize that Annihilation could be described as Lovecraftian, and I'm sure the comparison has been made before, as the novel certainly has its fair share of cosmic horror. Although it would be accurate, I don't think it quite does Annihilation justice. I've read a lot of Lovecraft's work, and I have to say I think VanderMeer is better at Lovecraft than Lovecraft was. For this and other reasons, I'd propose going the other way: using the term VanderMeerian instead to describe dark, foreboding stories of surreal horror and existential dread.

So there you have it: Annihilation is a book that managed to revive my confidence in long-form horror, and is easily the best horror novel I've read. Needless to say, if you hate horror books, you should probably not read Annihilation. There's not much in the way of character studies or action sequences, either. If, however you are a fan of horror stories great or small, and you would like to explore a new, stranger type of horror, then you should give Annihilation a read.

The Golden Ratio

Have you ever heard of the Golden Number? The Divine Proportion? Nature's greatest secret, the deepest mystery on earth, and the world's most astonishing number? No? Well, it might be the second most hyped number after Pi, and it's the subject of such things as this website, this video, and this book. If you believe these sources, then the Golden Number (or Phi) is a mysterious value with strange properties that appears in random places and dictates the rules of all of human civilization and perhaps all of the entire universe as well.

Then, there's The Golden Ratio, a book about Phi which tries to dispel some of the mystique around it. Not all of the mystique, but some of it. It addresses both the mathematical properties of Phi (like its connection with Fibonacci numbers) and the more wiggly properties of Phi (like its use in art as a standard for beauty). I think it does a good job of remaining mostly impartial, denying claims which are probably not true (like that the egyptians built the pyramids using Phi) and verifying claims that are true (such as Phi's prevalence in art after Luca's book The Divine Proportion).

So, if you're looking at all the hype and thinking to yourself wait but no that's not how the universe works, then you might want to give The Golden Ratio a read. And, if you're totally a Phi fanatic, you might want to read it too, just to see what the fuss is about. And, if you've never even heard of this number before, then you can go read something else. I hear Leviathan Wakes is pretty cool.

P.S. One problem is that it doesn't quite explain all of the mathematics in an intuitive way. If only someone were to do that, possibly in some sort of visual episodic format. Alas, that will likely never happen.

Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse book 1)

Space. The final frontier. Humanity, insatiable in its quest for exploration, tosses itself into the void between worlds, strapped to tin cans with high explosives. What could possibly go wrong? Well, James S. A. Corey (who is actually two people or something) aims to find out in Leviathan Wakes, the first book of a (planned) nine-book series.

Meet James Holden, executive officer on a freighter which brings ice between planets. The solar system is a big place, after all, and people still need water. Unfortunately, when responding to a mysterious distress beacon, the freighter is nuked and almost all of Holden's friends are killed. It's not pretty.

Let's see if Josephus Miller is doing any better. He's a detective on Ceres station, born and raised in the Belt. He's running into some trouble because his partner, Havelock, is from Earth, which means that Belters don't like him so much. Still, everything should be fine, as long as some Earther doesn't inadvertently start a war because someone nuked his freighter and almost all of his friends were killed. But what are the chances of that, am I right?

So, yeah, now a war is brewing. The Earth and Mars are looking at each other all shifty, and the Outer Planets Alliance which claims to represent the belt is making everyone a bit antsy. Also, there's that thing from the introduction which hasn't shown up in a while. Hope that's not important. Now Holden is on a mission to find out who killed his ship, and Miller is on a mission to find a lost girl named Julie, and... well, things get a bit hectic.

Leviathan Wakes is a bangin' book. It's got killer pacing, and characters that are interesting and fun to be with. The world seems real and realistic, even with the crazier things that show up. The tension and the stakes keep getting ramped up, with more and more people being dragged in, and then you remember the title is "Leviathan Wakes" and get really worried. To make things even more intense, we follow Holden and Miller in alternating chapters, so there's almost always a cliffhanger after each chapter even if you don't stop reading, which I think is a really cool way to do things.

If you like high-stakes space drama mystery action, or if you want to become lost in a world which might be about to lose itself, or if you want to get to know interesting characters which could all die at any moment, then you should read Leviathan Wakes. And probably the rest of The Expanse.

The Hike

The Hike, by Drew Magary, is about a man who gets well and truly lost. The man in question is Ben, a thirty-eight year old with a wife and three kids and a house and an important business meeting to get to. Before he goes to the meeting, he decides to take a walk. The walk turn into a hike. The hike turns into a mad sprint for his life. Then he gets lost.

The hotel is gone, as is the road, and all traces of human civilization. The only thing left is a path, and, seeing no other options, Ben follows this path, in the hopes that it will take him somewhere eventually. Then, strange things start to happen, and they keep getting stranger. Only one thing is clear: If Ben goes off the path, then he will die. As long as he stays on the path, he - well, the point is he should stay on the path.

The Hike is a beautifully written page-turner with memorable characters and one of the best endings I've ever seen. Honestly, I think The Hike is my favorite book now. It's hard to find words to express this fully. There's just nothing about it that I don't like. It has a great little mystery and a few twists which not only genuinely caught me by surprise but also made me completely change the way I framed the whole thing. I love it so much.

If you like good books, then you should read this book.

The Girl With All The Gifts

The Girl With All The Gifts is a book about the end of the world. In it, a girl named Melanie is kept in a bunker, underground, sealed off from everyone else. Everyone always treats her as if she's extremely dangerous, along with the someteen other kids who share the bunker wit her. I'm not entirely sure how much I should spoil, because there is a nice little mystery through the first part of the book. One thing I will say is: it's totally zombies.

But then, after the mystery is all worked out, the compound is attacked. Melanie escapes, along with a ragtag group of individuals (I don't want to spoil who), and they all have to make it back to Beacon City, the last human stronghold in all of Great Britain. Along the way, they will have to survive bandits, come to uneasy agreements with each other, and not be eaten by zombies.

The zombies, by the way, are definitely a strong point in The Girl With All The Gifts. They are a variation of the cordyceps fungus (think The Last of Us) which essentially just means, "hey, this is technically possible, and therefore better than those other zombies!"* The zombies (which are called "hungries" by the cast) are thin and pale, and they spend most of their time stock-still. However, as soon as they hear a noise, they snap to attention and run towards it. If a hungry smells a human, it also immediately enters its rage state and runs towards it. This is actually a really clever idea, and it leads to the haunting image of a garden of pale figures, staying perfectly still.

There are, however, complications. There are other rules to the zombies which are revealed along the way, and they... well, honestly, they make absolutely no sense. Some of them, at least. This is the problem I have with the book: plot holes. So many plot holes. None of them are game-breaking, but they are certainly there. For someone as plot-driven as I am, this is a serious problem. I like picking apart exactly why and how things happen; it's one of the reasons I love time-travel stories so much. However, there are just too many things to pick at, here.

That's why, originally, I didn't want to write this. I don't like writing negative reviews. If I read a book and don't like it, I usually will just skip over it. However, this book has all of the things I like. An interesting premise. A hostile environment. Half-believable pseudoscience. Excellent characters. Objectively, this is a good book. But I didn't like it.

So, here's my conclusion: If you like zombies, or children, or adventure, or suspense, or mystery, or heartbreak, and you do not care at all about plot holes (or are not good at spotting them), then you should read this book.


*Really, though, there aren't any realistic zombies, just zombies that are slightly less impossible. The cordyceps fungus affects insects and arthropods, things with skeletons. They breathe through their skin. Humans don't. Also, the cordyceps fungus does not make an organism rant to attack or eat its own kind. That would be wildly inefficient. Instead, the fungus just makes it infiltrate its hive area and try to get into a good vantage point to spread its spores. I don't know of anything that deliberately makes an animal attack another animal. Even rabies just makes the animals angry, aggressive, and confused; as opposed to bloodthirsty. I think 28 Days Later's "rage virus" is the most semi-realistic zombie I've seen. Although the Brooks Zombies will always be the best ones.

tl;dr: Ain't no realistic zombies. Using an actual organism only helps with appearances. If you want a good, realistic interpretation of human cordyceps, take a few minutes to read Up, by Josef K. It's real short.

John Dies at the End

John Dies at the End is a book in which, in the final act, a man named John is killed. Seriously, just look at that title, and imagine an entire book written in that tone. That's reasonably close to the truth.

As for the plot, John Dies at the End is about David Wong and his best friend, John. They live in the smallish town of [Undisclosed], and spend their time being obnoxious and sometimes drunk. One day, John takes a drug called Soy Sauce, which makes everything terrible forever, because it exposes him to a dark alternate universe of doom. Dave gets infected as well, and they go on an epic journey to save the world.

There are, like, millions of quotes where people talk about how this book successfully uses humor and horror at the same time. And, yeah, they're pretty much right. I laughed out loud at many parts of the book, and at other parts I was deeply horrified. Very deeply. As such, I think the easiest way to see if you will like it is this:

If any of the following subjects are complete deal-breakers for you, and you would never read a book with them, do not read this book:
Spiders
Cockroaches
Penises
Cursing
Gore
Eyes
Alternate universes
Death
Severed limbs
Fun
Painful transformation
Untied plot threads
Murder
If none of these things immediately make you want to flee from this review, you will probably like the book. If you aren't even bothered by any of these things, you may have found your new favorite book. I, personally, thoroughly enjoyed it, despite feeling very uncomfortable at parts. I'll leave it at that.

The Secret Series (The Name of This Book is Secret)

Here's a quick one. The Secret Series is one of my favorite book series. Probably in the top five. It's funny, smart(ish), charming, and chocolatey. The books come in five delicious flavors: The Name of This Book is Secret; If You're Reading This, It's Too Late; This Book is not Good for You; This Isn't What It Looks Like; and You Have to Stop This.

That's a quite of books (sorry for my grammar, I'm tired and sick). All in all, it's a whole quintilogy. Or a pentology? Whatever. I just finished rereading the series, and I loved it again. It stars Cass and Max-Ernest, two students who attend The School In Which Things Happen. There are also a whole host of cool, quirky side characters, none of which I will write about because I'm sick and tired.

I realise I'm not doing a great job of selling this, but trust me. The Secret Series is a few million times better than what I make it seem like it is. Wow, my sentences aren't even entirely coherent anymore. Look, I love these books. They were probably my favorite series for a while. If you like humor, magic and... the other stuff under "labels," give this series a try.

In conclusion. These books are real good. Read 'em. That's all I have the brain for today.

Masterminds

OH MY GOD IS MASTERMINDS A GOOD BOOK. Seriously, I started reading it on Monday, and finished today (Wednesday, or three days later, for you lazy folks). This book gives a new meaning to the phrase "page-turner", the pages practically turn themselves.  As one-of-the-dudes-from-the-back-of-the-book said: "Reading this book while doing anything else is dangerous."

Anyways. Adulation over. Masterminds follows five kids: Eli, Amber, Malik, Hector, and Tori. These kids live in the really small town of Serenity, where everything is perfect, except, you've read books before, so you already know that everything is not perfect at all.

It turns out, some of the kids in Serenity are... special, somehow. When Eli goes out of town with his best friend, Randy, he is struck by a crippling pain, while Randy remains fine. Fortunately, he is picked up by the town's army of Purple People Eaters in their nondescript, menacing black helicopter. You know, no biggie.

After the incident, Randy announces that he will be moving out of Serenity to live with his grandmother. But Eli thinks that Randy is acting strange. And then... well, then the book happens. All that stuff basically happens in the first chapter. This is a book that never seems to stop and take its breath, and it works.

In other words, if you have a weekend to kill, reading Masterminds is one of the best ways to do it. If you like books about people doing things, you will probably love this book.

Lawless

Lawless is a fun book. It's about a girl known only as M (which is kinda confusing at the beginning). M is a perfectly normal girl with completely average skills. Okay, that was actually a blatant lie. I mean, look at the cover.
M is recruited (somewhat against her will) to be a student at Lawless, a school whose motto is "sow all the chaos!" (okay, technically it's "Infinitum Chaos Enim," but I've captured their spirit pretty well). Wait. Is it "sow" or "sew"? Sow. But how is it pronounced? Is it sow-like-in-bow or sow-like-in-pew? Wait... are they pronounced the same? that can't be right. Someone broke Google.
Anywho.
Lawless is a school for master criminals, similar to H.I.V.E. in that - wait. Have I never written a post about H.I.V.E.? I need to get on that.
Okay. No more irrelevant tangents allowed. Lawless is a super duper secret school for bad guys, with advanced technology and quirky teachers. M is just thrown into this school, despite the fact that she never even knew that (spoilers) her father was a world-renowned criminal, and her whole life she was groomed to follow his footsteps. I'm pretty sure that is revealed really early, but I don't want to chance it.
At Lawless, M has to make friends she can trust, lie relatively low, and figure out her teachers and mysterious roommate, Zara. And then this whole "heist" dealie shows up. Yeah... things blow up really quickly (mostly figuratively).
The only complaint I have with Lawless is that it is not very good at science. There are very few books that I will say are not good at science, even almost all fantasy and sci-fi, but that bit at the end.... I won't go into detail, but if you have taken Physics 101, you may cringe a bit.
Not that it wasn't cool. Because that was cool.
In conclusion, if you like spy books, high-stakes befriending, and a good mystery-unraveling, this is a good book for you.

Jigsaw Jones Mysteries, by James Preller

Jigsaw Jones is a detective. He solves mysteries. The Jigsaw Jones series (buy volumes, they are cheaper) is all about Jigsaw Jones' many mysteries. I especially like cracking the codes in the stories. Try cracking this one:

Blue the breeze can yellow kids stormy you chicken duck red snowy crack boy hats hurricane this dog blanket sunny code.

It looks like gibberish, doesn't it? Let me tell you what is the trick of the code: Look at all the words. Do you notice something? Are there a lot of words of the same kind? The message is in the words after those similar words.

I also like these books because they actually use real books. For example, they are reading Stone Fox at reading hour at school; and Jigsaw is reading Bunnicula at night with his dad. Both real books. I've read both of them; I like both of them.

The stories are short enough that you can read them in a car ride.

If you like mysteries, cracking codes, and good ideas for books to read (except for the creep show books, because they are the only books that aren't real) read this series.

Eager, by Helen Fox

At the end of the 21st century, robots are everywhere: there are teacher robots, butler robots, driver robots, and cook robots. Among all these robots, Eager (Model EGR3) is unique. He is the only robot who is not pre-programmed, but rather designed to learn from experience, quite like me or you (if you're a kid). This makes him able to think for himself. For example, pretty much all robots were programmed to not lie, EGR3 has to learn why lying is wrong. Having to learn from experience also means learning from mistakes, like when Eager tried to "clean" a human baby by putting her into the washing machine (NOTE: No babies were harmed in this book). Eager quickly becomes a part of the Bell family, but when the fanciest robots around (the BCD4s) begin to behave a little too much like people, Eager and the two older children of the Bell family are involved in a perilous adventure.

This book is sort of hard to understand at the beginning because the author talks about the world nearly a 100 years from now as if we know exactly what she is talking about. For example, the book starts when Gavin Bell has a conversation with his house. At the beginning of the book you might think, "okay, I'm too young to understand anything this says," but keep on reading and trust me, things will unravel.

Now the typical end for most of my reviews: if you like adventure, mysteries, advanced technology, and thinking about the future, this is the right book for you.

Cryptid Hunters, by Roland Smith

Cryptid Hunters is about two kids named Grace and Marty who were twins and their parents disappear in a helicopter crash. After that, they were sent to their "uncle" Wolf. Wolf hunts cryptids and works and owns a company and an island. In case you don't know, cryptids are animals never proved to have existed or who are believed to be extinct. Grace and Marty have lots of adventures including falling out of a jet 18,000 ft. above ground, surviving the Congo, experiencing a real explosion, and collecting fresh eggs from a sauropod. If you like laughing yourself to death, "fantasy", and mystery, read this book.

Return to Howliday Inn, by James Howe

This is another book in the Bunnicula series. In this book Chester, Harold, and Howie go back to Chateau Bow-Wow and find new friends: Hamlet, a dog; Weasel, a weasel; Felony and Miss Demeanor, two cats. This book is kind of freaky. It involves talking bones, ventriloquists, paranormal experiences, and a fake dead dog. I liked when Hamlet gets back home and what I don't like kind of freaked me out -- talking bones!

Bunnicula, by Deborah and James Howe

This was a very funny book in all three stories (except the middle one). In the first book (Bunnicula: a rabbit-tale of mystery), a family goes to the movies and finds a rabbit and they name him Bunnicula. But Chester, the family cat, thinks Bunnicula is a vampire. In the second book (Howliday Inn), the family goes on vacation and leaves Chester and Harold, the writing family dog, at a pet hotel. In this book, Chester thinks two dogs are werewolves. In the third book (The Celery Stalks at Midnight), they think that Bunnicula is multiplying to make more vampires. The last one is both the scariest and the funniest of the three stories. If you like laughs, being scared, and solving mysteries, read this book.

The Secrets of Droon, by Tony Abbott

This volume has the first four books of the series. It's about when Eric and his friends discover a world under Eric's basement. The world is called Droon and it is a magical place with monsters like groggles and nins. In the first book, Eric finds the world under his basement and rescues a little princess named Kia. In the second, Eric and his friends go to Droon to find a palace inside a volcano! In the third, they go to save a mysterious island, and Neal, one of Eric's friends, gets licked by a bug and turns into one! In book four Neal turns back into a bug and they rescue a floating city. Read this book if you like mystery, magic, monsters, and more. I am reading more Secrets of Droon. So far, Eric can send messages from his mind and shoot sparks out of his fingers and July can fly and change shape. I will keep updating as I keep reading this series.