The Mandel Files

The Mandel Files were really three books collected into two books, all written by prolific science fiction author Peter F. Hamilton.  I received the first book as a gift from a friend who thought I might enjoy it.  However, I had heard a lot of bad things about Mr. Hamilton from some of my other friends so the book lived on my shelf for a few months while I viewed it with some trepidation.  Eventually, of course, I got around to reading it and I was pleasantly surprised. 

These books are the first that Mr. Hamilton got published and, as such, do not go with his normal setting of far future space opera.  Instead they are set in a near future Britain where the world is recovering from significant changes that global warming inflicted upon it.  This book manages to do this without being as preachy as some other books that are in a post global warming apocalypse, which is nice.  The books follow a detective named Greg Mandel (hence the name of the series) who has an interesting ability.  The back of the book calls him a human lie detector, and that is the boiled down version, but basically he is somewhat telepathic.  However, the story does a reasonably good job of explaining how this came to pass and walks the fine line between introducing too many characters with abilities similar to Greg's, thereby turning the story into a clash of superheroes, and too few, making Greg seem a superman among mortals. 

The first book (of the three), is called Mindstar Rising, it does a great job of setting up the world and the protagonists of the stories, and is a good blend of mystery and science fiction.  The second book, A Quantum Murder, is much more of a mystery than the previous story.  There is not very much action until the end, but that is part of the bargain in a mystery.  The third, The Nano Flower, has perhaps the weakest plot but it has some fantastic action scenes (guys on jetpacks attacking a zeppelin, for example).





These books were written in the early to mid 90's and were supposed to take place in the 2030's.  Obviously, they didn't guess right on all of the technological fronts (though he does start out volume 1 with a forward that is basically an apology for not being able to accurately predict technological progress, which somewhat annoyed me) but what is cool is that he used some companies from his day as the creators of the technology in his story.  This, most of the time, adds a layer of realism.  Of course Lockheed would still be making military tech and so the fact that he slaps the Lockheed name on there instead of a made up company makes it seem a little more real and possible.  However, since these were written 20 years ago, there are some companies that are now laughable.  At one point, they break into a computer hackers den and one of his nicest computers is made by Commodore.  This seems unlikely in any future and broke my suspension of disbelief a little.

Some of the character development in the series is a little lacking.  Occasionally, characters make decisions for basically no reason that is clear to the reader.  But overall the books still have a net positive quality level.  I would say Mindstar Rising is the overall best but The Nano Flower is the most fun to read.  I give the series as a whole an 88%.

Freakonomics

I realize that I am a bit behind the curve, reading Freakonomics now.  It was the big thing to be reading back when it came out, back in 2005.  There were a huge variety of spin offs and other tie ins but then it slowly faded from the public perception.  It is always been on my "to read" list and this summer my curiosity was particularly piqued by a comment about how the book discusses the relations of names to career success. This was the straw that broke the camels back and finally convinced me to read the book.

The book as a whole was extremely interesting.  It beats the reader over the head with the fact that it has no unifying theme and instead just explores several issues.  Basically, the two authors use economic concepts in ways that they are not typically used.  While I did take a couple of economic classes in college, I by no means consider myself to have a background in Economics and it was perfectly reasonable so prospective readers do not have to be worried about not understanding the books.

The variety of subjects covered makes each chapter of this book a separate adventure.  They each build off of each other but they can easily be read alone or with significant time in between them.  Despite what finally encouraged me to read the book, that was not what I found most interesting when I read the book.  The chapter that was the most fascinating was the one on the sudden drop in the crime rate in the 1990's.  They conclude that it was, in fact, the legalization of abortion.  This is certainly not a reason that is immediately obvious but they back it up with evidence very well.  The book is full of insights of similar, but less controversial, quality. 

This book was fun, insightful, and easy to read.  I would give this book a 89%.

Battle Royale

When I was in high school, I watched the movie Battle Royale.  Those familiar with the Hunger Games should recognize the basic concept immediately, a bunch of children are forced to kill each other in an isolated area for the sake of competition.  However, Battle Royale came out long before the Hunger Games and was written in Japan.  The movie is more violent but also doesn't take itself quite as seriously.  I enjoyed the movie, even if it was a little morbid.

Years later, I was lent a copy of the book, which is pretty massive.  It is very similar to the plot of the movie but enjoys all of the traditional advantages of books over movies.  Because it is a book, all of the students get their own little time to shine and they definitely get more of a back story.  Even though it is blatantly obvious from the beginning who the protagonist is, the book gives each character at least a little page time to show off their quirks.

While the book was interesting, it was translated from Japanese and I feel that a fair portion of the elegance of the writing was lost in translation.  A lot of the time, I felt like certain paragraphs, with just a little tweaking, would have been significantly improved.  Also, I know that this is partially my fault because I am not very familiar with Asian names, but with more than 40 characters it became difficult to keep all the names straight.  It didn't help that there were multiple pairs of students whose names were extremely similar (Yumiko and Yukiko for example).

However, the themes that it explores about loyalty and psychology are definitely poignant.  The students that cooperate versus those who don't and their reasons for their choice are fascinating.  The book is a little gory but overall an enjoyable read.  It managed, with its rather simplistic use of language, to still be a fun read while still making the reader think.  Overall, I would give this book an 86%.

Star Wars: Deceived

I read Deceived immediately after I finished Revan.  While they are both part of the same series (the Old Republic) they take place 300 years apart and are very different reads.  Revan's goal was to fill in all the plot holes left open by the gaps between the various games while Deceived's goal was very different.  One of the first promotions for The Old Republic was (a very pretty) cinematic trailer called "Deceived".  This can be watched here for those who are interested.  Deceived was designed to attract people who's interest was piqued by that trailer.  It is essentially the back story and the aftermath of the events depicted in that trailer.

If that seems like a strange basis for a book, it is.  There were parts of the book where the author clearly was watching the trailer and simply writing down what it showed.  However, this somewhat strangeness was made up for with Kemp's no holds barred action scenes.  The book takes a little while to ramp all the way up but once it reaches its top speed it hangs out there for a good while.

Like many of Kemp's books, this is short.  Not because anything is missing simply because Kemp's writing style is such that he just slams everything into the reader and is done.  This is not a complaint, just a comment on style.  There are a couple of extremely memorable scenes though and the book is definitely a fun read.

Overall, I would give this book an 80%.

Star Wars: Revan

Revan was written for the gamers.  It is great at what it does, but that would not really appeal to a normal audience.  This book connects together the two Knights of the Old Republic video games and the new The Old Republic game.  The titular character is the protagonist of the first KOTOR game who disappeared before the start of the second one.  Many fans were somewhat miffed by the jarring transition between the two KOTOR games and have been waiting for something like this for a long time.  However, I am glad that they waited because this allowed them to tie together all three games very neatly and in a sensible way.  However, as you may have gathered, this book would not be the same if you had not played these games.

Don't get me wrong, Mr. Karpyshyn makes a noble effort to keep the reader in the know even if they haven't played the games, but there is so much depth missing if you have not played them.  Honestly, the author did a masterful job at tying together a large number of plot threads from the three different games and all that work will go unappreciated if you have played none of them (for the record I have played one of them completely and half of each of the other two). 

The story goes in a different direction than most Star Wars stories as, instead of rehashing the story of a game, it instead acts as a lead in to one.  This means that it ends a degree of cliffhanger that is uncommon for a novel without an intended sequel. The story is wrapped up, but many plot threads are left dangling because they are continued and wrapped up by The Old Republic.  I have to say that this book did rekindle my interest in the game (which was guttering) so it did accomplish one of its intended goals.  It was also an enjoyable read, but I feel that the domain knowledge hurdle might be a little high for those who have not played the game.

Overall, I would give this book an 80%.

Brave New World

When I was in high school I had to read 1984 for my English class.  It was an interesting book.  At the time I had never really read anything like it.  The ending was less than I desired but the book really did make one think about oppressive governments and the importance of history. Then, in college, I read We at the recommendation of one of my friends. We is basically a Russian version of 1984. It doesn't bludgeon the reader quite so much with the symbolism and allegory and I think it might be a better story. When I finished reading We, I was talking about it to some of my other friends and they were comparing it to both 1984 and Brave New World, a book I had heard of but never read. Fast forward a few years and I pick up one for cheap in a used bookstore. Fast forward a little further and I am reading it.

The book is not very long, less than 180 pages, but it is filled with poignancy. It was written in 1931 and, unlike many books written at that time, it still manages to hold up as a plausible future. The basic premise of the book is that people are divided into castes and their start taking place at conception. However, there is a drug, soma, that makes people happy and it is a fundamental part of everyone's life. Obviously, if this is the future it is still a long way away, but the basic aspects resonate well.

What this book also has that 1984 and We lacked is a sense of humor. It is by no means a comedy but it is not afraid to do something funny once in a while to lighten the mood. 1984 especially feels almost like it is weighing you down as you read it, with all its furtiveness and secrecy. This book takes a more lighthearted approach. The dystopia shown here is only a few degrees away from what could be considered utopia. That acknowledgement is perhaps a little scary, but surprisingly true. I can certainly say that I would be more comfortable living here than in just about any other dystopian future.

Overall, I would give this book a 89%.

Star Wars: X-Wing: Mercy Kill

The X-Wing series has been a series long beloved by Star Wars book fans.  Unlike many of the other stories, it barely features anyone from the movies and almost no use of the Force.  Before this most recent addition, the books came out over the course of three years over two different authors.  However, for more than a decade, the series laid fallow, until now...

Mercy Kill is the 10th book in a series where the 9th book came out in 1999.  It also serves as kind of an epilogue to a different 9 book series.  In other words, this book has a lot of history behind it.  Surprisingly, it doesn't really feel that way.  Despite being what is basically the 10th book in two separate series, it manages to stand on its own surprisingly well.  This book manages to require very little domain knowledge while avoiding the pitfall of explaining a bunch of previous plot points in a manner that is blatantly just filling new readers in.

Like many Aaron Allston books, this story, while being serious, has a multitude of humorous parts.  Some, especially those worked into the elaborate and stressful climax, provide such a perfect break, that they can have the reader howling with laughter. 

My biggest complaint with this book is that the title is not very accurate.  There is almost no space action in this book.  Almost everything occurs on foot.  There is not really a problem with this, I just feel that a book that has X-Wing in the title should have a little more action having to do with, well,  X-Wings.

The villain was physically not introduced until relatively late in the story but the author does a good job of making him seem like a bad guy without making him a caricature.  Just some of the little things he does really make it clear that the guy is not a paragon of virtue.

Overall, this book is surprisingly accessible and unsurprisingly funny.  I would give it a 91%.