07.06 Think Fast, Mr. Moto by John P. Marquand

Think Fast, Mr. Moto (1937) by John P. Marquand
Pbk., Little, Brown and Co., 278 p.

This is the second of the Mr. Moto series of mystery novels that I have read (see my review of the other here.
The author abviously relied on a certain formula for these novels but his milieu is quite unique and the writing skillful.

In Think Fast, Mr. Moto the protagonist is a young man named Wilson Hitchings who is the scion of a large banking concern, Hitching Brothers. As his first assignment, his uncle sends him out from Shanghai to Honolulu to deal with a stain on the family name. The daughter of the family's black sheep has opened a gambling house there and called it the Hitchings Plantation. Wilson is to take stock of this woman and offer (nay, force) her a buyout and then close the place.

Of course, all is not as it seems and who pops up in Hawaii but Mr. Moto. The plot then whirls into an international financial intrigue involving mobsters, Manchurian crime lords and corrupt officials.

Throughout it all Mr. Moto handles things with adroit efficiency while at all times being portrayed as the quintessentially subservient Oriental. Take this quote which encompasses the dichotomy:

"Thank you so much for being so polite", Mr. Moto said, "Yes, I can do many, many things.I can mix drinks and wait on table, and I am a very good valet.I can navigate and manage small boats. I have studied at two foreign universities. I also know carpentry and survying and five Chinese dialects. So very many things come in useful. Ah, there are the lights in line. You steer so very nicely, Mr. Hitchings."

Definitely worthwhile novels to pick up for a light entertaining read.

For my 50 book brethren

You see that little grey box over there to the right? Do a search for any of the following tags and see what your pals have read this year:

Conan2007
meezly2007
DSGran2007
Le Braconnier07
crumbolst2007
Jarrett

07.05 Night Without End by Alistair MacLean

Night Without End (1959) by Alistair MacLean
Pbk, Fontana, 221 p.

An adventure novel by Alistair MacLean is always a satisfying read.

07.04 Startide Rising by David Brin

Startide Rising (1983) by David Brin
Pbk, Bantam, 462 p.

I got this book from Olman (see his review here) and have unfortunately been struggling to finish it for months. The difficulty in finishing the novel was only based in a small way on the book but mainly on my lack of reading these days.

The difficulty I had with the book was primarily because of the structure. Chapters are told from the perspectives of a number of the main characters, human and dolphin. Initially, when everyone is on the main ship it is hard to parse out who is who and what role they play in the crew. Towards the end of the novel though, many of the protagonists split off into different areas of the planet and the structure works well building suspense and really giving you a sense of what everyone has to do in the larger plan.

An enjoyable science fiction read.

07.03 The Empty House by Michael Gilbert

The Empty House (1978) by Michael Gilbert
Pbk, Penguin, 220 p.

This was a nice little crime novel by Michael Gilbert. One of the worlds top genetic scientists goes missing from a government research facility in rural England. His car has plunged over a cliff and the vehicle and body are unrecoverable. Peter Manciple, an insurance investigator, is sent down from the city to investigate because a large insurance policy was recently taken out.

Manciple comes across the requisite cast of eccentric characters who lead him to believe that all may not be as it looks. There is even a bit of a love story thrown into the mix. His dogged perseverance eventually nets a nice tidy solution to the investigation.

This wasn't a great book but was still pleasantly interesting and fun to read.

07.02 Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien

Z for Zachariah(1975) by Robert C. O'Brien
Pbk, Collier, 249 p.

Continuing with the post-apocalyptic theme in '07. My eye caught this novel in the used bookstore the other day and I remembered seeing it on some of the PA lists. It turns out, of course, to be a young adult novel written by Robert C. O'Brien of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH fame (See Olman's and Jarrett's reviews).

A young girl and her family survive the nuclear apocalypse (?!) in an oddly situated little valley that somehow managed to be unscathed. The family leaves to find help and never returns leaving the 16 year old to fend for herself. She had mad farm skills and really kicks ass for the first few years. There are lots of supplies and a few animals which really help out.

One day she spots a man with a radiation suited enter the valley and she hides out. He is amazed and explores around a bit before mistakenly bathing in a contaminated stream. The man falls ill and the girl comes down to help him out. As she is nursing him back to health she finds out (from his fevered mumbling) that he was a scientist working on this anti-radiation material. After some horrific events in the underground laboratory he emerged with the worlds only survival suit.

As the man recovers the girl realizes that the man is pretty messed up and that they may not be able to coexist in the valley together. In the end, her survival skills must be pitted against his strength and wisdom.

The book was quite good. It is written from her POV with each chapter being entries in her journal. I thought it gave some good messages about dealing with loneliness, isolation and loss.

07.01 Implosion by D.F Jones

Implosion (1967) by D. F. Jones
Hardcover, Putnam, 223 p.

2007 begins with a post-apocalyptic implosion! D. F. Jones is a British science fiction author best know for Colossus, the novel (and film) of the intelligent supercomputers. I also reviewed another disaster novel of his here on the Report called Denver Is Missing.

Implosion has been sitting on my shelf awhile and I decided to pick it up because it looked like it might have some similar themes and ideas as the current film (and PD James novel), Children Of Men. Like that story, this one concerns the decline in the female birth rate. The UK is attacked by a shadowy Soviet bloc country with Prolix, a water soluble agent that renders women sterile. In the storm of discovery a new government is swept into power that promises to retaliate for the attack and do all it can to rehabilitate the country. In the middle of all this is Dr. John Bart, our protagonist.

The novel follows him as a newly elected Minister of Health who becomes one of the most powerful men in a country where 95% of the women have become sterilized. The government must resort to draconian measures to even have a small chance of keeping the country going. They create large breeding centers where all fertile women are taken to be constantly producing babies as the 'Mothers of the Country'. Children are moved into vast schooling camps to keep them away from dangers like road accidents.

Concurrent with all the story of all these national and geopolitical machinations, we follow the drama of Dr. Bart and his newly pregnant wife as she is sent off to one of the breeding centers. Massive government propaganda campaigns convince her of this necessity but ultimately she begins to question whether treating women like cattle is tenable.

The book is not too bad. It was interesting to think about how you would try to keep a country going where the population was going to plummet to barely a fraction of what it once was. The interpersonal storyline, however, was really dated and kind of unbelievable.

06.41 The Guns Of August by Barbara W. Tuchman

The Guns Of August (1962) by Barbara W. Tuchman
Pbk., Presidio Press; Reprint Edition, 640 pp.

The Guns Of August is one of the most respected military history books covering WWI. The books thesis is that France and Germany were on a collision course for war irrespective of events that happened as they did. If it had not been the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand then there would undoubtedly have been another casus belli.

The book covers the events from the death of King Edward VII in 1910 up to the beginning of the war but focuses primarily on the month of the wars outbreak in August, 1914. Germany had become a country driven by a desire to assert its hegemony in Europe and was emboldened by it's successes in the Franco-Prussian war. They had developed the Schlieffen Plan which envisioned a vast encirclement of the French army by driving through neutral Belgium and falling upon the rear of the assembled armies in France.

France, in turn, was naturally bitter from their previous losses and in particular the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. She lobbied for Britain to become involved but that country was riven with political paralysis over sending troops to Europe. The eventual invasion of Belgium finally forced Britain to send 4 divisions of a British Expeditionary Force (BEF) across the channel. The Belgians, in a complete surprise to the Germans, fought back from a series of forts which were eventually destroyed by giant artillery guns.

Meanwhile, Russia was being encouraged to join the war and open an Eastern front in the hopes of drawing German troops away from France. Although Russia was vast in size, they had a military in disarray. Their officer corp was vastly top heavy and the military infrastructure and logistics inferior. For example, Russian railroads had a different gauge from those of Germany to slow invasion. This however, caused massive problems for an invasion into Germany.

Tuchman then outlines the major battles and players over the course of the first month of the war. The German army met the French and the BEF along the border in a series of battles that resulted in massive casualties (about 250,000 for the French alone in the first month).

The book is a masterwork of writing. The author gives a clear overview of the scope of the war in Europe and you really get a sense of who the major players were with their strengths and flaws revealed. A fine piece of historical writing.

06.40 Eat The Document by Dana Spiotta

Eat The Document (2006) by Dana Spiotta
Trade, Scribner, 304 pp.


This was a novel I read over the holidays. The book was laying around and had provoked discussion amongst the group I was with.

The story takes place in two time periods, the 60's and the late 90's. A young idealistic couple is part of a group that commits an act in the 60's, the result of which causes them to have to flee and change their identities. The parts of the book that take place today are about these two (separately) and how they have changed and become different people from who they once were. The woman never really lost the fear of being on the run and lives as a slightly alcoholic widowed housewife who has a son who is a collector of niche music LPs. The guy drifted through life retaining his youthful idealism and now works in a counterculture bookstore trying to inspire the youth of today.

The fundamental thesis is that the generalized anti-establishment feelings of the 1960's have been subsumed by corporate capitalism and the kids of today who are feeling disaffected only express it in niche causes (eg. anti-WTO or animal rights).

The book was OK but didn't really say anything new or at least anything that touched me. Some of the voices that the author wrote in (she tells the story from around 5 perspectives) came off as forced and unrealistic. I wouldn't bother with this one.

06.39 The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Road (2006) by Cormac McCarthy
Hardcover, Knopf, 256 pp.


I received this book on specific instructions this Christmas after its heavy exposure in the press this year and of course reading the review in Buzby's 50 books (even though he called it 'superficial'). I'd never considered Cormac McCarthy as an author that I'd be interested in reading. He's well-regarded and has been recommended by friends, but I think the taint of some of his books being westerns guided me. Regardless, my excitement that a book of genre fiction, and in particular, post apocalyptic fiction getting so much attention was high.

I have to admit it was a great novel, although not without some flaws. McCarthy is really an amazing writer. The writing is sparse. Yet the detail of the scenes he draws are powerful. Consider the following:

"Something woke him. He turned on his side and lay listening. He raised his head slowly, the pistol in his hand. He looked down at the boy and when he looked back toward the road the first of them were already coming into view. God, he whispered. He reached and shook the boy, keeping his eyes on the road. They came shuffling through the ash casting their hooded heads from side to side. Some of them wearing canister masks. One in a biohazard suit. Stained and filthy. Slouching along with clubs in their hands, lengths of pipe. Coughing."

The amazing thing is that the story really has very little arc. It begins well into a nuclear winter with a father and son (probably about 10 yo) traveling south to try and find somewhere warm to live. Day after day they trudge forward eternally on a quest for food and trying to avoid the other scavengers left alive. He sketches a world so venal that every encounter with another human could be their final one.

The Road falls firmly within the American style of postapocalyptic fiction in that it is predominantly survivalist. The impetus is that the protagonist carries with them the positive ethics/morals from before the apocalypse. In the novel, the father makes choices that he describes to his son as those that separate them from the 'bad' guys. However, increasingly these choices become less and less ethical as their situation deteriorates. The love and desire to protect his son is so powerful as to render any judgment of what is 'right' irrelevant. And this love of a father for his son is really only the social element in the book.

Whereas the tradition of British postapocalyptic fiction used the disaster to examine questions of social structure or class or what have you, this novel forgoes that completely. The world is so utterly destroyed that living until the next day is all that matters.

I really enjoyed this novel. It is by no means perfect and is so bleak as to be almost too depressing. The resourcefulness and real survival skills of the father were refreshing to see in this sort of fiction.

06.38 Last Laugh, Mr. Moto by John P. Marquand

Last Laugh, Mr. Moto (1942) by John P. Marquand
Pbk., Berkeley Medallion, 158 pp.


Surprisingly, I had never heard of the Mr. Moto books until I came across this one in a used bookstore. Of course, given the sweet cover, I picked it up immediately. As it turns out six Mr. Moto books were written beginning in 1935 by John P. Marquand primarily as a response to the Charlie Chan books. More famously, a series of Mr. Moto movies were made and starred Peter Lorre in the lead role. I have never seen any of these but supposedly they are inferior to the novels.

Last Laugh is interesting in that Mr. Moto is only a peripheral character until the last act of the story. The protagonist is a drunken ex-Navy pilot who has thrown over everything in his life after being passed over for a promotion. He lives on his sailboat and plies various ports in the Carribean until his welcome is worn out. In Jamaica, he is chartered to take a mysterious American and his beautiful wife out to explore an uninhabited island. The couple come across oddly and veer between friendliness and aggressive urgency. When the reach the island it becomes clear that the are not who they said they were and have a nefarious ulterior motive. The surprising arrival of Mr. Moto on the island throws their whole plan into disarray.

The novel was pleasant surprise. The overarching plot was a bit feeble but the author writes well.

For more info see:

"Mr Moto is short slender man of indeterminate age who speaks perfect English as well as numerous Chinese dialects. He seems to have questionable taste in clothes (checked golfing suits on train rides, for example) has noticable gold fillings in his front teeth and keeps his hair in a "Prussian Brush Cut". He has a proficiency with firearms, jujitstu, and is unfailingly polite. He seldom (if ever) resorts to disguises - he seldom seeks to disquise his presence in a particular theatre of intrigue; which may be good thing, considering his rather unique appearance. He is never the main protagonist of the story - rather he appears at strategic points in the story, a catalyst for action.

06.37 Monsieur Monde Vanishes by George Simenon

Monsieur Monde Vanishes (1945) by George Simenon
Pbk., New York Review Books Classics, 144 pp.


Monsieur Monde is a successful middle-aged businessman in Paris. One morning he walks out on his life, leaving his wife asleep in bed, leaving everything. Not long after, he surfaces on the Riviera, keeping company with drunks, whores and pimps, with thieves and their marks. A whole new world, where he feels surprisingly at home—at least for a while.

This is the first Simenon book that I have read. It seems amazing to me that I have never come across him given my love of mystery books and the copious number of novels that he has written. Really though, this book at least, is not strictly a mystery. It is more of a psychological portrait of a man. If you have ever read any Patricia Highsmith then I would say that this is closest to that.

A very entertaining novel that has set me on the path to reading more Simenon.

06.36 A Feast For Crows by George RR Martin

A Feast For Crows (2005) by George R.R. Martin
Pbk., Spectra, 1104 pp.

This novel was the death of my 50 books for 2006. I think I started this book sometime in early November, and it took me well over a month to finish it. This is the fourth in an ongoing series of fantasy novels. Martin actually finished this book at twice the length and ended up having to split it in half with the second part being published this year. that is saying something given that this book is over a thousand pages.

It is pretty hard to describe the novel because there are 3000 pages of back story. To cheat:

A Song of Ice and Fire is set primarily in the fictional Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, a large, South American-sized continent with an ancient history stretching back some twelve thousand years. A detailed history reveals how seven kingdoms came to dominate this continent, and then how these seven nations were united as one by Aegon the Conqueror, of House Targaryen. Some 283 years after Aegon's conquest, the Targaryens are overthrown in a civil war and King Robert Baratheon, backed primarily by his friend Lord Eddard Stark and foster father Lord Jon Arryn, takes the Iron Throne. The novels, which begin fifteen years later, follow the fall-out from this event across three major storylines, set not only in Westeros but on the eastern continent as well.

The first storyline, set in the Seven Kingdoms themselves, chronicles a many-sided struggle for the Iron Throne that develops after King Robert's death. The throne is claimed by his son Joffrey, supported by his mother's powerful family, House Lannister, but Robert's brother Stannis claims (correctly) that Robert's children are illegitimate, and claims the throne himself, to a less-than-enthusiastic response. Robert's youngest brother, Renly, also claims the throne with the support of the extremely powerful House Tyrell. Whilst these three claimants battle for the throne itself, Robb Stark, Lord Eddard Stark's heir, is proclaimed King in the North as the northmen and their allies in the Riverlands seek to break away from the Iron Throne and rule themselves. Similarly, Balon Greyjoy also claims the throne of his own region, the Iron Islands, and likewise seeks independence. The War of the Five Kings is the principal storyline in the second and third novels, with its fall-out and repercussions affecting much of what follows.

The second storyline is set on the extreme northern border of Westeros. Here, eight thousand years ago, a huge wall of ice and gravel was constructed by spells and by hand to defend Westeros from the threat of 'The Others', a semi-mythical race of ice creatures living in the uttermost north. The 300-mile-long, 700-foot-tall Wall is defended by the Sworn Brotherhood of the Night's Watch, which by the time of the novels is badly under-strength and under threat by the human 'wildlings' or 'free folk' who live to the north. This storyline strand follows Jon Snow, bastard son of Lord Eddard Stark, as he rises through the ranks of the Watch and learns the true nature of the threat from the north. By the end of the third volume, this storyline has become more entangled with the civil war to the south as well.

The third storyline is set on the huge eastern continent and follows the adventures of Daenerys Targaryen, the last (known) scion of House Targaryen and another claimant to the Iron Throne. Daenerys's story shows her growing rise to power, from a near-penniless wanderer to a powerful and canny ruler who possesses the last living dragons. Though her story is separated from the others by many thousands of miles, her stated goal is to reclaim the Iron Throne. Although she is not known to many in Westeros, the chaos of two civil wars in rapid succession has led to much yearning among the smallfolk for the days of stability under the Targaryens. Daenerys' storyline will return her to Westeros before the end of the series.

- Wikipedia

So as you can see the storyline is pretty epic and involves dozens of characters. It literally takes hundreds of pages to even remember who half the people are and what they were up to the last time you read the previous book.

Be that as it may, Martin writes excellent fantasy and has created an amazingly well fleshed out, world that carries you away in the best tradition of the genre.

06.35 Down and Out in Paris And London by George Orwell

Down And Out In Paris And London (1933) by George Orwell
Pbk., Harvest/HBJ, 213 pp.

This famous novel by George Orwell was reviewed this year by a friend of mine. Based on his review and the comments therein I knew that this was a novel I had to pick up.

It really is an amazing book exploring poverty and class. The first half of the book describes his life of poverty in Paris. The descriptions of the life and characters are amazing, as he scrambles around trying to rustle up a few coins and enjoying life to its fullest. Orwell gets a job in a demonic kitchen and that part of the book is the most interesting.

The latter half of the book describes his life among the down and out in London. He hangs out with various hobos and ner do wells as they travel around amongst these strange homeless shelters.

This novel really is a classic and should be read by everyone.

06.34 Tesseracts3 Anthology

Tesseracts3 (1990) edited by Canda Jane Dorsey and Gerry Truscott
Pbk., Porcepic Books, 437 pp.

When I was at the V-Con sci-fi convention this year one of the dealer tables was a publishing company called Edge. They put out tons of Canadian speculative fiction (much of which I had never heard of) and were extremely freindly in talking to me about the state of the industry and who many of the authors were that they represent.

Luckily, one of the other dealers had a copy of this anthology, Tesseracts, which has been publishing Canadian sci-fi short stories for a couple of decades. I often have trouble reading short story anthologies because the quality of the tales is usually pretty uneven. In this volume there are a number of well known authors so I expected to at least find some competent writing.

Margret Atwood writes an extremely short tale of first contact that did nothing for me.

Peter Watts has a great story which is really an early draft of one section of his novel Starfish. It really gives the flavor of the underwater station and you see how he improved from that story to an excellent novel.

William Gibson writes a little 3 page piece that shows how much talent he has in creating a setting and feeling in a story.

As you might expect, there are a number of mediocre stories in here, a few dogs and a couple of tales that made this book a worthwhile read.

06.33 Persopolis by Marjane Satrapi

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Hardcover - 2 volumes, Parthenon

I have decided to allow the inclusion of a graphic novel into my 50 books count this year. Everyone is always saying how the graphic novel should be getting the respect that 'regular' literature gets and I am all for that.

Persepolis is the memoir of a young Iranian woman and tells the tale of her life growing up through the tumultuous 1970's and 1980's. Her parents are relatively secular and the first part of the book takes place in a background of the growing discontent with the Shah and his eventual overthrow in 1979. Many of her family are arrested and we see the tightening of freedoms as fundamentalist thought comes to the fore. In the next section of the book, the author is in school however the Iran-Iraq war rages in the background. This seems to cement the new regimes fundamentalist rules and both the author and her parents chafe against these restrictions. Eventually her parents send her off to attend high school in Austria.

Satrapi reinvents herself in Austria and does her best to forget her past. She embraces all things 'western': drugs, boyfriends, anarchist thought. Ultimately, nothing really makes her happy and she falls into a period of strong depression. At this point she decides to return to Iran to be with her family. Eventually there is a gradual finding of herself and she finds a man with whom she marries. In the end, she leaves the country and moves to France.

I found this to be a cool story especially about the day to day life of someone who lived through the Revolution.

06.32 The Trojan Horse by Hammond Innes

The Trojan Horse (1940) by Hammond Innes
Pbk., Fontana, 190 pp.

Hammond Innes, the great British suspense writer scores again with this pre-war mystery. It seems to have been inspired , in part, by the Russian invasion of Finland (the Winter War) at the beginning of WWII.

One day an Austrian Jew who is wanted for murder enters the office of Andrew Kilmartin, KC (King's Counsel) and tells a fantastic tale, then disappears. It turns out that this fellow has invented a better diesel engine, one that could win the war, but the British government won't believe him. Unfortunately, the Nazis are operating with relative impunity at this point in the war and they have gotten wind of the invention.

Kilmartin connects with the Austrian's daughter and a journalist chum in a whirlwind investigation that takes them the length and breadth of the Isles. After a number of dust-ups and encounters with nefarious characters the action culminates on a freighter loaded with tanks heading for the Finnish coast.

This was one of Innes' better novels.

06.31 361 by Donald Westlake

361 by Donald E. Westlake
Pbk., Hard Case Crime, 207pp.

This is another reprint of classic pulp crime stories by the excellent Hard Case Crime imprint. I think there are a number of other Westlake novels that may have made for a better reprint. The story involves man who is newly out of the Army and is just returned to the United States. He meets up with his father, who gets shot as they are driving down the highway. The novel shows us the man's consuming desire to get revenge on the killers and find out who they are. In the end the payoff for the reader is just okay.

The mandrill speaks!

Seattle Poem

give me a bun



we leap to a truck



this is my day; touch them



they are smooth; bat'leth



inside...Number 1



the future is not moving



it is in the game



love me, moose



we are the wind



taste the joy within