Slaughterhouse 5, book review. (Kurt Voonegut)

Hmm!
If you're looking for a war novel where a time traveling optometrist is abducted by aliens for their zoo, then I might have found just the book for you!
Set in the 1940s, 50s, 60s . . . you get the idea, the story of Billy Pilgrim going from 1940s war torn Europe - Dresden to be precise - where he is a complete idiot and totally out of his depth (he doesn't even have shoes or a gun), to being a successful optometrist and fairly wealthy - assisted by his father-in-law along the way - interspliced with a trip to Tralfamadore as a zoo specimen, could be considered interesting but in reality it's just plain weird.
Billy Pilgrim has had his share of good luck in life like, when he was in the thick of the allied firebombing of Dresden during World War II and survived (the estimates on how many died there varies but at least 25ooo perished, which puts some perspective on things), and he's had some bad luck, too; he actually knows exactly when and where he is going to die and can't do anything about it so, happily (maybe reluctantly would be a better word), he plods on.
I found very little 'anti-war' about this book (I say that because I've seen it referred to as an anti-war novel several times), but appreciate that when it was written it could well have come across that way.

This is a short book so there's not a lot of depth to any of it but with the author actually having been in the war, in Dresden, that part, along with when he visits an old war buddy, feels realistic but, when he's kidnapped and taken to Tralfamadore along with Montana Wildhack - so they can procreate in a Zoo there - I couldn't help but wonder if the author had run out of things to say, didn't want to go into the war in any more detail (for personal reasons maybe), or just couldn't be bothered, so made up the Tralfamadore bits.

If he'd left out the Sci-fi part and concentrated more on Billy Pilgrim's life, before, during and after the war, the novel would have been better in my opinion, even if his pre and post war life was mundane.

Parts of this book are narrated, too, which is confusing and might catch you out at first, and added to the fact that Billy Pilgrim's life isn't interesting, the alien abduction childish and weird, the timeline hopping around, which baffled me to the point where I had to go back and retrace my steps a few times, I started wondering whether to just give up and read something else.

Maybe it's because I go in cold on books, doing little to no research before I dive in, so don't know what to expect or maybe it's because this book is boring but, to summarise, if you like your books quirky and slightly baffling then this will certainly please but for me it just didn't work.

Two stars for, Slaughterhouse Five then and another American classic I'll have to add to my, 'Why don't I get on with American Literature,' pile! 😔

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Fahrenheit 451, book review. (Ray Bradbury)

A book that many of you are no doubt familiar with, even if you've never read it, but a book worthy of further investigation I feel.
It would be easy to label this as a dystopian novel or Sci-fi but I felt it was more than that. I felt it was more like an awakening, a dawning of a new era kind of novel, as Montag (our main protagonist), who, as a fireman, burns books as opposed to a fireman extinguishing fires, becomes self-aware when a lady whose house they are about to destroy, decides to die in the fire rather than live without her books - books are outlawed by the way.
This awakening has consequences for all (not least Montag, who, we find, has been stealing books from time to time and hiding them in his house), but for his wife, his Captain and more besides and then there's Clarisse. Beautiful, young - Montag might say naive - Clarisse, who sees the world differently. Who enjoys walking and talking, looking at nature as opposed to the majority of people who sit in their homes watching giant televisions on multiple walls totally oblivious to the real world - Montag's wife, Mildred, being one such person.
The writing is quite basic here but speeds you through - it isn't a long book either - which makes sense when you find out that the author wrote it in less than two weeks by pulling together several of his short story ideas and linking them into this single narrative.
I thought Montag was a bit wooden and I was frustrated by Clarisse being such a bit

player, although her influence on Montag and the story as a whole far outweighed her brief appearance, which was poignant. I liked Beatty, Montag's boss and how he seemed to know so much (too much really), for one who professed to uphold the law, and after his demise I wondered if one might find a secret stash of books at his house if one searched!
Mildred, who was always zoned out on what was happening on her televisions, was a bit of a bore, but the last part of this book, after she'd called the firemen to burn Montag's books and Montag goes on the run, having attacked his colleagues, was really rather good, genuinely exciting in fact.

With the fire department's mechanical hound, several helicopters filming and the masses glued to their televisions, all in on the chase, it was hit or miss as to whether Montag would escape, and that last part of the book was gone in a flash.
So, a dystopian novel it may be but one with more to it I think. In fact, the thing I took away from this book were the feelings, the emotions it portrayed: the sadness of Clarisse, the cunning of Beatty, Montag's fear of being exposed, killed, and these feeling overshadowed the characters to which they belonged, diminishing them all to bit players. And the strongest emotion . . .?
Hope.
Three and a half stars.

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Who & what do you read? Questions I get asked as a book blogger (Pt I) Michael J Richardson

For those of you who don't know me, I've been reading and writing since I was a teenager (properly reading that is, not force fed books I had no interest in at school, which excludes Stig of the Dump of course, which was my first serial reading experience), so that's a good thirty years under my belt, but what floats my boat, gets me going back for more?

Well, why don't we start with the classics. But wait, what is a classic? A book written over a hundred years ago? Over fifty? Harry Potter will be defined as a classic in the future if not already, so do I include them? Maybe it's Austin, Bronte or Dickens (of which I've liked but not loved - except A Christmas Carol, that will always be a 5 star book in my opinion), or Du Maurier, whose My Cousin Rachel is one of my all-time favourites. Looking further afield we have Jules Verne, not bad, Platonov, weird and Kafka - seriously, I think something got lost in translation like: plot and anything that actually makes sense - and I've never really enjoyed American classics either with Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, The Catcher in the Rye and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest all being a bit lacklustre - although I did like, The Great Gatsby and I am Legend is a masterpiece.

How about horror then? But again, what is horror? I recently read Roxane Gay's superb, An Untamed State, one of the most horrific books I've read recently but you'll only find it in the fiction section, as with Khaled Hosseini, who writes about the horrors of war torn Afghanistan in a way that pulls at your heart. I've also read The Girl with all the Gifts and its prequel (zombie apocalypse for those who don't know), but they're no more horrific than Stephen King epics' like The Stand and It, which are simply undefinable in genre. Then there are horror classics like Dracula (superb) Frankenstein (okay) and The Exorcist (seriously creepy) to consider, all having such great characters and depth that to simply call them 'Horror' would do them a great injustice.

I have always loved apocalyptic stories, too, from the short and punchy like, The War of the Worlds, I am Legend and The Day or the Triffids, to huge tomes like The Passage series and of course, the best of the best, The Stand - all fourteen hundred plus pages of it, and how the whole experience of reading books like these leaves you feeling lonely and apprehensive but with a fierce determination that if it were ever to happen to you, you'd be the good guy/girl, be on the right side and survive.

So where does that leave us? Well, this subject is far too long for one post so I'll blog part II in a few days' time and talk it through a bit more with you then. See you soon.

Don't forget to search my blog for your favourite authors and books and if I haven't read them, why not message me with your recommendations.

Mad Mike's writing blog, book of the year 2018

Welcome friends, bookbloggers, avid readers alike, to my annual book of the year post. This isn't about books written or published this year, this is about the books I have read this year, and with dozens to choose from, it's no easy task.

I won't bore you with a big long list of all my reads from 2018, for that you can check out my historic posts or look at Amazon/Goodreads for my reviews, so without further ado:-

In at number five is, No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy. Blog post 29/04/18
With its no nonsense approach to mass murder, a psychopathic hitman and the author's beautiful use of the Texan dialect, this action packed book is both fast and furious whilst quiet and threatening at the same time, and in spite of the sheriffs best efforts, you never stop believing that the hitman will win through in the end.

My number four is, The Twelve, by Justin Cronin. Blog post 25/06/18

Following on from The Passage was never going to be easy, but here, Justin Cronin takes things down a peg or two, goes back to where a dozen death row prisoners became the virals that go on to decimate the world. The world after the virus has moved on too, and the resulting climax, the build up to the gathering of The Twelve, where Amy makes her move, is soooooo good, the book just had to be in my top five.

In bronze position then: Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline. Blog post 24/11/18
In this futuristic look back at the past, Cline takes us to a dystopian world on the brink of destruction. The oil has gone, the crops have failed and the world is hungry and poor, so people choose to live as avatars in the alternate reality of, Oasis, a computer generated world that some never leave. With its heavy nod to the 80's, murder, global corporate corruption and a clear, 'root for the underdog' thread running throughout, Ready Player One is one of the most unique books I have ready this year.

So, this year’s runner up: All Hell let Loose, by Max Hastings. Blog post 20/08/18

To humanise the death of so many under such depraved circumstances and make it actually readable, is a testament to the true genius of this author, and his mix of first hand civilian accounts along with the well documented military events of the Second World War, gives the reader a true sense of the horrors that befell the world during those six long years. A classic must-read five star book.

And my winner, my favourite book of 2018: IT, by Stephen King.
'A coming of age, thriller, horror, murder mystery, sci-fi, history book, all rolled into one,' was what I said at the time, and I stick by that statement. There aren't enough superlatives in the English language to truly express my feelings for this absolute classic and to put that into context, I have read all 1166 pages of IT three times now and dare say I will read it again someday, for it is without compare. As I said in my 15/10/18 blog post: Put simply, one of the greatest books I have ever read.

Ready Player One, book review. (Ernest Cline)

Is sci-fi your thing? No.

How about something apocalyptic, geeky '80's retro? Four hundred pages about gaming?
No! Still not on board?
Well, you’re gonna miss out on one hell of a good book then because, Ready Player One is fantastic.
It is 2044, we’ve used all the oil, there's widespread famine and poverty, but hidden in the OASIS, (a computer generated universe consisting of thousands of worlds), there's hundreds of billions of dollars waiting to be won. All you have to do is solve the riddles set out by its deceased creator, Halliday, find the keys to the three gates and it’s yours. Some seek the fortune for good, to prosper, not only themselves but others, but the IOI Corporation wants it for itself and will stop at nothing it seems to get it, including murder.
Living at the top of a twenty story stack of mobile homes with limited aspirations, other than to win the fortune, Wade Watts, aka, Parzival spends all his spare time logged into Oasis, trying to solve the riddles.
When he stumbles upon the first of the three gate keys, he becomes instantly famous, a target, once he's made it through the first gate, he's on borrowed time. His aunt and the trailer where they lived, are blown to pieces, there's coercion, a feigned suicide, proposed kidnappings and more.

As riddles get solved, an epic game of Pacman is played, tempers fray and trust issues arise, you forget you’re in a fictional world within a fictional world and get pulled along for the ride, and all the while the characters in the book are, for the most part, avatars in a computer game.
Parzival is super geeky, but he's educated himself through the OASIS school system, his fellow gunters, (people who spend their time in OASIS looking to solve Halliday's riddles, but who haven't sold out to the corporation of IOI), all bring something different to the narrative, some more than others, of which we find out at the end of the book!
The author’s love of the 1980's was right up my street and some of the games, the computers, and most of the films he makes reference to - Parzival flies around in a DeLorean for goodness sake's - had me reminiscing, and there's always a sense that something's not quite right, that one of the gunters might not be telling the whole truth. With that in mind, the sixers (derogatory name for those who spend their days trying to crack the riddles in OASIS for IOI), gradually close in on Parzival and his friends but, can they beat them to Halliday's Egg and win the prize - Ownership of the entire virtual word, the Oasis?.

There is a huge amount of info-dump throughout this book, which gets a bit annoying but with the epic battle at the end, the tense week that preceded it, the journey through the various challenges, great characters and (for me anyway), the books effortless mix of nostalgia with a possible future and superb researching and originality, it easily earns four stars.

I just hope the film doesn’t let it down.

Don't forget to search my blog for your favourite authors and books and if I haven't read them, message me with your recommendations