UR (Audio)

by Stephen King

read by Holter Graham

(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010)

MP3 Audiobook, 64.7 MB, 2.3 Hours, Fiction

ISBN: 9781442303096, US$14.99

ABCD Rating: ACQUIRE

From the Cover: Tapping into our primal fears of modern technology that made Cell a #1 bestseller, Stephen King sets his sights on the latest high-tech gadget in UR, in which a mysterious e-book reader opens a disturbing window into other worlds. Reeling from a painful break-up, English instructor and avid book lover Wesley Smith is haunted by his ex-girlfriend's parting shot: “Why can't you just read off the computer like everyone else?” He buys an e-book reader out of spite, but soon finds he can use the device to glimpse realities he had never before imagined, discovering literary riches beyond his wildest dreams ... and all-too-human tragedies that surpass his most terrible nightmares. From vintage cars (Christine and From a Buick 8) to household appliances (Maximum Overdrive) to exercise equipment (Stationary Bike), Stephen King has mesmerized us with tales of apparently ordinary machines that take on lives of their own. UR gives this classic theme an up-to-the-minute spin, resulting in a horror masterpiece for our time and for the ages.

My Review: I have recently expressed concern that my reading relationship with Stephen King has been less than, shall we say, healthy. However, and I know this is probably just going to jinx it, but I think we are getting back to where we were when we first started seeing each other, and UR is a big step in that direction.

What I find most interesting about UR is the inherent contradictions that it shows in King’s mind. King is a self-described Luddite who prefers to handwrite his books rather than type them on the computer, who doesn’t own a cell phone and consistently writes about the dangers of technology (The Tommyknockers, Cell, “The Mangler,” “Word Processor of the Gods,” etc.) and yet King is often at the vanguard of new technology, especially when it applies to books. UR is the quintessential example of this contradiction: it is the story of an otherworldly Kindle and the problems that such technology (especially if it is indeed supernatural in nature) can bring. However, until just recently, UR was only available as a Kindle download. I suppose that that speaks mostly to King’s own impish sense of humor, but I do find it an interesting twist on King’s technophobia.

That said, I was skeptical when I first read the description of UR. It seemed much too similar to other King short stories (Cell and “Word Processor of the Gods” leapt immediately to mind), but in light of the fact that Under the Dome was not a disappointment, I thought I’d give UR a chance.

I have to say that I was more than pleasantly surprised. I have always felt that Stephen King is at his best when he is writing short stories (Just After Sunset aside) and novellas and UR is no exception. This story, in spite of a handful of flaws, is one of the best of King’s most recent publications. Much better than his novel-length works of late. All too often in these longer stories King starts storytelling for storytelling’s sake and forgets the thread of his own tale. This is not so in UR. The story is just long enough to stay interesting and while I have issues with the ending (it felt a little too contrived for me) I enjoyed the ride, which is the best one can hope for from a Stephen King story: one hell of a ride.

My favorite aspect of this story, without giving too much away, is that this is yet another entry into King’s Dark Tower übernarrative and fits into those stories in a very interesting and imaginative way. Granted, King lets on fairly early in the story that this is a Dark Tower story but still, I did not see the end coming, and in fact, expected something a little bleaker than what King delivers, which is a surprise in and of itself.

I also really enjoyed the reader for this particular audiobook. I was pleasantly surprised by Raúl Esparza’s reading of Under the Dome and had the same reaction to Holter Graham’s reading of UR. (Graham was, apparently, handpicked by King to be the reader of UR. The two had worked together in 1986’s Maximum Overdrive. Graham played Little Leaguer Deke Keller in King’s first and last foray into directing feature films.)

So, if you have been let down by King lately, as I have, give UR a shot. I think you’ll find it the first step on the road leading back to King’s œuvre, and from there I would recommend the audio edition of Under the Dome. King has disappointed me as of late, but I think I am ready to forgive him and welcome him back open-armed into my life.

Doctor Who: The Rising Night, An Exclusive Audio Adventure (Audio)

by Scott Handcock

read by Michelle Ryan

-Doctor Who, Series 4-

(London: BBC Audiobooks, 2009)

MP3 Audiobook, 62.9 MB, 2.2 Hours, Fiction

ISBN: 9781602837638, US$24.95

ABCD Rating: ACQUIRE

From the Cover: When Harry Winter goes out collecting rocks to repair the wall around his father’s farm, he makes a fatal mistake. He disturbs Lucifer’s tombstone, and awakens something demonic and dreadful. The TARDIS arrives in the 18th-Century village of Thornton Rising in the Yorkshire Moors—a village cut off from the world by an all-consuming darkness, where the sun has not risen for three weeks. Farm animals have been attacked, people have gone missing, and strange lights have been seen in the sky. The Doctor soon becomes involved in a nightmarish adventure, helped by a young local woman named Charity. But who is feeding on the blood of the locals, and where will the carnage stop?

My Review: Over New Year’s 2009-2010 I said good-bye to a “friend.” David Tennant signed off as the tenth incarnation of The Doctor. Since taking over the role five years ago, Tennant quickly became a fan favorite and became the most popular Doctor of the series (supplanting perennial fan favorite Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor). (As an aside, I first became acquainted with Doctor Who through Tom Baker’s Doctor on PBS reruns and Baker was “my Doctor” until Tennant stole me away. I’m sorry, is my Geek showing?) Anyway, it was sad to see Tennant go, and while I will give Doctor #11 Matt Smith the benefit of the doubt, he certainly has big shoes to fill (bigger on the inside at least).

So, that brings me to the Doctor Who audiobooks. What better way to relive Tennant’s Doctor than to join him (and sometimes Rose, Martha or Donna) on brand-new adventures? I have listened to five of these audiobooks to date (six including this one), and it never ceases to amaze me how well these authors are able to capture the personality of Tennant’s Doctor, and then how well the various readers (excluding Tennant himself, of course) are able to then convey Tennant’s energetic and manic personality into the audio format. Michelle Ryan is no exception. (Perceptive (and geeky) readers will better know Ryan as Lady Christina de Souza from the Easter 2009 special “Planet of the Dead”).

I think that what I loved best about this story was that it was very reminiscent of the David Tennant Specials (such as “Voyage of the Damned,” “The Next Doctor,” “The Waters of Mars” or “The End of Time”) in that the Tenth Doctor is travelling alone (this particular adventure having happened sometime after having to leave Donna Noble behind) and is gallivanting around Time and Space before landing in 18th-Century Yorkshire and among the events in Thornton Rising.

It is a really fun story and Handcock does a wonderful job of situating this adventure within the established Tennant canon. Even more, though, is that Handcock has created an incredible companion for the Doctor in the character of Charity. She is easily the equal of any of Tennant’s other companions (and, in the case of Rose, an even better companion). I would have liked to have seen more stories with Charity, but alas, the character arc as written by Handcock doesn’t allow for it … or does it? Now that I think about it…

I cannot recommend these audiobooks enough. I have yet to be disappointed by a single one I have listened to, and The Rising Night is no exception. So grab your headphones, cue up your iPod or whatever, and with a hearty allons-y join the Doctor on his latest adventure … you won’t regret it.

Benito Cereno

by Herman Melville

edited by Wyn Kelley

(Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008)

Trade Paperback, 153 Pages, Fiction

ISBN: 9780312452421, US$5.75

ABCD Rating: BACKLIST

From the Cover: Too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literature’s greatest writers. In The Art of the Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time. With its intense mix of mystery, adventure, and a surprise ending, Benito Cereno at first seems merely a provocative example from the genre Herman Melville created with his early best-selling novels of the sea. However, most Melville scholars consider it his most sophisticated work, and many, such as novelist Ralph Ellison, have hailed it as the most piercing look at slavery in all of American literature. Based on a real life incident--the character names remain unchanged—Benito Cereno tells what happens when an American merchant ship comes upon a mysterious Spanish ship where the nearly all-black crew and their white captain are starving and yet hostile to offers of help. Melville’s most focused political work, it is rife with allusions (a ship named after Santo Domingo, site of the slave revolt led by Toussaint L’Ouverture), analogies (does the good-hearted yet obtuse American captain refer to the American character itself?), and mirroring images that deepen our reflections on human oppression and its resultant depravities. It is, in short, a multi-layered masterpiece that rewards repeated readings, and deepens our appreciation of Melville’s genius.

My Review: This is not the first time that I have read Melville’s novella, but it is the first time that I have really understood what it is all about. What Melville has done in Benito is nothing short of amazing. He has taken everything we accept about race and the evidence of our own eyes and completely turns it on its head.

And even more than that, Melville plays with the fact that race is performative and absolutely confirms that idea, showing how one person can completely subvert another’s perceptions and, in this case in a very intricate and elaborate performance, shows how much about race we completely take for granted.

A lot of this subversion comes from the fact that the main character—Captain Amasa Delano—is our main lens through which we view what is happening on the San Dominick and while we are, for the most part, given Delano’s perspective (which the Reader sympathizes and identifies with), as the novellas moves forward, the Reader finds him or herself more and more uncomfortable with what they see Delano seeing (and more importantly, not seeing). The fact that Melville weaves so many levels of a single theme (repression: by Delano, by the Reader, by the Africans in the story) into this novella is amazing, and makes for very complex storytelling. This feeds into an underlying tension of slaves as captors (and vice versa) and how easily this reversal can happen.

Melville trades heavily in repression in Benito Cereno and shows the consequences of repression what you know to be true and what you know to be there. It is a story that, as it progresses, moves further and further away from a black and white world view and into one that is full of grayness. Add to this that Benito contains one of the most frightening and tense shaving scenes you will ever read, and that makes for an incredible tale, by one of the great masters of American letters. I am a huge Melville fan, and Moby-Dick is one of my most favorite novels of his (and of all time) but I have to say that Benito Cereno is quickly gaining on Ahab and the Pequod.

The Look of Android Karenina

So, I’m about 36 hours late in posting this, but Quirk has released the cover art to the Leo Tolstoy-Ben H. Winters’ collaboration Android Karenina (in stores June 8, 2010). Gotta love the steampunk look!

Under the Dome (Audio)

by Stephen King

read by Raúl Esparza

with an Afterword by The Author

(New York: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2009)

MP3 Audiobook, 2.88 GB, 34.4 Hours, Fiction

ISBN: 9780743597302, US$75.00

ABCD Rating: ACQUIRE

From the Cover: On an otherwise normal, beautiful day, the town of Chester’s Mill, Maine is suddenly and inexplicably sealed off from the rest of the world in Under the Dome, Stephen King’s biggest, most riveting novel since The Stand.

My Review: So, I feel like I am in an abusive relationship with Stephen King.

When we first started our relationship together, he was wonderful. He never failed to disappoint, he was intriguing, he had interesting things to say, I enjoyed spending time with him, and even lost track of time when we were together. Then, after fifteen or twenty years of being together, the relationship started to get a little stale, and often we had to fall back on the “good times” we used to have together, and I started looking at other people, even enjoyed spending time with other people. Then, things got violent. He would promise me something new and exciting and I would, like a fool, keep coming back in spite of the fact that I kept getting hurt. However, I kept telling myself that maybe this time it would be different. This time would be more like the early days of our relationship. Yet, in spite of all that I was hurt time and time again, some times painfully hurt. Then, just when I was about to give up entirely on our relationship and begin divorce proceedings, he came to me one more time and told me he was sorry about everything he had done over the last decade or so, and that he really had changed, and look … I can make it just like the old days. Without daring to hope for much, I started to believe what he was telling me and I went crawling back; expecting to be hurt at every turn, but daring to hope that he really had changed.

I think he has … but we’ll get to that in a minute.

After the stinker that was Duma Key and the disappointment that was Just After Sunset I had almost decided that I was going to stick with King’s earlier stuff (i.e. pre-2000) and then the hype surrounding Under the Dome started and I began to believe again … mostly because this was a retooling (and updating) of material that he had started and stopped in the late 70s and early 80s. I got the hardcover from my parents for Christmas and was able to get my hands on the audiobook and decided that that would be a much easier way in which to get through this book (given that I had readings for two classes to do as well as prep and readings for an English 101 class I was teaching and picking up King’s largest book to date (1,074) just didn’t seem feasible).

There is a lot to say about this book and I’ll try to get to it all, but we’ll see. I scrupulously (maybe even neurotically) stayed away from any and all reviews of the book in order to experience it on my own and form my own opinions of it (this was hard to do since I subscribe to a number of not just book blogs but also blogs that are concerned with the horror industry) and as of this writing, I still have not read any outside reviews of the book.

First and foremost, I will unconditionally say that this is the best Stephen King novel in at least the last four or five years (since Cell). Why? Well, since King’s accident in 1999 there has been a change in the tone of King’s novels. Dreamcatcher, From a Buick 8, Lisey’s Story, Duma Key … they’re all much different than, say, The Shining, It, The Stand. They are much more intimate novels, and I don’t know that I can explain it any better than that. They don’t seem as encompassing in their scope as some of King’s prior novels did (the exceptions to that rule are, perhaps, the last three novels in The Dark Tower series). With Under the Dome, though, some of that scope is brought back. This is a much bigger novel than any King has produced recently, not only in length, but also in scope. This is a novel on a par with The Stand and It. (Though as such, it suffers from some of the same problems that those larger novels do) and shows off King’s real talent for creating characters.

Second, this is a long book. That may be the understatement of the year, but I think it still warrants saying. In print it is 1,074 pages long, and in audio it is 34.4 hours long. It takes a major commitment to sit down and read or listen to Under the Dome. It took me 45 days to through it. Often I had to roll back the time on my iPod to remind myself what was going on if it there had been some time between listening sessions. I imagine that reading the book would present some of the same problems, though I would imagine that it would be (1) easier to backtrack in the print edition and (2) the fact that there is not only a map in the front of the book but also a Dramatis Personae list of a kind. (Though, I will say that when I was done with the audiobook and looked at the map in the front of the book, my vision of the geography of Chester’s Mill was much different than that of the map’s, and I’m not even sure that the map’s conforms entirely to King’s descriptions, in that it seems that on the map things are much closer together than they are in the book.)

Third, and this holds true for many of King’s longer books (especially It and The Stand), the build-up in the book is much more exciting than the denouement and conclusion. The set-up to Under the Dome is absolutely brilliant, and King constructs some very interesting inter-personal dynamics as things start to unravel (Second Selectman “Big Jim” Rennie is a good (if somewhat stereotypical) villain (if there was any sort of cosmic justice, he’d be played by the late-J.T. Walsh in any sort of film adaptation of the book)) but when the novel takes 900 pages to set up and only 100 to get out … it was bound to be somewhat disappointing. When the explanation for the dome arrived, I felt quite let down and it seemed more like an original Star Trek episode-like explanation (with Shatner and Nimoy and the rest) than something from Stephen King. But that kind of deus ex machina is what happens in The Stand and It and so I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything different from a novel of similar length, but I was kind of hoping … I was also a little disappointed in the finale of “Big Jim” Rennie’s character. I was hoping for something a little more dramatic, once again, there is a lot of set up but very little pay-off, though one might be able to read a certain amount of karmic intervention in what happens to Rennie.

Fourth. While I miss having the late-Frank Muller growl his way through Under the Dome, and would have thought that either Campbell Scott or Ron McLarty would have been the choice to narrate this tale. I have to admit though, that Raúl Esparza (a new audio Reader to me) does an excellent job of bringing King’s words to life. My one nitpick with his reading though, is that all the children under the age of ten in the book sound like their noses are stuffed up.

What it boils down to is that if King’s next books (he has talked about an eighth Dark Tower book The Wind Through the Keyhole, writing a sequel to The Shining titled Doctor Sleep, a collection of novellas (coming out November 2010) Full Dark, no Stars, and a third part to The Talisman-Black House series) are anything like Under the Dome, I think that I’m prepared take him back, even though he’s hurt me in the past. With Under the Dome he’s promised he won’t hurt me any more.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

by Jon Ronson

(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009)

Trade Paperback, 259 Pages, Nonfiction

ISBN: 9781439181775, US$15.00

ABCD Rating: ACQUIRE

This true story is about what happened when a small group of men—highly placed within the U.S. military, government, and intelligence services—began believing in very strange things

From the Cover: In 1979 a secret unit was established by the most gifted minds within the U.S. Army. Defying all known accepted military practice—and, indeed, the laws of physics—they believed that a soldier could adopt a cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls, and, perhaps, most chillingly, kill goats just by staring at them. Entrusted with defending America from adversaries, they were the First Earth Battalion. And they really weren’t joking. What’s more, they’re back and fighting the War on Terror. With firsthand access to the leading players in the story, Ronson traces the evolution of these bizarre activities over the past three decades and shows how they are alive today within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and in Iraq. Why are they blasting Iraqi prisoners of war with the theme music to Barney the Purple Dinosaur? Why have one hundred debleated goats been secretly placed inside the Special Forces Command Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina? How was the U.S. military associated with the mysterious mass suicide of a cult from San Diego? The Men Who Stare at Goats answers these and many more strange questions.

My Review: I finished this book over a month ago, but I’ve been less than diligent about keeping the blog up-to-date for a number of personal reasons, but I think I am finally in a place where I am ready to reenter the Land of the Blogging, so I’ll do my best to recreate the feelings I had upon finishing this book.

I guess the best way to go about this is to first talk about why I feel that this is a book that merits a rating of Acquire. That stems chiefly from the fact that this is a book that I would go out and spend money on … my copy came from the library, but that’s more a matter of expediency and simple economics than like or dislike … and I do want a copy of Ronson’s book for my shelf. One of the reasons that I feel that way is because this is one of the quirkiest books that I have ever read, and I’ve read some pretty damn quirky books. The story that Ronson uncovers, and how it unfolds is one of the strangest and oddest that has, I would think, ever seen the light of day. How much of it is actually true and how much is governmental smoke-screen is never quite clear and really, I don’t think that matters. The players in this adventure believe it to be true, and (more importantly) Ronson believes it to be true and that is enough for me.

Because, when it comes down to it, what Ronson and those he interviews believe is what drives the story he is telling and what they believe is nothing short of astonishing. I knew—had heard stories—of Cold War-era intelligence community attempts to draft ESP and remote viewing and other “paranormal” or “supernatural” abilities into the service of fighting the battles of the Cold War (both the CIA and KGB are rumored to have done so) but to hear that such abilities have been re-recruited in the wake of 9/11 and in the service of the War on Terror are absolutely amazing.

The stories that come out of those that are involved are also nothing short of amazing. Tales of remote viewing, cloud bursting, “goat staring” and whatnot abound in the book and make for a very interesting lens through which to view the military and intelligence community’s attempt to “keep America safe” in Iraq and Afghanistan (and around the world). It is absolutely unbelievable and yet utterly believable at the same time.

Perhaps, as it is suggested in the book, that all of what Ronson uncovers is an elaborate set of smoke and mirrors to distract journalists and the public from what is really going on in terms of the paranormal anti-terror and “enhanced” interrogation techniques, but that doesn’t make it any less of great read.