Surprise Book

An unexpected copy of Ken Follett's Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy) just showed up.  What a fun surprise!!  And what a lucky woman I am that there are several people in my life who might have sent it as a treat.  In the end...thanks Dad.  :)

Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

My inlaws got me this book last year for Christmas.  Referred to by some as a "prequel" to Atwood's Oryx and Crake, it takes place during the same time period as that book, with overlapping characters.  I did not like this book as much as O+C because I didn't have thrill of discovering Atwood's creepy universe for the first time.  However, I did enjoy reading it and it kept my attention.  As usual with Atwood's books, I forget between reading them how good a writer/poet she is because her plotting is so good too.

The story follows two women who are surviving after a "waterless flood" apocalypse.  One is trapped inside a high end strip club where girls wear genetically altered lizard skins, and the other is barracaded inside a spa where women would come to get genetically created treatments that help them stay young.  Prior to the flood, both women had sought refuge with God's Gardeners, a splinter eco-friendly religion, but each had reason to leave.  Much of the story takes place in flashbacks to the era leading up to the flood, characterized by violence, "Big Brother" police, and genetically altered foods and products. 

I and am hoping that Atwood decides to return to this universe again with future books.  According to one interview I read, she wrote this one because fans wanted to know what happened after the end of O+C, and because that book was told from a male point of view.  She also commented on how environmental change (even to the degree it's worsened in the past few years) has influenced her to revisit this universe as a cautionary tale.  I wonder what other alternate points of view she could explore in a third novel.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

This is one of the loveliest books I've read in a long time.  I got it from my inlaws several years ago at Christmas but just got around to reading it.  I'm glad to have waited: it was especially good to read now that I have a dog of my own. 

The story is about a family of dog breeders in Wisconsin.  The title character is born mute, but otherwise healthy, and his family includes him into the family business when he is young.  His early life is idyllic, until the untimely death of his father.  When his unstable uncle moves in to help with the business, Edgar's life becomes more difficult. 

Wroblewski created excellent characters and an expertly resolved story line.  The individual dogs even have their own characters, although he doesn't anthropomorphize them - their personalities are canine and neither he nor Edgar assign them human emotions.Where he gets lost a little in the middle of the book with too much detail, it is forgivable, as his character is lost too. 

As my mother said, "not that much happens for more than 300 pages."  I can't say I disagree, except the joy in reading this book is not about a thickly plotted narrative - its about the description of how dogs are raised, how children are raised, and how people and dogs can form exceptional bonds.  It was the dog book I was hoping to find.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

This is not a book to take lightly.  At 900+ pages, it has intimidated me from my bookcase for years.  As a techie, I've always known that I should read it for "street cred" but it seemed overwhelming, even for a voracious reader like me.  However, on the way out the door on the way to Iceland, I stuck it in my suitcase, figuring maybe on vacation I could plow through it. 

The copy that I have is one I swiped off my dad's desk during a trip home a couple years back.  He says its from his friend Stu, but there is an inscription in the front to "B-squared" thanking said recipient for all his help with math tutoring.  I have no idea who that is but it was nice to read a book that someone had received as a gift.

I started to read The Book of Dave: A Novel in Iceland and knew by page 30 that I was not going to finish it.  It's still sitting in a hotel room in Reykjavik.  With a deep breath and high hopes, I turned to Cryptonomicon.  Cryptonomicon was published in May of 1999, right around when I graduated college.  It's a wild book - alternating between WWII, where a group of Americans have broken the German Enigma code but have to pretend they haven't, and the current day, where a small group of entrepenuers are trying to build a "data safe haven" in the Philipines as the Internet is becoming more relevant to globalization.

I am not sure what is more impressive, Stephanson's attention to detail in his character development (which can be pages long just to make a small point) or his prescience in technology.  He describes several technologies that I don't remember from 1999, including cameras in laptops and handheld Internet devices.  He also predicts Internet currency which hasn't come to pass but I wouldn't bet against.

Another fun part of reading the book is his depiction of famous people - a tactic I am not always a fan of in fiction.  However, I could hardly dislike his rendering of Alan Turing or General McArthur as they came alive on the page.  Also notable was his collection of codes and mathematics in the text.  Most memorable is a particular code that was created for the book by a favorite techie of mine, Bruce Schneier.

And all of these components of a book come together in something that reads like a Tom Clancy novel with a little didactic Jostein Gaarder thrown in.  I'd say reading this is a rite of passage for geeks and for WWII buffs.  For everyone else it may not be worth the effort.