The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman
Category: Connect Stories Grade: B
This is not one of Hoffman's better outings. While pitched as a novel (the actual title is The Third Angel: A Novel), the book is actually three connected novellas or long short stories. The stories are connected so they need to be read together. They're chronologically backwards. The first story takes place today while the next two each take characters from the prior story, jump back 20-30 years and tell a new story. This artifact means that some of the references made in the first story don't make much sense until you reach the end of the book when things snap in to place. I guess that's an interesting technique to use but the net result is that the first story wasn't terribly interesting as you read it. With the "snap", things get better - I'd have probably given the book at best a "C" after the first story - but never quite make it to the level of some of her past efforts, especially Practical Magic.
If she has to use the title to tell us the book's a novel, it's probably got a problem.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Child 44
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
Category: Novel Grade: A-
It's usually tough to try to mix genres in a single book. Smith isn't quite sure what he wants this book to be - political commentary on 1950s USSR? murder mystery? love story? the next Silence of the Lambs? Surprisingly, for reasons I can't quite figure out, the mishmash works. Smith has produced a real page-turner.
Ultimately, this book is mostly about life under a totalitarian regime - the Soviet Union of the 1950s. It's really pretty terrifying to watch people try to live a normal life when every utterance could be a crime against the state; when to be accused was to be convicted. With power given to some of the worst elements of society, arbitrariness and personal vendettas are played out in scenes of torture and roundups. Our hero is a secret police agent who is slapped in the face by the fact that his latest arrest is so clearly innocent of the crimes with which he is charged. This makes him question all of the people he has sent to their deaths or the Gulags in his career. Once he loses the view that the state is infallible, his life slowly crumbles.
The framework that we're given around which the action pivots is a string of murders of children. Each individual murder is "solved" by pinning the blame on a convenient "degenerate" chosen from the ranks of local homosexuals and, occasionally, mentally ill, but usually harmless folks. Officially, of course, the Communist regime has solved societies problems so crimes, other than crimes against the state, no longer exist. To look for patterns that might point to brutal murder is to question the effectiveness of the state and is, therefore, a crime itself. So this long, horrible string of murders (look to the book's title to see how bad) continues.
The book definitely has some weaknesses as you'd expect from a first novel. The ending is pretty weak being dependent on pretty silly coincidences. The author also has a tendency to switch perspective between paragraphs which can get annoying at times. These flaws aside, the book holds up well. I'll definitely give Smith a second chance when his next book comes out.
Category: Novel Grade: A-
It's usually tough to try to mix genres in a single book. Smith isn't quite sure what he wants this book to be - political commentary on 1950s USSR? murder mystery? love story? the next Silence of the Lambs? Surprisingly, for reasons I can't quite figure out, the mishmash works. Smith has produced a real page-turner.
Ultimately, this book is mostly about life under a totalitarian regime - the Soviet Union of the 1950s. It's really pretty terrifying to watch people try to live a normal life when every utterance could be a crime against the state; when to be accused was to be convicted. With power given to some of the worst elements of society, arbitrariness and personal vendettas are played out in scenes of torture and roundups. Our hero is a secret police agent who is slapped in the face by the fact that his latest arrest is so clearly innocent of the crimes with which he is charged. This makes him question all of the people he has sent to their deaths or the Gulags in his career. Once he loses the view that the state is infallible, his life slowly crumbles.
The framework that we're given around which the action pivots is a string of murders of children. Each individual murder is "solved" by pinning the blame on a convenient "degenerate" chosen from the ranks of local homosexuals and, occasionally, mentally ill, but usually harmless folks. Officially, of course, the Communist regime has solved societies problems so crimes, other than crimes against the state, no longer exist. To look for patterns that might point to brutal murder is to question the effectiveness of the state and is, therefore, a crime itself. So this long, horrible string of murders (look to the book's title to see how bad) continues.
The book definitely has some weaknesses as you'd expect from a first novel. The ending is pretty weak being dependent on pretty silly coincidences. The author also has a tendency to switch perspective between paragraphs which can get annoying at times. These flaws aside, the book holds up well. I'll definitely give Smith a second chance when his next book comes out.
Monday, May 19, 2008
The Kindle - a new way to read
I've recently joined a book club and have decided not to review the books that we'll read for the club discussions. So, I'll skip the review for the last book I read - The Open Road by Pico Iyer. Instead, I'm going to talk a little about my new toy.
I've seen a lot of talk about "eBook readers" -- hand-held electronic devices for reading books -- over the last few years and, since last fall, some pretty positive reviews of Amazon's new device called the Kindle. The device was so wildly popular since it's launch that they've been impossible to get. So, when I got an email from Amazon a few weeks ago saying that they were finally caught up and had immediate availability, I decided to take the plunge. I've never been much of a fan of reading things on my computer screen. As much of a techie as I am, I still have a tendency to print documents and read them on paper. Even so - a new toy is a new toy and, after a few clicks and waiting a few days, my new Kindle arrived on my doorstep.
The first thing you notice, even before you open the package, is that the Kindle weighs almost nothing. The device, on the surface, is about the size of a trade paperback book and just over a half inch thick. The display takes up about two thirds of the device leaving room for a full keyboard. The second thing you notice is that, obviously, somebody who actually reads books has been deeply involved in designing not only the device, but the experience. When I powered up the device, the screen was already labeled "Marc's Kindle" and one of the documents on it was a letter labeled "Welcome Marc" from Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon. While these seem like just cute touches, the implication was refreshing -- no long registration process to go through; no details to supply - since I bought the device from Amazon and they already know me, my Kindle was already my Kindle and was synced with my Amazon account.
OK - so no registration, but how hard was it to actually get something to read on to this device. The first pleasant surprise was that I didn't have to hook the Kindle to my computer or even to my Internet access. The device uses cellular service so it's all set to go - no communications subscription required. Even at the lake where cellular service is weak, I had no problem getting started. It came up on a screen that let me search for available books (there are about 150,000 so far). I typed the author's name using the small but usable keyboard, and up popped a list of the author's books, including the one I wanted. One more click (using a clever, scroll wheel, sidebar cursor - trust me on this one) and I had purchased the book. Within 2-3 minutes the entire book had been delivered and was ready to read. (Note - you can also shop on Amazon with your computer and just tell it you want the Kindle edition. By the time, you get back to your Kindle, the book will be there.) While you can add memory cards to get more capacity, as it ships, the Kindle will hold roughly 200 books.
Great so it's easy to use. Still, ultimately, the only value for a book reader is, well, to actually be able to read books. So now I had my first book and was ready to give it a shot. I selected the book and up popped the first page. On first glance, the display technology is amazing. The device uses what's called eInk - a very high contrast display. On second, third and 50th glance, still amazing. I'm halfway through my second book and reading the display is like reading paper - none of the typical computer screen eye strain. There's no back light which makes it easier on the eyes - though, of course, it means you can't read in the dark. The contrast is strong enough that regardless of the ambient light (including in sun light), I've got no issues with the display quality. It's a little annoying when you move to the next page because there's a sort of flash as the previous page is erased. Surprisingly, I stopped noticing this very quickly. One great side affect of using a display is that it's trivial to change the size of the print. While this is terrific for folks who are starting to need "big print" books, it's good even for the rest of us. I've found myself, after a long day staring at a computer screen, picking up my Kindle and bumping the font size to make it easier to read.
How about the reading "mechanics". Turning a page is easy - there are big "next page" buttons on both sides of the screen, tapered downward to make them feel more natural. If anything, it's a little too easy to flip pages and, once in a while, I find myself flipping forward at the wrong time. On the left side of the screen, there's a big "prev page" button to go backwards so it's not a big deal and a problem that seems to be diminishing with familiarity. The size and shape of the Kindle adds some unexpected advantages - since there's only one screen (where a book has two at a time), one handed reading is far easier, especially given the extremely light weight. The single screen also makes "awkward position" reading - like lying on your side - far easier.
One great feature, especially if you're reading for a purpose - work, a book club, learning - it's trivial to annotate. It was hammered in to me growing up to have respect for books - not just what was in them, but the physical book itself. For that reason, I've always had problems with highlighting, writing notes in the margin or, most painfully, dog-earing. With the Kindle, it's easy to do all these things without damaging the book. You then get a separate area you can go to that'll let you see your highlights and notes and jump directly to the spot in the book that you wanted to remember. Another advantage -- once you have highlighted a section of text, with a couple of clicks, you can bring up the definitions of all the words in the section using the built in dictionary.
The device also has a moderately featured web-browser and an mp3 player built-in, along with the ability to subscribe to various newspapers, magazines and blogs. In addition, there is a very simple way that you can take documents of certain types from your computer and have them moved to your Kindle - a great way to keep lots of documents you need for work or travel. I haven't played with these features yet.
So far, the battery life has been a non-issue. Most of the time, you can leave the wireless access off - a simple, easy to access switch - and increase the time between charges. With wireless mostly off, I'm halfway through my second book with only a single recharge - i.e. it'll give you at least a full book on a single charge.
As always, no device - especially a first release - is perfect and this one is no exception. The few minor quibbles I've got with the device itself include (1) as mentioned above, there's a sort of flash when you change pages, (2) the button arrangement is a little funny with different size buttons on each side, (3) the buttons aren't configurable - it'd be nice to make a few harder to use, (4) the fake leather cover that ships with the Kindle is terrible, but I've ordered a better one.
The one big downside of the Kindle is, of course, price. The device currently sells for $400. That may come down but it's more likely that the price will stay up there for a while as they add features. If you read a lot and buy a lot of books, the price shouldn't be a barrier at all for a simple reason -- the cost of the books that you buy are dramatically lower. Current best-sellers that, in hardback, would sell for $25-30 are $10. I have yet to pay more than $14 for a book and lots of older titles are available for as little as $3-4. For a reader like me, that means the device will pay for itself in less than a year.
As you can tell, I'm really high on the Kindle. It's the first eBook reader I've seen that actually appears viable. That said, however, there are downsides to the whole eBook experience. I made my first post-Kindle trip to a bookstore a few days ago and was kind of lost. I kept seeing books I was interested in but didn't want to buy so that I could get the Kindle edition. For the first time in ages, I walked out of a book store without a purchase. In addition, since there's no physical book, you can't pass on your latest discovery to a friend. Finally, while there are already a whole lot of Kindle compatible books out there, not every book is available.
I obviously highly recommend this device - especially to a few groups of folks - those who read a lot; those who buy books as soon as they're released; those who need a little larger font size; those who carry their books around with them. Amazon's stated design goal for the Kindle was that it should "disappear" after a few uses - it should just be a book - surprisingly, they seem to have largely succeeded.
Ask me for a demo next time you see me. I love showing off new toys.
I've seen a lot of talk about "eBook readers" -- hand-held electronic devices for reading books -- over the last few years and, since last fall, some pretty positive reviews of Amazon's new device called the Kindle. The device was so wildly popular since it's launch that they've been impossible to get. So, when I got an email from Amazon a few weeks ago saying that they were finally caught up and had immediate availability, I decided to take the plunge. I've never been much of a fan of reading things on my computer screen. As much of a techie as I am, I still have a tendency to print documents and read them on paper. Even so - a new toy is a new toy and, after a few clicks and waiting a few days, my new Kindle arrived on my doorstep.
The first thing you notice, even before you open the package, is that the Kindle weighs almost nothing. The device, on the surface, is about the size of a trade paperback book and just over a half inch thick. The display takes up about two thirds of the device leaving room for a full keyboard. The second thing you notice is that, obviously, somebody who actually reads books has been deeply involved in designing not only the device, but the experience. When I powered up the device, the screen was already labeled "Marc's Kindle" and one of the documents on it was a letter labeled "Welcome Marc" from Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon. While these seem like just cute touches, the implication was refreshing -- no long registration process to go through; no details to supply - since I bought the device from Amazon and they already know me, my Kindle was already my Kindle and was synced with my Amazon account.
OK - so no registration, but how hard was it to actually get something to read on to this device. The first pleasant surprise was that I didn't have to hook the Kindle to my computer or even to my Internet access. The device uses cellular service so it's all set to go - no communications subscription required. Even at the lake where cellular service is weak, I had no problem getting started. It came up on a screen that let me search for available books (there are about 150,000 so far). I typed the author's name using the small but usable keyboard, and up popped a list of the author's books, including the one I wanted. One more click (using a clever, scroll wheel, sidebar cursor - trust me on this one) and I had purchased the book. Within 2-3 minutes the entire book had been delivered and was ready to read. (Note - you can also shop on Amazon with your computer and just tell it you want the Kindle edition. By the time, you get back to your Kindle, the book will be there.) While you can add memory cards to get more capacity, as it ships, the Kindle will hold roughly 200 books.
Great so it's easy to use. Still, ultimately, the only value for a book reader is, well, to actually be able to read books. So now I had my first book and was ready to give it a shot. I selected the book and up popped the first page. On first glance, the display technology is amazing. The device uses what's called eInk - a very high contrast display. On second, third and 50th glance, still amazing. I'm halfway through my second book and reading the display is like reading paper - none of the typical computer screen eye strain. There's no back light which makes it easier on the eyes - though, of course, it means you can't read in the dark. The contrast is strong enough that regardless of the ambient light (including in sun light), I've got no issues with the display quality. It's a little annoying when you move to the next page because there's a sort of flash as the previous page is erased. Surprisingly, I stopped noticing this very quickly. One great side affect of using a display is that it's trivial to change the size of the print. While this is terrific for folks who are starting to need "big print" books, it's good even for the rest of us. I've found myself, after a long day staring at a computer screen, picking up my Kindle and bumping the font size to make it easier to read.
How about the reading "mechanics". Turning a page is easy - there are big "next page" buttons on both sides of the screen, tapered downward to make them feel more natural. If anything, it's a little too easy to flip pages and, once in a while, I find myself flipping forward at the wrong time. On the left side of the screen, there's a big "prev page" button to go backwards so it's not a big deal and a problem that seems to be diminishing with familiarity. The size and shape of the Kindle adds some unexpected advantages - since there's only one screen (where a book has two at a time), one handed reading is far easier, especially given the extremely light weight. The single screen also makes "awkward position" reading - like lying on your side - far easier.
One great feature, especially if you're reading for a purpose - work, a book club, learning - it's trivial to annotate. It was hammered in to me growing up to have respect for books - not just what was in them, but the physical book itself. For that reason, I've always had problems with highlighting, writing notes in the margin or, most painfully, dog-earing. With the Kindle, it's easy to do all these things without damaging the book. You then get a separate area you can go to that'll let you see your highlights and notes and jump directly to the spot in the book that you wanted to remember. Another advantage -- once you have highlighted a section of text, with a couple of clicks, you can bring up the definitions of all the words in the section using the built in dictionary.
The device also has a moderately featured web-browser and an mp3 player built-in, along with the ability to subscribe to various newspapers, magazines and blogs. In addition, there is a very simple way that you can take documents of certain types from your computer and have them moved to your Kindle - a great way to keep lots of documents you need for work or travel. I haven't played with these features yet.
So far, the battery life has been a non-issue. Most of the time, you can leave the wireless access off - a simple, easy to access switch - and increase the time between charges. With wireless mostly off, I'm halfway through my second book with only a single recharge - i.e. it'll give you at least a full book on a single charge.
As always, no device - especially a first release - is perfect and this one is no exception. The few minor quibbles I've got with the device itself include (1) as mentioned above, there's a sort of flash when you change pages, (2) the button arrangement is a little funny with different size buttons on each side, (3) the buttons aren't configurable - it'd be nice to make a few harder to use, (4) the fake leather cover that ships with the Kindle is terrible, but I've ordered a better one.
The one big downside of the Kindle is, of course, price. The device currently sells for $400. That may come down but it's more likely that the price will stay up there for a while as they add features. If you read a lot and buy a lot of books, the price shouldn't be a barrier at all for a simple reason -- the cost of the books that you buy are dramatically lower. Current best-sellers that, in hardback, would sell for $25-30 are $10. I have yet to pay more than $14 for a book and lots of older titles are available for as little as $3-4. For a reader like me, that means the device will pay for itself in less than a year.
As you can tell, I'm really high on the Kindle. It's the first eBook reader I've seen that actually appears viable. That said, however, there are downsides to the whole eBook experience. I made my first post-Kindle trip to a bookstore a few days ago and was kind of lost. I kept seeing books I was interested in but didn't want to buy so that I could get the Kindle edition. For the first time in ages, I walked out of a book store without a purchase. In addition, since there's no physical book, you can't pass on your latest discovery to a friend. Finally, while there are already a whole lot of Kindle compatible books out there, not every book is available.
I obviously highly recommend this device - especially to a few groups of folks - those who read a lot; those who buy books as soon as they're released; those who need a little larger font size; those who carry their books around with them. Amazon's stated design goal for the Kindle was that it should "disappear" after a few uses - it should just be a book - surprisingly, they seem to have largely succeeded.
Ask me for a demo next time you see me. I love showing off new toys.
The Man Who Made Lists
The Man Who Made Lists by Joshua Kendall
Category: Biography/history Grade: A-
There are very few books or category of books that are identifiable solely by some one's name. If I tell you to go look up a word in your Johnson's, you'll probably give me a blank stare. On the other hand, if you have more than a 4th grade education and I give you the same instruction, but tell you to look up the word in your Roget's, you immediately know what I'm talking about. Not sure many of us would have made it through school without using the same few words over and over without this handy catalog of synonyms. That said, it hadn't ever really occurred to me that I know absolutely nothing about the man who created this reference.
Kendall, in his first book, sets out to correct that and ends up writing a thoroughly entertaining story. The sub-title of the book sums it up pretty well -- Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus. The story takes place in the late 18th century. In the description, Peter Mark Roget grew up as a fairly typical nerd. He's the kind of kid that would never get off the computer today. Even though his masterwork didn't get published until he was elderly, the seeds are there as we see the classification phobia of a boy who's organizing of words, and then plants and animals, was a tool he used to fight off depression and loneliness. There's a strong history of insanity in the boy's family - several suicides and a mother and sister who were, for long periods, clinically insane.
Surprisingly, for someone so known for his literary impact, Roget turns out to have been a medical man and, unusual for the time, actually an educated, trained medical man. He spent years in a medical practice until, for lack of modern tools, he was unable to save the life of an uncle who was, for all practical purposes, Roget's father. After that, he retreated in to academia and became one of the more successful lecturers and authors of the day. It was only in retirement, probably once again to stave off madness, that he completed the project for which he became famous.
Kendall has done a great job of making this man's life interesting and entertaining. Roget is probably one of the more subtly influential people of the last 3 or 4 centuries. Kendall brings him to life.
Category: Biography/history Grade: A-
There are very few books or category of books that are identifiable solely by some one's name. If I tell you to go look up a word in your Johnson's, you'll probably give me a blank stare. On the other hand, if you have more than a 4th grade education and I give you the same instruction, but tell you to look up the word in your Roget's, you immediately know what I'm talking about. Not sure many of us would have made it through school without using the same few words over and over without this handy catalog of synonyms. That said, it hadn't ever really occurred to me that I know absolutely nothing about the man who created this reference.
Kendall, in his first book, sets out to correct that and ends up writing a thoroughly entertaining story. The sub-title of the book sums it up pretty well -- Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus. The story takes place in the late 18th century. In the description, Peter Mark Roget grew up as a fairly typical nerd. He's the kind of kid that would never get off the computer today. Even though his masterwork didn't get published until he was elderly, the seeds are there as we see the classification phobia of a boy who's organizing of words, and then plants and animals, was a tool he used to fight off depression and loneliness. There's a strong history of insanity in the boy's family - several suicides and a mother and sister who were, for long periods, clinically insane.
Surprisingly, for someone so known for his literary impact, Roget turns out to have been a medical man and, unusual for the time, actually an educated, trained medical man. He spent years in a medical practice until, for lack of modern tools, he was unable to save the life of an uncle who was, for all practical purposes, Roget's father. After that, he retreated in to academia and became one of the more successful lecturers and authors of the day. It was only in retirement, probably once again to stave off madness, that he completed the project for which he became famous.
Kendall has done a great job of making this man's life interesting and entertaining. Roget is probably one of the more subtly influential people of the last 3 or 4 centuries. Kendall brings him to life.
The Good Rat
The Good Rat: A True Story by Jimmy Breslin
Category: True Crime Grade: C
We can make this one quick. This is the true story of the testimony of Burton Caplan, a "canary" that sings about some crooked cops in Brooklyn who did murder and other work for a hire for the mob. Breslin's point seems to be that the Mafia just isn't terribly exciting or interesting any more. He's right - the book is proof.
Category: True Crime Grade: C
We can make this one quick. This is the true story of the testimony of Burton Caplan, a "canary" that sings about some crooked cops in Brooklyn who did murder and other work for a hire for the mob. Breslin's point seems to be that the Mafia just isn't terribly exciting or interesting any more. He's right - the book is proof.
The Philosopher's Apprentice
The Philosopher's Apprentice by James Morrow
Category: Satire Grade: A
This novel is pretty close to a masterpiece but, unfortunately, one that I can't recommend to too many people. If you've been following this blog for a while, you may remember that I started reading Morrow with a book called Towing Jehovah - in which a group finds God's body in the Pacific and tows it back to Florida to turn it in to a theme park. Much like that one, you've got to have a tolerance for a high level of sacrilege and plain old weirdness to appreciate most of Morrow's books. He seemed to signal a shift in genre to historical fiction with his last book, The Last Witchfinder, that, with a few exceptions, played it pretty straight. Given the title of this book, that's kind of what I was expecting - less satire, more "serious literature".
The book starts out headed in that direction when the lead character storms out of his dissertation defense and gives up the chance of earning his PhD in philosophy. A few hours later, while drowning his problems in a pitcher, he's approached by a stranger who offers him what sounds like a dream job -- high salary, living on a tropical island, tutoring a single student. He's told that his student, a 15 year old girl, was in an accident and has a form of amnesia that leaves her with no moral sensibility. So far, it sounds like a great set up for a serious foray in to the works of all kinds of philosophers. There's plenty of that, but very quickly we're flying off on all kinds of tangents.
I try to avoid putting a lot of plot detail in to these reviews so that the books isn't ruined for everybody, but - spoiler alert - I'm going to give a quick overview of some the directions we go since, frankly, I think it's a good idea to scare most of you off from reading this one. OK, so, not surprisingly, our 15 year old is not an amnesiac. Soon after arriving on the island the hero meets the girl's "mother", a brilliant geneticist. The woman has a terminal disease but wants to have a broad ranging motherhood experience. So she and a colleague have invented a machine that can take a cloned embryo and grow it in a vat to any desired age while, at the same time, pumping the child full of encyclopedic knowledge. At various places on the island, the woman has a 6 year old daughter, an 11 year old and a 15 year old - well, not daughters really; sisters?
The oldest girl, thanks to our tutor hero, gains a fully, maybe over- developed moral sense and becomes the brilliant head of a massive feminist cult. Our hero comes in and out of her life as she does one outrageous thing after the other. Inevitably, there's a right-wing counter-conspiracy that, having stolen the cloning vat, engineers the wildest and most effective social protest ever. We also have a long story arch about the hijacking of an exact replica of the Titanic during which all the first class swells are sent to do the ship's scut work and the maids and butlers are moved to the first class quarters.
Hopefully, this is enough to convince most of you not to go looking for this book. For those few I haven't scared off, I really recommend this book. It's fast-paced, well-written, hilarious in places and definitely makes you think -- all the makings of a classic satire. If you can just get past the weirdness...
Category: Satire Grade: A
This novel is pretty close to a masterpiece but, unfortunately, one that I can't recommend to too many people. If you've been following this blog for a while, you may remember that I started reading Morrow with a book called Towing Jehovah - in which a group finds God's body in the Pacific and tows it back to Florida to turn it in to a theme park. Much like that one, you've got to have a tolerance for a high level of sacrilege and plain old weirdness to appreciate most of Morrow's books. He seemed to signal a shift in genre to historical fiction with his last book, The Last Witchfinder, that, with a few exceptions, played it pretty straight. Given the title of this book, that's kind of what I was expecting - less satire, more "serious literature".
The book starts out headed in that direction when the lead character storms out of his dissertation defense and gives up the chance of earning his PhD in philosophy. A few hours later, while drowning his problems in a pitcher, he's approached by a stranger who offers him what sounds like a dream job -- high salary, living on a tropical island, tutoring a single student. He's told that his student, a 15 year old girl, was in an accident and has a form of amnesia that leaves her with no moral sensibility. So far, it sounds like a great set up for a serious foray in to the works of all kinds of philosophers. There's plenty of that, but very quickly we're flying off on all kinds of tangents.
I try to avoid putting a lot of plot detail in to these reviews so that the books isn't ruined for everybody, but - spoiler alert - I'm going to give a quick overview of some the directions we go since, frankly, I think it's a good idea to scare most of you off from reading this one. OK, so, not surprisingly, our 15 year old is not an amnesiac. Soon after arriving on the island the hero meets the girl's "mother", a brilliant geneticist. The woman has a terminal disease but wants to have a broad ranging motherhood experience. So she and a colleague have invented a machine that can take a cloned embryo and grow it in a vat to any desired age while, at the same time, pumping the child full of encyclopedic knowledge. At various places on the island, the woman has a 6 year old daughter, an 11 year old and a 15 year old - well, not daughters really; sisters?
The oldest girl, thanks to our tutor hero, gains a fully, maybe over- developed moral sense and becomes the brilliant head of a massive feminist cult. Our hero comes in and out of her life as she does one outrageous thing after the other. Inevitably, there's a right-wing counter-conspiracy that, having stolen the cloning vat, engineers the wildest and most effective social protest ever. We also have a long story arch about the hijacking of an exact replica of the Titanic during which all the first class swells are sent to do the ship's scut work and the maids and butlers are moved to the first class quarters.
Hopefully, this is enough to convince most of you not to go looking for this book. For those few I haven't scared off, I really recommend this book. It's fast-paced, well-written, hilarious in places and definitely makes you think -- all the makings of a classic satire. If you can just get past the weirdness...
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