First Contact: Or, It's Later Than You Think by Evan Mandery - B+

The aspiring screenwriter ("Justin") walks in to the office of the lower level studio exec ("Rob").

Rob:  So, Justin, Mr. Brooks says that you have a screenplay that we'd find interesting.

Justin:  Yeah, Mr. Brooks fell in love with the idea.

[Note:  Mr. Brooks is Justin's father-in-law and the head of the studio.  Mr. Brooks thinks that Justin is a moron and that his daughter, Trudy, is even more of a moron for marrying him.]

Rob:  So tell me about it.

Justin:  Well, it's kind of like Slaughterhouse Five meets Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  You know, the satire of Vonnegut meets the fantasy of Douglas Adams.

Rob:  But those guys are novelists, not screenwriters.

Justin:  EXACTLY!  That's what makes this so exciting!

Rob:  Story?

Justin:  Aliens contact the United States.  Turns out that the alien planet is very friendly and easy going.  But the US President thinks he's missing something and authorizes an attack on the alien planet.  There are some other side stories taking place on the alien planet, etc.  The main character is an aide to the President.  There's action, space travel, humorous subplots, it's a fun read, er, story.

Rob:  Sounds more like a novel than a screenplay.

Justin:  That's why this is so innovative.

Rob:  Sounds like a winner.  Let's make a movie!

Justin:  Great, thanks!

Rob:  I'll give you a call to network and talk about leads.

Justin:  I'm thinking Brad Pitt.

[Justin departs.  Rob throws the screenplay on the top of a pile three feet high and forgets about it.  He never hears from Mr. Brooks who thinks Justin is a moron.]

First Contact is a fun read.  If you like Vonnegut and Douglas Adams, you'll really enjoy First Contact.  The satire is not nearly as biting as Vonnegut, but Vonnegut was, of course, brilliant.  If you do not like Sci Fi, you will hate First Contact.  If you want a "serious" read, you will hate First Contact.  If you like short fun reads, give it a try.

Live long, read and prosper.  We'll leave the lights on for you.

Post 100 - I'm in Love - Back from Fishin'

The book diary, er, blog has reached Post No. 100.  The blog started for the purpose of giving and receiving book recommendations, hopefully with and from like-minded readers.  100 posts in, I think that the blog serves primarily to memorialize what I have read in a style that only I find entertaining.  But I digress.  [Can one digress when communicating with oneself?  Discuss.]

If you have read earlier posts, you may know that about a year ago (October 21, 2009, to be exact), I blogged that my experiment with Kindle 1 was not successful.  I actually re-sold it on Craig's List.

I just read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and finished The Hunger Games (blog entries pending) on my new Kindle 3G and Wi-Fi, and I love it.  I've gotten past the "where am I in the book" issue.  Still don't love it, but I can deal.  Some of my favorite features so far:

1.  The built-in dictionary.  The ability to scroll over a word and have the meaning pop-up is a feature I have used multiple times already.

2.  Searching.  You can search for a word or phrase within a document or a book.

3.  The built-in Kindle manual.  Not sure how to do something on the Kindle?  Easy enough to pull up the manual and search for whatever.

4.  The Kindle cover that I selected.  A built-in book light?  They really did think of everything.

More on the Kindle as I continue to explore.  Also, blog entries for the two books listed above and others will be forthcoming, hopefully this holiday week.

Live long, read and prosper.  We'll leave the lights on for you.

The Instructions by Adam Levine - B

This is a tough blog entry for me.  Possibly the toughest that I have posted.  Why?  Because I wanted to love this novel.  This behemoth of a novel.  This dictionary (as several people called it when seeing me carrying it) of a novel.

100 pages in, I thought the novel was brilliant.  200 pages in, I thought the novel would be in the running to become my favorite all-time book.  600 pages in, I was still loving it.

Fact is, I didn’t love the last 300+ pages.  I wanted to, I really did.  As my enthusiasm for the book waned in those last 300+ pages, I went through all five stages of grief:

• Denial:  “This novel is still really really good.”
• Anger:  “No.  No.  Noooooooooooooooo!”
• Bargaining:  “OK.  If just this happens, I’ll continue to love this novel unconditionally.”
• Depression:  “What a letdown.  I’m really sad.”
• Acceptance:  “It’s ok.  It’s ok.”

The Instructions purports to be scripture written by the protagonist, Gurion Maccabee, and tells the story of how Maccabee, who is at least a child prodigy and at most the messiah (Gurion is also the narrator so the theme of how reliable he is at telling his own story is only one of many themes) recruits allies and tries to cripple what he sees as an unjust and unfair school system.  All of the action takes place in a four-day period.

Maccabee is Jewish, and many of the themes and references in the novel are Jewish-related.  I suppose that you could call The Instructions “Jewish fiction,” and I want to make sure that if you commit to this novel, you are not turned off by my failure to highlight this.

Despite the fact that I didn’t love the last quarter of the novel, I greatly enjoyed this read.  I’d almost have to do so to work my way through 1,030 pages.  Let me break this down:

• The Good:  Listen, Adam Levine is a phenomenal writer.  Rich, dense language.  Many times, I found myself doubling back and being grateful for doing so because I would have missed something.  A large part of me wanted to start the novel all over again because I know that I missed things.  I also know that much of the novel was “over my head.”  There’s plenty that I missed, and I would have liked to have read this novel in graduate school so that I could spend a couple of months studying it.  Great characters that will stick with you.  Many thought-provoking themes.
• The Bad:  I’ve got kids these kids’ ages, and I can buy one child prodigy (Gurion), but not only are most of these kids too smart for their ages, they’re wise well beyond their years.  [As indicated above, I have a real narrator reliability issue here.  I think that, on many levels, that’s part of the point of the novel, but to disregard the narrator’s reliability in total is to trivialize 1,030 pages of text.  So I can’t do that, either.]  If you’re looking for plot development (there is plenty of character development), you don’t get a whole lot until the last “act.”  Remember, the “action” takes place over a four day period.  Literary, religious and cultural references are strewn throughout, and I have no idea whether I caught 10%, 25%, 50% or 90% of them—I clearly didn’t catch 100%.  You have to be very well-read to catch them all.

The bottom line is that there is a tremendous amount here.  In the end, I asked myself, “Was it worth it?  Was it worth the time investment?”  For me, unquestionably yes.  I’m glad that I committed to The Instructions.

Live long, read and prosper.  We’ll leave the lights on for you.

Bear With Me

I am thisclose to finishing The Instructions, a 1,030 page behemoth.

Then, I'm going away, with my brand spanking new Kindle (the behemoth is not available for the Kindle, but I digress), and you know how I often come back from a holiday (albeit that this one will be brief) with a cornucopia of blog material.  So, bear with me.

I will preview my The Instructions blog entry, if only to say that I could not disagree with this NYT Sunday Book Review more.  I don't know if it's him (Joshua Cohen, the reviewer) or me.  But I suspect that it's just what makes the world go 'round.

Live long, read and prosper.  We'll leave the lights on for you.