Like a band with a great rhythm section but a bad singer, this novel has a great tech nerd pulse that throbs throughout but much of the rest is just unpleasant noise. The plot of an astronaut stranded on Mars grabs you right away. The first person narrative of that astronaut from his daily journal, playful and sarcastic in the face of possible oblivion, keeps you involved between the juicy chunks of science. But it is the science that is that star of THE MARTIAN. The main character must “science the hell” out of his situation in order to survive: from growing crops where there is no soil to creating water to keep those crops and himself alive. The science is presented in such a manner that this reader almost believed he could follow the instructions and survive on Mars. That is quite an achievement as my survival skills are tested every time I lose visual contact with the refrigerator. Famously this book benefitted from a long gestation period during which the author received a lot of input regarding the technical aspects of his plot. Unfortunately, he did not get the same help developing his characters as he did developing his science. Almost every character speaks in the same sarcastic voice—the only way you can recall who is who is by how quickly they get annoyed or how quickly they annoy someone else. I understand that these folks are under tremendous pressure but frankly, most of them come off like a bunch of pricks. And posing the question as to whether billions should be spent to save one guy beyond a paragraph or two would have been nice. The money spent on his rescue could have saved a million lives on earth—yet the global outcry seems only on the side of the lost astronaut. All that being said, the science and plotting compelled me to keep reading with little regret even if I occasionally was tempted to tear out sections of the book and toss them in the trash—conveniently located near the refrigerator.

Seldom are there ever two things that we love just the same. I have always loved both movies and books—but books just a little bit more. Movies are what I see when I look out a great window but books are where I am when I walk out the door—the difference between seeing and believing. So I will admit to some satisfaction each time these two loves cast their spells upon the same material only to hear, “the book” as they usually say “was better”. Sometimes they might be close enough to hash out a competitive balance but rare is the case where the movie blows the book out of the water.* This was certainly the case with A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE—virtually everything that bothered me about the book was either eliminated, changed or improved by the movie. Were these words not the expression of my own reaching fingertips, I would consider them sacrilege. I would never sit still for someone else mentioning the movie version of a book while reviewing that book but I feel compelled as if breaking up a fight between siblings. For everyone’s sake, the sibling in the wrong needs to bow before the sibling who got it right.

The main theme of both versions is reinvention: can someone with A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE reinvent and insert themselves into a peaceful life. In this great pulp conceit, the main character ultimately cannot escape being drawn back toward the shadowy landscape of his past. This idea was appealing enough to draw me to the graphic novel in the first place. A perusal of the art work, black and white line drawings that are ungraceful in the right spots and downright brutal where it counts, also raised expectations. However the actual story lets the idea and the artwork down. Some initial intrigue occurs when the people from the main character’s past first show up on the scene but this gradually dissipates as the bad guys are defined only by their brutality and the good guys by their shallowness. Almost like watching an angry drunk get into a fight with a cardboard cutout. Many things bothered me about the story but the three biggest were (1) main character’s wife is only passably upset that her husband has been lying to her for nearly 20 years (2) the main character’s violent acts were done for the benefit of a beloved relative—whom he immediately abandons and ignores for 20 years and (3) the appearance of someone from the main character’s past at the end of the story is so absolutely ludicrous in this context that it almost swerves everything into Batman & Joker territory. Most disappointed I’ve been in a book in a while. So as much as it pains me to write this, the movie was better. Much better. Much, much better.
*Some other movies that were much better than their books:
BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY
SOMEWHERE IN TIME
AMERICAN PSYCHO

I loved ANT COLONY because it defied me. I assumed as it began that anthropomorphized ants would stand in for the foibles of the human condition and I would be left with a brightly colored sit-com that I’d likely grow weary of before the end. Despite reading a great review, rarely am I enthralled by animals acting human so at best I was kinda hoping for a brightly colored Seinfeld episode. Instead I stumbled into a dazzling mixture of many things I love: Yellow Submarine meets Animal Farm with the dark touches of David Lynch and the light touches of early Woody Allen with Joan Miro attempting pop art and Albert Camus trying to act silly. Took a few pages before I let go and trusted the author—I may have actually been half way through before I let myself realize just how much fun I was having—alternately laughing and being grossed out. Certainly not for everyone, would be less surprised if someone hated it than if they had no opinion at all. The story is less about ants acting human than it is revealing how much of being human is still baseline animalistic. Like the characters of ANT COLONY we are searching for something we can rarely define with legs hopelessly shortened by our lack of empathy, self-awareness and imagination. These bigger themes are couched in art work that seems at first childish (or at least for children) but soon veers into the grotesque and surreal often reminding me of 60’s psychedelic poster art—something very much in my wheelhouse. While ANT COLONY reminded me of many things, it felt like a wholly unique creation.

The first book of a trilogy benefits from presenting a world that is brand new to the reader. A brand new landscape can give your plot wings that it might not otherwise have, or at least distract from the fact that you might be starting off slowly. The trick for the second book then is to move forward without the advantage of being a whole new world. Collins does this quite nicely by viewing that world through newly opened eyes. Very early in the second book, CATCHING FIRE, the life Katniss looked forward to living after surviving the Hunger Games is shattered. It is revealed that the Games continue outside the arena. What she has experienced of life, true of most teenagers, is barely the surface of what is really going on and that forces are at odds behind the scenes that she had no idea were at play. For YA fiction, the book does a very nice job of allowing the creeping ill will of life under a dictatorship to grab the reader and slowly begin to tighten it's grip. A sickening dread pervades the book extending even to the love triangle--Katniss cannot separate her small picture from the larger one. While still prone to teen flights of emotion, Katniss is shown to have grown and when forced into the games again, does so with a new maturity. While the twist at the end of the book was something I suspected was coming, it was not accomplished in a predictable way. If I had a quibble with the follow up, the second half seems a bit rushed. There are a slew of new characters thrust upon the reader and I didn't completely have a grasp on them before the action took off. On the whole though, the seond book works on its own as well as setting up for the final installment.

Reading this hyper packaged graphic collection of unrelated short stories reminded me of a project that might be put together by a bunch of school friends. The idea is fun at the beginning and everyone promises to participate, but in the end many people fail to deliver and the project ends up feeling kind of half-assed. There is, however, usually someone whose talent shows through and their efforts nearly carry the day. In the case of TALES FROM BEYOND SCIENCE, that person is illustrator Rian Hughes. His work illustrating the stories is good but where he shines is the myriad of mock 60’s & 70’s supernatural comic book covers that pepper the book--marvelous images of Stonehenge or the heads from Easter Island coming to life to ravage mankind. Each cover is unique but clearly and cleverly of a type to convey the theme of the book—recreating the 60’s & 70’s American supernatural comic as if they originated in England. While this is mostly achieved, the stories remain lackluster. Mark Miller’s work (my favorite being THE MEN IN RED or THE SECRET MONTH UNDER THE STAIRS) comes off best but even his stories seem a page or two shy of a good thing. Beyond the myriad covers, what makes this feel hyper packaged is the inclusion of 10 pages (a lot in an 86 page book-plus inside the front and back covers) of faux advertisements spoofing the often spoofed ads at the end of comics, i.e. hypnotism, ventriloquism, shrunken heads etc. Humorous for the most part, my favorite being for liquid carpet-CARPETFLO, the net result is that the stories themselves feel like an afterthought. That should certainly never be the case in a story collection. If this book was a house, it would have no floor—nowhere for me to pour out my CARPETFLO.

Growing up not only a baseball fan, but a Dodger fan…Branch Rickey was something of a legend. Much of my life his impact has been difficult to quantify. While baseball players stride the field to show what they can do, General Managers and others behind the scenes often remain intangible, even a mystery. If their teams are successful, General Managers receive credit, if they fail then they receive the blame but seldom is it explained why they deserve either. Branch Rickey is the rare example where just a little digging reveals greatness. Most people if they know his name at all know he contributed to breaking the color barrier in baseball by signing Jackie Robinson to a major-league contract. Less obvious is that he also signed the first Latino superstar Roberto Clemente and instituted the use of the batting helmet, batting cage and pitching machine. With the building of Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida Rickey created the modern spring training facility while his foray in baseball statistics (hiring the first full-time baseball statistician) helped make baseball the stat crazy sport that it is. MONEYBALL, a recent book and movie, tells the story of those who discovered that on base percentage, among other stats, can tell you more about a player’s potential than more traditional stats like batting average and home runs. Branch Rickey was the first to promote that stat 40 years earlier.

Now with that little bit of background, it is easier to see why a book that collects his wisdom might be desirable. This book does a nice job of reflecting that wisdom without a lot of filler or clutter but at the same time it is problematic to even consider this a book or even more so to review it as one. Definitely worth reading in short bursts, Rickey’s mind is considered the template for modern baseball, but even the most ardent baseball fan’s mind will wander after a too many pages of quotes and short descriptions which is generally what this book consists of. If you are a baseball fan, I recommend putting this book somewhere you will pick it up every so often and read a little bit at a time. No matter what era you grew up watching baseball, Rickey’s descriptions of how to pitch, hit and manage will sound as fresh as when you first became a fan. They may even remind you of why you became a fan. That his genius can still be seen in the game of baseball is part of why the sport remains so timeless.