Books I read in Sep 2011 (part 1 of 2)

Why the delay? I already said in the previous posts. 😛

BOOKS!

Oh, my! I haven't updated to you my list of read books for a month! 

Currently re-reading: Bear Island by Alistair Maclean. Don't ask me why; I've always thought this was one of his worst books. That said, it's better than many people's good books. It's just that when every motion on the ship is described with a synonym of 'stagger', it gets a bit ... seasick. Fortunately, they will all (except the dead guys) reach land in a few chapters. ;)

Recently (re)read:
Scimitar by Peter Nieswand (thriller). It's always interesting these days to read a book written in the 1980s. The Afghan mujahideen were the good guys then, and the Russians were unadulterated villains. The protagonist in the book keeps turning out to be an unmitigated creep. Still, some good points, though avoidable overall, unless you want to specifically read an 80s book.
The Secret of the Nagas by Amish (myth/fantasy). I loved the first book in this series, The Immortals of Meluha, despite its sometimes too-modern dialogue. This one goes smoother. The book introduces Sanskrit/Hindi words in italics, and, within the next line or two, their meaning in English, also italicised (for dummies). It gets a bit annoying (gee, it's for dummies!) but is probably greatly useful for people who don't know the words. I loved this book too, and am bouncing and screaming for the next (and last) one. For less than Rs 500, you can get both books. Paisa wasool, these books are worth every paisa.

High Citadel by Desmond Bagley (thriller). An excellent light read from the 70s. If you like stories in which medieval weapons turn the tide, also try Mother of Demons by Eric Flint (science fiction).

The Quick and the Dead by Louis L'Amour (western). My son asked me if the book came first or the movie. Heh! A very typical Louis L'Amour book. The good guys win; the Indians are not evil, just different. Rating: Good

Part 1 of 2. Part 2 is here.

The sequel to the ... movie??

Alistair Maclean

What, you think I only read two books in ten days in April? Naah, I'm faster than that.

Alistair Maclean's 1970 book Force 10 from Navarone is the original of which his Partisans in 1982 was the poor copy. Strangely, while a sequel to his earlier bestseller The Guns of Navarone, it is based not on the book, but the movie. That was disturbing to me, a reader more than a movie buff, when I first read it in the 80s. Now, I don't quite have the same feeling of being let down; time does heal many wounds.

Like Partisans, it has an enigmatic hero, a huge sidekick who mysteriously defers to the hero despite being way above him in rank/ability, another sidekick who gets things done, a beautiful enemy agent with her sidekick, evil German and Yugoslav villains, and a complex plot on the part of the Allied command in the second World War to bring the Germans in Yugoslavia to their knees. Plus other supporting characters.

If you have to choose between these two books, drop Partisans and pick this one. It's one of Maclean's better books, but not a patch on The Guns of Navarone. Still, five stars, with a couple of the points on the last star knocked off.

I'll come back later in the day with comments on two books by Mark Gimenez (what, you think I read only three books in ten days? Muwahahaha!).

Next up to read are: I'm Feeling Lucky by Douglas Edwards, which I have to read for work related reasons (ha! everyone should get so lucky), The Maruti Story by RC Bhargava and Seetha (he's more honest about acknowledging the help he got on an auto-biography than most), and The Associate by John Grisham.

A Vintage from the 70s

Thrillers | Alistair Maclean


I've recently read a bunch of Alistair Macleans. I picked up six in a bookshop a few weeks ago and have read four of them, two of them for the first time. That last is strange, considering how popular AM was in the 1970s. Anyway, I'm still waiting for them to reissue The Golden Rendezvous, still one of my faves, and see if it stands up to my memories.

Onward! Partisans is the weakest of the bunch. You have Maclean's trademark cryptic hero, with his faithful sidekicks, mysterious (and almost always innocent) women who somehow always manage to be less competent than they are pretty (exception: The Satan Bug) but it never goes anywhere. Too predictable to be fun. Read The Guns of Navarone instead.

Circus manages surprises till the very last page, even the very last line (damn, I think that might be a spoiler). I smiled to read that the hero was to infiltrate the Iron Curtain to bring back the 'formula' for antimatter, but in the year it was written, that was cutting edge stuff. I still feel there is something wrong with the antimatter to energy conversion ratios in the book, but haven't sat down with my calculator. This one was more fun, if a bit slower than many thrillers of today, and even than of AM himself. And I'd completely forgotten the end, so it was good to re-read and get surprised all over again.

San Andreas is another one I hadn't read before. A bit over the top, but enjoyable nonetheless, despite severe reservations about whether a German Luftwaffe pilot would really do what it said in the book (not a spoiler).  I learned something interesting about submarines and ships. Archie the hero triumphs over all. Interesting twists, but not too many of them. Flannelfoot is a good name for a villain, though!

The Lonely Sea was the other re-read. It's a collection of AM's short stories, including the prizewinning story that set him on his writing career, becoming an international bestseller, only overtaken I think by Terry Pratchett and JK Rowling. These are all excellent stories, some of them based on facts, and some purely fiction. My favourite in these is probably St George and the Dragon. It's interesting to note that AM wrote such stories decades before Jeffery Archer did.

Here's a quote from an essay on writing, which will resonate with many writers:

The main benefits of being a full-time writer are that they confer on one a remarkable degree of independence and freedom, but that freedom must never be misinterpreted as irresponsibility.

I don't have to start work and 9 a.m., and I don't: I usually start between six and seven in the morning.

:) Read and enjoy.