Patrick's Picks

It begins with an extraordinary six-year-old girl, a world-weary FBI agent, a death row inmate offered a devil’s deal, and a young nun who’s seen more than her share of death. Four individuals with ring-side seats to the end of the world, an Apocalypse of blood and fire. Mankind just can’t leave well enough alone. As a group, and with help along the way, these four souls might just save the world, even if it takes their lives ... and a thousand years.

Remember if you will the first time you read I Am Legend. How blown away you were. Or perhaps for you it was A Canticle for Leibowitz or The Stand. How reading these novels made you feel. What they made of your world. Where they took you. The Passage took me to that place again, and then it took me to a new place entirely. Justin Cronin’s remarkable novel is at first similar to those literary masterworks and then wholly unique.

I’m a jaded reader. Call it an occupational hazard. I haven’t found it particularly difficult to put a book down for quite some time, even those I’ve truly loved. Not so here. 700 pages went flying by, supplying me with a nice breeze, and a great read ... the perfect summer novel. Take my advice: Wake up some Saturday morning, have a great big breakfast, find a comfy chair, and dig in. The end is nigh, and it’s just the beginning.

--PMH

Imagine if you will a global movement involving millions of disaffected individuals with differing goals and only one real thing in common: a desire to bring the Big System down. The Big System: governments, corporate society, big business, technology ... the stuff on which the world revolves. Imagine these resentful and rebellious people organizing. Call it Daybreak. Imagine them all taking action ... lots and lots of action. In One Day. Then add a bit of terrorist piggybacking and catalyzing. It’s the end of the world as we know it. What are we to do? Directive 51.

• National Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51, Directive 51 for short, is a Presidential Directive created in 2007 that claims power to execute procedures for the continuity of the federal government in the event of a "catastrophic emergency." Such an emergency is construed as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions." - Wikipedia

It starts out like an episode of 24 with multiple Jack Bauers, and then builds from there. Barnes is an exceptional writer. Directive 51 thrilled me and at the same time it scared me. (I suppose I could do without a bit of the Big System myself. No more credit card bills! Just a bit of light to read by and a few books and I’d be Burgess Meredith in that Twilight Zone episode, only I don’t need my glasses to read. Then again, no movies or TV, no modern medicine or Hulu, no indoor plumbing or grocery stores.) Just how simple would it be to bring modern civilization down? A couple of weeks and a few (thousand) acts of random violence and we’re back to hunting and gathering. Or worse, we trade democracy for anarchy and Directive 51 dictatorship. Directive 51 is a book we’ll be talking about for a long time. Be careful what you wish for, oh you disaffected among us, and don’t go getting any ideas.

--PMH
Signed copies available, while they last. John numbers the first 100 or so, and ours numbered.

This time out our hero, Zachary Nixon Johnson, Last PI on Earth, finds himself on the island of Lantis, hot on the trail of a queen-killer. His life is so fun! Loads of travel, interesting people, world-saving … oh, and lots of questions, questions, questions:

• Will Zach find the killer without getting too stomped on?
• Will Zach’s holographic sidekick (Don’t tell him I said that.) ever let Zach get a word in edgewise?
• Will Zach start to enjoy his disguise as an Amazon warrior a little too much?

Stay tuned!

Another highly entertaining outing for our boy Zach. Ol’ Zach can never catch a break. Every year brings more super-powered females bent on making Zach’s life just that more interesting. Good thing he has lots of help (and armored underwear).
And me, you ask? (Okay, you didn’t ask, but I’ll tell you anyway.) Why, I’ve been walking around all day with a little smile on my face. Don’t know why, though. Perhaps it has something to do with all those blue (sapphire?) hairs I keep finding in my house, perhaps not. You’d think that such highly superior women (just ask them) would have better hair products.

--PMH

Calorie companies control the world, bio-terrorism and genetic engineering have wreaked merry havoc on a global scale, and humanity is on the brink of an evolutionary precipice that will destroy it completely or change it utterly. We reap what we sow.

Anderson Lake is a stranger in a strange land, AgriGen's "Calorie Man" in Thailand. Disguised as a farang factory manager, Anderson’s actual mission is to obtain (by any means necessary) new foodstuffs to exploit in a world where every calorie counts.

Emiko is the windup girl of the title. She is not exactly human. Creche-grown and designed to satisfy, she scratches out a meager existence in a world that considers her property, a mere plaything to abuse and then throw away like yesterday’s garbage, lowest of the low. She may be artificial, oh yes, but she does dream. She dreams of freedom ... and perhaps of an electric sheep or two.

Together, Anderson and Emiko might just change the world.

Beautifully written with a cast of characters both major and minor who will make it extremely difficult on the reader as to whom to root for, The Windup Girl is an important, perhaps even cautionary tale about a very possible future, set in a Thailand one can almost taste and feel. Plan to see it on many a best-of list and most likely a few award short lists as well. It’s the end of the world as we know it, so eat your Soylent Green and enjoy the show. Dystopia Rules!

--PMH

Nebula Winner for Best Novel 2010. (Told you, I did.)