ypsi~dixit

I just finished "Little Children", by Tom Perrotta, supposedly "a satirical look at 30-something parents in suburbia", but I just disliked the egocentric (though adeptly portrayed) characters so much that I really can't recommend it. Despite the scads of glowing reviews and the fact that it is being made into a movie starring Kate Winslet, even.

So now I'm reading a mystery about a dog trainer by Lee Charles Kelley - mindless, but entertaining - and "Flushed: How the Plumber Saved Civilization", by W. Hodding Carter.

I'm reading "The Parable of the Sower" by Octavia Butler. The only other thing I've read by her is "Kindred," which was quite good. There's something just a little off kilter about her prose (cover blurbs call it "spare"), but this one is a very good post-apo read. In this one, the cause of the breakdown of society is never very clear, which is frustrating, but probably quite realistic. For example, the main character's father simply does not complete his bicycle commute home from work one day and, although the family searches and searches, neither his body nor the manner of his death is ever found.

I also just finished "Earth Abides" on your recommend. Great and chilling. In this latter one, population is so massively reduced that there is very little squabbling over resources. In the former, murder for food, fuel or fun is a constant threat.

[See my rhapsodizing about the classic "Fifth Sacred Thing," by Starhawk in the previous post... really should reside here, I suppose.]

Sandy: Like you, if I dislike the characters in a novel, it turns me off from the whole book. If I find myself mentally muttering, "Why are you doing that? That's dumb," or "Unfaithful to your husband though you have a wonderful life...good move," or similar judgmental asides I'm likely to drop it.

That's why I'm so careful to read blurbs on book backs. I've developed a system of assessing the quality of a book, namely:

1. Glowing reviews from the NYT, WaPo, Wall St. Journal, Kirkus = read me!

2. Glowing reviews from the Dubuque Bumblebee, the Peoria Clarion, the Des Moines Daily = read me! There are good writers at small papers (cough).

3. Glowing reviews from known authors = hmm. Probably worth a look.

4. Glowing reviews from unknown authors = proceed with caution.

5. No blurbs, just the author's photo on the entire back cover = avoid like the plague EXCEPT if it's a Tom Wolfe-stature author.

Sandy: I've heard about that "Flushed" book; the author was on the radio a while back. Sounded interesting. I love nonfiction books that take one humble subject and examine its history.

Lisa: Thank you for that great recommendation. I'll have to pick up a copy of Parable. I've heard the title cited before as one of the better post-apo works. I have to find Fifth Sacred Thing as well. Thanks for the tips!

I am very flattered you read Earth Abides on my recommendation. I found it gripping to the end.

Parable is good, yes - and I enjoyed the fact that she never made clear the cause/fashion of societal breakdown. After all, we've got so many competing options, why limit the story to just one!

Alas, Octavia Butler died this summer, and is mourned by a lot of fans who feel she was just hitting her stride.

For somewhat more blockbuster-y apocalypse, there's always Stephen King's "The Stand" (about the only SK novel I ever managed to finish). Also Niven & Pournelle's "Lucifer's Hammer".

The Stand is the lone and sole example of SK writing a worthwhile book.

It's not bad; I read it many times growing up. And one sentence has stuck in my mind: [warning: gross] the protagonist is climbing up to peek over a cliff at the last cataclysmic mushroom cloud and "his fingernails peeled back like decals." Eeeuuuwww.