Book review: The Beam: The Complete First Season Collection (Books 1-6) Sean Platt and Johnny B Truant

A pleasant surprise I'm starting to sound like a liar when I write this, because most of my reviews lately seem to be of sci-fi books, but honestly I am not a regular reader of sci-fi or of Platt and Truant so this might review may be of most interest to other people 'from outside'. I had come across Sean Platt and Johnny B Truant as the hosts of a couple of rather juvenile podcast series, so I started reading with some misgivings. Also I don't really like the idea of television style episodes in books. However, the Beam was a pleasant surprise. The book is well written, and serious in intent. There are occasional jokes and crudity, but it seems to serve the story and isn't gratuitous. The characters are interesting and despite what should be a lot of talking and people thinking, the story rattles along at a good speed for the most part despite being quite long. There are a couple of dull patches and several places where I wished they had a more economical writing style but overall the format seems to work. And yes a guy writing a three page review complaining about people using too many words... The speculative fiction elements are not too intrusive (mostly revolve around nano-technology) and are worked into the story so most of the time you could almost read the book as a straight-forward novel. Or a Novel of Ideas. In about 30 years time, after an ecological disaster and a collapse of civilisation, North America has been cut off from the rest of the world both by circumstance and by closing the borders and building a literal shield. Fast forward another fifty years or so and the North American and a totally immersive internet called The Beam has made life bearable or even fantastic depending on how rich you are in the North American Union. Alongside this you totally commit to your political party for seven years by living off the dole or choosing to live by your wits with no social security at all. This is called the Shift and causes great tension every seven years. I found the idea of the Shift the most ingenious idea in the book, it could be a satire on the real world as it is and at the same time a possible basis for future democracy. Alongside the 2080 story there are flashbacks to earlier eras, including the disaster in the 2030s. It's hard to tell if it's deliberate (as in Brave New World) or not that the rich old people with the beautiful young nano-technology bodies act and think in a spoilt immature manner which makes their attitudes almost indistinguishable from the young characters – wisdom will be even in shorter supply in the future! We see this world from the point of view of various characters: Natasha Ryan, a spoilt beautiful nano-enhanced young singer who should actually be an elderly lady, who is married to Isaac Ryan who is the weak-willed political figure-head for the vaguely socialistic Directorate, the political party in charge of hand-outs and token jobs. His brother Micah is the slightly less token figure-head for Enterprise, the political party in charge of risky jobs where you might get incredibly rich or starve but either way nobody is going to help you. Micah has an agenda and it involves making life harder for Natasha and Isaac. Nicolai Costa a young-old refugee from Italy and wannabe artist who actually works for Isaac Ryan but is sick of being a speech writer and wants to quit. Doc Stahl, a hustler and seller of second-hand and grey market technology. Nicolai is one of his clients. Doc stumbles on the explosive fact that the ultra-rich have access to far more sophisticated technology than eveyone else. This gets him into potentially fatal trouble with the ultra-rich who want this kept secret. Kai Dreyfus a hooker who has both Nicolai and Doc as clients and also has a side-line as an assassin (you can see where this might go...) Dominic Long is an old-style police captain with divided loyalties who has a fractious relationship with a bunch of drop-outs called the Organa who don’t like The Beam and try to live off the grid. Despite this they have an addiction to a high-tech substance called Moondust and Dominic is their supply channel. Leah is a young computer hacker who is a genius on the Beam despite being an Organa Crumb is an insane tramp who lives with the hippies but may have been lobotomised in some way by the ultra-rich to hide a terrible secret. Leo Booker is a wise old hippy Organa who also seems to have a terrible secret. There is enough pay-off and answers to questions to keep you happy and enough unresolved to

Too Much Rain (Maybe it's me and not you, Barry) aka Book Review -- Graveyard of Memories by Barry Eisler

Graveyard of Memories by Barry Eisler two stars Too Much Rain (Maybe it's me and not you, Barry) Picture this, ace assassin John Rain is all geezered out and is in a retirement home for hitmen, where he bores the pants off everyone with his reminiscences of Japan back in the day, and his time and Nam and so on. This novel kind of nails it, probably unintentionally. Perhaps I have just got bored with Barry Eisler and John Rain, “The Detachment” felt like a Rain Too Far, and this one feels like flogging a dead horse. For me it is Barry Eisler's third dud in a row, and your patience for an admired writer has to run out sooner or later when you feel they dont deliver the goods. It is somehow less than more of the same would have been. None of the Rain virtues seem to be here – the sudden switches to immediacy, the intermittent moral awareness, but all the Rain vices are here – the monologues, the rambling searches for whiskey and coffee, the inappropriate sex (with a crippled woman just to spice things up in a politically correct way) the interminable opinions, the excessively brutal killings. Previously this all came together somehow, but for me it just doesn't gel this time round. It feels to me like a John Rain pastiche. There is a framing device of Rain is reminiscing at a distance of 40 years plus (now or even in the future with an old fogey Rain as I suggested in the first sentence), and the distance is just too far this time, he seems to have forgotten Hemingway's Iceberg and wants to show of all his research, and the magic trick of Rain's detachment (no pun) somehow adding to and not detracting from the action scenes is missing this time, there is too much 'you must remember that this was back in the seventies and we didn't have mobile phones' and it all feels too much like “what grandpa did in the war” so much so that I nearly expected Rain to break off and hum us a few of the hits from 1972 and tell us kids that we didn’t know good music. Bear in mind that I'm about Barry Eisler's age and so only about ten years younger than Rain and you get an idea how scary this all is. It didn't really feel like a John Rain Origins book – we got more of that before about his time in Vietnam in flashbacks earlier in the series. Far better to have taken a new direction and had a Delilah novel, a Dox series, even some Jim Hilger prequel books. Not a great introduction to the series, I would say try the second of third books to start with and leave this one until last or even just leave this one.

Book Review -- Huntress Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff

Huntress Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff three stars this is probably a three and a half star book, its a pity you can't give 70%. First, the good. Ms Sokoloff is a screen-writer and this is a very well written and well constructed book with a strong cast of characters. The mysterious blonde woman (the Huntress of the title) is interesting as is the premise of the female serial killer/vigilante. The supporting cast are great too, Epps the charismatic, line-backer sized ex-gangster turned FBI agent feels like he should be the star of the show, not glum 'damaged' agent Roarke. Epps is a straight shooter. Unlike a lot of serial killer books, this one shows a lot of compassion, not unfortunately for the FBI agent truck-killed at the start because he was a bad egg, nor for the trucker-rapist type that the Huntress kills in the ladies' toilets (but he's a red shirt anyway). But for the most part the victims are treated like real people and given respect. The accident-murder which starts the book as its 'inciting incident' becomes somewhat unbelievable as the book goes on, which is a huge flaw as trying to understand what happened and how it happened are a big part of the FBI team's story. The author flirts with suggesting the Huntress might have psychic powers although this might also be explained as great intuition. As a total contrast, I think back to Will Graham in Thomas Harris's Red Dragon who was also an FBI profiler felt great compassion for the Tooth Fairy serial killer, but is enough of a cop to want to kill him without hesitation if it saves future victims. I would prefer Alexandra Sokoloff to have left Roarke with some of this distinction left within him. It is almost as if she feels he has to have some fatal flaw. There is even a good discussion between Roarke and Epps his number two where he is explaining about why he quit being a profiler (same answer as you will have heard if you are within seven degrees of separation of a profile – dealing with psychopaths creeps you out) and it becomes a discussion about The Nature of Evil, which again dangerously skirts close teenage paranormal territory but is satisfying and should have established that Roarke is enough of a good guy and sufficiently self-aware to know on which side of the line he stands no matter what provocations. On the contrary, as the book goes on in this case, Roarke goes from feeling compassion for the Huntress, to identifying with her to, it seems very much, wanting to get into her pants. This just seems wrong, on any number of levels. It seems out of character for Roarke, he's a damaged character and all that, but this is just creepy. When it turns out that the Huntress was the sole survivor of a serial killer rampage and Roarke has the profiling information and everything, and he knows just how distressed and messed up she is … [need to check if this is in the second book] It seems fair enough that the Huntress bewitches the troubled father and in their mutual pain they get it on, but Roarke isnt Travis McGee ready to fix ladies' psychological problems with his magic wand. I'm not sure this is what Ms Sokoloff intended but it comes across as an 'all men are bastards, even the good ones are screwed-up inside their heads' sub-text and I think it's only fair to call her out on this. If a male author is presenting women in a mysogonistic light, he will get called out on it and a woman author presenting an unrelieved parade of messed-up, women-hating men could lighten up a little and let a couple of good guys through beside Epps. She may not even be aware of the fact that her book could come across like this, but there you go. And there is the plausiblity problem – as a burnt-out profiler, Roarke would no doubt have had the training to recognise his own mental breakdown at some level and go and see his designated shrink – I would imagine that no doubt the FBI would have a confidential go-to person for their people who could make a call and get you stood down no questions asked if you thought you were tipping over into weirdo land. Sure he goes to his old mentor Snyder but its all very ambiguous. It is brilliantly done how the Huntress worms her way into the broken family of father and son, not entirely understanding what she is doing herself, and raising the suspense for the reader...sure she likes the little boy but does she mean harm to the father? The Huntress chapters are written in the present tense again a brilliant contrast and showing the intuitive, impulse driven nature of the woman. The descriptions are absorbing and for me not too long and get your really to feel that you are there. There is some great scene setting in Oregon, Portland comes across very well warts and all the shanty village is conveyed nicely. San Luis Obispo/ Piosmo Beach in California stands out as a lot of the action takes place there, with a carnival in which the Huntress hides in plain sight with the family who have adopted her as FBI are looking for her. The appropriately Hitchcockian carnival at Pismo beach, the fancy dress costumes, the mixture of party and the serial killer cat and mouse game is very well done