Kevin's Favorite Fiction Books

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Books Reviewed:

 

 

 

Edited by Gregory Benford. (1) Alternate Empires; (2) Alternate Heroes; (3) Alternate Wars; (4) Alternate Americas; possibly others I haven't bought.

Check out these compilations of short stories describing "What-If" history was a little different. What if the Indians adopted Western European technology and successfully defended North America from its would-be colonizers? What if Athens had been conquered by the Persians before it developed democracy? What if Robert Heinlein had become an Admiral instead of a science-fiction writer? What if John Lennon had never been shot? And so forth. Some stories are better than others, as you'd expect from a compilation, but a lot of them are pretty cool.

 

 

By Tom Robins

This author puts extremely unusual characters through unbelievably offbeat storylines and still somehow makes every sentence relevant to real-time, everyday living. I was pretty tempted to put his books under the category of "Philosophy." They don't really form a series, there are almost no common characters, but there's a great ontology developed between them. Some of my all-time favorite philosophical quotes come from these books:

"You risked your life, but what else have you ever risked? Have you ever risked disapproval? Have you ever risked economic security?
Have you ever risked a belief?
I see nothing particularly courageous about risking one's life... Real courage is risking something you have to keep on living with, real courage is risking something that might force you to rethink your thoughts and suffer change and stretch your consciousness.
Real courage is risking one's clichés. "

My favorite is Another Roadside Attraction, where a spy in the Vatican stumbles across the supernaturally-preserved Corpse of Jesus Christ. And all the philosophical and political implications thereof. The second book mentioned, Jitterbug Perfume, was a very interesting story about an ancient Celt who somehow just ran away from Death and survived through the present day.

This author has written several other books, including Still Life with Woodpecker and Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, in the same vein. These latter two I thought were quite enjoyable but not nearly as sweeping and compelling as the first two I mentioned.

 

 

 

By Tom Wolfe.

I never saw the Tom Hanks movie but from what I hear it was a sad shadow of this interesting book. An arrogant stockbroker with a lucrative future ahead of him is suddenly embroiled in a street crime which he may or may not have committed, a guilt which depends entirely on your own point of view, as opposed to the facts. As he winds his way through the criminal justice system, the reader discovers that neither those at the heights of privilege, nor the dregs of society, are particularly interested in justice. But it's not as depressing as it sounds. I often quote the passage where the stockbroker is trying to explain to his 5-year-old daughter what he does all day at work, and he can't.

[his wife steps in]: "You see, Daddy didn't bake the cake, and Daddy isn't the one who gets to eat it. But he gets to slice the cake and hand it out. And when he does, little golden crumbs fall off the cake. And Daddy gets to eat those."

 

 

By A.C. Weisbecker.

This book is sort of a, "Hunter S. Thompson meets Subatomic Physics". Weird and jarring as that may sound, it's among the top ten best books I've ever read. Oddly enough you can get a pretty good idea of the ins and outs of subatomic physics from a book rife with drug smugglers, underage sex, and banana republic revolutions. I won't get into the physics details here but you can read some amusing quotes from the book to get an idea of his writing style.

[After a number of adventures where they made fortunes and then lost them just as quickly] "...The view is spectacular and we are all ridiculously wealthy again. I suspect that someday we will all be poor again, then wealthy again, etc. Eventually we will all die and none of this will matter. I find it amusing that very few people look at life this way."

"...I suspect this tale is simply another example of something."

Weisbecker also wrote a superb surf novel which is being turned into a stunning movie script, called "The Search for Captain Zero". Also highly recommended -- but there's as much truth in the story as there is fiction. This bittersweet tale of loyalty, distrust, living on the edge, and longing, resonates with most of the surfers I know. A lot of us have been there with our own friends, Alan... and the movie script has a twist ending which will totally knock you for a loop if you read the book first [and likely, even if you don't].

Sorry to brag here, but I actually met Alan Weisbecker and surfed with him in Costa Rica. I hope to do so again someday...

If you like his fiction, go to his website [ http://www.aweisbecker.com/ ] and sign up for his mailing list. You'll get an interesting newsletter at irregular intervals, plus access to unpublished articles and stories. His page devoted to "Cosmic Banditos" is here. His page devoted to "Captain Zero" is here.

 

 

By Gregory McDonald. About fifteen or more titles including "Fletch," "Fletch and the Man Who," "Fletch and the Widow Bradley," etc., and my favorite one, "Carioca Fletch."

Forget about the Chevy Chase movies. I suppose they weren't bad in and of themselves, but they totally failed to live up to the stratospheric potential of these books. This author writes books with an utterly singular writing style which I have never seen successfully duplicated, even though no doubt hundreds of authors (including myself) would like to try. Upwards of 75% of each book is dialogue, but somehow he manages to convey the most subtle and sweeping plot developments with just a few spoken words. Plus the situations this street-bum-cum-detective gets himself into are tremendously funny. The author also wrote several novels about a detective named Flynn. The style is the same, but I liked the character a tad less.

 

 

By Tom Clancy.

You may associate this author with long waits at airports, and most of his stuff deservedly belongs in that category. However, I thought this particular book was well thought out. When a Soviet sub pilot carries out his plan to defect with a few of his crew while the sub is in mid-ocean, the Russians are hunting for him, the Americans are hunting for him, and either one will blow him out of the water if they find him. I thought few books have ever achieved the dramatic tension caused by this dilemma.

 

 

By Trevanian.

This novel diverges from traditional ninja/spy novels because it makes an interesting philosophical statement. It's actually a fairly subtle satire of the ninja/spy genre: for instance, the main character is such a skilled martial artist that he can kill anyone at any distance with any harmless common household implement, such as a paper cup or shirt epaulet. But what he finds throughout the book is that being superhuman, being the pinnacle of physical and mental prowess, is not sufficient to protect himself, his honor, nor the people he cares about, against the weight of the thousands or millions of mediocre people arrayed against him. Sort of a tremendously subtle treatise against the dangers of elitism, and along the way the sarcastic narrator can make all kinds of pithily accurate quips about the vulgar masses. Well worth reading if you can take it with a grain of salt.

 

 

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