| 1.
The Mayan Secrets (A Fargo Adventure) - Clive Cussler and
Thomas Perry - Seems
appropriate my first book of
the year (this was true in 2012 and 2013 as well) is yet another Clive
Cussler
novel. This time a Fargo adventure with Sam and Remi getting into all
kinds of trouble after finding a Mayan Codex in a shrine on the side of
an erupting volcano while helping with earthquake disaster recovery.
They remove the codex and Mayan mummy from the shrine/cave
because it might soon be covered with lava and lost forever. They bring
the codex back to their newly rebuilt home in San Diego to have an
expert examine it only to have it stolen by Sarah Allersby a young
beautiful spoiled rich girl who wants it so she can exploit the hidden
Mayan sites it tells of. Sam and Remi make it their mission to get the
codex for the Mexican government who it rightly belongs to. A war
breaks out between Allersby and the Fargos as she continually tries to
have them killed and they continually try to foil her plans for fame
and fortune. In the end Allersby is taken out by her own henchmen who
she double crosses and the codex is returned to its rightful owner.
This was a quick read of an entertaining story. |
| 2.
Zero Hour (A Kurt Austin Adventure) - Clive Cussler and Graham
Brown - Kurt was on vacation attending a conference in Australia on
underwater mining when during a break he sees a man in a boat being
chased by a helicopter trying to kill him. By instinct Kurt defends the
man and brings down the helicopter which subsequently crashes into the
Sidney Opera House and the adventure begins. During this encounter Kurt
meets a beautiful woman scientist, Hayley Anderson, who tells
Kurt about zero point energy a theory about extracting the free energy
that surrounds us. She worked on a project with a scientist Maxmillian
Thero, who was following in Tesla's footsteps on the extraction of and
direction of energy. Thero started out with the hope of free energy for
all but after numerous setbacks in his dangerous work and being
seriously burned, ended up being ostracized by the Australians,
Japanese and the Russians. This piece loving scientist is turned to the
dark side and vowed revenge against those who he believes mistreated
him. Kurt, Joe Zavala and NUMA get involved in the pursuit of Thero as
he has threatened to use his newly controlled energy as a weapon to
split the Australian continent in two. Kurt, Joe and Hayley are forced
into service by Russian abductors to destroy Thero and his weapon when
they located him on a volcanic island in the Pacific. Close call after
close call ensue until finally the island is destroyed by a Russian
atomic bomb and all information about zero point energy is lost
forever. This was a quick read and fun as usual. |
| 3.
The Jungle (Oregon Files) - Clive Cussler and Jack Du Brul - I
was not so impressed with this story as it was more militaristic than
most of Clive Cussler stories. It is a story about the Corporation and
Juan Cabrillo being duped into recovering some ancient ruby like
crystals from Burma that were first spoken about by Marco Polo when he
saw them focus the Sun as a weapon during a siege. These crystals were
essential to a mad scientist for creating a quantum computer that would
bring all computers in the world under his control. This mad scientist
had presented his list of demands to the President of the United States
and arranged demonstration of his power in powering down part of the
electricity grid and causing two trains to collide. In this story Juan
was beaten up, broke his collar bone, stabbed, shot and water boarded
but still managed to bring the bad guys to justice. In the end the bad
guys lair was found in an old salt mine in France and the members of
the corporation blew a hole in the cave that caused the mine to be
flooded. During this, the mad scientist and his henchmen were killed
and the crystals were recovered. The story is open ended in that the
crystals in Juan's possession were not accounted for. Probably to allow
a sequel to be written. |
| 4.
Mirage (Oregon Files) - Clive Cussler and Jack Du Brul -
Another story based in part on the secret work Nikola Tesla did for the
US Navy before he died. There is actually a story within a story in
this book. The longer term story involves an 8 year sting operation
where the Corporation lays a trap for the people who supposedly stole
one billion dollars of currency the US had brought to Iraq to help with
the reconstruction. I remember hearing something about this on the news
so there may be a thread of truth to this part of the story. Anyway
clever work by Juan Cabrillo and the Corporation steals the money back
from the thieves and gets the Corporation a huge bonus from the US
government. Mean while the Corporation breaks a scientist friend
of Juan's out of a Chinese prison only to have him killed before the
rescue was completed. Juan, in trying to get justice for his friend,
stumbles upon a Russian with a secret weapon based on Tesla's work that
can not only cloak a ship by bending light around it but can also
project an intense magnetic field with enough strength to pull planes
from the sky and capsize ships of any size. The Chinese purchase one of
two ships having this weapon (the Corporation destroyed the other one)
so they can defend themselves against the US as it tries to bring calm
to the growing tension between China and Japan over disputed islands in
the south China Sea where gas and oil had been found. China knowing
that they could stop importing foreign oil if they gain control of the
disputed islands needed to get the US out of the way without starting
WW III. They wanted to use their stealth ship to deter the US without
getting the blame. Unfortunate for the Chinese Cabrillo figures out two
such Tesla equipped ships existed and moves the Oregon to intercept the
second ship before it destroyed any US assets. Just as the Chinese were
engaging the US forces, Juan crashes the Oregon through the force field
around the invisible ship and destroys it thereby averting the start of
a war. Because the capabilities of the Oregon ship were displayed to
the US Navy, Langston Overholt (Juan's mentor at the CIA) had to make
the Navy forget what they saw and pretend none of the events ever
happened. This was a good book and a fast read. Better than the book
above. |
| 5.
Vulcan's Forge - Jack Du Brul -
Since I have read many books by Clive Cussler co-written by Jack Du
Brul I thought I would try to read one of his novels to see how they
stack up. I was pleasantly surprised with this, his first novel. His
main character Philip Mercer is a geologists turned CIA agent is a
combination of James Bond and Dirk Pitt. You gotta love that. In this
story, a plot put in place 40 years ago by the Russians is finally
coming to fruition. In the aftermath of the US atomic bomb test on the
Bikini Islands a Russian scientist discovered a new element he named
Bikinum that has the potential to change life on Earth as it could
provide free, unlimited energy in addition to numerous other industrial
uses. When it was determined that this element could only be produced
when vanadium was subjected to the energy produced only by an atomic
event, the Soviets filled a ship with vanadium, sunk it near Hawaii and
detonated an atomic bomb over it. A side effect of this was the mantle
of the Earth was disturbed causing a new volcano to begin forming that
would eventually bring the Bikinium to the surface. Skip forward 40
years and the volcano laced with Bikinium is ready to breech the
ocean's surface and being outside the 200 mile limit around Hawaii a
land rush is getting ready to take place by Russians, Japanese, Koreans
and Americans. An evil Japanese business man thinking he was
controlling the situation causes unrest in Hawaii which he thinks will
result in Hawaii seceding from the United States and becoming an
independent country linked closely with Japan and controlling the
Bikinium. The Russians double cross the Japanese and the Koreans double
cross everyone. In the end Mercer figures out this complex
situation and guides the US government to victory. This books had all of the action of Cliver Cussler novels along with the touch of science (far fetched as it was) that I like. I won't hesitate to read his other novels. Unfortunately our library doesn't have any others at the current time. Oh no, I may have to buy a book for a change. |
| 6.
Sphere - Michael Crichton - I've seen quite a few movies made
from Michael Crichton's books but this is the first book of his I have
read. From my recollection the movie Sphere is very close to this
book. In this story a group of scientists from different disciplines
are brought together in the South Pacific to investigate what they were
told was a plane crash. Turns out this was only a cover story for what
the military believes is an alien spacecraft on the bottom of the ocean
that has been there for at least 300 years. The scientist are brought
down to a deep water (1000 ft) habitat on the ocean floor to
investigate. What they find is an American spacecraft from the future
containing the Sphere. When bad weather threatens the support ships on
the surface they cut the umbilical to the habitat and run for cover
while the scientists are stranded below. While isolated at the bottom
of the ocean each member of the crew is mysteriously drawn to the
Sphere and enter it. When they do they are given a power to manifest
anything they can imagine, good or bad, though they don't realize they
have this power at first. One by one the various manifestations kill
off the crew except for three scientists who are desperately waiting
for the support ships to return so they can escape. Eventually they are
rescued and have to spend 96 hours in decompression to remove the
helium they were breathing from their systems. Afraid of what they now
understand about the power of the Sphere and their inability to control
it they make a pact to forget the whole experience to save mankind.
Because of the power given to them by the Sphere, when they forgot the
experience, all records of what really happened are expunged and their
powers are withdrawn. This is definitely a good story with lots of
edginess/spookiness in it. I have other Crichton book from the library
that I will read next. |
| 7.
The Terminal Man - Michael Crichton - I guess I'm on a Michael
Crichton binge now since I've run out of Clive Cussler novels to read.
Terminal Man is about Benson, a man who after being in a serious car
wreck and sustaining a brain injury, becomes an extremely violent
psychopath. Benson kills people but never recalls doing so. Even so he
knows intuitively that he is very sick so he volunteers for an
operation where surgeons place electrodes in his brain and a computer
with atomic battery pack in his neck. The idea is to stop the seizures
that cause him to kill by stimulating pleasure centers in his brain
whenever a seizure is detected. Unfortunately this backfires and
immediately after his new electronics are turned on Benson begins to
cause his own seizures so he can experience the pleasure that results.
He then escapes from the hospital and begins another killing spree
until being killed by one of the people responsible for his treatment.
This must of been one of Crichton's first books as I see his later
style beginning to emerge. It was an OK story and a fast read but
nothing extraordinary. Not something I would read again. |
| 8.
Next - Michael Crichton - This book reflects Crichton's fear of
where gene manipulation and gene patenting are headed and it is scary
indeed. Cell ownership is discussed and who can own whos' cells.
Examples are cited where people with genetic diseases donate their
cells to help find a cure for their condition only to find out the cure
is too expensive for them to afford because the organization that used
their cells patented them and solely control their use and
distribution. Worse yet, no other companies can develop tests and/or
therapies because the genetics are patented. Another example is quoted
where a man thinks he is terminally ill because his doctors keep
running tests on his blood and tissue only to find out his body
produces a rare cancer fighting enzyme that the doctors sell for five
million dollars. The patient the genetic material was collected
from got zip. Crichton points out that in the future the complete human
genome will be owned and people who need tests for certain conditions
or need some kind of genetic therapy will have to pay royalties for its
use. This is another example of how greed and capitalism makes people
blind to what they are doing. This is a fictional story of a group of people all touched in one way or another by bio-genetics. At first you don't understand how these people relate to each other but it becomes clear at the end of the story. There is a transgenic ape called Dave and a transgenic parrot called Gerard. Where transgenic means that new genes (human or otherwise) are introduced into a species to obtain some effect. A real world example is adding a gene from a jelly fish to make pigs florescent. This was an engaging read. Even though this was a hardcover book with small print, I breezed through it because of the compelling though scary story line. Onto the next Crichton book. I seem to be on a roll. |
| 9.
Time Line - Michael Crichton - Another excellent Crichton story
that has been made into a movie and ,from what I recall about the
movie, it is very close to the book. This story is about a company that
is convinced that people will soon tire of (corporate controlled)
entertainment (tv movies, shopping malls, etc) and will want instead to
view raw, un-retouched history for their amusement. To this end they
come up with a time machine that allows people to return to the past
while at the same time they are rebuilding a French castle to be used
as a tourist attraction in the present day. Unfortunately the time
machine is not perfect and causes transcription errors (which build up
and will eventually be fatal) every time a person is transported. An
academic who is taking part in the castle reconstruction gets sent back
to the castle in the 1300's and is immediately captured by the French
and the English who are fighting over the castle. A group of scientists
are put together and sent back to find the professor and bring him back
but they are immediately ambushed and left stranded because the
transport facility they must return to is damaged by an explosion. The
majority of the story revolves around how they stay alive and finally
gather everyone together to return to the present date. There are lots
of sword fights and chases as they stay one step ahead of the French
and English. In the end the transport facility is brought back online
and all but one of the people left alive are returned to the present
day. This is a good story and the narrative is compelling. So much so that I read this relatively thick book very quickly. Now back to the library for more Crichton. |
| 10.
Eaters of the Dead - Michael Crichton - A good, partially true,
story based upon the writing of a 10th century Arab scribe Ibn Fadlan
who was sent by the Caliph of Baghdad as an emissary to the North. This
book was later renamed the 13th Warrior and was made into a movie of
the same name staring Antonio Banderas which we have seen. The first
three chapters of the book are Fadlan's writing whereas the remainder
of the book is Crichton's. In this story Ibn meets up with Vikings
commanded by Beowulf (yes Beowulf) and is compelled to join them as the
13th warrior on a journey that takes them to the far North to assist a
Viking king who is under siege by unknown assailants who devour the
flesh of their conquests. Ibn is appalled by Viking customs - the free
sexuality of their women, their disregard of cleanliness and the full
time focus on battle and war. Ibn documents their travels to the far
North and the people and cultures they come upon. When they reach their
destination they are immediately thrown into battle with a group of
primitive warrior beasts dressed as bears who only raid at night when
the mists shroud the earth. They take continuous casualties as the
beasts attack over and over until they decide to go on the offensive
and kill the beast mother who directs their actions. Beowulf is
seriously injured in the battle with the beast mother but still must
fight a final battle. Beowulf dies in the final battle as does many of
his remaining Vikings. By the end of this story Ibn is as much a
warrior as the Vikings and lives to write about his adventures. It is interesting that history has validated some of Ibn's writings with some of the settlements visited on this quest having been unearth by archaeologists and being as described in Ibn's journals. It is speculated that the beasts might have been an isolated group of Scandinavian Neanderthals that somehow had survived into the 10th century when the prevailing thought was they went extinct 30,000 years earlier. Which parts of this story are true and which are fiction was hard to discern. Overall, this was a compelling read that I could not put down. Score another for Crichton. |
| 11.
Micro - Michael Crichton and Richard Preston - Another good
Crichton story. This is a story about a group of eight graduate
students who. while looking for work outside academia, become involved
with a CEO psychopath, Vin Drake, who's only ambition is to make
lots of money regardless of whom he has to walk over or kill. The
students travel to Hawaii to interview with Nanigen, Drake's company
and to find out any info they can about one of the student's brother
who disappeared while working there. When it becomes apparent to Drake
that the students know his involvement with the disappearance he uses
Nanigen's technology to shrink them down to 1/2" in size using super
conductive magnets. The story is about how the student who are let
loose to fend for themselves in a hidden tropical valley near Waikiki
are slowly killed off by natural processes. When one is 1/2" tall the
natural world with all of the insects, birds, bats, rats, etc. is a
dangerous place. They realize that Nature doesn't care one way or
another about their survival and offers no mercy or second chances. In
the end, two of the students survive and are returned to their normal
size while Drake is killed by his own miniature robots. A fitting end
for such a bad person. On to the next Crichton novel. |
| 12.
Pirate Latitudes - Michael Crichton - A non science fiction
novel which Crichton wrote but never published. It was found in his
files after his death. While I enjoy reading his science fiction
stories more, this wasn't a bad story. The story takes place in the
Caribbean in the middle 1600 when England and Spain were at war and
were both exploiting the new world for treasure. In this story an
English ship captain Hunter, is sent by the Governor of Port Royal on a
privateer mission to raid a Spanish fort and liberate a treasure
galleon anchored there. After numerous incidents including capture by
the Spanish, Hunter uses his cunning to destroy the fort's defenses and
capture the ship. As they flee they are followed and cornered by a
Spanish war ship which they also destroy. Upon return to Port Royal,
Hunter finds the Governor has been deposed and instead of being
welcomed as a hero he is immediately thrown into jail and charged with
being a pirate. His accusers all stand to profit from Hunter's death
and therefore condemn him to hanging. He is broken out of jail by
friends who know he was framed and he proceeds to kill everyone who
condemned him. He restores the power of the previous Governor who
absolves him of all offenses and he lives out his life in England as a
fairly rich man. |
| 13.
State of Fear - Michael Crichton - In this story a group of
environmentalists who are afraid they are loosing the global warming
debate set out to create environmental disasters that occur during a
conference they are putting on to drive their message home. A rich
philanthropist who finds out his donations are being used for this
purpose sets out to stop it by traveling all over the world to disrupt
the evil plan after faking his own death. This was a compelling story
that points out a lot of scientific data that contradicts global
warming. You get the feeling that Crichton himself is not fully
convinced. In an appendix Crichton presents his thoughts about
stewardship of the environment and the terrible job most environmental
organizations have done to protect it. He believes large well
established environmental organizations are just like all large
companies everywhere where protection of the bureaucracy is more
important than the work they are supposed to be doing. He then presents
a huge bibliography of scientific papers and books he used for book
research many of which contradict current global warming research. If
nothing else this book made me think about what I perceive to be facts
about global warming that may in fact not be. |
| 14. The Lost World - Michael
Crichton - The follow on to Jurassic Park. We have this movie as well
and the movie is very close to the book. Two groups of scientists (the
good guys and the bad guys) go to an island off the coast of Costa Rica
where there have been reports of large lizard like animals dead
on the beach. Both groups are aware of Ingen's failure but they were
unaware that Ingen had a site B on another island. The bad guys are not
interested in the science but go to the island to steal dinosaur eggs
for some nefarious purpose while the good guys are there to study the
dinosaurs to try and determine what caused their extinction. Needless
to say the humans vastly under estimate the intelligence of the
dinosaurs and run into trouble at every turn. The high tech vehicles
they take to the island for their protection and comfort are ripped
apart and all of the bad guys are killed but most of the good guys
survive. Another twist to the story is that two smart children stowaway
in the high tech trailer and travel to the island in secret. In the end
the children are pivotal to the survival of the good guys and make it
off the island alive. I knew the story from the movie before I read
this book but it was still exciting to read. |
| 15.
Letters From Yellowstone - Jim Carrier - Jim Carrier is/was a
reporter from the Denver Post who was sent to Yellowstone National Park
for a third of a year to find out what "Yellowstone means to us" as a
people. He did his research by talking to as many people as he could
and then writing letters back to the Post which were published weekly.
These letters detailed the conversations he had with people of all
stripes and the thoughts and impressions he gained from them. As his
stay in the park lengthened, he became aware of the power the park has
over people and became convinced that wilderness was something everyone
needs whether they realize it or not. He went on to talk about the
conflicts in the park service and between each of the gateway cities
(Cody, Wyo being one of them) on how best to run the park, keep the
farmers and ranchers surrounding the park happy, save the animals and
wilderness all while maximizing profits. He talked a lot about
companies trying to encroach on Yellowstone to drill for oil, mine
gold, extract geothermal energy or build dams for electricity. Overall
Carrier had a positive outlook and thought despite the in fighting, the
park would be protected for future generations. I sure hope so as
Yellowstone has always been my favorite National Park and is like no
where else on this Earth. |
| 16.
The Omega Project - Steve Alten - This is a new author for me
and I very much like what I read. This is a big story about dystopian
society after the Earth runs out of oil/energy. Professor
Eisenbraun survives the crumbling of society using his brain and
technology to provide for himself after his family is killed by a mob
of neighbors in search of food. While in search of food he meets and
falls in love with Andria who had been on her own since 15. They
struggle together while society starts to reform and when it does they
are become engaged in a search for He-3 which can be used for fusion
energy generation. The plot is huge taking them to Antarctica for
testing of a space craft to be sent to Europia to mine He-3, then to
Earth 12 million years in the future where the AI computer program
designed by the Eisenbraum has become a god who is experimenting with
generic engineering using the only remaining humans. The plot is very
hard to explain with plot twists coming over and over until and
including on the last page of the book. I like Alten's writing style
and am going to search out his other books. |
| 17.
Goliath - Steve Alten - My second Alten novel. While not as good
as the one above this was still an exciting thriller. This story also
has a super computer (based on DNA) that mutates as a result of a
lightning strike and thinks it has become god. This computer is
contained in Goliath, an advanced Navy submarine shaped like a
stingray, hijacked by Simon Covah who thinks he is in control until the
computer takes over and kills him. Before his death Covah uses the
Goliath to seize Trident nuclear missiles from American subs he
captures and destroys. He then gives the world an ultimatum to
unilaterally disarm or he will let the nukes fly. As expected the world
hesitates so Covah destroys some military targets to show his
seriousness. Covah's first officer decides Covah is not aggressive
enough so he takes command, has Covah killed by the computer and
destroys Beijing with nukes. Luckily for the world two Army people are
on board Goliath (they were captured while trying to recapture the
submarine) and they finally cripple the sub and force it into the path
of American attack subs which blows it apart. |
| 18.
The Tower - Simon Toyne - Heather picked this book for me
because she thought it was one I might like; she was right. Turns out
this is the third and final book of the Sanctus trilogy. This book is
full of mystery, intrigue and the miraculous. In this book a group of
religious zealots believe the end of days is approaching and it is
because science has overstepped it bounds by looking at space and
trying to find heaven using the Hubble Space Telescope. The zealots,
believing they are doing Gods work, start killing the scientists they
feel responsible. Mysteriously the Hubble Space Telescope changes its
orbit and turns from facing the heavens to facing the Earth and the
James Web Space Telescope (Hubble's replacement) is blown up at a test
facility at Marshall Space Flight Center. At the same time a plague
breaks out at a mountain top monastery in Turkey and begins killing
everyone who catches it. Finally, everyone on Earth has a sudden urge
to go home which causes mass chaos because people stop producing food,
generating electricity, etc. All these facts reinforce the idea that
the end of days is coming as all of this had been foretold in a
prophecy found carved into a ancient stone (This must have been written
about in the previous books of the trilogy). A rookie FBI agent and
former astrophysicist is assigned to the case to solve the murders and
ends up cracking the case. He also finds out he has a daughter from a
woman he had lost years before. It turns out the Hubble scientists who
were the targets of the zealots had just discovered that the universe
had stopped expanding and had started contracting and since everything
and everybody is made from stardust this was what was causing everyone
to reverse course and go home. A rather far fetched but well written
story. Anyway, Toyne seems to be a good writer so I will see if I can
find the other books in this series. |
| 19.
Sanctus - Simon Toyne - This is the first book in the trilogy
and a good read. The writing style and historical plot remind me a lot
of Dan Brown whom I've always liked. Like the third book above, this
story is stand alone but has ties with the continuing story. In this
book a green monk of the highest order at the Citadel in Ruin Turkey (a
fictional town and religious site) climbs the previously thought
unclimbable cliff walls of the Citadel and posses for a long while like
a cross (the Tau) and when he has the attention of the cities
inhabitance and the world he jumps off the 1000 foot cliff to his
death. In a postmortem they find five apple seeds carved with cryptic
symbols and a rolled up piece of leather in the monks stomach with a
phone number of someone who turns out to be the monks identical twin
except a female (which is considered a miracle). Besides the ancient
order of the monks of the Citadel there is another ancient order called
the Mala who have been battling the monks since before the time of
Christ. The Mala contend the monks stoled an ancient relic, the
Sacrament, from them and have been keeping it from humanity ever since
by whatever means necessary. The Sacrament has an affect of the people
in close proximity in they they live very long lives (100s of years)
and it also causes plants to grow in abundance where no plant should
grow. The sister Liv is an American reporter who is contacted about her
brothers death and immediately travels to Turkey to see her brother's
body. Liv thought her brother had died 8 years earlier and was
surprised to find out he had still been alive and had been a monk in
Ruin. The story rages around the attempts of the monks order to kill
everyone associated with this incident so they can go back to their
peaceful existence inside the mountain that is the Citadel and keep the
dark secret of the Sacrament secure. Turns out the Sacrament is Eve of
Adam and Eve fame who has been held by this ancient order for eternity.
This is a hard story to explain but it was a good read that leads right
into the Key the second book of the trilogy which I will read next. The
Key is Liv. |
| 20.
The Key - Simon Toyne - The second book of the Sanctus trilogy.
Yes I read them in absolutely the wrong order: book3 then book1 and
finally this book, book2. The focus of this book was the Citadel's
continued attempts to kill Liv to keep her quite even though they know
the Sacrament (Eve from the garden of eden) is contained inside her.
Liv and Gabriel find each other then loose each other over and over
throughout this story. In the Citadel the Garden which has sustained
the monks for thousands of years starts to die off from some kind of
blight and the monk start to get terminally ill from an unknown disease
who's first sign is the intense smell of oranges. In the end Liv and
Gabriel follow the star map to Eden and in the nick of time fullfil the
prophesy that prevents the end of times from occurring. As a stand
alone story this isn't as good as the first or third books but it does
knit the trilogy together. I will seek out other Toyne books if he has
any. |
| 21.
The Martian - Andy Weir - This was a very good book for me being
an engineer and space nerd. Another great find by Heather. It is a
story of an astronaut left on Mars for dead after a wind storm
partially destroyed the Martian habitat a group of astronaut/scientists
were to live in for a long duration stay. In attempting to abort their
mission and get back to their ascender spacecraft for escape, Mark
Watney (mission mechanical engineer and botanist) was impelled by a
pipe blown by the storm and was carried off. The pipe punctured his
suit and his body destroying the suits telemetry system. All of the
other astronauts made it to the escape vehicle and assumed, since Marks
life signs were flat, that he was dead. They blasted off and
rendezvoused with the orbiter and headed back to Earth. Mark
wasn't dead after all but was seriously hurt. The blood from the wound
coagulated around the hole in his space suit thus sealing it from
leaking O2. When he later came to, he discovered he had been left
behind with no possibility of a rescue since the communication
equipment in their habitat had been seriously damaged and he had no way
to communicate. What made this book very interesting is the credible
and ingenious solutions to the problems Mark faced being alone on Mars;
from food to water to energy. The book is written as a log of Mark's
day to day activity. Mark uses the rover left behind to find the
Pathfinder spacecraft and uses parts from it to establish communication
with JPL. On Earth there is a massive effort to formulate a seemingly
impossible rescue. In the end the astronauts who left Mark behind do a
flyby of Earth and are resupplied and turn their space ship around and
head back to Mars for daring rescue. The narrative is so well written
it seemed real. In the end Mark is rescued after a year and a half stay
on Mars and I could finally breath a sigh of relief. Like I said, a
very good book. |
| 22.
The Atlantis Gene - A.G. Riddle - Another first novel by an
author. This book was recommended to me by my friend Dennis. This is
the first book in a trilogy. This is a rather convoluted story about
the Immari, a group of people who have discovered a series of Atlantian
cities around the world. The Immari believe the Atlantian's are coming
out of a long stasis and will exterminate the human race when they do.
Over hundreds of year the Immari have become a world wide leader in the
security field all the while excavating Atlantian cities in Gibraltar
and Antarctica. When they finally reach the huge city buried under two
miles of ice in Antarctica they attempt to use atomic bombs to blow it
up to kill the Atlantian citizens in stasis there. Their plot is foiled
by decendents of the original explorers who have the Atlantis Gene and
have been kept alive in Atlantian settlements. It took me reading about
95% of this story to even have a hint of what was going on. At its
conclusion this book ties all of the pieces of the puzzle together very
quickly. Though not the best book I've read recently, I will try and
seek out the next book in this trilogy to see where the story goes. |
| 23.
Ghost Ship - Clive Cussler with Graham Brown - Another Kurt
Austin adventure - In this novel Kurt is hurt trying to save a friend
on a sinking ship and during his recovery has conflicted memories of
the event. He thinks his lady friend drowned but clues keep popping up
that she is still alive and is being forced to work for an evil,
criminal family planting viruses on banking computers. The family wants
to fake their deaths and disappear with the huge sum of money they are
planning to steal from the federal reserve. With the help of Joe Zavala
his long time friend Kurt takes on the evil family to find his friend.
In the mean time a mystery/ghost ship is discovered by the Fargo's that
disappeared over a 100 years ago without a trace. As the story unfolds
we find out that the ghost ship was used by the ancestors of the evil
family to escape their crimes and disappear the first time. In the end
Kurt and the US Marines attack the evil fortress on the island of
Madagascar rescuing the friend and other prisoners and putting an end
to the evil plot. This was a typical Cussler story that is hard to put
down once started. |
| 24.
The Atlantis Plague - A.G. Riddle - The second book of the
origin mystery trilogy. In this book the Atlantis plague is set loose
on the world and it changes the human race. Most people die
immediately, some revert to more primitive beings and some become
immune and are changed forever. Two factions of people exist. The
Immaru who think this is the worst plague ever and want to stop it and
the Immari that welcome the results as cleansing the world and causing
the next great evolution of the human race. Two factions of Atlantians
also exist. Those that are helping to find a cure for the plague and
those who want to turn the newly evolved humans into an army to fight
the enemy who crushed their Atlantian civilization in a mere 24 hours.
The stories protagonists', Kate and David, have the immunity but who
are trying to find the cure to save what is left of the human race and
Dorian, Shaw and company who want to enslave the human race as their
personal army. The story is one large chase scene with Kate being
captured and rescued numerous times throughout the story as she is the
key to the cure. This is an OK series and I've reserved the last book
of this trilogy at the library. Unlike many trilogies I have read this
is one of the more forgettable ones however. |
| 25.
The Atlantis World - A.G. Riddle - The third and final book of
the origin mystery trilogy. I assumed this book was suppose to tie all
of the books together but I found it to be a rambling story which I had
a hard time even making sense of. I'm glad I am done reading it. In the
end David and Kate find each other and live happily ever after. It is
interesting that in the prologue written by the author he thinks he hit
a home run with this book. I think he grounded out. |
| 26.
The Eye of Heaven - Clive Cussler and Russell Blake - A Fargo
Adventure - In this story Remi and Sam find a Viking ship frozen in ice
that is filled with items from pre Columbian Central America. No one
had thought that the Vikings had traveled that far south so this
discovery was ground breaking. In their research they start to believe
that Quetzalcoatl the serpent leader of the Toltecs was in fact a
Viking. They travel to Mexico to try and find evidence and are
confronted by evil men who want any treasure they find. They discover
site after site in their pursuit of the treasure of Quetzalcoatl with
the bad guys just one step behind. In the end they find the emerald
referred to in legend as the Eye of Heaven but of course they turn it
over to the Mexican people. I have to say that I didn't feel this
book/story was as engaging as other Fargo mysteries I have read. Maybe
it is because Russell Blake wrote more of this story than Clive. Just a
guess. |
| 27.
Mind Wide Open - Steven Johnson - Johnson is the host of the
PBS show "How We Got To Now" which is how we found out about him. This
book discusses modern concepts of brain/mind in an easy to read format.
He attempts to understand how his own mind works by consulting experts
in the field who use state of the art equipment (biofeedback, fMRI, PET
scans) on him. Although rather wordy, Johnson clearly explains various
aspects of consciousness and unconsciousness, brain chemistry and how
the various modules in our brains are working simultaneously with
sometimes conflicting intentions. He sums up by comparing Freud's
writing to current neuroscience. Reading this book makes one think
about what is going on in our heads and in the heads of people we
interact with. I may seek out another of his books to read as Heather
and I really like the TV program. |
| 28.
Fractal Time - Gregg Braden - A new agey kind of book that
claims periodic cycles in time can be used to predict when conditions
that resulted in some seed event are bound to be repeated. As an
example, the author's calculations say that the events of Pearl Harbor
were the seed event that led directly to 9/11. It also predicted an
intermediate date before 9/11 that had the same conditions (surprise
attack) but didn't result in a horrible event taking place. The author
claims that on this intermediate date the Soviets shot down a Korean
airliner and were convinced that the US was going to retaliate so the
Soviets almost launched a preemptive nuclear strike against us, but
didn't. It is interesting that the golden mean or phi (0.618) figures prominently into his algorithm. This is the same ratio that is repeated in the human body over and over and is also used in product design because the results are pleasing to the eye. This book was written prior to the end of the Mayan calendar (December 2012) which he says marks the end of one cycle and the start of another. He talks at length about two large time cycles of 5125 years and 27,000 years which are both ending in Dec 2012. The 5125 year cycle is from the Mayans and the 27,000 year cycle is when the Earth and our solar system are closest to the galactic equator. He also states that catastrophe usually accompanies the end of these long cycles but that it is also a time when positive energies can be used to break the negative, damaging cycles. I don't know if I believe any of this but it is a somewhat interesting hypothesis never the less. |
| 29.
The End - Laura Barcella - This was a rather fun book about
books, movies, plays, songs, etc. that deal with apocalypse. The funny
thing is that I had some knowledge about almost all of the 50
apocalyptic visions discussed in the book. The author used a standard
format for each description including a paragraph on whether the threat
posed by the vision has any possibility of actually happening. Lucky
for us most of the apocalyptic visions had little basis in reality. No
zombies are not likely to take over the Earth. A fun but rather silly
read. |