Category: books

Daniel Suarez is the favourite author of many geeks.

I’ve read all his books:

• Daemon (2006)
• Freedom^TM (2010)
• Kill Decision (2012)
• Influx (2014)
• Change Agent (2017)
• Delta-v (2019)

Delta-v is the weakest so far, I’d say.

Daemon the best.

Delta-v deals speculates on asteroid mining and the privatization of space in the year 2032.

As usual, the science was the best part. The technology seems believable.

How would we mine astroids?

But there were too many characters. I didn’t care much about any of them.

Amazon

Gillian Flynn is a BIG success.

Flynn has published three novels, Sharp Objects, Dark Places, and Gone Girl, all three of which have been adapted for film or television.

I’ve now read two of three. But her writing is simply too dark for me.

Sharp Objects is worst so far.

I’d concur that her work is misogyny. If she was male, there would be protests.

The Great Alone, set in the years after the Vietnam War, is a coming-of-age story about a girl, Leni Allbright, who moves with her parents, Ernt and Cora, to a log cabin in the wilds of Alaska (really wild, as in no running water, deadly cold, lots of bears). It’s a quieter book, though it still offers a Kristin Hannah-style mix of tragedy and romance.  …

Kristin Hannah currently lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington with her husband and their son. …

It’s a lightweight book. Not literature. An easy read.

On the other hand, after initially considering giving up in the early going, for some reason I got hooked. Invested in what’s going to happen to the abusive PTSD broken father and his long-suffering family.

The young people in the story would be about the same age as me now.

Part of the attraction was reading about life in Alaska all those decades ago.

I read this immediately after book 1.

It’s no better. Plot too unbelievable. The characters two dimensional.

Again, I enjoyed the technology used in the book.

I’d best give up on author Joseph Finder.

Nick has returned to his old home town of Boston to set up his own shop.

There he’s urgently summoned by an old family friend. Hedge fund titan Marshall Marcus desperately needs Nick’s help. His teenaged daughter, Alexandra, has just been kidnapped. …

My Mom recommended this author so I downloaded book 1 (2010) in the Nick Heller series. The author is Joseph Finder.

… Trained in the Special Forces, Nick is a high-powered intelligence investigator–exposing secrets that powerful people would rather keep hidden. He’s a guy you don’t want to mess with. He’s also the man you call when you need a problem fixed.

Desperate, with nowhere else to run, Nick’s nephew, Gabe makes that call one night. After being attacked in Georgetown, his mother, Lauren, lies in a coma, and his step-dad, Roger, Nick’s brother, has vanished without a trace. …

Amazon

Though Nick Heller is compared with another fictional action hero Jack Reacher, my money is on Reacher. And Lee Childs is a much better author than Finder.

In fact, there’s a short story where Jack Reacher meets Nick Heller.

For me Vanished is too simplistic. Too two dimensional. I didn’t really get invested in any of the characters.

I do like Finder’s detailed understanding of TECH.

Still … I’ll try book 2 in the series to see if it improves.