Airframe: A Forgettable Read Involving Airplanes

Airframe By Michael Crichton

Overall: A Forgettable Read Involving Airplanes

Being a fan of Michael Crichton, I have to read most of the books. I over looked this one in the past though, simply because there aren’t going to be anymore. So I decided to finally read Airframe. Not my first choice in reading material, but all well, I’ll give anything a try. Now I have to write this thing before I forget what I just read.
So given the name Airframe, one would assume it’s about airplanes. And it is. The book starts with a incident on a plane where fifty six people are injured and four people died. The owners of the plane, a company called Norten is stunned. The plane is supposed to be safe. Perfect. Uncrashable under the conditions it was in. This gives the Norton company a bad image. Norton was planning to make a big sale of planes to China, but now unless the mystery of why the plane is solved, the sale is in jeopardy. The manager John Marder puts together a team head by Casey Singleton to solve the issue. But unlike most cases where they may have a month. He is supplying only a week, giving them, all unbelievable expectations for results.
The story centers on Casey Singleton as she tries to solve the mystery. Yet as she puts together the clues, there are other thing on their way. Shipping and engineers who will work in building 64 on the plant hear wind of rumors of how Marder is trying to sell the company off. So they destroy things intentionally or injure someone to up hold the investigation because they want to keep their jobs. Casey has intern named Bob Riechman, who she is suppose to be training. She’s supposed to be showing him the ropes. Yet as it goes on, Casey questions if he’s there for another reason, because he seems to have no interest. John Marder often interferes. Lastly, she has to deal with the press to save the company. Overall it’s not that thrilling of plot. But that is the plot line.
So what’s the good? The good is that it is written by Michael Crichton, so even if the topic is dull, the characters aren’t. They appear real and relatable. Casey is a workaholic who works as hard as she can to achieve her goal, and has not really boyfriend , but a guy around to make her feel better when times get tough. She is a busy woman, and sad to say, but I was there six months ago and I was in her world. And to me when I can relate to a character like that, it helps the book a lot. We all like to read about people, not these cardboard cut out stereotypes we see so often. And then there’s the bad.
The bad is this book revolves around a airplane investigation that takes place entirely at the Norton Airplane plant. Unlike Jurassic Park, Prey, or Timeline, this has no action or science fiction. I feel the author may have been one of those people fascinated by airplanes, so he decided to write about it. But I for one, couldn’t care less about air planes in general, so to me the topic is kind of dull. He spends pages talking about mechanics of a plane. And call me a nerd, but when he does this in other books talking about time travel, DNA splicing and nano bots and how science and mechanics are involved, I’m not bored. And one last thing and yes this is one of my pet peeves. There is a quote on the book saying, “Suspense is non stop” I wish they would stop putting that on books like these. Suspense for me is “Oh my god what is going to happen?” And this book is not one of those moments.
So overall, it’s forgettable book. A week from now, I won’t remember anything about it. And it’s just about airplanes. So if you like air planes then go ahead. If you like Michael Crichton it is a good one time read. I mean it’s no where as bad as State Of Fear. So I can only rate it as decent. I give it two smoothies out of four.

Rating 2 smoothies out of four

P.S. Check out my book and ebook website Lelue’s Realm. Google it or go directly to http://lelue.webs.com/

The Glass Castle: A Better Than Average Memoir

The Glass Castle By Jeanette Walls

Overall: A Better Than Average Memoir

The Glass Castle By Jeanette Walls, was something I was forced to read in English 102. It’s a memoir and typically I hate memoirs, and any memoir is far from my first choice of reading material. I have always viewed true stories as generally boring and as I began to read the pages, I have to say this. This is not that bad.

The book is the author’s recollection of growing up in a family where the parents had no jobs and refused to get any. The mother dreams of being a famous artist. The father dreams of finding gold, and building fictional Glass Castle that he always tells Jeanette about. Jeanette has two sisters and one brother. And they all live where they can with no cost. Often times the kids sleep in card board boxes, starve on occasions, and shop lift just to get by. And through out book the dad becomes more of a alcoholic, keeping any gambling money for himself. The mother progressively becomes more and more self absorbed. And these kids do a number of things to survive.

In most smoothie reviews, I list the good and bad. But it’s hard to do that on a true story of this woman’s life. She couldn’t change the book in any way, so instead, I’m going to say why someone should read this book. This is one of those books where you’ll feel sorry for the main character. And it does hook the reader. There are parts where you will get so mad at the parents that you wish you could find out where these people are living and give them a good punch for neglecting their kids. Then there are parts where they have nothing and they are happy and simple, making you wish that life was that easy. It really tugs your emotions and that’s why it’s so different. It’s such a unusual child hood.

I would suggest this book to anyone. I know there’s people who like dramas about hardships and things coming together again. This is for you.

2 ½ smoothies out of four.

P.S. Check out my book and ebook website Lelue’s Relam. Google it or go directly to http://www.lelue.webs.com/

Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot : Predictable and Soaked In Suspense

Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot :

Overall rating: Predictable and Soaked in Suspense

Sometimes a book will just sit around the house forever. It collects dust. The pages turn yellow. It’s most likely the original print from the 1970’s. The original source the book is that it was given to me a long time ago, but I’m not sure who gave it to me or why. Then spring cleaning comes and I pick it up this book and have to make a choice. Trash it or read it. And despite the fact that it is written by Stephen King, I decided to read it. This book is called Salem’s Lost.

This is one of Stephen’s earliest novels that gave a thin ray of hope that it may be enjoyable and not as abstract, weird or scattered brained as his later works. There’s not a lot to say about the plot. It is as simple of a set up as you can get. Ben Mears, a writer, returns to a his child hood town of Salem’s Lot to write about the Marsten House that he became scared of as child during a game of truth and dare. It turns out the house was bought since then by someone else, and that someone else is a vampire. And as expected, the town slowly become infected by this vampire and fades into a town of the walking dead.

So what is the good? Well it’s not bad. Not great, but not bad. Things do happen in the story, and it is focused on the central story. There are no “why is this chapter in the book?” moments. When I say this I typically refer to things like ‘ a man dying because Jesus is talking to man through the TV in the Tommyknockers’ or ‘the constant reciting of the “I am the Walrus” lyrics in Dreamcatcher.’ Everything did fit. There was nothing random. And another thing, I have to hand it to the author , is that the book didn’t suffer from mindless clichés that all vampire novels suffer from today. It is a simple straight forward horror novel, but is much better than Dean Koontz work and not as over sexed as Bently Little novels.

So here’s the bad. Stephen King relies too heavily on suspense. For the first half of the novel, I read scenes such as some thing running after to children late at night. But it is all suggestive. They are running because they are scared. They are scared because of bad feelings they have and what they can’t see in the fog. There’s another scene where the author spend ten pages on the character Matt and how he doesn’t want to go upstairs because he’s scared. This is not scary. I know he’s trying to be scary. But to me as a reader, it wasn’t scary. It was just dragging along. I need a image to scare me, or at least present a sound. A bad feeling doesn’t work for me. And I know books can be creepy by showing and not telling. In the Eaters of The Dead, people where being slaughtered by creatures within this cursed mist and piece by piece. It is revealed and is intensified in the story. The author didn’t suggest something is scary, he shown how it was scary. It was a sort of suspense that believable to me. The same issue came up where the doctor and boy was going to kill the vampire.After they enter the building the story jumps ahead in the story two hours, to have the boy explains to Ben what happened in the basement in three or four sentences. And when I read that, I said “Wow. That’s really lazy.” I wanted to read that. See all the details, and intensity and fear that the characters were going through. Not the aftermath. Beyond that I felt the character were completely unrelatable and shallow. But that was a very minor issue in the book.

So overall, the book Salem’s Lot is fair. It is just trying way too hard to be scary by using too much suspense for it’s own good. The book is something to pass on, for most people. But not one that you’ll regret if you read it. I recommend it to vampire lovers and die hard Stephen King fans. For you guys, this is chocolate. For the rest of us, it really isn’t much.

1 ½ smoothies out of four.

P.S. Check out my book and ebook website Lelue’s Realm. Google it or go directly to http://www.lelue.webs.com/