In this near-future novel an apparently leaderless emergent terrorist movement creates organisms that destroy plastic, rubber, and petroleum products: chaos ensues.  The directive of the title refers to a 2007 presidential directive designed to insure the continuity of constitutional government  in the event of a great disaster.  Why the author devotes so much attention to presidential succession is the second biggest mystery in the book (the first being the never-told story of how the terrorist movement started and whether or not it has leaders).

Barnes started with an intriguing premise, but the book degenerates into one of those Turtledove-style SF novels that jump from character to character and from place to place without any rhyme, reason, or transitions.  With a couple of exceptions, the characters are hard to distinguish.  Ultimately the story wanders off into the weeds.  A good editor could probably have made this into a good book, but as published it reads like a first draft.

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This novel about a plan to kill the pope reminded me of “Day of the Jackal” in that character, setting, and plot are more important than frantic action.  It’s an old-school thriller, short, not terribly surprising,  but enjoyable

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The premise of “Without Warning” is, to put it mildly, far-fetched: a curtain of energy of unknown origin descends around most of the United States, and, within it, everyone disappears.  From this beginning, John Birmingham tells a compelling story of what happens to the remaining US citizens, military forces, and the rest of the world.  I had feared this would be a right-wing screed to show how important the US is, but I was pleasantly surprised.  This is a good read, reminiscent of the best of Stephen King’s work. I’m looking forward to the sequels.

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Two high school teachers, a libertarian and a liberal, fall in love against a background of corporate fraud.  Interesting, until it’s revealed that the corporate fraud is a fiction-within-a-fiction, the plot of a popular TV show that exists only to show how stupid the liberal’s liberal friends are.  At this plot turn it becomes obvious that this is nothing more than a libertarian parable.  You might enjoy it if you’re one of those naive fools who thinks that markets are the solution to all our problems.   Russell can safely spout this nonsense, since he’s a presumably-tenured professor insulted from the depredations of the corporate oligarchy.  The real world never has and never will fit the libertarian pipe dream.

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This is a competent alternate history in which the US and the USSR go to war over the remains of Germay at the “end” of WW II.  The plot has few surprises, but it was plausible enough and written well enough to draw me in and keep me interested.

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Uncle Petros is the narrator’s uncle, a mathematician who mysteriously quit math after years of devotion to an “impossible” problem.  The novel contains two intertwined plots: the story of the narrator’s discovery of his uncle’s story and Petros’ story itself.  During the telling of the tales we get some insight into the world of mathematics and some provocative thoughts about choosing goals.  I enjoyed this book; I really should read more fiction from outside of my usual genre boxes.

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This starts as an intriguing pseudo-history/archaeology thriller but turns into a vile psycho killer story about three fourths of the way through.   Avoid it.

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I love time travel stories, so much so that I’m not very picky about how good they are.  This story of two friends who travel in time, originally to find a missing father but later for entertainment, isn’t in the first rank of time travel stories.  It doesn’t deliver the sense of strangeness at encountering another time that is, for me, an essential element of the genre.  What it does offer is an unusually original plot element: the profligate use of the characters’ machines to avoid or correct the smallest error or inconvenience.  Raining on your arrival in Renaissance Italy?  Come back in a couple of hours.  This leads to all sorts of interesting situations and makes the whole book, despite it’s faults, a lot of fun.

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I picked this up immediately after finishing the previous book and was a little surprised at the narrator’s abrupt leap from child to 30-something man.  It’s a sign of Rice’s talent that the narrator is still recognizably the same.  The same, that is, until He becomes, or realizes, or chooses to realize, that He is the Son of God.  The story of that growth is the story of the book.  It’s presumptuous of any author to answer the question, “what did Christ know about His own nature and when did He know it?”  It’s even more presumptuous to answer that question in the first person.  Rice manages the trick well, and the story builds nicely to a conclusion at John the Baptist’s baptism of Christ and a denouement at the wedding at Cana.

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Writing a fictionalized life of Christ in the first person is a gutsy move.  There must be a million ways to do it wrong, and very few that wouldn’t seem ridiculous or pietistic.  In this book – obviously the product of extensive research and deep reflection – Anne Rice tells a completely believable (if you’re a believer, that is – this book won’t convince any non-believers) story of the child Jesus in His imagined voice.

First of all, it’s a good story, a coming-of-age tale in which “who am I” has cosmic implications.  Secondly, it’s  and extended meditation on the Incarnation.  Thirdly, it’s a lovely portrait of a happy if sometimes contentious extended family.

The very premise of this book sounds ridiculous but I was happily surprised to find that I could hardly put it down.

(The author’s note at the end of the book contains Rice’s story of her return to the Church and an interesting account of her sources and thought processes during the writing of the book.  Her discussion of  the dating of the Gospels is particularity interesting.)

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I thought Steve Berry’s last Cotton Malone novel was a little over the top.  I was happy to find that this, the latest book in the series, isn’t quite as ridiculous; or maybe it is, but I just didn’t notice it because the action is so fast and furious.  Surprisingly, Berry kills a major character, something as rare in series thrillers as characters dying in TV sitcoms.  Oh yeah, the plot has to do with a lost treasure of Napoleon.

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Michael Rose, the hero of “The Fourth Order”, is the CFO of a company seeking to acquire a large IT firm.  The IT firm is a front organization for a secret government agency and the agency’s directors don’t want it to be acquired.  In the course of the novel Rose finds out who he’s really working for and discovers that most of the things and people in his life – including his wife – are not what or who they seem to be.  The plot of this fast-paced thriller probably wouldn’t stand up to logical analysis and the characters aren’t all that fascinating, but despite its flaws it’s a fun light read.

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The book’s hero, Marcus, is a 17-year-old student skilled in evading high school surveillance.  After being rounded up in the aftermath of a terrorist bombing in San Fransisco he devotes himself to undermining the invasive procedures put in place by the Department of Homeland Security (George Orwell’s ghost must still be laughing at that name).  He’s David fighting Goliath, and some of his tactics have unfortunate side effects.

The book deals with some important themes and contains a lot of useful information about security systems and the measures people can take to guard their privacy.  For those who say “I have nothing to hide”, I recommend Marcus’s argument: “It’s not about doing something shameful. It’s about doing something private. It’s about your life belonging to you.”

This young adult novel about the Surveillance State should be assigned reading in American high schools.   Some mildly explicit sexual content will probably keep it off public school reading lists.  This is an unfortunate mistake on Doctorow’s part since it provides a cover for book-banners who are actually more threatened by the book’s real message: that the US Constitution should trump the fear-based excesses of our “protectors”.

If my kids were still in high school I’d want them to read this book.  Ironically, I read it the week that the following story broke:

The FBI is investigating allegations made against the Lower Merion School District in a lawsuit by the parents of a student. The lawsuit claims school officials used a remote-controlled Webcam to spy on their son, a high school student.

…

According to the suit, the district provided laptops to high school students as part of a technology initiative, and did not notify families the laptops were equipped with Webcams that could be turned on remotely. The family alleged in the suit they did not learn of the capability until school officials accused Blake Robbins of “improper behavior in his home” and cited as evidence a photograph from the Webcam embedded in the laptop.

(Via eWeek.com)

When I compare that to my high school experience in the early 1970′s, where, at our all-white working class Catholic school, I could read Eldrige Cleaver’s “Soul on Ice” for an English class, debate the merits of socialism in world cultures class,  where there were no surveillance cameras, and where, despite all that,  none of my classmates have yet become terrorists, I wonder what has  happened to my country.

(The book has some excellent “afterwords” by several different authors and a useful bibliography.  The entire book is available for free download.)

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“Makers” is an intriguing book without much of a plot.  In a near-future, post-economic-collapse America, two hackers in an abandoned Florida strip mall create clever mechanical art largely through the use of 3D printers and run afoul of corporate interests, namely Disney. Jimmy Buffet meets “Neuromancer“.  Even though the plot is weak, the novel is full of interesting ideas and characters you end up caring about.   Even though it could use some tight editing, I enjoyed this one a lot and it pairs nicely with “Daemon” and “Freedom (TM)“.

(For a non-fiction look at cutting edge – ha – manufacturing technologies, see “Fab“.)

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The follow-up to “Sword Song“  is vivid, exciting, and graphic but I’d really like to see the Uhtred saga move forward rather than go in circles.  It’s good stuff, but I wish Cornwell’s would let his characters change over time.

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It was interesting to read this book, which is about cyber warfare apparently waged by China, during the week that Google made it’s allegation against China about attempts to penetrate Google’s systems.  Note that I said “apparently”, which is a bit of a spoiler but the real culprit is telegraphed so early in the book that I’m not spoiling much of a surprise.  (So if fictional culprits can make an attack look like it came from China, couldn’t real attackers do the same thing?)

Clarke, a former senior White House advisor to three presidents, uses fiction to make a convincing  case that the US infrastructure is very vulnerable to technological attacks.   His protagonists are plausible, his villains two-dimensional, and his thriller-writing workmanlike.

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