Reader’s Diary

John Barnes

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.

Piers Paul Read

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

John Birmingham

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.

Russell Roberts

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.

Robert Conroy

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.

Apostolos Doxiadis

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.