Eleven on Top (Stephanie Plum #11) (audiobook) by Janet Evanovich

Long stretches of tedium punctuated by episodes of laugh-out-loud fun

Published by Macmillan Audio in 2005.
Read by Lorelei King.
Duration: 7 hours, 48 minutes

Unabridged.

Eleven on Top is my fifth in the Stephanie Plum series, having previously read 1-3 and 8. Technically, 1-3 were enjoyed thoroughly as books on tape. The fact that I heard them all as audiobooks is a source of my frustration with Eleven on Top.

You see, the first three that I enjoyed were read by the actress Lori Petty. In my mind, Petty accurately nailed the Jersey Girl attitude and accent of Stephanie. Lorelei King, a veteran reader does a good job with all of the characters but Stephanie - she plays Stephanie fairly accent-neutral. While the dialogue works without the New Jersey accent, it crackles and zings with it. I know that King is the choice for Evanovich to read, but I think that she is a letdown after listening to Petty's work.

Secondly, the fact that I 'read' this book as an audiobook really accentuated some of Evanovich's more irritating, space-filling writing habits. For example, she is a list maker. Several times she lists off all of the clutter that surrounds Morelli as he nurses a broken leg (used Kleenex, dirty plates, empty glasses, and so on). Or, she lists the clutter on her desk at work. Or, she lists the clutter in her apartment. As a book reader, I would have skimmed over the list and not thought twice about it. As a listener...well, I've got to sit and listen to the lists.

Thirdly, this book has a tendency to drag. Stephanie's indecisiveness about the men in her life is not a fresh topic anymore. Her family scenes were interesting until they were repeated several times throughout the book. Like I said in the title to this review, the story was long stretches of tedium punctuated by episodes of laugh-out-loud fun.

So, what kind of grade do I give this one? I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich.

Reviewed on January 18, 2007.

Truman (audiobook) by David McCullough

Published by  Simon and Schuster Audio in 1992.

Read by David McCullough, the author

Includes parts of recordings of speeches by Harry S. Truman and Douglas MacArthur

Duration: approximately 6 hours

Abridged

The unabridged version won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize.

I am a history teacher, with my favorite times in American history being the Revolutionary War Era, the Civil War Era and an interest in the Frontier as it moved across the United States. While I knew a great deal about Truman before listening to this audiobook, I really felt that I needed to know more.

David McCullough's treatment of Truman is friendly, but not overly rosy. The audiobook version I listened to was abridged. I assume that the areas that were not focused upon in the abridged edition are more fleshed out in the unabridged edition. (Note: this abridgement was not sloppily done - I didn't even notice it was abridged until about 3/4 of the way through the book - it just seemed like he was glossing over the activities of the New Deal Congress rather quicker than normal)

Harry S. Truman (1884-1972)

Areas of particular focus in the abridged edition include Truman's family background and childhood. His World War I experiences, early political jobs, his association with Kansas City machine politics, Bess (of course!), his mother, how he was chosen to be Vice President, the decision to drop the atomic bombs, the Korean War, the decision to fire MacArthur and eulogies for Truman.

The printed version of this book includes pictures, I am sure, which is a disadvantage of the audio version. However, that deficiency is more than made up for by the inclusion of real audiotaped quotes from Truman himself when possible. It is one thing to see a picture of Harry Truman, it is quite another to hear sections of his speeches in Truman's own voice - the way most Americans did at the time when they were delivered. It gives you a different sense of the man. A section of MacArthur's "Old Soldiers Fade Away" speech is also included, to the detriment of MacArthur, in my opinion. He sounds very snobbish and patrician. When compared to Truman, it makes you root for the Man from Independence all the more.

David McCullough

A second strength of the audiobook is that it is read by the author himself. McCullough has a voice that I envy and enjoy to hear and he makes even the most slowest portions of the book flow by quickly and easily.

Bravo!

Find this edition at Amazon.com here: Truman.

I give this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on February 3, 2007.

Note: This is a profound, but skillful abridgment - the original audiobook clocks in at 54 hours and this version lasts about 6 hours. I appreciate the way that they made an exhaustive biography something that everyday people would listen to.

The Message of the Sphinx: A Quest for the Hidden Legacy of Mankind (audiobook) by Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval

Published by Audio Literature in March of 1998.
Read by Nick Ullett
Duration: 3 hours
Abridged

I picked up The Message of the Sphinx on a whim. Having already read and reviewed Hancock's Heaven's Mirror several years ago, I knew what I was getting myself into - lots of alternative, well-researched ideas that cause you to think, "Well...maybe..." before common sense comes roaring back.

The first half of the audiobook was just that. Questions about the weathering on the Sphinx. Unexplained unwillingness to research into what lies below the Sphinx (is it a cavern? a room? a geologic anomaly?), challenges to the orthodox Egyptology's interpretations.

This is mostly just lots of good fun and as a history teacher I encourage challenges to Orthodoxy - for example, until fairly recently the Maya were considered to be wise sages of the rain forest who abhorred violence (turns out they readily engaged in human sacrifices all of the time), the Assyrians of Nineveh were considered to be a fantasy of the Bible and the city of Troy? - a figment of Homer's imagination. So, putting pinholes in orthodoxy has its place.

However, Hancock and Bauval lost me when they began to use Edgar Cayce's psychic readings from the 1930s and 1940s as a legitimate source. Star charts and weathering are legitimate sources, even if they are misinterpreted or misread. They are facts that anyone can access. The ramblings of mediums are not facts! Come on!

To make it worse, Hancock, and Bauval launch into an extended discourse on the movement of stars across the sky over the centuries (called procession). While this had a legitimate point, one that Hancock fleshes out even more in his book Heaven's Mirror, he goes on and on with it to the point where I couldn't hardly stand to listen to it any longer. 

The reader, Nick Ullett, did a superb job with the material he was asked to read, but there is no way that listening to nearly an hour of facts and figures about star charts and mathematical equations will be anything but mind-numbingly, eye-crossingly, stupefyingly boring. I listen to audiobooks to perk up my long daily commute. I actually had to turn off the relentless march of the equations just to stay awake! Hancock's points were made in the first 15 minutes - yet he continued on and on and on and on and on...

So, this is really two books - the first half is interesting and full of legitimate points. The second half is buttressed by facts from the mouth of a psychic and then becomes an endless lecture on procession that should have been edited.

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: The Message of the Sphinx.

Reviewed on February 8, 2007.

Blowback: A Thriller (Scot Horvath #4) by Brad Thor

Based on some dubious assumptions

Originally published in 2005.

Brad Thor's thriller Blowback delivers as far as the international thrills and chills go. Main character Scot Harvath is a counter-terrorism expert on the tail of an Al-Qaeda operative who catches wind of something new - a plague that is being resurrected from the ancient past to be used against all non-Muslims.

Harvath pursues his leads across Europe and the Middle East - that part is lots of fun. I have issues with Thor's treatment of Muslims and his main thesis.

**SPOILER ALERT**

Every Muslim in the book, with the exception of two, is either a brazen hypocrite or a crazed religious fanatic. One of the good Muslim is killed by the virus being spread the fanatics and the other is shot by the hypocrites. There are literally dozens of Muslims in the book - and only two are decent people?

Thor's book rests on the premise that the Ottoman Empire is trying to resurrect itself by using fanatics like Al-Qaeda and the Wahhabis to weaken modern Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia. The problem with that is this: most Muslims openly hated the Ottoman government. Why? The Sultan (head of the secular government) also gave himself the title of Caliph (head of the religious structure). That is a giant no-no in Islam - Islam must not be subservient to a government. Also, there was a bit of ethnic dislike thrown in since the Ottomans were Turks and there has often been a pro-Arab stance in Al-Qaeda and the Wahhabis.

****END OF SPOILERS****

So, great thrills marred by laughable conspiracy and hopeless stereotyping of Muslims.

I give this one 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Blowback: A Thriller by Brad Thor.

Reviewed on February 21, 2007.

The Lake House (audiobook) by James Patterson

Yikes!

Published in 2003 by Hatchette Audio
Read by Hope Davis and Stephen Lang.
Duration: 7 hours, 35 minutes.

Unabridged

The Lake House is the story of six bird/human hybrids who are created as the result of genetic experiments. They all can fly and all have superhuman strength.

 This book is very poorly paced. Great chunks of action happen with shorthand writing and then Patterson spends nearly an hour of the 7 1/2 hour book describing two of the characters' first sexual experiences. The Lake House skips over scenes and parts of the story moves in fits and starts. For example, the children all "run" away to live in the woods and eat grubs just to get away from regular human society. Next thing you know, they're back at home without any sort of explanation. I listen to a lot of audiobooks and many of them are abridged so I am used to odd fits and starts by poor editing. I checked the packaging several times while listening to this book to see if it was abridged. Sadly, the herky-jerky nature of the book cannot be blamed on poor editing during the process of abridgement because this is an unabridged reading.

Technical things made the book just seem silly like:

-The smoke detector that goes off only after the house is up in flames struck me as stupid. Just this morning 2 smoke detectors went off in my house because a toaster waffle got a bit burned.

-How about the Subaru that holds 8 people, including 6 of them with wings?

-Why does the bad guy want the kids so badly. He keeps mentioning them as a source of money, but how much money does this guy need? He just performed 30 surgeries at the rate of $100 million each. That's $3 billion!

-If you were going to fight a winged person with a 10 foot wingspan and superhuman strength would you bring a gun? A big knife? A spear? A rocket launcher? Well, the genius supervillain brings a scalpel!

-How about the bemoaning of the fact that no one was talking about the Resurrection Project in the media but then it is brought out in testimony during the custody trial of the century and no one questions it because they knew all about it?

-Can you measure IQ when someone is asleep? No, but the evil genius does anyway.

-Hey - if you are going to write sci-fi get your terms right! Clones are not robots. Robots are not made of flesh. Cyborg is the term you were looking for. Get the terminology right or don't use it, please!

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. This book is bad, especially when compared to other works by Patterson, such as any of the early Alex Cross books. Patterson needs to have an editor really jump all over him and demand the better quality that he is capable of.

The audiobook was read by Hope Davis and Stephen Lang. Both are veteran readers who did a good job with the reading. But, even the best readers in the world could not have done anything to save this stinker of a book.

Note: This book and When the Wind Blows were re-worked to make the basis for Patterson's Maximum Ride series aimed at young adults.

I rate this book 1 star out of 5. It can be purchased at Amazon.com here: The Lake House by James Patterson.

Reviewed on March 2, 2007 (edited on June 26, 2012).

Four Blind Mice (Alex Cross #8) (audiobook) by James Patterson

Good but not great

Published by Hachette Audio in 2002.

Read by Peter Jay Fernandez and Michael Emerson.

Duration:  8 hours and 7 minutes.

Unabridged

I am glad to get back to the world of Alex Cross. I have read or heard 3 other Patterson books this year and have been sorely disappointed with two. I only liked one (Jester) and I was looking forward to getting back to comfortable ground with Alex Cross.

After reading a few reviews, it sounds like the audio version actually helps Four Blind Mice a bit. The two narrators are both quite good, with the exception that some of the bad guys sound too much like one another.

The strength of Patterson's Cross books is the realistic conversations - the rhythms, cadences, colloquialisms and vocabulary sound right and this was certainly accentuated by great audio performances by Peter Jay Fernandez and Michael Emerson.

Their voces sound so right that I am reminded of a personal story. Way back before Patterson's picture was plastered all over the back of every one of his books, I used to work in a used book store. The Alex Cross books started filtering in and Mrs. Rivers, the assistant manager and an elderly African-American woman (also an avid mystery/thriller reader) placed Patterson's books in the African-American authors section because the characters felt so right to her. She was shocked when a book came in with his face on the back. She commented that she never would have believed that a white man could have pulled that off so well. He still pulls it off.

However, the story flows in a herky-jerky manner. Sampson and Cross gleen clues from things that should not provide clues. For example, while in Raleigh, NC investigating an old ritualistic multiple murder, they hear that a single prostitute was killed. No details are provided of the prostitute's murder, but still they know it is connected. How?

Patterson is intent on moving the personal lives of Cross and Sampson forward. That is appropriate. At times, though, it felt as if that was the only part of the story he really put a lot of thought into. The rest seemed to be rather sloppily tossed in there - the connections were loose, characters are introduced than dropped.

So, my grade: 4 stars out of 5.

Good conversation. Like the characters. My suggestion: Slow down "James Patterson, Inc." and take the time to work out some of the kinks and make these books better.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Four Blind Mice by James Patterson.

Reviewed on May 3, 2007.

JSA: The Liberty Files (Justice Society, Elseworlds) (graphic novel) by Dan Jolley and Tony Harris

It was good, but not great.

Published by D.C. Comics in 2004.

I am not the biggest comic book fan. I have barely set foot in a real comic book shop, so I don't even know if the 'Comic Book Guy' on 'The Simpsons' is realistic or not. Continuity means nothing to me. Being a history teacher, I was more intrigued by the history part of the story. (Speaking of continuity, I know for a fact that Superman was fighting Nazis during WWII, just like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck - I've seen the movies!)

However, I've read some of the big stuff (Dark Knight I and II, Red Son and a few more). I was dimly aware of some of the heroes featured in this one, which makes sense since JSA was originally intended to promote the lesser known heroes). This one was interesting, but in the end, not as good as I had hoped.

Learning the new characters was fairly easy, but telling them apart in their street clothes was darn near impossible with the exception of Clark Kent, thanks to the trademark cowlick. Also, even though it was a JSA book, the focus seemed to be Batman. Batman vs. "Jack the Grin" (Joker). Batman vs. Scarecrow. Batman making his teammates mad. Batman's introspection. And, finally, Batman vs. 'Superman'. The last one has been done umpteen times, I know, even though I am, as already stated, a casual fan. Heck, I've seen it done in Frank Miller's Dark Knight I and Mark Millar's Red Son, and to be honest, they both did it better (especially Millar's).

An interesting observation - I appreciated the fact that at the WWII Battle of El Alamein, the artists included two well-known fictional characters of this time period in the two page spread (pp. 116-117): Sgt. Rock and PFC Ryan (from Saving Private Ryan).

So, while not a waste of my time, it certainly did not do the job as well as others.

I give this one 3 stars out of 5.

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: The Liberty Files.

Reviewed on June 17, 2007.