"Slaughterhouse Five" - Kurt Vonnegut

Published in 1969 originally, 2009 by Dial Press


recognized as one of the most influential anti-war books of all time, Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse 5" is a trippy book.  It explores war, free will, fate, love, paranormal activity, and weaves in historical events the entire time.  Vonnegut tells the tale of Billy Pilgrim, a young man who doesn't particularly believe in war and continuously asks to be left behind to die.  He is able to become unstuck from time and can see different points of his life throughout the story.  We are lead through his time before the bombing of Dresden, his boring married life after the war, time spent on an extraterrestrial planet called Tralfamadore, his death, and some other events.


Personally, I enjoyed this book, not in the way people are supposed to appreciate and love classics.  I can't see this ever becoming my favorite book of all time, but I did really like the writing style the ideas were all solidly put together to create a nice mesh of historically accurate sci-fi.


Quotes:
""Would you talk about the war now, if I wanted you to?" said Valencia. In a tiny cavity in her great body she was assembling the materials for a Green Beret.
"It would sound like a dream," said Billy. "Other people's dreams aren't very interesting, usually." 


Rating: ****

"Sacre Bleu" - Christopher Moore

Published in 2012 by William Morrow

This book is the epitome of Christopher Moore.  As much as I always want to love his books, they tend to either be super awesome (A Dirty Job, Lamb, Fool) or be kind of bleh (Fluke, the one about vampires, something about a Sequined Nun Love.)  This was a little of both.  Parts were wry, compelling and laugh out loud funny.  Parts were dry, boring, and a little overwrought.

A very strange and entertaining idea though, Sacre Bleu is a story about famous artists compelled to paint by a mystical little man who creates a magical color of blue that allows for some crazy things to happen.  While it was not his best book it was a fun and interesting look at the lives of men we often forget. . . had lives!

It shows us that these men were contemporaries and friends, just men living in Paris and getting by with the world around them and what they were given in life.

Quotes:
"Now the ragpicker threw his head back and laughed in the way only a Frenchman with 7 teeth and a conscience soaked in wine can laugh, the sound his donkey might make if he were a heavier smoker and had just licked the devils ass to chase all taste of goodness from his tongue.  The ragpicker wasn't a scoundrel, but scoundrels envied his laugh."

Rating: ***

"Spin" - Robert Charles Wilson

Published in 2006 by Tom Doherty Books

Spin is the first of a trilogy of books about the distant future where biotechnology has come to play an incredibly important role.  While earthlings are going about their daily lives, one night the stars go out.  Over time, it is discovered that there is a protective bubble around the planet but outside of it time is speeding by.  Inside the bubble a minute passes, while the rest of the universe ages 100 years.

Unlike the last book I read, I loved the characters in this novel.  They were all thoughtfully constructed so that they were likable but human.  The way Wilson writes intertwines the present (4 x 10⁹ AD) and the past (the childhood and adolescence of the three protagonists) is done beautifully and never feels confusing or broken.

At 450 pages, this book is neither short nor terribly long, but it flew by. I found myself reading it while walking or in the 6 minutes it takes to make vegetables for dinner.  I just couldn't put it down.

Rating: ****

Quotes:
"An absurd position, I know, but if critics insist that he showed us how to live and think and love, then surely he taught us how to run an efficient terror-based revolution and how to commit genocide, too."

"busy hands don't tremble, busy minds don't panic"

"Don't be upset. The world is full of surprises. We're all born strangers to ourselves and each other, and we're seldom formally introduced."