74. Logan's Run

Logan's Run - William F. Nolan

This is one of those books I read because I remember thinking the movie was great when I was young. By today's standards the movie sucks.

The book on the other hand does not suck at all. I think it was fun and exciting. OK, maybe there were events that were a little too convenient. Maybe the story line could get a bit choppy. Things like Logan gets knocked out...when he wakes everything is OK and it is time to move to the next scene. I can overlook those things because I really liked the story. I really liked that this novel was VERY different than the movie.

I wish the movie had some of the elements of this book. The prison called "Hell". The Crazy Horse Mountain. The Thinker. The Sky Gypsys. The Baby Home. The Civil War reenactment. The whole idea the Sanctuary is not just some place with an old guy hanging out. I liked the whole twist with Francis (the other Sandman). I loved the way Logan and Jessica become a pair much better in this book than the random hookup in the movie. I liked the whole story with the cub scouts much better. Box was much more than some robot living in an ice cave. The maze.

This book has so much more to offer than the movie ever did. It makes me regret that I did not read it 20 or 30 years ago.

I have purposely avoided specifics regarding the plot line. I think that you should give it a shot, especially if you liked the movie at all.

Is it great writing? No, not really. I do recommend it because it surprised me with the joy it gave me while reading it.

73. All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet On The Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque

I read it. It took forever because I was busier than I have ever been in my life this last five weeks or so.

So busy in fact that I don't even feel like blogging about this book.

It was very good. War sucks.

72. The Boy

The Boy - Naheem Murr

This book was very dark. It was too dark. It was so dark that I didn't want to read it after I started.

There is this guy from Ireland who spends his whole life building himself up to be Prime Minister. He calculates every step. He maneuvers every action in his life to reach that goal. At some point he messes up and does some stupid stuff with a prostitute. He fathers a child with her (the boy)..

The guy has given up his dreams of running the world because he now has a big skeleton in his closet. He becomes a renowned social worker with something like CPS. When the prostitute gets killed he decides to be the foster father for this boy.

They lived together for five years. During that time his legitimate son dies, his daughter commits suicide and his wife leaves him. The boy goes to a group home. The man falls apart but maintains his job.

Time passes and he then goes in search of the boy. Now the boy is a "rent boy" outside of London. He has mastered manipulating everyone around him to achieve his goals.

It seems like every character in this book has some serious mental issues. The ex-priest running the boys home and his wife are ridiculous. The boys in the home are all nuts. The foster father is a whack-job despite being the guy at the top of the social work chain of command.

The only person I think is normal in any way is the girl who cooks at the boys home, who the foster father has a thing for because she reminds him of his ex-wife.

Oh...the end sucked.

Anyway...if you want to read something really dark (have I said it was dark?), this book was pretty well written. I liked the words used. I liked the way it flowed.

Overall, this was not terrible, but it is definitely something you have to be in the right frame of mind in order to read.

71. The Five People You Meet in Heaven

The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom

This was a very interesting book that tells a tale of a very old man after he died. He thought he lead a boring and wasted life. The five people he met when he went to heaven showed him how his actions, intentional and unintentional, had influenced their lives. He learned that his "wasted" life had actually saved hundreds upon hundreds of children's lives.

It was fun to read. It was a feel good book. I doubt it was very hard for the author to write this one. Nice, but not very difficult to figure out every step of the way.

It was not what I think heaven will be like.

70. Batman & Dracula: Red Rain

Batman & Dracula: Red Rain - Doug Moench, Kelley Jones, Malcolm Jones III, Les Dorscheid, Todd Klein, Eric Van Lustbader

I thought I would give one of these graphic novels a shot for a change. There are 20 something year old guys at work who talk about these graphic novels and "manga" and what look to me like comic books. They are very into them for whatever reason. So, I asked about them and a few guys said this one would probably be good for me.

What did I find? Well, this is a part of a series called "Elseworlds". "Heroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places- some that have existed or might have existed, and others that can't, couldn't or shouldn't exist. The result is stories that make characters who are as familiar as yesterday seem as fresh as tomorrow."

OK...that sounds wonderful...so what did I get?
Dracula comes to Gotham City with his vampire army. They feed on the homeless. Batman must fight him to save the city. Batman wins, but he becomes a good vampire who will live forever.

What did I learn?
Nothing at all. Not a single vocabulary word. Not a single thought worth mentioning.

What did I really learn?
The guys talking about these books are not very intelligent I guess. They talk like this stuff is the best writing in the world and the stories are classic. It was just a fancy stinking comic book. It was written like a comic book and felt like a comic book as I read it. OK, they added a little sexually suggestive junk with female vampires to make the horny dorks like it more I think.

Something else I noticed. The list of credits for writing a stupid "graphic novel" is ridiculously long.

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

69. Chasing the Dead

Chasing the Dead - Joe Schreiber

This book is OK, but a bit to Stephen Kingish for me at this point in life. This type of horror book where some creepy guy who was killed 100's of years ago coming back and doing things in the modern world just seems too childish any more.

It was not bad, but didn't really get me wanting to read the rest of the story. It was suspenseful, but not edge of the seat suspenseful. It was puzzling trying to figure out what was happening, why, and who the "bad guy" really was, but it never really mattered to me as the reader.

68. Anthem

Anthem - Ayn Rand

First I bought Atlas Shrugged because it was suggested to me. Then I heard that The Fountainhead was kind of a lead in to Atlas Shrugged, so I bought it. Then I read that Anthem was the predecessor to both these books, so I got it. I read it first because it was published first and because I wanted to see the progression the author makes with her ideas.

This book was only 105 pages long, but I think it is one of the most meaningful 105 pages I have read yet. I will come up just short of calling this book required reading. The only reason for that is because I think it is a subject people would need to find interesting to find it that good.

I can't wait to get into The Fountainhead now. :-)

67. Planet of the Apes

Planet of the Apes - Pierre Boulle

This is the book that the 1970's movie phenomenon was based on. I expected it to be much like the movies, which I loved.

What did I discover? The movies were based VERY loosely on this novel. Yes, there were apes. Yes, there was a space traveling man. Yes, there were chimpanzees named Cornelius and Zira. Yes, there was an orangutan named Zaius. Yes, there was a mute human woman named Nova.

That is about it for the similarities. The screenplay was obviously Hollywooded up. Not that the screenplay was bad, because I loved those flicks, but it was completely different.

I am very glad that I read this. It is one of the few books that I thoroughly enjoyed while expecting something other than what it was. Usually that is a big let down. This time I think the story was so unique that it kept me wondering what would happen next.

I would recommend this to anyone who was a fan of the old Planet of the Apes movies or science fiction books in general.

One topic for discussion with a fellow book reader at work was whether Planet of the Apes could be considered a dystopian novel. I thought it could be based on my experiences with the movies and not having read the book yet. Now, I do not think so...and then again...

Read it.

66. The Wasp Factory

The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

This was a very interesting book about a 17 year old boy living on an island in Scotland. He is psychotic, obsessive compulsive, neurotic, and generally just a very strange dude. He killed two cousins and his younger brother and made them all look like accidents. The ways he killed are quite imaginative.

The book is told entirely through the thoughts and feelings of this young man.

There is a weird and strained relationship with his father. There is an older brother who has escaped from a mental institution and is headed home. There is a single friend to this boy who just happens to be a dwarf.

The boy spends his days rigging protective barriers to repel invasions on the island. The barriers are sticks in the ground with the heads of dead animals tied to them. He spends time using a contraption he created that uses wasps as a means of showing him the future during some strange rituals he has made up involving the skull of a dog that maimed him when he was a young child. He likes to hunt with his slingshot and goes to war with rabbits. He ends up killing them with bombs and flame throwers.

Very interesting. Very well written. It definitely got me into the man's head. It made me feel confused and empathetic toward mentally ill people.

The end of the book had a twist I never expected!

65. I, Lucifer - Glen Duncan

I, Lucifer: Finally, The Other Side of the Story - Glen Duncan

God calls Satan one day and says he has a new deal for him. If you spend 30 days as a flesh and blood man I will let you back into heaven. Lucifer accepts the deal for no other reason than to go have a blast for thirty days and stir up some shit while pissing God off for the umpteenth time.

He takes possession of the body of a writer who just committed suicide. He starts writing a screenplay to tell the other side of the story of the fall of the angels from heaven, the creation of the universe, the time spent in the garden of Eden before the fall of man, and so many other interesting times.

The stories are interesting, though total blasphemy for a believer.

The language? The subject matter? The conversation? The thoughts and reflections? Well, it is the devil writing this book.

Question...if Satan is the main character of the book does that make him a protagonist? Shouldn't the devil perpetually be the antagonist for no other reason than he is the devil?

The author of this book is very good at describing the surroundings. As an angel, even a fallen angel, the devil had not experienced what men had experienced, and did not even realize it until he became one himself. The scents were overpowering. The colors were intensified. All manner of stimulation was as though he was thrown from a sensory deprivation state to the real world. The author did an excellent job relating all this.

I found it quite interesting how Duncan wrote this book from Lucifer's perspective. God exists. The Holy Trinity is real. Angels are real. The creation was true, though according to him was not quite as described in the Bible. The Christian God is real in this book, yet the words are written with disgust and sarcasm and hate...just like Satan would write it. For instance, Lucifer would HATE the crucifixion, resurrection and forgiveness of sins thanks to Jesus Christ. So he calls him Jimeny Christmas, belittles what he did, makes fun of him, points out character flaws, etc. While writing all this, Lucifer also acknowledges the truth of it all and the futility of his struggle.

On a number of occasions he pointed out that it was not a fair fight because one of the Holy Trinity got involved in some conflict between the angels or disrupted one of his "operations" in the world of man. Even then Satan knew he didn't really have the power to do a damned thing, but he considers himself the "second most powerful" thing in existence. It was very interesting to read from that point of view.

It was interesting to read that Lucifer did seem to get worried when he was told by Raphael that Hell would be destroyed during the Judgement and that all inhabitants would be placed into a "nothingness"...alone...with nothing...forever. That scared him, but did not change him.

I enjoyed the book, but I had a difficult time picking it up each day. It took a while to read because I just did not get into it like I have with some others. I have looked back at the past week and realize that there has been a lot going on that normally would not be happening. Perhaps those real life distractions were what made this book not jump up and say "Read me!"...or maybe, just maybe, Someone did not want me to enjoy it. :-)

FYI...this is not a book about religion. This is a novel involving religious beings. It's purpose is never to persuade. It was very interesting.