The Blonde by Duane Swierczynski

Duane Swierczynski seems to have carved out his own niche of crime stories with a twist. If Expiration Date is time-travel noir, The Blonde is femme fatale sci-fi. Not hardcore sci-fi, mind you. More the Michael Crichton kind, since this story revolves around self-replicating nanobot parasites that live in the blood and can be tracked by satellites. They are also able to somehow sense proximity to other people, which is why the title character has to stay within 10 feet of someone else, otherwise these nanites rush to the brain and force a severe hemorrhage and death. To force someone to stay with her, she poisons an unwitting traveler at the airport bar and tells him she's only give him the antidote if he helps her.

The Blonde is a lot more violent than my previously-read Swierczynski novel, mostly because of the assassin taking orders for hits and decapitation, and the language is a lot more "adult". Nearly all of the story takes place in the hours ticking down to the poisoned man's death (which happens to coincide with his appointment with his wife's divorce lawyer.) Fast-paced, relatively short (around 200 pages), and imminently readable seems to be Swierczynski's modus operandi, but while I'm sure I'll read Expiration Date again and own it, I'm satisfied I just got this one from the library.

Newest Holga pics

If you haven't caught on by now, I really like stark black and white industrial images.

More here:

http://www.lomography.com/homes/bubbacoop/albums/b-amp-w

Lightning

See more sprocket hole pictures here.

New film camera

I won (as in free, not auction) this little gem from cabbitmedia.com in Honolulu. (In fact, here's the announcement.) It's a Japanese (apparently even Japan has their stuff made in China) 35mm plastic Superheadz clone of Vivitar's Ultra Wide and Slim camera that captures vivid colors, wide angles, and vignettes (dark corners). Limited to 2,000 worldwide in this color, but the best part so far was when I took the camera out of the plastic pack and the backing card revealed the message: "welcome to magical camera world."

I can't wait to start shooing some Kodak Ektar with it.

Expiration Date by Duane Swierczynski

I'd never heard of Duane Swierzynski before I saw Expiration Date as one of the Early Reviewer books on LibraryThing. I didn't win a copy, so I purchased one based on the summary of the title and the enthusiastic responses I found to the author's previous novels.

Expiration Date is a fast-paced, twisty time-travel mystery written in a first-person hardboiled crime pulp style, and featuring occasional B&W ink illustrations by comic book artist Lawrence Campbell (this is a novel, not a graphic novel). Mickey Wade lost his job and his grandfather is comatose in the hospital, so Mickey moves into his grandfather's apartment and accidentally discovers that the pills in the old Tylenol bottle from his grandfather's medicine cabinet aren't meant for headaches. Oh, and they also happen to cause him to travel back to around the year of his birth in 1972. Now, this could present some interesting opportunities...if Mickey wasn't invisible and allergic to light while in the past.

I'd hate to give too much away, but Wade is juggling problems in both times, trying to piece together family mysteries in the past while convincing his best friend that all that time he spends passed out on the floor has nothing to do with being a drug addict. The crux of time travel stories is usually how the past affects the future and the question of how will a particular author or movie treat the consequences of actions in the past.

Suffice it to say that I consider myself a new fan of Duane Swierczynski and look forward to reading his other novels (already picked up Severance Package and just got The Blonde from the library). The only complaint anyone should have is that it's only about 235 pages, and will be over before you know it. To be fair on the length, though, I should mention that the story was conceived as a weekly serial for New York Times Sunday Magazine, and you'll probably want to read it again anyway.

I'll leave you with part of the prologue:

Time's arrow only seems to fly straight when you're alive. Dead is something else. Once you cross that invisible line, you see things how they really are. You see that every moment seems to happen at once.

Which makes telling this story - or the most important parts of it, anyway - difficult. Usually, you start at the beginning. Or the middle, so the audience doesn't get bored.

Problem is, I'm very hazy on the beginning and the middle, as I came in at the end. I can speculate, but it'd be nothing more than a wild guess. I guess I should start with the day I moved into the apartment and went back in time.

Red Scale film

This is what happens when you shoot pictures through the back side of normal 35mm film...or in this case, when they intentionally load it backwards at the plant and sell it as Red Scale film. (Also, it's fairly difficult to get the photo lab to understand that you want the film developed with no prints, and no CD, but developing itself is really cheap...$1.78.)

More pictures here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2063810&id=1504158578&l=f73b52a45a

The Sword by Bryan M. Litfin

Maybe I shouldn't be publicizing this too much, but LibraryThing.com has an "Early Reviewer" program through which publishers distribute free advance copies of their books to readers who agree to write reviews. I believe the recipients are chosen (at least in part) by computer, but readers get to chose which books they'd be interested in reading (out of around 100 titles, with thousands of copies available, many physical copies, but sometimes e-books.) The more titles a LibraryThing member has reviewed, the greater the chance of snagging a book from the newest monthly offerings.

That said, I was excited to read the description of the new book The Sword. In fact, I thought it unlikely to get that specific book, so I had it pre-ordered from Amazon (release date is the end of April), but then canceled it when I found out I was getting an advance proof copy for free, which I received about 2 weeks before the release date. Now, far be it for me to complain about a free book, but the Table of Contents reads "Map - page 11" and page 11 reads "Map to Come." Thankfully, after reading the first 125 pages, I found a copy of the map on the publisher's website that I printed and stuck in, myself.

The first thing that struck me when I got my copy (physical, I don't do e-books) was the centuries-old car nestled between pine trees on the cover. It's clearly incongruous to the rest of the cover, and basically sums up the setting of the novel (the first in a projected trilogy). In the year 2042, most of humanity is wiped out by a supervirus, followed by a nuclear holocaust. Author Bryan Litfin grabs the readers attention from the first page as this virus rapidly eradicates most life on Earth. The prologue reads like a vivid summary of Stephen King's The Stand, followed by a Sarah Connor-esque description of nuclear holocaust (without the cyborgs, of course). Jump about 350 years ahead and, to borrow the author's words, "The world of cars and guns and computers had become, once more, a world of horses and swords and scrolls." As far as I can recall, it's the first fantasy-type novel I've ever read that is specifically set in the future. Although I've characterized it as fantasy, Litfin calls it epic adventure:

He also had a couple of other tidbits to add when I emailed him:

It is pronounced Shi-vice. It is a form of the German word for Switzerland, or Schweiz. (the w is like a v). The novel takes place in the Swiss Alps around the area of Interlaken. The places are all real...mountains, valleys, waterfalls, rivers, etc. The cathedral on the cover is Strasbourg, France.

I love the multiple meanings of this book's title. Ephesians 6:17 tells us to take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. I know these words were not originally written in English, but I find it fascinating that "sword" and "word" are almost identical.

The book ended up not focusing as much on The Bible (found in a cathedral in the Strasbourg cathedral after a series of encounters drives the a farm girl and a military scout far north from their home) as I had expected, but as the author said, this is an action/adventure story. The book they find is the device that drives their experiences, but also spurs personal growth and forgiveness between characters. They suffer a through a chain of challenging circumstances and the story ultimately ends on a cliffhanger, like any beginning of any good trilogy.

Some other reviews I've read compare this book to A Canticle for Liebowitz, which I haven't read, but I now plan to read after snagging a copy from bookmooch.com.

The only real complaint I can make isn't the story, but the publishers choice to bind the book with a laminated cover. These are the covers that separate and peel when it gets warm and humid, and this one has already begun to do that. Hopefully they'll change this before the next installment hits bookshelves in April 2011.