It was a very nice 3-day weekend for me; we built another book case and I spent the rest of the time living in my own alternate reality (better than this one most of the time). I played lots of "World of Warcraft", lots of "Fallout 3" watched 4 episodes of Prison Break (Season1), 2 episodes of "Ghost Whisperer" (Season3), 2 episodes of "Bones" (Season 3), 4 episodes of "Supernatural" (Season 1), and 2 episodes of Stargate SG-1 (Season 3). Whew! Talk about avoiding all semblance of work! It was a great weekend :)
And yet I still had time to complete the third "Repairman Jack" novel, Conspiracies by F. Paul Wilson. I had actually approached this one out of loyalty to others who highly recommend this series. Frankly I was a little apprehensive because up to this point I had found the series to be OK but not outstanding. I knew from reading various reviews that there is a large supernatural element to the series but it was fairly minor (monster of the week) in the first book (The Tomb) and non existent in the second (Legacies). Each of those two books had quite a number of years in between them and I wonder if Mr Wilson was still in the process of determining exactly what kind of novels these were to be. Supernatural? Straight mystery? TBD?
I need not have worried though. This novel was different, a super read in fact. Now I know why so many others swear by this series and this character. These books are very difficult to genre-classify, containing elements of mystery, thriller, horror, sci-fi, and perhaps even fantasy. This book really gets the overall series story arc going, letting us in on "the otherness" and whatever that might exactly be. Couching the secret behind-the-scenes mystery in the middle of a convention of conspiracy theorists is masterful and Mr Wilson pulls this off brilliantly. We are just as skeptical as Jack is when confronted with the very real happenings taking place all around him and, apparently, with himself in the center of it all. And just like Jack, we're not sure who is the good guys and who is the bad. I found this book marvelous and I very much look forward to further adventures by Repairman Jack as I get to experience more revelations of the supernatural aspects of the story. And to top it all off, it's a very good mystery novel as well!
I did also complete another short story in Jeffery Deaver's More Twisted collection. "Surveillance" is like a chessgame between a highly intelligent robber and the master detective who is convinced of his guilt. I enjoyed this story but once again, the "twist" was known very early on and so the reader is left to watch how it unfolds. Next up is The Jade Dragon, number 2 in Naomi Novik's fine series.
And yet I still had time to complete the third "Repairman Jack" novel, Conspiracies by F. Paul Wilson. I had actually approached this one out of loyalty to others who highly recommend this series. Frankly I was a little apprehensive because up to this point I had found the series to be OK but not outstanding. I knew from reading various reviews that there is a large supernatural element to the series but it was fairly minor (monster of the week) in the first book (The Tomb) and non existent in the second (Legacies). Each of those two books had quite a number of years in between them and I wonder if Mr Wilson was still in the process of determining exactly what kind of novels these were to be. Supernatural? Straight mystery? TBD?
I need not have worried though. This novel was different, a super read in fact. Now I know why so many others swear by this series and this character. These books are very difficult to genre-classify, containing elements of mystery, thriller, horror, sci-fi, and perhaps even fantasy. This book really gets the overall series story arc going, letting us in on "the otherness" and whatever that might exactly be. Couching the secret behind-the-scenes mystery in the middle of a convention of conspiracy theorists is masterful and Mr Wilson pulls this off brilliantly. We are just as skeptical as Jack is when confronted with the very real happenings taking place all around him and, apparently, with himself in the center of it all. And just like Jack, we're not sure who is the good guys and who is the bad. I found this book marvelous and I very much look forward to further adventures by Repairman Jack as I get to experience more revelations of the supernatural aspects of the story. And to top it all off, it's a very good mystery novel as well!
I did also complete another short story in Jeffery Deaver's More Twisted collection. "Surveillance" is like a chessgame between a highly intelligent robber and the master detective who is convinced of his guilt. I enjoyed this story but once again, the "twist" was known very early on and so the reader is left to watch how it unfolds. Next up is The Jade Dragon, number 2 in Naomi Novik's fine series.
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