Eric Van Lustbader

Well, this is outside my usual choice of reading material, so you can't be too surprised at my lukewarm response to it.

It's a typical action thriller, with a particularly complex web of intrigue involving Yakuza, ninjas, Russian spies, evil bureaucrats and a nuclear bomb.

It was fun to revisit some concepts from my days at university studying Japan, such as tatemae and honne, and Japanese literary references. It's the only work-out my degree has had in a long time.

I found the book somewhat male-oriented, and I guess that comes with the target audience. I don't think there was a single woman in the book whose sexual attractiveness to men wasn't assessed in some way.

The end also left a bit of a bitter tasted in my mouth: Lillian doesn't seem to have done anything worse than what Phillip did - he cheated first, he too worked for years and shared intelligence with a foreign power - yet she gets the "karmic" consequences and he gets a second chance with his family. Bah.… (more)

This was an an odd book. It is ostensibly a post-apocalyptic adventure, but the standard social tropes get quickly overwhelmed by bizarre timing, broken dialog and an utterly opaque main character.

Over if the things I found hardest to get my head around was the use of immediate flash forwards-a scene will end, then jump to action happening apparently somewhat later, and then jump back in a page or two to fill in the gap.l, showing there was really only a couple of hours difference. Why?

Then there's the dialogue. It's a jumbled mess, at times, where characters are unable to make sentences, and speakers are unmarked, creating utter confusion.

And yet the action is tense, and the world is just unusual enough to remain interesting. It's a fun, if often confusing, sword and sorcery meets Wool kind of book.… (more)