The Reading List Update

Bellwether by Connie Willis -  I mentioned before that Connie Willis was totally unknown to me just a few years ago.  This despite her 6 Nebula awards, 5 Hugo awards and winning the John W. Campbell award.  She's quite simply someone that science fiction fans should know and read.
   This is interesting because it feels more like fiction about science than science fiction.  Not that that's a bad thing.  The story is about research scientists caught in the bizarre world of corporate research.  They are tormented by managers who don't understand science, fellow scientists who have sold their professional souls to play the game and uncooperative support staff.  Along the way you explore chaos theory, the origins of fads and perhaps slightly bizarrely, sheep.  The book is fun and quite funny.  The "mystery person" who can offer an enormous independent funding source is pretty easy to pick out but that's a tiny thing in the story.  It's a well written story that will give science fans a nice break from the same old, same old sci-fi

Rating - ****

Portrait of a Spy - Daniel Silva - Book #11 in the Gabriel Allon series.  If you like the stories of the Israeli spy turned fine art restorer then you'll like this one.  Silva has cranked out another solid tale that gives you the action you expect with the deft education on the world of fine art, especially painting.
   Allon is desperately trying to move on to a life after his work for Ari Shamron.  It was to begin with a new home in Cornwall Wales and his wife Chiara.  When Allon walks into a terrorist bombing in London however he gets drawn back into the secret war being waged with radical terrorists.
   Silva has his primary character down pat and lays out a plot that is perfectly believable while remaining fascinating and new.  Through it all is the tempting hope (dream?) that perhaps at the end he'll let Allon find peace in retirement.  But if he did what would his fans do?
Rating -*** (Good Read)

Clarence Darrow - Attorney for the Damned - John A. Farrell - Darrow has always been a compelling figure to me.  If I'm honest however most of that image comes from the fictionalized Darrow of the play "Inherit the Wind".  While it is a great movie it takes some liberties with the facts.  Farrell has created an in depth look at one of the great names of the legal world in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.
   The Darrow that emerges is still a great figure but one with huge glaring flaws.  While he fought for the working man most of his career if the money was good he was just as comfortable working for corporate interests as well.  And he was utterly unapologetic about it.  His dedication to the plight of the working man is surely the largest part of his legacy.  At the same time it is clear that he does it from a kind of arrogant noblesse oblige.  Darrow thought very little of the human race in general.  His philosophy said that life was an unrelenting burden of evil and unhappiness to be endured and that the wise man took whatever enjoyment he could find.  This led him to treat women (with only rare exceptions) as vehicles for his own pleasure.  The resulting image of Darrow is infinitely more complex and challenging than what I had before.  The hero may indeed have feet of clay but he was a hero none the less.

Rating **** Recommended Read