Books: Project Hail Mary By Andy Weir (2021)

“Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he?” 

For the most part, I enjoyed this novel, which plays out like a bunch of science experiments, with a wacky buddy comedy and first contact thrown in for good measure. Andy Weir is a wonderfully nerdy man and Ryland (which really just as variation of his Mark Watney character from The Martian) is man-shaped nerdy science textbook in an astronaut suit.  

But he is Watney, which means Weir has the limited ability to create main a character that we’ve not seen before (perhaps why I’ve not read his second novel Artemis?). But this is the problem in a lot of successful media titles, as the publishers want something new, but what they really want is a variation of the first successful book. 

I think the book would’ve been better if told in third person, because with the added flashbacks, the conceit of the book probably would’ve worked better. The way it’s arranged is designed to reveal things to the reader as they happen, but it’s clear that despite all the doom and gloom of an extinction level event on Earth, Grace was to survive. 

I have other issues with the book –the death of the other two astronauts is just too convenient, which made me wonder if Weir cannot create a workable plot and characterization with two additional people to write for. And while the science sounds sound, it becomes so technical that I found myself skipping over the babble. 

Overall this book was fun even it got carried away with the scientific details.

The Rhesus Chart (Book 5 of The Laundry Files) by Charles Stross (2013)

“Bob Howard is an intelligence agent working his way through the ranks of the top secret government agency known as “the Laundry”. When occult powers threaten the realm, they'll be there to clean up the mess - and deal with the witnesses. There's one kind of threat that the Laundry has never come across in its many decades, and that's vampires. Mention them to a seasoned agent and you'll be laughed out of the room (they don’t exist). But when a small team of investment bankers at one of Canary Wharf's most distinguished financial institutions discovers an arcane algorithm that leaves them fearing daylight and craving O positive, someone doesn't want the Laundry to know. And Bob gets caught right in the middle.” 

The Rhesus Chart is the fifth novel in "Laundry" series of Lovecraftian spy thrillers, and set about a month after the previous book, The Apocalypse Codex. While the bureaucratic aspect of poking fun at corporations still exists here, I found this tale not to be as cohesive is some aspects (the folks testing their new vampire abilities is a hoot, though), so I felt the book was one long prologue with the last quarter being the main plot. 

There is also the issue –more so here than in the previous books- where narrator Bob needs to stop and tell the reader other parts of the story Bob was not involved in. And he is using information after the fact to fill in certain sections. Stross, as noted, has done this before, but here it becomes an annoying trope. Either write the book from one character POV or write it in third person. Skipping back and forth indicates to me that the story had problems and this was the only way to make it work. 

It’s still a fun and funny book, and by now I’ve learned to really not pay too close attention to all the computer term gobble-gook (if I was a computer nerd and RPG player, some of this would make sense?), but once in a while, I wish he would explain some stuff. We also end with a loss of major character and what it means for Bob, and a potential martial problem between him and Mo (who, unfortunately, is hardly in this tale). 

I’ll be back for book six in the near future…

Books: Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World By Mark Waddell (2025)

“Colin is a low-level employee at Dark Enterprises, a Hell-like multinational corporation solving the world’s most difficult problems in deeply questionable ways. After years of toiling away in a cubicle, he's ready to climb the corporate ladder and claim the power he's never had. The only problem is, he’s pretty sure he’s about to be terminated. Like, terminated. That's tough, because his BFF has just set him up with a great guy. In fact, maybe he's a little too great. And asks a lot of questions. When Colin meets a shadowy figure promising him his heart’s deepest desire, he can’t resist the urge to fast-track his goals. In return for a small, unspecified favor, he asks for the one thing that will improve his life: a promotion. But that small favor unleashes an ancient evil. People in New York are disappearing, the world might be ending, and Management is starting to notice. Getting to the top is never easy, and now it’s up to Colin to save the world. It's the ultimate power move, after all.” 

During the last season of Buffyverse series Angel, our hero vampire took over running the law firm of Wolfram & Hart, which was a powerful national and interdimensional law firm, run by an ancient cabal of demons known as the Senior Partners, who worked through their powerful principal agents in the Circle of the Black Thorn. So in this book, there are some similarities with that company and Dark Enterprise in the often amusing Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World. There is also a large dose of corporate satire mixed in, along with horror and some romance.

 

Part of the fun of the book is Colin himself (though some of the secondary characters come off better), a man who desires power and wants to achieve his goals no matter who gets in his way - but he’s also more empathetic than other anti-heroes. In one way, I don’t see Colin as truly evil, it’s just he sometimes allows horrible things to happen to people and property in pursuant of his goals. But he also explains, near the end of the book, intends to continue working for Dark Enterprise, murdering people, because basically this is him doing self-care and actualizing his self worth! So beyond dealing with therapy issues, it also parodies relationships,  along with taking a sledge hammer to all the selfishness we see every day as we struggle for success.

 

So it’s full of dark humor, with morally gray characters (especially our protagonist) and lots of death and the near destruction of New York. But while all of that is terrible, it's sort of humorous death and destruction (also note that due to its supernatural nature, Dark Enterprise can be rebuilt and restaffed rather quickly, as the entire staff can slaughtered, and the building heavily damaged and within days, it’ll was back to operating condition with the entire staff replaced). And that’s a great distinction. So while Colin really is a maniac, and boyfriend Eric is thicker than a Christmas Yule log, author Waddell is able to keep the balance between humorous fiction and a psychotic murderer as a hero.

 

Not sure if Waddell will write a sequel, but to be honest, there is a TV series somewhere in this book.

Books: Curtain Call to Murder by Julian Clary (2024)

“It is opening night at the London Palladium, and tensions are running high amongst the feuding cast of "Leopard Spots." Amongst them are an ageing lothario, a national treasure, an amateur psychic and a comedian-turned actor all vying for the spotlight. When an on-stage accident forces an unexpected intermission, it is clear only to dresser Jayne that the drama has turned deadly. Can she step out of the wings and identify the killer before it is too late? Or will murder make an encore.” 

Clary does take an interesting, if often tedious, route setting up this whodunit. Instead of starting with the murder, we go roughly 170 pages into the backstory before we get to Peter Milano’s death on stage. I mean, it’s another way to set the table for the murder by giving all the exposition upfront instead of incorporating throughout the book. It tries hard to give the reader a better chance of figuring out who the killer “will be” instead working it out through the rest of the tale. 

Also the story is told from different perspectives: first person diary entries from the protagonist, WhatsApp chats, newspaper articles, and notes from Clary, who exists as a minor character within the tale (I’ve always had issues with authors who insert hyper-reality versions of themselves into their own books. It’s weird and arrogant). 

Clary also gives a piss-poor look at a certain gay character, who while probably does exist in real life, but I still found Gordon a terrible human being. There are a few plot holes that made me role my eyes at, and that’s not even counting some of the typos and sentence structure that should’ve been caught by a better editor. 

In the end, despite attempting (as noted in the prologue) to upset the apple cart in telling these British cosy mysteries, Curtain Call to Murder, while sometimes funny and odd, never fully gels and becomes more than just a bit too campy and trashy, and not very deep, for my tastes.

Books: Falling By T.J. Newman (2021)

“You just boarded a flight to New York. There are one hundred and forty-three other passengers onboard. What you don't know is that thirty minutes before the flight your pilot's family was kidnapped. For his family to live, everyone on your plane must die. The only way the family will survive is if the pilot follows his orders and crashes the plane. Enjoy the flight.” 

Over the decades, there has been a lot of fiction set on airplanes, from the melodrama of Airport (and it’s mostly silly sequels), to the action films like Passenger 57 and Snakes on an Airplane, to the sobering tale of United 93, and to parody classic that is Airplane!. Unfortunately, Falling becomes a parody of different kind. Former Flight Attendant T.J. Newman wrote this book during her years flying red-eyes, and in the post 9/11 world, she brings a great eye for detail and some action, but the premise is so problematical and unrealistic, that you can’t help but wonder if maybe she should’ve just worked the idea out more. 

Now, I was sort of expecting this to be a bad book, but for $1 at the Friends of the Library here in Culver City, I thought I would give it try. The characters are right out of Stereotypes R Us, all thinly-drawn, all shallow characterizations you expect from 1950s B films. The heart of the books many problems is the motivations of bad guys (I didn’t really think of then as terrorists, but I’m sure the Universal movie version will pump that up). It’s a huge and problematic plot hole. I guess it can be hard for any American who has lived the last 100 years in a fairly stable country with no wars and no real sacrifices of family and home life, but both Sam and Ben’s choices for why they’re doing what they’re doing seem not that deeply explored. 

The books also uses the trope of flashbacks (which pop up is the weirdest times), which sets up a plot point that somehow is usable in the present. Which itself not bad, but it’s so paint-by-number that I swear this book came out the same factory James Patterson uses to push his trashy tomes out of. 

Yes, it is a good book to read on a long flight, but you won’t remember much of it once you’re done. And would also be remiss if I didn’t add that I give a lot of kudos to the publishers of Falling for creating a great marketing for what is, in the end, an utterly dull action novel.