What I've Been Reading

Some comments on three books I've read recently: The Sundering, the second installment in Walter Jon William's latest series, Dread Empire's Fall. The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown's insanely popular bestseller, and Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Jesus's Childhood Friend.

The Sundering continues the saga of Blank and Caroline Sula, two young officers in the service of a galactic empire which most resembles Victorian England, if Victoria had married Mao Tse-Tung instead of Prince Albert. The civil war which began in the previous installment is now going badly, with the badly maulled fleet abandoning the capital to fight a guerilla campaign. The two lead characters again come together, with considerable passion, only to have Sula's secret past drive them apart again. Like almost all of William's books, the action is well paced, the characters are intersting and multi-dimensional, and there is a nice sprinkling of humor. Very enjoyable.

The DaVinci Code, on the other hand, was crap. Crap, crap, crap. It's supposed to be about two brilliant people figuring out the clues to lead them to a secret society which has been hiding the secrets of Jesus' life for two thousand years. Except that the secrets have all been documented by art historians, the secret society no longer seems to care if anyone remembers the secrets, and the clues are easily figured out twenty pages before our two so-called geniuses stumble onto them. The book is full of basic factual errors, and it makes no sense that a secret organization which has been hiding from an all-powerful Catholic Church for centuries would at the same time be flaunting its secrets in major pieces of art. Makes me think of a naked man prancing around shouting "You can't see me! I'm invisible!"

And now for something completely different: Lamb. This very funny story plays with the idea of "What if Jesus had grown up with a wiseassed but loyal guy named Biff?" Complete fiction, of course, but so is much of the legend of Jesus. The main difference between this and the New Testament is that Lamb is much, much funnier. Looking forward to reading more of Chris Moore's work.