That’s both a strength and a flaw. If you’re really interested in those funny stories about weird sex and technology you’ll love this book. Even if you don’t, those stories are amusing to very funny.

I usually enjoy them if taken in small doses, however every other change of scene in this road story has one of those stories, and at a certain point it felt too much for me.

Not that I was disgusted or anything, I just thought there were too many, and the novelty wore off a little bit.

This is not a very long novel, so the plot is fairly simple. The characterization is well done, but at the same time I don’t think I knew these characters too well, therefore I didn’t care for them as much as I would have liked to.

The resolution of the plot was a clever twist, though I cared more about the characters resolution.

I was hoping for this to be as good as his Transmetropolitan, which seemed the closest in terms of themes and characters, and which I loved. Instead I got an entertaining story.

This is a really good fantasy/fairy tale for adults. There are many scary scenes in this book, but it also contained many light hearted scenes. The style in which this is written is very poetic. I usually don’t care much about that style, I am not a literary guy, but in this book it really works.

I think listening to it read by Neil Gaiman made it even better, it just sounds really nice. There are so many characters in this story, all of them memorable. However many of them have a very small role, sometimes they are introduced and never seen again. I do wish that they would either have a bigger role, or just not introduced at all. Their presence wasn’t really needed for the plot.

Another little problem at the end, I though it was weird the way Tristran dealt with his real mother, Gaiman didn’t go into that at all, not even a brief mention.

Other than that, I thought this was a very good story, and the illustrations by Charles Vess were also excellent. His style is the quintessential fantasy art in my mind.

I read his first novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and I really liked it. So I was eager to read his next one.

At the beginning of this novel I was very confused, not realizing that there were two time lines in which the story was told. Each time line is narrated in a different person (one is 3rd person, one is 1st).

But I am used to that in a sci-fi book, especially a Doctorow one. This is the future, with new terms and situations that are not explained at all, just thrown at the reader.

Little by little I then realized what was going on, and I was back on track. However the ending was totally anti-climactic. I thought there would be a twist, like in his first novel. But no, everything just goes like you expect.

I did like the clever debates by Art, the not very subtle stab at the RIAA, the little gadgets that are very similar to my own dream gadgets.

So I liked this, but was disappointed by the ending. I prefer the first one. I hope the next one (Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town) will be better.

If you are a fan of sci-fi and are not afraid of very realistic techno-babble, I suggest you go and download Doctorow’s novels. Start with his first, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.

Since I’d already seen the movie, the plot wasn’t a surprise to me, so what I enjoyed a lot was noticing the difference between the novel and the film.

The story is pretty much the same, except that the novel gives a little bit more room to other characters and places. But the more important scenes are in the film, just shifted around in order to make the story more compact and trim out some of the secondary subplots.

Another difference is that Marla has a slightly bigger role in the novel. In the end she actually shows about Tyler Durden, whereas in the film she is clueless.

This novel reads very quickly and I am glad that I finally read it. That being said, I think the film actually surpasses it, simply because of the nature of the story. Visual clues about Tyler Durden’s true nature are very effective.

I am now eager to try another Palaniuk novel.

However the main focus is actually not about the Freemasons, that’s just a background. It’s more about a conspiracy/mystery involving the former president of the USA and his staff. I am a sucker for mystery, so I was very interested in finding out about it.

The good thing is that this mystery was very well plotted out, and was revealed little by little, so it kept my interest through the whole book. There were little revelations throughout the story, some even turned out to be misdirections.

What I didn’t like about this book, are the characters. Or some of them. The main character is well developed, he had a tragedy happen to him, so it was a relatively easy character to write and to sympathize with.

However many other characters were stereo-typical characters I’ve seen in many other stories. The FBI/CIA agent who thinks he knows what is going on, but instead is totally wrong. I always hated that kind of character. If he is an agent he should not be so dumb.

The crazy religious fanatic person who is a physical asset but is manipulated by the bad guys. All his lines really felt like I had already read them or heard them somewhere else.

The opportunist who appears to be a friend, only to turn out to be a selfish bastard who might have endangered the main character. Not exactly evil, but a poser.

As I said, I was disappointed by the fact that the Masons are actually not a big deal in this book, so even though Meltzer spent a lot of time researching the Masons, I didn’t appreciate it as much as I would have liked.

Instead I really liked his research into the life of a former president. I think he managed to stay with President Bush Sr for some time and see how his life was. That part was more interesting to me than the Masons.

I read this book partly in Hardcover partly listening to the audio book. I have to say that the audio book was overacted. The narrator should have limited the acting to the dialogs in the book, not to every single line.

This is a very entertaining book, even though I had some problems with it, I recommend it to everyone.

This time out Tara is sent out to Uzbekistan for a covert-covert mission.

At the beginning of this novel Tara has to deal with the consequences of what happened at the end of the previous novel (A Gentleman’s Game), which changes her life in a major way.

The new crisis in Uzbekistan gives us a look at the status in that country, a very important country for the west, on the verge of important changes politically speaking.

Rucka again manages to impress with his research skills, presenting a truthful political situation in a part of the world that is not very known to the general western public. However I wasn’t all that intrigued by the Uzbekistan story, it just didn’t feel that important. Certainly not as the first book. I think Uzbekistan people were more typically “villains”, especially Tahidov, evil for the sake of being evil. As opposed to Sinan who had his own convictions.

Again I like the politics around Crocker, though everything is changing around him as well. I really liked the previous dynamic, but just like in the real world, things change.

The structure of this novel wasn’t as compact and neat as the previous one. Halfway through the book, and the mission had barely begun. Before that we got the change of situations for the main characters, as well as the introduction of Uzbekistan’s situation.

Luckily after that things happened pretty quickly. And then… the mission is over, and there is still 1/3 of the book left…. huh? It felt a little bit jarring, as if I was already reading a new book or something.

The new mission starts, and it feels slow and I feel like I already know what happens at the end. Then I read the last chapter. I have been fooled, and I feel stupid. Of course something bad had to happen. This is Queen & “bloody” Country!! So I really liked the ending.

That being sad, not a whole lot happened, especially compared to the first book. So, very good book, not as good as the first one. Still a 4/5 stars.

Unfortunately there won’t be any new Q&C stories for a while, since Rucka is taking a break, both due to his scheduling and for the story. Since these stories are very close to the current political situation, he needs some time to pass in the series so that he can catch up to new world events. That means that a few years will pass, and I think that both Crocker and Chase will have new positions. I can’t wait for that!!