I wasn’t able to sleep last night, so after doing the final copy edit on Do More Faster 2nd Edition, I started reading J.D. Lasica’s new book Catch and Kill: A high-tech conspiracy thriller. My brain was toast and my head was full of dripping dead virus goo, so I hoped some good mental floss would help pass the time.
I finally crawled into bed at about
Instead of a marathon weekend, this has turned into a book weekend. It’s gloomy outside and I’m still fighting with Nev (Mr. Nasty Evil Virus), so as the cliche goes, Catch and Kill has been just what the doctor ordered.
Lasica does a great job of world-building in the near future, weaving together high-tech and super evil bad guy billionaires, a mysterious fantasy island, efforts to undermine and transform the geopolitical superstructure, and authoritarians who just want more, more, more.
The protagonist, Kaden Baker, is everything one wants in a kick ass 23-year-old female character who saves the world, but almost dies trying. Several times. Oh, and she saves her half-sister (who she didn’t know about) and her dad (who she also didn’t know about), along with a bunch of other people.
There were lots of twists and turns along the way and Lasica keeps the pace up throughout the entire book.
I needed some mental floss one night in New York last week when I was having trouble sleeping so I read Playing for Pizza: A Novel. My mom had recommended this one – I can’t remember why – but I usually read whatever she recommends. Put it in the “good son” category (although she helped me develop my love of reading and she’s almost always on target with recommendations for me.)
I grew tired of John Grisham and his legal thrillers over a decade ago. But I always enjoyed his writing so it was fun to dig into something completely different. I love Italy, pizza, and food, so that made sense. Football, however, is low on my list of things I care about. I decided to blow off caring about the football stuff and just get lost in the book.
Grisham has always written a book I can read in one sitting. I turned off my iPad at about 1:30am NY time and smiled. The Italy stuff was good. The pizza stuff was good. The food stuff was good. And the football stuff was even good.
If you are looking for something light, clever, engaging, and written in typical fast moving Grisham style, grab it. Solid mental floss.
Tonight’s book was Inside Out by Barry Eisler, one of my favorite mental floss writers. Several (four?) years ago when Amy and I were up in Homer, we became obsessed with Eisler’s John Rain books. I miss John Rain but if foreshadowing is to be believed, I expect the next Eisler book will include both Rain and his sidekick Dox.
If you like Eisler, Inside Out is fast paced and fun. I found it appropriately cynical about torture, the government, and everything else that was covered, except for the one gratuitous and fully predictable sex scene which was nicely done.
Time for something serious tomorrow – I’m finally going to take on something I’ve been promising the author I’d read for about three months. Oh – and I am doing a run in the morning and P90X Legs and Back and Ab Ripper in the late afternoon no matter what. Yoga, on the other hand, isn’t happening tomorrow.
If you read one book in 2009, read Daemon.
It’s unusual for me to recommend a book so early in the year. Daemon is only my fourth book of 2009. It’s a first novel. And it’s mental floss. But it’s as close to flawless for a book of its genre.
I first heard about Daemon in December from Rick Klau. I got to know Rick at FeedBurner; he’s now at Google running Blogger. Rick told me that I had to read this book. He pointed me to a blog post he had written in 2007 about it.
“I can remember the feeling I had, sitting in the audience as the credits rolled after seeing The Matrix on opening day. I knew I’d seen something that was different, important, and something that I’d want to see again. And again. When I finished Daemon this afternoon, I had that same feeling. Daemon is to novels what The Matrix was to movies. It will be how other novels that rely on technology are judged.”
I immediately one-clicked it on Amazon. It wasn’t available for the Kindle so the hardcover showed up a week or so ago. I devoured it this weekend. Rick’s assessment was correct – this is by far the best techno-thriller I’ve ever read.
The author – Daniel Suarez (also known as Leinad Zeraus) describes himself as “an independent systems consultant to Fortune 1000 companies … An avid gamer and technologist, he lives in California.” He doesn’t mention that he is a magnificent writer and brilliant storyteller.
I won’t ruin any of it for you. It’s got everything you’d expect in a fast paced book that will appeal to anyone that likes Crichton, Brown, Clancy, or my newfound friend David Stone. The tech holds together well and is completely accessible to non-nerds and nerds alike. It’s a page turner with very little wasted plot or character development. And it sets up the sequel (Freedom) superbly.
Yum.