4,136 pages to go … “Infected”

A friend recommended “Infected” by Scott Sigler (352 pages), and as you know I have to read things that people recommend for Project 15K.

As I was handed the novel, I couldn’t help but judge the book by its cover. As I flipped it over, I said, ‘You bought a book written by a novel podcaster? Really?” Needless to say, I didn’t have any faith in this book.

I, however, have to say that I enjoyed it. Not all of it, but some of it. It was a quick-paced book with short choppy chapters (which I happen to enjoy).

The science is terrible, the writing is Fail (with a capital F), but I kept reading it. It has an amazing story idea. The plot was interesting. The attempts at character development were a joke though. The author was always taking the reader on tangents that weren’t important to the main story and really didn’t add anything.

So, I’m just reading along willing to overlook the horrible writing for the sake of a good story, and BAM! I am hit upside the head with an ending that comes OUT OF NOWHERE!

What the hell was Sigler thinking? Why did he have to go there? It totally took me out of the story and tore down anything sort of good storyline that he had built up. Smashed it to a million unrecognizable pieces.

And when I turned over the last page, all I could think was, ‘What do you mean this is part of a trilogy?’ Am I intrigued by the other books? Sure. Do I plan to read them any time soon? Hell no.

Back of the book:

Across America a mysterious disease is turning ordinary people into raving, paranoid murderers who inflict brutal horrors on strangers, themselves, and even their own families.

Working under the government’s shroud of secrecy, CIA operative Dew Phillips crisscrosses the country trying in vain to capture a live victim. With only decomposing corpses for clues, CDC epidemiologist Margaret Montoya races to analyze the science behind this deadly contagion. She discovers that these killers all have one thing in common – they’ve been contaminated by a bioengineered parasite, shaped by a complexity far beyond the limits of known science.

Meanwhile Perry Dawsey – a hulking former football star now resigned to life as a cubicle-bound desk jockey – awakens one morning to find several mysterious welts growing on his body. Soon Perry finds himself acting and thinking strangely, hearing voices . . . he is infected.

The fate of the human race may well depend on the bloody war Perry must wage with his own body, because the parasites want something from him, something that goes beyond mere murder.

8,473 pages to go … “A Dirty Job”

I always see Christopher Moore books, but I hadn’t really paid much attention to them before. So when I could get “A Dirty Job” (387 pages) from Swap Tree for something I didn’t want any longer, I figured, why not?

“A Dirty Job” ended up being pretty funny. Moore can be a little annoying sometimes, but characters tend to make mention of how ridiculous it can be. I liked how he would make fun of himself.

I am always interested in books about death and dying — so this seemed up my alley, but there was something about it thought that turned me off. Not enough to stop or dread reading it or anything, but I didn’t plow through it like other books that I’m interested in. It was just something to read.

It took a turn toward the really bizarre in the second half and I thought that he wrapped it up a little too neatly for my tastes, but overall it was just OK.

Book blurb:

Charlie Asher is a pretty normal guy. A little hapless, somewhat neurotic, sort of a hypochondriac. He’s what’s known as a Beta Male: the kind of fellow who makes his way through life by being careful and constant — you know, the one who’s always there to pick up the pieces when the girl gets dumped by the bigger/taller/stronger Alpha Male.

But Charlie’s been lucky. He owns a building in the heart of San Francisco, and runs a secondhand store with the help of a couple of loyal, if marginally insane, employees. He’s married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. And she, Rachel, is about to have their first child.

Yes, Charlie’s doing okay for a Beta. That is, until the day his daughter, Sophie, is born. Just as Charlie — exhausted from the birth — turns to go home, he sees a strange man in mint-green golf wear at Rachel’s hospital bedside, a man who claims that no one should be able to see him. But see him Charlie does, and from here on out, things get really weird. . . .

People start dropping dead around him, giant ravens perch on his building, and it seems that everywhere he goes, a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Strange names start appearing on his nightstand notepad, and before he knows it, those people end up dead, too. Yup, it seems that Charlie Asher has been recruited for a new job, an unpleasant but utterly necessary one: Death. It’s a dirty job. But hey, somebody’s gotta do it.

8,957 pages to go … “Privileged Information”

“Privileged Information”  (329 pages) was Stephen White’s debut novel ( in 1991) about clinical psychologist Alan Gregory. I picked this one up after reading his novel “Kill Me” out-of-order. I loved “Kill Me,” but like to read things in order so I decided to start from the beginning.

Well, the beginning actually isn’t that good. “Privileged Information” is a rather boring book that never picks up. I don’t know if it’s because White is introducing us to Alan and threw plot out the window or what, but it wasn’t enjoyable. Alan is super annoying — which might be a problem since he is THE character the series is based on.

I am probably going to try the next one and see if things pick up, if not, maybe White’s writing got better with age and I’ll read the ones after “Kill Me.” I really hope White isn’t just one of those authors where the one book I read was his only good one — which would be sad since “Kill Me” was so good.

Back of the book:

Alan Gregory is a clinical psychologist with a thriving practice in Boulder, Colorado. His life begins to unravel when one of his female patients is found in an apparent suicide and the local paper begins printing accusations from an unnamed source of sexual impropriety between the woman and Dr. Gregory. He launches a psychological and personal quest for the truth that rapidly intensifies when more of his patients die untimely deaths, and Gregory suspects not only that the deaths are related but that another one of his patients may be somehow involved. Lacking facts but roused by suspicion and troubled by seemingly random acts of terror around him, Gregory starts to fear for the safety of the people he loves.

9,901 pages to go … “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”

I picked up this book because the title caught my eye. (I actually want a dragon tattoo.) At the time, I didn’t really know anything about “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson (644 pages). I knew I had seen in around, but that’s really about it.

So I went in blind and was surprised — I think maybe pleasantly, I’m not really sure.

It is really slow to pick up. I might have even put it down had a friend not encouraged me to continue. It takes about 250 pages before things start to get really interesting.

Larsson spends a lot of time on the history of things, which wasn’t really necessary and doesn’t necessarily come back as being important to the later plot.

I actually didn’t know that the author had died before the book the was published (it’s actually part of a trilogy). I know it’s wrong to say this, but I can’t but think that if he was still alive he would have been edited better. Maybe the publisher felt that you shouldn’t mess with it too much? The book would have been a lot better when some cuts — probably 250 pages worth of cuts.

I still say that it was a good read. It reads really fast for the last two-thirds of the book. So if you pick it up, stay with it, it will be worth it.

Be warned though, the ending is written in such a way you’ll probably want to continue the trilogy. I know I am.