The Power of the Thriller

“I’ll be back.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s line from the iconic thriller, The Terminator.  The movie was directed by another icon, James Cameron.  The Terminator had all the essential ingredients: good acting, action packed, clever concept, but… it didn’t make sense.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved the movie.  It remains one of my favorites.  However, when I left the theater after seeing it for the first time, I wondered about one minor inconsistency.  Well, it was a major inconsistency, but most people have overlooked it so I guess it didn’t matter too much.  So, okay, maybe a ‘minor’ inconsistency. 

You have this future civilization dominated by machines and run by a supercomputer.  Impressive war machines were slowly killing humans.  Cyborgs, indistinguishable from humans, but vastly more powerful, infiltrated into the human ranks to kill a few humans in one subterranean hovel or another.  With all this evil capability and seemingly endless funds, why didn’t the computer simply develop a pathogen to kill off the remainder of the humans?  Germ warfare, an obvious solution!  It’s doubtful the machine civilization would worry too much about the Geneva Conventions. 

Simply infect a few prisoners and send them back home.  In those ‘caves’ the disease would have spread faster than wild fires in a drought-ridden forest.  There wouldn’t be any disease control in the enclaves to either stop the spread or handle the patients.  Such an attack would have been more thorough, cheaper, quicker, safer… machines aren’t susceptible to biological diseases but they could be shot down by humans.

That this super intelligent machine didn’t realize such a simple solution has always bothered me.  Most thrillers are fun, like a roller-coaster ride.  If you allow your mind to simply ignore the impossible and forgive the implausible, they can be enjoyable. 

The best thrillers are closest to reality.  What made another James Cameron movie, Halloween, such a mega-hit was its believability.  Michael Meyers, the unstoppable serial killer, didn’t have to suspend the natural laws to frighten you and that made the movie all the more frightening.  

My own ‘thriller’ novel, Reap the Whirlwind, falls into the latter category.  In this novel, a young writer’s bank account is deep in the red due to a check he never wrote.  Friends who can help him mysteriously die or disappear.   Someone using a computer is destroying his life.  But, why?  As the story progresses, a threat to all mankind emerges, such that the anguish and fears of one man become the collective fears of an entire species.  What makes this story even more frightening than Halloween is that not only could these events happen, but they may already be happening. 

Hmm… Maybe I’ll contact Cameron and find out if he wants to produce another ‘real’ thriller.

Robert Sells, author of Return of the White Deer and Reap the Whirlwind 

Finish your summer with some great stories!

Summer Reads for Everyone

Jennifer J. Chow, author of  The 228 Legacy

It’s summer, the perfect time to relax. The best way to escape (besides going to the beach) is jumping into a book. 

Here are my top picks for the entire family to enjoy:

Adult:

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

When Bernadette Fox disappears from her family, her fifteen-year-old daughter Bee compiles email messages, official documents, and secret correspondence to find her mother.

This is a unique story that brings quirky characters to life. It’s also an excellent analysis of the art scene, the tech industry, and Seattle. It’s an entertaining and insightful read about family, community, and individuality.

Children’s:

The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne

Magic Tree House #50: Hurry Up, Houdini! (to be released July 23, 2013)

The award-winning series features Jack and Annie, who travel back in time using a magic tree house.

The books blend history and adventure together for a fun and educational read. In the newest book, the two siblings visit the legendary magician, Harry Houdini.

Historical:

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

Tom Sherbourne, a lighthouse keeper, and his wife Isabel, decide to keep a tiny baby who washes up in a rowboat—with ensuing moral and psychological consequences.

Set around World War I, the language in this story is beautiful, and the ongoing metaphor of the lighthouse gives a strong cohesiveness to the plot. It’s a haunting tale of a couple forced to make impossible choices.

Multicultural/Mystery:

The Round House by Louise Erdrich

Winner of the National Book Award for fiction, The Round House, set in the North Dakota Ojibwe reservation, is the tale of 13-year-old Joe Coutts as he investigates a tragedy that occurred to his mother.

This is a splendid book not only about cultural heritage, but legal entanglements. The combined elements of friendship, family, and adolescence serve as the entrancing core to this novel.

Science Fiction:

Wool (Omnibus edition) by Hugh Howey 

When Sheriff Holston breaks the rules of a community that exists in a giant underground silo hundreds of stories deep, he sets off a drastic chain of events.

This novel evokes a believable futuristic setting and provides interesting details about its unique enclosed community. It’s an interesting snapshot of a different future and features a strong and unique protagonist in Juliette, a mechanic.

YA:

Between the Lines by Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer

Delilah is a loner who prefers to spend her time reading a book, but when the prince from her favorite fairy tale asks for her help, she’s in for a real-life adventure.

Mother and daughter writing teams always attract my attention. This is a beautiful story of a charming boy-girl relationship that’s complicated by multiple obstacles. It’s also a wonderful book of artwork, filled with lovely illustrations interspersed throughout the chapters. 

Hot review of Training Wheels, a novel set in the blistering summer of '74

Michael Stringer
Training Wheels

A nonprofit fundraiser turned novelist, Michael Stringer, has authored a blistering fictional memoir entitled Training Wheels, a coming-of-age story that depicts a family's internal strife and struggle with radically shifting priorities and a sexually charged household atmosphere.

Told during three tumultuous weeks in the summer of 1974, the story features the sinfully candid, first person narrative of Kevin Copeland, a 15-year-old athlete, rock music lover, and youngest of four children. Kevin is a painfully inquisitive, girl-crazy young man who falls madly in love with the wrong girl at the worst time. Shelly is the wrong girl because she's the bold and seductive daughter of his father's mistress, and it's the worst time because Kevin's younger sister has hit rock bottom with drugs and counterculture friends, and his parents' marriage is rapidly coming unglued.

Kevin's certainly not alone in making irrational choices. After the radical '60s, many Americans turned introspective, searching for ways to redefine their beliefs about love and happiness, becoming desperately lost along the road. Kevin gets caught up in the free-love movement, too, risking everything to pursue the voluptuous girl of his dreams. Kevin's journey into first love becomes a perilous adventure that forces both families to face the bitter truths and harsh realities of their misguided decisions, of which there are many. All the mayhem reaches a fever pitch when Kevin and his disgruntled father lock horns in a ruthless showdown.

Stringer has shrewdly framed this story by blending the themes and styles of The Wonder Years, the popular TV show from the '90s, with The Ice Storm, the movie released in 1997 about the self-indulgent '70s.

"Training Wheels is a poignant and gripping family tale set in Los Angeles during an era symbolized by Watergate, happy faces, pet rocks, mood rings, and streaking," said Melissa Newman, author of House of Cleaving and Sister Blackberry. "It's no wonder that some people went a little... adrift."

During the early part of his career, Stringer wrote for newspapers and magazines until he finally decided to take on the challenge of pursuing a long-time goal, writing a novel.

Print and e-versions of Training Wheels, can be found at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com as well as other online and bricks and mortar book stores wherever books are sold. Information about the book and the author can also be found at the publisher's website: martinsisterspublishing.com.  

Review originally featured at http://superseventies.com/extra_13_2.html

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Review: The Last Fernandez by Sandra Perez Gluschankoff

A review of The Last Fernandez by Sandra Perez Gluschankoff

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I loved reading this novel. Not for the faint of heart, this historical fiction piece explicitly reveals the triumphs and tragedy of two different, although comparable, pivotal periods in time. The key word in this story is “struggle.” Two women, separated by four centuries but connected in spirit, share this struggle against religious and political persecution. As two different stories are told, they develop into one.

Author Gluschankoff is not a wimp. She is not afraid to paint a harsh scene and put it before you, but is also capable of describing the tenderest of moments. The plot is packed with not a sentence or phrase wasted. This is not a one afternoon read; it requires close reading. I believe that the author’s multilingual skills resulted in some of the most eloquent prose I have had the pleasure to read.

My favorite character is the young Angelina. Her refusal, come hell or high water, to let go of that suitcase certainly defines “ends-of-the-earth” type stuff for me.

I highly recommend The Last Fernandez.

By David J. Kirk, Author of Particular Stones