A couple of books

I recently read two books, neither of which was by Stephen King. That’s a start I suppose.

First up, at the recommendation of my sassy girlfriend (aka “my wife”, aka “my lady”), I read an interesting take on Frankenstein by Dean Koontz…a series starting out with Book One: Prodigal Son.

Koontz does some interesting things with the story here. Victor Frankenstein is living an unusually long life and has made his home in modern-day New Orleans. His first creation, Deucalion (aka Peter Boyle from Young Frankenstein), a much reformed monster, finds out this disturbing news whilst living in a Tibetan monastery (yes, this is quite the twist, but trust me, it works). Turns out our buddy Victor hasn’t had idle hands either. He’s working on the creation of a new master race with the intent of ultimately replacing humanity with his own People 2.0. There are a few problems surfacing with his plan, a couple of which are two hard working detectives on the local police force, as well as the returned Deucalion, bent on seeing the ultimate destruction of his creator.

So, does this idea even work? Yes. Yes it does. It’s a pretty enjoyable read, certainly an interesting take on an old story, the action moves the story right along, and it’s sprinkled with some good humor to boot. It can be a bit gruesome at times (it is Koontz after all), and we find that Victor is a real bastard. If that’s not off-putting, then I’d highly recommend this one. I’m working on book two as we speak. One oddity with this series is, it’s ultimately due to stretch out to nine books (or so I’ve read), yet calling it a series just isn’t cool enough I guess. It’s being referred to for some reason as three trilogies. Huh. 

Between Frankenstein books one and two, I squeezed in Dan Brown’s latest offering: The Lost Symbol.

In this installment, Brown gives the Catholics a breather and turns his attentions on the masterminds of many a conspiracy (if web theories are to be believed), the freemasons. If ever a group of people in history deserved to be exposed, to be thrashed thoroughly with the exposure of their bizarre rituals and secrets and… What? The masons aren’t really THAT kooky and bizarre? But, what about all of the symbols and D.C. and pyramids and stuff?!

Sorry. Got lost there for a second. In rather UN-dramatic fashion compared to the Catholic Church, the masons have calmly posted some informative information concerning this book on some websites, and I’d urge you to go take a gander after reading it. They’re not down on the book or anything like that, just calmly and rationally explaining where their truths differ from the book’s fictions.

For its part, the book isn’t hell bent on trashing the masons either, but merely uses Masonic legend and lore as a springboard for yet another wild tale of puzzle-solving in a race against certain evil and near-certain disaster. In typical Dan Brown fashion, this book starts out describing a woman with flawless Mediterranean skin, sexy bod, etc. I made a prediction based on his past books: that being that our hero Robert Langdon was going to nail her at the end. Seems to be his m.o. We’ll see how that comes out later.

So, what happens here? Langdon is summoned by a colleague and old friend to give a last-minute speech about his symbolology and stuff to which he agrees and flies hastily to D.C. When he arrives, things go horribly off the rails. An evil man comes into the plot intent on gaining access to the centuries-guarded “Ancient Mysteries” with Langdon’s forced secret-decoder-ring help, and for other reasons, the CIA is heavily involved too.

How does it compare to Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code, you may ask. Well, I’m conflicted with how to rate this thing, but here’s the basic idea. It has some good plot twists, and for the most part is pretty engaging. So in that respect, it’s a good book. It’s also very similar to the other two in pacing and plot idea, and in that respect it feels a bit like madlibs, where we’ve selected “Masons” instead of “Catholics”, and “D.C.” instead of “Rome.” I liked it, but what felt a bit more original in the first two feels a bit more well worn in this installment. Your mileage may vary.

Now, for my one and only spoiler for this book. Read no further if you don’t want to find out the book’s real truth right now.

Langdon does not score on the hot chick this time.