Steven

An insightful and interesting story behind Google. I listened to In the Plex back to back with the Steve Jobs biography, and In the Plex came a distant second. The story is often very dry and lacking in personality, too much of a time-line of events and missing the narrative to hold it all together. Full of facts and figures, and hopefully accurate.

As a fan of McCarthy's other work I was looking forward to Suttree. Suttree is an unusual book as much of the content (every second or third sentence!) is comprised of beautiful descriptors, poetic metaphor and simile, most of which is irrelevant to the "story". Which takes me to the big problem with Suttree as a novel. There is no story to tell, no plot. Just a guy wondering through his alcohol-addled version of life. Not much happens. Yes, we do gain an appreciation for the particular subculture that Suttree finds himself within, and for that you can appreciate McCarthy's efforts. The narrative jumps around, reducing any coherent semblance of story that may exist. The ending isn't really an ending but just the point where the author decided to stop writing. I really tried to like Suttree, but this is not anywhere near McCarthy's best work. It comes across as a vehicle for exercising his creating juices, but unfortunately that creativity didn't extend to plot.

Rounds-off of the story started in the Lion's Game. This series of books are reasonably engaging for the type, but lack the depth of characters or beauty of writing to take them beyond the standards of a commercial thriller.

The Lion's Game is a commercial detective / thriller. The story is engaging enough, and I particularly liked the NY culture aspect that the main character brings. Unfortunately too much of that character is a cliché; the anti-authority, go by my gut rather than the rule book, macho, street-wise.....cop type character that turns up in dozens of such stories. At least Demille gave his character a sense of humour and plenty of one-liners to add some levity. Scott Brick did a good job of the narration.

Plenty of action, good characters, fast passed but detailed. Reamde is an enjoyable listen with very good narration.

Will Paton is an audio-book legend. Paton's narration of Deliverance is superb. Deliverance is a classic story that is ageing very well. Enthralling and disturbing at the same time.

The Woodcutter is an enjoyable mystery novel with a strong English flavour. The characters are interesting and varied, plus the pacing about right. Best of all, the narrator does a fantastic job of bringing the characters to life.

The first ten hours of this book were very slow going, but eventually the beauty of the story and characters unfolded. For much of the story I couldn't fathom why the author gave her characters from the year 2054 the dialogue of English people from the 1950s. Eventually it became clear that it was all part of subtle humour, which probably failed to hit the mark.

What saved this book is the depth of the characters, and the emotion of the situation they faced. The author deserves praise for the research that obviously went into establishing the context of the story. Overall a worthwhile listen, although it was a ponderous story for many hours.

14 is a quirky story well written with an interesting bunch of characters. The effort the author put into character development was worthwhile. A big plot twist takes this story into a genre you might not expect.

The final instalment of the series that started with Tomorrow When the War Began. Beautifully written with a stronger psychological component than earlier books in the Tomorrow series. Strong characters, great plot, and an excellent description of Australian rural life and culture. This series will appeal to a wider audience than the target teen / young adult age range.