City of Thieves (David Benioff)

Wow. So good.

Synopsis

From the guy who brought you The 25th Hour and the screenplays for The Kite Runner and—more importantly— X-Men Origins: Wolverine, comes a book about two guys trying to find a carton of eggs. Huh? Wait, this book is about a couple of guys just running around trying to find some eggs? There's got to be more to it than that...

Okay, so there's a little bit more to it than that. Lev Beniov is a teenaged boy living in Leningrad well into the Nazis' horrific siege of the city during World War II. Starving and lacking any hope of relief in the near future, he resorts to robbing a dead German paratrooper that lands outside Lev's building. Unfortunately, the dead Nazi doesn't have any food on him, and Lev is arrested for breaking curfew essentially without reward. Expecting to be executed alongside his handsome and outgoing cellmate, Kolya, Lev is surprised when he and his new friend are instead taken to a mansion on the other side of the city. They are met by a powerful Soviet colonel who sends them on a deadly mission: secure a dozen eggs for the colonel's daughter's wedding cake. Lev and Kolya's ration cards are confiscated as an incentive to comply, and the two are left with little choice but to search the city for a carton of eggs that they know they won't find.

Let me just get something out of the way here: this book is incredible. It's not some profound, paradigm-shattering epic that speaks to very essence of man. It's not a poetic masterpiece, sure to be cherished for generations to come because of its beautiful handling of the English language. Screw that noise. It's a 260-page novel with a plot that covers probably 240 of those pages. But damn, is it a good plot. Benioff writes conflict so well. No, really, so, so, so well. Everything that can go wrong for this poor kid Lev doesn't just go wrong, it goes horribly, hellaciously wrong. Early on in their journey, Lev and Kolya are confronted by a man who says he has eggs if they've got cash. They go with the man, but stay on guard. When he invites them up to his apartment, they're clearly a little skeptical, assuming they're about to get robbed. Nope, cannibals. Dude starts swinging a cleaver around, his wife coming at the pair with a knife, people's flayed corpses just chilling from meat hooks in the ceiling. Terrifying stuff. It doesn't get much better for the kid after that, either. They realize that the most likely place to find eggs these days is outside the city—the city that's surrounded by Nazis—on farms—controlled by Nazis—where farmers might still have chickens laying eggs—for Nazi omelettes or whatever Germans eat for breakfast. Oh yeah, and Lev's Jewish. We all know how much the Nazis love them some Jews.

Seriously, folks, this book is top notch. It's got love, war, cannibals, chickens, Nazis, hookers, death marches, paratroopers, candy made out of glue, Scandinavian rebels, sexy snipers, and a little bit of chess and poetry for all you cultured readers out there. Great conflict, great drama, beautiful characterization, and just overall fantastic storytelling. READ THIS BOOK!

Rating

City of Thieves
by David Benioff

Story—9
Benioff keeps it simple: strong plot, strong characters, strong motivation. It's surprising how far good old rising action will take you.

Style—8.03
This kind of thing has been done before, sure. You don't read this book because you're looking for something completely new. You read this book because you're looking for something to reassure yourself that strong, quality writing still exists and that a book can succeed on the strength of its story.

General—9.67
This book is extremely quick to read, extremely fun to read, and deceptively easy to get hooked into once you've started. Don't be surprised if you pick it up early one afternoon and find yourself turning the last page at 3 am, clueless as to where your day went.

Overall—8.9

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (Seth Grahame-Smith)

Hot damn, have I got a book for you!

Synopsis

Seth Grahame-Smith, co-author of the wildly successful Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, has moved on to more sophisticated fare. He now fancies himself a biographer, and for his first post-Austen work he's decided to tackle Abraham Lincoln. Normally, that would be boring. Countless biographies have already been written on the 16th president, and I'm not sure how they keep finding new information. Grahame-Smith, however, tells the reader EXACTLY how he got his new information: from a vampire friend of the president himself.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter details the secret life of Honest Abe as he wages a silent war on the vampires responsible for the propogation of slavery in the South. Huh? Yup. Through journal entries and historical photographs, AL:VH works vampires into the man's entire life, from his humble log cabin beginnings to his run for the presidency. It's ridiculous. The book reads like a legit biography, but with some vampires thrown in to spice things up a bit.

And oh, is it spicy! Abe was known for his size and backwoods upbringing, and Grahame-Smith uses this to his advantage as he descrives the man's training and conquests on the road to becoming America's foremost vampire hunter. It's difficult to describe how incredible this book is, because the concept is right there on the front cover, but I was genuinely surprised at how well this thing reads. This is a scholarly work of biographical fiction. I can't imagine how much research must have been involved in the writing process. Similarly to P&P&Z, the additions are flawless, seamless, sensational. I admit, I thought that that Seth Grahame-Smith wouldn't be able to handle the pressure of this book, since so much of his earlier effort was the original Austen text, but he really shows himself to be a fantastic writer with this one. Historical figures like William Seward, Stephen Douglas, and Jefferson Davis make appearances which add a depth of flavor to the experience that proves to be invaluable. Great, great book. I absolutely, 100% recommend it to any- and everyone.

Rating

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
by Seth Grahame-Smith

Story—8.5
This is an incredible piece of fiction, and just like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies before it, I hope this spurns more of the same type of work.

Style—8.9
I wish I could be more specific about the reasons why this book is fantastic, but I'm on vacation, and it's been difficult to find the time to post reviews. Just know that Grahame-Smith executes his premise superbly.

General—9.25
This book is easy to read and amazingly suspenseful. Each time Abe went out to slay a vampire, I knew he'd survive, because he still hadn't become president yet. Somehow I was still worried he might not make it out alive. Excellent writing.

Overall—8.88



READ THIS BOOK!

The Dead Guy Interviews (Michael A. Stusser)

Sorry for the recent drop off. I was away, followed by a series of mishaps that led to not having reviews ready. Not to worry, though! I've got at least the next three weeks' worth of reviews all prepped and ready to go. There's some decent stuff coming up, it's gonna be fun.

Synopsis

So, the inside cover says this guy spends most of his time inventing board games and writing for parenting magazines. I guess one day he came up with an idea he just had to write, and churned out this little gem. Alright, I'm gonna cut to the chase on this one and say right now that I wasn't impressed. The concept was really intriguing: interview famous dead people. Okay, I can go with that, show me what you can do. Well, what Stusser can do is be racist and repetitive. The end. He interviews 45 deceased personalities, including Lincoln, Beethoven, Houdini and Caesar, but the book gets old after the first ten. Instead of giving each subject their own distinct personality, he gives them all their own distinct accent, but somehow they still wind up sounding the same: flat. Not only that, but each celebrity was presented as a ridiculous characterization of themselves: Cleopatra is a sex fiend trying to get Stusser into bed; Mozart is a petulent child too rambunctious to even sit still; Poe is so drugged out that he asks if he can drink turpentine in the middle of his interview. And most of the interviews are five pages, which is probably two pages too long.

There were definitely some humorous moments, don't get me wrong. Stusser often makes fun of himself by having his subjects get annoyed with him, some even threatening him with death repeatedly (and then another threatens him with death, repeatedly, and then another, repeatedly, repeatedly, again, and again, repeatedly). There were also plenty of useful little factoids about each person strewn throughout the interviews, which I assume was one of the main purposes of the book, so maybe it would be helpful for kids? At this point I really don't know. I'm thinking this might've been better as some kind of website, though, where people can come in and read up on people in a new and fairly interesting way, but without having to read all the rest. Right now the book is too long, very repetitive, and living in this bizarre place between informative and absurd.

Rating

The Dead Guy Interviews: Conversations with 45 of the Most Accomplished, Notorious, and Deceased Personalities in History
by Michael A. Stusser.

Story—6.5
It really was a great idea. I'll at least give him credit for that.

Style—6
Reading the same thing over and over gets boring after a while, which is unfortunate because some of the better interviews aren't until later on in the book.

General—6.17
It's informative, and had a decent premise, but it isn't executed very well. The only reason it's rated this high is because it's a fairly quick and simple read, so it's not necessarily painful to get through. Maybe if it had a different framing device or something? Who knows.

Overall—6.22



Sorry this one was a dud. Now at least you know not to pick it up when you see it on the "Buy 1, Get 1 Free" table at B&N or Borders. Until next week, keep reading, Genoshans!