Review - Skinny Dip

I picked this up at a used book stand in Thailand, and it was good light entertainment during some of my travels. Carl Hiaasen builds some very interesting characters in this anti-mystery tale of adventure on the high and not-so-high seas. The book starts with our heroine Joey being thrown off a cruise ship by her husband. And while the reader knows she survives, only Joey and the man who pulls her off a bale of marijuana knows this. The trail to revenge takes up the rest of the book.

Not quite, but almost a page-turner, whenever I put it down I looked forward to the next chapter. While it's not a Great Work, it's well written, and except for the fate of the husband, it wraps up loose ends in a way I was happy with. Worth used bookstore price.

Review - Mindbend

Dr. Robin Cook's Mindbend is out of print for a reason. Not a well-crafted book, the characters and situations seem contrived, and we find out from the epilogue that he wrote it to push a political cause promoting regulation of medical practices which the book doesn't really focus on. The plot pits a medical student against a big nasty drug company which is inviting OB/GYN doctors on cruises where they are drugged and subjected to behavior modification and on their return home, quit private practice and join a clinic which specializes in performing unneeded abortions to harvest fetuses for research.

Gag me with a speculum.

The writing style is stilted and not Cook's usual free-flowing form, but I read it to the end the way one keeps staring at a wrapped wound in hopes to see what's under the bandages.

Not worth plucking off the free coffee shop book exchange rack. My copy has been composted.

Review - The Name of the Wind

Patrick Rothfuss' fantasy novel The Name of the Wind was recommended to me by three or four friends who said that even if you're like me and generally loathe fantasy novels, the writing in this one is good enough to give it a read. And that turns out to be mostly true.

It is well-written, though towards the end things bog down a bit as the author prepares us to buy the sequel, which I will not be doing. Many of the characters are well-drawn, many are woefully superficial. As with many fantasy novelists, Rothfuss takes liberties with the powers of the various supporting charaters, adding to them when the whim strikes. Some of the magic described can only be understood if one is the author.

There are several females who have a place in the young male protagonist's heart, and it's unclear whom he prefers. Save it for the sequel, I guess.

The book starts out asd a page-turner, but by the end I was counting pages to the end. And coming to the end and finding the story still had a long way to go, I was not amused.

Worth used bookstore price if you're not a fantasy fan, worth full price and sequels if you are.