The Book Report
By A.Bae Hel
The Secret of Secrets
By Dan Brown
Audiobook
Dan Brown has written a lot of books. And I have read, or attempted to read a couple. This was another Did Not Finish, although I get closer to the end after giving it a time out for several weeks. If you can read without thinking you may enjoy this book, but it does go on, and on, and on, and on.
The blurbs trying to hook you focus on the appealing parts, which is why I was willing to give it a go. Who doesn’t love a good neuroscience/ consciousness sciency novel? And set in Prague, a place I will never get to see, so googling the locations and spots named in the novel is like a travel vacation in my mind.
Here comes the but…But, dear stars in the heavens these characters are flat, 2 dimensional and for a couple of supposingly smart people, pretty damn dumb. Robert Langdon has not developed as a character from the initial book introducing him. His current love interest, which may be the same as previous novels, or may just be as replaceable as the last one is equally as flat. She has flowing glowing locks of healthy hair, trim ankles no doubt and long legs. So many stereotypes packed into the novel it is a wonder they find time to get trapped, fight foreign police, fight the CIA, fight foreign agencies, steal secrets, lose secrets, and fail to understand how corrupt their government really is. Tiresome.
Then there was the science. The forward says something about it all being ‘true’ but this is not like Margaret Attwood saying everything in the Handmaid’s Tale is something that has or is happening in real life. I spent some time searching out the science, and yeah, there is an element of truth, but no, hallucinogenics will not shut down gabba receptors opening you up to some cosmic consciousness as you die. Sure, the machine elves might come to singing you on your way, but non-local consciousness is not a real thing proven by staring at goats.
So, I cannot recommend, unless you don’t care about the tripe you fill your neurons with. Yes, innuendos of the sexual kind which were completely unnecessary to the plot line.
Dungeon Crawler Carl
By Matt Dinniman
Audio book
If you have been living in a cave for the past several years, you may not have heard of this series. Also, the world is shit right now, so go back in the cave, but take the series with you.
Remember back in the 90s when you played Zelda and fought monsters and gathered up treasures from fairies, then once you solved all the levels and you moved on the Diablo and the monsters were so much more scary and fierce and you died a bunch before you got to the centre to fight that big king monster? No? Just me?
This series is like Zelda and Diablo had a litter of the most bizarre, fantastical creatures and put them into a game show where humans had to beat the levels after their world was taken by evil conglomerate aliens and Carl and his cat are saving humanity one level at a time. Woven into the ridiculousness is plenty of stinging social commentary and political insight. It really is the most fantastical of stories and very enjoyable.
It is adult themed though. There is a lot of blowing things and creatures up, a lot of things die, and there are vivid descriptions of maiming, killing and dying. It also takes an adult understanding of how the world works to follow the convoluted story behind the game, but a very aware teen would probably enjoy these novels.
I like post apocalyptic stories and this one appears to be an absolutely ridiculous premise. I will be reading on. So often with series the first book or two are great and then the momentum gets lost. Let’s see how this goes. Definitely 5 stars.
