BLAZE By Stephen King

Published : 2007
Pages : 309
Overall Mark : 9/10

Clayton Blaisdell Jr, aka Blaze, is a simple man who turned to crime as something of a last resort because he wasn’t clever enough to do anything else. His best friend and partner in crime, George, had died whilst they were coming up with a plan to make one final big wad of cash, so Blaze decides to try out the plan on his own: the plan being to kidnap the child of a rich family and hold it to ransom. Unfortunately Blaze finds himself forming a bond with the baby and decided he doesn’t really want to give the child back.

This is a nice novel because it actually has the reader sympathising with someone who, in the best sense of the word, is the villain of the piece, and turns them into something of a hero. Blaze is a likeable character, and the reasons for his criminal behaviour are explained in the many flashback sequences which pepper this novel. Stephen King is back on form here, and it’s surprising that this novel got turned down for publication over thirty years ago.

BABEL-17 By Samuel R Delany

Published : 1967
Pages : 193
Overall Mark : 6/10

Rydra Wong, a famous poet and more importantly an expert in languages, is hired to investigate a language, known by the name Babel-17, which is being used by an alien race as a communication tool for a number of terrorist attacks. She puts together a crew and travels in search of more information, but as she starts to learn the language through the aid of a murder known only as The Butcher, she discovers that the language itself may be used as a weapon, as it can control people’s perceptions and thoughts by forcing parts of their brain to shut down.

I wasn’t particularly impressed with this novel, although the idea it is based around is a very interesting and original one. Some of the characters do prove to be interesting as, in her search for the key to Babel-17, Rydra Wong meets a number of people who all have drastically different perceptions of reality themselves, proving to be a nice counterpoint to the subject of the novel itself.

HIGH FIDELITY By Nick Hornby

Published : 1995
Pages : 253
Overall Mark : 9/10

After his girlfriend Laura leaves him for another man, Rob Fleming decides to look back at his top five relationships and try to figure out where he’s been going wrong. As he meets up with his exes one by one, he starts to realise that many of the relationships didn’t just fail because of him, and that with each failure there were two people to blame. So, when Laura’s father dies, Rob takes the opportunity to try and be the better man and attempts to face his fear of death which has lead to his fear of commitment.

This is a great little book, and not just because we’re given the skewed view of a sole individual whose opinions soon begin to become our own. Rob’s belief that his only failing is his fear of commitment sounds like a small thing, but this fear impacts on not just his relationships but his work situation as well. Mixed in with his musical snobbery, this makes for a fun filled yet emotional rollercoaster which we are invited to take part in, and also given the opportunity to reach some of our own conclusions thanks to the partly open ended ending.

THE STARS MY DESTINATION By Alfred Bester

Published : 1956
Pages : 258
Overall Mark : 8/10

After drifting in space for a number of weeks as the only survivor of his ship, the Nomad, Gully Foyle is rescued by a group of people who set about tattooing his face with stripes similar to that of a tiger. Foyle soon decides to seek revenge on the crew of a spacecraft named the Vorga, which passed him by and ignored his distress call, by using his ability to teleport – a universal ability which most of the population can perform – to find them and kill them, but as his journey brings him ever closer to those responsible, he starts to discover some interesting facts about both them and himself.

This is a great little sci-fi novel, with a lead character which you sympathise with whilst also taking an instant disliking to. Bester manages with expert ease to build a framework around Gully Foyle and the rest of the supporting characters which is both believable and strangely accessible, whilst creating scenarios and settings which are both fantastic and highly imaginative.

A SIMPLE PLAN By Scott Smith

Published : 1993
Pages : 416
Overall Mark : 8/10

Hank and Jacob Mitchell discover a crashed plane on their way to visit their father’s grave site. Along with Jacob’s friend Lou, they find a dead pilot and a large quantity of money on board, and Hank comes up with the idea of holding the money in secret until they can be sure that the police aren’t looking for it, then split it three ways. But as Lou becomes increasingly eager for his share in the money, Hank realises he may have to resort to drastic action to ensure they can keep the money.

This is a very well paced book, which slowly but surely changes Hank Mitchell’s character into something of a mad man. There are a few moments that didn’t really flow very well, such as the chapter where Hank tries to retrieve some of the money from a shop, but other than these small moments where the story seems to be going off on a tangent, this is a very well written first novel.

THE FOREVER WAR By Joe Haldeman

Published : 1974
Pages : 253
Overall Mark : 9/10

William Mandella is a soldier fighting in a war against an alien race known as the Taurans, a war that may not seem to him to go on forever, but does none the less. In order to travel to their rendezvous to fight the aliens, the soldiers are shipped through worm holes which cause time to seem to stand still for them, and consequently many years pass for them back on Earth. Each trip Mandella is faced with the prospect of coming back to a new and vastly transformed world, ranging from an Earth that promotes homosexuality as the norm to stop the population from booming, to a world entirely made up of clones, all the while hoping to meet up again with fellow soldier and love interest Marygay Potter.

This is a great novel, and I’m glad I picked it up. The characters are solid and believable, and the book flows beautifully from start to finish. Some people believe that this novel is based on Haldeman’s tour of duty in Vietnam, and the sense of not belonging that Mandella feels each time he returns to Earth, coupled with the idea of the government not even knowing anything much about their enemy, makes me believe that this could well be the case.

DEARLY DEVOTED DEXTER By Jeff Lindsay

Published : 2005
Pages : 296
Overall Mark : 8/10

Dexter finds life increasingly difficult as he is stalked at every turn by Sergeant Doakes, who suspects Dexter of being up to something sinister, maybe even suspecting he’s a killer. Dexter finds himself having to retreat further into his “fake” life with Rita, and even goes as far as to get engaged to her. Things do start to become easier for him though when a criminal from Doakes’s past shows up, a criminal known as Dr Danco who brutally mutilates his victims by chopping off their arms, legs and genitals, and cuts off their eyelids and tongue, but leaves them alive, earning them the slightly evil nickname of the Singing Potatoes. This killer could spell a reprive for Dexter because he’s after all the members of the Black Ops team of which Doakes was a member.

With all of the character’s already introduced in the first novel, this left us with a lot more time to get to know the criminal in this novel, as well as focus on fewer characters. The criminal here, Dr Danco, is a lot more gruesome than the Ice Truck Killer in the first novel, and it would have been interesting to see him transferred to the small screen in the Dexter TV show, but sadly it doesn’t look like this will be happening. I look forward to Jeff Lindsay’s next installemtn, Dexter After Dark, which I’ll hopefully be reading soon.