Not My Favorite of the Bunch

I don't think it was the best of the trilogy, but I said in a previous post, it had the strongest ending. In fact I think that The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest was the weakest of the three stories. One of the things I liked about the first two, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire, was that Blomqvist and Lisbeth work independently of one another but came to the same conclusions. It's like one of those magnificent stories with intricately woven plots and sub-plots that somehow come together at the end.

The other thing I liked about the previous two novels that was absent in this one was that the reader got to watch and read about Lisbeth Salander and her terrifically anti-social ways. Not so much in this book. In this book the reader is treated to Lisbeth sitting in a hospital bed. Despite that, it was worthwhile reading and like I said I loved the ending.

I was all set to not care about what happened to Lisbeth's brother. I thought that Larsson had done a decent job of completely dropping a once major character out of the story in such a way that the reader didn't care. Then, BOOM! he brings him back and creates an incredibly compelling ending.

I already remarked about this passage and how good I thought it was, but sadly that was the only passage I marked.

Nevertheless, it is a great trilogy, it's easy to see why so many people were wrapped up in them, and it's sad to think that Larsson won't be producing more.

2012 NaNo Idea #1

I read an article in WSJ today by Joel Queenan about the Bourne Legacy movie. It wasn't the best article I've ever read, but it made me think about this years National Novel Writing Month because of this line:

"The Bourne Legacy" excoriates a government that tries to pick winners and losers, a job best left to the free market. Who decided that a covert program training super-assassins was even worthwhile? Why would anyone think the government is best suited to implement such a program? Wouldn't it make more sense to farm this out to organized crime or battle-tested mercenaries? Those guys are really good at this stuff.

I latched onto this line because of my grandfather's business, SSI, Space Services Inc. He started it back in the late 70's or 80's as a privately owned rocket company. I've always thought his thoughts were that why leave it to the federal government to do something that private enterprise could do better and cheaper. It's very much like Steven Pressfield's The Profession, but instead of whole private mercenary armies, this story would focus on a person in the battle. 

This seems like a good idea to build on for NaNo. A corporate spy who is tasked with international corporate espionage. I could write it so that he sees something of national import, but that would counter to his task for the company and he could be torn between the loyalty to his multi-national company and his home country. Or, due to the aggressiveness of the multi-national company the CIA or other covert agencies could target him for death.

Not Bad

Started a commitment book today. This isn't the best, but it's enough to lead me on and keep me going.


CAPTAIN SEAN O’SULLIVAN LIFTED the blackout curtain. A burst of dull light grayed the room. Christ, he thought, doesn’t the sun ever shine in London. He heard planes droning overhead toward the English Channel but he could not see them through the thick fog. He wondered if his brother, Tim, was flying today.

Uris, Leon - Armageddon

I ran into a lady whilst in the airport in St. Louis. She saw that I was reading Tai-Pan, she recommended Uris. We'll see lady . . . we'll see.

Onward through commitment book!

Maybe the Best Book Ending Ever

It may not have been the best first line but it sure came together in the end. This might be the best ending to a book ever. No . . . not this passage, I mean the whole ending. I'll have a posting on the book later where I feel certain I'll discuss the ending at length. But, with that being said, this last line is pretty good too.


She looked at him for a moment and realized that she now had no feelings for him. At least not those kinds of feelings. 

He had in fact been a good friend to her over the past year. 

She trusted him. Maybe. It was troubling that one of the few people she trusted was a man she spent so much time avoiding. 

Then she made up her mind. It was absurd to pretend that he did not exist. It no longer hurt her to see him. 

She opened the door wide and let him into her life again.

Larsson, Stieg -The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Great Passage

I love the Kindle app cause when I come across something I really like, I mark it and can come back later at the touch of a button. Today I ran across something that I thought was so good I wanted to more than mark it. Sadly, Kindle does not really have a "More Than Mark" function. Wouldn't it be nice if you could mark something with degrees of interest? Why have just a flat bookmark, why not be able to mark something a 10 meaning, when you come back later this one aint that important . . . ah, but that 1 up there, that one is something you need to review right a way. Got get on it Kindle.

In the mean time, I think I would have marked this one a 2 or at least a 3.

"At 2: 30 she was led back to the interrogation cell. This time her guard was a young woman. Salander sat on a chair in the empty cell and pondered a particularly intricate equation. 

After ten minutes the door opened. “Hello, Lisbeth.” A friendly tone. It was Teleborian. 

He smiled at her, and she froze. The components of the equation she had constructed in the air before her came tumbling to the ground. She could hear the numbers and mathematical symbols bouncing and clattering as if they had physical form. 

Teleborian stood still for a minute and looked at her before he sat down on the other side of the table. She continued to stare at the same spot on the wall.


Larsson, Stieg - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest


I love that part with the numbers and symbols dropping to the ground in her mind. That's a 2 isn't it?

Sounds Like a Teenage Ender

A comment from an avid reader has precipitated this post. His first line makes me think that it might have been great as the first line of the Star War's Novel, or for Ender's Game, had Ender been a bit older. 

Interstellar war was not at the top of David’s schedule as he jumped excitedly out of bed.

Roger Lawrence - Three Hoodies Save the World

Nevertheless, as a fan of sci-fi and of compelling first sentences that tend to invariably suck a reader in, I look forward to reading more.

Might Be Too Political, But . . .

This might be a mote too political, but whenever one of my favorite literary characters is mentioned in a blog I like to point it out. Although any reader of this blog might find it hard to believe, due to the dirth of reviews of these books in my book reviews section my favorite series of books is George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman books.

Today, the political writer for National Review, Mark Steyn, quotes from Flashman, the first novel, that is set in Afghanistan.

This I will say for the Afghan – he is a treacherous, evil brute when he wants to be, but while he is your friend he is a first-rate fellow. The point is, you must judge to a second when he is going to cease to be friendly. There is seldom any warning.

Steyn goes on to quote himself from an article he wrote a year and a half ago:

A dozen pages of a Flashman yarn has a sounder grasp of the Afghan psyche than nine years of multilateral “nation-building”. Which is why we’re going round and round in circles in an almighty Groundhogistan where a man gets sentenced to death for converting to Christianity under a court system created, funded and protected by us.

To read the whole post go here, but I recommend instead that you go buy the novel and read it immediately. Flashman has so many more things to say on the subject and really there are few books as fun to read as these.

Simply (Less Than) the Best!

Not a great first line or passage if you ask me. Actually, having read the other two books, and written about their first lines, I don't think that Stieg Larsson puts much credence in having stunning first lines.


Dr. Jonasson was woken by a nurse five minutes before the helicopter was expected to land. It was just before 1: 30 in the morning. 

“What?” he said, confused. 

“Rescue Service helicopter coming in. Two patients. An injured man and a younger woman. The woman has gunshot wounds.” 

“All right,” Jonasson said wearily. 

Although he had slept for only half an hour, he felt groggy. He was on the night shift in the ER at Sahlgrenska hospital in Göteborg. It had been a strenuous evening.

Larsson, Stieg - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

However, my knowledge of the first two books can also lead me to believe that this is less a first line of a new book as just an arbitrary break in the action between book two and three. It's as if he wrote this and The Girl Who Played with Fire at the same time and was asked by his agent to split it into two.

Just Couldn't Do It

Someone recommended a book to me the other day and I went out and bought it . . . Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander. Just prior to pushing purchase in Amazon I did take a peek at the reviews, not any specific reviews, but just the number. 

The book had over 1500 reviews, most of them positive. I tried reading it and actually got 15% of the way through, then I gave up. Just way too much nonsense and detail. I felt I was living out every minute of someone else’s life. It was a good primer on not letting a story drag. It wasn’t till I was about 5% in that I looked at one of the one star reviews and saw a review by Honest Abby titled “What the Fuss?”

This book gets so much adoration and love...and I just don't get it! I completely agree with several of the other one-star reviews. This book is disturbingly violent, has a plot that meanders aimlessly, and two lead characters who are poorly characterized.

I agree. Life is too short to read huge "commitment novels" that take too long to go anywhere. Next!

Author Interviews

As I have said in previous posts, I'm thinking of using a service to organize reviews, blog tours, and author interviews. I've just received yet another review, this time from Laura Beasley out of Hong Kong.

This is the second interview I've had to do, the first being here, and I think I need to brush up on some of my answers prior to getting a company to help me. Still, I'll take another good review.