What, exactly, does a gold library card do?

The Kanawha County Public Library is challenging its patrons to read 100 books this year:

In 2009 the Kanawha County Public Library system celebrates its 100th anniversary. To mark this event we’ll be offering special programs and displays throughout the year, plus we’re challenging our patrons to read 100 books.

Though the linked article doesn’t mention exactly what the prize might be, the book log says that participants who meet the challenge get a “special gold library card.” I have to admit, that appeals to me in a way similar to how achievements on Xbox Live or Kongregate will cause me to play games just to get a few points that are (ultimately) meaningless. I’d probably read 100 books this year anyway; why not join in the challenge?

Since only books checked out from the Kanawha County Public Library system count, I’ve only finished one book that might count (S.M. Stirling’s Dies the Fire), but since I actually checked that one out last year (and didn’t start reading it until Saturday), I’m not counting it.

Book #1, therefore, will be Robert Charles Wilson’s Blind Lake, which I started during lunch.

Tick Tock begins on a serious, if odd, note. Tommy Phan has just signed a contract with a publisher for his detective novels, and celebrates by buying himself a brand-new Corvette. After he arrives at home, he responds to a knock at the door, where he finds nothing but an odd rag doll on the doorstep with a note written in Vietnamese. The doll comes to life and attempts to kill him. Now, Tommy finds himself on the run trying to survive until the doll “deadline”.

No description of this book could possibly do it justice. After Intensity, Koontz felt that he needed something a bit lighter, and he wrote this straight-to-paperback novel that, in my opinion, is one of his best works to date. The novel starts out with Koontz’s easily recognizable style telling a fairly straight horror story, but quickly shifts gears from a horror to a wonderful screwball comedy without flying off track too badly.

Del Payne and Mother Phan both play perfectly off of Tommy’s “straight man” character, and the scenes near the end of the book when the two women interact had me rolling with laughter. There are a few scenes here and there (usually centering around the dog) that were more “miss” than “hit”, but since the rest of the book was so wonderful, I happily overlook those.

I’ve seen some horrid reviews of this book, and the only conclusion I can come to is that some people are humor-handicapped and don’t know how to recognize funny unless it comes equipped with a laugh track. I understand that the screwball comedy doesn’t quite hit everyone’s funny bones, but it’s unfair to judge this book as though it’s a straight horror when that’s obviously not what the author intended, given that his afterword gives the formula for a good screwball comedy, even going so far as to cite Bringing Up Baby and What’s Up, Doc (both of which I looked up and loved after reading this novel; Baby is, in fact, now one of my favorite movies of all time).

Even though it’s not quite his normal style, Koontz’s Tick Tock is well worth a look, especially if you’ve got a taste for both screwball comedies and horror movies.

It’s Still Funny Edition

I’ve recently started reading Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe Novels. I can’t begin to tell you how much I’m enjoying these, despite the fact that I don’t much care for Wolfe himself. Archie’s narration is great, and the mysteries are fun, so that’s enough for me.

Anyway, I’m currently reading In the Best Families, and came across this passage, which amused me to no end:

He straightened up. “Your chief trouble,” he said, not offensively, “is that you think you’ve got a sense of humor. It confuses people, and you ought to get over it. You thought it would be funny to have a talk with Rackham, and it may be alright this time, but someday something that you think is funny will blow your goddam head right off your shoulders.”

Only after he had gone did it occur to me that that wouldn’t prove it wasn’t funny.

Did I mention that I think Archie’s hilarious?

Harry and his friends enter their sixth year of school, as the wizarding world prepares for war with the returned Voldemort.

This one was a good deal better than the last one, which I didn’t enjoy nearly as much as I had the first four (which I can’t really rank, because I liked them all fairly equally). Harry’s not perfect, but he’s also not the jerk that he was in the previous book. He’s considerably more real in this book than in any of the previous ones, and that’s a refeshing change (though he’s still my least favorite of the main characters). This was the first book that really made me anxious for the next one, but that could be a result of the fact that there’s no real story here — it ends just as the real story starts.

All in all, I’ll rate this one 7/10.

(Spoilers in the extended entry)

Others commenting on …The Half Blood Prince:

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When it comes to my books and my DVDs, I’m a little bit obsessive, I think. I utterly refuse to have books in a series that don’t match unless I have absolutely no choice. If I own two books of a trilogy in paperback and the only copy of book three I have doesn’t match, I’ll happily go out and buy the first two again. I do the same thing with DVDs, and I flatly refuse to buy any “box set” if the DVD cases inside don’t match. (This is why I don’t currently own a copy of the Lethal Weapon movies — Lethal Weapon 4 never matches the other movies.)

When a new movie or book in a series is released, I have to re-read (or re-watch) the other parts of the series. That’s why I’ve stopped reading the Wheel of Time novels. With no end in sight, ten books out right now, and at least 800 pages in each, the preparation time for each new book is getting longer and longer. I have too many books that aren’t a part of this series left to read, so I’m simply buying them and leaving them to read later. Part of me doubts I’ll ever really get them all read. Last time I tried it, I got stuck around book 6. I’d already read more than 4000 pages about those characters, and my mind started rebelling, demanding that I let it read something else… preferably something with an ending.

Anyway, that’s why I found myself stopping at the mall yesterday evening to buy a hardcover copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Book six (Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince) comes out at the end of this week (in case you’ve been living under a rock), and our copy of book five is missing. “Paperback would be cheaper,” the voice of frugality in the back of my mind told me.

“That’s true,” said the voice of obsession, “but then you’ll have to buy the first four books, too. That won’t be cheaper.”

Obsession is just too danged expensive.