Contact, by Carl Sagan (1985)
The great thing about reading a science fiction book by a real scientist is that the science part is so intellectual and realistic. The bad thing about it is that the fiction part isn't always so hot. Sometimes it helps the plot along to have ten pages of physics theory, but usually it doesn't. Carl Sagan's science writing is so good, but he doesn't seem to know how to keep the story going. He's a fan of the writing school that starts with a single header sentence and then writes fifty sentences that support that sentence but don't move anything along. For example, he'll say that a lot of people felt strongly about the possibility of intelligent life on other planets. Then he writes one sentence each for every group of people he can think of: the Buddhists think this, the Chinese think that, the wacko cult members think this, the Texans think that. It goes on and on forever, static and list-like, until my eyes go on auto-skim. The reader only needs so many supportive evidence sentences to back up the main point sentence; after a certain number of examples, we get the idea.
Sagan also tells us the whole lowdown on each new character the minute we meet the character, without waiting for us to develop an interest. If a character is briefly introduced and then the character's significance (love interest, arch enemy, whatever) is made clear, then the reader will be interested in the character's favorite wine, networking skills, hobbies, and family life. It's not easy to absorb biography without context. I often had to go back later and re-read the pages where a character was introduced.
I can't give a complete review because I got bogged down and frustrated about halfway through the book. I felt like I was getting one molecule of interesting plot followed by two college physics classes and four writing-exercise description lists before I got the next molecule. I was interested in Ellie Arroway and her discovery of a message from another planet, and that seems to be about one percent of the book. Oddly enough, I still recommend the book. The reason, I suppose, is that I get so exasperated when I read those science fiction novels that even a non-science person like me can shoot holes in. I can suspend my disbelief, but not to that extent. Whereas Carl Sagan with his impressive science background is not going to do that to you, and if you don't mind your fiction served with a hearty dose of science, you might very well go crazy for this book.
The Perfect Elizabeth, by Libby Schmais (2000)
Apparently all the plot you need to write a book these days is a woman in her 30s suffering crises of career, relationship, and diet. Lucky for me, I tend to like such books. Eliza and her sister Bette (notice that both names are diminutives of the name Elizabeth--as is the author's name) are in their 30s, suffering the aforementioned crises. Eliza is a poet, paralegal, and dog-walker, living with an actor named Gregor. Bette is an expert on comfort foods in English literature, and she lives alone after ending a marriage of ten years. Both are searching for meaning in work and love, and they spend a lot of time eating and talking. That's about it. Not high on exciting plot, are these books about women in their 30s. Enjoyable to read nevertheless.
Elixir, by Gary Braver (2000)
This book purports to be about what happens when humanity develops an elixir that prolongs life. In fact, it's a book about a family on the run.
Chris Bacon develops the elixir, and then some drug lord comes after him and frames him for some crimes so that the police are after him too. With all the good guys and all the bad guys against him, Chris takes his family and disappears. From time to time we come back to the elixir: Chris gives it to a friend, or someone steals some of it--but in general, we read about the problems Chris and his wife are having over the ethics of the elixir (but the emphasis is on their marriage and not on the interesting ethics), and about what it's like to have a false identity, and about how Chris's wife Wendy worries about her possibly crazy sister and her suicidal niece.
We also read a lot of macho crap about the workings of the drug lord's world: he kills his girlfriend's lover in front of his guests, he has a thug break someone's finger and threaten someone's young child, that sort of thing. Lots of macho-crap dialogue in these scenes, too, and plenty of disgustingly detailed violence (the sort involving needles and eyes--I'll say no more). I was intrigued enough by the concept to keep reading, but I wished for way less of the lam and the drug lord, way more of the elixir and its ethical implications. Hardly anyone even gets to take the elixir, so we don't get to find out what would happen if it were introduced into the population. All we do is wonder together if it would be a bad idea, and then get back to describing the shape of the drug lord girlfriend's bottom.
Perish Twice, by Robert B. Parker (2000)
I have trouble losing myself in books in which the narrator is a different sex than the author. Little things keep jarring me, like when a male author has his female narrator reflect on why she needs to have so many pairs of shoes. Probably the reflection would ring true if written the same way by a female author, but because I know the author is male I immediately get skeptical. Sunny Randall is a female detective created by male author Robert B. Parker, and she's not bad as detective characters go. There is some great funny dialogue, and the plot's not bad. The book is light reading, nothing too scary or too complicated. I thought it was good enough that I would consider reading another of the author's books, but not so good that I'd make a point of actively seeking them out.
The Lost Legends of New Jersey, by Frederick Reiken (2000)
Not bad for a coming-of-age book about a boy, and not exceptional in any way. I read to the end but with no great zeal. The author is trying to theme the book around the concept of finding one's one true perfect love, but the theme starts feeling forced ("Oh, yeah, I should mention that concept again here, just to make sure it's a theme"), and I'm not sure he succeeds in any case.
Family Honor, by Robert B. Parker (1999)
All right, so I went and actively sought out another of this author's books, after saying clearly only a week ago that I wouldn't (see review, above). I don't know what drew me back, and I'm not going to think too hard about it either. It was something to do with the way the dialogue kept making me laugh out loud, and it had something to do with the way the detective plot was a little bit scary but didn't involve anything jumping out unexpectedly. The book didn't take itself too seriously, but it didn't then let itself degenerate into total fluff. So the next time I went to the library, there I was in the P section looking for another book starring Sunny Randall, fearless female detective. I'm not saying anything conclusive about the quality of plot or writing; all I'm saying is that I enjoyed the second book and I'm not going to try to justify it.