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Thursday, May 18, 2006

The Hunters and the Hunted. Lesley Egan.

The Hunters and the Hunted.
Lesley Egan.
Doubleday: 1979.

The only reason I read this is that I happened to notice it takes place in Glendale, California, the city I grew up in. It was kind of fun to read along and see familiar street names and landmarks...

The book itself, however, is boring. Supposedly about an ex-husband wanting to kill his ex-wife, it is really just a couple of weeks on the beat with Glendale's finest. A bunch of completely unrelated cases occur, paperwork is filled out, and the bad guys confess.

No suspense is built at all on this main "case" and it ends with the bad guy getting killed in a car accident when someone runs a red light. What kind of plot device is that? Egan is scratched off my list of potential authors to read.

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Saturday, May 06, 2006

THX 1138. Ben Bova (based on screenplay by George Lucas & Walter Murch)

THX 1138.
Ben Bova (based on screenplay by George Lucas & Walter Murch)
Warner: 1978

Reissued after the success of Star Wars, this book is sort of a dumbed-down version of 1984. Overall, it is quite good, and Ben Bova keeps us moving along at a fair clip.

The world of THX 1138 is living underground in vast, overcrowded cities, everyone takes mood pills to stay sedated (not taking drugs is a crime), sex is illegal, and everyone is constantly being monitored by cameras and police robots.

THX falls in love with LUH, a sex-born woman who secretly isn't taking her pills. Plot is obvious from here with minor exception being that LUH turns out to be pregnant. She's killed by the state while THX is in jail, but they save her fetus, renaming it LUH - it being more economical to save the name than think up a new one. THX is able to change the record on the fetus from sex-born to "natural" (meaning artificial), thus ensuring his baby a "normal" life.

THX escapes to edenic surface of the earth and vows to return to retrieve his daughter.

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The Longest Night. J. N. Williamson

The Longest Night
J. N. Williamson.
Leisure: 1985.

Psychologist tricks friend into living in a haunted house. Shrink winds up dead, main character is annoying, bad guy (ghost) is too boringly evil, beautiful girl ghost is never aware of anything going on, and the book isn't scary at all.

Supposedly a horror novel, the only thing that's horrible here is the author's writing.

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