Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Special Topics in Calamity Physics is the story of a young girl named Blue. When Blue is very young her mother passes away and her life becomes a journey from one small college to another. Her father is a professor whose method of dealing with the death is to take a new faculty position every semester. Blue is a brilliant child and moving from place to place doesn't hurt her education, especially since her father teaches her Shakespeare's sonnets instead of "The Wheels on the Bus" and she reads scholarly works as opposed to fairy tales.

The majority of the action takes place during Blue's senior year of high school. Her father has decided to stay in one place for the entire year and enrolls her in an exclusive private school. In the first week of the semester Blue is reluctantly recruited to join a group of 5 students whose lives practically revolve around the enigmatic film teacher, Hannah. At first Blue is not accepted by the other students, they merely tolerate her presence because Hannah insists. Eventually Blue begins to come out of her shell and enjoys being a part of the group. Unfortunately, strange things begin to happen and Blue begins to dig deeper into the mystery of Hannah.

The novel ends after Hannah pushes the group into an ill-fated camping trip and Blue becomes obsessed with investigating Hannah's death. Her findings are amazing and there is a fantastic twist at the end of the novel. By the way, Hannah's death is not a spoiler. Blue tells us that Hannah died on the second page of the novel.

I was drawn to this novel because of the title and the chapter titles. Each one is named after a literature classic that is thematically related to the action in that chapter. I almost put the book down because of the sometimes too frequent citations that Blue used during her narrative, but I powered through them and am glad that I did.

I give this book 4 classics -- the citations slowed me down but the story kept me interested and I did love the twist at the end. The border collie gives this a box of milkbones because the citations made him think this was a scholarly work instead of a silly novel. The big black dog didn't finish the book because she ran out of ritalin and couldn't stay focused. The cat also did not finish because the big black dog wouldn't leave her alone.

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse

I love a good tale of the apocalypse--doesn't everyone? It's not that I'm full of doom and gloom and I don't obsessively watch the doomsday clock (FYI, it's seven minutes to midnight). However, I do enjoy stories that ponder life after the big bomb/virus/zombie attacks/genetic mutation/big flood/etc. Depending on my frame of mind, it's either fun or an intellectual exercise to consider what humans would do after the big whatever. What would society look like? Would we cooperate or compete? Would humankind accept their lot in life or fight to rebuild society?

So anyway, I love a good tale of the apocalypse so this book was like a trip to Camden Park (before it became old, dangerous, and creepy). Twenty-two stories AND a "list for further reading". Contributers include well-known sci-fi authors such as Stephen King, Orson Scott Card, and George R.R. Martin. My favorite story was "Judgement Passed" by Jerry Oltion. It's about a group of explorers who return to Earth after 20 years in space. They arrive to find that the Second Coming has come and gone. They know this is what happened because they find newspapers with the story (including pictures of Jesus walking around town). They spend their days trying to decide if God didn't notice them because they were so far away, if God did notice them but didn't want them, and if they should try to get his attention to they can also leave the world.

If you aren't familiar with this genre of sci-fi but like more mainstream books such as The Stand, Children of Men, and the short story that was the basis for the current hit I Am Legend, then you might like these stories. Also, if you like the aformentioned movies, READ THE BOOKS!! They really are much better.

I can only give this collection 2 thumbs up because I only have 2 thumbs. The cat gives it 5 stars because she dreams of an armageddon in which all dogs die and all surviving humans live to serve her. The border collie could not be bothered because he was busy trying to understand the humor of Candide, and the big black dog could not finish it because she is the happiest dog in the world and the stories were bumming her out.

Diversion #1

I have a twisted sense of humor, so I think this is hysterial. It's also a good reminder as to why I never have and never will bungee jump.

WARNING: animated stick figure blood

http://www.nix-glop.com/toons/bungee.swf

Water for Elephants

Do you ever plan to do nothing but read on the weekend? Then this is the perfect book for you. Unfortunately, I did not start this on the weekend so I had a couple of way too late nights. I fell in love with Water for Elephants within the first few pages and had a lot of trouble putting it down. It is written in pretty simple language and the story really flows along.

The novel tells the story of Jacob, a young man on the verge of graduating from veterinary school. He plans to return home after graduation and join his father's practice. Several weeks before final exams Jacob learns that his parents were killed in an accident. He also learns that the practice and his family home were mortgaged in order to send him to school. Although Jacob does return to school and tries to prepare for finals, he just can't stay focused. He wanders off along the railroad track and on impulse jumps into an open boxcar. It turns out he has just landed on the train of a traveling circus.

Jacob joins the circus as the vet and is befriended by an animal handler named August who is a version of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde--kind and generous one minute, cruel and violent the next. Jacob falls in love with August's wife and does his best to hide it. But it wouldn't be a good story if Jacob's feeling didn't come out. And it wouldn't be a good circus novel without an elephant. Rosie is central to this story and she's an elephant that is dumber than a doornail (or is she?). I enjoyed the plot as well as the details about traveling circuses.

I give Water for Elephants 5 tickets to Ringling Brothers. All three of my pets give it nothing to protest the treatment of circus animals. I never should have let them read the PETA website.

Children's Hospital

Children's Hospital by Chris Adrian absolutely fascinated me. The premise of the book is that the earth is covered in 7 miles of water after a storm. The only survivors are the people who were in a children's hospital at the time. There are about 1000 survivors - a couple of doctors, quite a few med students, the hospital staff, the patients, and family members of some of the patients. The hospital is able to stay afloat thanks to the intervention of a very creepy angel. The angel provides for the survivors' every need, want, or whim; she just won't tell anyone why they survived or when they will see dry land again. Anyone can have assistance from the angel as long as they will give her a name. I would name this angel Hal - and if you don't get the reference to Hal, you might be too young to be surfing the web unsupervised.

At first life goes on pretty much as it did before the disaster, after all this is a hospital full of sick children. But eventually the residents begin thinking about other things, such as building a community, finding families for the orphaned children, and deciding which doctor should get the lead in the next musical. Of course there are crises to resolve and a surprise or two at the end, but you'll have to read the book to find out more.

I give this book 5 bookmarks. I like Adrian's style of writing, love surrealism, the characters were compelling, and the story kept me hooked. My cat gives this novel 20 dead mice because for 3 days I barely moved. My dogs give it a big stinky pile of doggie-doo because for 3 days I barely moved.