The Footage Shall Reveal...

Pattern Recognition - William Gibson

The generation born in the 1970s and '80s has benefited from a revolution in the way our world functions; a sea change of the magnitude of steam power, Ford's assembly line, or the refutation of the heliocentric universe. Never before has information spread at such velocity. Consider "dancing baby" and "all your base are belong to us," phenomena that circumnavigated the globe at the speed of thought. To our grandparents, fashion and commerce were local: the corner bakery, the town tailor and milliner, a grocer served by local farms and gardens. Today, however, children the world over identify the icons of our age regardless of their native alphabet; they recognize the swoosh and the golden arches and the red and white soda can at a distance of a thousand paces.

Neal Stephenson's "Reamde": The Fantasy Trilogy Grows Up

Reamde - Neal Stephenson

By now, I suppose you've figured out the format for The Great Fantasy (---)logy. It used to always be "Trilogy" in homage to LOTR, but I think some authors are now up to more than twenty volumes per "story." Anyway, the standard set of tropes is a battle between the forces of Good and the forces of Evil, some sort of "fellowship" that invariably splinters, an arduous journey (usually across mountains) and a talisman that must be rescued/destroyed/captured so that Evil can be held at bay – at least until the next series begins. Oh, and there's one more convention: medieval weaponry. It wouldn't do to have this particular saga's version of Frodo picked off by a sniper who's hiding behind a boulder high on the slopes of this particular saga's version of  the Mountains of Mordor. Yeah: that's fantasy.

Of Lard Sandwiches and Licensing Parents

The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls

Here's a sad observation: if prospective parents had to pass a qualifying test to have children, as they must do to get a driver's license, there'd be a lot more childless people among us. In one specific case I can think of, the book The Glass Castle would never have been written, because no one in his right mind would have allowed Rex and Rose Mary Walls to breed. But breed they did, not just once but four times – and second-eldest daughter Jeannette (freelance writer and one-time commentator on MSNBC) has captured a strange and sorrowful childhood within the pages of her memoir.

The Apocalypse is Coming, and It Wants Your Brain

World War Z - Max Brooks

It's been said that "armies prepare to fight the war they just finished," which seems borne out by recent history: WWII vs. Korea; Korea vs. Vietnam; Vietnam vs. the "War on Terror"... perhaps the military mind can only learn the hard way. We can forgive the military this time, though, for there was never a way to prepare, at least not for a war like World War Z. After all, how can you prepare for an enemy that knows no fear? for an enemy that can't feel pain? for an enemy that can't die, because he's already dead?  That's the story of World War Z, where "Z" is for "Zombie."

When Romantic Mysteries Go Awry

Pathogen - Jessica L. Webb

On the one hand, we have harried ER physician Kate Morrison, MD. On the other hand, we have upright RCMP sergeant Andy Wyles. They just happen to be in love. Great love life or not, Kate’s work life is miserable right now, so when Andy’s superior officer asks for her help with a case in which a medical question may be tangentially related, the good doctor jumps at the chance to spend a couple of days in a wealthy enclave in British Columbia’s primo ski country.

People in Hidden Valley have been coming down with a killer flu. So why’s the RCMP involved? Apparently one of the wealthiest of the wealthy is running for Parliament and “a journalist” asked him a disturbing question about his constituents’ health. Thus, Andy, with Kate in tow, head for the hills.