Recently Read - Lamb by Christopher Moore

I recently came across this very funny author called Christopher Moore. Well, he's been around for sometimes, but I only discovered him recently. I don't think I ever came across his books in Sri Lanka. His genre is comic fantasy.

I found that there are two used book stores near to our apartment, which is like heaven for me. I was in two minds whether or not to buy novels brand new, since I can't be sure whether I'll have enough room in the luggage to bring them back home, so when i found these two basically right next door I was over the moon. The books are really good quality, can't even say that they are used, and nearly half the retail price. So to make long story short, I was perusing the shelves in one when I came across a book called "Lamb" by Christopher Moore. What grabbed me was the tag line "The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal".

The protagonist of the story is Levi, who is called Biff, who is Jesus's best friend since childhood. He is risen from the dead in modern day to write a gospel of his own, because people need a, I don't know, a friendlier gospel.

Here, the culprit is of course Biff, who likes to get into trouble. It is an imaginative account of what Jesus would have done in his childhood years and before he started his ministry. It explores the idea that he spent his youth travelling the east, with Biff in tow, to learn about human nature and the teachings of other religions and beliefs of the time. Afterwards, after Jesus starts preaching, how Biff is his right hand man and helps with the work, and how he tries hard to save Jesus from the tragic destiny, as any best friend would do.

The story doesn't step on what people believe, and not offensive to Christianity at all. Well, at least i thought so. I don't know about religious extremists though. It's a story about friendship, love, and tolerance of others and the beliefs of others all rolled into one funny package.

It's a great book, so I recommend it if you like comic fantasy.

There are about 13 other novels by Christopher Moore in the same genre, so I'm planning to find them soon.

 Christopher Moore's site

Amazon Link

Reading

Lady Divine mentioned in one of her comments that I must be someone who likes to read a lot, and I thank her for reminding me of a topic to write a post about. Reading is my #1 hobby so I thought it should deserve a mentioning.

I’m not sure when I got addicted to it or anything, but it’s something I’ve been doing since I was a little kid. I would read anything that I could get my hands on. In the early days it was the Enid Blyton series, The Famous Five. The Five Find-Outers, Secret Seven and so on. Then came the Hardy Boys and The Three Investigators, and now, anything and everything. From Asteriks, to the works of Stephen King, Terry Pratchett, Agatha Christie, P. D. James… well the list goes on and on and on…

A special mention must be made of Enid Blyton. All of her series are timeless. I still love reading one of those old books, especially the Five Find-Outers series, Fatty and the Gang on one of their adventures, with Mr. Goon the policeman trying to meddle in them. I think I’ll enjoy them even when I’m old and grey.

I guess I can thank my grandfather for my love of reading. He was a big reader too. Most of his stuff is gone now, but I do have his collection of Reader’s Digest magz, dating back to 1940s through to the seventies. And yes, I think I’ve read them all at least twice over. ( Not all at once, but over the span of 20 years or so :D). Guess I’m still continuing his tradition.

So why do I like reading so much? Because it creates a world where you can loose yourself, have adventures, be a hero, a lover or even the bad guy. You can go to the ends of the world, fly through space and time, discover new worlds, fight evil sorcerers and many more. And you can do all these things without leaving home. In my case I prefer to create my own movies when I’m reading, putting my favorite actors in the roles and so on. Makes the whole thing definitely more fun.

The other thing is that while engrossed in reading, you can forget about the real world, at least for a while. Personally I am someone who likes to be alone. I know what you are imagining, a psychotic loner holed up in a room stacked with books, who hasn’t seen sunlight for a long time. Well you can stop right there, coz that’s far from the truth as can be. I like hanging out with my friends and traveling all over. It’s just that I am someone who wouldn’t mind solitary confinement, as long as there’s an infinite supply of reading material.

I do have a small confession to make, which I feel guilty about. I don’t read Sinhala Fiction. Non-fiction, informative stuff I don’t mind but, not fictional stuff. It’s just maybe I haven’t come across any good contemporary Sinhala fictional works. I’m not talking about the old stuff from the likes of Martin Wickremasinghe and others of that genre, but new stuff. Ok maybe I haven’t done a good enough search, but most of the stuff I’ve seen on racks is the usual sob stories about girl meets boy, boy dumps girl, or parents put a stop to affair and both kill themselves, or something similar along these lines. No thank you… I’d rather read a label off a packet of biscuits. I must do a search and see if I can find anything interesting in the Sinhala fiction arena.

I take my leave with a few quotes about books and reading.

Cheers!

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
Sir Richard Steele


Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
Arnold Lobel


Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year.
Horace Mann (1796 - 1859)


Never judge a book by its movie.
J. W. Eagan

Carlos the Jackal

The mere mention of the name should send shivers throughout the western world. Their secret service agents hunting for this elusive criminal mastermind, who has caused much havoc in the world. And until recently I thought he was just a fictional character.

The original Jackal was introduced to the world by Frederick Forsythe in his masterpiece “The Day of the Jackal”, published in 1971. In it “The Jackal” is a master assassin whose identity is a mystery, and he is hired by some terrorists to assassinate the then president of France, Charles de Gaulle. While he makes the assassination plans, the secret service agents are trying to stop him from carrying them out. In the end his plan doesn’t exactly go his way and the Jackal dies. That should have been the end of it, but fortunately or unfortunately the Jackal was reborn into reality and became immortalized.

During the seventies there was guy named Vladimir Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, who was starting out in the terrorism business. Born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1942, his father was a devout Marxists, hence the names Vladimir Ilich. During the course of his life he became involved with guerilla warfare which led to the life of terrorism. To make things short, he did the usual terrorists stuff, and made the good guys angry. So the good guys made it their number one priority to catch him. Somewhere along this cat and mouse game, they reportedly found a copy of “The Day of the Jackal” among some of his belongings. That small insignificant find helped to make Ramirez Sanchez the most well know baddie at the time, thanks to the friendly media. They got hold of this information and made him into the larger than life person that he has become.

So now the spy novelists and movie makers have a new bad guy to toy around with. Many novels and movies featured him (or the character) as a lead player in the plot. Two of these (which I have read) is Tom Clancy’s “Rainbow Six” and Robert Ludlum’s “Bourne Ultimatum” the final book of the Bourne Trilogy. (Supposedly Carlos is featured in the first two books as well, but still have to get my hands on them :)...). In both of these books, his real name Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, is used.

Read more about the real life of a terrorist


I seriously didn’t know that this guy was real, and thought all these authors were resurrecting the character created by Frederick Forsythe. For one thing I guess he is old news. He was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1997 and he is still there in a prison somewhere in France. Furthermore these days there are much worst terrorist and nutcases around to keep the news media happy. Same also goes for the authors and film makers. As the times change, new bad guys will take the center stage and the old ones are given the boot. Out with Carlos and the Soviet communist cronies and in with Osama, Saddam and the Jihad Gang. After that? Who knows what new maniac the future will give us. Until that time comes, the “War on terror” should keep the storylines moving forward for a long time.

Cell

Imagine leisurely walking down the street when that familiar tune comes to your ears. The latest rock song you downloaded on your mobile coming to life. You check to see that your best bud is calling and you answer. Then bang, everything goes blank, your brain is totally wiped out and you don’t even know what you are. All the sanity in you disappears and the primal urges takes over. A maniac is released. Murder becomes the prime directive.

That is exactly what happens to all the mobile users in the world. That is at least according to the King of Horror, Stephen King, on his book ‘Cell’. Just finished reading it and frankly I’m a bit worried to use me mobile now. I guess that’s what he was aiming for in the first place when he started the book. :D. It seems that he doesn’t use a mo-fo either.

I don’t want to give away the plot and ruin it for those who haven’t read it, so I suggest all to read it. Damn good. Not as scary as some of his other works, but this explores some interesting facets of human nature.

"At the bottom you see, we are not Homo sapiens at all. Our core is madness. The prime directive is murder. What Darwin was too polite to say, my friends, is that we came to rule the earth not because we are the smartest, or even the meanest, but because we have always been the craziest, most murderous mother-fuckers in the jungle. And that is what the pulse exposed five days ago." - Charles Ardai
(Stephen King, CELL)

The Genius that is Terry Pratchett

Great A’Tuin the cosmic turtle swims slowly through the interstellar gulf. On it’s Hydrogen frosted back rides four gigantic elephants and upon their shoulders they carry a great land mass. This is the Discworld. A magical world, where wonderfully weird characters call their home. Humans, dwarves, trolls, wizards, witches, vampires, werewolves, zombies and a host of other exciting characters co-exists, in a world where going over the edge means flying off into space.

The most famous city in the Discworld is Ankh-Morpork where anything and everything will happen. As they say in the Disc “All roads lead to Ankh-Morpork”. Here humans live and work side-by-side with Dwarves and Trolls. Over at the Unseen University, the wizards play merry havoc and the Alchemists blow things up. Ankh-Morpork is a true cosmopolitan city, where (species) from all over the Disc comes to make their fortune. To make their dreams a reality.

This is just a smidgen of what happens in the Discworld. A magical world born out of one man’s wild imagination. That genius mind belongs to none other than Terry Pratchett.

The Discworld series of novels includes 25 books, all revolving around the various characters of the Disc. The Disc is a parody for our real world. All the stories have a theme from our real world, but the players are the people of the Discworld. Terry Pratchett manges to give the readers a whole new view point on a subject while being extremely funny.

The Terry Pratchett portfolio is not limited to the Discworld series. There are many other novels written by him. Most of the Discworld novels have been adapted to plays too.

I’m not going into details but for those who are interested can check out these links
Terry Pratchett Biography

Terry Pratchett Books

As far as storytellers go, Terry Pratchet is one of a kind. That is why he takes (a reluctant) #2 place on my list of favorite authors. (#1 being the grand master, Stephen King, who will reign supreme for ever and ever…)