This would make an excellent movie. It’s a thriller, with a scientific flavor. There are massive explosions, exciting chase scenes, secretive actions by governments, and plot twists that happen in the blink of a eye. The two authors, James Doulgeris and V. Michael Santoro don’t hold anything back. They aren’t afraid to kill off characters that seem, at that moment, to be an important part of the story.

Dyodyne is a scientific company that is not actually part of the U.S. Government, but does work closely with them from time to time. It’s newest, (and top secret), project is both brilliant and terrifying. They are making a tracking device like no other before it. They manipulate DNA to create a microscopic computer system that can be transmitted from person to person just like a virus. Everyone who “catches” it can then be easily tracked on Dyodyne’s computers systems.

The idea is that this way, the powers that be only have to give the virus to one suspicious person, (in this case, a guy who is a mid-level boss in an organized crime syndicate), and the computer will tell them everybody that person spends time with. The hope is that this new, and untested, fancy piece of technology will make official and legally recognized connections that the police could not do before it existed. Does it work? Well, let’s just say it doesn’t go exactly as planned. When all is said and done, the authors leave the reader with a frightening concept of what might happen once humans start mixing DNA and nanotechnology.

I would like to point out that this book was written long before H1N1 saturated the news. The authors did not simply take the flu bug that currently has everyone nervous and spin it into a story. There is something very different from “the flu” going on in this book!

In addition to the creation of this innovative tracking device, the authors give you more. Readers are given small chapters that, at first, seem to have nothing to do with the main story. You get little pieces of strange and violent things happening in different volatile places around the world. I was impressed by how the authors wove together all these different story arcs, each including several key characters, into one huge result. Eventually, you find yourself right in the middle of “The Second 9/11″. How does that relate to the Dyodyne lab? When you find out, you will be shocked and amazed.

This is a work of fiction, but seemed to me to be extremely plausible. Each new chapter starts with a date, a time, and a specific location, which allows the reader to “live” through the time span the book takes place in. This helps to give the feeling of just how fast something like this could happen, if the circumstances were right. I found this book to be much more intense than I expected it would be.

There is a huge cast of characters in this book, and each one is fleshed out into an individual and authentic person. They have families. Many have love interests. All have interesting little quirks, likes, and specific things that make them angry. It’s hard to say exactly who the “main characters” are, because of the way the plot winds around itself. I can’t describe the characters without accidently giving away important pieces of the story, so you will just have to meet the characters when you read the book. Readers will find several stories going on behind the main plots as these characters interact with each other.

This book was a fast read, because I really wanted to see what happened next, and how all the puzzle pieces fit together. I enjoyed how the science blended with the politics in this plot. Yes, this is a book that mentions 9/11, but, it does it in a new and creative way. If you happen to be a fan of stories where things blow up, as I am, you will love this book. It’s got some massive explosions in it! The book was a great read, and I would love to see it as a movie someday.

One of the first thoughts that occurred to me when listening to this book was how similar Dan Brown plots are.  Angels & Demons, Da Vinci Code and now Lost Symbol all seem to have the same basic structure.  The evil villain does something evil to get the ball rolling, Robert Langdon is called to scene and gets himself embroiled in the situation, there is a lot of information about secret societies, there is usually some gruff authority figure involved working on the case as well and finally Langdon is eventually paired with a smart woman who helps him solve the case.

That’s not to say I didn’t like the book; on the contrary, I thought it was a pretty entertaining book as all of the books in this trilogy are.  The villain in this book is Molok.  At the beginning he is being initiated into the 33rd degree of FreeMasonry, the highest degree possible, but his intentions on joining the Masons are not pure. He wants information from Peter Solomon, the head of the Washington D.C. chapter, and a wealthy chairman of the Smithsonian Institution.  Solomon holds the key to the ancient mysteries that Molok seeks.  Molok is tattooed head to toe in Mason symbolism including a two-headed phoenix, a spiral staircase running the length of his entire spine, and various other distinctive symbols.  His ultimate goal is to find the Lost Word so that he can engrave that on the top of his head and his body will be complete.  Molok impersonates Solomon’s secretary and invites Robert Langdon to Washington to give a last minute lecture at the capitol building.  Langdon arrives in a private jet and limo he assumes Solomon ordered and finds the capitol building empty. He then gets a cell phone call from Molok beckoning him to the rotunda where he finds Solomon’s severed hand on a stake arranged in a well known symbolic pose with tattoos on each finger tip which also has ancient symbolic meaning.  Also showing up at this time is the CIA official Inoue Sato who takes over the investigation.  Langdon and Sato uncover the next clue on the severed hand which leads them to the sub-basement of the capitol and a Masonic room of reflection. There they find a small pyramid which might be the legendary Masonic pyramid said to be hidden in Washington D.C.  This pyramid is said to be a map leading to ancient treasure buried in Washington.  Throughout the rest of the book Langdon and eventually Peter’s sister Katherine work to decode the symbols on the pyramid and figure out the map.  This leads them all over Washington to places like the Library of Congress, the National Cathedral and other famous landmarks.

As in the other Brown novels, there are plenty of twists and turns and lots of interesting information about the history of the Free Masons, the symbolism that is everywhere in D.C., and even a branch of science which is Katherine’s expertise called Noetic Science, which sounds like B.S. to me.  I thought it was a Brown invention, until I saw the special on NBC and they said there really was a Noetic Science Institute in Petaluma, California. Apparently, noetic science is trying to prove that metaphysical elements like a person’s soul really exists and that thoughts can have real physical power.  It sounds like a pseudo-science to me.

Overall, I thought it was an enjoyable book.  There were some places where I thought Brown just rambled on and on, but for the most part the story was interesting and exciting.  I wonder how long before Ron Howard will start filming this one.  It is kind of funny that now whenever Robert Langdon is mentioned in this book, the image of Tom Hanks pops into my head.

This past week was Banned Books week and even though this YA book hasn’t made it to any official lists, it has been removed from high school library shelves.  Crank was written in 2004 and is based loosely on Ellen Hopkins’ own daughter.  The novel is written entirely in free verse poetry and the subject matter is intense.  The story is about Kristina, a 16 year old in Reno, Nevada  who goes to stay with her dad for a week or so in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Her dad works at a bowling alley and has a drug habit.  Kristina meets this guy named Adam and falls for him. He introduces her to crank or meth amphetamines. Kristina’s alter ego, her bad girl self, Bree takes over and she starts getting high on the drug.  One night she, Adam and her dad are all doing meth in a back room of the bowling alley.  Kristina’s time in New Mexico is ending and she heads back to Reno, but now she is addicted to “the monster” as she calls it in the book, crank.

Back in Reno she tries to find another way to get hold of the drug and she goes to this swim party at a water park where she meets a cute life guard named Brendan.  She also meets another guy, a bad boy type named Chase.  Bree completely takes over Kristina’s personality and she flirts with both boys so she can get back with the monster.  However, Brendan is not the clean-cut, good looking guy he appears to be and one night he takes her on top of this hill, they do crank together, and he rapes her, takes her virginity and later alters her life in another way.  Like I said, this is a pretty intense book.

Hopkins does a very good job of inhabiting the mind of an addicted teenager.  Her argument for why this book shouldn’t be censored is that if a young girl going through the same situation were to read this, she would know she wasn’t alone.  It also might keep some girls from going down the same path.  The story certainly doesn’t glamorize the hard drug lifestyle.  I think it would be a hard decision for me, though, if I were a high school librarian and I were selecting this book for my library.  I would have to think about the clientele of the library, the community, the selection policy of the school and whether I would lose my job for selecting the book. I would like to say I’m against censorship of any kind and that includes self-censorship. If it were up to me and I had the trust and support of my principal behind me, I would definitely select and encourage teens to read this book.  Ellen Hopkins has a fantastic testimonial from a 15 year old boy  on her website about this book:

“I can’t thank you enough for this powerful and truly amazing read. I can’t tell you how many times I have read it but I can tell you it amazes me every time. I’m able to see me in this book not only because it is about addiction but simply because you are able to capture truth and emotion as if it were you who experienced the monster. Once again thank you for this book, it has helped me more than you will ever know” (Mick, http://www.ellenhopkins.com)

This is what spurred me on to start reading Gaiman.  Shawno did a contribution on my Rental Reviews of the movie version of Coraline. Even though it was a negative review, the storyline intrigued me enough to rent the movie version. I enjoyed the movie and wanted to read the book so I downloaded it on the Kindle for iPhone app.  Then, after following Neil Gaiman on Twitter, I learned that The Graveyard Book won the 2009 Newbery award. I decided to listen to that book first.  So that is the back story for this review.

Coraline is a little girl who has just moved into this house with her parents.  It is a house which is broken into several apartments or flats. Downstairs at the basement level is the home of Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, two ex-actresses who live with their Scottish Terriers.  Upstairs at the attic level lives a crazy old man, we don’t learn his name until the end of the novel, who trains rats to play musical instruments. Coraline and her parents live on the ground level, but there is also an empty flat.  Coraline is on summer vacation and is bored. Her parents are writers and want to be left alone to write so Coraline does a lot of exploring.  One day she discovers a small door in the drawing room that never gets used. She asks her mother for the key, but discovers that there is just a brick wall on the other side.  That night she hears scurrying of tiny little feet and she follows the sound to drawing room. She opens the little door and discovers that the wall is gone and it leads somewhere.  Going through the door, she winds up in another drawing room similar to the one she just left.  In this new world she discovers her other mother and other father. The cat she met in the real world can now talk and eventually plays a sizable role in the story.  At first her other mother is very nice and serves delicious food, but Coraline soon discovers that she is evil and wants Coraline to stay in this new world and have buttons sewn on to her eyes like everyone else in this world.  The other mother also takes her real parents and Coraline has to figure out how to save them. In the process, Coraline learns how to be brave and that she really does have a nice life in the real world.  There is a really interesting story about bravery Coraline starts telling the cat about when she was little and her father saved her from a swarm of bees by staying and getting stung so she can run to safety.

I would like to do some quick comparisons with the movie version.  First, the little boy character in the movie Wybie is completely absent in the book; he was just a creation for the movie.  Second, I think her real parents come off as slightly nicer in the book version at the beginning than the parents in the movie.  Her mother in the book takes her shopping, albeit for bland clothes and helps her with the key for the small door and her father cooks which she hates because he likes to experiment from recipes.  The book has wonderful, scary imagery of the other world, and the cat seems to have a bigger role.  Coraline’s interactions with the cat were probably my favorite scenes.  I would have to say the end of this book is definitely a page turner and I finished it in just a few days.  I really have enjoyed reading Gaiman’s young adult books and may have to try some of his adult books like Stardust or Neverwhere in the future.