On pulp fiction

Just a quick post as to why I haven't posted recently, and why it'll be a while before I have another book to review.

While I've been reading Flatland, The Spiderwick Chronicles, and (in honor of the 6th Potter movie release) Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone, I've had sitting in the back of my mind Michael Crichton's State of Fear. It's a thriller I'm required to read for school, and I guess it's anti-global warming; I didn't really get too far. I've been trying to read a few chapters at a time while distracting myself with better books such as the ones mentioned above, but it's become apparent to me recently that even J.K. Rowling can't cover up the mess that is Crichton's novel. For one thing, it's very hard to keep track of all the various characters and corporations while reading another book, although I don't think I could keep track even if I was only reading Crichton. For another, Crichton's portrayal of women frankly disgusts me -- cardboard cut-outs whose only purpose is to be a sex symbol (or more than a symbol) and/or spout off terribly flat pro-environmentalist beliefs in order to push Crichton's anti-global warming agenda. Then there's the issue of pacing -- 85 pages in and I'm still not sure who the main character is, or what the main action is going to be. This is a hell of a lot worse than anything Dan Brown could dish up.

Maybe I'll read the Sparknotes later, but I doubt I'll pick it up again. I had a couple of other books that I had waiting in the wings after Crichton, but I couldn't decide what to read next: Three Cups of Tea (also required) or The Lightning Thief (recommended by my sister, and sitting on my shelf). Trying to read both didn't work for the aforementioned one-book-at-a-time reason. So I turned to a completely different book, one I purchased at the beginning of the summer: Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde, the sequel to The Eyre Affair.

Thank heavens for that, because the book is a godsend. I'm not that far into it, but already it works tremendously well as a direct sequel. It catapulted me right back into the fantastical world I'd left in The Eyre Affair, without too much exposition (a la J.K. Rowling), and with the same amount of wit and charm. In short: I'm very excited for it.