2012 Books, Part 2

I came across two series this year that I thought were utterly absorbing, fun reads.  The first was a series called Wool (that transitions into a second series called Silo).  These seven installments total up about 1,050 pages, which I handily devoured and counted as two books on my list.

Interestingly, I get the impression that these books were written by an unpublished author who uploaded his writing to Amazon, and they took off through word of mouth, and insanely cheap pricing.  Now the movie rights have been purchased by Ridley Scott.  The future of books?  Crazy.  I read another great book this year with a similar beginning, called On The Island.

Wool is a science fiction series set a couple hundred years into the future, when the outside world has been poisoned and all the humans are living in immense underground silos, in a world that has been meticulously and perhaps maliciously designed.  One of the things I loved best about these books was that it seemed every half hour of reading yielded a mind-bending twist, a delicious, "wait, WHAT?"

I seem to be the last person in the universe to discover the Jack Reacher mystery series, by Lee Child.  But if not, I hearby recommend them to you.  I'm not a big fan of series in general, because I find that they just re-tread the same territory over and over.  But I haven't tired of these after the first seven books.  They are wicked page turners.

Jack Reacher is a former military police investigator, and has skills in investigation, weapons and combat that make the stories, ah, lively.  I'm not sure I like one more than another, so start with the first one, Killing Floor.  (And incidentally, I'm skeptical of the new movie Jack Reacher, I like Tom Cruise, and it's getting good reviews, but it all looks a little slick for my taste.)

More to come...