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Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category

Alejandro Zambra–“Camilo” (New Yorker, May 26, 2014)

Posted in Alejandro Zambra, Black Mountain, Lightning Dust, Megan McDowell, New Yorker, Parenting, Short Story, Soccer, Tiny Desk Concert, Translation on May 27, 2014| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_05_26_14Steinberg.inddSOUNDTRACK: LIGHTNING DUST-Tiny Desk Concert #38 (December 7, 2009).

lightingLightning Dust is a side project of heavy psychedelic band Black Mountain.  Lightning Dust is a kind of folk version of the band (with Amber Webber on vocals instead of Joshua Wells).  Her voice is full of vibrato (she almost sounds nervous at times).  The songs are simple, as folk songs tend to be, performed mainly on the acoustic guitar with organ backing tones.

“Antonia Jane” is very pretty, especially the tone of the organ that accompanies the acoustic guitar.  “History” has a nice unexpected chord change when the chorus rolls around.  For the final song, “I Knew”, Wells switches to 12 string guitar instead of keyboard–something he says he never does.  The song is faster and more upbeat, not necessarily because of the extra guitar, but it really broadens the sound a lot and makes it even catchier (even if it does give it a more countryish feeling).  And the backing vocals are quite wonderful.

I prefer Black Mountain to Lightning Dust but the songwriting is quite good.

[READ: May 27, 2014] “Camilo”

I don’t know Zambra’s work. This one was translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell and I thought it was terrific.

The story is fairly simple, although it is revealed via a lot of layers which is very interesting.  It opens with a young man yelling “I’m Camilo…your daddy’s godson” and the narrator being suspicious of this statement.  But it turns out to be true.   This boy is his father’s godson.

The narrator’s father had been good friends with Camilo’s father Big Camilo.  They were best friends until they had a huge fight and never spoke again.  That was (obviously) after Camilo was born.  But in addition to this fight and lack of talking, Big Camilo later left the country all together and moved to Paris where he started a new family, leaving Camilo and Camilo’s mother back in Chile.

Soon the narrator and Camilo became almost inseparable.  Camilo was a few years older and was something of a protective presence for him.  Even the narrator’s older sister was infatuated with him.  In fact, even the narrator’s father liked him, although he did remind him a bit too much of Big Camilo.  The one difference was that Big Camilo (and the narrator’s family) loved soccer, but Camilo didn’t know a thing about it. (more…)

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McSweeney’s #44 (2012)

Posted in Adventure, Andrei Codrescu, Andrew Palmer, Baseball, Baynard Woods, Ben Katchor, Bill McKibben, Bill Morrison, Books about writers, Dance, David Hockney, Death, Depression, Dogs, Drugs, Errol Morris, Essays, Geoff Dyer, James Stephen George Boggs, Jenny Shank, Jessica Hopper, Jim Shepard, Joe Meno, Jonathan Lethem, Lauren Redniss, Lawrence Weschler, McSweeney's, Mike Sacks, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Peter Vermeersch, Prison, Rachel Cohen, Rebecca Curtis, Revenge, Ricky Jay, Riva Lehrer, Rob Curran, Ryan Mrozowski, Sex, Short Story, Simon Rich, Stuart Dybek, Stuart Glover, Tom Barbash, Violence, Walter Murch, Wells Tower, Wendy Lesser, Wesley Allsbrook, WNYC--93.9 New York on May 26, 2014| Leave a Comment »

44SOUNDTRACK: WNYC SOUNDCHECK GIG ALERTS (2009-).

soundcheck There are so many places to listen to free music.  But i prefer places where you can (legally) download free music.  So here’s a place I’ve just discovered: WNYC Radio’s website which features a section called “Gig Alerts.”  The feature talks about a different interesting band playing that night (in New York).  After a small blurb, there is (almost always) a free downloadable track.   There’s twenty listings per page and 86 pages.  Do the math and that’s a lot of songs.

The feature covers virtually every genre, although there is a preponderance of alt- and indie- rock (mostly lesser known bands).  If you are interested in new (to you) music and in exploring different artists, this is a great resource for a ton of free music.  So, check out Gig Alerts here.

[READ: May 20, 2014] McSweeney’s #44

I was pretty pleased with myself when I got caught up on the McSweeney’s issues.  But I remember wanting to take a break when this one came in.  I now see it has been almost a year since I read the last issue.  So the break was too long and now I have three issues to catch up on again.  Sigh.  But this one proved to be a great issue to return on.

This is a pretty quintessential issue of McSweeney’s.  It’s got letters, some fiction, a special section dedicated to Lawrence Weschler (which includes a lot of art), and a cool, interesting section of plates with full color art.  It’s also got an interestingly designed hardcover with a kind of raw cardboard in the back, a slightly raised colorful section for the spine and then a further raised section for the giant 44 on the front cover.

LETTERS (more…)

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Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm–Squish: Super Amoeba (#1) [prepub] (2011)

Posted in Children's Books, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, I'm from Barcelona, Jennifer L. Holm, Matthew Holm, Mice, Set at School, Short Books, Yo Gabba Gabba on May 25, 2014| Leave a Comment »

squish1SOUNDTRACK: I’M FROM BARCELONA-“Just Because It’s Different Doesn’t Mean It’s Scary” (2009).

miaI like I’m From Barcelona, although I don’t know too much about them.

This song opens with ukuleles (or small guitars anyhow) and a big farty bass line. It offers a sensible lyric about things being different and offers suggestions of new things you might enjoy, like fruit or a park.

The band has some fun backing vocals (“let’s taste it baby”), (“run run run run”) and have made a fairly complex song out of what is a very simple concept.

For these Yo Gabba Gabba songs I have to wonder if the bands have taken old songs and made them kid friendly or if they have written all new (fairly complex) songs just for the show.

This is a good one.

[READ: May 16, 2014] Squish: Super Amoeba

I thought I had written about all five of the Squish books so far (there’s a sixth one coming soon).  Except, I realized, that I never wrote about the first one.  So, here, three years after I first read it (I received it as a prepub for crying out loud, so I’ve had it for over three years), I’ve read it again for this post.

I hadn’t even read Babymouse when I read this book, although in retrospect it’s easy to see the similarities between the two (especially in the drawing style).  Of course, while Babymouse is colored primarily in pink, Squish is colored primarily in green.  And of course, Babymouse is a girl and Squish is a boy (well, a boy amoeba, but still a boy).  But there are kid friendly hardships and valuable (if not necessarily obvious) lessons to be learned.

All the characters who have been with us for the duration of the other books were introduced here: Pod another amoeba, who is Squish’ best friend and who is super smart, Peggy (a paramecium) who is happy all the time and Principal Planaria, who is a flatworm (and like all flatworms is really crosseyed).  This issue also introduces us to The Adventures of Super Amoeba, the comic book which Squish loves and the guy who acts as a role model for Squish. (more…)

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Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm–Happy Birthday, Babymouse [#18] (2014)

Posted in Cats, Children's Books, Cupcakes, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Jennifer L. Holm, Matthew Holm, Mice, Set at School, Short Books, The Shins, Yo Gabba Gabba on May 24, 2014| Leave a Comment »

18SOUNDTRACK: THE SHINS-“It’s Okay, Try Again” (2009).

mia“Sometime you win, sometimes you lose.  But it’s okay, you try it again.”

A simple idea that no kid will ever believe in no matter how many times he or she hears this song.  Nevertheless, the song is poppy and fun, it’s pure Shins and it is infectious.

The song also feels a lot longer than 2 minutes.  They have really packed a lot into their choruses and verses (and middle third).

Yo Gabba Gabba has been excellent at getting great bands to play simple quickie songs for their records (and shows).

[READ: May 16, 2014] Happy Birthday, Babymouse

It’s hard for me to believe that it took 18 books before Babymouse had a birthday!  I got a chuckle out of the fact that in the book it acknowledges that we don’t even know how old she is [and that they break the fourth wall, too].

As the book opens, Babymouse imagines a full-on Times Square countdown for her birthday.  But that only makes sense because every other birthday that she has had in recent years was a disaster (no idea what season it’s supposed to be in since the disasters span just about everything you can imagine).

But this year she is planning something epic–she sends out a mailbox-filling pile of invitations (including to people in the Squish series–nice cross platform mixing there).  Everyone gets invited except for the gnomes–“they’re too troublesome.”  Of course then comes the dreadful information–Felicia Furrypaws is having her party on the same exact day.  And it promises to be everything Babymouse dreamed her party would be. (more…)

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Joaquim Maria Macahado de Assis–“The Academies of Siam” (Harper’s, March 2014)

Posted in 19th Century, Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Death, Gender, Harper's, Hrsta, Jealousy, Joaquim Maria Macahado de Assis, Pink Floyd, Rhett McNeil, Short Story, Violence, War on May 23, 2014| Leave a Comment »

march2014SOUNDTRACK: HRSTA–Stem Stem in Electro [CST036] (2005).

cst036webI really like this album a lot.  It has all of the trappings of post rock (long songs which are rather epic in nature with lots of building and no standard verse chord structure), but it also feels doggedly commercial–super catchy in the way the elements combine and the choruses swell.

“…and we climb” is a simple four chord song that builds over the course of 6 minutes.  It seems like it will be just instrumental, but after almost 3 minutes a gang begins chanting about how “we climb to the light.”  The songs builds in intensity and then fades out to just voices.  “Blood on the Sun” is a guitar-based song with female vocals–echoing and pretty while the guitar plays on.  The song doesn’t vary much, but the combination of the voices and the chord changes is a really good one.  “Une infinite de trous en forme d’homme” is a swirling instrumental with a circular guitar pattern and washes of chords in the background.   “Folkways Orange” starts with strong vibrato guitars and compelling wavery vocals.  There’s some interesting chord changes but mostly the song is just a solid song that stays strong for 5 minutes.

“Swallow’s Tail” is one of my favorite songs on the disc.  It begins with a screechy noise that acts as a rhythm.  Then the great guitar melody follows along.  It’s not complex, but it is intertwining and intriguing.  At around 2 minutes a guitar chord motif begins.  It has a sort or tension in it, like it’s expecting something to come along.  And then the whispering vocals begin. The guitars roar to life for a few bars and then settle down as the vocals count out what is the Swallows Tail.  Then the music rages back in.  This is followed by “Heaven Is Yours,” a series of random noises and spacey sounds, as if resting from the catharsis of track 5.  “Gently Gently” is a short angsty song full of washes of chords.   The final track, “Quelque chose a propos des raquetteurs” opens with more great sounding guitars.  You can feel that it is going to be epic.  The violins come in after a minute to really build the song.  When the vocals come in around 5 minutes, it reminds me of the chords structure and build up at the end of Pink Floyd’s “Atom Heart Mother,” which is quite alright with me.

It’s a fabulous example of post-rock.

[READ: May 11, 2014] “The Academies of Siam”

Joaquim Maria Macahado de Assis was alive from 1839-1908, so this is not a current story by any means.  It comes from a new collection called Stories which was translated from the Portuguese by Rhett McNeil.  I don’t know the first thing about the author.

This story is a strange one.  It sets up the hypothetical question asking if you know about the academies of Siam.  It follows this question with “I am well aware that there have never been any academies in Siam, but suppose that there were…”  Huh.  He asks us to imagine that there were four of them and then gives this tale in four parts.

In the first, there is a question posed as to whether souls have a gender–is a man more feminine because he has a feminine soul?  This is asked because the king is considered quite a feminine man.  He doesn’t like war or any kind of fighting, he has honeyed eyes and a silvery voice.  Indeed, Kalaphangko is “practically a lady.”

The academics form two camps on this issue.  Those who say that souls are gendered and those who do not.  And soon enough violence breaks out over the issue.  (more…)

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Rebecca Curtis–“The Toast” (Harper’s, March 2014)

Posted in Books about music, Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Funny (strange), Harper's, Parenting, Rebecca Curtis, Sandro Perri, Short Story on May 22, 2014| 3 Comments »

march2014SOUNDTRACK: SANDRO PERRI-Tiny Mirrors [CST047] (2007).

tinyThis album is mellow and jazzy.   At first listen it sounds almost cheesy.  But Perri is just peculiar enough to make this whole experience fun.  As with his amazing Impossible Spaces (which came out after this) Perri pushes the bounds of mellow music with his delicate voice and wah wah’d guitar.

There’s not a ton of diversity on this record, and of you don’t like the opening minutes there’s nothing that will convert you.  But there are some interesting musical moments here.

The guitar lines that wah wah through “Family Tree” are very cool.  “Double Suicide” is the catchiest thing called “Double Suicide” you’ll ever hear.  The guitars are pretty and Perri’s voice is just soothingly beautiful.

Perhaps the most surprising thing on the disc is the cover of “Everybody’s Talking.”  It loses all sense of the original melody.  It really sounds nothing like it.  It’s very strange but beautiful .

I love the flute on “You’re the One.”  Theres something about that flute that really brings out the pretty in Perri.   I also really like the melody and guitar/horn interplay on “Love is Real.”  The final song is an instrumental which really lets you focus on the music.

So while there is definitely the potential for cheese here, Perri manages to ride just above it, making some really pretty songs.

[READ: May 19, 2014] “The Toast”

Curtis is a holistic nutritionist.  She wrote an essay about that in Harper’s a few months ago.  And the main character in this story is a nutritionist.  But the story is also extremely self referential, teasing the reader about believing that a character is the author, so I’m not willing to ascribe any kind of autobiography to it.

This is the first fiction of hers that I’ve read and I have to say I absolutely loved the first half of it.  I enjoyed the end half as well, but I really loved the first half.

The story is a very simple one about a younger sister (Sonya, the narrator) having a difficult relationship with her older sister Leala.  The older sister is successful, overachieving and just about to get married.  Meanwhile Sonya has switched jobs (unsuccessfully), is in debt and is living in an attic loft with a landlord who barges in on her.

As the story opens, the narrator proves to be a snarky character who I found delightfully off putting.  At first I though that perhaps there was some mocking of holistic folks in general (there’s lots of talk of fluoride), but that would not appear to be the case.  However, when a character says this, I’m hooked:

The wedding, my sister said, would not be fancy.  However, there would be a hair-metal band, a five-course local organic vegan dinner, and a life-size fair-trade chocolate baby elephant. I’m afraid that my sister went on explaining details about the wedding and I stopped listening; this is because I caught Lyme disease five years ago and have neurological damage that makes it difficult for me to listen when people talk, especially when that they’re saying isn’t interesting.

It’s a great paragraph–we learn about the older sister and we learn that the younger sister might just use her disease as an excuse to get out of things.  She is also not afraid to say what she thinks, like when she calls her sister’s fiance a “walking pancake.” (more…)

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Daniel Abraham–Balfour and Meriwether in The Vampire of Kabul (2011)

Posted in 19th Century, Adventure, Constellation Records, Daniel Abraham, Demons, Fantasy, Fears, Short Story, Steampunk, Supernatural, Violence on May 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

bm-cover-sm-225x300SOUNDTRACK: ERIC CHENAUX-Dull Lights [CST043] (2006).

dullI’ve talked about other Eric Chenaux discs before, and this one is similar to those–very mellow with Chenaux’s gentle voice running through some melodies.  The instruments include electric guitar, 12 string banjo, lap steel guitar, harmonica, electric banjo, portable sample keyboard and drums.

It’s never always clear to me what he’s signing about because his words are stretched out quite long and I’m often very distracted by the music that is accompanying the songs.

The first song “Skullsplitter” is in no way what you might be expecting from a song with that title.  There are cymbals, but no real drums, there’s a scratchy sound like a violin (although none are listed in the credits so perhaps it is samples) and what sounds like randomly plucked notes on a muted banjo.   The martial drums on track 2, “Worm and Gear” really help to coalesce the elements of this song  so you can really appreciate what Chenaux is doing here.  “I Can See It Now” has a woozy almost drunken feeling.  Chenaux has such a pretty voice that you want to lean in but the music seems so unusual.

Later in the disc, “Memories Are No Treasure” is catchy with a nice vocal melody, showing that Chenaux can write a more conventional song.  “White Dwarf White Sea” has a banjo line that has always reminded me of lines from “God Bless America”–in the middle of the riff, the banjo seems to play “from the mountains to the prairie.”   “Ronnie-May” has a very catchy county melody.  A pretty wild (genuinely wild) guitar solo, breathes crazy life into the record.  “However Wildly We Dream” concludes the record with that same kind of drunken feel (the drums are just insane).

I definitely didn’t enjoy this one as much as his other discs

[READ: April 7, 2014] Balfour and Meriwether in The Vampire of Kabul

This is a short story that I discovered because I enjoyed the (written later but not impacting this story in any way) novella that came out this year.

Abraham has written three stories about these two turn of the 20th century “detectives.”  They are like a supernatural Holmes & Watson (with a tad more violence).  In this story, which, again, is completely independent of the others, Meriwether & Balfour are sitting at home on a December night in 188- bored out of their minds.

Just as Meriwether says he wishes that something would break their malaise a ninja comes crashing through their giant window.  In a trice she has a gun at Balfour’s head. Meriwether is helpless to assist.  But they both recognize who it is almost immediately–Maria Feodorovan, the czarina of Russia and sworn enemy of Meriwether & Balfour.  As the dust clears, we learn what Maria is here for–she is daring to ask for help from our duo.

It appears that the Czar has gone mad.  But not from natural causes–someone or something attacked him.  There was “an ectoplasmic darkness” in the corners of the room and while he has recovered somewhat, it seems that his mind is no longer his own.  And, she explains based on overheard knowledge that the Queen of England is next.  As she says this, the police rush in to say that The Queen has been attacked. (more…)

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Abhishek Sharma, Anant Singh, Eshita Ghosh, Harsho Mohan Chattoraj, Sidharth Panwar–Munkeeman (2011)

Posted in Abhishek Sharma, Adventure, Anant Singh, Carla Bozulich, Constellation Records, Death, Delhi-6, Eshita Ghosh, Evangelista, Gorillas, Graphic Novel, Harsho Mohan Chattoraj, Mad Magazine, Short Books, Sidharth Panwar, Tere Bin Ladem, Violence on May 20, 2014| Leave a Comment »

1352113437munkeemanSOUNDTRACK: EVANGELISTA-Hello, Voyager [CST050] (2008).

helloThis is Carla Bozulich’s first “band” on Constellation. I didn’t really care for her solo album because it sounded way too all over the map.  She has brought in some great musician to rein her in somewhat and it really helps.  This album is still loose and wild and uncomfortable and at times hard to listen to and also really cathartic.  It feels like there is direction to the madness.

The first song is probably the least appealing.  It’s almost a free form poetry slam, but there’s enough incidental music to make it feel like there should be more.–the music doesn’t necessarily follow what’s going on, as if the musicians were told to do what they wanted but weren’t listening to her.

That improv feeling exists throughout the album, but the other songs feel like they have a structure and a melody which really really help.  Like “Smooth Jazz” in which the drums keep a loud steady beat which regulates the tempo and makes her screams all the more intense.  Or “Lucky Lucky Luck” in which a beautiful vocal melody and backing vocal combine with pulsing bass to make a platform for the noisy guitars.  “For The L’il Dudes ” is a creepy string quintet.  But “The Blue Room” is a full complex song with a captivating melody and strings that really work well.

“Truth Is Dark Like Outer Space” is a heavy rock song with great distortion, while “the Frozen Dress” brings back the creepy and spooky sounds. “Paper Kitten Claw” reunites those minimal sounds with a mellow melody.  It feature the great lyric (and theme) “Every time you see the word never, cross it out.”  The disc ends with “Hello, Voyager!” Crazy noises open this 12 minute ramble.  Carla sounds like a crazy preacher and by the end it’s just a free form chaotic mind fuck.  But in a good way.

It’s not always fun to see where Carla’s mind will take you but in this case the crazy trip is disturbingly fun.  Not for the faint of heart.

[READ: May 18, 2014] Munkeeman

This comic came across my desk and I was intrigued by it.  I’ve never read a graphic novel published in India (and written in English) before.  One thing that struck me about the drawing style was how dark (full of a lot of lines and very little white space) the book was.  It’s very busy, demanding a lot of attention.  I prefer my graphic novels to be a little more open and less claustrophobic (okay, I’ll say it, more “white”–racist!–meaning I like more white space in the drawings because I find the heavily drawn dark lines to be a little too busy for me).  But having said that, I enjoyed this style.  The details were always interesting to check out, especially the crowd scenes were Sharma has a lot of fun with background characters (it reminded me of Mad Magazine a bit).

At the same time I was also somewhat surprised at how conventional the story looked.  I don’t know what I was expecting–something more decisively Indian perhaps, but this could have come from an underground comic publisher anywhere.

This is all background to say how much I enjoyed this kind of twisted book.

Incidentally Sharma also directed a film called Tere Bin Laden which is a comedy about an Osama bin Laden double and which sounds quite funny.  I’m going to have to give that a try if I can find it.

So the book starts with an explanation about Munkeeman–he appeared (for real) as an unseen villain in the Hindi film Delhi-6 (which I’ve never seen).  You don’t need to see that movie to quickly learn that there was a villain (the Black Monkey) who is now getting his story told from his point of view.  Especially since the prologue fills you in that nobody ever got a full glimpse of him but he was referred to as The Munkeeman. (more…)

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Lemony Snicket–File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents (2014)

Posted in Adventure, Children's Books, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Huh?, Jack Black, Kung Fu Panda, Lemony Snicket, Mystery, Seth, Tenacious D, Word usage, Yo Gabba Gabba on May 18, 2014| Leave a Comment »

13SOUNDTRACK: JACK BLACK-The Goodbye Song (2009).

jbI love that Jack Black is a terribly terribly profane man, and yet he has also made a huge career out of doing kids shows and movies.  True Tenacious D are practically child men anyhow, but to think that the guy who sang some of those really dirty songs is also Kung Fu Panda?  Or the sweet guy saying goodbye to everyone in Yo Gabba Gabba land?

This song is, like most Yo Gabba Gabba songs, incredibly simple and repetitive (it’s mostly chorus singing goodbye) but each verse has one of the characters from the show singing a simple verse and JB saying something in return.

There’s nothing especially great about this song (you want it more for the visuals), it’s just always fun to hear Jack be funny and silly–and to rock out at the end.

[READ: May 9, 2014] File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents

I knew that his book was coming out and I was pretty sure it was Book 3 in the All the Wrong Questions series because, well, because it came out during the series and it was illustrated by Seth.  But it is not part of the series at all.  Well, that’s not true.  It is sort of part of the series.

It is set in Stain’d by the Sea.  Lemony Snicket is there with his mentor S. Theodora and all of the characters we have met so far in the series are here as well.  But this is a series of unfortunate incidents in which Lemony Snicket helps to solve some crimes or, if not crimes, at least possible crimes.  Thing of it as a short story interlude from All the Wrong Questions.  And yet, even though that seems dismissive, it is a great and fun read.

So despite being a little disappointed that this wasn’t the next book in the series (I’m quite hooked) I really enjoyed these short “cases.”  It also turns out that the “bonus” story that came in the Barnes & Noble edition of Book 2 is one of these incidents.  I didn’t enjoy it that much as a “bonus” story, but I found it far more enjoyable this time in the context of Snicket trying to figure things out here. (more…)

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Peter Lerangis–The Dead of Night [The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers: Book Three] (2012)

Posted in Adventure, Death, Fears, Greed, History, Peter Lerangis, Short Books, The Roots, Threats, Travel, Violence, Yo Gabba Gabba on May 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »

39SOUNDTRACK: THE ROOTS-“Lovely, Love My family” (2009).

miaThe Roots are known for many many things–most recently being the house band for Jimmy Fallon.  They do intelligent hip hop, but they also play “neo-soul” and this fun sorta-ska-like sweet song from the first Yo Gabba Gabba Music is Awesome CD.

It’s 2 minutes of poppy happiness. It’s fun to see ?uestlove bopping along, and to see the whole band in front of these bright colors.

This song is utterly catchy, with smart fun lyrics that are easy to sing along to And unlike some of the Yo Gabba Gabba songs it’s not terribly repetitive.  It’s even got a tuba solo.

Check it out:

[READ: May 6, 2014] The Dead of Night

I was pretty excited to get into this third book of the series, but something about this book burnt me out a bit.  It may have been because it was increasingly dark.  Or maybe that Atticus was in trouble from the get go and had to do a lot of work by himself–that seemed somehow more difficult to read than Dan and Amy working together.  It also seemed to have a bit less humor than the other books–like this one was all down to business, or that the stakes were higher or something.

Indeed, the book opens with Atticus in the back of the truck being taken away by the evil Wyoming kids.  They know he is a Guardian, even if he doesn’t know quite what that means. They are taking him somewhere in secret–which involves an airplane.  How is he ever going to notify anyone of where he is?  But it turns out that Dan and Amy aren’t the only techie kids, and soon Atticus has a way of signaling his friends that he has been taken to Turkey.

Meanwhile Amy is feeling especially guilty for everything that has happened–she’s supposed to be the senior family member in charge.  And Jake isn’t helping with that.  At the same time Dan keeps getting texts from AJT–the man he believes to be his father.  And they are making his mood even darker. (more…)

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