When Gravity Fails

George Alec Effinger
Orb Books
Reviewed by: Nancy
4 out of 5 stars


Summary


In a decadent world of cheap pleasures and easy death, Marid Audrian has kept his independence the hardway. Still, like everything else in the Budayeen, he’s available…for a price.

For a new kind of killer roams the streets of the Arab ghetto, a madman whose bootlegged personality cartridges range from a sinister James Bond to a sadistic disemboweler named Khan. And Marid Audrian has been made an offer he can’t refuse.

The 200-year-old “godfather” of the Budayeen’s underworld has enlisted Marid as his instrument of vengeance. But first Marid must undergo the most sophisticated of surgical implants before he dares to confront a killer who carries the power of every psychopath since the beginning of time.

Wry, savage, and unignorable, When Gravity Fails was hailed as a classic by Effinger’s fellow SF writers on its original publication in 1987, and the sequence of “Marid Audrian” novels it begins were the culmination of his career.



My Review


In the 22nd century, the fiercely independent Marîd Audran is living in a dangerous middle-eastern city in the Budayeen. It is a rich, fascinating and diverse world where people can easily have their brains wired for “moddies”, plastic cartridges with different personality types, from fictional characters to celebrities, that are inserted directly into the skull and “daddies”, smaller add-ons that are inserted next to the moddies to enhance certain skills, like the ability to converse in other languages, and to depress certain physical and mental functions, like hunger, thirst or fear.

Marîd, son of a Frenchman and an Algerian prostitute, is proud of the fact that his brain is not wired, but instead relies on drugs and alcohol to alter his mood.

The story begins in Chiriga’s nightclub, where Marîd is supposed to meet a client from Reconstructed Russia, a Mr. Bogatyrev, who is looking for his son who was missing for three years. After Marîd receives a packet of money, holotapes, and a complete dossier of his son, a woman screams, a modified James Bond is waving a pistol, Marîd investigates and then returns to his table to find his client took a bullet in the chest.

The shooting becomes a police matter until Marîd’s acquaintances start dying off, one by one. Despite his distrust of the police, he is forced to work with them and then forced by Friedlander Bey, the city’s “Godfather” to undergo modification in order to more easily find the murderer.

This was a fun, gritty, and thought-provoking science fiction story with lots of great ideas about personality modification, knowledge enhancement and ease of changing genders that could be a very real possibility in our future. Some international intrigue caused the story to drag a little and the mystery to fall flat. I loved Marîd’s independence and honesty, though I fear that now he is under Friedlander Bey's control the things I like about him will change dramatically in the next book. I also loved the relationship between Marîd and Yasmin, his fully modified girlfriend who was not born a girl and can’t manage to be on time for anything, even after paying a $50 fine to the owner of the nightclub where she works when she is just a minute late.

I just wished the author used the same loving care in writing a satisfying conclusion as he did in creating this fascinating world.

Also posted at Goodreads

A Weak Rule

Emperor
by Stephen Baxter
Published by Ace Hardcover

Reviewed by Amanda 
2 Out of 5 Stars

You know that whole "don't judge a book by its cover" thing? Yeah, well, I totally did. In a heady bit of book buying when I graduated from college and got a full time job, I may have celebrated by overindulging in a Books-a-Million and grabbing anything that struck my fancy. I may or may not have read the book blurbs. After all, I was young, financially independent, had a whole life ahead of me to read--who cared how many books I wantonly threw into my book basket? Life was a library, baby, and I was going to spend it all in the stacks.

Tragic mistakes were made that I'm still paying for 7 years later.

For example, Emperor, a book that I feel must shoulder some of the blame for underwhelming me because of its blatantly misleading cover. There's a statue of Julius Caesar on the front pictured over what is clearly Rome. You might think that this is what the book is about. As did I. We're both mistaken because the book takes place in Britain and focuses on the rule of Claudius, Hadrian, and Constantine. It's the literary equivalent of being roofied and waking up next to an ugly book.

Emperor revolves around a prophecy passed down from one family's generation to another in Britain around the time of Roman rule. Unable to understand the enigmatic message in its entirety, each generation uses it to its own ends: during the reign of Claudius, it is mistakenly believed to vouchsafe Britain against conquest by Rome; during the reign of Hadrian, it is used to gain the family profit by manipulating the emperor into building an ill-advised stone wall to protect his empire in Britain; and during the time of Constantine, it is used to make an assassination attempt on the emperor's life.

Consisting of three interlocking narratives that necessarily skip forward in time with only loose connections to the previous tale, the reader never really gets to know any of the characters--which is a shame because many of them could be fascinating if given more depth. Baxter writes with authority about the time periods involved, but the novel is billed as an alternative science fiction history. Without a historian's understanding of the time period, it is difficult to ascertain which parts are alternative and which are authentic. And the science fiction bit is definitely AWOL. There's some very brief philosophical debate about the nature of time (is it linear, or do the past, present, and future coexist at the exact same time?) and about whether or not the prophecy was sent by someone in the future (known only as the Weaver) attempting to change the past, but nothing that I would classify as "science fiction."

The novel would have been far more successful for me if it had been a straight historical fiction (really the alternative part is virtually nonexistent and seems to stem entirely from the prophecy, which never really changes events) and focused on one of the three narratives presented. Baxter has the ability to bring the past to life in a real and satisfying way, but the lack of payoff in terms of the novel's presentation and in its use of the prophecy as an unnecessary device to explore the past make it a tedious read. While I will not read the other books in the series, I would not entirely rule out reading another Baxter novel.

So, the moral of the story is: the next time a cute little book starts making eyes at me from the shelf, I'm damn sure going to take the time to read the blurb before I take it home with me.

What was the Fuss All About?

The Satanic Verses

Salman Rushdie

Review by Zorena

Four Stars

Summary

“Just before dawn one winter's morning, a hijacked jetliner explodes above the English Channel. Through the falling debris, two figures, Gibreel Farishta, the biggest star in India, and Saladin Chamcha, an expatriate returning from his first visit to Bombay in fifteen years, plummet from the sky, washing up on the snow-covered sands of an English beach, and proceed through a series of metamorphoses, dreams, and revelations.”

My Review

I remember I was working in a book store when this was first released to much controversy over death threats and due in part to that it became a best seller. I am pretty sure that is one of the main reasons I didn't read it then. The other being I didn't always want to read the newest releases. Even then I was reading books from older generations as much if not more so than the latest read. Now that both the book and I are older it was time to see what all the cartoons and threats were about.

I can see where the threats came from but not for the reason I had suspected. This book doesn't treat the prophet well but it definitely parodies the well known Ayatollah Khomeini and Rushdie does a superb job of it. It's unfortunate that he didn't do as great job with the rest of the book. I really feel that all the subplots didn't jell with one another. Each on it's own was better than the whole. I know this can be done better. Just look at Cloud Atlas.

On the other hand his characters were wonderful and some of the scenes had me chuckling. Poor Saladin, when he experiences his change and is confronted by the local police is hilarious. The glimpses into Indian culture were most welcome as well. I love learning especially if it's fun or done with beauty.

This is well worth reading because the writing is wonderful even if the cohesion isn't. I look forward to Midnight's Children.

THE MARTIAN BY ANDY WEIR

The Martian by Andy Weir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



”So that is the situation. I’m stranded on Mars. I have no way to communicate with Hermes or Earth. Everyone thinks I’m dead. I’m in a Hab designed to last thirty-one days.

If the oxygenator breaks down, I’ll suffocate. If the water reclaimer breaks down, I’ll die of thirst. If the Hab breaches, I’ll just kind of explode. If none of those things happen, I’ll eventually run out of food and starve to death.

So yea. I’m fucked.”

When I read the line “kind of explode” I couldn’t help thinking of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie Total Recall, face contorted, eyes bulging as the oxygen deprived atmosphere of Mars was about to detonate his head.


I’ll wait for the next mission to a blue planet thank you very much.

Mark Watney, Mars astronaut, has a lot to worry about. It is hard to say if he has more to worry about than Douglas Quaid/Hauser (Arnold’s character in the movie). At least he doesn’t have people trying to kill him on Mars. In fact, when his fellow astronauts left he effectively became:

EMPEROR OF MARS

It might be the shortest reign in history.

”Mars keeps trying to kill me.”

He amends that thought with:

”Mars and my stupidity keep trying to kill me.”

Watney is far from stupid. He scavenges like a futuristic version of Robinson Crusoe from the left over debris of the Hermes crew’s hasty departure. The incident that “ended” Watney’s life had them in a panic.

”Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.”

He finds a whole memory stick of seventies sitcoms to keep him occupied and more importantly stuff to keep him alive.

Watney becomes the first farmer on Mars. He knows he doesn’t have enough food to last until the next mission to Mars is scheduled so he has to improvise. Luckily the crew was to be there over the Thanksgiving holiday and for morale purposes NASA sent along potatoes with those all important eyes intact.

”My morning piss goes in a resealable plastic box. when I open it, the rover reeks like a truck-stop men’s room. I could take it outside and let it boil off. But I worked hard to make that water and the last thing I’m going to do is waste it. I’ll feed it to the water reclaimer….

Even more precious is my manure. It’s critical to the potato farm, and I’m the only source on Mars. Fortunately, when you spend a lot of time in space, you learn how to shit in a bag. And if you think things are bad after opening the piss box, imagine the smell after I drop anchor.”

When he finds a way to communicate with Earth in one of his more spectacular MacGuyver moments they tell him that he is going to have to drive to another site where there is a rocket ship, already delivered, waiting for the next mission. He will drive on terrain that looks like this:



The ship is in Giovanni Schiaparelli’s crater. Watney being Watney has a few juvenile observations about his arrival at the crater.



”Tomorrow night, I’ll sink to an all-new low!

Lemme rephrase that…

Tomorrow night, I’ll be at rock bottom!

No, that doesn’t sound good either….

Tomorrow night, I’ll be in Giovanni Schiaparelli’s favorite hole!

Okay, I admit I’m just playing around now.”

The science is unbelievable and since Andy Weir was a fifteen year old prodigy and is obviously still extremely bright in middle age I have to believe him that he has this all figured out. Watney injects humor as he explains his innovative scientific brilliance which at times had my eyes glazed over trying to keep up. So even as you are getting overwhelmed by the science Weir will elicit an eye roll from the more sophisticated reader. He might even inspire an outright chortle if you are of the low brow variety of humor lovers. I must be more of the pan-humor variety as he elicited a wide range of sniggers, snorts, and raised eyebrows from me.

”I tested the brackets by hitting them with rocks. This kind of sophistication is what we interplanetary scientists are known for.”

The one thing that might save your life on Mars, Earth or any other planet you might want to visit is something that NASA didn’t invent.

“Also, I have duct tape. Ordinary duct tape, like you buy at a hardware store. Turns out even NASA can’t improve on duct tape.”

Watney worships duct tape and given the hairbrained ideas he puts into practice he needs miles and miles of it.


It turns out duct tape has a variety of uses for providing additional support. We are such an ingenious species.

Weir convinced me that Watney could live on Mars for over a year while awaiting rescue. With mangled equipment, a harsh unforgiving terrain, and the ever present, one more thing going wrong, depression that Watney has to overcome everyday, this reader started feeling the pain of failure and the elation of success right along with him. As the world learns he is alive humanity began rooting not for the American to live, but for the human species to triumph.

In the 1970s when I was old enough to watch what NASA was doing and marvelled at our ability to do the impossible. It was a time when absolutely anything seemed achievable. We’d had leadership that insisted that we needed to go to the moon. We still built things, now it feels like the monuments of our times are being built other places. I do think we all miss having a common goal. Something that we all feel we are a part of, something larger than ourselves. With a space program gutted and the idea of a manned mission to Mars staggeringly expensive it makes me realize how lucky I was to grow up in a time when it really felt like the impossible was possible. I’m probably the last of the optimists who still believes that we have to go see it; we have to put our footprint on it; we have to scatter our debris around and say ‘yes we were here’. We need a Mark Watney to be lost on Mars so we have something to cheer for that brings us together as a species.











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A Peek into the World's Strange Past

Planetary, vol. 3:Leaving the 20th Century

Warren Ellis and John Cassaday

Wildstorm (DC Comics)

Reviewed by: Terry 

5 out of 5 stars

 

In this third volume of Planetary stories we not only get to step back for a moment and have a bit of a look at the adventures of Elijah Snow in his century of existence trying to keep the world strange, but we also get more details on the Four and their intersection with the Planetary organization prior to the current story arc. Ellis is able to play in a lot of cool sandboxes as a result and the genre mashing continues much to my personal glee!

Issue 13 – “Century”: Just how did Elijah Snow form the Planetary organization and why did he do it? Well, not all of the answers will be provided here, but we get an intriguing glimpse at young Elijah Snow circa 1919 as he tracks down the members of a secret organization from the 19th century whose goal was to “better mankind” from behind the scenes. Elijah doesn’t like that kind of meddling, but he just might have something to learn from one member of the cabal at least. Really cool stuff involving Frankenstein’s Monster(s), Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and some shout-outs to other luminaries from the penny dreadfuls and pulp fiction of an earlier day. Cool stuff.

Issue 14 – “Zero Point”: A flashback story showing just why (and how) the Four were able to mind-wipe Elijah. We get to see just how dangerous an opponent Snow and his group can be as they handily take down two members of the Four before being overcome by the ridiculously superior firepower the Four can bring to bear. There is also a chilling opening sequence that pulls some cool references from both Marvel’s Thor comic book and Alan Moore’s more esoteric work in Miracleman that serves to once again highlight the utter evil bastard status of the Four and help explain Elijah’s driving desire to stop them at any cost.

Issue 15 – “Creation Songs”: Back in the present we join Elijah, Jakita, and Drummer as they attempt to intercept the Four who are analysing Ayers Rock for their own arcane purposes. This in turn leads to a flashback story where Snow explains the significance of the place and just how it ties in to the wider cosmology that Ellis has created for his multiverse.

Issue 16 – “Hark”: The mysterious figure of Anna Hark, with links to both Axel Brass’ former team of superhumans and the Four, is brought from out of the shadows to play a central role in this issue. Snow is working hard at consolidating his power and ensuring that his upcoming standoff with the Four is his final one. No mistakes this time. To that end he will need all the allies he can get. Will the enigmatic and unpredictable Anna Hark play ball? This issue also has a cool intro that brings the popular wuxia films like “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” to mind. It’s great to see how Snow is the kind of character who thinks out his moves and is playing the long game, he’s not just going to barge in and try to bash the villain’s head in (though of course if that’ll work he’s not averse to incorporating it into his plan).

Issue 17 – “Opak-Re”: Another flashback to Snow’s earlier journeys and discoveries when Planetary was still a relatively new organization and the fieldwork was primarily done by Elijah himself. Great homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Philip Jose Farmer, and the Indiana Jones films. We also get a tantalizing glimpse of Ellis’ Tarzan analogue Lord Blackstone and some significant revelations about Jakita and her very long relationship with Snow. Lots of fun.

Issue 18 – “The Gun Club”: Ellis takes nineteenth century space travel, Jules Verne, and a new plan by Snow to draw out members of the Four and deal with them individually and does his usual trick: incorporate cool ideas from across pop culture boundaries and not only use them to build a strange and wonderful world, but tie them in to an intriguing story of the battle of superhumans for control of the kind of world we live in.

What can I say? Still great stuff. Even when there are weaker issues they’re fun and everything contributes to the wider story arc and the further fleshing out of Ellis’ cool world. Also, Cassaday’s art remains consistently beautiful…this is really some of the best art I’ve seen in the comic book medium and it just makes Ellis’ ideas pop off the page that much more. If you want to see something new being done in comics (even though it ironically makes heavy use of what’s old) then go read it!

 

Also posted at Goodreads 

Benny and Jenny

Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore
2013
Reviewed by Diane K. M.
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars



This is an interesting biography of Jane Franklin Mecom, who was Benjamin Franklin's sister. Everyone knows Mr. Benjamin as one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, but his sister Jane was almost lost to history. 

Benny and Jenny, as they were nicknamed as children, were kindred spirits and exchanged many frank and personal letters during their lifetime. "The two eyes of man do not more resemble, nor are capable of being upon better terms with each other, than my sister and myself," Benjamin once wrote.

Jane was born in 1712, when Benjamin was 6 years old. It was Benjamin who taught Jane how to write, which was a rare skill for women. From the viewpoint of the 21st century, it is still disturbing to learn how little of an education girls were given back then. No public school in Boston enrolled girls. "Everyone needed to learn to read, but there was no need for a girl to learn to write ... At home and at school, when boys were taught to write, girls learned to stitch. Boys held quills; girls held needles."

In addition to writing, Benjamin also urged his sister to read, and often sent her books from his travels. She had little free time while doing chores and raising her children, but she was eager to read whenever she could. She confided to her brother: "I read as much as I dare."

Sadly, most of Jane's letters appear to have been lost to time. We know they existed because Benjamin references them in his own letters, more of which have survived. Lepore pieces together Jane Franklin's life from other documents, including newspapers, Benjamin's letters, and also a small book that Jane herself wrote, which she titled Book of Ages. It was a chronicle of births and deaths in her family, including her 12 children. 

Lepore quietly and repeatedly points out that Jane was smart and shrewd, and perhaps if she had been given more of an education or if women's roles weren't so restricted, she might have played an important role in society and politics, similar to her brother. It's always fun to play the "What If" game with history, and in this case, I think it might be true. 

In the Appendix about her research methods, Lepore admits how frustrating it was to try to learn more about Jane when so little of her writing has survived. "For a long time, I was so discouraged that I abandoned the project altogether. I thought about writing a novel instead. But I decided, in the end, to write a biography, a book meant not only as a life of Jane Franklin Mecom but, more, as a meditation on silence in the archives. I wanted to write a history from the Reformation through the American Revolution by telling the story of a single life, using this most ordinary of lives to offer a history of history and to explain how history is written: from what remains of the lives of the great, the bad, and, not as often, the good."

The book is a bit slow at the beginning, but I did enjoy reading about life in colonial America and the challenges Jane faced, especially during the War of Independence. Jane and her family fled for their lives on several occasions, which made it even more difficult to track down relatives later. It was also fun to see the different spellings of early English. Lepore noted that the idea of "correct" spelling didn't come until there were rules for printers. "People used to spell however they pleased, even spelling their own names differently from one day to the next ... But only the learned, only the lettered, knew how to spell."

The book also has good details about Ben Franklin's career, but not so much that it overwhelms the narrative about Jane. I would recommend it to fans of history, especially to those who want to know more about the lives of women in early America. As Ben Franklin once wrote in Poor Richard's Almanack, "One half of the world does not know how the other half lives."

Bullets and Fire

Bullets and Fire by Joe R. Lansdale
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In order to join a gang, Tray punches a little girl in the nose and takes her wallet. But why does he really want to join the gang badly enough to hurt a child? Vengeance!

When I saw this short story was free on the Kindle, I jumped at the chance to read it. After all, Uncle Joe has a pretty good stash of my money in his cookie jar at home.

Bullets and Fire is a bloody, violent revenge tale, penned by the master of mojo, Joe R. Lansdale. Tray joins the gang, gains their confidence, and then begins his bloody work. That's pretty much all there is to it. Violent, gore, and a satisfying conclusion.

Bullets and Fire is a fun read for Lansdale veterans and newcomers alike. Four blood-drenched stars!

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Rendezvous with Rama

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An enormous alien structure enters our solar system and a team is dispatched to explore it before it drifts away and is lost forever. What will humanity discover after its Rendezvous with Rama?

Years ago, I decided I needed to read more hard science fiction. Then I read Ringworld and was so uninterested that I quit my hard sf quest before it began. Months ago, a copy of Rendezvous with Rama fell into my clutches. I decided to give it a try, despite my fears that it would be another Ringworld, a book where the concept far outweighs the story. Well, the concepts behind Rendezvous with Rama do outweigh the story but I found it far superior to Ringworld, a much more enjoyable reading experience.

As near as I can tell, Rendezvous with Rama is the first Big Dumb Object (or Megastructure, if you prefer) science fiction novel. For that reason alone, I'd say it's worth a read. Hell, that's why I read it.

The characters are weak but I think that's actually an asset for a story like this. My problem with Ringworld was that I didn't find any of the characters likeable and that overshadowed any sense of discovery I would have felt as they explored Ringworld. In Rama, the characters take a back seat to the Big Dumb Object from the first page.

Clarke's writing is workmanlike but does a surprisingly good job at conveying the wonder and majesty of Rama as the team explores it. As things heat up the closer Rama gets to the sun (see what I did there?), the book really takes off.

With today's special effects technology, I think it would be fantastic if an adaptation was filmed like a faux-documentary. Like that Mermaid one National Geographic put out, only not so cheesey.

I liked it but I didn't love it. There's not a lot of plot or character development. Or action, for that matter. Now that I've read it, I respect its place in the hard science fiction pantheon but the sense of wonder doesn't make up for its shortcomings so a three is as high as I can give it.



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Reviewed by James L. Thane
Four out of five stars


I confess that I was pleasantly surprised by this book. It’s the second in Jo Nesbo’s series featuring Norwegian homicide detective Harry Hole, and as those who follow the series know, for whatever reason, Nesbo’s publishers did not release the books in order here in the U.S. Rather, they jumped into the middle of the series first. I assumed that this was because they felt that the first couple of books were not as good as the latter ones and so wanted to put Nesbo’s (and Harry’s) best foot forward first.

The first book in the series, The Bat, was finally released here last year and seemed to confirm the suspicion. It’s a solid effort, and not bad for a first book, but it’s not up to the standards of the later ones. I expected the same from Cockroaches, which was finally released here last month, but as I suggested above, I was surprised by how much I liked it.

The book opens when Norway’s ambassador to Thailand is found stabbed to death in a sleazy motel in Bangkok, while apparently awaiting the arrival of a young prostitute. This is not the sort of thing that reflects favorably on an ambassador or on the government that posted him to Thailand. The Powers That Be in the Norwegian government are much more concerned about avoiding a scandal than they are in finding the guilty party, but they have to put up a good front.

To accomplish these ends, the government assigns Detective Harry Hole to go to Bangkok and assist the locals in the investigation. Hole has just gained some notoriety for solving a difficult case involving the death of a Norwegian citizen in Australia and thus to all outward appearances, seems an ideal choice. At the moment, however, Harry can most often be found in an alcoholic daze and not at his detecting best. The expectation is that Harry will go to Thailand for a few days, drink himself into a stupor, and allow the locals to sweep the whole embarrassing incident under the rug.

Of course, as everyone who’s ever read a crime novel understands, that’s not about to happen. Our intrepid hero will instead sober up and pursue the case to the ends of the earth, or at least to the ends of Thailand, no matter where the chips may fall. And in the process, of course, he will exasperate the hell out of his superiors.

The ambassador’s death turns out to be a murky and complex case, involving a large cast of intriguing and well-drawn characters. Hole is a great protagonist, and there are a lot of unexpected twists and turns. There are also a lot of interesting insights into the people, culture and geography of Thailand. The story moves along at a good clip, and all in all, it was a very entertaining read. As I suggested in my review of The Bat, it does seem a little odd that a series involving a Norwegian detective would begin with two books set in foreign countries, but in the end, I enjoyed them both and am relieved that I can finally read all of the books in this series in order. I’m going to enjoy Harry’s journey.

Snuffed Out My Desire To Read More Palahniuk

Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I feel icky.



Chuck Palahniuk's take on the porn industry blows wades of sex euphemisms all over the reader like moneyshots at a gangbang. The language is as base as the subject matter. The characters have all the nuance of a cookie cutter. The plot, slightly more complicated than the old school "I've come to fix the pool" porn of yesteryear, is nonetheless as formulaic as a whodunit mystery. And yes, all this works in the author's favor. He is, after all, writing about porn.

Is this titillation pure and simple, or is this an important truth? To me, it seems filled to the brim with both. Like moths to light, certain kinds of people seem drawn to join the porn industry. In evening news programs like 60 Minutes they've often been depicted as having preexisting "damaged" traits. Palahniuk plays this up to the hilt and then takes it a step further, going into the Hollywood world for examples of actors and actresses drawn to the flame of stardom, some on the cusp of making it only to fall into the necessity of making ends meet. But Palahniuk casts about too far in piling on the shocking examples of movie industry mishaps, which drift so far from the point as to nearly devolve into the sort of sensationalistic headlines found on the cover of gossip mags in the counter aisle.