The Geek Life

Since the early 1990s I've been an audiobook reader.  I just love them and always have.  Having someone tell you a story is one of the greatest pleasures in life and audiobooks, when done right, have a certain magic about them.  But having audiobooks from the early 1990s means tape.


Yeah, tape.  Cassettes.  You know, these things.

You young 'uns may have no idea what they are, but believe me, back when your only audio source wasn't exactly portable, these things rocked.  Plus you could do mix tapes.  Ahh...the mix tape.


Anyway.  I have a bunch of recorded books on tape that I've been holding onto and listening to pretty sporadically.  See, tapes wear out.  Not only does the tape itself degrade, but the workings can come apart on you as well.  How many of you out there have had to re-glue the little paddy thing that the tape glides over when pushed against the player head?  Oh yeah, good times.  


Also, tapes have a tendency to do this -

OMG didn't you hate that?  It was way worse if it happened in the car deck.  Holy screwdriver, Batman.


Another geek question - how many of you have played surgeon on these things and used adhesive tape to bring two ends of tape together after having carefully excised the mangled bits?  Pulling out yard after yard of tape to find that one spot where it folded over on itself, making the audio go backward?  Oh the joys of analog.


So what the hell is all this leading up to, right?  This is a book blog.  Well, I'm converting my old tapes to digital. Cool, huh?  I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner, but I just didn't.  Just recently it occurred to me that there must be a way to do it.  For decades now libraries, museums and all kinds of other archive repositories have digitized their analog content.  Why can't I do it?  Well I can and it's wicked easier than I expected.  I'm using my Walkman, a stereo mini-patch cable and Audacity software, which unbelievably, is free and has most excellent wiki help and tutorials.  After just a few test recordings to get the input levels right I was on my way to making my old tapes into MP3s and adding them to iTunes.  Now I have two books on my iPod that I could only listen to with my old Walkman.  Sweet.

My favorite Walkman and my first cassette tape.  

Why am I bothering you ask?  Well despite having a really enormous catalog, audible.com doesn't have everything. For example I have Paul Sorvino reading Thinner by Stephen King. It's abridged, but with that voice I don't mind, I'll take what I can get.  I also have The Little Sister, which is my favorite Chandler novel featuring Philip Marlowe, narrated by Ed Bishop who is so great that I can't stand anyone else reading him (coughElliotGouldcough). I also have The Water-method Man, which is the only John Irving novel I like, narrated by the incomparable Frank Muller. And Right Ho, Jeeves just doesn't sound right if it's not Alexander Spencer performing - he gets Bertie and Jeeves absolutely perfect. None of these things is available on audible.com which is my source for audiobooks these days.  There are also others I plan to record like The Chrysalids by John Wyndham and a couple of Anne Rivers Siddons books only available as abridged recordings.  Oh and my prized recording of Douglas Adams reading The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.  OMG!!!!  If I could only find the rest of the books read by him.


So I guess I have a geek badge coming to me for this, but I am so happy that I can have these on the iPod now.  The quality of the transfer is decent and I've figured out how to adjust for tape hiss and to connect two tracks into one track.  I'm sure as I go along I'll find other tricks that make the finished product that much better.  The only drawback is that it takes place in real time, meaning I have to play every tape completely at normal speed.  No 8x or 16x or any speed up possible.  Ah well, that's what rainy days are for.  

Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas, 1845

Read in 2012

Synopsis:  Two decades have passed since the musketeers triumphed over Cardinal Richelieu and Milady. Time has weakened their resolve, and dispersed their loyalties. But treasons and strategems still cry out for justice: civil war endangers the throne of France, while in England Cromwell threatens to send Charles I to the scaffold. Dumas brings his immortal quartet out of retirement to cross swords with time, the malevolence of men, and the forces of history. But their greatest test is a titanic struggle with the son of Milady, who wears the face of Evil.

Although not nearly as well-known as the first in the d’Artagnan Romances (The Three Musketeers) I think it might be better.  Just.  It depends on how you look at the books; as individual tales or as parts of a much longer story, which they are, but are also sold as stand-alones to some degree.  At least the first one is.  And as a stand-alone it often takes the pot off the boil for the reader and goes to a lot of trouble describing the home life of our heroes.  Much needed for us to get to know them, but not so great for a nail-biter of a plot.  Twenty Years After doesn’t give as much characterization to each participant and thus the story moves on relentlessly with no stops for admiring the scenery.


A lot has happened in the twenty years since we last met d’Artagnan, Porthos, Athos and Aramis.  D’Artagnan is still only a lieutenant in the Musketeers, he longs to be promoted to Captain since the post is now open.  Porthos has married his mistress and inherited vast estates and has more money than he knows what to do with.  Athos has adopted a local orphan named Raoul and made him his heir.  Aramis has become an abbe, but longs to be a Musketeer again.  Cardinal Richelieu has died, replaced by Mazarin, universally loathed by the people, but not by Anne of Austria.  Anne is now a widow and regent to her son Louis the XIV who is only 10.  Mazarin holds the real power though.


With promises of a captaincy and a baronetcy for d’Artagnan and Porthos respectively, they agree to serve Mazarin.  Unfortunately, Athos and Aramis cannot be convinced to join them and instead come out of retirement on the side of the people clamoring for other aristocrats to get their due.  One of which is the Duc de Beaufort, imprisoned in Vincennes.  Later they both end up with Charles I against Cromwell when Porthos and d’Artagnan end up entangled on the pro-Cromwell side.  At first they can’t see their way through their difficulties, but their friendship is too strong for modern politics and they promise to always put it first.  The lackeys, too, are present and get involved in most of the plots in one way or another.  Grimaud especially has a lot to do with the Duc de Beaufort and springing him from prison.  Oh and Planchet, too, even though he’s not serving d’Artagnan anymore.

The plot itself is pretty convoluted, full of underhanded people doing dastardly things.  The king of the villains is Mordaunt though; son of Milady and bent on revenge for her death.  This, of course, puts him at odds with our four friends and he’s a persistent thorn in their sides for most of the book.  I think because there isn’t really much done to round him out as a character, he comes off as more evil and single-minded than his villainous mother.  His scenes are great stuff, his malice fairly oozes through the words.  


From what I understand the next two books continue in the political vein started in this book and focus on Raoul, the Monarchy Restoration effort in England and the first years of Louis XIV’s reign.  I’m looking forward to them - I think I’m a Dumas addict now.

Stone's Fall by Iain Pears, 2009

Read in 2012

Synopsis:  At his London home, John Stone falls out of a window to his death. A financier and arms dealer, Stone was a man so wealthy that he was able to manipulate markets, industries, and indeed entire countries and continents. Did he jump, was he pushed, or was it merely a tragic accident? His alluring and enigmatic widow hires a young crime reporter to investigate. The story moves backward in time—from London in 1909 to Paris in 1890 and finally to Venice in 1867—and the attempts to uncover the truth play out against the backdrop of the evolution of high-stakes international finance, Europe’s first great age of espionage, and the start of the twentieth century’s arms race.



To call Stone’s Fall complex is to call the Sahara desert sandy.  Like the other Pears novel I’ve read it’s very long, told by multiple narrators and has interconnected plot points numerous enough to weave a shroud.  By the end my head was spinning a little and I was struck by how similar to both Wilkie Collins and Alexandre Dumas Pears’s work is.  Now, I love a convoluted plot.  I love unreliable characters.  I love multiple-POV novels.  I read a lot of them and even I was confused by things in the end.  It took me a bit to connect the dots, or else to believe I had connected them correctly at least.  And there are still some things I can’t get straight in my head and so I think I’ll have to read this again.  


Partly it’s because the damn thing is so long.  Not only is it long, but it’s often choked with detail that really has no bearing on the plot.  In the first narrative, told by ex-reporter Matthew Braddock, we not only get information about his investigation, but all kinds of info about what it’s like to be a reporter, how he became one and how bent around the axle Elizabeth Stone made him.  All well and good for creating a character, but for keeping track of minute bits of information, timelines and about a million people, it’s not so good.  I don’t think we needed to know Matthew as well as we got to for the story to work.  He’s not a central figure, he’s a catalyst only.  The rest of the novel is basically given to him and he’s providing the first section to connect the dots and get the ball rolling, not to become our best pal.


He does provide an excellent hook though; a lost heir, shady business practices, menacing government officials, Stone’s death itself and its delayed announcement, all tantalizing and just out of reach.  The second narrative is told by one of the characters to come to light in Braddock’s part of the tale, one Henry Cort.  Ruthless spymaster he is, but he also goes into the weeds of detail surrounding his upbringing and eventual recruitment into the game of spies.  At the time we’re given this information it’s pretty meaningless and only has a contributing ah-ha moment at the very end of the book. 


The third part is told by Stone himself, who up to this point, has been basically a cypher.  All we know of him is third-hand and questionable at that.  Conflicting pictures of the same man make us unsure of who he really is and whether he showed his true self to anyone at all.  


The real show-stopper of a character though is Elizabeth.  How many names did this woman have?  How many changes of identity and situation did she navigate and rise through?  Amazing.  I didn’t thoroughly like her since she was intensely selfish and abrasive at times, but I did admire her.  She was tough and had more grit than anyone else in the book.  


The ending though left me kind of meh.  It was soap-operaish and not surprising at all.  It won’t stop me from reading another from Pears though.  He writes well, creates interesting scenarios and characters and plots like a madman.

The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 1908

Read in 2012


Synopsis:  A middle-aged spinster rents a country house for the summer and soon finds herself plunged into a nasty scenario of bank defaults, stolen securities and murder. An entertaining blend of intrigue, villainy and heart-pounding suspense for crime fiction buffs and lovers of great mystery classics.

Vintage and Retro are all the rage for some stuff like clothes and photography (Instagram??  I don’t get it, but whatever) and so I said ‘what the hell’ and downloaded this 100-year-old mystery novel onto the iPad.  A review especially praised the stalwart spinster protagonist and the quaint setting and characters so I felt pretty confident I’d like it.  Unfortunately, our stalwart spinster is also a raging racist and the supporting characters were pretty much there to be ordered about, worried over and despised by her in turn.  I believe the correct term for her is battleaxe.  I was bummed because at first her character reminded me a bit of Amelia Peabody.

Some of the things about the period charmed me; like the summer house rental. An estate really, with wings, stables and a gate house, complete with servants most of whom vamoosed when things started to get hairy. The old-fashioned conveyances; a mix at this time of history (1908) of trains, horse-drawn and motorized vehicles.  Not sure what a Dragon Fly is, but I suspect it’s the author’s fancy since I found nothing on the web. When women fainted (as they invariably do in novels of this sort) someone ran for some ‘stimulants’.  Aunt Rachel sports ‘wrinkle eradicators’ - mysterious and painful sounding. The lights went off at midnight because the electric company shuts down at that time.  Funny stuff, but try as I might, the casual racism just took the shine off things for me.  I know it’s how people thought and behaved back then, but it’s jarring to read about now.  

While I did finish it, I didn’t race through it because it was quite put-downable.  In the end I just made myself finish the silly thing.  It reminded me a lot of the way Nancy Drew mysteries unfolded.  We’ve got a stock bunch of characters and they end up in a place where strange things start to happen to them.  Not because of them, but because of their proximity to whatever else is going on.  The events that occur happen to them, but they’re not of them if you know what I mean.  There’s a subplot that must be discovered.  Even the clues are funny compared to how things are written these days.  In this one they’re basically all physical - a pistol, a cufflink, a golf stick (not club, stick).  Oh and there are funny noises inside the house and mysterious intruders no one sees or is able to capture.  The antics of not just the amateurs, but also of the cops to catch these unseen villains, were hilarious.  They bumbled around and tripped over one another and never so much as caught the hem of a garment, much less an actual person.  Obviously there was a secret room involved, but once again no one could find it; not the good guys or the bad guys.  There had to be 5 holes carved into walls before someone found it and then it was on the second try.  Dopes.  Nancy Drew could have totally schooled these people.


In the end, while I didn’t guess the solution (I wasn’t giving it any thought actually, the story didn’t really grab me enough), I found it a bit tired.  I suppose since it’s a relatively early mystery, it wasn’t a cliche when it was written, but it certainly is now. It makes Agatha Christie’s work even more astounding because in my opinion it does hold its appeal even now.  Yes, she wrote the bulk of her novels later than this one, but the earliest ones are pretty close to this time and they hold up much better. Alas, some vintage stories just don’t maintain their appeal into the 21st century.


Oh and one more thing.  If you have Netflix streaming and love Vincent Price, one of Mary Roberts Rinehart's other books, The Bat, was made into a movie and is so campy and fun - I highly recommend it!

The Poison King by Adrienne Mayor, 2009

Read in 2012

Synopsis:  Machiavelli praised his military genius. European royalty sought out his secret elixir against poison. His life inspired Mozart's first opera, while for centuries poets and playwrights recited bloody, romantic tales of his victories, defeats, intrigues, concubines, and mysterious death. But until now no modern historian has recounted the full story of Mithradates, the ruthless king and visionary rebel who challenged the power of Rome in the first century BC. In this richly illustrated book--the first biography of Mithradates in fifty years--Adrienne Mayor combines a storyteller's gifts with the most recent archaeological and scientific discoveries to tell the tale of Mithradates as it has never been told before.


The Poison King describes a life brimming with spectacle and excitement. Claiming Alexander the Great and Darius of Persia as ancestors, Mithradates inherited a wealthy Black Sea kingdom at age fourteen after his mother poisoned his father. He fled into exile and returned in triumph to become a ruler of superb intelligence and fierce ambition. Hailed as a savior by his followers and feared as a second Hannibal by his enemies, he envisioned a grand Eastern empire to rival Rome. After massacring eighty thousand Roman citizens in 88 BC, he seized Greece and modern-day Turkey. Fighting some of the most spectacular battles in ancient history, he dragged Rome into a long round of wars and threatened to invade Italy itself. His uncanny ability to elude capture and surge back after devastating losses unnerved the Romans, while his mastery of poisons allowed him to foil assassination attempts and eliminate rivals.


The Poison King is a gripping account of one of Rome's most relentless but least understood foes.

An entertaining look at Mithradates that is as much speculation as history.  So much of what was written by and about Mithradates VI has been lost that, once again, we're left with an incomplete account of just why Rome feared and hated him.  Overall his life reads like a traditional tale of a Greek hero.  It is speculated in this book that Mithradates was aware of the hero checklist and went out of his way to make sure that he hit as many as possible.  Part Greek democrat, part Persian autocrat, he was a character and despite his reputation as a martial winner, not much of a military man.  That much I think he got from his Persian side; that participating in battle personally was just not done and beneath the dignity of a ruler.

The thing that really sticks out about Mithradates is how much studying and reading he seemed to do.  Not only Greek histories, tragedies and poetry, but the lives of people he admired like Cyrus the Great and Alexander (also Great).  But unlike some rulers who might only know the facts presented, Mithradates seems to have actually learned from them and put some contrary schemes into practice.  One that Tigranes (oh, he's Great, too) should have listened to was to NOT engage directly with Roman legions who time after time, wiped the floor with the often cobbled-together eastern armies, but to engage them with guerrilla type actions.  In addition to his ideas about military tactics, he was a master of toxicology, probably pioneering that field and inventing what would go on to be a famous concoction for inuring oneself against poison.  I wouldn't have wanted to be his enemy during his experimentation phase.  And if that wasn't enough it was determined through his writings and various treaties and spy networks that he spoke and read at least a dozen languages with so much fluency that he almost never needed translators.  What an intellect.

At the end after his defeat by Pompey (another Great!), the author speculates that Mithradates's death may have been a hoax and that he may have lived with his last remaining "wife",  Hypsicratea, in her native lands.  I say remaining wife because through his direct action, most of his previous queens were put to death because of suspected plots against him and just plain getting tired of them.  Sucks to be on the receiving end of Mithradates's favors.  His family didn't escape either with most of his siblings and children either exiled, imprisoned or executed.  It ran in the family though, with is own mother trying to bump him off when he was a child so that is far more pliable brother (also called Mithradates) could be put into power instead.  Ah, poor mom.  She should have known better.

The Three Musketeers - Part 4 (final)

The last few chapters of this very long book show what a juggernaut of suspense it could have been all along.  Wow.  So great.  I could hardly read fast enough to find out what happened next.  Of course Felton is hooked and in spite of de Winter’s constant warnings about Milady, he falls for her lying performance and does the unthinkable.  As always, serendipity and most excellent luck put our heroes in a position to thwart the Cardinal and his plot.  It’s completely beyond the pale, but a delight to read anyway.  d’Artagnan once again has a chance to get revenge on the man from Meung and off they all go in hot pursuit.  That wasn’t all that shocking, but how it all ends for Milady was.  Judge, jury and special executioner who, in fulfilling his duty, did a pretty fair impersonation of Charon.  I was taken aback and a little appalled at how absolutely free to do with her what they liked they all were.  Granted, she was a villain of the highest order and had killed many people over the years, but such absolute power granted to basically ordinary citizens was very surprising.

The final scene with the Cardinal was satisfying and in keeping with his character.  Yes, he was the overarching villain of the piece, but it seems he was always conflicted about d’Artagnan.  One minute he’d be cursing his interference and in the next praising his bravery or intelligence.  He had the power to destroy him, but instead tried to woo him into serving in his Guards instead of the Musketeers.  He commends him for his quick thinking and his ability (especially as a mere 20-year-old) to outwit him even at his most crafty.  When d’Artangan produces that final note, intercepted and taken from Milady, he takes his defeat with grace and writes a blank commission which because none of his friends take it, d’Artagnan ends up with.   

I’m very glad I read this and will definitely be moving on to the next book in the series; Twenty Years After which is the start of a longer story arc that evidently ends with The Man in the Iron Mask.  Reading them in the Kindle ap is great because of the dictionary, although I do wish they’d bring the Google and Wikipedia links back.  Why they killed them is beyond me, but it’s so maddening because they were (gasp!) useful. Jerks.

Comparing this to The Count of Monte Cristo is tough, but overall I think this is a less focused tale and has more tangents that do not move the plot forward.  Mostly the tangents have to do with character development and do a lot to showcase the attitudes, opinions and motivations for our four heroes.  They are truly of another time and place and although on the side of right, don’t always act responsibly or morally.  The ends justifies the means is pretty clearly what they all believe.  Their honor trumps all and any action taken on its behalf is completely justified and warranted.  Sometimes it was done for the greater good, but most of the time it resulted in some poor sap getting cheated or killed.  Great drama though.

The Three Musketeers - Part 3

At d’Artagnan’s liaison with Milady, the story quits its focus on the three Musketeers and the Guard and shifts to her instead.  With each passing chapter we’re given more information about her, past and present.  The conversation with Athos is especially delicious.  Off to the siege of La Rochelle they go and trouble follows.  Milady’s plots and his Eminence’s threats keep everything lively and tense.  I loved the chapter about the Anjou wine and could easily figure out what was afoot - too bad about the guy from the breakfast dare though, he seemed like he could be useful.  And then the cloak-and-dagger scene at the Red Dovecot.  Such great stuff.  Especially when Athos confronts Milady and then rides ahead of his Eminence with him being none the wiser when next they meet.  So great.  The delicate threads are all pulling together.

And they’ve trapped Milady in England at de Winter and Buckingham’s hands.  At least for now.  She’s so crafty and sly that I almost root for her.  In this tale of women who are basically all used and manipulated by men, it’s interesting to see one try to hold her own.  I feel for her a lot; how else can an ambitious and intelligent woman make her way in the world when being the usual doormat must be so repugnant to her?  Of course take up the mantle of crime; building slowly and seemingly without effort on past heists and trading on her good looks and charm.  Poor Felton is doomed.  That much was clear from the outset.  I’m only at her 3rd day of captivity, but she’s found what buttons to push and is playing him perfectly.  What an actress.

At first she tries straight up seduction:

“A light appeared under the door; this light announce the reappearance of her jailers.  Milady, who had arisen, threw herself quickly into the armchair, her head thrown back, her beautiful hair unbound and disheveled, her bosom half bare beneath her crumpled lace, one hand on her heart, and the other hanging down.”

To which Felton responds after having her trickery exposed by de Winter:

“your Lordship may be assured that it requires more than the tricks and coquetry of a woman to corrupt me.”

So Milady changes her tack:

“Weak or strong,” repeated Milady, “that man has, then, a spark of pity in his soul; of that spark I will make a flame that shall devour him...He is a young, ingenuous, pure man who seems virtuous; him there are the means of destroying.”

And Milady went to bed and fell asleep with a smile upon her lips.  Anyone who had seen her sleeping might have said she was a young girl dreaming of the crown of flowers she was to wear on her brow at the next festival.  

Oh she’s like Count Fosco in The Woman in White; a villain we love to hate.