A genre that has always sucked me through an immersion portal is the good old horror thriller. In my twenties I must have read every horror thriller author my grubbly little mitts could acquire and it left me wanting for more… much much more. Recently I’ve begun reading – or listening to the podcast versions – from a talented and well recognised author of the horror thriller sci-fi genres, Scott Sigler. After consuming several of his books, the podcasts are read and audio-acted by Scott Sigler, I probably found Nocturnal to be the most powerful. That being said, there are more Scott Sigler books that I haven’t read yet than those I’ve had the time to read.

Going into any Sigler book involves a hyper-American adventure including all the drugs, guns, crime and low-level violence. If you were to run into a dracula figure it would have to wear a three piece suit, get blow-jobs off several crack whore mistresses and have a propensity to drink from the dismembered limbs of unsedated semi-conscious victims. If you were to run into something resembling a wolfman it would be possible to smell the sweat on the back of it’s pricked up ears or wipe it’s face off with a handy flannel dipped in hydrochloric acid. I don’t want to take you any further into that hypothetical scenario but you should have a better idea of where Sigler horror is intended to hit home. It’s about psychosis, depravity; the dirt and filth of the back streets and alleyways of a B Movie Americana.

The basic premise of Nocturnal is that San Francisco has been preyed upon for over 200 years by a group of genetically mutating monster children. The monster adults cautiously hunt humans at night under the malevolent vengeful eyes of an even more powerful monster called The Saviour. Two detectives stumble too far into the high level police corruption protecting the saviour, a prophecy comes to pass, the city’s underworld goes to the mattresses and the shit hits the fan in semi-glutenous stinky madness that probably arrived on your doorstep in a flaming paper bag.

Unfortunately at present Nocturnal is being revised by Sigler for a hardcover release so the podcast that I acquired is not currently available. But I’d keep track of this guy and if you haven’t bought into the Siglerverse I’d also recommend you start reading his sci-fi work.

If I had to define it in a sentence::: Nocturnal is an unpretentious eye gouge in a literary street fight with the fecal remnants of your worst nightmare under torchlight with the electric blanket on three.

Set in a future Glasgow eleven years after VR (Virtual Reality) riots led to the deaths of millions, Halfhead by Stuart MacBride offers an intense science fiction thriller experience with the hallmark detail of a master story-teller.

In this future Glasgow dangerous criminals are halfheaded… their jaw is removed, a feeding tube is attached and they receive a complete lobotomy. Their role in society after that point will be to perform menial cleaning tasks and to serve as an example to the public that criminal behaviour won’t be tolerated.

Enter Dr Fiona Westfield, psychopathic murderess and patron to an experiment in psychosis development. Her halfheading didn’t work as expected. She discovers her old identity and gets about her business of dismembering and torturing victims. But the objective is escape and revenge. That would be revenge on Assistant Network Director William Hunter who exposed her crimes… and revenge on the government conspiracy who stole her experiments.

I really enjoy books that do more than create a shallow future society that produces perfect outcomes. Corruption will always exist… society will not always be just… and in a sense Halfhead raises issues around the morality of sentencing criminals without appeal to frontal lobotomy and socially-condoned slavery. MacBride’s world projects the widened gap between the rich on one side of Glasgow and the poor on the other. And it pulls people with no hope into a world where VR is the only escape from the hopelessness of reality.

This is a fast paced thriller that does it’s best not to hide the reality of violence – from society, from criminals and from the institutions that manage to hold it together. This is no Starsky and Hutch world where the good guys are necessarily squeaky clean. This is Glasgow right down to the perpetual rain and urban violence.

The thriller is a particularly impressive genre to make a dent into somebody’s psyche. The first (but hopefully not the last) novel that I’ll ever read by Peter Temple, Black Tide is the fourth in the Jack Irish series set in a seedy but well populated Melbourne landscape. However, I won’t give away the plot by filling in names to the inner clique of faces that come to life at the hands of Temple. Good novels need to be read with a blank agenda and caressed into life through the evolution of story… rather than spoiled in the tradition of the Hollywood trailer where every move and busted elbow gets pre-paraded before the ticket stub has even been printed.

I’ll admit that the first 30 pages were hard to read. But not because they were badly written. They were hard to read because Temple’s style has the fresh rawness of plain-speak that drips thick description in bucketloads… he builds and moulds believable characters and conversation through a mechanism that I found myself watching in awe as a writer while I walked in awe as a reader. So yes, I can see why Temple is a five-time winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Fiction.

Temple’s style is a mix of that old Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer embraced with a genuinely intimate splash of the back streets of Melbourne culture that almost makes me want to follow the footsteps of the adventure through the actual streets in the story. It has that hammering momentum of crime fiction without the feeling of inevitability you come to expect in the genre by writers who often seem to feel it’s about playing it safe. I had the sense characters were the raw stuff of real life.

So while those first 30 pages took some adjustment there were vast rewards for not putting down this novel. The first is that I’ve discovered a new must-read Australian author. The second is the discovery of a fiction author prepared to use prolonged thick description rather than shining a large torch at a precarious landscape – Temple brings you into the grit of everyday life.

Peter Temple is an authentic Australian author with international talent. Black Tide was one of those novels that made me disappointed at the end to have to put it down. Enjoy.

The setting was the global steel industry in the years preceding the Global Financial Crisis. The companies involved were Mittal Steel and the Luxembourg based Arcelor. The combatants were Lakshmi and Aditya Mittal’s vision for a globalised steel industry, a vision of rationalisation and economies of scale. Whereas Arcelor CEO Guy Dolle’s vision of a globalised steel industry was European focused on the high end of the market. Mittal Steel served mainly the low end of the steel industry in volume; Arcelor served the higher end of the steel industry with quality… and never the twain shall meet.

In the Tim Bouquet and Byron Ousey non-fiction novel Cold Steel: Laksmi Mittal and the multi-billion dollar battle for a global empire the reader is taken behind the scenes on perhaps the largest hostile corporate takeover of all time. It was also the most complex takeover of all time due to the immensity of the two organisation’s respective footholds in various parts of the world, coming under various authoritative bodies and numerous governments. They played the race cards, they made the backroom handshakes with the inevitable retinue of corporate bankers, spin doctors and strategists. Cold Steel is the inside story of a hostile corporate takeover through the eyes and perspectives of the significant players. It’s a step by step strategic management documentary of how the game was played on both sides and how it ended – becoming ArcelorMittal.

Cold Steel came across my desk as required reading in the MBA unit BMA799 Strategic Management. The book read like a thriller – move for move strategies employed by either side. To that end, I would highly recommend anybody interested in business to give it a read.

I guess the most disturbing point from my perspective, as somebody who is worried that we’re too focused on economy, exploitation and greed, is that the globalised corporate world is in fact run this way. ‘More is more’ seems to be the general philosophy that you have to buy into to agree with either side of this takeover battle.

My suggestion is read Cold Steel simply to understand how globalisation leaders think and how governments work, sometimes counter to the ideals of free trade that they espouse externally.

Text Books – Management

• Fundamentals of Management (Pacific Rim Edition) by Danny Samson and Richard L. Daft
• International Business: Managing in the Asia-Pacific (3rd Edition) by Greg Fisher et. al.
• Strategic Management: Competitiveness & Globalisation (Asia Pacific Third Edition) by Hanson et. al.
• Cold Steel: Lakshmi Mittal and the Multi-Billion-Dollar Battle for a Global Empire by Tim Bouquet and Byron Ousey
• Managers and the Law: A Guide for Business Decision Makers by Lynden Griggs, Eugene Clark and Ian Iredale
• Essential Foundations of Economics (4th Edition) by Robin Bade and Michael Parkin
• Accounting 4: An Introduction by Atrill et. al.
• Principles of Managerial Finance by Gitman, Juchau and Flanagan
• Organisational Behaviour on the Pacific Rim (2nd Edition) by Steven McShane and Tony Travaglione
• Organisational Behaviour (5th Edition) by Robbins et. al.
• Marketing Principles & Best Practices 3e (International Student Edition) by Hoffman et. al.
• Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice by Dave Chaffey et. al.
• Human Resource Management: Strategies and Processes (5th Edition) by Alan Nankervis, Robert Compton and Marian Baird
• Writing for Journalists (2nd Edition) by Wynford Hicks et. al.
• Editing Made Easy by Bruce Kaplan

Text Books – Computing

• Artificial Intelligence: Structures and Strategies for Complex Problem Solving by George F. Fluger
• Operating System Concepts (7th Edition) by Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne
• Your UNIX: The Ultimate Guide (2nd Edition) by Sumitabha Das
• Data Communications and Networking (4th Edition) by Behrouz A. Forouzan
• PHP and MySQL Web Development (2nd Edition) by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson
• Java Software Solutions: Foundations of Program Design (3rd Edition) by Lewis & Loftus
• Data Abstraction and Problem Solving with JAVA: Walls and Mirrors (International Edition) by Frank M. Carrano and Janet J. Prichard
• Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis in C (2nd Edition) by Mark Allen Weiss
• Object-Oriented Software Engineering: Using UML, Patterns and Java (2nd Edition) by Bernd Bruegge and Allen H. Dutoit
• The C Programming Language (2nd Edition) by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie
• Computer Confluence: Exploring Tomorrow’s Technology (IT Edition) by George Beekman and Eugene J. Rathswohl

Text Books – Not Mine (But Read)

• Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm (International Edition) by Kenneth C. Laudon and Jane P. Laudon
• Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective 2006 by Efraim Turban et. al.

Non-Fiction Purchases (Web Development)

• Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman
• The Zen of CSS Design by Dave Shea and Molly E. Holzschlag
• Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design by Andy Clarke
• Bulletproof Ajax by Jeremy Keith
• DOM Scripting: Web Design with JavaScript and the Document Object Model by Jeremy Keith
• DHTML Utopia: Modern Web Design Using JavaScript and DOM by Stuart Langridge
• The PHP Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks by Davey Shafik et. al.
• Core MySQL: The Serious Developer’s Guide by Leon Atkinson

Non-Fiction Purchases (Other)

• Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design by Bill Buxton
• Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations by Clay Shirky
• Monkeyluv: And Other Stories on our Lives as Animals by Robert M. Sapolsky
• Confessions of an Eco-Sinner: Tracking Down the Sources of My Stuff by Fred Pearce
• What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell
• Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
• The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism by Andrew J. Bacevich
• The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One by David Kilcullen
• No Standing Only Dancing: Photographs by Rennie Ellis, National Gallery of Victoria
• Impossible Nature: The Art of Jon McCormack by Jon McCormack et. al.
• The Fabulist: The Incredible Story of Louis De Rougemont by Rod Howard

Electronic

• Blue Planet Run: The Race to Provide Safe Drinking Water to the World by Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt
• The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind by James Boyle
• Remix by Lawrence Lessig
• The Future of Ideas by Lawrence Lessig
• Code: version 2.0 by Lawrence Lessig
• Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks by Luke Wroblewski
• Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behaviour by Indi Young
• Build Your Own Ruby on Rails Web Applications by Patrick Lenz
• The Art and Science of CSS by Cameron Adams et. al.
• The Principles of Successful Freelancing by Miles Burke
• How to Make a Book by the Blurberati
• Street Photography for the Purist by Chris Weeks
• The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks and Techniques by Corrie Haffly
• Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin
• The Dip by Seth Godin
• 99 Cows by Seth Godin
• Bootstrapper’s Bible by Seth Godin
• Unleashing the Idea Virus by Seth Godin

Fiction

• The Collectors by David Baldacci
• Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris
• A Most Wanted Man by John LeCarre
• All the Colours of Darkness by Peter Robinson
• Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy
• The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
• Velocity by Dean Koontz
• The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz

As the second installment of The Camel Club (which hit my radar on the ABC’s First Tuesday Book Club some time ago), I found The Collectors by David Baldacci to be one of those compelling reads that distinguish a real novel from the contemporary crowd. It was meaty, engaging, compelling and intelligently written. In fact, I could not think of any part of The Collectors where I had that ho-hum feeling so it delivered in spades.

The Camel Club are a group of misfits and a triple six retired government assassin who happen into the circumstance to solve crimes. In The Collectors, Jonathon DeHaven who is head of the rare books division at the Library of Congress comes to a mysterious end. His heart stops. The Camel Club are intrigued by their friend’s strange death and they dig ever further into a twisting tale about spies and corruption with a side-story about con-men and casinos (a tale probably worth its own day in the sun under the cover of a whole new novel). Without spoiling the story, The Collectors comes together in a way that doesn’t quite tie up all of the loose ends and lets the reader write those last lines…

Let me put it this way… many novels fail because you get the sense that they’re fluffing the words to fill the pages. They fail because they spend too long telling the story of the scenery such as where the lamp is located in a room and the ambient green on a wall or irrelevant social paraphenalia that litters every character’s (and real person’s) life. Baldacci has a great knack of telling the story and leaving you to follow along figuring things out as you go. That’s intelligent writing for intelligent readership and to do so should be the aim of any storyteller.

So all I can really tell you about this one is that real lovers of the novel will curl up for the weekend on the sunroom futon with brief interludes for coffee and light snacks feeling compelled to reopen and continue the story. Its one of those pick up and don’t put down end-to-end experiences. If you get a chance to read this second installment of The Camel Club you won’t be disappointed. Everything I expect and hope for from a lazy weekend on the futon.

Bring on further installments in the Camel Club series. Please.

I don’t usually review or recommend novels because to be honest most of the ones I read are grist for the mill of paperback mass consumerism – spy novels, a bit of horror, and intrigue of some nature. However, Ines of my Soul by Isabel Allende (also more readily available in bookstores as paperback) was a present I bought for my partner Linden last year and having finally read it myself I’m impressed by just how brilliant a novel Isabel Allende has written.

Almost forgotten, the life of Ines Suarez in the 1500′s was one of pivotal importance to the conquest and development of Chile, alongside larger than life historic figures which have been far better recorded. I won’t ruin the story by recounting the plot blow for blow but after a measured beginning it draws you into a compelling adventure and tragic story… on the one hand there is the feeling of triumph of conquest, but at the same time the cruelty and cost of the barbaric wars against the Chileans and the indominatable Mapuche to the South leaves a bitter taste in one’s mouth about being European by descent.

This is probably not a book for those feeble hearted who disdain violence. It is a very violent book and accedes to the glory of war that was Spain in the 1500′s. But it is a book about the real culture displaced by the Conquistadors and the greed that drove the conquest, alongside the people who wanted a fair and just world away from Spain.

Ultimately we are where we are in world history and there is little doubt that stronger countries will have devoured weaker ones. South America would have fallen to European might one way or another. It would be unrealistic to imagine the Americas, Australia and anywhere else remaining indigenous forever given the tools and the trade of the real world. However, Ines of my Soul has a brilliant way of dancing around the reality and hardship and sheer brutality of conquest while putting faces and names and lives to the historic events such as the founding of Santiago and the conquest of Chile.

Highly recommended if you’re in the market for a good read. The real sign of a good novel is when you realise toward the very end you never checked the page numbers a single time.