FEB - The Island of Dr. Moreau

February review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2016: The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells, 1896. [Takes Place on an Island category]

The Island of Dr. Moreau is a classic, one I've been meaning to read for a long time. Thank you, Orphan Black, for giving me the final push! (Season 3 featured a secret encoded in a copy of this book by one of the scientists responsible for the clone experiments.) I'm not sure I really have much to say about The Island of Dr. Moreau, other than that it was a quick read that I enjoyed as well as felt a little off-put by. For those who are not familiar with this book, it is about a scientist, Dr. Moreau, who removes himself to a remote island after society discovers that he has been experimenting with something called vivisection, which is experimenting surgically on live animal subjects. The story is not told from his perspective, however, and he does not show up right away. Instead, we come to this island and experience its horrors through the eyes of a shipwrecked man named Prendick. Prendick is rescued by Montgomery, who is assisting with the delivery of a fresh crop of animals to his associate Moreau on their island, and through a number of mishaps, Prendick ends up joining the two men on the island as well, although he is not necessarily wanted. Prendick finds out what Moreau is doing on the island, following the anguished cries of animals to an off-limits lab where he conducts his vivisection experiments that he populates the island with. Everything pretty much goes downhill from there, although the real action only takes a few days, and the rest is just Prendick going slightly insane by himself on the island while he waits for a ship to pass by and pick him up.

After his experience, Prendick becomes somewhat of an island unto himself, a veritable social pariah, so paranoid and paralyzed is he by the things he has seen. I suppose anyone would be, after seeing both your living companions killed and the social experiment devolve into madness and violence and you have to survive it somehow. It is a bit hazy (to me; I could be remembering things incorrectly) how long Prendick spent on the island, but this seems very much in keeping with the island mentality, where time passes differently and the outside world has no hold on what comes to pass. Prendick spends much of the book yearning for the outside world, to escape the hellishness he is experiencing on the island, but when he finally re-enters society, he finds himself almost inclined to return to the solitude of his exile. This juxtaposition/reversal is one of many that Wells exploits in Prendick's tale.

H.G. Wells was lauded as a relatively prescient man, however extreme his version of the future might have been. Perhaps it is this prescience that allows his works, while clearly ensconced in the realm of science fiction, can still be so relevant today.

JAN - The Poet

January review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2016: The Poet by Michael Connelly, 1991. [Serial Killer Thriller category]

I started reading The Poet by Michael Connelly last year, originally intending it to be my selection for PI fiction, but I ended up putting it down because Jack McEvoy, the protagonist, is actually a reporter, and not a PI--although I suppose I could've argued a transference, I've made similar "edits" to categories before. But I was intrigued enough by the concept to want to find another opportunity for it to work for me, and lo and behold, here came "serial killer thriller" for me. Jack McEvoy is a crime reporter who specializes in death, covering the murder beat for his paper. His homicide detective twin brother was recently found dead in his car, having ostensibly killed himself after a particularly rough and unsolved case--or so it would seem. Going back over the facts obsessively, reopening old wounds and delving into a dark corner of his brother's work, McEvoy finds links to a number of other would-be cop suicides and is on the case, so to speak. After securing the assignment, he begins to follow the trail of a sinister serial killer whom the FBI nicknames The Poet, after his use of Edgar Allan Poe lines in the "suicides." The book follows McEvoy as he enmeshes himself into the federal pursuit of The Poet, utilizing his research and knowledge to propel the investigation as well as find the end to the story and justice for his brother.

One of the reasons I was excited about this book because of the Poe trope that was woven throughout, as I am a sucker for all things Poe, but unfortunately, Poe was not utilized as heavily as I wanted it to be. (But I was still happy that it was there.) I enjoyed the scenes where McEvoy sits with his copy of Poe's works and tries to find meaning in the deaths, try to link the words to some shred of wisdom or truth in the context of Poe. It was a very literary book, in that sense, paying much attention to the logic of meaning and outlining the path of detection. It was incredibly readable, despite being published 20 years ago, although there are dating elements, such as the revelation that digital photography was used representing a major break in the case. Not to mention, you know, print media moguls still being a thing. Ohhh mid-90s concerns.

One of the reasons I was not excited? Serial killers. Especially serial killers with surprise child pornography/pedophilia thrown in. This was not an easy book to read, especially considering the chapters narrated by a card-carrying child pornographer/murderer, William Gladden. At first, his chapters seem completely out of left field, but they soon begin to link up with the case--I am unsure if I was just actively ignoring him until the book slapped me in the face and told me they were connected, or it really wasn't that heavy-handed, but either way, I didn't see it right off the bat. I'm not sure what else to write about this aspect of the book, especially without giving away some of the twisty twists, but suffice it to say that it was an uncomfortable slog.

I  relished the presence of a strong lady in the book, FBI Special Agent Rachel Walling, the best of the best who clawed her way onto her team with her talent and badassery and is fiercely protective of her position there. Spoiler alert, she and McEvoy do sleep together, which is slightly annoying and maybe uncalled for, but I suppose it did add some elements of complication and tension to the case politics. But that's just it: was that the only reason they slept together? I don't know, maybe I'm jaded.

Although for the most part I enjoyed this book, I had a hard time getting started and writing this review, for whatever reason. Maybe it was the subject matter, maybe I just didn't find the little kernel to pull at me like I have in some of my other selections, but here I am, trucking through a month too late. Maybe I need to have an editor who yells at me to get my ass in gear, like McEvoy does--and then I could ignore him, like McEvoy does too!