Camouflage

Camouflage by Joe Haldeman

Penguin, 2005
ISBN-13: 9780441012527

mass market paperback, 289 pages

science fiction

recommended

Synopsis:

Unknown to anyone, two creatures have wandered the Earth for generations. The aliens have no knowledge of each other: but share a residual memory of a mysterious sunken relic - and an affinity for deep water. One, the changeling, has survived by adaptation, taking the shapes of many different organisms. The other, the chameleon, has survived soley by destroying anything or anyone that threatens it.

Now, finally brought up from the bottom of the sea by marine biologist Russell Sutton, the relic calls to them both... to come home. For all these generations there have been two invincible creatures on Earth. But the chameleon has decided there's only room for one.

My Thoughts:

Camouflage follows three storylines, that of two alien shape shifters and the mystery of a metal artifact bought up from the ocean floor. The story explores what it means to be human, although this is sometimes done in disturbing ways. It is basically a very entertaining and successful novel - until the end, at which point I found it incredulous, unbelievable, and abrupt in comparison to the rest of the story. It is a Nebula Award winner. I'm torn on the rating for this one because of the ending but I'm not going to spoil it and tell you what bothers me. Recommended

Quotes:

The monster came from a swarm of stars that humans call Messier 22, a globular cluster ten thousand light-years distant. opening

A million years before the monster's man is born and its story begins, one such vessel splashes into the Pacific Ocean. It goes deep, following an instinct to hide. the creature that it carried to Earth emerges, assesses the situation, and becomes something appropriate for survival. pg. 2

"The trench is seven miles deep there. The artifact is under another forty feet of sand."

"Earthquake?"

He nodded. "A quarter of a million years ago."

Russ stared at him for a long moment. "Didn't I read about this in an old Stephen King novel?" pg. 6

"We tried to get a sample of the metal for analysis. It broke every drill bit we tried on it."

"Diamond?"

"It's harder than diamond. And massive. We can't estimate its density, because we haven't been able to budge it, let alone lift it." pg. 7

It walked down the beach toward the lights of San Guillermo, a strapping handsome young man, duplicated down to the fingerprints, a process that had taken no thought, but an hour and a half of agony.

But it couldn't speak any human language and its bathing suit was on backward. It walked with a rolling sailor's gait: except for the one it had just killed, every man it had seen for the past century had been walking on board a ship or boat." pg. 10

...he didn't like this boy, and for some reason was afraid of him. Maybe it was his psychiatric residency in the penal system - maybe he was projecting from that unsettling time. But he always felt Jimmy was studying him intently, the way the intelligent prisoners had: what can I get out of this man?

A better psychiatrist might have noticed that the changeling treated everyone that way. pg. 20

The Divide

If you tend to like the same books I give favorable reviews to, you may want to avoid reading Nicholas Evans' The Divide. Originally published in 2005, my paperback copy has 499 pages. The blurb on the cover promised a whole lot more than Evans' delivered. It was also a bit too much of a woman's novel for my tastes. Pineapple, pineapple, pineapple.

From Amazon:

This fourth novel lacks the power and intensity of Evans's debut, The Horse Whisperer (1995), and it's not nearly as carefully written. A pretty, upper-middle-class girl is discovered frozen in Montana ice and is soon identified as Abbie Cooper, wanted for murder by the FBI. After a promising beginning that introduces a colorful cast of Montana locals, Evans breaks off and flashes back to Abbie's upbringing in suburban New York, and centers the book on Abbie's now-divorced parents, Ben and Sarah. Evans follows the Coopers' high-end careers and estrangement from their domestic lives in meticulous, mind-numbing detail; their separation propels the already idealistic Abbie into the arms of Rolf, a shadowy eco-terrorist. As Abbie's Patty Hearst-like adventures in the eco-underworld slowly unfold, Ben takes up with Sante Fe-based artist Eve, and Sarah is left alone with son Josh, who emerges late in the novel as an improbable principal. Compelling minor characters like Sheriff Charlie Riggs and besieged ranchers Ray and Martha Hawkins are largely wasted. All winds down to a sadder, wiser, relatively reconciled ending that conforms to the norms of family drama, and of romance. The most vivid thing in the book is the wrangling early on over Abbie's remains.

The Wall

The Wall by Jeff Long was great, however reading during a time when you are moving half way across the country perhaps didn't give The Wall the full attention it deserved. I left off reading for almost a week when a survivor was found on El Cap and the tension was palpable. I'm highly recommending it because although I wanted to finish it, I simply wasn't physically able to right away and because the ending really surprised me. The Wall was originally published in 2006 and my paperback copy was 384 pages long.

From Amazon:

A widowed geologist makes one final, perilous attempt to scale Yosemite's El Cap and winds up running for his life in Long's atmospheric, aggressive thriller (after The Reckoning). Hugh Glass and his climbing buddy Lewis Cole revisit the mountain where 35 years earlier, they shared glory on the 3,600-foot-high monolith and met the women they would marry. Now, years later, Hugh's wife has vanished and Lewis's is divorcing him. Ascending El Cap, Hugh and Lewis yearn for their wives and are humbled by nature's rapture. Their last-ditch adventure is marred by the discovery of a body—one of three fallen climbers—and an encounter with Joshua, a malevolent old "caveman" who steals the corpse. Long casts the dramatic natural setting as a major player in the story and imparts fascinating facts about the art of rock-climbing. Joshua's reappearance and a forest fire complicate the climbers' trek, before a search and rescue guide who seeks his missing fiancée joins them. Lewis abandons the expedition, but increasingly paranoid Hugh continues on, joining the shifty guide to find the other lost climbers just as a violent storm heads their way. The surprise ending is a true shocker in this hurtling, gripping read.