Adventure Novels

Hey! After having the worst week ever I was cheered up by the arrival of book packages. This joy was undiminished by the fact that the surly postman actually chucked the packages at my window when I didn't answer the door fast enough. I also had an unfortunate incident with my mobile phone; thanks to general lameness my mobile can no longer do anything except text and call people. Hence, I can no longer lock my phone. So when I took my phone out of my bag this morning, I discovered that I had sent 8 texts to some guy called Aaron. I don't think I've ever met this person and I definitely don't know why I have his number. Our only interaction so far is that for the last few weeks since my phone lost its ability to lock itself, it's been going crazy and sending loads of text to some guy I've never met. Today he decided to do something about it. He sent me a text which said can you please stop sending me these texts. I wanted to tell the truth which was "I'm not sending you these texts...It's all the phone! The phone is evil! Save yourself! Instead I had to give a socially acceptable answer (i.e. a lie). I texted back. "Sorry. My phone can no longer lock itself. I'm getting it fixed tomorrow". Why did I say that? Now I may have to spend my weekend going to a phone shop...Lame. When recounting this text correspondence to my friend (known as T for Tinpot), she texted back that I seemed to have an adventurous life. She said the same thing when I texted her to inform her that having missed the ferry I was now spending 9 hours in a small town in Wales.

   The main point of this is that clearly people's definitions of adventure differ. My adventures seem to consist of encounters with weirdos who chuck things at me, missing ferries, and getting text yelled at by a stranger. Meanwhile the types of adventures I enjoy reading about are (unsurprisingly) very different from the above scenarios. Here follows the best authors of adventure novels I've read.

   Katherine Neville-Author of the Eight, A Calculated Risk, The Magic Circle and The Fire.
Scenario: Driving across America because my father thought that an American road trip would be fun (Top tip: Driving down the 101 is not 'magical', it's three hours staring at trees and wondering why Phantom Planet lied to me). We stopped at a petrol station and it was here I found the Eight. The Eight was so good that even though the road trip was not to end for another few days at this point I made my peace with it. The Eight is a book with two parallel stories, one set just before and then during the French revolution and one set in the US and Algeria in 1972. Our main character Catherine Velis works as an auditor who makes recomendations to companies. Owing to an ethical dispute with her boss the partners decide to send her to a backwater in order to punish her-so they send her to Algeria to investigate the development of a little thing called OPEC... What I like about the adventure genre in general is that most plot lines are based around geopolitics, history, religion, scientific innovations and superstition. As a result they tend to expand your horizons whilst providing you with hours of entertainment. Katherine Neville is not afraid to have real historical people as her characters (although this gets unnerving when a character in the Magic Circle which all the other characters refer to as Lucky and seem to like very much turns out to be Hitler. Hitler as a struggling artist but still; really didn't see it coming although when you read the book this plotline actually makes perfect sense. Katherine Neville has been involved in various different careers during her life (including being a computer programme and was actually an international consultant to the Algerian government during the creation of OPEC! And even though oil prices are now much higher then they were pre-OPEC, by the end of the Eight you can definitely see the rationale from the OPEC countries' perspective. Not owning a car I'm not immediately impacted by changes in oil prices so my main contribution to the subject is that it seems a shame that these countries didn't immediately plow back most of these gains into health and education programmes for their people like Norway did. But then Norway is probably the closest thing to heaven on earth. But as one of the founders of OPEC, a Venezuelan diplomat, Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso said, "Ten years from now, twenty years from now, you will see: oil will bring us ruin … Oil is the Devil’s excrement". From a policy point of view it must be incredibly difficult to deal with a boom that's not of your economy's own making; it overvalues your currency, causing your home industries to become relatively uncompetitive, as well as triggering separatist movements, such as in Angola or Scotland. Anyway, the best thing about Katherine Neville's novels is that they all provide food for thought.

   The foundation of OPEC is only one of many plotlines during the Eight. The main one is centred around the Montglane Service, a chess set once owned by Charlemagne, sought by many over the years because it contains within it the code that will lead to the the ultimate discovery. I also like the human factor in the Eight, with Lily and her ridiculous dog being pretty much my favourite characters.

   A Calculated Risk is ultimately a story about the role of computers in banking. It's also a love story and accountability in finance. The characters are very vivid and the story flows well. Even if the premise doesn't sound like something you'd be interested in I would definitely urge you to consider trying them. Katherine Neville writes well and interestingly on issues that have a regrettable tendency to be discussed on a very technical basis. A bad author with a popular topic can write a book people can buy (witness the romantic novel industry; by this I mean Sara Craven), but an excellent author can write around a dull premise and produce interesting results. The Magic Circle is also pretty good but is definitely the most difficult to follow as it has the largest cast of characters (although I bet you won't forget that the Hitler character is known as Lucky by his friends!). Meanwhile, The Fire is the follow up to The Eight. I felt things were pretty much fine as they were but this book didn't really do any harm to The Eight and it was quite nice to catch up with your favourite characters and see where their lives had taken them.

   Douglas Preston& Lincoln Child: Books I would recommend from these two would include Riptide and all the Pendergast novels. Pendergast, an FBI agent, is an abnormally pale man from the Southern states of America with blonde hair with a lot of family money as well as a lot of family secrets. This is one of those series when you realise how strongly the creation of a character dictates the storyline rather than the character responding to events from the storyline. This series strongly features the New York History Musuem which really makes me want to a) go there and b) work there (I assume that the high homicide rate of museum employees was dramatic license on the part of the authors). Starting with Relic, this series is a strong combination of science and supernatural events. The main professions featured in these novels are that are Anthropology, the New York Police Department, journalism (Smithback the journalist is hilarious and definitely my favourite character) and Medicine. The series first started out based around New York, but then started to follow Pendergast solely. Still Life with Crows for example, is based in Kansas. Each book rewards you with more information about Pendergast's life, yet at the same time leaves you wanting more. The main thing you learn is that his family are definitely in the gifted but loopy category. All the characters in this series are strong with their own distinctive voice and motivations. Unlike some adventure novels which rely on one action scence after another some of the most spine tingling moments take place while all the characters are in a room discussing the mystery. I can also definitely say that I have never guessed who the villain is until it's actually revealed, which is one of the best things you can say about an adventure novel. I cannot recommend the Pendergast series strongly enough. They are truly excellent and what doesn't make you paranoid keeps you informed.