Book Reviews: “Armada,” “Day Four,” “Slade House,” and “Two Years, Eight Months, and 28 Nights”

We now step firmly into genre work with two spooooky ghost stories, a rousing sci-fi adventure, and Salman Rushdie’s excellent meditation on Jinn as an allegory for terrorism.

Two Years, Eight Months, and Twenty Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie…Terrific novel that starts a little slow, but builds up to a terrific conclusion as it becomes clear that this story about Jinn is really an allegory for religious terrorism and really the need to end mysticism in our own world before it devours us. By turns a sharp critique of the dehumanizing comic-con culture that has swallowed our time whole (when was the last time you saw a big-budget movie that didn’t have a fantasy/sci-fi element to it? One that was about real people?) while also an embrace of the wonder (and terror) that can be brought by seeing the impossible. If the novel loses you in the first 100 pages, don’t worry because it more than makes up for it by the end. Grade: A

Slade House by David Mitchell…You’ll need to read Rushdie’s book after this one so you won’t be afraid of the dark anymore, because this haunted house tale is seriously unnerving. It leapfrogs through time as this sinister house tricks unsuspecting guests into it every few years, at first seeming like the perfect place before morphing into something terrifying. This is a ghost story that has less to do with spirits than quantum physics (and “soul vampire” psychics) but I enjoyed the richness of the world-building. Grade: B+

Day Four by Sarah Lotz…A scary novel set on a cruise ship where seriously ominous things are happening, and the phony “mystic” on board may be channelling actual spirits after a stroke. I don’t want to reveal too many of the twists and turns, but this book is excellent all the way to the ending that feels both surprising and inevitable. As an added bonus, it’s the best book I’ve ever read about cruise ship culture—from the ridiculously arrogant Italian captains to the Asian maids/wage-slaves to the guests—and the book’s hilarious asides balance out the plot nicely. Grade: A

Armada by Ernest Cline…I was a fan of Cline’s debut novel “Ready Player One” and so were a lot of other people apparently as Steven Spielberg signed on to direct the film adaptation. However, lightening doesn’t exactly strike twice in this follow-up about a boy who’s really good at videogames getting a chance to play for real against an alien army. Although the ending—and what the aliens actually want—is a great twist, too much of the novel getting to that point feels like filler. If you want to read a truly great series about a teenager having space battles, check out Pierce Brown’s “Red Rising” trilogy instead. Grade: B