Book Log 2009 #28: Flashforward by Robert Sawyer

Two scientists at CERN are trying to find the Higgs boson, and when they run an experiment designed to do that it instead plunges everyone in the planet into a two minute vision of their futures. While this leads to world-wide catastrophe in the immediate moment (from people having their vision while driving, flying a plane, etc.), in the longer term it leads to questions about why this happened, and if the visions of the future can be changed.

It's an interesting premise, and it plays out among the characters at CERN in various ways, though not always smoothly. There's also a subplot involving a very old man in Toronto that winds up impacting the end of the book in an unexpected way. One that I didn't quite care for, to be honest.

I'd not have sought the book out except that it's the basis for one of ABC's new show next season. Promos aired during Lost even before the new show was officially picked up, which is unusual. And as the concept tied in with the way Lost has played with time, I'm likely to watch the new show as well. I just hope it's done better than the book. The link for the book above is to another review, which I usually don't do but it better addressed some of the specific problems than I could this far past reading it.

Book Log 2009 #27: The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss

Liss crosses the pond for this novel, set during the early years of American independence. The story moves between a disgraced ex-spy surviving on the margins in Philadelphia as a sort of detective and a brilliant widow whose frontier experiences have brought her back to that city to seek both revenge and fortune.

It's another well-written historical/financial thriller for Liss, who's found a pretty original niche for himself. He's also staked out some territory by including Jewish characters in his book, providing insight into the lives of Jews at the various times and places he'd written about. In this case, though, the Jewish character is more of a supporting player, so we don't get much of a picture of what life was like for Jews in early America, which is an unfortunate change from the earlier books. Still, worth a read.

There are things we take for granted that are simple yet serve and important function. Witness the aglet, the plastic or metal cap at the ends of a shoelace. It has no intrinsic value, but if you ever lose one, it makes it next to impossible to relace the shoe. On the other end of things, we have things that are, in some fashion, so complex that it's easier not to think of them, like the electrical grid or gravity.

In between these points, we have the human back. Muscle, bone, nerves and connective tissue, all critically important to a variety of processes. Walking, standing, sitting, lifting, turning, there's not much by way of human movement that doesn't, at some stage, involve the back. But, like aglets or gravity, it's something we tend to take for granted.

Usually.

I stopped taking it for granted last weekend, when my lower back decided to remind me just who was in charge. I have no idea what caused the problem (the wife thinks it was an awkward movement while separating car seat and stroller, which sounds about right), but the results were not long in coming:

Friday afternoon: Felt a twinge, took two Aleve. In past moments of back and hip discomfort, this usually takes care of things.

Friday night: Twinge is still there, maybe even a little worse. Took another Aleve, put a couple pillows behind me for support when sitting, but no other changes.

Saturday morning: Getting out of bed requires a variety of hand holds on any furniture within arm's length. I can walk - barely - with a fair amount of pain and over short distances, using the wall for support. When upright, I can feel the muscles in my lower back seize up, which is a new experience for me.

We try a heat pad to loosen things up, but it doesn't work. So it's off to spend our Saturday morning at the hospital. But when we get there, we discover that they're running some sort of disaster drill. We're stopped as we turn into the road that leads to the hospital, and asked if we're there for the drill or actual care. We reply the latter, and are given a green tag for the dashboard. This allows us to get by the next two checkpoints, but we do have to weave through a variety of first responders, volunteers and emergency vehicles to actually get to the Emergency drop-off.

Which, of course, is manned by someone who is also checking to see if people are there for the drill or for treatment. The guy asks me to stop at the door, but before he can say anything else a woman comes by and he leaves with her. I think he intended that I'd wait for him to return. I did not. He actually followed me into the ER when he was done with the woman, so if nothing else if we do have a disaster up here, we certainly have the right people to handle traffic flow, if nothing else.

Saturday morning is thr right time to go to the Beverly Hospital ER, as our entire visit was no longer than 90 minutes. It wasn't especially crowded; there was one mother with two kids who spent more time on her cell phone than minding her kids, one of whom apparently needed some sort of medication, and a woman who I know but haven't seen in some time, who chatted with the wife while I was being seen.

(The wife gets this semi-regularly, running into people she doesn't really know but who know me and know that we're married. Though in this case I don't know why the woman just didn't say hi while I was out there.)

Anyway, I get called and spend the next 20 minutes sitting in a room wearing shorts and a johnnie (I think we can all be thankful that they let me keep my shorts on). In this time, the woman with the kids winds up down the hall, and in the 20 minutes I was waiting they managed to get the nurse manager to come in and cause a panic when one of the kids yanked the emergency call switch in the room. Things quieted down after that; I assume the hospital had someone babysit the room from that point.

Once the doctor showed up, he spent about five minutes checking breathing, heart beat and leg movement before deciding it was a muscle problem and not an issue with discs or the like. I got various scrips and was sent packing.

And by that afternoon, I felt pretty good, well enough to hang out downstairs as if nothing happened. Which worked well, for a while. But it wasn't too long before things locked up again, at which point I put myself to bed... for nearly three days. This is the longest period I've ever spent laid up like that, and I don't recommend it. As bad as it was for me, I was also mad that I'd put the wife in a position where she had to do all the work with the baby and take care of me. I tried to minimize the amount of time she needed with me, but it was still hard on her, and I'm grateful - but not surprised - that she managed the situation in fine form. I think she only wanted to kill me once. Maybe twice.

But as the saying goes, time - and drugs - heal all woujnds, and by Wednesday I was able to get around enough to go to the baby's two month check up and into work. I'm still a little tender with some movements (getting into the car, for example), but I'd say I'm 85 percent and rising.

So whatever you plan on doing today, take a second to think about your back, and where you'd be if you were stuck on it for the weekend (and not in a good way).

Book Log 2009 #26: The Lost Army of Cambyses byPaul Sussman

A British herpetologist and an Egyptian police detective independently investigate the killing of an archaeologist (the herpetologist's semi-estranged father), which is apparently linked to a relic he purchased as a souvenir and a major terrorist organization, who want the relic to help find the titular lost army so they can sell the antiquities at the find to finance their operations.

Generally, the book is pretty standard thriller material, another book suited for reading while traveling. The depiction of the police detective is worth noting, as he's one of the rare Muslim main characters I've run across in the last few years who is a regular guy, not all that different from a police detective in any other large city.

I don't know if that makes the book any more worth reading, but it's something.

Book Log 2009 #25: Tsar by Ted Bell

This is apparently the fifth book featuring master spy Alexander Hawke, a Brit who does all the expected spy things while saving the world. He's like James Bond, but prefers rum to martinis and rides a motorcycle rather than drive an Aston Martin. I assume he has a thing for the ladies, too, but in this book he's monogamous (making this the analogue to On Her Majesty's Secret Service, I suppose).

Anyway, it's a perfectly servicable spy thriller about a Russian inventor who wants to revive the monarchy and become the new tsar (I'm also assuming that Bell likes one word titles that are a little on the nose). It's the sort of book you'd read while commuting or on a plane or on vacation, engrossing enough to pass the time. I don't feel particularly compelled to go back and read the previous entries in the series.

Bell is a former ad exec, which may explain why the brand for pretty much every item mentioned is given in the text. That's a little off-putting.