photo credit: Dunechaser

I have resurfaced

from another marathon reading session. It’s not by my choosing, I’ve been gripped by a force beyond my ken. There I was, struggling through ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ like a good little literary reader, when a friend of mine suggested I take a look at this book here, have a flick through, see if you like it. I assured him I would and placed said book on my bedside table. There are two more, he said, casually offering to bring them over the next day. The next day, I scoffed, maybe in a couple of weeks when I’ve cleared my backlog. He smiled a small smile and nodded, saying he’d bring them over anyway, just in case. I assured him it wouldn’t be necessary and continued on with Hardy a second thought*. Later that night I put down my Penguin-orange classic and picked up his book. When I emerged, several hours later, I knew I was in trouble. I paced the floor waiting for my friend to bring the other two over, snatching them off his hands in a motion akin to Smeegul on a crack binge. Since then I have been enveloped, gripped, ensnared by the irritatingly over-used un-put-down-able.

The un-put-down-able. It’s an evil thing. A book that you know in your heart of hearts could probably have been written by the garbage man, but which contains some magical essence, some indefinable quantity that the author has managed to instil within it. It is the stuff that bestsellers are made of. It’s probably the same stuff as the Colonel’s 7 secret herbs and spices are made of. It is what makes you leap from page to page in a desperate, frenzied effort to finish the story before the sun comes up and you are forced to admit that you have stayed up on a Friday night later than you have in weeks just to read a frickin’ book. Dan Brown has a store of it in his cellar, at least enough for half-a-dozen more book-to-movie deals. Steven King has some on a locket around his neck that he snorts twice a day, once in the morning and again when he’s finished another novel.

And after this week’s binge, it seems we can add Matthew Reilly to the list of authors that have discovered the recipe for the un-put-down-able. It’s good to see another Australian on the list. His books read like an action movie, except his action movies are to normal action movies what fantasy football is to regular football. It’s as if he has laid out every action movie in existence in the palm of his hand and thought, you know what? I reckon I can do better mate. And fuck me if he didn’t just go ahead and do that. I’ve read interviews where it is related with relish that it took a heck of a lot of submissions to get someone to publish his novels. My brain cannot comprehend this; the slush pile administrators of the time must have been a bunch of rom-com loving Dullsville inhabitants. How could they have rejected a book where an elite trained sniper can unsling a mother-lovin’ Barrett from his back and shoot an equally mother lovin’ (in my world, weaponry cares for their Mama) Stinger missile out of the sky? There is absolutely nothing in existence that can better that last sentence. Except almost the entirety of the rest of the action in the novels. Just when you think that the latest cliffhanger was thrown over the hangiest of cliffs, he goes and finds one that is even hangier! It’s ridiculous! Anyway, enough of my incredulity. I need to find out if Jack West Jnr can survive yet another inescapably fatal situation.

*I am truly sorry for that attempt at a pun. Consider it Hardy’s fault, nothing he’s involved in could ever intentionally bring a smile.

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