Book 23 of 52: "Junkyard Planet" by Adam Minter

When I picked up Junkyard Planet, a book with a bright cover showing a huge heap of garbage (see the image above), I was expecting to find a doom-and-gloom depressing story about how we are creating far too much garbage, our current lifestyle is unsustainable, and how our world is basically going to fall apart in the near future because of our current practices.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this book is nothing like what I expected.

Strange Loops

I sat up with a gasp, a rush of adrenaline suddenly flooding through my veins as I clenched down at the stained table beneath me, staring around.

All around me, the bar looked just as it always did - shoddy, uncleaned, and with a smell all its own that slowly crept in and pervaded the nostrils.  I'd seen it a hundred times before, had spent more money here than I liked to think about.  I'd gotten drunk more times than I could count, had stumbled out across the uneven floor towards the sliding front door lock enough times to know every rut and pit in the synthstone that covered the ground underfoot.

I'd woken up here many times.

But none of them had ever felt like this.

I stood up, my legs erupting underneath me so violently that the cheap chair tumbled backwards onto the floor behind me.  My hands flew up to my chest, patting at the surface through my thin black shirt and all-weather Flex jacket, searching for a bullet hole that was no longer there.

No, I corrected myself.  Saying that the bullet hole was no longer there was wrong.

The hole wasn't there... yet.

Danni California, Part 16

Continued from Part 15, here.
Start the story here.

* * *

Most people, seeing the bridge ahead of their speeding train explode in a wave of fiery ignition, might have paused in shock, gasped, or wasted time on some other useless activity.

Those people weren't trained Priests.

As soon as my eyes registered that burst of flame, I knew the train was going down.  I spun around, rising up from my seat as I shoved my gun roughly back into its holster and out of the way.  One arm shot out, wrapping into a fist around a handful of Danni's shirt, and I hauled her up and out of the compartment.

A moment later, even despite the screeching of brakes as the train conductor frantically attempted to bring the massive vehicle to a halt, I felt us starting to tip.

The train was going over the edge.

Book 22 of 52: "The Mirror Crack'd" by Agatha Christie

Sometimes, I pick up a book because it has an amazing tagline or introduction, but I soon find that the author has failed to deliver on the potential of his or her plot premise.

For Agatha Christie's novels, on the other hand, I find that the opposite is what tends to be true.  Take this mystery, for instance.  This is a Miss Marple story, and already I'm less than interested - it's tough for me to see eye to eye with an elderly woman who has never even left her village, and tends to rely mostly on gossip to solve her murders.  And in this story, obviously written later in Christie's career, Marple is getting up in years, to the point where she is nearly house-ridden, and must rely on a nurse for much help.

If that was all I knew about this story, I would have put it down.

But I kept reading - and I'm glad that I did.

God and Lucifer switch places for a day....

Sometimes, Mephistopheles (Mephisto for short) reflected, souls arrived down at the Gates of Hell claiming that they could talk their way out of things, that this was all just one big misunderstanding.  These people were known to have "silver tongues."

But if these mere mortals had silver tongues, Mephisto's boss, Lucifer, possessed the singular golden tongue.

Mephisto had seen his boss charm them all.  He could talk a priest into becoming a killer, could convince the most selfless saint to turn his back on his fellow man.  Once, Mephisto swore, he'd seen his boss charm the very wings off of a butterfly.

And yet, right now, Lucifer was speechless...

Danni California, Part 15

Continued from Part 14, here.
Start the story here.

* * *

Jenny still didn't look fully convinced, but the young woman knew her place.  She closed her mouth, and although the man in black could tell that she was still full of unasked questions, she chose to let him continue with his story.

So, after giving her one last second to expel any outbursts, the man began speaking again.

*

I slid into the luxury car compartment across from Danni, making sure that she saw my pistol drawn and pressed against my thigh.  "One wrong move, and I'll shoot you before you can even think of standing up," I warned her.

The girl barely spared the gun a glance.  "I'm sure, Priest," she replied back to me, tossing her hair back over her shoulder.  She was the picture of carefree.

I waited perhaps a second longer, and then opened my mouth again.  "What do you have to say?" I asked.

Danni pursed her lips for a minute before replying.  "It just seems a bit cliche, doesn't it?" she finally remarked.  "I mean, I'm out here running around, living life, and you're the plodding hunter, sent here to chase after me and put an end to my fun."

"Fun?  You're stealing people's livelihoods!" I exploded back, surprising even myself with the intensity of my reply.  "Don't you think this is the punishment you deserve?"

But as soon as the words were out of my mouth, the girl was leaning forward, her eyes alive with blazing fire.  "I'm not stealing from anyone who doesn't have enough to give it up!" she shot back, glaring at me.  "The bank replaces all the money - and besides, if we all weren't dirt poor, I wouldn't be bothering with theft in the first place!"

"We?" I repeated.

Danni waved an arm around her.  "What, you don't think I'm hauling all my ill-gotten gains around with me, do you?" she asked, her tone making this remark seem cuttingly obvious.  "Where do you think it all goes?"

To my surprise, it was a question I hadn't considered.  And as I tried to figure out the answer, feeling my brain squirm as it was forced down new and unexpected pathways, Danni leaned forward.  She reached out, and I jumped slightly as her fingers landed on my knees.  My gun was still resting along one thigh, but she ignored it completely.  Her eyes burned holes straight through mine, into my soul.

"There are people, thousands of people, starving and dying out there," she murmured to me, her eyes not blinking or pulling away.  "There's no one helping them.  No one except me."

For a long moment, I was paralyzed.  I could do nothing but gaze into the bright, burning eyes of this young woman in front of me.

Finally, one of her hairs shifted a little, crossing her gaze, and the moment broke.  "That may be," I retorted, staring back at her, "but this isn't the way to help them.  You're going to get caught, and they'll be right back where they started."

The girl didn't back down.  "Caught by you?  Because this doesn't seem so bad."

I shook my head.  "After I missed, that first time, the Company sent others after you," I told her.  "They're probably hunting you, right now - I doubt they're far behind me."

"And what would they do?  Storm the train?" the girl asked.  Fortunately, she didn't ignore the serious tone of my voice, and she glanced around.

Once again, I shook my head back and forth.  "Trust me - I'm selective compared to some of their methods.  They're not above dynamiting the entire track, not caring about collateral damage."

Leaning forward, I glanced out the window of the train car.  "There - see that bridge, up ahead?  A few sticks of dynamite at the base of that, and the whole train would go tumbling into the river below.  A few hundred deaths, but you're the only death that matters.  That's a likely choice."

I caught Danni starting to open her mouth to reply, but before she could speak, a flash of orange lanced into my sight.

And just ahead of the train, that bridge I had pointed out was now disintegrating in a roar of flame...

To be continued . . . 

Book 21 of 52: "The Unmaking of the American Working Class" by Reg Theriault

I've been reading a lot of books about the fall of the middle class.  Why?  Well, I suppose because I fit pretty well into the middle class, and if the class is disappearing, I want to make sure that I get squeezed out the top, not the bottom.

Most of the books I've been reading are outside looks into the fall of the middle class, presented by the elite authors and with plenty of statistics to back up their claims.  This book, however, is different - since it's instead authored by a man who's been in the working class all his life.