MemeMachineGo!

I just read The Song Is You by Arthur Phillips, based on a recommendation on Ken Jennings' blog. A Jeopardy 5-time champion writes a novel that includes a Jeopardy champion? Yeah, I'm there.

It's a frustrating book. The prologue is a tremendous bit of writing. I read it aloud to Pocahontas. It makes me care more about whether a shouted audience request on a concert LP made it onto the CD re-release than most fiction ever makes me care about whether people live or die.

The prose sometimes hits the same heights as the prologue, but it's in service of a story that grows increasingly strained, culminating in the most contrived situation I've ever seen an author ask me to take seriously, bedroom farce played straight.

I did enjoy the Jeopardy champion, though. He's a minor character, our hero's brother, the kind of verging-on-Asperger's know-it-all I've encountered often in fandom and geekdom. (And, yes, the kind of verging-on-Asperger's know-it-all other people have encountered when they've met me.) I'm wishing now (as I often end up doing) that I hadn't been quite so prompt about returning it the book to the library, so I could share some choice passages about him, like how he'd argue contrarian positions until his victim capitulated, then he'd disprove whatever his assertion had been.

But, in conclusion, I'd advise reading the prologue and skipping the rest. But I thought enough of Phillips' writing that I plan to give The Egyptologist a try.