The Girl in the Spider's Web

An exceptional novel that I almost gave up on in the beginning.  As bad as the first 1/4 or 1/3 was, the book picks up speed and quality after the death of a noted computer specialist--and the emergence of Lisbeth Salander.  Whether by design or by accident, the book becomes extremely good after she emerges.  Her character meshes everything and everyone else, and makes it all work.  Before she appears, it all flounders.

The four books have the same tagline on the front cover: "A Lisbeth Salander novel."  Though Mikael Blomkvist is also in all four books, Salander, again, is the fulcrum that powers the works.  David Lagercrantz, taking over for Stieg Larsson, undoubtedly knows this.  But you wouldn't know that at first, as Lisbeth is behind the curtain and is only barely even spoken of.  Larsson notoriously hindered his last novel by doing the same to her--keeping Lisbeth prone in a hospital obviously paralyzed her movements, and when Lisbeth isn't moving, neither is the book she's in.

And so I have to believe that it is by design that she doesn't appear for awhile here.  Maybe Lagercrantz believed he was building tension, or maybe he believed he didn't have an open door for her until he finally did.  I don't know, but these books don't work like Dracula did; the more you didn't see the Count in the book, the more mysterious and terrifying he became.  Salander isn't like that.  She's not terrifying (except maybe to the men who hate women); she's kinetic.  She bristles with energy and fury.  (Maybe her fury gives her this hyperactivity and kinetic energy.)  It's possible that Lagercrantz believed he could offer up too much of a good thing by making her appear too early.  If so, he's probably right, as it's really not possible that someone of her limited physicality could actually brim with as much energy and survive the shocks her flesh was heir to.  (I'm a rather hyperactive slim guy, but I haven't been shot multiple times, or been abused as she had been in her youth and in the first book.)

The writing is very Nordic Noir: very dry, very "Just the facts, ma'am," and very specific.  In the beginning, this was to the point of being pedantic, and it almost became stale before Lisbeth appeared.  Then, the writing fit her persona, and it all took off.  Lagercrantz also does a good job playing the cards he's been dealt by the first three books, and then running with them.  Though his writing is a little different from Stieg Larsson's, by the end it does seem possible that Larsson could have written this.  None of the characters do anything they shouldn't do.  They don't behave strangely or do strange things.  There is a relationship that gets downplayed here, but I was expecting that.  For this series to take off with Larsson's passing, one relationship had to sort of cool, and one had to sort of subtly pick up.  If you've read all the books, you should be expecting it, too.

And, finally, Lagercrantz somehow manages to flesh out Salander here, without going too far.  He does toe the line, but he doesn't cross it, and what we learn and see of her past is worthwhile, riveting, and completely at home with her character.  There are also some very interesting premises here, including a neat little section that shows how computer intelligence has increased in just five years.  This section posits the question: What would happen when a computer can learn by itself, and fix its own mistakes?  A character wonders what a computer would think when it realized it's owner--who can turn it off, remove its insides, and essentially kill it--is much less intelligent than it is.  It all sounded too uncomfortably like a computer very soon could be some sort of HAL, Skynet, Blade Runner hybrid.  This stuff alone made the book interesting and worthwhile to read.  It all stays just on the good side of info-dump.  As in Larsson's books--and as in the genre itself--there is a lot of character-explaining here, and they sometimes talk a little too long, longer than it seems that real people do.  But, again, it stays just on the good side, and it never slows down the pace of the book once the pace establishes itself.

And so finally this book was a winner for me.  It's clearly better than the third Larsson book, possibly better than the second, and equal to the first.  Possibly it's better than any of them.  You should read it.

P.S.--Unlike most book series, this book builds upon and needs the other three, and so the reader should read each of those before he reads this.

Terminator: Genisys

If you like action movies with great visuals and a reminder of your movie-going past, this is the summer action movie for you.  But if you're looking for a really good sequel that moves the story of the Connor family, with Reese and a cyborg and a liquid-metal thing duking it out in present-day, in 1984, and in future L.A.--well, you'll be a bit disappointed here.

Maybe it's unfair to compare, as James Cameron's first two films were almost perfect movies of their type.  Plus, this latest is more of a reboot than a sequel, and the ending practically shows you how the next one will start.  Some movie needed to veer the series off its finished course, and this was it.

But there's still a lot wrong.  Some of them include (and, yes, there may be SPOILERS here):

* Ah-nuld's Terminator (and perhaps Ah-nuld himself) should never be called "Pops."  By anyone.  Even his own kids.

* Exposition and info-dump are sometimes necessary in films like this, but such info. needs to be delivered by someone who speaks English better than Ah-nuld does.  It's not that he doesn't speak the language well; it's that he doesn't enunciate it well, and it's grating in a movie if you have to listen to him and figure it out.

* This movie tries way too hard to be as "funny" as the second one.  I never found that one as amusing as many did, either, mostly because Edward Furlong's voice sounded like someone had just stepped on a cat's tail.

* James Cameron understood that story trumps special effects.  Genisys doesn't.

* Ah-nuld's smile is more creepy than funny.  It's even creepier since it's creepy-trying-to-be-funny.

* Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor was as jacked as a movie heroine is likely to ever get, surpassing even Sigourney Weaver's Ripley.  Emilia Clarke, playing a Sarah Connor who has known since she was nine that she would grow up to be kick-ass Sarah Connor, needed to be just as buff here.  She wasn't.  Part of the problem is that Emilia Clarke couldn't get jacked because she has to be in Game of Thrones, too.  (Daenarys as a buff dragon queen simply wouldn't work at this point.)  Another problem is that she's simply too pretty in a soft-looking kind of way.  And maybe she always will be.  (Linda Hamilton was just as pretty, jacked or not.)  But she's soft, and she stays that way.

* Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese, in this movie, have zero chemistry.  When they kiss and declare their love for each other (they have to, or John Connor doesn't get born), you won't believe it.  To be fair to the actors, the script gives them zero chance to actually fall in love, anyway.

* Jai Courtney was also in the last Die Hard movie, which worked as an awesome action movie, but failed miserably in its attempt to be a Die Hard movie.  This movie works the same.  A good action / special effects movie.  A bad Terminator movie.

* And Michael Biehn needs to get more credit for his role.  Jai Courtney does not measure up here.

* Emilia Clarke tries her best, but she doesn't exactly catch Linda Hamilton's grasp of the character.

* The original, 1984 Terminator and the sequel's liquid metal monster are done away in quick fashion here, to mostly good effect.  The biggest problem of the movie, though, is that the real villain is (SPOILER) John Connor, and that absolutely does not work. Sarah doesn't seem to care that it's her son killing everyone (though, of course, he kind of isn't, yet) and Reese doesn't, either.  It's a mess.

* The script also mandates that John Connor was fooling everyone all the time, including in his rare scenes from 1984.  Though he could be considered a victim of SkyNet when Reese was sent back, he just doesn't hold up in any way as a good villain.  And it's 3 (often, 4 or 5) against 1, which seems unfair.

* This is a concept movie that never unveils itself.  SkyNet is the internet, of course.  And this movie, much like the second, is a warning about letting computers run everything.  (WarGames and every other flick of this type were, too.)  This one goes the extra step and posits the dangers of being too connected, via phone, laptop, iPad, iPhone, or whatever the hell your electronic addiction is.  But it loses its own point amidst the failed attempts at humor and significance.  This movie would've been much better had it just played it straight.

* And it doesn't cover any new ground at all, since it tries to follow the first two, yet break off from them, at the same time.  (It pretends the 3rd and 4th ones never happened, which perhaps we should as well.)  Maybe you can't do both simultaneously.  (And there was a nice tip of the cap to Cameron and his famous True Lies scene, too.)

Well, you get the idea.  It's a good action flick, and I didn't feel like I'd wasted my money or time, but beware that it is what it is, and it's not what it tries to be.  Do not expect a Cameron Terminator.