Power Play

© 2007 Joseph Finder

St. Martin's Paperbacks

Summary

Jake Landry is a last-minute replacement at a middle-of-nowhere corporate retreat for high-level execs. His ex-girlfriend is the new CEO's personal assistant. While trying to juggle the business world with his former relationship, Jake finds himself as the hostage of hunters who have barged into the lodge.

My Thoughts

The words flowed nicely and were well chosen. Sometimes I encountered a word I didn't know (or had never bothered to verify the definition), and I would take a moment to check it out. But on average, the level of reading was fairly easy for an adult.

The number of characters to keep track of was slightly higher than I normally like. On occasion I would have to search for that character in previous chapters to recall what his or her role was in the story. Luckily the main characters were easy enough to remember and the bad guys were generally described in a manner that indicated they were not the good guys. I didn't need to know their histories. The other characters were either the execs or the lodge workers. If they spoke about business, they were execs. Everyone else worked at the lodge and didn't need to be memorable.

The business industry terms used in the book were pretty well explained by the author. There was a lot of aircraft-specific wording, but I wasn't playing Sherlock Holmes and I didn't need an in-depth knowledge of the industry. I was satisfied with the explanations provided. They gave me enough details to understand the plot and they seemed well researched and thought out.

The plot was interesting enough to keep me reading to the end, although I found myself questioning where it was going, especially during the first half of the story. The first half was mostly back story and character histories. Since there wasn't a lot of conflict in those, it got somewhat tedious and I would check the book's blurb to see what I should expect to encounter when the excitement started. The second half of the book consisted entirely of one main event. While the action was sometimes fast-paced, it was mostly too real-life seeming. Why was Jake the only one who could save the group, as the situation was described in the blurb? I thought the other execs should have had more courage to at least fight a little, but they simply sat back and awaited whatever fate the hostage-takers decided. The business-side of the story was so true to form that I was most scared by that. The hostage-taking had its moments, but since that doesn't happen to most people, it was more difficult to believe. But the bantering between the execs was downright freaky. While they are all tied up and guarded by men with guns, they are quibbling over who caused this situation to happen. Rather than try to find a way to escape, they clamored over each other in an attempt to reach the top levels of the company. Having seen this happen in real life, although under less hostage-filled situations, I was awestruck with how Joseph Finder created these characters and their endless need to prove themselves in the business world.

Overall, I rate this book a 7 out of 10.

My Kindle

I received an Amazon Kindle for my birthday this year. Although I absolutely love physical books, I have really fallen for my Kindle.

The Kindle makes one-handed reading so simple. No longer do I have to try to brace the book along the spine and then still use my other hand to turn the pages. I simply hold the book in one hand with my thumb near the "Next Page" button. There are 2 of "Next Page" buttons so I find myself able to hold the book in a variety of ways. It took me a couple of weeks before I could comfortably handle the device, though. I was constantly pushing a button by accident and having to get back to what I was doing. However, I discovered that this isn't any more unusual than turning two pages at once in a physical book. After the first two weeks, I was able to hold the Kindle and navigate better with it.

The text-size can be changed, making it easy for readers of all ages to view the words. At first I thought that the lack of a backlight would be a detriment to the Kindle, but I have rarely found myself asking for such a light. Plus, my physical books don't have a backlight and so with all the bonuses of the device, the Kindle still wins over the physical book. The electronic ink is somewhat of a mystery to me. The words are not the typical computer-style text that I am used to. It really is more like a physical book. There isn't a glare when reading normally, although I can move the device in a way that I can see a slight reflection (mostly of lights), but it's so difficult to make happen that I could never call it a distraction.

The Kindle's menus are so easy to use. The scroll-bar button has positive stops, making it simple to choose the exact line I want. The silver line indicator is just beautiful to me, and I love that it is also the symbol stating that the device is thinking. This means that I can continue reading while waiting for an event (looking up a definition, returning to the main menu, going to the book store, etc). Bookmarking a page is as easy as a physical book, especially for those who dog-ear their pages (which I abhor doing). I just scroll the silver bar up to the top-most line and click. This makes a virtual dog-ear (even has the picture to prove it). The nice thing about this bookmarking feature is that when I decide to go to a specific bookmark, I get a sample of the text around that bookmark. This beats a physical book. I always have to guess roughly where in a physical book the text is that I am looking for something and hope my choice is correct. With this, I can just scan the text and select my choice. This is particularly nice when I run across something I want to share with someone at a later time but don't want to stop reading there. I can just bookmark it and continue reading. When the time comes to share that snippet I saved, I just navigate to the bookmarks and select the one that makes sense. I also often find myself reading about a character who I am unable to remember. I can search for all instances of that character and the very first search result is generally the one where that character is introduced. I can easily freshen up on who everyone is and which events have taken place.

I recently had the privilege of updating the software on my Kindle. I had a few minutes while waiting for something and didn't want to get too far into my story and so I decided to see what it was like to do an update. The device gave me up-to-date status messages and then rebooted itself. The whole process took less than 6 minutes and required no effort on my part. After it rebooted, I discovered that the system runs slightly faster than before. While it only takes a fraction of a second less to load a given screen (the loading was already very fast, quite similar to turning a physical page and having my eyes adjust to the text), this equates to more time I can spend reading. It's wonderful!

The ability to buy a book is far easier than going to a bookstore. If I already know which book I want to buy, I can go to the store from the main menu and type in the name of the book using the very handy keyboard on the Kindle. This keyboard has made me a rather quick thumb-typist in very little time. When I find the book I want, I can either purchase it, read reviews, see other books like it (similar categories or what other people purchased in relation to that book), or I can get a sample of the book for free. This sample feature is so handy. Although I haven't gotten a sample that I didn't want to purchase, I know that being able to read the first chapter or two of the story is a definite bonus. It allows me to get far enough into the book to determine if I actually like the way it's written before I shell out money for it. It is just like I do in a physical bookstore - I flip through the book and maybe read some of it before making my purchasing decision.

While on vacation recently, I had no laptop computer and thus no easy access to the Internet and I found myself at a loss for what was happening in the news. I realized that I didn't need to miss out on my daily news fix and subscribed to a news blog using my Kindle. It was simple to subscribe and the first two weeks are free. I just have to turn on the wireless and in less than a minute, I have my daily news. Each day I would wake up and get my news as simply as if I opened the door and picked up the newspaper. I was able to keep up with current events with such ease.

The experimental features include a basic web browser, a question answering service, and a music player.

The web browser is basic. It can show some pictures, but mostly just skips them and shows text only. Since most websites aren't formatted for mobile devices, getting the text to fit properly can be a problem. But if you are familiar with web browsers on mobile phones, this isn't a major issue. The most annoying thing to me is that the page has to be completely loaded into the Kindle before it is displayed to the screen. This means that I spend a long time watching a bar go from 1% to 100% and see nothing else on the screen. But this service is quite useful when I know where I am going and the site is not too image-heavy.

I haven't yet tried the question answering service yet, although it seems extremely beneficial. With the somewhat built-in linking directly to Wikipedia, I have almost all the answers I could ever want. I am sure I will find a use for this feature at some point, though.

I transferred some mp3s to my Kindle but haven't tried listening yet. I don't normally read with music playing, so having music would mostly be to entertain me when I don't want to get into a story but I don't want to sit and do nothing either. I will have to plug in my headphones sometime and see how the music sounds.

Being able to look up any word in the Kindle's dictionary is one of the most wonderful features I could have ever asked for. I love to learn new words but I hate to carry a separate dictionary with me, which requires I put a bookmark in my reading book, look up the word in the dictionary, then return to my reading book. This is a very time-consuming and tedious process. By navigating to the line with the unknown word and simply clicking my roller button, I have the option to lookup the word. Doing this takes less than 2 seconds and I get a very full definition, as well as the etymology of the word. If I wanted more information than just a definition, I could choose the Wikipedia option, which links directly to Wikipedia.

The wireless feature of the Kindle is marvelous. I can get a decent signal from many locations. Two places I tried it and it didn't work were during a flight and during a boat ride on the Pacific Ocean. The signal was also somewhat spotty at a relative's house (near the Pacific Ocean), but it could have had some problems with all the medical equipment in the house. I tried it outside and it worked fine. Because the connection to the wireless system is free, this sets my mind at ease when searching for a book. I don't have to care that the past ten books I looked at weren't interesting and that I should just choose something quickly because my wireless minutes are being eaten. I can browse at my leisure and be sure that I select the book that sounds most interesting to me at the moment.

The speed at which new books (and other data) are downloaded is just amazing. I can make my book-buying decision, click "Buy Now", and less than a minute later I have the book ready to read. Other mobile reading devices I have used generally take much longer, in the range of 10-15 minutes on average, and you have to connect the device to a computer to get the data. The way the Kindle does the download is almost instantaneous. I always see a message indicating that my book is being downloaded and that I can continue reading a previous book or browsing through the store while the download progresses, but by the time I am finished reading the message, the book is done downloading. I've never needed to fill my time while waiting. It's very nice.

The SD card that is accepted by the Kindle makes my library so much bigger. I have an 8GB card and whenever I finish reading a book, I transfer it to my card so that my Kindle always has enough space for any amount of books I deem worthy of buying when I am browsing in the store. With the size of my card, I can easily store over 20,000 novels (each book being approximately 300 pages) without running out of space. That is way more than my local library has!

Another nice feature of the Kindle is the ability to send myself files (a specific selection of file types) for free. If the file is in an unsupported format, I can have the Kindle support guys convert it to an acceptable format and send it on to my Kindle. While the conversion costs ten cents per file, I have found that this price is well worth being able to read the file while on the go. I can also simply transfer the file using the SD card. The neat thing about this file feature is that anyone who is on my Kindle's email white list can send me supported files. Family, friends, and co-workers can just attach a file in an email and send it to my Kindle email account. The beauty of the white list is that only those people on it can send me things. All other mail is rejected. This means that I will never get spam or other unwanted messages.

The battery life of my Kindle is so long that I have never even gotten close to running out of power. I generally read it for 3-4 days (most often in bed at night, but sometimes during the day) and then I charge it. Because the full charge time is only two hours, my device is usually done charging well before I need it. The wireless feature uses more battery life, but I normally have the wireless turned off and it has worked wonders for me so far.

All in all, I am thoroughly enjoying my Kindle. Its ease of use, small size (very similar to a paperback book but much thinner), and extra features such as dictionary lookups makes it a better choice than a physical book. Plus, I can store so many books on the same device and not take up many large bookshelves in my house. I recommend the Kindle to any avid reader.