Saturday, May 15, 2004

The Slippery Slope

I finished a couple books about mutants and genetics but I need to thin my notes on them before posting. To keep my sanity, I just read Lemony Snicket's The Slippery Slope.

For those of you without children, this is book ten in A Series of Unfortunate Events, the saga of three orphans on the run from a homicidal pyromaniac. The tone is incredibly dark yet funny (if you've read Roald Dahl's The Twits, you'll know what I mean). The villainous Count Olaf actually kills dozens of people without repercussion--just what children need to get them ready for the real world.

The writing is thicker but I think even more rich than Dahl's. "Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant, filled with odd waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like."

After reading about the root genetic causes of various birth defects, that was just what I needed.

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