The Third Policeman – Flann O’Brien

Rating: 4/5

Lost References:

Desmond packs it up as he’s leaving the DHARMA Swan hatch.

There are a bunch of similarities, but these are the big ones…

• AFTERLIFE/TIME/ETERNITY: Apparently, eternity can be reached through a church in either universe, and it takes people a while to realize that they’re dead.
• BLACK AIR: The book frequently references a (fictional) physicist/philosopher named de Selby who has a lot of crazy theories. One is about “black air” produced by volcanic activity, which creates night. The Island, of course, has its own black smoke problem.
• THE BLACK BOX: (No, not the black box from an airplane.) The main character in the book is questing after this black box throughout the book, while the Losties all have other things that they’re obsessed with. The black box contains omnium, or energy, which can make anything. . It’s a bit like a metaphor Ben gave Locke.
  • Ben: What if I told you that, somewhere on this island, there is a very large box and whatever you imagined, whatever you wanted to be in it when you opened that box, there it would be?
• THE BUNKER: As in the Swan hatch, the novel has a bunker where two men must keep strange equipment closely monitored. As it turns out, they don’t have to; it’s just another guy messing with them, which is one thing that Desmond thinks as he’s pushing the button in the hatch in Lost.
• CRIME: The main character is a robber/murderer, and the majority of the book takes place in a police station or around police, while Lost is packed with cops and criminals.
• NAMES: The main character doesn’t know his name, though he puts some effort into coming up with one. On the Island, there are plenty of aliases going around, and there’s the Man in Black who’s never given a name.

Thoughts:

For a heavily metaphysical book about a murder in hell, this was a surprisingly comfortable read. It’s hard to say more than that, except that I laughed a bit and that I’ll never look at bicycles the same way again.

The Langoliers – Stephen King

Rating: 4/5

Lost References:

Some passengers disappear from a plane, like in Left Behind, but this book has circumstances much closer to Lost. They disappear due to time travel. Also, Damon Lindelof said that this book was an influence on Lost.

Thoughts:

This is one of four novellas in Stephen King’s Four Past Midnight collection, one of the ones I enjoyed. The Sun Dog was equally compelling. Secret Window, Secret Garden was good, too, if slightly forgettable. The Library Policeman, which I originally read the collection for, was a complete waste of time. High on squick, short on plot. I’m not here to review these, but if anyone wants more details, just ask.

As for The Langoliers, it’s classic Stephen King. There are plenty of weird people, including a villain who’s clinically insane and quite pathetic. The monsters are stranger than usual – little fuzzy balls with too many mouths that eat time (and everything else).

Harry Potter – J.K. Rowling

Rating: 5/5

Lost References:

Hurley, seeing Sawyer in his new glasses, says, “Dude, looks like someone steamrolled Harry Potter.” Book Three, The Prisoner of Azkaban, is also on Jack’s shelf (the one with time travel).

Thoughts:

Since the final movie just came out earlier this month, it’ll be difficult to avoid comparing books to movies. Except the last one. I’m going to see Deathly Hallows Part Two later this week. As far as the books go… they cover a wide scale of quality and a hefty amount of plot, come to that. I guess that means I’ll be dealing in broad strokes.

One through Three were amazing. These three books make up some of the best literature I have ever read, with Prisoner of Azkaban at the peak of excellence. (Oddly, I find this one the worst of the movies, thanks to poor CGI, directing, and acting. Gary Oldman was a great choice for Sirius, being an incredible character actor, but even he couldn’t save this flick.) Then the books started going downhill. Four and five were readable, but they started the trend of door-stopper novels that abandoned concise storytelling and indiscriminately included extraneous scenes and information. Six was pretty bad. I want to forget Seven ever happened. Plot-wise, it lacks creativity (which is disappointing, since creativity was one of Rowling’s strong suits previously. Essentially, the characters, in the middle of their Book-Six-introduced quest to find a bunch of magical artifacts find out that they have to… find more magical artifacts. The resolution was poor, too. Half the cast died random, weightless deaths. Everyone who survived married each other and had kids named for all the dead people.

But even this blight of a book can not make the first three any less wonderful. The mix of serious plots and lighthearted moments, the originality, the flawless pacing, the fact that children in trouble at least consulted adults, the unique characters, and just the writing, all make these three novels worth the reading. In fact, it’s practically worth reading the whole series to find out what happens. Even if you’re disappointed in the end.

A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

Rating: 4/5

Lost References:

Sawyer, knocking on the (past) hatch door, announces himself as the Ghost of Christmas Future. Later he calls the Man in Black the Ghost of Christmas Past. Both the book and later seasons of Lost rely on time travel. And of course, there are the ghosts.

Thoughts:

Anyone who’s seen any Christmas Carol play, movie, or musical has heard most of the memorable lines, which are usually mined straight from the book. Your average movie-goer will probably have seen more than one version to compare. And yet, you’d be surprised how many clever sentences are left to read. Personally, I even loved rereading the bits I’ve heard a million times. It’s probably (mostly) nostalgia, but I found it a cozy read.