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(More customer reviews)"Did you like *Throwing Smoke*?" I asked my ten year old son.
"Yeah," he said.
"Were the characters convincing?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said.
"What about the dialogue?" I asked.
"It was great. But there was too much baseball. Or something."
The baseball, of course, was why I bought the book, and it seemed an odd statement coming from a child who wouldn't put down Will Weaver's baseball trilogy even to eat. Then I read the book.
The dialogue *is* funny; the book, well written, but the author places *Throwing Smoke* in a limbo of genre. When Whiz starts printing up baseball cards for fictional team players who mysteriously come to life, the book (*strongly* rooted in baseball and baseball terminology) turns towards the gothic. These players, all ace at what they do, are zombie like. Where do they go at night? What do they secretly talk about together? Why does nothing more interesting happen with them? Where the heck is this plot going?
*Thowing Smoke* raises more questions about its tepid supernatural effects than the baseball frame of the story can contain. I will avoid details, but when a story enters the world of the supernatural, rules must be followed, expectations must be met. In *Throwing Smoke*, they aren't. As for the baseball team-comraderie part of the book, well, that's not very compelling either -- the supernatural material is too distracting. *Throwing Smoke*, much as I wanted to like it, pulls in two direction and can't come up with a reconciliation between the two. The book needs a fast ball, but it just can't deliver.
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