Top 5 Tuesday has a new host, and a new slate of topics—I think I can have some fun with these next few.
This week’s topic is, “Top 5 books where something went wrong.” Now, really, what story doesn’t involve something going wrong?* At best, it’s a book about something that went wrong before it started and the protagonists are trying to set it right, or at least make things better. But pretty much every book focuses on things going wrong. It’s just a matter of how often and how wrong things go. Still, when you read the topic, you have a pretty good idea what’s meant, right?
This was a hard list to whittle down—a Top 15 would’ve been easier than Top 5, but I think I’ve got a good, eclectic, group. To make things a little more challenging for myself, I didn’t choose any book I’ve read this year (that also will prevent recency bias). Shall we see what I came up with?
* I’m tempted to make a theological point here, but I’ll restrain myself.
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 The Freedom Broker by K. J. Howe I’m not sure why, this one was the second title that jumped to mind when I started thinking about the topic. I remembered few of the details without my post to jog my memory. But it works pretty well, Thea Paris is in private security, with a specialty in K&R (Kidnapping and Ransom)—both the negotiation side, and (when that fails) the rescue teams. She’s one of the best around. Until her super-rich father is kidnapped, and everything starts going wrong. I described Howe’s writing as: an “everything including the kitchen sink” approach to story telling—the number of things that go wrong during Thea’s search for her father, and the number of opponents and obstacles in her way is seemingly endless. I love it, every time you think she’s on a roll and things are going to start going her way, a problem that the reader should’ve seen coming (but almost never does) shows up to derail things again. |
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 All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai Since I read this book, it may be the one I’ve most frequently recommended to people who ask for a recommendation. 2016 is the future that 1950’s Sci-Fi promised, peace, prosperity, flying cars, all that. Until the day the first time machine was turned on and something went wrong. History was re-written and what resulted is the (relative) dystopia that was 2016 (who knows what Mastai would’ve had his protagonist think of 2020). The only person that knew this was the first time traveler. What happens next is a series of attempts—and failures, so, so many failures—to restore the timeline. It’s such a great read. I should probably schedule a re-read, come to think of it. |
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 Mechanical Failure by Joe Zieja It’s right there in the title, right? Any of the Epic Failure trilogy would’ve fit, but the first seems to feature more failures—from the Droid who can’t swear to the retired engineer who tried to be a pirate—and his failure ended up getting him re-enlisted and promoted, and promoted and promoted again after repeated failures. People are assigned to the wrong stations on board the (appropriately named) Flagship, every device malfunctions, battle droids don’t function appropriately, and so on. |
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 The Cartel by Don Winslow What doesn’t go wrong in this book? You’ve got a prisonbreak, freeing the head of the biggest Cartel in Mexico—if only so he can wage war to stay the largest. You’ve got corruption at every level of the War on Drugs (on both sides of the border). You have new gangs rising to prominence, mostly due to bloodshed. You have more and more money coming into the cartels and more competition for that money. You have journalists, politicians, doctors, cops trying to do the right thing and being hunted, shot, and/or killed for it. I can’t think of anything that goes right in this book—at least not for very long. |
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 The Martian by Andy Weir Mark Watney finds ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory time after time after time. The strength of this book is that it’s about problem-solving your way out of those defeats, but from the first page (moments before the first page, technically) until the very end—things go wrong for Watney, giving him plenty of opportunities to exercise his problem-solving ability. This is the first book I thought of when I saw the prompt, and it’s probably the best example on my shelves of it. |
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