Reviews

Once again, we got an opportunity to do a review for a new book, Finding Lost, by Nikki Stafford. As always, we try to give our readers an unbiased, honest opinion (click on the “Reviews” link above to see more that our blog has covered in the past).

Though this book is considered an “unofficial guide”, I would say it is an excellent breakdown of what is important to the series so far up to the Season 2 Finale. The author, Ms. Stafford, has done other “unofficial guides” in the past, including for Alias and Buffy. The structure is by episode, with each chapter being a basic summary, and then special sections toward the end of each that include “Highlight”, “Did You Notice?”, “Interesting Facts”, “Nitpicks”, “Oops”, “4 8 15 16 23 42″, “It’s Just a Flesh Wound”, “Any Questions”, and other fun tidbits. Each chapter also includes sidebars and what she calls “Intermission Chapters”, which give background biographical information on actors, literary references, and box insets with whisper transcripts and lists of things like Sawyer nicknames. Towards the end, there are very short chapters on character connections, web resources, and filming locations.

This is a well-organized and well-researched book that was a fun read. I love lists, so I enjoyed the sidebars. The “Intermission Chapters”, IMHO, may be the best part of the book, since they are inserted in just the right places, and give interesting background on the people behind the characters and insight into how the book references could enrich your understanding of the show. This book can be a gold mine of trivia for those who enjoy that sort of thing… for example, did you know that Adewale had input in how his own character (Eko) was named? The black and white images included are also from various sources, usually lighthearted, and add well to the content of the chapters.

I will say that the editorialization in the chapters is at once a strength and a weakness. Since she has “Nitpick” sections, I guess this counts as my nitpick… I didn’t always agree with the minor connections made, such as the name Han Byung possibly being connected to the name Hanso (Han is a common name in Korean), numbers such as $89.99/hr for fake-Helen’s phone call counted as a Numbers reference, etc. (those were just 2 examples out of a handful I disagreed with, though I’m also not naming hundreds of details I did think were good and valid for inclusion). There are also very minor points, such as not mentioning the acronym nature of the DHARMA Initiative (which was revealed last year, though what it stood for wasn’t mentioned til this summer) and having short theory chapters where all were treated equally, with no mention about writer-discrediting statements. Again, this is really small picture stuff… the opinionated “voice” of the book is also something that makes the text unique and personable to the readers, and generally, this was what I’d consider to be an accurate book with solid research.

In summary, this book has substance, and gives a good overview of the first two seasons of LOST. It is also the first that we’ve reviewed that really works as an episode guide. Unfortunately, with the storyline always evolving in a multi-episode-series, it does run the risk (as with any of these printed book guides) of being quickly outdated, but I would look forward to new editions of this if Ms. Stafford wished to update. It is the sort of book with wide appeal that I would recommend if someone was looking for a good gift for a fellow fan.

-Cecilia

Well, as some of you have noticed, LOST Season 2 DVDs became available on September 5. Unfortunately, I had preordered them, so had to wait for them to ship; I’ll admit I was tempted just to run out and buy them from a brick & mortar store! But I waited patiently, and today when they came, spent quite some time going through the fun extras in Disc 7, the Bonus DVD with extras.

To start off with, it has one of the most creative opening menus I’ve seen lately, with Dr. Candle directing you (the viewer) on your “mission”. The extras are thus divided into 3 “Phases”: “Observation” (1), “Conditioning” (2) and “Conclusion” (3).

The basic outline of the discs:

Phase 1:

Phase 2:

Phase 3

So far, I’ve gone through about 1/3 of the features (trying out this-and-that), and still no end in sight… but that’s a good thing. :) I think compared to the S1 DVDs, there was more thought put into this. I get the impression that they know what most fans are looking for now… a little hint of the “insider secrets”, and are giving us more to explore this round.

Read more below, but be forewarned that I do go into some small details about what is in the extra sections.

Possible Spoilers

The “Lost Connections” section takes some getting used to for navigating. I know a few people have mapped out most of the connections online… again, Lostpedia has a nice page on this. There’s been quite a bit of speculation on who the “Mysterious Waving Figure” is (shadowy figure in static) that connects Jack, Claire & Christian (leading back to this idea that Jack and Claire could be siblings).

Check also Lostpedia’s main S2 DVD page for all the Easter Eggs (hidden features that will only come out if you play around with the buttons of your remote a lot). For instance, when you register your DVD, you can press the “left” button of your remote until a Geronimo Jackson record pops out, and when you press “5″, you’ll hear the producers discussing the background of this fictional band.

My favorite part so far is probably the “Secrets from the Hatch” section. Probably because there has been so much speculation about Swan Station and its purposes since the beginning of Season 2, and now we get an inside look at how and why it was built (both as a set, and a conceptually, in the story). Damon Lindelof mentions an interesting metaphor that the Swan is like a “thumb” keeping a leak in a dam from getting through (that it was built to contain the electromagnetism since the Incident).

I’ve still yet to go through all the deleted scenes. There are little tidbits gleaned from those, such as that Rose tells Sun she had a daughter that passed away…whether anything can be made of them is anyone’s guess (since we don’t know why the production team cut them).

All in all, recommended if you are like me, and want to squeeze every bit of insight or hint that TPTB (”The Powers That Be”) are willing to drop. It certainly does help pass the time before October 4!

-Cecilia

I was sent a copy of the book, Getting Lost: Survival, Baggage, and Starting Over in J. J. Abrams’ Lost Ed. by Orson Scott Card, by their publisher, BenBella Books. As always, I promised them nothing except an unbiased review and my honest opinion.

I must admit, I was excited when I found out the lead editor of this book was Orson Scott Card, who is perhaps one of my favorite authors of all time, having grown up influenced by the Ender’s Game series, a sci-fi classic.

The way this 240 page book is set up is that it starts with an introductory chapter by Card (What is Lost good for?), which does an excellent analysis of why LOST has become a successful TV show by examining the history of other situational television series. It is then followed by about a dozen other chapters, each of which is written by a published author, teaching professor, or specialist in a field (ranging from literature to aviation). They each look at LOST from a different perspective, take a focused look at one element of the show, or provide a unique theory to explore.

Game Theory - Joyce Millman
Staying Lost - Charlie W. Starr
The Same Damn Island - Adam-Troy Castro
The Lost Book Club - Bill Spangler
Oceanic Tales: Have You Been Framed? - Evelyn Vaughn
All Hail Hurley! - Nick Mamatas
Lost in Love - Lani Diane Rich
There Are No Coincidences - Leigh Adams Wright
Cosmic Vertigo on the Isle of Lost - Barry Vacker
Doubt, Descartes, and Evil Geniuses - Robert Burke Richardson
Oops - Clayton Davis
Lost Connections - G.O. Likeskill
Double-Locked - Amy Berner
The Art of Leadership - Glenn Yeffeth
Who’s Who and What’s What for Everybody Who is… Lost - Wayne Allen Sallee

Now, I’ll be the first to say that I am a bit burnt out on fan theories. Due to external circumstances in my life I don’t have much control over (perhaps one of the reasons I fixate on the show’s themes), I have way too much time on my hands lately. I spend quite a bit of it on several online forums, and have been exposed to a huge number of theories, ranging from inane and devoid of logic to surprisingly intelligent and eloquent. They span the spectrum from silly parodies to extremely complex scientific or literary interpretations. However, I’m just about at the point where I’m no longer looking to hear everyone else’s versions of what they think is going on, and just waiting for the original LOST writer’s official version.

That being said, I still found the chapters within Getting Lost entertaining enough, partly because most are authored by people who know how to write. Even being a “theory veteran”, I found a few new and interesting topics, though I thought some were better than others. My favorites include “Oceanic Tales: Have You Been Framed?” (about LOST as a “frame story”, a la Canterbury Tales) and “Cosmic Vertigo on the Isle of Lost” (about our fascination with post-apocalyptic utopias).

The last 1/3 of the book switches gears and is devoted to a LOST glossary of sorts, which does attempt a comprehensive documentation of details related to the show: everything from Akinnuoye-Agbaje to Gilgamesh to obscure factoids like WXO (the radio station Sayid and Hurley stumble across). This is nice, but I think some of the quirkier entries could have been left out in lieu of a wider breadth of flashback profiles and objects, and I would still recommend regularly-updated online indices such as Lostpedia or the SWLS Index over any I have seen in published books to date.

All in all, this is a book for the more hard-core LOST-obsessed fan who could talk for hours about the subject around the water cooler, not for the populist viewer who may only catch every other episode of the show or just watches it due to a Josh Holloway crush. For those in the former group, I think that with the variety inside this book, there is something for just about everyone.

-Cecilia

For those who have not heard of it, Bad Twin is a spin-off book from the LOST world. In the show, it is featured briefly as a manuscript Hurley finds in the wreckage and starts reading; later, Sawyer is seen reading it (before Jack throws it in the fire to get his attention, just before he finishes it). For those who follow the Lost Experience webmaze, Hugh McIntyre released a press release lambasting the book as libeling The Hanso Foundation. The campaign to market the book through Hyperion has been intense, even going so far as publicize video “interviews of Gary Troup”, the supposedly presumed-dead author who flew Flight 815, on Amazon.com (in reality, Troup is a fictional person, only ‘real’ in the LOST world).

I recently got a chance to listen to Bad Twin in its entirety as an audio book. I’ll say straight off the bat, that if you are looking for all the answers to LOST and/or The Lost Experience webmaze, you will not find them in this book. It is simply not worth paying money for as a book of “clues”.

Despite the heavy marketing, this is pretty mediocre fiction, and not heavily tied into the plot of LOST. There are some cute areas of crossover and some (likely small) hints thrown throughout the book, but the story is a different one altogether (I will include a plot synopsis in comment #1 to this article, and all the detailed links to the LOST world in comment #2, and the Lost Ninja’s special highlighted text for the webmazers in comment #3, so avoid these if you consider these to be spoilerish).

The story is of small-time detective Paul Artisan, who is hired by tycoon Cliff Widmore to find his identical twin Zander. Along the way, he finds a mystery of growing complexity in which he himself may be in danger — in a world where every person and every thing could potentially have a dual and opposing “mirror.”

Generally, I found the audio book to be entertaining enough for passing a long roadtrip. The characters, however, were basically stereotyped and formuleic. The mystery itself had a turn or two, but was not anything I found particularly original. I left feeling I had read this book before, except it was better written when Agatha Christie did it (though with less mention of twins). The book was stuffed to the brim with literary references, but most seemed rather contrived - metaphors placed to bring it more pseudointellectual recogntion on par with “literature” of a different class. The plot flowed nicely enough; not what I’d call “gripping”, but with a pace that kept the pages turning.

All in all, I probably would have been a little kinder on the book had they not pushed so hard with its marketing. It’s difficult not to see it as overrated, like a bloated Hollywood blockbuster-wannabe that spends 90% of its budgeting on ads. That being said, as a mystery, this book is not entirely without merits or substance, but it is tough to see through the hype.

If you have any questions about anything within the book — details about plot, characters, how it connects to LOST — feel free to ask away; I’ll answer anything I can.

-Cecilia

I was sent an advanced copy of the book Unlocking the Meaning of Lost: An Unauthorized Guide by Lynnette Porter & David Lavery (April 1 release), through their publisher, who is a visitor of this site. Through Andreas, I agreed I’d review it, and promised them nothing (no rave reviews, no automatic endorsements) except an honest opinion & critique.

This is a 290 page softcover which promises “to explore the philosophies and themes of the hit show, as well as the countless mysteries that consume fans.” Topics covered by chapter include:

Creating Lost
Lost without Technology
Lost in Their Lives
Lost Spirituality
Larger Spiritual Concepts
Lost Ancestors
Cult(ivating) a Lost Audience

…and a long glossary/appendix section.

Overall, I found this to be a decently engaging book for those who are true fans of the show, and want to delve more deeply into underlying themes. It at times reads like an academic text, taking its subject matter seriously (and may be a little stylistically dry for some). They have obviously done a good amount of research. Drawbacks for more populist fans of the show are that it has no photographs or pictures, (in part because of copyrighting issues, I assume?). Readers seeking a more official companion book may want to check out LOST Chronicles (Mark Cota Vaz, 2005, Hyperion) instead, which also works better as an episode guide.

Particular strengths of this book are in the beginning chapter (about the creation of the series) and the ending chapters (about other literary/TV/movie references that preceded the series, and fan participation). They provide a lot of meaningful insight / background into what may be going on within the TPTB creative minds. The book is clearly written by fans of the show for fans of the show, and the passion for the subject matter comes through.

The middle chapters which look into arching themes are solid and well-referenced down to episode. The chapters on technological themes and interconnectiveness of lives aren’t bad, but I do believe that within the spirituality chapters, there is a paucity of information on some recurrent symbology which is not explored well, including black & white/duality themes, Western governmental philosophies, and Eastern spirituality (there are a couple of sentences on dharma, but little else from that perspective, though the book does a good job with Christian, Muslim, and even Pagan themes). Another unfortunate thing about the book is that it suffers from its “mid-seasonality”—in order to release it in time for sweeps, it has to by necessity cut off the analysis to the episode The Long Con (2.13) and will not cover through all of Season 2.

I for one was attracted to the fact that the book restrains from too much random speculation/conjecture in the middle chapters, and backs up all connections with specific facts found within the episodes. Many of the ideas were obvious (some honestly a bit mundane), but there were a few that were original as well, making them enjoyable to read and think about (inspiring me with a few tangential thoughts of my own). The only time the book dips its toes deeply into the muddy theoretical realm is in the chapter on fan sites/forums. This did not bother me, because it stuck with just a handful of older semi-popular (and not yet discredited) fan theories—I had heard of some of them, but some were new. One of the theories mentioned, the “Copenhagen photo” has since been officially discredited as a hoax by the perpetrator, and probably should not have been included.

I liked the background info in the ending chapters, detailing some of the history of the show and the origins of its “fandom”; it was like having a backstage pass. There is very much an appreciation in the book of the unique interactivity of the show, and of how far the “phenomenon” of LOST has come with its internet fan base (a community which the authors themselves appear proud members of). It’s hard to come up with a comprehensive list of show “ancestors” without going overboard (since there are just SO many possible influences), but the authors did a good job with their limited list (roughly 20), especially with analysis of connections to Lord of the Flies, The Stand, and The Twilight Zone series.

The Glossary, the Character Sketches, Character Connections and Appendix sections take up a good third of the book, but they are well worth it and I think will make a good, organized source of reference for those interested in future detailed discussions of the show.

In summary, this book is worth a read for those seeking intelligent, grounded commentary on general themes that permeate the LOST series, Season 1 – half of Season 2; just remember that this is not an official or “insider” book.

-Cecilia

Unlocking the Meaning of Lost: An Unauthorized Guide is available at Amazon.