Coming out of the (reading) closet

I read Stephen Coonts’ Saucer The Conquest yesterday morning.

My conclusion: light fare that’s somewhat entertaining. A lot in the novel is unexplained, left to the imagination of the reader. The story revolves around evil French guys who build an antigravity weapon and locate it on the moon, with the intention of turning the world into a big, happy place with one government…governed, of course, by the evil French guys with the big gun. See, they’re going to shoot buildings with the antigrav gun, laugh in their silly French accents when the buildings suddenly jump into the air and then crash, and wait for the world to capitulate.

Our heroes, Rip, Charlie (the female pilot) and Egg (from the Suspense All-Name allstar team) use a flying saucer (yes, you read that correctly) to foil the nefarious scheme.

The thing that really ticked me off about reading this novel is that I had to wear reading glasses. Yes, my 45-year-old eyes have betrayed me…these eyes that have been 20/10 or better my entire life now have trouble picking out small print at anything closer than arms length. So last month, I bought a pair of +1.25 reading glasses at Wal-Mart. Those same glasses were perched at the end of my nose for the entire two-hour reading session, completing my transition from invincible SuperDad to somewhat-less-than-invincible NerdDad.

Of course, the entire embarrassing session was conducted in the privacy of my bedroom, safe from the prying eyes of any evil-intentioned and ridicule-flinging family members. I know I’ll have to come out of the closet (or bedroom) eventually, but I’m going to delay the inevitable as long as possible.