Bacon TEA!? oh and some books or something...

     So I haven’t written a blog in literally months, but I was drinking my bacon tea from Twinings (yes it actually tastes like bacon… by far the strangest tea I have ever had) and listening to Zooey in the band She & I (I love Zooey Deschanel!!!) and decided it was time to write a blog. I had intended to tell you all about the books I read over winter break (pretty much the entirety of December), but I don’t think it would be fair to rate them now since it would not be accurate. I will however tell you a little about them and then I will look to the future.

     The first book I read was the second Game of Thrones book: A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin. It, of course, was amazing. If you started the series, don’t stop… ever… I am actually planning on reading the third book over Spring break in preparation of the new series (Funny story about that: I watched the trailer and saw Rob have some girl, and I thought the writers were just trying to mess with the book. When I asked my boss, he said it was real… from the third book. Sooo, guess what I will be doing for an entire week? That’s right! Reading 1000 pages!).

     After A Clash of Kings, I read the next two Dexter books. They were getting more and more different from the show, which is disappointing for the show because the books were so good. The only problem about the third book was that there was some fantasy bits thrown in there (monsters and the like) that I thought would have been better left out. It was the same thing when I was reading I am Not a Serial Killer. It would have been a better novel without the science fiction.

     That wraps up my winter reading, so let’s get to the future readings. I recently purchased the first two books in the Hunger Games trilogy upon the high praise from my cousin (she is an adult, so yes… adults can enjoy the books too :P). You can expect that sometime this summer…. Maybe when the movie comes to DVD :/ but eventually nonetheless. I also have The Girl Who Played with Fire on my “To Read” list. Again, probably the summer. The only two that may be expected sooner are A Storm of Swords (Game of Thrones #3) and the nonfiction book I am currently reading: Nudge by Thaler and Sunstein. I am not a huge fan of nonfiction, but this was an awesome book thus far and can’t wait to share it with y’all. Until next time, get reading.

As always, any book suggestions are always welcome!

The Sandman by Neil Gaiman

At the end of the last school year, I began reading the graphic novel The Sandman by Neil Gaiman. Interestingly enough, I was started on this long series by a Facebook post with a quote from the book. I doubt that she knew what it was from, but online, the reviews were hot so I decided to start it for myself. Now, I had options as to how I wanted to read it and I decided to start on the 4 volume set with about 800 GIANT pages per book. (This was called the Absolute Sandman). The thing was seriously about 10-15 pounds (it was a whopper!). Regardless, I read the first volume between April and the beginning of June, 2011 and I recently finished the second volume this weekend.

First off, let's get the plot, shall we? The basics are simply that there are entities (gods I guess) that exist and the main ones are all from the same family (this is used loosely). The main-main characters are Dream (aka Morpheus) and his sister Death (yes Death is a girl). It is all about his "life." The story begins in a relatively modern world (1990's if my memory serves me well), but eventually goes all over the place in time. That's the gist, but the plot is much more complex than I am making it.

I am no fan of graphic novels (but I have managed to read a few), but this one was strangely captivating (probably due to some major adult content). Did that just make me sound like a pervert? hmm. What I meant to say was that the other graphic novels I read were very childish and Gaiman created graphic novel for a mature audience. (That sounds much better... let's go with the second). Although the plots to the separate stories were good, I found it may have been better if Gaiman had created a temporally correct progression. Another thing I wished he would have done differently is to exclude some of his mild nudity and slightly perverse minor characters. If I were I psychiatrist, I would wonder about this Neil fella. Regardless of all the little details that put me off, I would still suggest at least the first volume to everyone (everyone that wants to be blown away by pictorial awesomeness).

Happy Reading!

From A Buick 8 by Stephen King

          From a Buick 8 is a tale of a Buick Roadmaster that just isn’t… quite right. There is no motor and has a steering wheel that is too big. Not to mention that it doesn’t get dirty or scratched. If it’s scratched, it will heal over a couple of days. When it is found after the mysterious owner disappeared while ordering gas at a station, the local police in a small Pennsylvania town take it and keep it for over twenty years. Over those years, the car (if you can call it that) has done some pretty inexplicable things. As King puts it, it has abortions in which things from another world, dimension, or whatever comes here through the Buick’s trunk. But it is not just a one-way deal. Things from this world can go to the other world too. There is one policeman who takes a keen (almost unhealthy) interest in the Buick and all of its peculiarities: Curt Wilcox. When he dies in a drunk driving incident, his son Ned grieves by going to the police station and helping out by cleaning windows and things like that. It is by doing this that he discovers the Buick in a shed and is told its story by his dad’s companions.

         This book, which has an interesting plot, was incredibly boring. There were so few exciting parts, that I really considered putting this back on the shelf and forgetting all about it. But being me, I trucked on through it and was almost compensated at the end with the most interesting part of the entire book. I can’t ruin the ending for you all, but I can say the book can and probably should have been simplified to about 100 to 200 pages and it may have passed as a good book. Although the book itself didn’t grab my attention as I would have liked, one can’t ignore King’s terrific writing style. It kind of pains me to do this, but I rate this book as a 4 out of 10. Sorry Stephen, but you can and have done better.

Wizards of Mars review

I finished Wizards of Mars by Diane Duane a couple of days ago and decided to do the review before I forgot half of the plot (as in some unnamed reviews that I had done). It should be mentioned that this is the ninth book of Diane Duane’s Young Wizard series, which began with So You Want to Be a Wizard. I had read the first one way back when I was a young boy of 12 (about 2003). I had just started reading the Harry Potter series maybe a year or two before so I was hooked on fantasy books at the time (well fine… I am STILL hooked on fantasy books). Anywho, it is imperative that you read the entire series in order to understand the book. It was a few years since I read the previous book, Wizards at War, and I was utterly confused for the first two chapters until things started coming back to me. I was really considering re-reading the entire series, but if I did that, I wouldn’t even get this book read this summer.

                In this book, Kit finally sees if there is/was life on Mars. As we all know, Kit Rodriguez was a Mars fanatic for the last few books, so it just figures that Duane would do this eventually. There was just enough teenage drama to make me slightly nauseous and wish I had left the series alone. I also found myself embarrassed for the characters as Nita told aliens that they were “hooking up”… as if the aliens should know what the flip that means. But I digress, once one gets past the fact that this book was intended for young adults (or even the 12 year old from 8 years ago), it was a very good book. I found myself wanting to read the rest of the book in one night (about 300 pages… but I didn’t want to stay up too late so I left it be). I hope that Duane’s next book in the series aims its focus to the older readers that grew up reading her books. I would love her immensely if she did. :)

Update: I found out that the tenth book in the series is called Games Wizards Play. It's about a game to determine which young wizard on earth will get a internship-ish thing with the planetary wizard. I read the description and I get the feeling that it's going to have the same flaws as the previous one. I guess we'll see (hopefully not in another 5 years like the wait for the last one was).

Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie

The overall plot of Best Served Cold is of this woman, Monza, who loses everything, almost including her life. After she is carefully looked after by an old man, she runs away and seeks revenge on those that have taken everything from her. She hires the best killers to aid her in her quest, never really believing that she would succeed. It wasn’t until after I read the book (actually it was just a few seconds ago) that I learned that this is a stand-alone novel following Abercrombie’s First Law series. I am usually not one to just read a book in the middle of a series, but it can definitely be read alone with no knowledge of the other books.

This is the first book I read of Abercrombie’s, and I thought his overall writing style was good. This book in particular was well written.  In the beginning, we see Monza as a heartless person. It isn’t until the end of the book that we see that she has been a victim her entire life. I am not much for reading about war and gore and swearing (which there is a lot of in this book) but somehow I ended up enjoying the book. I am not a fan of  gore so if it would skip the battle scenes, I think it would have captured my interest a little more.

"The Grass is Singing" and "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" Reviews

Everyone has seen or heard about the hit show on Showtime called Dexter (and if you haven’t, WATCH IT NOW; this blog will still be here), and I'm sure you loved it as much as I did. It is about a serial killer hero that kills only bad guys but a double life as a blood splatter analyst for Miami Metro Homicide. Very succinct, but very accurate description I think.  When I heard that the show was based on books by Jeff Lindsay, I was literally jumping with joy. I actually found out when I got the second book for Christmas last year (apparently the book store employees had no idea which book was the first in the series). From there, I ordered the rest of the series earlier this year and just read the first one,  Darkly Dreaming Dexter, this summer.
 I adored the book. Lindsay was hilarious at just the right moments and literally took my breath away at the end. One thing that I really liked about the franchise (so to speak) is that the writers of the show didn’t just copy the book. The ending of the book and the end of the first season are immensely different, so that was a shocker for me. I thought the book was a little short though. I know it is a series, but I had hoped that the book would end with the end of season 1, but it seems as though this wasn’t the case. I don’t know what the next book has in store, but I really want to read it. I should never have gotten so far in my reading; then I could be reading it right now! 

                The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing is about a murder of a white woman in Rhodesia when segregation was still the norm. After discussing a little about the murder, the story leads us to the beginning of the victim’s life. We as readers are slowly taken down the road of insanity as the women loses more of her mind with each passing heat-filled day. (Not unlike the abnormal heat wave that I am experiencing in Ohio… well, maybe not as bad, but it’s still hot.) The story was told extraordinarily well. I was kind of dragging myself to read it because it didn't seem very interesting to me, but after the initial confusion, I ate the book up. I was truly amazed at the feeling that Lessing had put into the story.

                Be on the lookout for the review of the book I am currently reading, Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie. It may take a few months to write, but I will get to. Have faith!

So Many Books

In the past month, (since my summer break began) I have managed to read four extremely interesting books. I shall review each of them in their own turn. The first that I finished was The Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, my supervisor at the library I work at forced me to read it. Interestingly enough, I greatly enjoyed it.  It is what I would call an historical fantasy although that is not accurate. I thought that this could actually have happened (minus the dragons, which incidentally is the reason for the fantasy label). The Game of Thrones is centered in a place called the Seven Kingdoms (Westeros) which has a king and each of the seven high families is lord over a particular portion of the Seven Kingdoms. The main characters are from the Stark family, who are “wardens of the north.” The majority of the book is basically about finding the truth regarding the rightful heir to the king’s throne (this is a HUGE understatement, but I am tired. If you want to find out more about the book, go to Wikipedia, or just watch the HBO show).

Now for my thoughts: I felt as if it had a lot of suspense. One thing that kind kid of stunk was the overall confusion that I felt at the beginning of the book. Martin just jumped right into his story without any kind of backdrop. After about 50 pages or so, the confusion just kind of wore off and I just became immersed in the book. The books jumps from different viewpoints, which would normally bother me, but I felt as though it just increased the suspense. My favorite viewpoint was Daenerys Targaryen, the sister of the king that was usurped about 15 years or so before the story takes place. The end of the book was a giant cliffhanger, so I am very eager to start the next book, but I have way to many other books to stick to one series for too long.
The second book I read was the Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. You all must be thinking WHAT!! You haven’t read The Hobbit? What is wrong with you? And my answer is that I was just never interested in reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy (and prequel) after I saw the amazing movies. I still do not plan on reading the trilogy, not because I didn’t like The Hobbit (because I loved it), but because the movies ruined any kind of surprise that the book may have offered. I definitely underestimated Tolkien. I loved his witty writing style. I found myself chuckling along with the story. There were a few boring parts to it, but it was really quite good.

The rest of my reviews are forthcoming.