Yoyogod's Reviews of Books and Stuff I Like

How to Eat Fried Furries

2012-01-13T12:27:00.000-05:00

How to Eat Fried Furries by Nicole Cushing is a very strange book. It's written as if it were a promotional book given to attendees at the American Association of Furry Farmers trade show. It contains recipes for furries and "nonfiction" and short stories. Some of the stories relate to an imaginary 70s TV show called Ferret Force Five, which if it had existed would have been very strange indeed. There are other stories involving Pseudo-Amish starting a fake furry farm and the Easter Bunny trying to whack Santa Clause.

This is all very strange even by the standard of the other bizarro books I've read. It's certainly interesting though. After reading this book you'll never look at squirrels the same way again.

Cripple Wolf

2012-01-09T12:56:00.001-05:00

Cripple Wolf by Jeff Burk is a collection of bizarro short stories. It's a darn good collection too. I think it's probably the best collection of bizarro stories I've read, which isn't actually saying much, since this is only the third one I've read. Still, I really did like it.

The titular story is about a wheelchair-bound werewolf who slaughters a plane full of fetishists. There's a Christmas story about a junkie version of Frosty the Snowman. There's a story about reality show featuring cannibal chefs. There are cats, space badgers, elderly punk rockers, and a park.

I really loved the werewolf story and the chef story. The rest of the stories were mostly pretty good too. However, the story with the park, "Just Another Day in the Park," was probably my least favorite in the book, as it seemed to be a lacking something.

I think this book is well worth the time of anyone who likes weird stories and isn't bothered by gore.

Cthulhu Comes to the Vampire Kingdom

2012-01-05T12:21:00.000-05:00

This is a weird, Lovecraftian, sparkly-vampire-filled, bizarro novel that I got a free pdf of from the Bizarro Brigade. It's a strange read.

It's set on a vampire world that formerly had oceans of blood and blood storms. Now the oceans are frozen and the storms are gone. The vampires are at their wits end. One faction wants to move underground so they can solve their problems through science. Another faction summons Cthulhu to save the planet's environment.

There are hamburgers, lolcats, a burning girl, penis monsters, and things even more disturbing. I enjoyed it.

Rico Slade Will Fucking Kill You

2012-01-02T14:53:00.000-05:00

I got a Kindle Fire as an early Christmas present, and it comes with a free month of Amazon Prime. This includes access to the Kindle Lending Library. Since I only have a few days to read the book before my month expires, I wanted to pick a short one. Since I'm trying to get enough review points to get a free book from the Bizarro Brigade, I wanted a bizarro novel. I decided to go with Rico Slade Will Fucking Kill You because it met these conditions and was the bizarro novel with the highest list price I saw that was part of the library. Also, it looked freaking cool.

It's the story of Chip Johnson, an action movie star who is best known for playing Rico Slade. Chip is bald, a poor dresser, and gay. Rico Slade is none of these things, and the stress of hiding it all causes Chip to flip out and believe that he really is Rico Slade.

Rico believes that he is traveling the city looking for his arch-nemesis, Baron Mayhem, while ripping out the throats of terrorists and henchmen. In reality, he's running around punching people and gibbering insanely. This book manages to combine lots of humor with action, most of which doesn't really happen outside of the protagonist's mind.

The only problem I had was with the scenes featuring Chip's shrink Harold Schwartzman. Harold is incompetent, and is married to an obese woman who wants lots of "bling" and to have gangbangs at the local diner. His scenes are occasionally tedious and aren't as funny as the Chip/Rico ones.

A Town Called Suckhole

2012-01-01T13:35:00.000-05:00

Ever since I joined the Bizarro Brigade, I've been trying to read more bizarro fiction. The most recent bizarro novel, or possibly novella since it is fairly short, I read is A Town Called Suckhole by David W. Barbee.

This is basically a sort of buddy cop, post-apocalyptic, redneck, murder mystery sort of thing. In the town of Suckhole, which was founded by "George W. Foxworthy" there are a bunch of half-witted rednecks who believe in a twisted version of history wherein the world ended when that Yankee "Abraham Hussein Lincoln" went to war against the south. Luckily even though the world blew up, St. Hank (Williams Jr.) assassinated the evil man.

Many years later, someone is murdering the male residents of Suckhole and cutting off their penises. The sheriff knows he's not smart enough to solve the crime, so he convinces a swamp mutant called Dexter Spikes to take on the case. From there things start getting weird.

This is a great funny, weird book with lots of action and laughs. It's well worth a read.

The Morbidly Obese Ninja by Carlton Mellick III

2011-10-26T15:24:00.001-04:00

The Internet has spawned many great debates in its time, and the greatest of those has to be the great pirates vs. ninjas debate. I personally have always been in the pirate lovers camp, but I still think ninjas are pretty darn cool. I am also a fan of anime, so I figured that since The Morbidly Obese Ninja is billed as anime in written form, I should give it a try.

It's a good book. It's very funny. The very concept of a morbidly obese ninja who manages to kick butt with the best is an inherently funny concept. This book is also fairly gory, what with the ninja chopping people in half and smashing them with his intense weight, and that sort of thing. There's also a diarrhea scene, which is both disgusting and not the sort of thing you usually see in literature.

Our hero is Basu, a 700 pound ninja who eats because he has been infected with a nano-poison that forces him to consume massive quantities of food or die. Despite that, he is still the deadliest ninja in Neo Tokyo. He gets sent on a mission to find a piggy bank that has the form of a small boy. In doing so he must cross swords with his archenemy, Crow.

It's a cool story, and well worth reading.

Dead of Night by Jonathan Maberry

2011-09-28T14:24:00.000-04:00

I got an advance copy of Dead of Night: A Zombie Novel through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. I've been a fan of zombies ever since I was a kid and saw Night of the Living Dead on latenight TV. These days though, it seems like everybody is writing a zombie novel or making a zombie movie. This makes it hard to tell a good zombie story, because it's all been done before.

Maberry has managed to tell a good story. The key to doing this is having an interesting plot and interesting characters. The plot doesn't have to be original. There's only so many ways a zombie story can go, just like with a love story, or a mystery, or an alien invasion, or any other kind of story. The key is to take the story and make it your own.

The plot isn't what I would call original, but Maberry makes it his own, and that's what makes it good. It's basically a standard zombie outbreak; a corpse wakes up and attacks someone, who becomes a zombie. Then that person becomes a zombie, and pretty soon things spiral out of control. The few people who are aware of what's going on aren't believed until it's too late. There's a lot of blood and gore and violence.

It's the characters that really make the story. You've got a seriously messed up police officer and her partner and her ex. I felt enough for these people to be rooting for them the whole time, even when I knew their actions were putting the whole world at risk.

The only thing that I found at all annoying about the book is that the word zombie wasn't even used until halfway through the book. Even when characters saw dead people walking and feasting on the living, they never called them zombies and it took them way too long to figure out they needed to aim for the head. The only thing I can figure is that this story must be set in some alternate reality where George Romero never picked up a camera, and consequently the modern flesh-eating zombie genre never existed. Even so, this is a book all zombie fans will enjoy.

Houdini Gut Punch: An Anthology of Bizarro Horror ed. by Jonathan Moon

2011-09-23T20:00:00.000-04:00

Houdini Gut Punch is an anthology of bizarro short stories.If you don't know what bizarro, is you should probably click on the link, which goes to the Wikipedia entry for bizarro fiction. If you want a quick summary, it is really f'ed up, bizarre stuff.

This book features stories with lots of f'ed up, bizarre subjects:a man who keeps his soul inside a duck, a woman who adopts an insect angel the crawls out of her drain,the eternal conflict between a moth and some kind of monster thing, a guy whose head starts absorbing animals causing him to give birth to monster things, etc.

Not all of the stories were winners, though. A couple were kind of boring. One kept switching between the first, second, and third person viewpoints and changed which character had which viewpoint, which was confusing, but sort of made sense at the end. Some of the stories mad no sense, but were usually still enjoyable. If you like the weird like I do, then you will probably enjoy this book.

Classics Mutilated ed. by Jeff Conner

2011-09-19T15:44:00.000-04:00

Classics Mutilated is a collection of short fiction in the genre of what is apparently called Monster Lit, which is when authors take classic works and add in zombies or whatnot or famous historical people and put them in some kind of supernatural situation. At least according to the introduction anyway; I've been avoiding that stuff.

Technically speaking only one of the stories in the collection is the "take a classic and add stuff to make it weird" type. That's Rick Hautala's "Little Women in Black," which combines a scene from Little Women with some men in black type action. Basically, I found that story to be weird and confusing, though still entertaining.

The rest of the stories are more or less evenly divided between weird tales featuring historical personages and weird literary (or other media) mashups. Overall, I preferred the mashups. The historical ones weren't bad, but mostly featured people I don't particularly care about.

"Fairest of Them All" by Sean Taylor is a very strange mashup of Snow White and Alice in Wonderland. This story was just cool.

"Anne-droid of Green Gables" by Lezli Robyn is a steam punk version of Anne of Green Gables. It's a very heart-warming story.

"Death stopped for Miss Dickinson" by Kristine Katherine Rusch tells the story of Emily Dickinson's love affair with Death. It was interesting,but as I'm not particularly a fan of poetry, I wasn't as entranced as I was with some of the stories.

"Twilight of the Gods" by Chris Ryall is the story of Loki told in the style of Twilight. This was funny.

"Pokky Man" by Marc Laidlaw is basically a non copyright infringing Pokemon story told in the style of a documentary film. Definately my least favorite of the mashups, but still not a bad story.

"Vicious" by Mark Morris is the tale of how Sid Vicious got put under a Voodoo curse. I'm not really that much of a fan of punk or 70s rock in general, but I actually liked this story and felt kind of bad for Sid.

"From Hell's Heart" by Nancy Collins is the story of what happened to Ahab after he died in Moby Dick. This was a cool story with one of my favorite monsters in it.

"Frankenbilly" by John Shirley is a story about Billy the Kid meeting up with Victor Frankenstein. As you might guess, it was inspired by Billy the Kid Versus Dracula and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter., which means it's cool (at least if your like me).

"The Green Menace" by Thomas Tessier is about Joe McCarthy fighting killer frogs. The only downside to this story is that since MCarthy is a real person, you know the frogs aren't going to kill the bastard even though you wish they would.

"Quoth the Rock Star" by Rio Youers is about Jim Morrison meeting the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe. The Doors aren't really my kind of music any more than The Sex Pistols are, but I still enjoyed this one.

"The Happiest Hell on Earth" by John Skipp & Cody Goodfellow is the tale of what would have happened if the animal people from The Island of Dr. Moreau had gone on to work for a company that is very much like Disney, but not called that since no one wants to get sued. This was a very cool story.

"Dread Island" by Joe Lansdale is Huck Finn meets Uncle Remus meets Cthulu. I think it's the best story in the book.

The Living Dead Boy and the Zombie Hunters by Rhiannon Frater

2011-09-17T14:51:00.001-04:00

The Living Dead Boy and the Zombie Hunters is a pretty cool book. It's about Josh Rondell, a boy who thinks zombies are cool and spends his time preparing for the zombie apocalypse. This being a horror novel, the zombie apocalypse actually happens, and he soon discovers that a zombie attack isn't as cool as he thought it would be.

He sees people he knows, and even a few people he loves, die and come back as flesh-eating zombies. He uses his knowledge to try and lead a small group of children to safety. He learns what it means to be a hero.

This book has a great story. It's full of action and emotion. It also has a fair amount of gore and violence, so some people might not feel it's appropriate for their children. Personally, if I had kids, I'd let them read this. I'd even recommend it to adults, because this is a really good book.

Floating Staircase by Ronald Malfi

2011-09-11T13:09:00.000-04:00

Floating Staircase is a very creepy ghost story. It's about a writer named Travis Glasgow who moves into a house in a small town called Westlake. He starts to notice strange things happening in his house, and soon discovers that the previous owner's drowned in the lake behind his house. There is a mystery though as to weather it was an accident or a murder. Travis feels compelled to investigate the case because of his unresolved guilt from his role in the drowning death of his younger brother. From there, he begins a slow decent into madness and obsession.

This was one of the best horror novels I've read this year. If you're a fan of horror, or just good stories, you should read this book.

The Zombist: Undead Western Tales ed. by William R. Tucker

2011-09-09T13:21:00.000-04:00

The Zombist: Undead Western Tales is, as the title suggests, a short story collection full of zombie westerns. On the plus side, it does have a reasonably diverse collection of zombie types: old fashioned voodoo , Romero-style, modern fast, and quite a few supernatural. The supernaturals seem to dominate as a large portion of the stories involve Indian curses.

I would rate the quality of the stories as mostly good. I wouldn't call any of them super great stories that should have been nominated for a Stoker Award , but they are generally we written and entertaining. A few of the longer stories tended to drag a bit, especially near the end of the book. The only story that I absolutely hated was John P. Wilson's "A Wonderful Man," because about halfway through the story, the protagonist goes from being a wonderful man to being a murdering psychopath for no apparent reason. This is very poor character development.

There are two other downsides to this book. The first, as seems to be increasingly common in small press trade paperbacks, is that the books seems to have had a distinct lack of copy editing. The second is that, as could probably be expected in an anthology with such a narrow focus, the stories start to seem a little repetitive after a while.

Even so, this book is still good, zombie fun for those of us who like the genre.

Cemetery Dance "Will Tweet For Books" Promotional Offer

2011-09-06T18:25:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite small presses is Cemetery Dance. They publish nice, high quality horror books. They are currently having a giveaway. They want people to Tweet about it, spread the word on Facebook, and blog about it. If you do, you can win one of ten $100 gift certificates, and I know I'd like to get one. Check it out at http://bit.ly/CDFreeBooks

The Wall by Ardath Mayhar

2011-09-05T13:53:00.000-04:00

The Wall is another book I managed to get cheaply from local used bookstore. It's a pretty damn good book.

The Wall is a horror novel about a woman called Alice Critten, who inherits her Great-Aunt Elanor's rural house, which is surrounded by the titular wall. On her first night in the house, she hears a strange wail coming from the forest outside her wall. Soon, she starts seeing a ghost, and finds odd fires. She begins to suspect that there is an evil cult in the nearby town.

This is a nice little atmospheric horror story. The main character is a very interesting person. Well worth reading.

The Spy Who Drank Blood by Gordon Linzer

2011-09-04T15:08:00.001-04:00

The Spy Who Drank Blood is an interesting fantasy/horror/mystery type book from the mid-80s. As you can probably guess from the title, it's about a secret agent who is also a vampire. Since the book is from the 80s, it isn't one of those lame sparkly vampires, or a tragic, brooding antihero, or the love interest of some woman who secretly battles the forces of darkness. Being the protagonist means he isn't a crazed monster either, but he is more interesting than these pathetic vampires that infest the genre today.

Blood, as the hero is called, is a vampire mostly in the traditional mold; he drinks blood, casts no reflection, can turn into mist or a bat or a wolf, can control certain animals, has hypnotic eyes, and can't cross running water. He works for a secret government agency called the Office.

His boss's daughter is a reporter for a supermarket tabloid and is in Florida investigating skunk ape sightings. She gets kidnapped by some domestic terrorists, and then kidnapped from them by the skunk ape. Blood gets sent in to sort the whole thing out.

This book combines action, humor, horror, and a little science fiction very well. If you can dis up a copy of this out-of-print book, you should do so.

Fell Beasts ed. by Ty Schwamberger

2011-09-02T15:14:00.000-04:00

Fell Beasts is an anthology of horror stories with monsters in them. It's a pretty good collection with a wide variety of monsters: a Bigfoot, a werewolf,a devil, a crazy killer, a flock of crows, a lake monster, a demonic hotel, manticores, a woodwose, evil banished Christmas dwarf things, and some kind of frog monster. The stories themselves range from good to great. My favorite had to be the decidedly Bizarre "There Goes the Neighborhood: (Holiday Version/Extended Cutting)," by Brady Allen,which was the one with the Christmas dwarfs. My least favorite was the final story, "Yellow," by John Everson, which wasn't bad, but I just didn't find particularly exciting.

The only real problem I had with the book was its poor copy editing. I'm not usually one to even notice that sort of thing, but this book had so many mistakes, I couldn't help but notice. I hope that will be fixed in future reprintings, because if it wasn't for that, I would have rated it higher.

The Naturre of Balance by Tim Lebbon

2011-09-02T10:15:00.000-04:00

I picked up the (now unavailable) Leisure edition of The Nature of Balance in a discount bin a few years ago. For some reason, I read the first couple of chapters, got distracted by some other book, and never finished it, until now. Mostly I decided to finish it because I'm going to Horrorfind Weekend tomorrow, and Tim Lebbon is a guest there.

It's easy for me to see why I let myself get distracted from finishing this book; while it's not a bad book, it's also not exactly what I'd call gripping. Sure it does have an interesting premise, but the characters tended to be kind of stupid.

The story is that one day almost everyone dies in their sleep. I'm not talking about passing peacefully either; it's more of a Freddy Krueger kind of thing. there's an evil being called Fay and group of six survivors, half of who are very odd people. One is a man with no memory who seems to have a history with Fay. Another is a young woman who Fay wants to kill for reasons that are unexplained until nearly the end. Then there's the psycho who is really working for Fay.

Really it's not a bad book. I just prefer my horror with more monsters.

Midnight Sun by Ramsey Campbell

2011-08-30T22:32:00.000-04:00

Midnight Sun is a book that I picked up from my local used bookstore. Overall, I would say that it was a decent horror novel. It did seem to be a bit slow to get going, but otherwise it was pretty good.

This is the story of Ben Sterling. As boy his family dies in a mysterious car crash and he is raised by his aunt. The book begins with him running away so he can visit his old home town of Stargrave, and when he gets there something strange happens involving a cold being. After he is returned to his aunt, he promises to be a good boy and we get several chapters of his childhood. Then he's an adult who is a struggling children's book writer. His aunt dies and he inherits her house, and the house of his parents. He eventually moves back into his parents' old house and we finally get to the part where weird stuff starts to happen.

As you can guess, it takes quite a while to get to the good stuff, though there are a few killings by the cold monster before then. Even the not-particularly-scary portions of the book aren't boring, but in some ways it almost feels like there are two novels fighting against one another. One is the non-genre story of a family trying to break into the publishing world, and the other is the story of a boy/man and his encounters with a familial frost monster thing. Separately, either one would make a good story, and while they still work well together, I think they would have been better separate.

In the Pits with Piper, by "Rowdy" Roddy Piper & Robert Picarello

2011-08-23T14:30:00.000-04:00

Back in the 80s when I was a kid, I used to watch wrestling a lot. Back then my hero was Hulk Hogan, though Mr. T came a close second. Naturally, the most evil man in the world was Hogan's archnemisis, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. Man, I hated that guy's guts.

Now it's been more than 20 years since I last watched wrestling. These day's the only time I see the Hulkster is when he's trying to get me to rent overpriced furniture and computers. I haven't really seen Roddy Piper in years, except for the occasional guest spot on TV, but I do have fond memories of his antics in the ring and on Piper's Pit, so when I heard that Roddy was going to be at this year's Horrorfind Weekend, I knew I'd have to get him to sign something.

I've never really been one for signed photos. I considered bringing along my copy of The Wrestling Album, but quite frankly his singing was terrible on that thing. I decide to check and see if he'd written a book, and I found his autobiography, In the Pit with Piper: Roddy Gets Rowdy.

I found it to be a very entertaining book. It has lots of funny anecdotes about Piper's interactions with wrestlers, promoters, and fans both in and before the WWF, or WWE as they now like to be called. There are also some not so funny stories of Piper being blackballed, stabbed, using drugs, and nearly dieing. There's also his very serious chapter on what he calls "The Sickness," which is his explanation as to why wrestlers engage in so much self-destructive behavior.

This book gives us a glimpse into who Roddy Piper really is, and if like me you remember him from your childhood, you should get yourself a copy.

The Night Boat by Robert R. McCammon

2011-08-22T14:25:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite places to visit is my local used bookstore, The York Emporium.The last time I was there, I picked up McCammon's Night Boat because I had previously read and enjoyed his novel Swan Song.While this book wasn't quite as good as that one, it was still a fun little 80s horror novel.

The book is set on a small Caribbean island. A man goes diving and accidentally unearths an old German U-Boat, which promptly floats back to the surface. This is rather unexpected since a submarine that has been sunk for decades shouldn't be able to do that. This being a horror novel, the reader will know that the boat is rising because the crew isn't quite dead and are out to exact some sort of horrible revenge.

This wasn't the best horror novel I've ever read, but it isn't as bad as some people say it is and is generally a fun read.

Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls Novel by Greg Keyes

2011-08-15T14:44:00.001-04:00

Since I haven't been updating this blog very much at all, I have decided to try to go back to my original formula of attempting to write a review of every book I read, though there will be a few exceptions this time. I will skip reviewing books when all I can think to say is something along the lines of "great book, just like the rest of the books in this series that I've reviewed." To get back into the reviewing, I will sart with a book that I got from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program: Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls Novel by Greg Keyes.

This was one ER book that I probably shouldn't have requested. It's a direct sequel to another book, which I haven't read, and it's set in the world of a video game franchise that I haven't played. This made in very hard for me to get into the book.

The prologue is basically a recap of the events of the previous book, so I wasn't too lost. The main problem came with all the Elder Scrolls terminology that I didn't know. I know what elves and orcs are, but I did not know what any of the other races were and could only infer some of them from the text. Despite it being rather important to the plot, I still have no idea what Oblivion actually is except that that's where the bad guys came from. This leads me to believe that this is the sort of book that is primarily designed to appeal to fans of the video game franchise.

This made it rather difficult for me to get into the story. Once I did get into it, it was a fairly exciting tale, but really, unless your a fan of the Elder Scrolls games, you probably shouldn't bother with this book.

The Emerald Atlas by John Stephens

2010-11-14T16:14:00.000-05:00

I got an advanced copy of The Emerald Atlas in the mail the other day. It's a young adult fantasy novel about three orphans who find a magic book.

My feelings on this novel are somewhat mixed. On the one hand, I enjoyed reading the book. The plot was reasonably exciting and fairly fast paced once it got moving. The premise was bit shaky in spots; in ancient times wizards made three super powerful magical books, any one of which could grant near god-like powers, but somehow their city was destroyed by Alexander the Great, and the books were lost. I know if I had those three books, it would take a lot more than Alexander the Great to stop me.

The main problem with the book is the language. I've read plenty of books written for teens and even children. For many of them, I wouldn't know they were written for younger people if it didn't say so in the book. This is not one of those books. This is one of those books where the language is dumbed down, sometimes to an almost condescending level.

This isn't a bad book, but it's not all that great either. I might be tempted to pick up the rest of the series, but the author really needs to learn not to talk down to his readers.

Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist

2010-09-22T15:54:00.000-04:00

I got a copy of Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Linqvust from LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program. I didn't really care much for this book for several reasons. It's not really a bad book. In fact I think it's pretty good, but it's really not for me.

First off, this is being marketed as a horror novel, but isn't really a horror novel at all. Yes there are reanimated corpses, but I tend to be of the opinion that, much like vampires, that doesn't make a horror novel. What horror needs is to be horrifying. This book is not horrifying in any way. The titular undead aren't standard flesh eaters. They don't kill people. They're figures of pity, not terror.

Secondly, I don't much care for the translation. This is an American edition of the book, but the publishers seem to have gone with a British translation. I know what the British words mean, but for an American audience, you'd be better off using a translation geared for Americans.

Thirdly, this book is kind of slow moving. The dead come back. The government hauls them off. Their families fret a bit. Some try to hide the "reliving." Really, there's far to little action.

This is the sort of book that's supposed to make you think, and it does that, but fiction should also be entertaining, and this really wasn't very entertaining at all. I give it three yo-yos.

The Reapers Are the Angels

2010-07-10T12:34:00.000-04:00

I was lucky enough to get a copy of The Reapers Are the Angels by Alden Bell from the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program. I must say that I am very glad I did. Ever since I was a little kid and I first saw Night of the Living Dead, I've had fascination with zombies. The scarier the better.

This book, however, isn't scary. Despite having zombies in it, I wouldn't really classify it as horror. That's okay though, because it's still a great book and who says zombies have to be horrifying? It's written entirely in the present tense, except for a few flashbacks, which normally annoys the hell out of me. That's okay too, because it's done in a way that I don't actually care about that. There are quite a few nit-picky concerns, like why is there still edible food in abandoned stores 20 years after a zombie apocalypse, and why is the power still on in so many places, and how is it so easy to find a working car, and why are the roads still passable instead of clogged with weeds and crumbling? That's okay, too, because the narrative is great enough that while I noticed these things, I was able to ignore them.

The only thing that I didn't like so much was the ending, which kind of came out of the blue, and in theme at least, kind of reminded me of the original ending to Brian Keene's The Rising, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I really like this book. a lot.

Zombies vs. Unicorns Day 5: The Last Zombie

2010-06-26T00:06:00.001-04:00

I haven't read it yet since it isn't out yet, but I might as well use the final day of my Zombies v. Unicorns Week to plug Brian Keene's upcoming comic, The Last Zombie. The first issue is scheduled to be released next week. It's the story of what happens after the zombie apocalypse ends. The last zombie in the title is one of the main characters, a scientist on a journey across the country who has become the last person to be infected with the zombie plague and just wants to see his wife one last time before he turns. That;s pretty much all I know about it, since it isn't out yet, but I can say that I'll be reading it, and you should too.

Edit 6/26/10: Coolness. Brian was nice enough to give me a copy of The Last Zombie #1 at the Commix Connection Creator Cookout today. It is a freaking awesome comic. The story promises to be exciting, and the artwork is terrific. If you like zombies, you don't want to miss this!

Zombies vs. Unicorns Day 4: Some Zombie Videos

2010-06-24T13:36:00.000-04:00

My stomach's been feeling a bit queasy all day, so I'm not quite up to doing my usual little book "review," but rather than abandon Zombies Vs. Unicorns Week,I thought Id share a few of my favorite zombie videos from YouTube.

Zombies vs. Unicorns Day 3: Musical Interlude

2010-06-23T19:32:00.000-04:00

Rather than doing a review today, I thought I do a musical interlude using 8 Tracks. Let's start off with my Zombie Mix which I put together last year. Most of the tracks come from the FuMP. I really love this mix:

Next is the Unicorn mix, which I just threw together. I actually had a hard time with this, since most unicorn songs I could find seem to be either cover's of Shel Silverstein's "Unicorn Song," covers of America's "Last Unicorn," or instrumentals. The Brobdingnagian Brads, Tom Smith, America, and John Anealio tracks are from my library. The rest are randomly chosen songs other people uploaded to 8Tracks that have unicorn in the title. I have no idea how appropriate they are since I can only listen to 30 seconds of them.

Zombies vs. Unicorns Day 2: Moon Walker

2010-06-22T12:03:00.000-04:00

For day 2 of Zombies vs. Unicorns Week, let's move on to zombies. I might as well start by talking about a book I just read last week, Rick Hautala's Moon Walker, which (despite the title) has nothing to do with Michael Jackson. Since the author has two previous books with Moon in the title, I assume it was some lame publishing attempt to create some sort of name recognition or something.

While this is a zombie novel, it is not a zombie apocalypse novel. The zombies in this book are a strange cross between traditional Voodoo zombies and Romero-esque horror zombies. They are created through a magical Voodoo potion to do hard labor, like Voodoo zombies, but they also eat human flesh like the horror zombies.

While scary enough, this book tends to be a little slow moving. It doesn't take the reader long to figure out that the local mortician with the creepy eye is the evil mastermind who's reanimating the dead to work the potato fields, but it takes the characters forever to work it out. The zombies don't become any sort of a real presence until the last third of the book, and even then they're fairly easy for the heroes to take care of.

While this sin't the best zombie novel I've ever read, it's not really bad--just mediocre. I give it 3 yo-yos.

Zombies vs. Unicorns Day 1: The Last Unicorn

2010-06-21T16:14:00.000-04:00

I saw a contest for a book called Zombies vs. Unicorns on this blog here. Since I can get bonus points for hosting my own Zombies. vs. Unicorns week, I figured why not? I have plenty of zombie books lying around the house that I haven't reviewed, and even a couple of unicorn books. So to start off the week, I thought I'd write a quick review of one of my favorite fantasy novels of all time, The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, which was also turned into one of my favorite animated films of all time, which I won't actually link to since the people who have the rights to it decided to be dicks and rip off Beagle.

It's the story of a unicorn who discovers that she is the last unicorn in the world. Despite the fact that unicorns are by nature solitary creatures, she decides to set out to discover the fate of her people. Along the way she meets a rather inept wizard and quite a few other people that I don't want to get into since I generally try to avoid spoilers.

This is a truely great story, full of magic, adventure, ill-fated romance, and heroism. If you can find a copy, I'd recommend getting the deluxe edition, which includes the follow-up short story, "Two Hearts." "Two Hearts" is one of the best, saddest short stories I've ever read. This is the sort of book that I can't hesitate to give 5 yo-yos to.

Stories edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio

2010-05-30T19:53:00.000-04:00

Stories: All-New Tales is very nearly the perfect short story collection. It's a very eclectic collection; there are fantasy stories, horror stories, science fiction stories, and general fiction. As Gaiman says in his introduction, the editors wanted to put together stories that are designed to make the reader ask. "...and then what happened?" Almost all of the stories do this and do it well.

Notice that I said almost. There are two exception to this. Chuck Palahniuk's "story," "Loser," quite frankly sucks. I would barely even qualify it as a story. It's about a frat boy on acid who goes on a game show that seems to be The Price Is Right as written by someone who's never actually seen the show. There is pretty much no action at all, and nothing of any interest whatsoever happens. Also, it's written in the second person present tense, which is really annoying.

The other exception is Michael Moorcock's "Stories," which is at least a story, just a boring one. This is rather surprising coming from the man behind the Eternal Champion series, since I know he can write a good story (I've never actually read anything by Palahniuk). This is a long rambling story about the life of an editor and his slightly nutso writer friend written as a sort of reminiscence. It's not really very interesting.

The rest of the stories range from great to pretty darn good. Gaiman's "The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains" is excellent, as you would expect from a writer of Gaiman's caliber. Walter Mosley's "Juvenal Nyx" has great potential as a series character. Joe Hill's "The Devil on the Staircase" is written in a format similar to concrete poetry, but is a very good tale. Al Sarrantonio's "Cult of the Nose" is a great weird story. Really all of the other stories are good. Most of them could very well have been the stand out story in any other anthology. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see this being nominated for--and probably winning--several awards.

Iron Man 2 (the novelization, not the movie)

2010-03-25T14:16:00.000-04:00

I got an advance copy of the Iron Man 2novelization by Alexander Irvine. I really didn't expect too much from this book; it's the novelization of a superhero movie, and novelizations generally suck. This one doesn't quite suck, but it isn't exactly a great book either.

I'm going to guess that most of this isn't Irvine's fault. I mean he is pretty much stuck with the plot and dialogue from the movie, so he can't really take much in the way of creative liberties with that stuff. He is essentially stuck with whatever crap the studio churned out, and believe me, much of this is crap.

The plot itself is OK. It moves pretty fast, and didn't have many gapingly obvious holes. There's plenty of fight scenes and explosions, and all the sort of things that makes the movie seem guaranteed to be a blockbuster. It also tends to make the book fairly exciting.

The dialogue is another matter entirely. Even Irvine seemed to realize this, as he refers to the very lame attempts at humor as frat boy style jokes. Here's a prime example, "So you're telling me you're proud of the fact that Hammer filled your vacuum?" Ha ha, isn't that funny? Assuming you're either really drunk or high, it is. Otherwise, it's lame, as is most of the dialogue.

The characters all come across as lame and two dimensional, except Tony Stark. He comes across as lame, two-dimensional, and an unlikeable jerk. I kept hoping the bad guy would kick his ass, but was sadly disappointed.

Horns

2010-03-03T11:46:00.000-05:00

I was lucky enough to get a freee review copy if Joe Hill's Horns. I've read Hill's other novel and the short story collection, and enjoyed them, so I was very happy to get a free copy of this. After I read it, I was even happier. This is a great book. It's part horror, part mystery, part tale of revenge, and part part philosophy on morality. It's about a guy named Ig Perrish, who grows a set of horns.

These horns give him some unusual powers. People feel compelled to share their darkest secrets with him. He can make them act out their secret desires. By touching people, he can know their whole story.

Ig soon realizes how useful this would be, because he's a man with a problem. One year ago, his love, Merrin Williams, was brutally raped and murdered. Despite his innocence, Ig was the only suspect. Unfortunately, the physical evidence was destroyed in a lab fire, and Ig was never cleared. Now Ig would have the chance to find out who the killer was.

On the way, Ig learns quite a lot about the nature of good and evil. He develops a philosophy about the place of the devil in creation. He comes up with a new take on morality. OK, and he kicks some ass, eventually.

Seriously, this is an awesome book. Read it. Read it NOW!

Testing new feature

2009-12-17T12:57:00.000-05:00

Okay, I am posting to test out the new integrated Amazon associates feature thing on Blogger. I don't know why, nobody has ever bought anything from my links. Let's try it with an image and text for MC Lars This Gigantic Robot Kills, because there's a poster of it hanging above my computer.

Okay, that worked. Now, Ill try it with just a link for Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges, because that's the book I'm reading now. That seems to have worked, though it linked to a Spanish edition, because that came up first in the search.

Now, I'll try image only...for umm...uh...Siberian Husky, because my dog is looking at me. Well that got me something, not a dog since Amazon thankfully doesn't sell dogs.

The Gathering Storm

2009-12-04T15:04:00.001-05:00

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from The Gathering Storm. I like the Wheel of Time series. I like Brandon Sanderson. However, I tend to be somewhat wary of these "posthumous collaborations," because usually they're only a step or two above fanfic (if that).

In the case of The Gathering Storm, mt worries were unfounded. This is a truly excellent continuation of the series. I think it's actually better than some of the middle of the series novels where Jordan let the plot lag a bit too much. The plot doesn't lag here, and Rand's character actually develops.

My only complaint, is a general complaint with the series: there are too damn many major characters. This means that many of the characters from the past who were interesting seem to either be given less time in the novel (Mat doesn't show up until halfway through) or disappear altogether (Elayne for instance doesn't get anything more than a few mentions). Even so, this is a good book.

The Warded Man

2008-12-21T13:08:00.000-05:00

If you like reading fantasy, then you should pick up a copy of The Warded Man, by Peter V. Brett, when it comes out on March 10, 2009. I really think this is the best fantasy novel I've read since George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones.

The Warded Man has everything you need to make an excellent fantasy novel. It has strong characterization with interesting characters. It has an interesting plot. There's solid world building. Most of all, it's an original story.

It's the tale of a young man named Arlen, who witnesses the killing of his mother by demons. These demons arise every night and kill any human or animal they can find that isn't protected by magic wards. Arlen vows to find the ancient fighting wards that allowed men to fight the demons millennia ago.

Seriously, I liked this book. The sequel is definitely on my want list when it comes out.

The Lost City of Z

2008-12-05T12:58:00.000-05:00

Wow! The Lost City of Z, by David Gramm, is a very cool book. It's the tale of Col.Percy Fawcett, the last of the great Victorian explorers. In 1925, he set off on his last great journey of discovery, the quest to find the mysterious Amazonian city that he called Z. He, his eldest son, and a third companion set off into the rain forest to search for it and were never seen again. Many other people set off into the rain forest to find the trio, and many of them--100 by the author's estimation--also disappeared without a trace.

Col. Fawcett was a very experienced explorer, and, unlike many of his contemporaries, he made a habit of befriending the Indians he encountered in his travels. He knew how to live off the land, and had an almost legendary immunity to tropical diseases. He was getting old, but even so, he was remarkably fit. His disappearance was very mysterious.

This book is an action filled account of Col. Fawcett's life as an explorer, the events surrounding his disappearance, and the author's own journey into the Amazon to find answers. If I were to make a list of the top ten books I read this year, this book would probably make the list.

Where Am I Wearing?

2008-10-28T13:40:00.000-04:00

Despite the fact that it was only 250 pages of not particularly dense or wordy text, I found Where am I Wearing?, by Kelsey Timmerman, to be pretty slow going. It's a first-hand account of his travels around the world, trying to visit the factories that made the clothes he wears.

The opening chapters describing why he decided to write this book, and the brief mention of his trip to Honduras (where his t-shirt was made), and stuff about anti-Globalization people were all kind of boring. Once he got past that it started to pick up a bit. His trip to Bangladesh, where they made his boxers, was slightly more interesting. He learned a good bit about the country and its people, but the book was still failing to grip me at this point.

Once he came to Cambodia, where his jeans were made, it became more interesting. There was a lot more about him trying to connect to the workers who made his jeans. Yes, he spent some time with a Bangladeshi worker called Arifa, but he didn't seem to devote as much space trying to connect to her. He takes the Cambodians bowling and goes with them to visit their home village. He does something similar for the Chinese workers who made his flip flops. After that, he makes a brief stop at the American factory that made his favorite shorts 15 years ago.

It's mostly a good book, once it pick up about halfway through. Though I do find his harping on how much richer American are than the people who make their clothes to be annoying. Still, it is an interesting book.

The Living Dead edited by John Joseph Adams

2008-10-20T13:15:00.003-04:00

I know I said I was done with the review blog, and I am done with any sort of regular updates, but I've posting occasional reviews on my LiveJournal, so I figure I might as well cross-post them here.

I love zombies. They are, without a doubt, my favorite horror monster. I love zombie movies, unless they really suck. I love zombie songs. I even have a cool zombie t-shirt. So, I just had to get The Living Dead, an anthology of zombie short stories, when I heard about it. It's mostly worth it.

The anthology isn't perfect. There are a few stories whose inclusion I question (I'll get to them later). There are a few people who's absence I wonder about (why no Brian Keene?). Also, almost all of the stories are reprints, which doesn't matter so much to me, because the only one I'd previously read was the King one. If you're like me, this is a good anthology to buy.

Now, let's briefly look at the individual stories that I didn't like:

"Some Zombie Contingency Plans" by Kelly Link: WTF? There are no zombies in this one at all. It has nothing to do with zombies except that the main character is obsessed with zombie contingency plans. He's also obsessed with icebergs, so I can't help but wonder if Adams would have included it an an Iceberg anthology.

"Those Who Seek Forgiveness" by Laurell K. Hamilton: OK, this sin't actually a bad story, but it isn't all that hot either. It's part of Hamilton's Anita Blake series, which while popular, isn't one of the best series in the genre. This story doesn't really heart the collection, but it doesn't really add to it either.

"Less Than Zombie" by Douglas E. Winter: This is a parody of Less Than Zero, which I hanen't read. Also, I didn't actuall see any zombies in this one either, except maybe, in the snuff film they watch.

All of the other stories ranged from good to excellent. So there a re three stories that I at least would consider clunkers in an anthology of 34. And really, even those three aren't bad stories; I just think that two are a bit out of place in this anthology and the other is just in it to cash in one one more big name--which in unneccisary when you have Stephen King,Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Harlan Ellison, and several other writers who are well known in the genre. It is really still a pretty good book.

The Final Post

2007-08-09T16:10:00.000-04:00

I've decided to stop posting reviews here, for two reasons: 1) I can't think of anything useful to say about a book half the time, and 2) I started this to make money off the google ads and amazon store, and it hasn't worked.

So, I'll just leave you with one of my favorite webcomics, Unshelved:

If I've done it right, this comic should update whenever they update the strip, so check back often (if you want). And why not buy their books?

For a Few Demons More, by Kim Harrison

2007-08-01T00:14:00.000-04:00

For a Few Demons More is book five of the "The Hollows" series. This is the first book in the series that I haven't been able to get in an omnibus edition, but that doesn't mean I don't like it. I thought it was pretty good. (If you're wondering why I haven't reviewd any of the other books, it's because I've stopped reviewing book club omnibuses.)

I love the main characters in these books: Rachel, the gutsy and tough witch; Ivy, the seriously messed up lesbian vampire; and Jenks the fiesty and funny (male) pixie. Plus there's Trent (the Elf crime lord), Big Al (the demon), Kisten (Rachel's vampire boyfriend), and quite a few more. Besides the interesting characters, there's a lot of action, which I always like in my books.

The only problem I have with this book is the plot. It's all over the place. I really think it would be better off if the plot were divided between to books instead of one. I'll give you a synopsis, so maybe you can see what I mean.

A demon named Newt shows up Rachel's home looking for something. Rachel thinks it might be the cursed statue she picked up in the last book (it allows werewolves to turn humans into werewolves). Meanwhile someone is killing werewolves and Rachel gets involved in the investigation. Trent is getting married and Rachel is asked to provide security. At the wedding practice she sees Big Al (another demon), who she is known to have associated with in the past. Al goes on a rampage. The vampire lord Piscary is released from prison to deal with Al. Piscary kidnaps Ivy. Then ther's still more stuff that I won't reveal because it would be a spoiler.

While it is all tied together, I can't help but think the story would be better if the cursed statue/werewolf killer and Big Al/Piscary plotlines were in two seperate books so the could be fleshed out more. Even so, I don't think it was bad, and in fact I think it was a pretty good book.

I give For a Few Demons More four yo-yos.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

2007-07-24T12:35:00.000-04:00

If you haven't at least started reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows yet, most likely your not a fan of the series of you're on the space station. I'm going to review it anyway, though.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the forces of evil are in ascendance. Voldemort's forces can do pretty much whatever they want, and pretty soon the Ministry of Magic is their puppet. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are on a quest to find and destroy the Horcruxes, which ultimately leads to the final battle with Lord Voldemort.

I though this was a very satisfying ending for the series. Most of the plot threads have been tied up. There's lots of good action and some character development. We learn something of the history of Dumbeldore and Snape. We learn what the heck a "Deathly Hallow" is. We find out who dies, and who Hermione hooks up with. We even get to see some of the less pleasant characters in a new light.

The only thing I didn't like was the epilogue. It's set (I believe) nineteen years after the main action, and shows some of the characters sending their children to Hogwarts. I won't get into details (to avoid spoiling it), but it didn't really add much to the story and was boring.

Despite that, this was a great book. I give Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows a full five yo-yos.

Blood & rust, by S. A. Swiniarski

2007-07-17T14:50:00.000-04:00

Blood and Rust is a nice little omnibus. It contains two vampire dective stories. The first one, Raven, is about a man who is trying to figure out how he was killed and turned into a vampire. The second, The Flesh, the Blood, and the Fire, is about the hunt for the Cleveland Torso Killer.

I thought these books were great. Both of the stories feature vampiric antiheroes, but both avoid all that vampire sex appeal stuff. The vampires are still all to human, though some of them are monsters.

Anyway, I give Blood and Rust five yo-yos, and I'll have to look for some more of his stuff.

Widdershins, by Charles de Lint

2007-07-09T14:09:00.001-04:00

I'll admit that I'm a big fan of de Lint's work, especially the Newford stories, and especially especially ones with Jilly Coppercorn in them. So naturally--seeing as how this is a Jilly Coppercorn book--I loved this one.

This is the story of how Jill and Geordie finally get together (and how Jilly is finally healed from the tragic events of The Onion Girl and her own screwed up childhood). It's also a story about responsibility--almost all of the characters have something to learn about taking responsibilty for what they do and about not taking responsibility for what is done to them.

Besides that, it's also exciting. There's a war shaping up between the native Animal People and the Fairies. Unfortunately, this brings up the only problem I have with the book and much of de Lint's recent works. It's not a major problem, but I'll still mention it anyway. He has a need to constantly bring out the "big guns." Lately a lot of the action has focused on the super powerful spirit being like the Animal People and fairies, especially the uber powerful ones like Raven and the Crow Girls. It's not really a bad thing, but if you want a story where a person struggles against adversity, it's probably more realistic if they on't have a bunch of god-like beings as friends.

Still, this is a great book. I give Widdershins a full five yo-yos.

Thriller, edited by James Patterson

2007-07-06T14:10:00.000-04:00

The main reason I bought the Thriller anthology is because it contains a Repairman Jack short story. As a rule, I don't read a lot of books that would be classified as a thriller. Still, I largely enjoyed this collection.

I won't get into detail on each story, but I will point out some of the high- (and low-)points. I like F. Paul Wilson's "Interlude at Duane's," but then I like most of his Repairman Jack stories. J. A. Konrath's "Epitaph," was pretty damn good, too. I like Heather Graham's "The Face in the Window," because it was suspenseful.There were some vaguely supernatural elements in David Dun's "Spirit Walker," which makes it border-line fantasy. I really liked Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child's "Gone Fishing." The only story I didn't like so much was Dennis Lynds' "Success of Mission," and even that wasn't bad; it just felt out of place, because it was written in the sixties and the other stories were written specifically for this anthology.

Over all, I highly recommend this book. I give Thriller four yo-yos.

Politics of the Imagination, by Colin Bennett

2007-07-04T22:01:00.000-04:00

I'm really not sure what to say about Politics of the Imagination: The Life, Work and Ideas of Charles Fort. Despite its title, it's not really a biography of Charles Fort. It's more of an analysis of his ideas and their place in modern society, especially in relation to how science and the moder, consumer culture are trying to destroy imagination (or something). To be honest, I'm not entirely certain that I grasped the book. It kind of confused me, so, despite the fact that I liked it, I'm not actually going to rate it. I'll just say that it was certainly enlightening.

Stolen, by Kelly Armstrong

2007-06-24T23:59:00.000-04:00

I decided to put off reading the POD book for the time being. I started reading the first chapter, but the writing style put me off. Seriously people, if you're writing a series and you want to include back story in volume two, put it in a prologue, so people can skip over it.

Anyway, the latest book I read is Stolen by Kelly Armstrong. It's volume two of the "Women of the Otherworld" series. As with volume one, it focuses on Elena, the only female werewolf.

In this book, Elena is kidnapped by a billionaire, who is keeping supernaturals prisoner so his pet scientist can study them. The rich dude is also a bit of a psycho and like to hunt and kill the supernaturals for sport.

It's a good book. I like the characters. I like the writing. I love the action. It's a good book, but I can't think of a lot to say about it.

I give Stolen a full five yo-yos.

Bitten, by Kelly Armstrong

2007-06-20T10:23:00.000-04:00

I started off in reading the middle of the Women of the Otherworld series., mainly because Dime Store Magic and Industrial Magic were available in cheap $5 copies. Now I decided to go back and start at the beginning of the series with Bitten . This book tells the story of the only female werewolf. It's also full of action, which I always like.

Elena, the female werewolf, is a member of the Pack, which is sort of the governing body of werewolves. Non-Pack members are called mutts, and are looked down on by the Pack. In this book, one of the mutts shows up in the Pack's territory and starts killing people. Elena, and the rest of the Pack, have to track him down and kill him.

There's quite a bit more to the story too. We get to see Elena trying to fit in to the human world, and not really succeeding as well as she wishes. We also get to see her struggling to finally come to terms with her lycanthropy, and to figure out which man she really loves.

These are great books and are highly recommended. I give Bitten a full five yo-yos. Up next, I'll hopefully get around to reading that POD I got a review copy of, but I might end up reading the seqal to Bitten.

The Black Tea Experiments, by Ray Atkinson

2007-06-15T16:05:00.001-04:00

I love getting things for free. So, when a publicist offered too send me review copies of two books, I jumped at the chance. Once I got the books, there were some warning signs that the quality might not be too high. One of the books was obviously POD book, and the other (which I'm reviewing today) was published by a "publisher" who's on Writer Beware's "Two Thumbs Down" publisher's list and is strongly not recommended by Preditor's & Editors.

The Black Tea Experiments calls itself an "airplane book," by which the writer means it's intended to be picked up at an airport bookstore, and is short enough to be read during a single flight. If that's what your looking for, then I would recommend this book. It does have an original plot and interesting characters, which can make it a fun read.

The plot goes like this: there's a Russian mad scientist/mob boss who made a serum that turned some kids into super-geniuses and altered their blood. One of these kids gets murdered on a college campus and the hero's girlfriend is blamed. Somehow the hero's super-dooper telescope managed to catch pictures of the crime. It's fairly interesting.

Unfortunately the book has some major style problems. There is way too much extraneous information. It seems like every character (major & minor) gets his own little backstory or side story, which distracts from the main plot. Then there's the fact that the POV keeps shifting from one character to another with no warning. Hell, it shifts from one character in the main plot to another character's back- or side story with no warning. There are also quit a few typos and word misuses like this one:

Your Honor, the defendant has been discovered on a security camera leaving the library with the decendent...

I suspect the author meant deceased. Also, the dialog is pretty bad in spots.

I can only give The Black Tea Experiments three yo-yos. I hope the POD book is better, but I'm not holding my breath.

Proven Guilty, by Jim Butcher

2007-06-14T14:42:00.000-04:00

I've managed to get quite a few books lately, one of which is Proven Guilty, by Jim Butcher. It's the eight Dresden Files Book.

I love the Dresden Files books (the show not so much). Since I've reviewed vols. 1-7 in omnibus editions, I can't think of anything new to say about this one that I haven't said about the others, except that I like the way Dresden's character is developing.

It's a good book. I give Proven Guilty five yo-yos.

Dominic Deegan Volume Two: Ecstasy and Evil, by Michael "Mookie" Terracciano

2007-05-26T14:21:00.000-04:00

I got my copy of Dominic Deegan volume two today. I just love Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire

This volume covers chapters 10 & 11. It's a great story, and it has commentary by the author. The only bad thing is "A Brief History of the Strange Life of Szark Sturtz." In his about the author bio, Mookie says that he's quite bad at prose writing, and now I know why. Still, he's great at writing comics. This is well worth picking up from the Seer's Catalog.

I give Dominic Deegan Volume Two a full five yo-yos.

Shadows Linger, by Glen Cook

2007-05-26T00:30:00.000-04:00

I read the first Black Company novel a few months back, and liked it enough to get the second one, Shadows Linger. I didn't like this one quite as much. I didn't think it was bad, but I didn't think it was great either.

For one thing, the chapters are too damn short. There are forty nine chapters, and only 319 pages in the book. That works out to an average of 7.5952381 pages per chapter. This is especially annoying because the viewpoint alternated between two characters from chapter to chapter. So every couple of pages it would switch from one character (Croaker) to the other (Shed).

I also didn't really like the characters that much. They came across as a bunch of thugs. The best one was Shed, and he murdered (and maybe worse than murdered) several people.

On the plus side, there was lots of action. It was good enough for me to give the book three and a half yo-yos.

Wizard at Large, by Jim Butcher

2007-05-24T10:58:00.000-04:00

Wizard At Large is the third Dresden Files Omnibus put out by the Science Fiction Book Club. It contains Blood Rites and Dead Beat. It is so cool.

Blood Rites is a strange tale involving sex vampires, a porno movie, and a deadly curse. It managed to keep me enthralled. Dead Beat was probably my favorite Dresden novel yet. I just couldn't put the book down. I was up until almost 3 last night reading it. It's got zombies (including a zombie dinosaur), necromancers, a ninja ghoul, a demoness, and other cool stuff. Harry Dresden finally gets some respect from the Whit Council in it, too. I just loved it.

That's why I give this particular omnibus a full five stars.

Industrial Magic, by Kelly Armstrong

2007-05-21T12:59:00.001-04:00

Industrial Magic is the sequel to Dime Store Magic, which I just reviewed a few posts back. Like it's predecessor, this is a great book. I will definitely pick up th rest of the books in the Women of the Otherworld Series.

I like the characters. I like the plot. I like the mafia-like Cabals. I like the psychotic killer. I like the mystery elements. I like that I only payed $4.99 for it. What else can I say? Not much really.

So, let's just sum it up by giving Industrial Magic four and a half yo-yos.

The Last Aerie, by Brian Lumley

2007-05-20T14:06:00.001-04:00

The Last Aerie was a pretty good book. I didn't think it was quite as good as Blood Brothers, but I liked it. I'm not really sure what else to say about it. It was a good continuation of the storyline, and I'll certainly pick up the final volume of the trilogy if I can. So, I'll just sum up my feelings by giving this book four yo-yos.

Dime Store Magic, by Kelly Armstrong

2007-05-16T23:24:00.000-04:00

I mainly picked up Dime Store Magic and its sequel, Industrial Magic because they were only $4.99. Now that I finally had the chance to read it, I'm glad I did.

I loved this book. The writing style is great. The characters are interesting. The plot is fast paced. There's action and romance. It's a sort of urban fantasy, which is my favorite type of fantasy. I'm definitely looking forward to reading Industrial Magic, and I'll probably pick up the rest of the books in the series.

I'm keeping this review short, because it's late and I'm tired. I'll just finish off by giving Dime Store Magic a full five yo-yos.

Khai of Khem, by Brian Lumley

2007-05-16T11:27:00.000-04:00

I got a remaindered hardcover copy of Khai of Khem from Barnes & Noble for only $6. It's a good book, though I found the structure a bit annoying.

It's about a guy named Khai. He's a general of the armies of Khush. He was originally from Khem, but the pharaoh of Khem--who's a psychotic alien/human hybrid--murdered his family. Now Khai seeks revenge. Unfortunately, his soul is separated from his body and is propelled into the modern world. Somehow this enables him to go back to his own time with knowledge of iron weapons (this is set in the bronze age), chariots, and saddles.

The story starts with him getting his soul separated by evil necromancers. Then we see him in the modern world. Then we see his life story n the ancient world (during which time he knows stuff from the future world for no apparent reason). Then the story catches up to the beginning and his soul is drawn back from the future. Then comes the final battle with the pharaoh and his evil necromancers.

I'm really not sure how Khai knows about iron before his soul travels to the future. It just doesn't make any sense to me. It's still a good story though. Good enough for Khai of Khem to get four yo-yos.

Gilfeather, by Glenda Larke

2007-05-13T21:50:00.000-04:00

I read The Aware
, volume one of the Isles of Glory, back when I was feeling too lazy to write reviews. I loved it, and now I just finished volume two, Gilfeather.

It's a great book. I love the characters. There's Blaze Halfbreed, a female warrior who has no place in the world because she is a half-breed. There's Flame, the beautiful sylv user who is being slowly tainted by the evil dunmagic. And there's Kelwyn Gilfeather, the naive physician who is thrust into a life of adventure that he doesn't particularly want.

The novel is told entirely in the first person, which is bad if done poorly and great if done well. In this case, it's done well. Most of the story is narrated by Gilfeather, and we see a lot of his inner struggle to come to terms with what he's done (he kills his wife in the first chapter), with the magics that he cannot see and doesn't believe in, and with his own repressed adventurous nature. The rest of the novel is narrated by Blaze who, while less conflicted, is also a very interesting person.

The plot is great too. There's lots of action. There's a great, well-imagined world. I'll definitely read book three as soon as I can get it.

I give Gilfeather a full five yo-yos.

Flight of the Nighthawks, by Raymond E. Feist

2007-05-11T13:25:00.000-04:00

I'm not terribly familiar with the works of Raymond E. Feist, which made Flight of the Nighthawks something of a pain to read. I do have one of his other novels in my library (though I can't recall if I actually read it or not) and one of his stories was in Legends II, but I really don't know much of the backstory that would have made Nighthawks more enjoyable. As far as I can make out, about 90% of the characters are from previous books, and the plot revolves around incidents from the previous books. Since I'm not familiar with any of this, the book was awfully confusing in parts, which is very annoying in a book that's part one of a series.

If it wasn't for this, I'd give the book a high rating. The characters were interesting, and the plot was action-packed--both of which are things I love in a book. Feist's writing style is pretty good, and the pacing in excellent. It's probably a good book if you're a fan of his writing.

Since I haven't read his other books, I can't give it a good recommendation. If you've read his other books, go for it. If you haven't, you should probably read his other ones first. Since this is the beginning of a new series, it's annoying that it begins in the middle of a greater story. Because of this, I can only give Flight of the Nighthawks three yo-yos.

Voice of the Gods, by Trudi Canavan

2007-05-08T12:08:00.000-04:00

I have now read the final volume of Trudi Canavan's Age of the Five Trilogy, Voice of the Gods. As a whole, it isn't as good as her Black Magician Trilogy, but it's still pretty good.

As far as this book goes, it has it's good points and it's bad points. It does explain how come there is a set of ex-conjoined twins where one's male and one's female (the male had a sex change), though it's only briefly mentioned in passing almost as an afterthought (probably just to explain the blunder from the last book). The plot is pretty fast paced, and I love the characters. It's not particularly deep, but it is a fun read.

One thing I don't like is that the characters are all pretty dumb. Say you're a Circlian. You worship five gods, who killed all of the other gods off a hundred years ago or so. Now suddenly another religion, called the Pentadrians, pops up. They also worship exactly five gods. Everyone wonders where these five new gods come from, but no one (until almost the end of the last book) ever stops to think that maybe their the same gods, just playing some inscrutable godly games. Sheesh. I had that figured out before the end of the first book. I also had it figured out the the reason the gods hated the immortal Wilds is because immortals can become gods, but somehow this came as a shock to the characters.

It's a bit annoying, but it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the story. I give Voice of the Gods four yo-yos.

Blood Brothers, by Brian Lumley

2007-05-04T11:50:00.000-04:00

I finally decided to buy a use copy of Brian Lumley's Blood Brothers, which seems to have gone out of print (as far as I can see, none of the other books in the series are). This is the first volume of the Vampire World Trilogy, which chronicles the story of Harry Keogh's twin suns, Nathan and Nestor, in the alternate universe where the vampire menace was spawned.

Both boys take after their father. Unfortunately, Nestor seems to have all of his father's worst qualities and ends up becoming Wamphyri. Nathan's a much better sort and goes around befriending people and learning. I like the characters. I like the plot (it has lots of action). I like the opening, despite its flaws.

The opening is a recap of past events, a mini-biography of Shaitan (the first vampire), and a history of how a vampire colony was founded across the desert from the inhabited parts of the vampire world. Normally, putting that kind of stuff at the beginning of a book would annoy me, but it was so well written that I didn't care.

This is probably the best book in the Necroscope series, except for the original. I give Blood Brothers a full five yo-yos.

The Coming of Bill, by P. G. Wodehouse

2007-04-30T15:43:00.000-04:00

One of things I really like about LibraryThing is that it enabled me to discover that there was an Overlook Press edition of a P. G. Wodehouse novel I didn't already own: The Coming of Bill. It's not his best book, but it isn't his worst by any means.

It's very different from his usual style. The back cover describes it as "The nearest Wodehouse ever came to writing a serious story," which is essentially true. Two characters die in the story. A couple gets together, gets married, has a baby, nearly gets divorced, and the gets back together again. In many ways, it's a sort of social commentary.

That's not to say that it isn't funny, because it is funny. There were several places where I laughed out loud. There are several of Wodehouse's standard character types: a butler (in this case Keggs who appeared in several other Wodehouse books), a meddling aunt, a boxer, and a business tycoon. This book has much to recommend it.

It's not quite as funny as some of Wodehouse's better known works, but it still is funny. The story is more serious than is typical for Wodehouse, but not detrimentally so. Really, The Coming of Bill deserves four and a halfyo-yos.

Old Man Crow, by Charles de Lint

2007-04-26T14:44:00.000-04:00

I've always been a fan of Charles de Lint's books. Unfortunately, a lot of his stuff has (so far) only been released by smaller presses (largely Subterranean Press), which charge way more than the larger publishers. This makes it difficult for poor people like me to get ahold of them. Still, I got a decent sized refund from the IRS and used some of it to get the relatively inexpensive ($18) Old Man Crow.

It's a great story. It's about one of the animal people, who was a crow dreaming that he's a man, but has become a man who dreams that he's a crow. It's a great story. Sadly, it's only 32 pages long.

Normally I'd give a story I liked this much a five, but I think $18 is way too much to pay for a 32 page book even if it is a limited edition by one of my favorite writers. So, I'm only giving it four yo-yos.

Karavans, by Jennifer Roberson

2007-04-22T12:06:00.000-04:00

Karavans is certainly an interesting read. I loved the characters. The plot was gripping. The world wasn't just a clichéd Tolkien wannabe. It was a great read.

Unfortunately, there was one thing that bugged me; too many things were unexplained. What the the hell is a dioscuri? A Wikipedia search turns up Castor and Pollux, which makes me think it's some sort of synonym for demigod or something, but the book doesn't do that good a job explaining it. Also, what's the deal with the mysterious moving forest Alisanos (which is home to demons and such)? The book also has an annoying cliffhanger ending, which always kind of ticks me off.

There are, of course, sequels in the works, and I will probably read them, and they will hopefully explain some of these things, but it still just annoys me when things aren't properly explained and when novels use cliffhangers. It doesn't tick me off enough to give Karavans a bad rating, but it ain't getting a full five yo-yos. It gets four.

Lord of the Isles, by David Drake

2007-04-16T11:05:00.000-04:00

A few years ago, I picked up a hardcover copy of Lord of the Isles somewhere. For some reason, I never read it. Instead, I put it away and forgot about it. A few weeks ago, I picked up a $3.99 paperback edition.

I really wish I'd read it in hardcover. Then I wouldn't have wasted $4 on buying a paperback version of a book I owned in hardcover. Also, it's a great book, and it has quite a few sequels which I would have also read if I'd read the original.

The thing I like best about this book is the characters. They are very believable and well, interesting. The book also has a well-though-out system of magic, which is always a good thing in a fantasy novel that uses magic. There is a lot of action (especially at the end of the book). Really, this is a great all around book.

I give Lord of the Isles five yo-yos.

Bed Bed Bed by They Might Be Giants

2007-04-13T10:31:00.000-04:00

After spending a few months being lazy, I've decided to go back to writing reviews. I'll start off with a book by my favorite musical group, They Might Be Giants. Sadly, while their music is great, their book ain't.

It's not a bad book. It's just okay. It's basically just an illustrated version of four songs (also included on a CD). The illustrations are alright (though I have seen better). The problem is that while these songs work well as songs, they don't make great poetry. Shel Silverstein (for instance) is way better. I didn't like the book part that much.

Of course, there is also a CD. That was pretty good, even if it is only four songs. "Impossible" was the only song I didn't like. I loved "Happy Doesn't Have to Have an Ending." "Idlewild" was good but short. "Bed Bed Bed Bed" is a new, more lullaby-ish version of "Bed Bed Bed" from their No! album. So the CD would rate as a bit above average, but not much.

I give Bed Bed Bed a mediocre three yo-yos.

The FuMP

2007-01-23T10:58:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to write an entry about The FuMP for the past several weeks now, but for some reason I just kept putting it off. Which is a shame, because it's a really great thing. The FuMP is the Funny Music Project. I first heard about it from Tom Smith's LiveJournal(he's a member of it).

Every week, The FuMP has two new funny songs that you can download for free in MP3 format. If you want to, you can pay 99¢ to download a song in a higher quality MP3 or pay $4.99 a month to download all the songs in higher quality MP3s. If you're really generous, you can pay $9.99 a month for the downloads, and every other month you'll get a free CD compilation of the past two month's songs (with bonus material!).

As I said earlier, Tom Smith is one of the artists. The others are Raymond and Scum, Ron Balder, Sudden Death, the great Luke Ski, and Worm Quartet (Possible Oscar is an auxiliary member). Besides Tom smith, the only member I was familiar with before The FuMP was Raymond and Scum; many years ago, I got a copy of their Wow! What Amazing Cover Art!! CD off of MP3.com (back before MP3.com sucked). Even so, all of the artists are great, and I've added all of them as friends on my MySpace page--except Ron Balder, because I couldn't find a MySpace page for him (and speaking of MySpace, if you're reading this and you have a MySpace, feel free to add me as a friend).

My current favorite song of the bunch has got to be Sudden Death's Cellular Degeneration, because it's just so damn funny. I also really liked the great Luke Ski's You Might Be a Trekkie (though it's not really funny music), Raymond and Scum's Nothing's Gonna Tear Us Apart Love - Theme From Blood and Guts, Tom Smith's Tech Support for Dad, and well all of them really. The one I liked least was Ron Balder's Don't Shoot, and that was mainly because I'm not really into paintball.

The FuMP is great, and you should check it out. I give it the full five yo-yos.

Wizard by Trade, by Jim Butcher

2007-01-21T13:29:00.000-05:00

Just in time for the brand new SciFi show, I finished another Dresden omnibus from Zooba, Wizard by Trade. This one contains Summer Knight and Death Masks. I liked both of these, but especially the second one.

Summer Knight is about faeries and a murder investigation. Death Masks is about some demons and the Turin Shroud. These are pretty imaginative. I just hope the tv show is imaginative and not crappy.

I give this book a full five yo-yos.

Diana Tregarde Investigates, by Mercedes Lackey

2007-01-18T12:44:00.000-05:00

Besides being a member of the Zooba book club, I'm also a member of the Science Fiction Book Club (mainly because I've never gotten around to canceling my membership). Unfortunately, I forgot to send in my stupid ass "don't send me you're main selections" cards the last two months and have been stuck with books I didn't really want. Fortunately, if the first one is any indication, they don't suck.

Diana Tregarde Investigates is an SFBC exclusive omnibus containing all three of Lackey's Diana Tregarde books. Diana is a great character. She smart, tough, and powerful (but not so powerful that she can defeat her enemies with no problem). The stories are exciting and adventurous. I would give it a five, but I can be a bit of a nitpicker, and this book hit on one of my pet peeves.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't have any thing against Wicca or Wiccans (and if any Wiccans read this, please don't come in here and flame me). The first book is set around the time of the Watergate scandal (i.e. in the 70s), and at the time Diana is in her twenties (I think). Wicca was founded in 1954. Yet somehow, Diana was raised a Wiccan by her grandmother (or possibly great grandmother, depending on the book). Wicca may claim to be the survival of an ancient, pre-Christian religion, but (if Wikipedia is any indication) there is zero evidence of it. Therefore it would be highly unlikely that someone's grandmother in the fifties of sixties would be a practicing Wiccan who could secretly raise her granddaughter in the faith.

Anyway, it's still a darn good book, and I give it four yo-yos.

Singer of Souls, by Adam Stemple

2007-01-14T11:19:00.000-05:00

I tjought Singer of Souls was a decent book. I had some problems with it--especially the ending--but I thought that overall it was ok.

It's an urban fantasy that is certainly reminiscent of de Lint's work. The protagonist is an underdog--in this case a busker and a recovering drug addict. He moves in with his grandmother in Scotland to get cleaned up. He ends up gaining the Sight, and gets into all sorts of trouble with fairies and a crazy priest. It makes for an exciting plot, and interesting characters.

Unfortunately, I didn't like the ending (and if you want to avoid spoilers, you should skip this paragraph). The protagonist goes insane and turns into a villain. That's annoying, unexpected, and entirely unjustified. Then there's the "epilogue," it makes for one of those god damned annoying, cliffhanger-type endings that serve no purpose except to make the reader want to read any possible sequel. In this case it didn't work, because I ain't gonna read any sequel.

Because of the ending, I can only view Singer of Souls as mediocre, so it only gets three yo-yos.

Roverandom, by J. R. R. Tolkien

2007-01-10T15:53:00.000-05:00

Like most fantasy fans, I loved The Lord of the Rings, so I decided to pick up Roverandom the last time I was in Borders. I don't think it'ss ever be viewed as a classic like LOTR or The Hobbit, but it ain't half bad.

Like The Hobbit, Roverandom was written for children. This book was originally a story told by Tolkien to his children to console his middle son over the loss of a prized toy. It was never published in Tolkien's lifetime, and even the version of the manuscript used for this publication wasn't completely finalized (at least that's what I gather from the introduction).

Because of this, the story is a little rough. It's not bad, but I think it could have used a bit more of a polish. It's a very imaginative and entertaining story that children would certainly enjoy. I enjoyed it, and it's been a heck of a long time since I was a kid.

It's a decent book. Tolkien fans should get it, if they don't already have it. Fantasy fans should probably buy it too. I give Roverandom four yo-yos.

Starman, by Sara Douglass

2007-01-09T14:26:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading Starman. It has nothing to do with the movie Starman; it's volume three of the Wayfarer Redemption series.

While this isn't actually the end of the series, it finishes off the battle between Axis and his evil half-brother, Goragel. I'm not really sure what the rest of the series is about then, but I'll probably pick them up to find out. I like these books. They're aren't great, but they're good. If you read volumes one and two of the series, you should read volume three.

Starman gets four yo-yos.

I Am a Dalek, by Gareth Roberts

2007-01-05T12:13:00.000-05:00

I've been a fan of Doctor Who since I was in elementary school. It's probably been about twenty years now since I first watched the series. I loved the Tom Baker episodes. I started watching the new series as soon as it was downloadable via bit torrent (once it was broadcast in the US, I started watching on SciFi).

I was always a fan of the Doctor Who books too. I have a largish selection of the novelizations. I have (what I believe is) a complete set of the Virgin Missing Adventures. I have a few of the Virgin New Adventures too, but I never liked that series as much. When the BBC started publishing the books themselves, I picked up one novel, didn't like it very much, and stopped reading the books.

Flash forward to January, 2007. I got about $80 worth of Borders gift cards for Christmas, and was having some trouble finding $80 worth of books. So, when I saw I Am A Dalek for only $5.99, I decided to give it a chance. I thought the author's name was familiar, and after a quick search through my collection, I found that he wrote three of the Virgin Missing Adventures.

The book is pretty well written, though I thought the opening was a bit off. The plot is original, but true to the series. The characters seem like their TV counterparts. Style-wise, it's everything I'd expect from a Doctor Who novel, and it's a good book.

Sadly, I have to give it a mediocre rating because of the price. $5.99 is cheap for a book, but I think it's a bit much for a hundred-page book that I read in about an hour. I couldn't recommend a book of this size unless it was at least a dollar cheaper in price. So, with it being no reflection on Mr. Roberts' writing, I can only give I Am a Dalek three yo-yos.

Of Darkness, Light, and Fire by Tanya Huff

2007-01-04T23:35:00.000-05:00

I love omnibus editions, even if the novels in the omnibus aren't part of a series, like in Of Darkness, Light, and Fire. The only thing these books have in common are: they're by Tanya Huff, they're fantasy, they're good, and they have some gay characters.

Gate Of Darkness, Circle of Light is an urban fantasy story. I'd rate it as being almost as good as de Lint's stuff. The heroes are all too human (even when they aren't human). The villain is monstrous. The heroes are a fairly oddball bunch. There's a mentally challenged young woman, a cat, a busker, a Hindu social worker, a bag lady, and a sort of angel. I liked this one a lot.

The Fire's Stone is a more traditional fantasy about a diverse group of heroes ( a wizard, a thief, and a warrior) who goes on a quest to retrieve a magic jewel and save a city. It may sound fairly standard, but he characters make it different. The wizard is young and very immature. The warrior is an alcoholic prince whose been dumped on his whole life. The thief is a bit mental because his lover, Ruth, was executed by his father (he's also a repressed homosexual with a crush on the warrior). It's a good book, though the plot is fairly standard.

Over all, it's a good book. I give Of Fire, Light, and Darkness five yo-yos. I have also finished another, very short book, but I'm going to wait until tomorrow to put the review of it up.

Angel of Darkness, by Charles de Lint

2007-01-02T23:28:00.000-05:00

I just love Charles de Lint's books. His fantasies are great, and even his few horror novels are pretty damn good. So far, Angel of Darkness is my favorite of the horror novels.

This book has a pretty scary sort of monster. It's way better than the monsters/villain of the other de Lint horror novels. As you can guess from the title, the monster is a sort of avenging angel. The problem is, that after a lunatic opens a portal to the angel's world, it starts doing its vengeance thing on innocent people.

The creature was powerful enough that I was wondering how it was going to be stopped the whole way through the book. This book doesn't have any of the urban wizards or people with useful bits of folklore that always seem to show up and help save the day in other de Lint books. That's a good thing that makes this book more interesting.

Other than that, there are a lot of standard de Lint character types. There's a victim of abuse. There's an abuser. There's a musician. There are good and bad cops. There's a guy who tries to help street kids. As is usual in de Lint's books, they don't come across as stereotypes, even though he uses them a lot.

I give Angel of Darkness the full five yo-yos.

Haunted Places of York County, by Leo Motter

2007-01-01T21:49:00.000-05:00

I got a couple of Borders gift cards for Christmas, and I decided to use them today. One of the books I got was a local book called Haunted Places of York County Pennsylvania. It's a fairly interesting bit of local lore.

Some of the stories in it were familiar to me, like the gates of Hell in Hellam, or see the post from earlier today for the Hex Murder. There were some lengthy digressions into other areas of local history--the story of the burning of the bridge over the Susquehanna River during the Civil War is a familiar one. I found the author's style to be occasionally grating.

Still, I like this book. The story of "The Imp of Clarke Alley" was great, even if the author compares it to a poltergeist for no apparent reason (it seems far more like a Pooka to me). I also liked liked "Cannibal," about the ghost of a Fiji warrior. Even if there weren't any ghosts in it, the story of Freeborn Garrettson was pretty good too.

Unfortunately, some of the stories weren't that good. "The Elmwood Mansion" basically boils down there being a house where a ghostly Confederate soldier and a girl in Civil War era clothes have been seen. It's not really much of a story. "The Ghost Students of Lewisberry" is basically a gravity hill--a type of illusion whereby a downhill slope looks like an uphill slope--with a corny ghost story attached to it.

Still, this book is at least as good as Weird Pennsylvania, and I'm actually giving it a slightly better rating, because it has a bibliography, which is always a useful thing in these types of books. I give this one four yo-yos. If you live in or near York County Pennsylvania, you should buy it.

Weird Pennsylvania, by Matt Lake

2007-01-01T11:09:00.000-05:00

It's no fun being sick, folks. If you're wondering why it's been almost a week since I updated last, I've got two words for you: stomach flu. I went down with it Wednesday morning, and I was too sick to get out of bed until Saturday. Saturday and Sunday, I was too damn tired to update, and I didn't get much reading done anyway.

Still, I have read Weird Pennsylvania, which I got as a Christmas present. As you probably know, I've always been interested in the weird and unusual, so this would probably seem like the perfect gift. Well, it's the thought that counts.

Not that this is a bad book. It's actually a pretty good book, but not for the likes of me. I think it was the book's style that I didn't like. It was a bit too simplistic, and almost condescending in spots. Especially when he tries to define Fortean as gullible true believer,defines his position as as "somewhere between the credulity of true believers and dismissive responses of the critics lies the truth," which is really a far more Fortean stance.

Anyway, the book does have lots of interesting information and stories. You can here about Midgetville, killer albinos, SHC, shoe museums, giant creepy statues, the gates to Hell, ghosts, standing stones, and one of my favorite bits of local history--the Hex Murder. Sadly, by the nature of the book none of the topics are discussed in any depth, which is a shame because they're so interesting. That's the problem with this book, really.

Weird Pennsylvania is great as introduction to weirdness (especially in the great state of Pennsylvania). It could serve as a useful touring guide for weird sites in PA. It would be a great addition to the library of someone who is only marginally interested in the topic of weirdness, but for someone like me, it's like reading Dick and Jane. I can only give Weird Pennsylvania three and a half yo-yos.

Forest Mage, by Robin Hobb

2006-12-26T23:46:00.000-05:00

About a week ago, I got Forest Mage from Zooba. It's a great book. I liked the first volume in the soldier Son trilogy, and I thought this one was even better. Nevare seems painfully stupid at times, and he can be kind of an arrogant jerk, but he's still a great character. I'm very tired right now, so this is all of a review I can manage. I give this book five yo-yos.

Merry Christmas, Everybody!!!!!

2006-12-24T20:19:00.000-05:00

It's not actually going to be Christmas here for about four more hours, but I wanted to get this out of the way, because I'll probably forget about it tomorrow.

The Burning Land, by Victoria Strauss

2006-12-21T14:03:00.000-05:00

I finally finished reading The Burning Land. It took me almost a week, mainly because I've been playing a lot of MTGO in my spare time. Despite how long it took me to read it, I think The Burning Land is a good book.

The thing I liked most with this books was the characters. The story is told from the viewpoints of Gyalo and Axane. They're both very well-rounded sorts of characters. I especially like Gyalo and his struggles with his faith.

I also liked the fairly original sort of magic in this book. There are Shapers and Dreamers. Shapers can make or unmake non-living things with magic. Dreamers can dream of far flung events and attempt to change the world with their dreaming (I wasn't all that clear on exactly what they did). It's far more original that the usual waving-your-arms-and-mumbling-in-a-foreign-language type of magic that's most common.

The only thing I really didn't like was the ending. There's no real resolution to the larger issues. Sure, Gyalo and Axane finally get together, but there are a lot of plot threads left hanging. That's no too much of a handicap though, since I assume that many of the plot threads will be tied up in the sequel, The Awakened City. I give The Burning Land four yo-yos.

Ask A Ninja DVD

2006-12-19T10:41:00.000-05:00

So, I got my copy of the Ask A Ninja DVD: Volume 1 yesterday. After I finished checking the box for booby traps and disarming the bomb inside, I popped the DVD into my DVD player, which promptly tried to kill me. I'm still not sure how The Ninja did it, but it sure was cool.

All kidding aside, it's a great DVD. It features 30 episodes from the Ask A Ninja podcast, two of which haven't actually been on his site yet. It's got ten of the Ask A Ninja Special Deliveries including the Doogtoons episodes and his review of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Then there are several other extras, like an interview with a real ninja, and a bit where the Urban Ninja shows you how to kill a bad luck dragon.

There are plenty of Easter Eggs. I won't tell you how to find them, because then The Ninja would have to kill me. Really though, they aren't very hard to find, and I thought one of them was cool. They're all just weird, little short things. I'm not really sure how to describe them any better than that.

This DVD is hilarious. It's well worth the measly twenty bucks. You should buy it now. That way, you'll get a chance to watch it before The Ninja kills you. Ask A Ninja DVD: Volume 1 gets the full five yo-yos, and not just because I'm afraid The Ninja would kill me if I gave it a bad review. This thing is really good.

You Can Be the Stainless Steel Rat, by Harry Harrison

2006-12-14T21:14:00.000-05:00

I ordered You Can Be the Stainless Steel Rat a few weeks ago, and I finally got around to looking at it. I love the Stainless Steel Rat series (all except Circus, which I haven't read yet, but still probably wouldn't like much judging by the reviews). Unlike the rest of the series, this isn't a regular novel; it's a Choose Your Own Adventure type of thing. You know with stuff like "If you want to pick that guys pocket go to 65."

Unlike other books of this type--at least as far as I recall, since I haven't read any since elementary school--there is no way to lose this one. If you make a wrong choice, the book just tells you to go to the right choice. In fact, all the coices ultimately lead to the same path, which means there is little or no value in rereading it to try some alternate choices.

This book does have some good humor in spots. It also has a dragon two singing porcuswine, and a Robin hood wannabee. Since It's a Stainless Steel Rat book, I'm tempted to give it a good review, so it gets four yo-yos.

Wizardborn, by David Farland

2006-12-13T10:55:00.000-05:00

I finished Renelords book 3, Wizardborn and I thought it was better than the second book in the series. Obviousle some people don't agree with me. I don't know why I bother reading the Amazon reviews; they're always either mindlessly devoted to a book or saying things I don't agree with.

One reviewer complained that "Gaborn's army is still in about the same location, [...] Borenson is just starting his search to find Dylan Hammer, Celinor and the Horsesister girl are taking their dear old time completing their quest, Averan is still barfing up Reaver brains, and the Days(another cool idea with the endowment system that has been squander)have done nothing." All of these are rather stupid complaints, seeing as how the book takes over a period of two days. Sheesh. The characters aren't The Flash and they don't have planes, so you can't expect them to cover vast distances in that short a period of time. That reviewer also thinks that all the parts of the plot not having to do with endowments are boring and should be cut out, which is odd, because I thought that endowments were the most boring, stupid idea in the series.

Another reviewer complained because a lot of horses died in the book. WTF? Another reviewer complained that he didn't like it as much as George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Well, so what?

I thought it was good, and since this is my review blog, that's all that matters. I liked learning more about the Reavers in this book. They aren't anything like us. In fact their way of life would be monstrous for a human, but they aren't really evil; they're just being controlled by an evil force. In a way, I pity them, and making someone pity what is essentially a monster is a good thing.

Since I'm feeling fairly generous today, I'll give Wizardborn five yo-yos.

Kino No Tabi, by Keiichi Sigsawa

2006-12-12T16:53:00.000-05:00

The Beautiful World 1: Kino No Tabi is a very strange book. It's about a girl named Kino and her talking motorcycle, Hermes. The two travel around visiting these weird city-states, where aspects of the world are taken to strange extremes.

The first story, "Grownup Country," is set in Kino's homeland, where all 12 year olds are required to undergo an operation to become grownups. Then there's "The Land of Shared Pain" where everyone has become an empath, which causes everyone to become hermits, because people don't want to know each other's emotions. There's "The Land of Majority Rule," where democracy is taken to a frightening extreme that leaves only one survivor. "Three Men on the Rails" is a story about three elderly men and their futile and pointless jobs. "the Land of Peace" is about a very horrible place full of awful, awful people. "Coliseum" is about a country where people are required to fight for citizenship.

While this book may be strange, it's very compelling. I'm definitely going to try and read the rest of the books in the series, and maybe find the anime. I give this one five yo-yos.

Gateways, by F. Paul Wilson

2006-12-10T22:25:00.000-05:00

The only sad thing about the fact that I've finished Gateways is that now there aren't any more Repairman Jack books to read (until the next one comes out). Yes, I've finally read them all (except Nightworld, and that doesn't really count).

F. Paul Wilson's books tend to flow very well, if you know what I mean. Once you start reading one, you have a damn hard time putting it down. The pace is steady, the tension is more or less constant, and there's a Hell of a lot of action. Anyone who hasn't read Wilson's books is missing out on a good thing.

This book starts with Jack's father in a coma in Florida. Jack goes to Florida to help and runs into a pack of crazy swamp mutants. They're responsible for what happened to Jack's dad, so naturally it's up to Jack to kick their collective asses.

I love this book, like I love all the Repairman Jack books. I give Gateways a full five yo-yos.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are quite a few reviews up this week. I have the next for days off of work, and sadly, I don't have anything better to do with my time than read. I so need to get a girlfriend.

Hal Spacejock, by Simon Haynes

2006-12-09T11:51:00.000-05:00

The only bad thing I have to say about Hal Spacejock is that it's going to cost me $18 to pick up the second volume in the series. I'll still do it though, because this was a great book.

It's very funny. I laughed out loud several times while reading (so it's probably a good thing I didn't bring it with me to read at the doctor's office the other day, because who knows what they would have thought). It's also a great adventure story with lots of action and adventure and explosions, and a few fires, and some radioactive gunk, and a lots of other cool stuff. I'm going to go ahead and say that I agree with Tom Holt's blurb on the front cover; This is better that Red Dwarf.

Sure, the main character's kind of a jerk and a total incompetent, but that's okay, because he's a lovable incompetent jerk. Hal Spacejock kind of like Homer Simpson in space, only funnier and way more macho. I give this book the full five yo-yos.

Memento Mori, by The Bastard Fairies

2006-12-08T00:26:00.000-05:00

I love free stuff, so when I heard that this band had full copy of their album available for free download, I thought what the hell. First thought, I did check out their MySpace page, from which I learned that their music was pretty good (and their lead singer is a hottie). Naturally, I went on and downloaded the full album.

It's pretty good. I'm too tired to go into a track by track summary, but I really liked "We're All Going to Hell" and "Memento Mori." You should download a copy, and tell all your friends. The Yoyogod gives Memento Mori five yo-yos.

Eragon, by Christopher Paolini

2006-12-06T11:12:00.000-05:00

With the movie coming out, and people saying how great it is, I figured it's about time I read Eragon. While I do think it was good, I don't really think it was all that great.

I don't like the writing style very much. I thought it seemed to be a bit simplistic. Yes, it was written for a younger audience, but so were the Harry Potter, Redwall, and Chrestomanci books (among others I've read), and those didn't have that same feel to them.

I also had some problems with the logic of the story. Near the end, there's an epic battle in a dwarven tunnel. This battle is between two fairly massive armies, so you've got to figure it's bigger than a football field. The tunnel is also high enough for a dragon to fly around overhead, which to my mind means that it's taller than my house. I can't see how anyone, even a dwarf, could make a tunnel that big without modern technology. I also can't see why anyone would bother making a tunnel that huge, if it isn't going to get much use (this one was supposed to have been practically abandoned).

Anyway, it's still at least a good book, I'll read the rest of the series eventually, and I'll probably see the movie even if--from the pictures I've seen--it looks like they didn't bother giving the elf pointy ears. I give Eragon four yo-yos.

Cool email & cool snail mail

2006-12-04T13:09:00.000-05:00

I got two interesting things today. I got my package from joining the Hal Spacejock support crew, and found an autographed copy of the first Hal Spacejock book inside. :) Thanks, Simon. It's now next on my reading list after I finish Eragon.

Also, I just preordered a copy of the Ask a Ninja DVD, and recieved the coolest order confirmation ever:

Dear Nathan,

You have chosen to risk life and limb to pre-order the Ask A Ninja Volume 1 DVD. You have earned Film Baby's eternal respect for your obvious bravery.

A messenger just tip-toe'd over to the Ninja's office and whispered to him in his sweetest voice that you'd REALLY like one of his DVDs. He said to tell you that he'll send it to you, and he looks forward to killing you soon. And then he killed the messenger.

Provided the Ninja doesn't kill US first, we'll ship your DVD the moment it arrives at our warehouse. We'll send you another email to WARN you that a NINJA is on its way to your house. You'll be hearing from us again shortly. Until then, perhaps you'd like to browse our catalog of ALL INDEPENDENT films, docs, shorts, instructional videos, and features. Browse here:
www.filmbaby.com

Thanks for supporting independent entertainment!

Your new friends at Film Baby

It looks like it'll be a cool DVD, and even without seeing it yet, I recommend buying it. It's only $20 + shipping, so go here and get it, and maybe the Ninja will kill you soon.

Enchanter, by Sara Douglass

2006-12-04T00:31:00.000-05:00

Sorry it's been so long since my last post, but like I said last time, I've been sick. I'm just about over my cold now, so it's time to review Enchanter, part two of the Wayfarer Redemption.

I liked this book. I didn't like it quite as much as the first one, because I though that Axis, the main character, was kind of a jerk throughout most of this book. Yet everybody still loves him. Also, some of the plot twists were totally predictable; I mean anyone who couldn't figure out that Azhure was the daughter of WolfStar before the characters, must be pretty dense. and, the battle between Axis and his half brother was a bit anti-climactic.

Still, it was a pretty good book. There was lots of action, and the tale itself is pretty darn epic. I'll definitely read the next one in the series, and I'll recommend this one, too. It's not perfect, but it's not that bad, so Enchanter gets four yo-yos.

Harbringers, by F. Paul Wilson

2006-11-30T13:26:00.000-05:00

I'm not feeling too good right now, so I'm going to try and keep my review of Harbingers short. If you've read my previous blog posts, you know I love the Repairman Jack books. We finally get to find out who's been killing Jack's family. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise to any reader who's been paying attention. There's lots of action and emotion, and we get to see Jack make a really tough choice. I give Harbingers five yo-yos.

Brother Odd, by Dean Koontz

2006-11-29T10:55:00.000-05:00

I picked up Dean Koontz's new Odd Thomas book, Brother Odd, yesterday, and I've already finished it. If you haven't read the Odd Thomas series, you don't know what you're missing.

Odd Thomas is, not surprisingly, odd. He can see the lingering dead, and worse things, like the creatures he calls bodachs. Bodachs are shadowy harbingers of disaster, and when Odd sees them at a hospital for disabled children, he knows that big trouble is coming. Pretty soon, all Hell breaks loose.

Brother Odd is very fast paced, full of action and humor, and is a great read. Odd Thomas is one of the most original and memorable characters you'll ever read about. The only real complaint I have is that the villain is utterly predictable. I mean, when weird monsters start popping up you gotta figure that either a mad scientist or a wizard of some sort is behind it, and there just happens to be a scientist with a secret underground lair in this book. Still, that doesn't detract from the plot.

I definitely recommend this book. Brother Odd gets a full five yo-yos.

Deathworld, by Harry Harrison

2006-11-28T13:11:00.000-05:00

I like Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series, so when I saw Deathworld, I decided to pick it up. It's an omnibus edition containing the first three Deathworld novels and a short story (there are apparently four other novels in the series, but they were written for the Russian market and have never been translated into English). Sadly, this book was kind of disappointing. The first novel was great. The second was terrible. The third was mediocre.

The first novel, tells how Jason dinAlt came to the planet Pyrrus, where every living creature is against humanity. Jason is a professional gambler, and he goes to Pyrrus after helping win the Pyrrans a billion bucks, so they can buy weapons. He goes to Pyrrus to prove how manly he is and ends up helping to solve their problems through reason.

In the second novel, Jason is kidnapped by a moralistic do-gooder. The guy's spaceship crashes on a primitive world and the two are taken into slavery. Somehow--despite the fact that he was raised in a feudal world, had little or no formal education, never learned to read until he was 15, and spent his adult life as a gambler--Jason has an unbelievable grasp of science and technology. He improves on the local cars, builds a radio transmitter and receiver, knows how to make sulfuric acid, improves the local metallurgy, and shows a basic knowledge of electrical generators and oil refineries. Jason also proves to be a bit of a dick when he starts a war to try and "civilize" the planet.

He's an even bigger dick in the third novel. There he starts a war, resulting in the loss of many innocent lives, so he can start a mining operation on another primitive planet. I'm sorry, but by the third novel I hated this guys guts.

Sure, the book has lots of action, which is always good. Unfortunately, I found parts of the book to unbelievable, even for SF, and I couldn't stand the main character. Still, since novel number one was so good, I'll give Deathworld an above average rating. It gets a barely above average three and a half yo-yos.

Hal Spacejock Support Crew

2006-11-25T10:48:00.000-05:00

I always like trying to get free stuff, and the Hal Spacejock books actually look interesting. Unfortunately they don't seem to be available in the US (okay, Amazon has used copies, buy $25 for the first one and $18 for the second is a bit more than I want to pay). Anyway, without further ado I present the meme:

I joined Hal Spacejock's Support Crew

I didn't pay anything,
I didn't sign anything,
and I didn't read the fine print.
Just like Hal!

No space pilot can exist in a vacuum (hah!), and behind every successful pilot there's a talented and dedicated support crew.

Hal Spacejock is one of the least successful space pilots in the history of the galaxy, and a worldwide support crew is needed just to get him off the ground.

Join now for free Hal Spacejock goodies!
| Join the team | - - - - - - - - - | Hal who? |

Hal Spacejock ... Après moi le wreckage

Do-Gooder, by F. Paul Wilson

2006-11-23T18:56:00.000-05:00

Last week, I was browsing the Repairman Jack forums, and I saw that there was a Repairman Jack short story available for $30 on eBay. These aren't just any short stories. They're printed on a 14x20 broadsheet, and are signed and numbered. It's printed on acid free paper. It has a woodcut illustrating it (and is signed by the artist too). It's printed on acid-free velvet and is suitable for framing. I got one, and it's pretty cool. There are only 200 of them, so if you want one, you better check it out now.

The story is pretty good, considering it's only about 500 words, and it's just such a neat thing to own. I give it five yo-yos.

Midnight Mass, by F. Paul Wilson

2006-11-21T10:53:00.000-05:00

Many years ago, I read the novella that the first part of Midnight Mass is based on, and I thought it was a great story. Earlier this year, I rented the movie version, and thought it sucked (and wondered why the Hell they cut out the Rabbi, because he was one of the best characters and had one of the best lines: "What goes through this old Jew goes through you!" as he sacrifices himself to kill the vampire priest). The book is way better than the crappy movie, and slightly better that the novella.

The book is set in a world where vampires have taken over; like I Am Legend, only the vampires owe more to Dracula and other fictional vamps. It's a heroic tale, about how one man can light a spark that can, ultimately, lead to the vampires' defeat. Sure the man ends up becoming a sort of half-vampire--kind of like Blade, only with more vampiric weaknesses--but he's still a heroic man even then.

There's another great bit of dialog in the book:

"'Father Joe Cahill is back--and he's pissed.' I like that."
"It'll make a great bumper sticker"

It would make a great bumper sticker.

The book is great. It's got some great lines, some great adventure, some great characters, and it's pretty damn scary. Even if you don't like vampire books in general, or if you were turned of by the crappy movie, you should still buy this book. Midnight Mass gets five yo-yos from the Yoyogod.

The Blood books: Volume Three, by Tanya Huff

2006-11-19T13:52:00.000-05:00

If you've read my reviews of Volumes 1 & 2, you can probably guess that I liked The Blood Books, Volume III. The characters are interesting, and the stories are original. This volume contains a novel and a short story collection.

I thought the novel wasn't quite as good as the previous ones. The other ones featured supernatural enemies and mad scientists. This one featured an evil doctor who killed street people for their organs. That might have been fairly original in 1997 when the story was written, but in 2006 it's been done to death. Adding in the ghosts were a nice touch. The story was still pretty goo, though I thought it dragged in places.

I liked the short stories better. I had actually read "This Town Ain't Big Enough," though I have no idea where, since it was first published in Vampire Detectives, and I'm pretty sure I haven't read that. I liked all the stories, but I guess I'd pick "So This Is Christmas" as my favorite.

Anyway, buy these books. I give The Blood Books: Volume III four and a half yo-yos.

Edit: While cataloging my books, I discovered that "This Town Ain't Big Enough" is also in the book Virtuous Vampires, which I do have a copy of.

Where's My Cow?, by Terry Pratchett

2006-11-18T12:37:00.000-05:00

I just love the Discworld books. Pratchett is one of my favorite writers. So, I decided to get a copy of his Discworld book for little kids, Where's My Cow?. It's pretty good book.

I wouldn't consider it for the casual reader. It's a very short book, but that's what you'd expect from a children's picture book. The story it tells would be familiar to anyone who read Pratchett's Thud!, as it's told there as well.

So, who would I recommend this too, then? First, for fanatics, like myself. I want to read all the Discworld books. Second, I'd recommend it to parents (or other adults) who want to expose children to Discworld and Pratchett. I plan on getting another copy to give to my 1 and a half year old nephew as a Christmas present. Third, I'd recommend it to anyone with little kids and a sense of humor.

Looking at the Amazon reviews for this book, some people don't like it. Many people complained that the illustrations aren't the same as the ones from The Last Hero/don't look like they think Sam Vimes et al should look/suck. I think the illustrations are funny and go very well with the story. Some people complain that the language isn't appropriate. There is "Buggrit," which means "Bugger it," and would be a curse word in Britain, but I'm in America where it isn't, so that doesn't apply to me. Some people complained that the book wasn't suitable for children or just wasn't good. Those people probably had their sense of humor amputated.

I like Where's My Cow? enough to give it five yo-yos.

The Wayfarer Redemption, by sara Douglass

2006-11-16T11:38:00.000-05:00

I love getting a good book cheap, so when I saw a copy of The Wayfarer Redemption at my local Borders for $3.99, I grabbed it. What surprised me most about this book, is that so many of the people who reviewed it on Amazon hated it. I thought it was great.

Sure, it does use the fairly standard epic fantasy plot. Villain pops up and threatens the world. Heroes go on a quest. One guy turns out to be very important and has magic powers. Another guy is a total dickhead. They fight over the beautiful woman. There is an ancient Prophecy. There are mysterious, magical races,

One thing I liked is how the aforementioned dickhead, Borneheld, actually had good reasons for being the bad guy (the lesser one). He was abandoned by his mother at an early age. He was ignored by his father. He has always resented how his bastard half-brother is a natural warleader, who is respected by his men (and most everyone else). His anger and resentment have made him act foolishly and just be a jerk.

The main villain, who isn't called Gargamel but I keep thinking of by that name because they sound kind of similar, has some excuses too. He was raised by wraiths (who are evil magic beings). He was the result of a forbidden union between two magical races. Really though, he was evil before he was born. I guess it was the prophecy or something.

The hero is called Axis. He was raised by priests. I turns out that they lied to him his whole life and the whole history of his country is a lie. He's done bad things as the military leader for the priesthood, but no worse than any other military leader has had to do.

I liked the book. I'll read the next one in the series. I don't care if some people on Amazon thing it's crap. Tastes vary. I give The Wayfarer Redemption 5 yo-yos.

Spam

2006-11-15T12:43:00.000-05:00

I don't usually read spam. Google does a damn good job of filtering it out. Occasionally though, a spam message slips through. I recently got one in a foreign language that I don't understand. I used some internet language identification programs. One said it was Turkish, and another said it might be Italian. I'm pretty sure it isn't Italian, but I guess it might be Turkish (especially since the link at the end is to a .tr site). If someone could identify this language for me--or even better, tell me what it says--it might save me a trip to the loony bin. Here's the message:

subject: Seri Çözüm

Gazete ilan kampanya

Gazete kampanyalarinin özellikleri, süreleri ve ücretsiz yayinlari için arayarak bilgi aliniz

Sabah Gazetesi Kelimesi (3,50 YTL +KDV)
ELEMAN 2 Gün ücretli + 1 Gün ücretsiz = 3 GÜN enaz 6 Kelime ilaniniza
VASITA 2 Gün ücretli + 3 Gün ücretsiz = 5 GÜN enaz 6 Kelime ilaniniza
EMLAK 2 Gün ücretli + 5 Gün ücretsiz = 7 GÜN enaz 6 Kelime ilaniniza
* Çerçeveli Eleman ilanlari
* Ticari ilanlar
* Sosyal ilanlar (Vefat, Anma, Baŝsagligi, Teŝekkür.)
* Tanŭtŭm ve Duyuru ilanlari

Hürriyet Gazetesi Kelimesi (3,50 YTL +KDV)
ELEMAN 2 Gün ücretli + 1 Gün ücretsiz = 3 Gün enaz 6 Kelime ilaniniza
VASITA 2 Gün ücretli + 2 Gün ücretsiz = 4 Gün enaz 6 Kelime ilaniniza
EMLAK 2 Gün ücretli + 2 Gün ücretsiz = 4 Gün enaz 6 Kelime ilaniniza
* insan kaynaklari eleman ilani
* Çerçeveli Eleman ilanlari
* Ticari ilanlar
* Sosyal ilanlar (Vefat, Anma, Baŝsagligi, Teŝekkür.)
* Tanitim ve Duyuru ilanlari

Posta Kelimesi 1.70 YTL +KDV Milliyet Kelimesi 2.30YTL+KDV
ELEMAN 2 Gün ücretli + 2 Gün ücretsiz = 4 Gün enaz 6 Kelime ilaniniza
VASITA 2 Gün ücretli + 5 Gün ücretsiz = 7 Gün enaz 6 Kelime ilaniniza
EMLAK 2 Gün ücretli + 5 Gün ücretsiz = 7 Gün enaz 6 Kelime ilaniniza

Gazete ilanlariniz için Tel
Fax
e-mail
www.sahinreklam.com.tr

The Blood Books: Volume Two, by Tanya Huff

2006-11-13T12:35:00.000-05:00

I was at Borders the other day, and I picked up The Blood Books: Volume II & Volume three. Sadly, I couldn't continue with Repairman jack or The Runelords series, because my Borders didn't have Gateways or Wizardborn. Sigh, it's there own damn fault Amazon gets so much of my business.

Once again the stories feature Vicki (the half-blind detective), her ex-partner Mike Celluci, and Henry Fitzroy (the vampire). This book introduces new enemies who are truly terrifying. And creepy too.

Anyway, The Blood Books: Volume Two is great. I actually liked it better than volume one. The first novel in this one, Blood Lines, is about a resurrected mummy. I know it sounds clichéd, but it's done very well. The mummy in this book is one of the best villain I've read in a long time. Blood Pact, the second novel in the omnibus, completes the Abbot and Costello Meet... theme in the other books (Dracula, the wolfman, the mummy, and now Frankenstein). It's not at all silly, though. It's a very touching and tragic story. I think I actually cried at one point. I mean Vicki's mother dies and is brought back by a mad scientist. That is sad enough, but the ending is tragic.

I liked this one a lot. I give The Blood Books: Volume Two five yo-yos.