How to tell if someone is unemployed: their blogs started getting updated.
I am, however, an unemployed librarian so I am spending a lot of time using my local public book lending facility and finding new material to read. I also am spending far too much time on Tumblr which has led me to this latest trilogy (though actually a quadrilogy if you count the prequel), a dystopic serial that focuses on teenagers.
Now, the thing to remember is that this isn't The Hunger Games. Not that it doesn't have similar elements, it does, VERY similar, but these aren't children in a public forum told to murder each other. These are children, boys to be exact, given a strange new existence in a place called 'The Glade', their memories having been wiped except for their first name.
Our main character is Thomas, a boy of sixteen possibly, who arrives in the Glade with a strange feeling of familiarity with the place and at least two of its inhabitants. The first of which is Chuck, a boy of twelve or thirteen, the second a girl (A GIRL!) who arrives the day after Thomas. This is unprecedented in the two years these boys have been there, first she's a she, next she arrives within tenty four hours of Thomas - Greenies (newbs) arrives once a month like clockwork from 'The Box'.
There are Creators, the people the boys assume have sent them to this place, the Gladers themselves with their jobs and responsibilities to keep the place running, some hideous monsters nick named 'Grievers' who are part flesh part machine, their sting able to bring on 'the Changing' and bring back painful memory glimpses of the lives before.
Just in case you want to read the novel/series am not going to say any more plot wise - in fact all I knew about the book was it was set in a Dystopia and the cast of the film version (out next year) are some of the best young adult actors in the business right now (Dylan O'Brian, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster).
It isn't the greatest piece of young adult literature out there at the moment, but it is by no means terrible writing. Thomas is a reasonably engaging lead and the book sets up an intriguing premise for a serial. It suffers from my brain constantly comparing it to the Hunger Games, which I hope now that the end was sufficiently exciting and thought provoking that I will be able to separate the two series.
What I think is that this will make a much better film than a book, the excitement will translate easily and the relatively simple start will be more engaging in a visual medium.
Saying this I am keen to read the rest of the trilogy, then the prequel, to know what happens to these characters, who they are and why they have the gifts they do.
Saturday, 13 July 2013
Wednesday, 10 July 2013
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
So I thought I'd round up my contributions to this blog to an even 10 *cough*Jameshasonlycontributed1*cough* with a post about possibly one of my favourite authors Of All Time. It felt like it needed capitalisation.
Neil Gaiman is an author entirely suited to the age of blogging, Twitter, Tumblr and generally all other forms of mass communication. He gets it, as does John Green, and he tries his best to correspond with his fans/followers/groupies as much as possible. I am supremely excited to be going to a book signing/talk of his next month about his latest novel, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane. I have not read this book yet (am waiting for my Amazon voucher to come through so I can buy this and John Green's Looking For Alaska) but be sure there will be a review up soon.
Gaiman has this incredible ability to write truly awful, horrific, gross things that scare me and yet I keep reading. It is akin to John Green's skill when he wrote The Fault In Our Stars because I am truly a wuss, especially when I cannot hide behind a pillow to get through the scene. Neverwhere is a brilliant tale of subterranean London which has people eating live rats. Coraline has a mother who tries to sew BUTTONS on a little girls eyes. American Gods is vast, sprawling novel that has zombies, death by sex, death by car, death by shotgun....a lot of death.
I first read American Gods in 2007 after I had seen Stardust, got the book and read it, realised this guy was a master storyteller whose novel was almost nothing like the lighthearted fun on screen and his back catalogue must be read immediately. I have mostly been a rubbish fan on the last part of that sentence but then my interests do not lie in the comic book world, so am not sure I ever will read Sandman. However I do need to read Anansi Boys because my dumb brain has only just realised it is a spin off from one of the main characters of American Gods.
So to the book itself. It is a perplexing, hugely entertaining, somewhat frightening and definitely thought provoking work about how gods have come into existence and what becomes of them when faith is forgotten. It plays on the idea that people create their gods and religion to satisfy their own needs, but here they become manifest and then are left alone and dying when people stop worshipping.
The main focus is on Shadow, one of only a few characters every written that should be a real life human being. He probably is. There is likely to be a huge, gentle guy who is just trying to get along with life that has so far kind of sucked. Shadow has been imprisoned for three years and, days before release, his wife is killed in an accident that reveals she had been having an affair. So he takes a job offer from a persistent old man called Wednesday to be his bodyguard-come-errand boy. He then becomes part of a larger issue, a war between the gods of old and the new gods of electricity, the freeway, and media.
Intermittent with Shadow's story are separate tales of how the gods of old came to America and how they are surviving now. It gets pretty graphic.
The storytelling is beautiful, interwoven tales from the past that serve to build up this rich history of America and its relationship with religion. How the gods who are dying out in the USA have different versions of themselves in other countries who thrive. Just the idea that the All Father has to become a grifter to survive is bizarre, even to an Atheist who would rather believe that Odin and his family are in Asgard in another realm.
Shadow is without doubt one of my favourite characters ever written. He is this beautiful, innocent soul who is getting by as best he can. You might find my assessment odd, especially calling a ex-con 'innocent', but its how I interpreted the character.
Shadow has this whole world of conflict he needs to deal with that was never in his imagination. Gods being real? His dead wife cheating? His dead wife coming back? The most perfect town in America actually holding an awful, dreadful secret? Its never too much for him. Well, thats not true. But he takes it, he goes with it and makes the best decision he can.
I'm two thirds the way through re-reading and I had forgotten a lot of the content in six years. I think thats probably a good gap between readings or I may be too disturbed to sleep a lot of the time, or I'll just want to go back to school to study every myth and religion going. I do remember how I felt at the end of the novel, which I suspect is how I will feel this time too, which was oddly satisfied and happy. I felt very calm, that it had come to a conclusion I was ok with and felt was true to the story.
I'd love to know if others out there had a different experience with the book, but for me it is probably one of the greatest novels about America not written by an American.
Neil Gaiman is an author entirely suited to the age of blogging, Twitter, Tumblr and generally all other forms of mass communication. He gets it, as does John Green, and he tries his best to correspond with his fans/followers/groupies as much as possible. I am supremely excited to be going to a book signing/talk of his next month about his latest novel, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane. I have not read this book yet (am waiting for my Amazon voucher to come through so I can buy this and John Green's Looking For Alaska) but be sure there will be a review up soon.
Gaiman has this incredible ability to write truly awful, horrific, gross things that scare me and yet I keep reading. It is akin to John Green's skill when he wrote The Fault In Our Stars because I am truly a wuss, especially when I cannot hide behind a pillow to get through the scene. Neverwhere is a brilliant tale of subterranean London which has people eating live rats. Coraline has a mother who tries to sew BUTTONS on a little girls eyes. American Gods is vast, sprawling novel that has zombies, death by sex, death by car, death by shotgun....a lot of death.
I first read American Gods in 2007 after I had seen Stardust, got the book and read it, realised this guy was a master storyteller whose novel was almost nothing like the lighthearted fun on screen and his back catalogue must be read immediately. I have mostly been a rubbish fan on the last part of that sentence but then my interests do not lie in the comic book world, so am not sure I ever will read Sandman. However I do need to read Anansi Boys because my dumb brain has only just realised it is a spin off from one of the main characters of American Gods.
So to the book itself. It is a perplexing, hugely entertaining, somewhat frightening and definitely thought provoking work about how gods have come into existence and what becomes of them when faith is forgotten. It plays on the idea that people create their gods and religion to satisfy their own needs, but here they become manifest and then are left alone and dying when people stop worshipping.
The main focus is on Shadow, one of only a few characters every written that should be a real life human being. He probably is. There is likely to be a huge, gentle guy who is just trying to get along with life that has so far kind of sucked. Shadow has been imprisoned for three years and, days before release, his wife is killed in an accident that reveals she had been having an affair. So he takes a job offer from a persistent old man called Wednesday to be his bodyguard-come-errand boy. He then becomes part of a larger issue, a war between the gods of old and the new gods of electricity, the freeway, and media.
Intermittent with Shadow's story are separate tales of how the gods of old came to America and how they are surviving now. It gets pretty graphic.
The storytelling is beautiful, interwoven tales from the past that serve to build up this rich history of America and its relationship with religion. How the gods who are dying out in the USA have different versions of themselves in other countries who thrive. Just the idea that the All Father has to become a grifter to survive is bizarre, even to an Atheist who would rather believe that Odin and his family are in Asgard in another realm.
Shadow is without doubt one of my favourite characters ever written. He is this beautiful, innocent soul who is getting by as best he can. You might find my assessment odd, especially calling a ex-con 'innocent', but its how I interpreted the character.
Shadow has this whole world of conflict he needs to deal with that was never in his imagination. Gods being real? His dead wife cheating? His dead wife coming back? The most perfect town in America actually holding an awful, dreadful secret? Its never too much for him. Well, thats not true. But he takes it, he goes with it and makes the best decision he can.
I'm two thirds the way through re-reading and I had forgotten a lot of the content in six years. I think thats probably a good gap between readings or I may be too disturbed to sleep a lot of the time, or I'll just want to go back to school to study every myth and religion going. I do remember how I felt at the end of the novel, which I suspect is how I will feel this time too, which was oddly satisfied and happy. I felt very calm, that it had come to a conclusion I was ok with and felt was true to the story.
I'd love to know if others out there had a different experience with the book, but for me it is probably one of the greatest novels about America not written by an American.
Saturday, 29 June 2013
The Fault In Our Stars - John Green
Why have I not read John Green before, Universe? Why? I, Becca, the lover of young adult fiction who postively raced through The Hunger Games trilogy, had never before read the genius that is John Green.
This is my first taster and I think you can tell by my opening sentence that I'm already a fan. The Fault In Our Stars is not fantasy, though the entire work is fiction as is the miracle drug our heroine is kept alive on, and also involves a LOT of hospital/cancer talk which normally makes me hide behind a pillow feeling faint.
I do not read books about reality often, choosing a dragon fight over a tumour battle, as I suffer from extreme squeamishness and blood phobia. What is fortunate for John Green is that his writing prowess is such that I was determined to persevere despite feeling woozy when hospitals and blood tests and feeding tubes were mentioned.
The story is told through the eyes of Hazel, a sixteen year old girl living in Indiana with incurable Cancer. She lives with her parents, a father continually on the brink of tears and a mother who is always within earshot. Hazel has survived three years beyond expected thanks to a miracle, and entirely fictional, drug, though there is no chance of her beating the cancer which will inevitably kill her.
Hazel is forced to go to a group that meets in a local church basement of fellow cancer teens, which is where she meets Augustus Waters, a boy all teenage girls should get to meet. He is handsome, athletic, honest and true to how he feels. An inevitable love story ensues.
I am happy to admit that I was in an almost constant state of weeping for about a third of the book. I cry quite easily but this, this book is tragic. Not in the 'oh look at that outfit it's SO TRAGIC'. In the original, Shakespearean context of the word, it is a tragedy involving love, life, death and human nature.
Like any good tragedy it also invokes humour, with some especially dry one liners. It is also, as it should be, thought provoking with some beautifully phrased words of wisdom, I think page 260 was my favourite.
JK Rowling is often referred to as being an extraordinary writer of teenagers, she just gets them. As a teenager I read the Harry Potter books at roughly the ages that Harry was in the book, and I honestly could not agree with the above statement more. However as a twenty six year old I feel like John Green should get the same accolade, as though writing about a set of teenagers I have never encountered (those with cancer) I feel like he managed to get the teenage voice to shout above the big C.
I loved Hazel and Augustus, their parents and friends. Each character was well rounded through the eyes of Hazel, whose life is so out of the ordinary yet she manages to cope with vivacity and an overwhelming need to feel normal. Her teenage tantrums hampered by her cannula and need to breathe. Her love life hampered by Cancer. Hazel is a beautiful girl and one of my favourite characters of late. She is the reason I read this book in less than six hours.
This is an extraordinary piece of writing that all should read. Green has profound thoughts in his head and manages to put them into an engaging and truly tragic story. I am looking forward to reading the rest of John Green's library.
This is my first taster and I think you can tell by my opening sentence that I'm already a fan. The Fault In Our Stars is not fantasy, though the entire work is fiction as is the miracle drug our heroine is kept alive on, and also involves a LOT of hospital/cancer talk which normally makes me hide behind a pillow feeling faint.
I do not read books about reality often, choosing a dragon fight over a tumour battle, as I suffer from extreme squeamishness and blood phobia. What is fortunate for John Green is that his writing prowess is such that I was determined to persevere despite feeling woozy when hospitals and blood tests and feeding tubes were mentioned.
The story is told through the eyes of Hazel, a sixteen year old girl living in Indiana with incurable Cancer. She lives with her parents, a father continually on the brink of tears and a mother who is always within earshot. Hazel has survived three years beyond expected thanks to a miracle, and entirely fictional, drug, though there is no chance of her beating the cancer which will inevitably kill her.
Hazel is forced to go to a group that meets in a local church basement of fellow cancer teens, which is where she meets Augustus Waters, a boy all teenage girls should get to meet. He is handsome, athletic, honest and true to how he feels. An inevitable love story ensues.
I am happy to admit that I was in an almost constant state of weeping for about a third of the book. I cry quite easily but this, this book is tragic. Not in the 'oh look at that outfit it's SO TRAGIC'. In the original, Shakespearean context of the word, it is a tragedy involving love, life, death and human nature.
Like any good tragedy it also invokes humour, with some especially dry one liners. It is also, as it should be, thought provoking with some beautifully phrased words of wisdom, I think page 260 was my favourite.
JK Rowling is often referred to as being an extraordinary writer of teenagers, she just gets them. As a teenager I read the Harry Potter books at roughly the ages that Harry was in the book, and I honestly could not agree with the above statement more. However as a twenty six year old I feel like John Green should get the same accolade, as though writing about a set of teenagers I have never encountered (those with cancer) I feel like he managed to get the teenage voice to shout above the big C.
I loved Hazel and Augustus, their parents and friends. Each character was well rounded through the eyes of Hazel, whose life is so out of the ordinary yet she manages to cope with vivacity and an overwhelming need to feel normal. Her teenage tantrums hampered by her cannula and need to breathe. Her love life hampered by Cancer. Hazel is a beautiful girl and one of my favourite characters of late. She is the reason I read this book in less than six hours.
This is an extraordinary piece of writing that all should read. Green has profound thoughts in his head and manages to put them into an engaging and truly tragic story. I am looking forward to reading the rest of John Green's library.
Friday, 29 March 2013
Labyrinth - Kate Mosse
My new found love of Emun Elliot, comic and dramatic actor extraordinaire from Threesome and The Paradise, led me to find out, through some imdb stalking, he was to star in an adaptation of Kate Mosse's hugely popular Labyrinth.
Yes ladies and gents, I have read yet another book because it was to be made for the screen.
So, the book.
We follow Alaïs du Mas in the 1200's and Alice Tanner in 2005, two women with connecting lives through, of all things, the Grail. Alaïs is a noble woman living in Carcassonne, married to Guilhem, the loving daughter of Bertrand Pelletier, steward to Viscount Trencavel. They are living in a time of religious persecution as the Crusaders are moving through France toward Carcassonne, determined to purge the lands of the 'heretics' and, crucially, for the French to steal the lands of those under the guise of it being 'Gods work'.
Alice is in France helping her friend at an archaeological dig, waiting out until the time comes for a meeting in Carcassonne about an unexpected inheritance. Whilst at the dig Alice discovers something that will change the course of her life forever, and help her complete a story that began over 800 years previously.
And that's all I am saying plot wise. Its all you need to know.
It is epic, in both length and story. It is almost 700 pages long and to be honest, it took a good 300+ pages for me to really get into it. I actually broke off at about 150 pages and demolished 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower', but I was determined to read this book before watching the TV adaptation.
I am really glad I persevered, because the latter half of the story is gripping. There is suspense, heartache, violence, romance, and intrigue all mixed in with war and the history of France. You meet a variety of characters and you have the fun of working out who they resemble between the past and the contemporary stories. I particularly loved Alaïs and Guilhem in the 1200s and am very excited about their lives being brought to the screen by Downton Abbey's Lady Sybill (Jessica Brown Findlay) and the lovely Emun Elliot. I was also particularly excited when I noticed Sebastian Stan in the trailers playing Will, who Marvel fans will know as Bucky Barnes from Captain America while fairytale lovers may know him better as the Mad Hatter in Once Upon a Time.
I think Mosse is a very good writer, but not excellent. She makes annoying mistakes such as repeating descriptive terms either within sentences or painfully close to each other...there is an amazing thing called synonyms that helps out so much in these instances.
Mosse has, however, managed to create a modern epic out of history and forced me to read French for the first time in about 10 years. And now I want to do some history research and get back to being able to read French properly - I used to be good at it!
She has sparked my interest in history, in mythology and even in religion. To get me this excited about learning things again is a HUGE achievement because I have been brain dead from education for about six months.
I am so excited to read Sepulchre (the second part to Mosse's trilogy) because I want to know what direction this book will take and if I'm going to get as excited about the characters as I have been about Will, Alice, Guilhem and Alaïs.
Yes ladies and gents, I have read yet another book because it was to be made for the screen.
So, the book.
We follow Alaïs du Mas in the 1200's and Alice Tanner in 2005, two women with connecting lives through, of all things, the Grail. Alaïs is a noble woman living in Carcassonne, married to Guilhem, the loving daughter of Bertrand Pelletier, steward to Viscount Trencavel. They are living in a time of religious persecution as the Crusaders are moving through France toward Carcassonne, determined to purge the lands of the 'heretics' and, crucially, for the French to steal the lands of those under the guise of it being 'Gods work'.
Alice is in France helping her friend at an archaeological dig, waiting out until the time comes for a meeting in Carcassonne about an unexpected inheritance. Whilst at the dig Alice discovers something that will change the course of her life forever, and help her complete a story that began over 800 years previously.
And that's all I am saying plot wise. Its all you need to know.
It is epic, in both length and story. It is almost 700 pages long and to be honest, it took a good 300+ pages for me to really get into it. I actually broke off at about 150 pages and demolished 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower', but I was determined to read this book before watching the TV adaptation.
I am really glad I persevered, because the latter half of the story is gripping. There is suspense, heartache, violence, romance, and intrigue all mixed in with war and the history of France. You meet a variety of characters and you have the fun of working out who they resemble between the past and the contemporary stories. I particularly loved Alaïs and Guilhem in the 1200s and am very excited about their lives being brought to the screen by Downton Abbey's Lady Sybill (Jessica Brown Findlay) and the lovely Emun Elliot. I was also particularly excited when I noticed Sebastian Stan in the trailers playing Will, who Marvel fans will know as Bucky Barnes from Captain America while fairytale lovers may know him better as the Mad Hatter in Once Upon a Time.
I think Mosse is a very good writer, but not excellent. She makes annoying mistakes such as repeating descriptive terms either within sentences or painfully close to each other...there is an amazing thing called synonyms that helps out so much in these instances.
Mosse has, however, managed to create a modern epic out of history and forced me to read French for the first time in about 10 years. And now I want to do some history research and get back to being able to read French properly - I used to be good at it!
She has sparked my interest in history, in mythology and even in religion. To get me this excited about learning things again is a HUGE achievement because I have been brain dead from education for about six months.
I am so excited to read Sepulchre (the second part to Mosse's trilogy) because I want to know what direction this book will take and if I'm going to get as excited about the characters as I have been about Will, Alice, Guilhem and Alaïs.
Monday, 11 March 2013
Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
This book has found itself on the Banned List of books (in the USA) for its sexual content, language, drug use and some incredibly hard hitting themes. I think its fantastic and hopefully the fact that it has been banned, and made into a film starring hot young things Logan Lerman and Emma Watson, will encourage the teens at my library to actually pick up a book.
I WISH I had had this book when I was a teenager, even at nineteen it would have been such a fantastic piece of literature for me to absorb myself in. At 25 I actually do not identify any less than I think I would have ten years ago, but I am a more confident person in myself and accepting of my quirks which has taken about 13 years to get to, this book might have helped speed the process.
This is an epistolary novel, i.e. one that is written in the form of letters. These are only from Charlie, our protagonist, who is writing to an anonymous person that he calls 'friend' and is using almost as a diary. But as Charlie says having a person to write to gives the letter purpose and gives him a reason to write.
Charlie is 15 going on 16, I would say is somewhere on the autistic spectrum, and is trying to become more involved with life. He is a talented but unassuming young man whose blossoming friendships and loves are explored through his letters. We get to know his family and friends through his eyes, and also learn a lot about being an American teenager in the early nineties.
I simply loved Charlie, his painful honesty in what he writes and does made me uncomfortable and exhilarated at the same time. It is incredibly ideal the situation he finds himself, a group of people who absolutely love him, and a pair of siblings who take him under their wing in their final year of High School. I'd like to think that there are people out there who would do that, maybe my school was just particularly crappy that the older students would have absolutely nothing to do with students who were three years younger.
Chbosky's writing was clear and absolutely captured the voice of a confused teenager, I was engrossed in what was happening to Charlie and his family and often could not put the book down (until one particular part where I had to put it down for about two days because it was too painful!).
I definitely recommend this book, I'm intrigued about the film (and if anyone has seen it and read the book I'd appreciate your opinions!) as the siblings that Charlie hangs out with are so important to him that they must be played perfectly (I have high expectations Emma Watson).
I WISH I had had this book when I was a teenager, even at nineteen it would have been such a fantastic piece of literature for me to absorb myself in. At 25 I actually do not identify any less than I think I would have ten years ago, but I am a more confident person in myself and accepting of my quirks which has taken about 13 years to get to, this book might have helped speed the process.
This is an epistolary novel, i.e. one that is written in the form of letters. These are only from Charlie, our protagonist, who is writing to an anonymous person that he calls 'friend' and is using almost as a diary. But as Charlie says having a person to write to gives the letter purpose and gives him a reason to write.
Charlie is 15 going on 16, I would say is somewhere on the autistic spectrum, and is trying to become more involved with life. He is a talented but unassuming young man whose blossoming friendships and loves are explored through his letters. We get to know his family and friends through his eyes, and also learn a lot about being an American teenager in the early nineties.
I simply loved Charlie, his painful honesty in what he writes and does made me uncomfortable and exhilarated at the same time. It is incredibly ideal the situation he finds himself, a group of people who absolutely love him, and a pair of siblings who take him under their wing in their final year of High School. I'd like to think that there are people out there who would do that, maybe my school was just particularly crappy that the older students would have absolutely nothing to do with students who were three years younger.
Chbosky's writing was clear and absolutely captured the voice of a confused teenager, I was engrossed in what was happening to Charlie and his family and often could not put the book down (until one particular part where I had to put it down for about two days because it was too painful!).
I definitely recommend this book, I'm intrigued about the film (and if anyone has seen it and read the book I'd appreciate your opinions!) as the siblings that Charlie hangs out with are so important to him that they must be played perfectly (I have high expectations Emma Watson).
Tuesday, 5 February 2013
The Returners - Mikey Neumann
Bored.
Bored with an internet connection is, sometimes a problem. There are only so many LOLcats I can see before the urge to start killing again becomes too great. On this day my boredom took me to Wil Wheaton's (of Star Trek fame) Google Plus page, and there I found my first story to write about.
The Returners is a different kind of book. The writer is actually a script writer for video games, having worked on Brother in Arms and the Borderlands series, and it shows in the fast paced, story driven action of the book. With this book the writer wanted to make an episodic novel so each chapter was sold on the Kindle store for 50p each week. I actually picked up the complete first season for £2.25 which is a pretty good deal in the Kindle world.
This style of writing has a few disadvantages however. Each chapter ends on some sort of climax. It feels like each chapter is an episode of some American crime drama, so it has to end with a flourish. The downside to that is an inherent disconnect between chapters, it's like a frog on a hot plate and keeping up is sometimes a chore.
Synopsis:
The story is centered around Alex, a young man of some handsomeness by all accounts with a nutty girlfriend and a good job. He is a pretty fun character for the most part although he does have a few issues.
1) People keep trying to kill him and
2) He is Alexander the Great reborn.
It seems that something has occurred that is bringing the heroes of the past back. Maybe heroes is the wrong term, historical figures is more accurate I suppose. While Albert Einstein is a hero of mine I don't think he fits in the same category as Alexander or Genghis Khan.
The story hops from Alex to other notable figures as the book progresses until by the last "episode" we get some deeper plot points.
Conclusion:
Is this is a good book? I'm not sure. It was a fun read, having figures from the past interact with the modern world is enjoyable and the book is a new form of novel, one born in the internet age and trying a new way of being. I like that idea and think by the end of the journey reading it again as a cohesive novel will be a must.
I think its worth a solid 3/5 at this point and as the book unfolds it may reach even greater heights.
Bored with an internet connection is, sometimes a problem. There are only so many LOLcats I can see before the urge to start killing again becomes too great. On this day my boredom took me to Wil Wheaton's (of Star Trek fame) Google Plus page, and there I found my first story to write about.
The Returners is a different kind of book. The writer is actually a script writer for video games, having worked on Brother in Arms and the Borderlands series, and it shows in the fast paced, story driven action of the book. With this book the writer wanted to make an episodic novel so each chapter was sold on the Kindle store for 50p each week. I actually picked up the complete first season for £2.25 which is a pretty good deal in the Kindle world.
This style of writing has a few disadvantages however. Each chapter ends on some sort of climax. It feels like each chapter is an episode of some American crime drama, so it has to end with a flourish. The downside to that is an inherent disconnect between chapters, it's like a frog on a hot plate and keeping up is sometimes a chore.
Synopsis:
The story is centered around Alex, a young man of some handsomeness by all accounts with a nutty girlfriend and a good job. He is a pretty fun character for the most part although he does have a few issues.
1) People keep trying to kill him and
2) He is Alexander the Great reborn.
It seems that something has occurred that is bringing the heroes of the past back. Maybe heroes is the wrong term, historical figures is more accurate I suppose. While Albert Einstein is a hero of mine I don't think he fits in the same category as Alexander or Genghis Khan.
The story hops from Alex to other notable figures as the book progresses until by the last "episode" we get some deeper plot points.
Conclusion:
Is this is a good book? I'm not sure. It was a fun read, having figures from the past interact with the modern world is enjoyable and the book is a new form of novel, one born in the internet age and trying a new way of being. I like that idea and think by the end of the journey reading it again as a cohesive novel will be a must.
I think its worth a solid 3/5 at this point and as the book unfolds it may reach even greater heights.
Wednesday, 14 November 2012
Warm Bodies - Isaac Marion
This is the tale of R, a zombie who isn't quite satisfied with his lot in death. He hates his need to rip into living people, and his best friend M calls him a girl for wiping the blood off his hands and face once they have feasted.
Then something miraculous happens - R meets a girl. Okay so 'meet' might be the more positive spin on it as R actually devours the boyfriend of this girl before his memories stir something R thought was lost. He sees Julie and knows he has to look after her, save her. Thus sparking the strangest evolution of the zombie myth so far, and a really good story.
Like so many books I read of late, this one was sparked by seeing the trailer for the movie version, released next February and starring Nicholas Hoult of About A Boy and X-Men fame as R, the zombie who can only remember the first letter of his name. I was instantly fascinated and thought, I read so much about vampires, werewolves and wizards that I might as well give zombies a go. The book is endorsed by the likes of Audrey Nieffenger who is known for complex plots and Simon Pegg, a lifelong fan of zombies - it also has the dubious accolade of praise from Stephanie Meyer, but if The Hunger Games trilogy can still be great literature even with her endorsement then so could Warm Bodies.
(don't get me wrong, I'm as addicted to Twilight as the next person, I just recognise that it is appalling writing)
This story is told through the eyes of R, our hero, and Marion manages to create a vivid portrait of the end of the world through his pearly irises. There is the complication of having 'Boneys' to contend with who are the more violent of the zombie species - no one knows quite how they came to be, but some explanation is offered toward the end. To be honest I'm still not completely clear on them and I felt that a little more explanation would have been handy.
I really enjoyed the relationship between R and M, how even in Death people bond and create social circles. Julie I was less a fan of - she grated on me sometimes but at least she wasn't a sap. The flashbacks of Perry Kelvin (Julie's recently eaten boyfriend) in R's mind are intriguing, but again like with the Boneys there was something lacking with the conclusion of his story. Perhaps it is the reliance of some authors on Divine or Higher Power as explanations, which as an Atheist I don't really hold with but the rest of the story was good enough for me to let it slide.
I definitely recommend this book. It is a sharp and imaginative retelling of the 'love-conquers-all story' and a twist on the tale of zombies - vampires, werewolves and now zombies get to fall in love and change their nature in some way. I say bring it on, and I'll be intrigued by Marion's next venture.
Then something miraculous happens - R meets a girl. Okay so 'meet' might be the more positive spin on it as R actually devours the boyfriend of this girl before his memories stir something R thought was lost. He sees Julie and knows he has to look after her, save her. Thus sparking the strangest evolution of the zombie myth so far, and a really good story.
Like so many books I read of late, this one was sparked by seeing the trailer for the movie version, released next February and starring Nicholas Hoult of About A Boy and X-Men fame as R, the zombie who can only remember the first letter of his name. I was instantly fascinated and thought, I read so much about vampires, werewolves and wizards that I might as well give zombies a go. The book is endorsed by the likes of Audrey Nieffenger who is known for complex plots and Simon Pegg, a lifelong fan of zombies - it also has the dubious accolade of praise from Stephanie Meyer, but if The Hunger Games trilogy can still be great literature even with her endorsement then so could Warm Bodies.
(don't get me wrong, I'm as addicted to Twilight as the next person, I just recognise that it is appalling writing)
This story is told through the eyes of R, our hero, and Marion manages to create a vivid portrait of the end of the world through his pearly irises. There is the complication of having 'Boneys' to contend with who are the more violent of the zombie species - no one knows quite how they came to be, but some explanation is offered toward the end. To be honest I'm still not completely clear on them and I felt that a little more explanation would have been handy.
I really enjoyed the relationship between R and M, how even in Death people bond and create social circles. Julie I was less a fan of - she grated on me sometimes but at least she wasn't a sap. The flashbacks of Perry Kelvin (Julie's recently eaten boyfriend) in R's mind are intriguing, but again like with the Boneys there was something lacking with the conclusion of his story. Perhaps it is the reliance of some authors on Divine or Higher Power as explanations, which as an Atheist I don't really hold with but the rest of the story was good enough for me to let it slide.
I definitely recommend this book. It is a sharp and imaginative retelling of the 'love-conquers-all story' and a twist on the tale of zombies - vampires, werewolves and now zombies get to fall in love and change their nature in some way. I say bring it on, and I'll be intrigued by Marion's next venture.
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