Hello, judges! Welcome to our blog. We are a husband/wife team here and so we have tried to get a good mix of both writing styles. We are nominating ourselves for the following categories: Best Written Book Blog, Best New Book Blog, Best Literary Fiction Book Blog, and Best Eclectic Book Blog. Please do enjoy:
Zombies, Airships, and a Little of the old Ultra-Violence
I am Drew's Confused Cerebrum
Can you survive the Road?
The Poisonwood Bible
Letters to a Young Poet Obsessed with Aspidistras
Thanks!
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Zombies, Airships, and a little of the old Ultra-violence
Steampunk is still a relatively new concept, but not a totally green idea. For the video game players, you look to Bioshock
for a healthy dose of Steampunk reality. It's an 1800's grit with a combination of Age of Steam technology and 2100's mechanics. Think Ray Gun meets Grandfather clock... well, maybe that doesn't help. Just take a look at this beauty from Weta! It's an interesting concept of history-future fusion that would be best explained by the experts than little ol' me.Boneshaker takes us into an alternate history where the Kondike gold rush sends prospective scientists into a technology frenzy attempting to create the best and only way to dig through solid ice to get to a large quantity of gold. One of those inventions happens to be a massive drill that somehow wrecks havoc in downtown Seattle. Not only does that destroy the banking sector, but also releases some type of underground gas that turns the inhabitants that come into contact with it, into the walking dead. Just so you know, this is all off the back cover of the book. I prefer to give nothing away if I can help it. So fast forward a little more than a decade and we have the widow of the blamed scientist going after their son who has gone into the ruined city in search of the truth about his father.
Cherie Priest, the author, did an excellent job in bringing everything promised in the back leaf synopsis into the book. The world feels run down; the people grimy and out of sorts. You get a sense for the real lack of dreams that this city contains. In that, I really enjoyed her writing style and how you do get a sense of where each person will eventually stand. I did have one problem with the book. It felt a little disjointed going through the first 2/3 to 3/4. You do a lot of jumping around between your protagonists - it felt that in almost every chapter Priest was going to the next character and then back again. It didn't really detract from the story, but maybe the switch-up could have felt a little more consistent. BUT, this could also be a bias from my normal book choices. I tend toward the epics, and I believe that you'll probably have a good amount of authors doing the exact same thing as Priest with the amount of content they're working with. It's a minor problem to me, but nothing that will take away from the story. For me, the disjointedness was all made up for in the last quarter of the book. The climax and conclusion do come a little quick, but the action and direction to get you there are exceptional for the story. My suspicions on what happened were justified and where/how the protagonists ended up was where they should have been. I maybe could have used a few more airships too.... Final Fantasy ruined me for the fancy of it.
For those that are looking at this book, I would tell you that it is definitely work picking up. It's going to fit snuggly into my collection between World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It's not a terribly difficult book to read. I imagine it's well above anything written by Stephanie Meyer and somewhere below Stephen King.... not too far, King can be a little awkward in his style once in a while. Oh, any my favourite line from the book?
and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It's not a terribly difficult book to read. I imagine it's well above anything written by Stephanie Meyer and somewhere below Stephen King.... not too far, King can be a little awkward in his style once in a while. Oh, any my favourite line from the book? "Boys are boys, they are. They're useless and ornery as can be, and when they grow up they're even worse."
Rating: 6.98 CBs - I can't judge a book solely based on how long it took me to read, but this one went pretty quick. I started reading last Friday and finished up around Wednesday. That was amongst having other obligations during that time, and picking up the next Robert Jordan novel..... I'm sorry, I couldn't help it! All in all, I would say that I spent three days reading with about 100-120 pages done in the last day. It'll keep you interested, for sure.
-D
-D
Friday, July 2, 2010
This Week in Our Year
Hi! Welcome to Our Year in Books. If you are stopping by from the Book Blogger Hop, we are glad to meet you. If you like what you see here, feel free to stalk follow us either here or on twitter. I say "us" because we are a husband and wife team of book readers. We do not read the same genres (most of the time not even close, although she is working on him for some of the classics - thus far to no avail; he has long since stopped trying to convert her to the dark side (literally)).
The question posed for this weeks blog hop was: Why did you start blogging (I am paraphrasing)? We started blogging because we already had other blogs (his- very neglected, hers - floundering in a world of food bloggers) and we challenged each other to read a book a week for this year. Once we got started, we realized it was a natural fit for a blog. We had never read another book blog and thought we were alone in the universe for about 2 months. Imagine our surprise when we realized there were...others...and lots of you. If we had known about book blogging, we most likely would have given up, because we would have had to force ourselves to read Twilight and other teen-genre fiction. Being adults we could not have brought ourselves to do that. Ignorance is bliss!
So, to review the last week (actually a couple weeks, because we haven't done this post in a while):
-D read and reviewed the last two books written by Robert Jordan in the Wheel of Time series (i.e. not the one written by Sanderson). Check them out:
-L read and reviewed the following books:
Oh, We also became television producers for about an hour sometime last week.
We also discussed the great literary merits of just about everything. Well, D and I did, but we didn't put that on here. Stick around. We are happy to have you!
-L
The question posed for this weeks blog hop was: Why did you start blogging (I am paraphrasing)? We started blogging because we already had other blogs (his- very neglected, hers - floundering in a world of food bloggers) and we challenged each other to read a book a week for this year. Once we got started, we realized it was a natural fit for a blog. We had never read another book blog and thought we were alone in the universe for about 2 months. Imagine our surprise when we realized there were...others...and lots of you. If we had known about book blogging, we most likely would have given up, because we would have had to force ourselves to read Twilight and other teen-genre fiction. Being adults we could not have brought ourselves to do that. Ignorance is bliss!
So, to review the last week (actually a couple weeks, because we haven't done this post in a while):
-D read and reviewed the last two books written by Robert Jordan in the Wheel of Time series (i.e. not the one written by Sanderson). Check them out:
- Crossroads of Twilight - You Best Recognize...Reviews from the Hood
- Knife of Dreams - The Ides of Stump
-L read and reviewed the following books:
Oh, We also became television producers for about an hour sometime last week.
We also discussed the great literary merits of just about everything. Well, D and I did, but we didn't put that on here. Stick around. We are happy to have you!
-L
Sunday, June 27, 2010
So Now we are Producers
I got a large order of books from Barnes and Noble (thank you gift card giving family members!) just yesterday and tucked inside was a FREE (it has it in all caps on the cover, always love free) copy of a pilot for a series A&E picked up. It will be premiering on July 11th.
I assume they sent this to me because they know that we have recently started a production company catering to lesser-known screen-writers, looking for the next-great TV drama. Wait a minute...they sent it because it was FREE and they are promoting their show in a more literate way than normal.
Alright, so we are not producers but I did read it while we traveled to the Greg Brown concert in L.A. I love going somewhere with my parents because Drew and I can sit in the back and read the whole way. Yes, it is antisocial, but they know who we are and love us anyway. It's like riding a train: sometimes you talk to other passengers, but most of the time, you just act like they aren't there because Mrs. Dalloway is so enthralling.
Back to the script: The Glades. Tag line: Sunny with a Chance of Homicide. Yeah, that really is the tag line. I think because I invested enough time to read the script, I will have to check it out when it premieres. It will be interesting to see how the actors and the director interpret what is on the page. Sadly, I don't think this show will capture my imagination. It is not because it sucks, but more because it is not my type of show. I am not so much for the procedural drama. It has all the hackneyed characters, devices, and story arcs that every one of these shows has. The reluctant, but oh so-good-at-what-he-does-detective (can't live without him), the frustrated supervisor, the will-they-or-won't-they romantic interest, oh and the murder, complete with the first suspect you have to rule out because she is the first suspect.
What is interesting and new in this particular script for a procedural: an alligator autopsy. I mean, if they are going to do that every week, I will have to tune in. Wait, if they do that every week, I will get bored and the alligator autopsy will be the new frustrated supervisor. Hmmm...yeah, it doesn't have a chance of being viewed on a regular basis in this house. But they don't make these shows for nothing...there will be an audience somewhere for this thing.
-L
I assume they sent this to me because they know that we have recently started a production company catering to lesser-known screen-writers, looking for the next-great TV drama. Wait a minute...they sent it because it was FREE and they are promoting their show in a more literate way than normal.
Alright, so we are not producers but I did read it while we traveled to the Greg Brown concert in L.A. I love going somewhere with my parents because Drew and I can sit in the back and read the whole way. Yes, it is antisocial, but they know who we are and love us anyway. It's like riding a train: sometimes you talk to other passengers, but most of the time, you just act like they aren't there because Mrs. Dalloway is so enthralling.
Back to the script: The Glades. Tag line: Sunny with a Chance of Homicide. Yeah, that really is the tag line. I think because I invested enough time to read the script, I will have to check it out when it premieres. It will be interesting to see how the actors and the director interpret what is on the page. Sadly, I don't think this show will capture my imagination. It is not because it sucks, but more because it is not my type of show. I am not so much for the procedural drama. It has all the hackneyed characters, devices, and story arcs that every one of these shows has. The reluctant, but oh so-good-at-what-he-does-detective (can't live without him), the frustrated supervisor, the will-they-or-won't-they romantic interest, oh and the murder, complete with the first suspect you have to rule out because she is the first suspect.
What is interesting and new in this particular script for a procedural: an alligator autopsy. I mean, if they are going to do that every week, I will have to tune in. Wait, if they do that every week, I will get bored and the alligator autopsy will be the new frustrated supervisor. Hmmm...yeah, it doesn't have a chance of being viewed on a regular basis in this house. But they don't make these shows for nothing...there will be an audience somewhere for this thing.
-L
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