Everything Is Better With Dragons
Book blogger, Autistic, Probably a Dragon
Drat it!
I started writing a review of Blackout, by Mira Grant on my break today at work (WordPress for Blackberry, brilliant app), tried to find it to finish writing it this evening, and its gone walkies.
I could have sworn I’d saved it on my phone.
Oh well, I’d better re-write it. Thank goodness I always write everything down in my notebook.
I don’t often review anything but books, but I felt like reviewing this album. There may be more album reviews in future. Specifically I am reviewing this album because I’m going to see The Rasmus in concert in December, and since I’m going to review the concert I may as well review the album the tour is supporting.
The Rasmus – Lauri Ylonon (Vocals), Eero Heinonen (bass) , Aki Hakala (drums), and Pauli Rantasalmi (guitar), released this, their eighth album in June of this year. Produced in Finland and released on Warner records, this self-titled album shows the influence of Ylonen ‘s solo work. It has more of an electro-pop feel to it than previous albums from The Rasmus. However it also shows a continuation in tone from 2008’s ‘Black Roses’. It is possible to see an evolution in the sound if The Rasmus from their energetic early albums ‘Peep’ and ‘Playboys’, to the more ‘rock’ ‘Dead Letters’ through to the present day. The more mature sound still has a rock edge to it but also returns, a little, to their earlier more ‘pop’ or ‘electronic’ sound.
As usual the subject matter lyrically is that of love lost and found, again a common theme in their albums since 2004’s ‘Dead Letters’. Tackled with their usual poetic lyricism the songs do not feel hackneyed. I particularly like ‘I’m a mess’. I thought the video for ‘Stranger’ the best. Although I still can’t work out why Lauri’s while wandering around a city dressed as a king.
All in all, I enjoyed The Rasmus’s self-titled offering. It’s a bit different, but not such a departure from their earlier albums to make the difference jarring.
5/5
Anita Blake returns in this, the 21st novel in the ‘Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter’ series.
A fifteen year old girl is missing, presumed kidnapped by vampires. Anita is the Marshal on the case. Working with RPIT, St.Louis police’s specialist preternatural crime branch, she must interrogate a witness/suspect and find the girl. There is little time, and when their suspect finally answers the questions they realise there is no time at all.
Going to the rescue Anita and the team find that the problem is much worse. With two officers dead and a potentially volatile group of ‘Free’ vampires holding the girl hostage violence is the most likely outcome. A conspiracy is uncovered that will cause Anita personal pain, unless it can be stopped.
The investigation continues and things take a turn for the worse when bomb making materials are discovered. Who and what are the targets?
Then a ray of hope arrives, in the form of Weiskopf, the human servant of Benjamin, the vampire nominally in charge of the ‘free’ vampires. Shocked at the news of potential explosive devises Weiskopf reveals how little control over the other vampires Benjamin truly has. Unfortunately it’s too late.
A phone call from Nicky (Anita’s bodyguard and lover) let’s them know the conspiracy has taken hostages. Going to the rescue once again, this time of people so much closer to Anita than a stranger, Anita has to prevent bloodshed and end the violence once and for all.
Through all this Anita has been questioning herself, but so have her colleagues and superiors within the police force who are questioning her loyalties and integrity. A one-time friend believes she has become a monster, her newest boyfriend has problems with her job and the women in the office are getting terribly jealous. And should she trust the new Marshal she has to work with?
Laurell K Hamilton has written another steady instalment in her Anita Blake series. I’ve read all but ‘Hit list’, the novel preceding ‘Kiss the dead’, and mostly I’ve enjoyed them. Unfortunately I’ve found the recent novels repetitive. Ms Hamilton’s formula of ‘criminal investigation/sex/ metaphysics/Anita’s messed up personal life’ has produced some good stories but now its getting boring. The plots are underdeveloped, the writing repetitive and lazy, and editing for continuity lax – I found an instance of an entire paragraph repeated two chapters apart and a characters name changes half way through a scene before changing back again at the end. On a couple of occasions I lost track of events because the writing was unclear.
Yes, on occasion the wry humour that makes the earlier books so enjoyable makes an appearance and the development of some of the newer characters are positive points, but they are outweighed by the problems of the writing and the underdeveloped plot lines.
2/5 – sorry but it just wasn’t that good.
As much as it pains me to admit it I probably won’t read any more of these books, and I’ll only re-read the first dozen. Its such a shame because its a good concept.
That’s the first of the three new books reviewed. I’ll be back in a few days with more.
Bye
Rose
I went to the library yesterday morning and had a look at the new books they’d got available. I picked up three, two from authors I’ve read before and one from an author I’ve not read at all, although I have seen her books on the library shelves.
The books were
1. ‘Kiss the dead’ Laurell K Hamilton
2. ‘Forge of Darkness’ Steven Erikson
3. ‘The falcons of fire and ice’ Karen Maitland
So that’s three more books I shall be reviewing in the next few weeks.
Bye
The second book in the ‘Newsflesh Trilogy’ throws the reader straight back in to the story, several months after Georgia ‘George’ Mason’s untimely death while reporting on Senator Ryman’s campaign (Feed).
Shaun Mason, her adopted brother and the man who pulled the trigger, now takes up the tale in Georgia’s place in charge of ‘After the End Times’ and not coping at all well with his sister’s death. Life just isn’t any fun anymore. It doesn’t help that she’s the voice he hears in his head now.
One bright day an old acquaintance, Dr. Kelly Connolly, arrives at their door. As well as being officially dead she’s carrying evidence that the conspiracy that put George in her grave is alive and well – and the CDC is at the centre of it. Unfortunately her arrival signals the end of normality for the team. As chaos descends the bloggers and their new associate barely escape with their lives. Disaster follows after as they go back out on the road. Chasing the story. Searching for the truth. Seeking revenge.
But the story is chasing them. And so are the zombies.
As the extent of the conspiracy is unveiled the team get further in to danger; soon it gets worse as the virus that’s causing the dead to rise and eat their friends finds a new vector of infection.
Teaming up with the heiress to a pharmaceutical fortune with her own private army (and lots of miniature dogs), and a certified mad scientist with a viral resistant English mastiff named after her murdered ex-husband, the team continue to hunt down the truth.
A good read, with interesting character development, especially the increasingly unstable Shaun, and an engaging plot-line that keeps the reader hooked with a brilliant twist. ‘Mira Grant’ doesn’t disappoint once again.
4/5
I’m already halfway through ‘Blackout’ – review coming soon.
It’s been over a year since my first blog post
Not sure how that happened, to be honest. How has time passed so quickly, with my noticing it? And I still feel like I’ve made no further progress than I did this time last year.
But I shall keep going.
Coming up: a review of Deadline, by Mira Grant, in a couple of weeks there will be a review of ‘Blackout’ as well; also, just because I feel like a change from books to music, a review of ‘The Rasmus’ by The Rasmus. I’m going to see them live in Nottingham in December, so I’ll review the concert as well.
Bye
Rose
I’ve been working on something for the best part of a year, a small booklet about Anglo-Saxon women who are only remembered in specialist circles but who were well known and respected in their day. It came out of a series of articles I wrote last year.
I haven’t made any progress on it in months, but then I was looking something up a few days ago and came across a reference to St Aethelthryth of Ely, and she seemed like an interesting person. So today I went through a few of my books to find out more. And then wrote it all down. Usually that’s what I do.
At the minute I have the barebones of eight biographies that I intend to make in to a small ebook, eventually. I made progress today. I’m quite pleased with it so far.
Coming soon: Review of ‘Deadline’ by Mira Grant
Bye
Rose
Good morning.
Something on Facebook caught my attention yesterday. It was a joke about language, something along the lines of a lecturer saying in English a double negative become a positive, in some languages a double negative is still a negative but in no language does a double positive become a negative. And then the punch line is someone says ‘Yeah, right.’
Well that got me thinking. And yes, before anyone says anything, I do know its a joke, but that’s doesn’t stop me thinking these things. Imagine going to the cinema with me, its hell I’m told.
Its a fairly common statement that two negative words make a positive statement, but that makes no sense. You don’t write or say ‘No never’ and mean ‘Yes’, it emphasises the negative meaning. And I’m certain I’ve seen somewhere, in one of the books I have about Old English that the double negative is used to emphasise the negative point, in Old English.
So why, if logically this idea makes no sense, do people continue to perpetuate it?
I have two hypotheses as to why this is.
The first involves maths and science; in these subjects it is the case that a negative number added to a negative number gives a positive number. Thus the idea is drilled in to young minds that this is the case in ALL things.
But language and maths are the same things and they don’t have the same rules, so the rules of mathematics are irrelevant when it comes to language.
My second hypothesis involves people who think that there is only one ‘correct’ way to speak/write English. Perhaps, some years ago, when mass education arrived in England, some people got sick of others saying ‘aint nowt’ or similar phrases. These are perfectly correct dialect ways negate a sentence, but they aren’t standard English. And so began the myth of the double negative. Snobbery is responsible, not logic.
I have absolutely no proof that either of theses ideas are relevant, except personal experience – I had a strong
regional accent as a child and was repeatedly told I must lose my accent and speak out of dialect (to borrow a phrase) or I’d never get anywhere in
life; the reasoning behind this? The person who told me so had been told the same thing by his teachers seventy years ago so it must be true – and logic.
So is it true that a double negative in English makes a statement positive? No, not at all. As far I am aware. Let me know if I’m wrong, I’d love to see the sources. Seriously, I would. I’m a bit strange like that.
Bye,
Rose
I know, two posts in a day, how unexpected!
After I finished writing my last post I had a few jobs to do before I could go to the library. I had to take a book back. Well, I just made it, they were closing the blinds, a minute more and I’d have missed them entirely.
We’re fairly lucky, I suppose, that despite the threats to close local library’s we’ve managed to keep ours, if at reduced hours. Until late last year the library was open until half seven three nights a week and until 5.30pm the other two nights, plus 9 – 2 on a saturday. It is now open 9 – 5.30 everyday and 9 – 2 on a saturday. And the next nearest is only a half hour bus ride away. So, fairly lucky.
Many communities have not been so lucky. This is terrible. I know from a lifetimes acquaintance with the local library that it is not just a place to borrow books. Its a community centre and meeting place, local notice board for clubs and societies, access to the internet, a safe place for children to do their homework, an extension to the local schools and somewhere those who might other wise be isolated can feel welcomed and included. Staffed by members of the community (mostly, here at least) and provided for the community, they are essential, especially in isolated areas.
Not long ago the library got flooded and was shut for the best part of a month. The staff put on a skeleton service in the civil hall next door and tried to carry on, but everyone was pleased when it re-opened. The building is a dodgy sixties prefab, too small for the community, which has grown so much since then. There are only two computers, constantly in demand and booked. We could do with a new, bigger and more comfortable building to house what is essentially our community centre.
But we won’t get it.
Cuts in council budgets mean that when other libraries are closing the local county council won’t spend money improving an old one, and the town council can’t afford to.
And the provincial in me wants to say that the county council has no love for my little town, despite it making significant contributions to the council’s budget, so we won’t get anything even if we need it. Yes, that feeling is fairly common, although not necessarily justified.
So, value your library, its not just a building full of books.
Bye.
Rose
Zombie apocalypse’s: I do so love them.
Bloggers: News reporters, entertainers, educators. I have a soft spot for them as well.
What happens when you combine them?
Georgia and Shaun Mason, and their colleagues, that’s what.
The adopted children of the first people to lose a child to a zombie labrador, their entire lives have been dictated by, and dedicated to, the ratings.
Shaun likes to poke dead things with sticks, in the hope that its moan back, and then he can shoot it. Of the siblings he’s expected to die first, he lives with reckless abandon, goes out in to the field and returns to tell exciting tales. He’s an ‘Irwin’.
Georgette ‘Buffy’ Meissonier, their partner, friend and tech expert, likes to write poetry and romantic prose while giving the CIA a run for it money – if its electronic and can collect information she can improve it. Mostly she’s a ‘Fictional’, barely ever seen outside of the haven of their van and rarely in the field.
And finally, there’s Georgia ‘George’ Mason. All she wants is the Truth.
They run ‘After the End Times’, a blog site, that’s home to all three kinds of bloggers. They’re organised, determined and young. When they get the job of official press covering the presidential campaign of Senator Ryman, of Wisconsin, they also think they’re made. Travelling with the campaign, they give the public everything they need to know with as little bias as possible. They become among the most popular blog sites on the ‘net. And their candidate is gaining support.
And then things start to go very wrong. After a series of tragedies, sabotage and betrayal, events come to a head at the party Conference. Things will never be the same again for those who remain at ‘After the End Times’.
Well, that’s the story (or at least all I’m going to give you because I don’t want to give too much away), so what did I think?
The characterisation was well done, although Senator Ryman was a little too good, no politician is that decent. The world, a post-Zombie-apocalyse world, is carefully thought through and the society it presents is convincing. The story itself is riveting, keeping the readers interest throughout, exciting and intelligent.
Plus, there’s a sensible explanation for the living dead. Which is always a bonus.
In other words, I liked it. I’d even recommend it.
Now I’m off to read the second book in the series, Deadline.
Bye,
Rose
Everything Is Better With Dragons 