Cuz Everything is on Hiatus, I Bring You a Book Review.

Warning: Spoiler Alert

I went to see my cousin last week (cuz I had yet to see his daughter in the flesh), and I unexpectedly received a copy of Soulless. I ended up downing the book pretty quickly, cuz I was having so much fun with it and was curious as to what was going to happen next.

It's set in a steampunk England during the time of Queen Victoria (of course it's during her time. How could you not have Vickie in a steampunk book that takes place in England, right?), and the main character is someone who is extremely rare (in a world where there are werewolves and vampires out in the open): she has no soul (hence, the title). The interesting thing about her having no soul is that it protects her somewhat from the supernatural set; because of her soulless state, she can exorcise ghosts by finding and touching their corpses, and while she is touching them, vampires and werewolves return to their human state. Because of this, any ghost that comes into contact with her fears her, vampires are a bit leery of her for the most part, but werewolves look on her as something of a blessing (and refer to her as "curse-breaker").

The main character is the odd sheep in her family, as she is so very practical, and her family is so very Victorian (and oftentimes very silly) ... plus, none of them know that she is soulless, or that she inherited that trait from her father (who we are lead to believe died before the opening of the book, but honestly, I wouldn't be surprised to have him come waltzing back into the story in a later book). She's far too straight forward for most of the people that she interacts with (especially her mother and half-sisters), as well as being ill-advisedly half-Italian; as such, she was pretty much told by her mother when she was sixteen that she has no other prospects than to be a spinster, and she would rather spend her time trying to find the younger sisters suitable matches.

The thing of it is that the Alpha of the werewolf pack in London is completely taken with her, and she is completely taken with him ... except that she doesn't seem to realize this fact until the Beta says something, because her family has her perception of herself so warped that she doesn't believe that anyone (let alone someone who is an Alpha, an earl, or a high ranking official in what is essentially the supernatural police force) would be interested in her. The two of them bicker almost constantly, and it's far more entertaining than it has any right to be.

The story itself opens up with the main character being attacked by a vampire who doesn't know that she is soulless (which for the most part, all of the supernatural in London do), and she accidentally kills him after he attacks her. The Alpha and Beta of the werewolf pack in London come upon her after she's just killed said bloodsucker, noting to them that he acted oddly for a vampire, and the rest of the book is them trying to figure out the mystery of who created this particular vampire (since they have an idea of which hive he should belong to, but that hive is denying creating him), and trying to figure out why those who have allied themselves with the packs and hives in the surrounding area are disappearing.

All-in-all I was very entertained, and checked the rest of the series out from the library when I was only about half-way through. The worst I can say about it was that it was a bit formulaic and relied a bit on the tropes but that didn't take away from it being a fun read (or the fact that I'm half-way through the next book, still enjoying the world that these books are in, and am looking forward to finishing them). I would love to see the world fleshed out a bit more, and I am curious as to what it would be like if the characters visited the US (which has been described as being in the Wild West era, and full of people who are so superstitious that the supernatural set is still too afraid to identify themselves to the larger country for fear that they will be killed).

Get Out of My Head, Stephen King!!

So, I've pretty much been downing Hearts in Atlantis since I started it a couple of days ago. Downing it like whoa.

And after reading the first novella in it ("Low Men in Yellow Coats" ... which really could be a novel all by itself), I kind of got a hankering to give The Dark Tower another try, cuz of all of the references to stuff that is going on within that series. But this time, I'm not going to check out the audiobook (since part of the reason why I put it down before was the person reading it ... some readers voices just don't "speak" to you). So, I've put the actual book on reserve, and not just cuz someone else already has it checked out. The couple of times that I've been in there and looked for it, I could not find it, no matter how hard I looked. Seriously, I was standing right in the section where it should have been in, the system said it was checked in, but it was nowhere. Besides, that will give me a bit of time to finish Hearts in Atlantis

I also have a couple of others in hold.

The one that I'll probably be able to read first is Something More Than Night. The plot of the story itself seemed rather interesting, but when I looked into the section that Amazon lets you read, it looked like something that might kind of hook me and make me not want to put it down until I'm done (which probably wouldn't be all that long after I started it, seeing as how it's only about 300 pages). I had gone over to the library the other day, after looking on their online catalog to make sure that they had it, and it said that not only did they have it, but it was also checked in. But by the time that I went over ... someone had already nabbed it. ::shakes fist:: Curses!!

And then, there's Nos4a2, by Papa King's son Joe Hill. I had it on hold before, and apparently, the library called me for a week, leaving messages on the land line (which is the number they had in their system). I didn't get told that they had been leaving me messages until two days after the last one ... after they had already moved on to the next person on the hold list (since they only hold it for you for a week before they figure that you changed your mind). So, I ended up going in the next day and changing my number with them so that the next time that my name comes up for something that I've put a hold on, they'll leave me a message directly on my cell (since I'll actually get it that way). But with the amount of holds that are on that one, it's going to be at least a couple of months before I can read it.

I still want to shake my fist over the fact that there's a trace on The Broken Kingdoms. It's not that the first book in the trilogy was as amazing as I was hoping it would be ... it's that I just kind of have this nagging wondering of what happened to the characters in the second and third books, and I don't want to just skip over the second book. Hell, when I was younger, I had only seen ANH and RotJ, but it was years before I saw ESB, and I was always confused as to who Lando was (and his relationship with the others). So, now, I kind of have the feeling that if I skip the middle section in a trilogy, I'm going to have another one of those instances.

Lovecraft + King = Weird dreams.

I've been tearing through The Skeleton Crew lately. After reading Firestarter, I wanted to be able to go through some short stories, and I had been wanting to read The Mist. So, I finished reading The Mist a couple of days ago (which is the first story in the book), and now I'm in the midst of the second to last story of the book. And earlier I dreamt that I was stuck in this supermarket with bags of fertilizer in front of the front doors to keep the monsters out (and at some point, a guy started getting the crap kicked out of him, which I think had something to do with the story "Nona").

::shakes fist at Papa King::

But I suppose that's what happens when you down a bunch of creepy stories in a row. They're bund to give you Lovecraftian dreams ... especially when they're written by Stephen Freaking King.

Middle-Earth.

Hello, wish list. I knew there was a reason why I didn't buy the theatrical version of The Hobbit yet (and not just cuz I've been trying to save money). I figured that if history was prologue (so to speak) that PJ would be coming out with an extended version of An Unexpected Journey, so that's why I wasn't in much of a rush to go out and get the theatrical version of the flick.

Also, I'm not sure why Amazon is saying that this binding of LotR isn't coming out until the 29th, when I saw it earlier today when I was over at Barnes & Noble. Someone got some bad information maybe? When I was looking at it there, it seemed pretty nice, and I'm kind of coveting it right now (so, it's ended up on my wish list).

I wish that I could find a walk through of Lego Marvel Super Heroes as it is on the DS, but the only one that I can find is this walkthrough, and it's not for the DS ... and is kind of different in the set up. I have been figuring stuff out on it, but I'd like to be able to get some more of the secret stuff in the walkthrough as they are for the DS, since things don't look exactly the same in this set up. ::slightly frustrated::

Thoughts on Stephen King's Doctor Sleep.

Warning: Spoiler Alert for Doctor Sleep.

So, I finished reading the new Stephen King book Doctor Sleep today, and I'm kind of surprised that I was able to go into Barnes & Noble every day for the past week (sometimes twice a day) and sit there for an hour or two and end up reading the entire book without one of the employees noticing what I was doing and telling me to buy the book or piss off. But it worked out for me, and I was able to read it without having to shell out for it (or wait until I was able to get it through the library, which would have taken forever); with me trying to save as much cash as possible (what without having a "real job" right now), you can probably understand how awesome this is.

Ok, real thoughts ...

I have to admit that I liked The Shining a bunch more. This isn't to say that I didn't like Doctor Sleep, because I did, it's just that there was a different vibe about this book than there was with The Shining. With the first, there seemed to be a bit more zeitgeist of fear and horror with everything that was happening within the plot, and that could have come from a few different things. It could have come from the fact that the story was really only about three people, and that those three people were completely isolated from the outside world (and therefore much more vulnerable to what the hotel was trying to do); it could have been that when it was the hotel that was trying to kill the Torrance family, you were able to (and really had to) fill in the most horrible of boogeymen from your childhood nightmares as what it was that was trying to get Danny and gobble him up (but with Doctor Sleep, once you put a face (or group of faces) onto "the enemy," the Evil that is coming to get them doesn't seem quite as scary, cuz then (to a certain extent), it's just another person (even if that person is someone who tortures and kills kids, and who is essentially a psy!vampire ... but without any of the cool); it could have been that when you are not a child torturing murderer, there is only so far that you are going to be able to flesh out such a character, and you aren't necessarily going to make such a character terrifying (since the ones that are truly terrifying are the ones that are real, because you know that they would do such a thing); it could have been the difference between when you are drinking (and writing about someone who is also struggling, but who is losing the battle against the bottle and sanity combined), and being someone who is recovering, and writing about someone who is recovering. Or it could have been a combination of all or part of all of them. I think that what made me like The Shining a bit better was a combination of the family being completely isolated, facing an unquantifiable evil, and having Papa Torrance fighting to keep his sanity at the same as Wendy and Danny where fighting for their lives.

Spoiler about the ending:

I am kind of disappointed that the fight at the end had what felt like a bunch of build up, but not nearly enough punch. Rose was supposed to be this super scary and unbeatable psy!vampire, but in the end, she went out like a punk ... and none of the good guys really got hurt at all. There were a few bumps and bruises, but there really wasn't any damage to speak of. With all of the build up that there was for Rose, I would like to have seen at least one of the good guys die during the fight. And does it make me a horrible person to admit that I actually kind of hoped that it was Danny that died? Probably. But then again, I'm also the same one who wanted virtually every character in The Stand to die. Seriously. When I read it earlier this year, I actually went on record as saying that I wanted every character but one to die ... and the one that I wanted to be the one who survived was one of those that died (shakes fist at Papa King).

There just seemed to be something kind of satisfying to finally have Danny's luck run out, and not only have him not survive something that was supposed to be a huge fight, but have all of the luck from the Overlook and all of the nights drinking and fighting where he should have died finally come and get him. As you can probably tell, I'm not one for happy endings; I want everything to be horrible and have it look like good may have only won by the skin of their teeth (and the black hats are still around, but they're just waiting to regroup and bring an even bigger fight to the white hats later on).

But despite that, like I said, I still did enjoy it. Hell, I kept going back to make sure that I got through it, because I wanted to know what happened; and maybe that should be the selling point for it: I kept coming back to it, because I wanted to know what happened.

You're Using it Wrong. Stop it.

Dearest Faith Hunter,

I have been enjoying reading your books. I loved the Rogue Mage books, and I have been enjoying the Jane Yellowrock books. That being said, you have done something twice (once in two different books) within the Jane Yellowrock books that has bugged the hell out of me. You have used "zeta" when you mean "omega". Sweetheart ... "zeta" is not the last letter of the Greek alphabet. "Omega" is. Stop using this letter incorrectly; it is making me upset on the inside.

Sincerely,
Me

Books by David Eddings (no spoilers).

I had checked out The Diamond Throne and The Ruby Knight from the library a few days ago, cuz I was trying to get a bit of a break from the series that I have been reading (not that I'm not enjoying them, but that I don't want to burn myself out on them). But I was only able to get through a few chapters of The Diamond Throne before I stopped and returned them.

I had enjoyed The Belgariad, Belgarath the Sorcerer, and The Rivan Codex ... and to a lesser extent, I liked The Malloreon, but those are really the only books of his that I've been able to make it through. No, I take that back; I also read Regina's Song all the way through.

God, that book was awful. It wasn't just the writing that I had problems with; the story wasn't as strong as it could have been, and it was kind of obvious that Eddings had no real idea of how modern college students spoke. I remember thinking over and over, "That is not how someone who is in college would talk." And the fact that it was so obviously not anything close to sounding natural for someone who was just a little bit younger than me, I kept being pulled out of the story and couldn't really ever get into enough to enjoy it as much as I might have (even despite the rest of the writing that could have been better).

I had also tried The Elder Gods and The Redemption of Athalus, but I couldn't make it that far in either of those (though, I had better success with The Elder Gods than I did with The Redemption of Athalus).

I sometimes wonder if the fact that I liked the series that I do (and that I was able to make my way through them) had something to do with the fact that they were the first of his books that I encountered. If I had encountered the others first, I wonder if I would have been able to make it through any of them at all. But then, that series seems to be well-liked by a good number of people, so maybe it wouldn't have mattered if I had come to them before or after any of the others.

So, yeah, I have another group of books by him that I have been completely unable to make my way through, which kind of disappoints me, since I would love to be able to have some more books that I would enjoy reading (and I would love even more having something that I would be able to re-read). I guess that I'll just have to stick to the books that I have.

Non-Spoiler Thoughts on the Jane Yellowrock Series.

The last of the Jane Yellowrock books that I read (which is called Mercy Blade, and which is the third book in the series) is the first one that I really got excited about reading and wanted to down as quickly as I could. Yes, the first two books were entertaining, but there were far too many parts that felt a bit like they were dragging. It probably helped a lot that in the third book is where the werewolves (as well as other were-creatures (such as panthers and lions) were introduced). All you have to do is know me for all of five minutes to realize just how much I love werewolves and werewolf stories (and that I much prefer them to vampires, or any other supernatural type characters).

It didn't even matter to me that there is something seriously off about the werewolves (and not any of the other were-creatures) ... it makes me love them a little bit more, the fact that there is something seriously damaged about them. I guess that may say something about me (and perhaps more than I realize), but I have always thought that werewolves should be tragically flawed.

I'm also really glad that Faith Hunter has seemed to have finally gotten her groove when it comes to these books, since it sometimes can make a series kind of daunting to try to get into when the author doesn't seem to "feel" the things that s/he is writing (that they are outside of the story, instead of making themselves a part of it through the use of one or more other characters ... I kind of feel like that will make sense to people that write, but may not make any kind of sense to people who don't). And the fact that the go to curse word for this character is "crap," and it is said at least once every two pages or so (at least that's what it seems like ... it almost makes me want to go back and do a count of how many times she does it through each book of the series), has stopped bugging me as much as it was in the first couple of books, but that has a lot to do with the fact that this last book made me all kinds of happy on the inside (and the current one is making me happy as well, but for spoilery reasons).

And the farther I get into this particular series by her, the more I wish that there was some kind of cross-over with her Rogue Mage series. The mages in that series seem like they are related to the witches in the Jane Yellowrock series (and in my personal headcanon, the Rogue Mage series is what happens to the witches in the future, after the whole world goes to Hell ... it would just make me all kinds of happy to find out that my fanon is actually author canon).

But there is one thing that bugs me about this series that really has nothing to do with Ms. Hunter: it bugs the hell out of me that the model that they use for the cover of the books (and which is supposed to be the main character of thse books) is different on every. single. book. I suppose that I could always try to handwave this fact, saying that she is a skinwalker and changing her shape is part of who she is. But being a skinwalker doesn't mean that she is a shapeshifter. What I mean is that her human form shouldn't change ... she should still have the same face every time she goes back into her human form (and the fact that no one has ever made comment about the fact that she looks different, and everyone is always able to recognize her should say something to the fact that her original form remains the same). Like I said, not a problem with the author, but a problem with the people involved with putting together the cover art of the different books.

Some Thoughts on Different Seasons by Stephen King

So, I finished Different Seasons a couple of nights ago, and have now had time to kind of decompress.

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

The Body made me kind of sad ... for a couple of reasons. There was the fact that the four of them were such good friends when they were kids, and they drifted apart after a while. Sure, that happens, but the four of them (in that moment in time) seemed so very important to each other, and what they went through was so huge that it felt like they should have stayed friends through the years. But I will give it to Chris that he was right about Vern and Teddy when it came to them being friends with Gordie (even if I think he was completely wrong about himself, since it seemed like he was down on himself for being part of the family that he was a part of ... which was not his fault); Vern and Teddy would have never been anything more than big fish in a small pond, and Gordie completely had the ability to move into a bigger pond than either of those two knuckleheads would have ever have been able to be comfortable in. Still, it would have been nice if they had remained friends ... or at least closer than what they seemed to be in later years.

But the thing that was more sad about the story was that Gordie was the only one that was still alive by the end. Even if Vern and Teddy were knuckleheads, I didn't want either of them to die, and the fact that they both went out kind of pointlessly was kind of tragic. Even more tragic was Chris' death and the fact that it wasn't pointless ... well, it was (and stupid), but at least there seemed to be some kind of reason behind it (in that he was trying to do the right thing, and (in a way) paid the price for trying to be the good person that he was). Their deaths almost make me want to think that there was some sort of karmic retribution for the four of them going to find the body of that kid, and that one of them had to live long enough to be able to write everything down. Or maybe reading so much of King's stuff recently has turned me kind of morbid? lol

The Breathing Method ... ok, that one was just freaking creepy. I want to know what the hell that clubhouse of theirs was all about. There was obviously some kind of bad joojoo in there, and Stevens knows exactly what is going on around there (what with the people that wonder off into hallways and are never seen from again, cuz they are supposedly still wondering around ... and also with the slithery thing). Yeah, the story that the doctor told was kind of strange, but I am far more interested in what the hell that clubhouse was doing, and what it was housing. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE SLITHERY THING WAS!! Eeep!!

And why do I get the feeling that Stevens never actually leaves the clubhouse? Sure, the narrator makes it sound like he goes off somewhere else, but it seems like there is a great deal that he doesn't actually know about what goes on in there (and that the people that go there aren't supposed to know a great deal about the place). I don't get the feeling that he is in control of anything that goes on there (the seen, or the unseen), but I still think he is the one that knows all of the secrets ... probably because he is trapped there by whatever really is in control.

Also, WTH? with the books that shouldn't exist? Maybe the place really does exist between realities, and those books are from another reality entirely?

Oh, Papa King. How you make my brain want to go boom.