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Tal has lived his whole life in darkness. He has never left his home, a mysterious castle of seven towers. He does not see the threat that will tear apart his family and his world.
But Tal cannot stay safe forever. When danger strikes, he must desperately climb the Red Tower to steal a Sunstone. He reaches the top…
…and then he falls into a strange and unknown world of warriors, iceships, and hidden magic. There Tal makes an enemy who will save his life—and holds the key to his future. (bn.com)
I. Am. So. Lost. I’ve never read a book and come out this disoriented before. Holy crap. Right from the beginning you’re shoved into this world with weird names being thrown at you, many without any kind of explanation so you’re left to try and figure out just what this something’s supposed to look like but you have no idea because it could rightly be anything. That . . . was a huge turn off for me. Immediately I’m supposed to know what all of this stuff is, what’s going in, why it’s so important to get into Aenir. And I don’t. I’m just told that’s how it is. Therein lies the major flaw.
In this master class on the craft of writing, Stephen King reveals the origins of his vocation and shares essential habits and rules that every writer can apply. A truly unique volume, it begins with a series of telling memories from youth and the struggling years leading up to publication of King’s first novel. Offering readers a fresh and often funny perspective on the formation of a writer’s character, King lays out the tools of writer’s craft and takes the reader through aspects of the writer’s art and life, offering practical and inspiring advice on everything from plot and character to work habits and rejection. Brilliantly structured and chock-full of master’s experience and advice, On Writing will enable the work of writers around the globe. (from bn.com)
How I could kick my own butt for taking so long to read this. What a wonderful book on the craft and, really, there wasn’t all that much to it. Not really. Not compared to the multitude of other books on writing.
King takes a different approach to “dictating” how one might be able to write and, I have to say, it gave me a different outlook on this very blog and is one of the reasons I decided to incorporate more of myself and fewer “lessons” on writing. Because, really, there are no hard and fast rules (something I already knew) but what use does it do to teach others what really only works for you? Most of it, at least.
What I got from the book is that the events surrounding his writing, the places he worked, the people he met, the ears he got lanced, helped to mold his writing better than anything else. When he talked about his work experiences, I was able to immediately pinpoint certain stories of his to those experiences. Not to mention I was laughing my ass off at certain points. The man has a talent for dry wit that I just love, even when talking about getting hit by that van.
Holy crap, is Darren Shan afraid of nothing?
The Vampire’s Assistant continues with the story of Darren Shan as he adjusts to living with Mr. Crepsley as his half-vampire assistant. It’s a difficult ride for him, especially since he really can’t have any friends his age (what with the shin-cracking incident and all) so they decide to join back up with the Cirque so Darren can have friends. Evra Von, the snake boy, becomes one of his closest consorts along with a mere mortal named Sam who is desperate to join the freaks.
Another unlikely and fair-weather friend comes along named Reggie Veggie, or RV as he prefers to be called. He’s an eco-warrior (or environmental terrorist, however you want to put it) that likes the boys but sours when he find out how the Cirque “treats” animals, especially the wolf man.
RV proves nothing but serious and deadly trouble for everyone at the Cirque, but most especially Sam. Shan isn’t afraid in the slightest to have loss in his books. Real, genuine, gory loss. I’m sure a lot of authors would have shied away from such things, especially in a series that’s geared towards the younger end of YA and the older end of MG. It’s violent but it’s real and most importantly believable. I found myself a bit nauseated a few times throughout the book.
Oh to be twelve-years-old again. Reading this reminded me of reading all those Goosebumps stories and Alvin Schwarz’s Scary Stories series and all of that. A bunch of my friends and I would collect books of scary stories (all different kinds) and share them during recess and at sleep overs. I would have loved this then and dammit, I love it now!
The story focuses behind the eyes of the main character with the same name as the author (which I’m not sure how I actually feel about that) as he meanders along at school and in life. Then the Cirque du Freak comes into play, a forbidden freak show that only two have passes to, that changes Darren’s life forever. This isn’t your ordinary freak show by any means. When the emcee of the show announces that you may get hurt, he’s not lying.
Aside from the overabundance of exclamation points (a few too many, really), the story is riveting and really captures the attitude of Darren. It’s never stated just how old he is but I think it’s safe to say somewhere around twelve. Could be a year younger. But Darren is truly a vessel for his age at the beginning of the story but reshapes himself into an adult by the end when he has to decide which life is more important, his or his friend’s, Steve.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book designed for such a young audience. This one would be considered middle grade (I would say roughly ages 8 to 12-ish), based mostly on the ages of the characters, the situations and language.
Anything with Egypt pretty much immediately catches my eye and if I remember correctly, I saw this one on the summer reading bookshelf in Barnes and Noble (I’m constantly surprised by what’s on those shelves and I love looking through them). So I snagged it, read the back cover and I may just have peed a little. While the summary didn’t mimic my childhood exactly, it came pretty close, what with my obsession with ancient Egypt at that very age. I mean, I was reading pop-up books on how to mummify a person when I was 8. Needless to say, I bought it.
What it’s about is the main MC, April, moves in with her grandmother and befriends another girl named Melanie who just so happens to have a crazy love of Egypt just like her. At first April is a little stuck on herself because she comes from Hollywood and can’t get over the faux attitude but Melanie chips it (and her false eyelashes) away and she finally becomes a pretty normal chick. Before long four other kids join their Egypt game and it’s not long before their land of pretend starts to cross the lines of reality.
I thought this was a freakin’ cute book. I was a little disappointed, but self-imposed, because it didn’t turned out to be as fantasy-laced as I thought it was going to be. I was expecting time warps and trips back to the ancient land but everything was very much grounded in reality despite the amount of imagination used in this game.
Perhaps “cute” isn’t the word to use to describe this book considering it’s topic but it’s what keeps coming to hind. “Handy” might be another good one.
This is another one of my Barnes and Noble bargain bin finds that I saw and just had to grab. It was right before Halloween after all. It’s a Barnes and Noble novelty book published I’m guessing for the season, probably ghost-written by someone and then labeled as being written by a Van Helsing. I love the camp of it all!
What I love most about it, though, is the take on vampires it has. I’m not a fan of the Nosferatu-type vampire that’s all sorts of ugly. I like me my sexy vampires with the heart of black. I believe in the whole “prey attracted to predators” thing and if a vampire looked like the dude on this cover, there’d have to be some serious mild-melding going on because that face would make a mother run away screaming.
And there is. Serious mind manipulation with these vampires. It touches on the whole vampires turning into mist and bats and such and plays it off as just really good mind games, that vampires can’t really do that but their control over you is so powerful that you’ll be convinced that’s what you saw.
My aunt gave me this set of books when I was pretty young and all they did was collect dust on my bookshelves. I just never had the inclination to read them even though they were there. I wasn’t big into fantasy until within the last year or so, so that might explain why Narnia never really drew my interest.
Then, when I did get into fantasy, it became one of those series that “you just have to read” because it’s the epitome of fantasy reading and writing. Terry Pratchett was in there but he was knocked off my list pretty quickly. I just wasn’t all that impressed with his work and found his books kind of redundant. Door stoppers scare me so I’ve never touched Lord of the Rings and even now, the story doesn’t interest me. I couldn’t even sit through the first movie. How am I supposed to get through those books? I wasn’t too impressed with Neil Gaimsn’s Stardust but Anansi Boys made me see just why he’s a god among fantasy enthusiasts.
But who could mention fantasy without mentioning The Chrnoicles of Narnia? I found The Last Battle first, on the bargain bookshelves at Barnes and Noble and picked it up. Then someone so aptly put it, I can rightly read the last book of the series without reading the other six. Duh. So during one of my many visits to B&N, I snagged the first in the series which I always thought to be The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. The emphasis is always on that book so for someone not familiar with the series, it’s the natural thought to think.
But no. So The Magician’s Nephew it was. I honestly had no idea what to expect. I’d never seen reviews of Narnia and it’s written qualities, just come across people that rave about how amazing they are and how the movie doesn’t do it justice. Ironically enough, I do own the movie thanks to my mom. I’ve never watched it.
