Godzilla the movie

I am of an age where I remember the last Godzilla movie coming out, the Roland Emmerich one. I never actually saw it at the time but I can remember thinking that Godzilla was a big thing. Also I think I watched the tv series but all I can really remember of that is some vague recollection of a bunch of kids standing on Godzilla’s head. Anyway, when I heard that there was going to be a new one I knew I had to see it. So I grabbed my God-brother and we headed to the cinema.

The new movie is…interesting. The first twenty minutes is really well done and plays with the audiences expectations somewhat. We get the kind of typical family gets ruined by appearance of monster, forcing father to go crazy and vow revenge. It’s initially set in Japan, which is pretty necessary in any giant monster movie. After that the threat moves to America where a lot of real estate gets ruined.

I’m actually finding it quite hard to describe this movie without leaving spoilers. There’s something unexpected that happens fairly on and I don’t want to ruin it. So I’ll speak only in generics and try and leave out specific details.

The main problem with this movie is that it focuses on the humans more than Godzilla. I’m ok with the reveal of Godzilla being slow and it taking a while for us to get a good look at him. The pay off for that was that we got to see a cool Godzilla halfway through the movie and a nice show of his tail and scales up until then. But then we kind of leave him again. They get geared up for a big confrontation and just as it’s getting started we cut to a tv showing a news report about it. The whole movie we follow this soldier who seems to be really unlucky in how often he encounters giant monsters. But he’ll be doing his thing and then we’ll see Godzilla stomping around in the background. Honestly it seemed like the humans had one story and Godzilla had another. The two intersected at times but they didn’t seem as connected as you’d think.  And honestly I think the humans were only there to pad out the movie. They made very little difference in the overall outcome.

There was actually a lot of stuff in this move that didn’t seem to have a purpose. There was a large army, naval and air force presence that didn’t seem to do anything except die. There was a scientist who didn’t seem to do anything except stare sadly into the horizon and mutter about Godzilla being an apex predator. There was a love interest who didn’t seem to do anything except miss her husband’s calls. I think there might have been a message about nuclear being bad. There was a meltdown at a Japanese nuclear power station at the start which might have been a bit soon to be in good taste.  For some reason nukes were a source of food so we got to see a large number gulped down as if they were After Eights. Hiroshima was mentioned at one point and I’m not really sure why.  It was sort of mentioned and then the sad eyed scientist just walked off. It seemed really weird.

Overall though I really liked it and my God-brother loved it. It definitely took some influences from Pacific Rim, so if you like you giant monsters glowing this movie has you covered. Godzilla himself actually looked really great. I’d heard some people complaining before I saw it that they’d made Godzilla too fat but, while he definitely isn’t as sleek as other incarnations, he looks fine. The ending was satisfying, though I’m still not really sure why Godzilla was there in the first place. While writing this there’s been a bunch of things that have occurred to me and caused me to laugh out loud at the stupidity of them. This is not a move that makes a lot of sense and there’s a couple of moments that just make you go ‘huh?’ But if you’re just looking to see a great deal of devastation to American cities (the Golden Gate Bridge gets wrecked again) then you could do a lot worse. My random rating is six out of ten and you can find the trailer here.

Redshirts by John Scalzi

Of all the classic geek genres out there Star Trek is one of those where my knowledge is very shaky. I’ve seen the newest movies and can barely remember watching Star Trek: Enterprise about ten years ago. That’s about it. But I’ve got a couple of friends who are really into Star Trek and I know general things about it, even if not many specifics.

So I know enough to get the general gist of the idea when I came across Redshirts by John Scalzi.

The idea is pretty inspired. When Andrew Dalh and friends arrive on the Universal Union’s flagship Intrepid they begin to notice something strange going on. Most noticeably all of the away missions with certain high-ranking officers involve one of the crew dying in some way. The officers themselves will always survive. Naturally this gets them all panicked as any away mission they go on is likely to end in their deaths.

A book based around what the redshirts in Star Trek experience is a good idea. But it could probably have been done better. The pacing in this novel seems slightly…off.

The main problem with it is that everyone else on the ship has already figured everything else out. They even have systems in place for dealing with it. So it becomes a case, not of our protagonists figuring stuff out on their own, but of them surviving long enough and getting angry enough to finally begin to ask questions. Then they’re basically told everything. By a quarter of the way in most of the symptoms of the problem are diagnosed and by halfway through they know everything. And then the story turns a bit meta.

You may be thinking that the pacing sounds good if they’re only realising what’s going on halfway through and then dealing with it. Usually you’d be right. But because the pacing is so fast it’s a relatively short novel. The main plot itself only lasts for 223 pages. And when everything’s been relieved 100 pages in that suggests poor pacing.

Admittedly I’ve been reading Brandon Sanderson books lately and they tend to be nicely long so it may just seem short to me. But 223 pages? That’s the same length as the first Harry Potter book (in the UK. In the US it’s 309). The book itself is 306 pages long. That’s because there were three coda’s tacked onto the end. And when you need three short stories to bring your novel up to length then it suggests that it is a bit short.

Ok, I’ve gone on for long enough about the pacing. This is mostly because there’s not a lot else I can really criticise about it. The writing itself is pretty good. The characters don’t get a lot of time to develop but they’re nicely rounded off and identifiable. The plot is a very strong until halfway through, gets very meta, changes setting and then seems to end it on a weird questioning note. But it’s still good. You won’t be seeing a sequel but that’s not necessary if your novel is strong enough on its own.

I suppose now is the time to talk about the codas. As previously mentioned there’s three of them, one set in the first person, one in the second and one in the third. Yeah….I don’t know what to say about that. It works? For those of you who don’t know what a coda is, which included me, I googled it and the definition is ‘the concluding passage of a piece or movement, typically forming an addition to the basic structure.’ And addition is right. These don’t add anything to the main plot. At all. They focus on three characters that are introduced after the scene change I mentioned earlier and who were barely around for long enough to get noticed. Characters which, I may add, had all their difficulties resolved in the main story. Ok, for the second one there might have been a few questions about what had happened to him but these were answered within the first two pages. It actually ended on more of a cliff-hanger than it began with. The three tenses thing seems a little gimmicky but each story works on its own so there’s not really much to say about it.

That’s about it really. It’s not a bad book but it’s not brilliant. I expect most people will buy it for the concept, which is pretty great, and then get bored with the rest. A shame but there you go. Apart from the pacing there’s not much wrong with it but you don’t really get that much as it stands. All in all I rate it a five out of ten and include the Amazon link here.

Catching Fire the movie

Ok this review is going to be slightly different from the others. I don’t usually review movies because I spend more time reading and actually getting to the cinema is something that I don’t do often. But in this case I’ve actually seen Catching Fire twice.

It’s not because it’s a good movie, though it is. And it’s not because I fell asleep for five minutes the first time I watched it (I’d had a busy few days). I just had two different groups of friends who wanted to see it and I went with both. But this means that I’ve had a lot more time to analyse it than I usually would and this will naturally offset what I have to say. Just so we’re all clear and honest.

Catching Fire is the second in the Hunger Games trilogy. I’m going to say right now that I wasn’t too happy with the first movie. I mean, it wasn’t bad exactly. It was certainly watchable.  But there were things about it I just didn’t like. The camerawork for the opening fifteen minutes seemed a bit jolty to me. I don’t really want to make a point of that though because every time I’ve mentioned it to someone else they’ve looked at me like I’m an idiot and I’m not sure that the projector didn’t just have a little malfunction. I also felt that they took too long actually getting to the games. They were focusing on the build up for a long time. The games themselves were reasonably well done, though the dogs at the end were a bit of a let-down, especially considering how horrific they were in the books. Still this was a PG 13 movie so there was a limit to what they could show. But my main problem with it was how they dealt with Peeta’s character. They made him seem a bit…weak? In the book he was a really strong character who found himself stuck in a tournament to the death with a girl he had a huge crush on and decided to focus on getting her through it. However I always felt that his feelings for Katniss didn’t define him, that he would have acted in a similar manner for someone else in the games. He was very sure about doing it his way and not letting the Capitol change him. But in the books he seem half shell shocked and half obsessively in love. At one point he apologised for not actually handing Katniss the bread instead of just dropping it at her feet. The other line of his that they missed out, the major one in my opinion, was the point where he said, ‘I did like other girls. But not as much or for as long as you.’ It actually gave him depth.

So all in all I wasn’t too impressed with the first movie. But Catching Fire blows it all away.

Seriously, where to start? It just seems an all-round better movie and a masterful adaptation of a book. Once again it takes half the movie to get to the actual Hunger Games part of it and when I first watched it I was very aware of how long it had taken. But they didn’t actually cut anything that happened in the arena. In fact, looking back, they had to cut a lot from the pre-tournament bit that would have been nice to see. And in the book it took that long to get there as well.

Peeta is a much stronger character in this movie. In fact they’ve pared back on the romance a fair bit, something I’m thankful for. They haven’t removed it completely and Gale’s character seems there to do nothing but angst but Peeta actually seemed like his own person, not some pathetic ball and chain for Katniss.

Finally let’s talk about the love shown to the actual readers of the book. Obviously they couldn’t include everything. There was never any possibility of that. But there are so many nice touches that hint at what’s there without actually showing it. The whole Avox subplot is dropped but they still include one waiting on everyone and standing silently in the background. President Snow’s Granddaughter also features in this movie, which didn’t happen in the books. I’m personally glad they made that change though. When she gets mentioned in Mockingjay it’s quite sudden and we got no hint of her existence previously. If they do that part of the movie in the same way as in the book then it’s going to have a much better impact.

Nothing is perfect though and there are a few things that I’ve got issue with. As previously mentioned Gale has been reduced as a character to someone much less likeable, who does nothing but complain and act angsty. Then there’s the ending. It worked and it was just like in the book but it was still pretty abrupt. And it didn’t have the same impact as in the book because the destination they end up in (I’m keeping it vague to stop spoilers) is just barely mentioned. In the books there was this huge subplot about it and we got the possibility presented to us firmly. But in the movie it’s mentioned once before they arrive and in a speech where you’re paying much more attention to the rest of what’s being said than the specifics. Then, when it is revealed, it’s again in a dialogue where there are slightly more important things being discussed. It might have been nice to get some surprise or for the location to have been mentioned a bit more previously but I’m not sure they could have properly done it without taking something else out.

But seriously, go see this movie. It’s just so good. Everything is done well, the camera work is seamless and you’ll have a whole lot of fun watching it. My meaningless rating is a very solid eight out of ten and here’s the link to the trailer.

Unsouled by Neal Shusterman

If there’s one stereotype that I don’t particularly like it’s the idea that teenagers only like dark, depressing stories. Every time I go into a bookshop and go to the teenage section all the covers are black and most of the stories are about bad romances, persecution and misery. Would it kill them to try and write a happy teenage book? Or at least try and have a bright front cover?

I mean, I do like dark, depressing books but it’s still a stereotype.

So one of the new releases that I’ve been looking forward to for the past year is Unsouled by Neal Shusterman, third in the Unwind series. The general premise of the series is that there has been a second civil war in America over the abortion issue. To stop the fighting and to control the ‘feral’ teens that have started roaming the streets Unwinding was introduced. Abortion becomes illegal and every pregnancy must be seen through. However between certain ages the teenager can be retroactively aborted. What will then happen is that they’re unwound. All their limbs are removed, every part of their body gets harvested and then used in medical treatments. The thing is that the teenager is never killed. All this happens while they’re still alive and, as none of the tissue dies, technically and by law neither does the teenager. Naturally this develops into a huge industry and thousands of teenagers get unwound every year.

You don’t get much more dark and depressing than that.

The first book focused on three people bound for unwinding. There was Connor, one of those whose parents had chosen him to be unwound. There was Risa, one of the 10% of kids in orphanages that get unwound every year due to budget constraints. And finally there was Levi. Levi is the most interesting of the three, at least initially. He actually wants to be unwound. Raised as a Tithe he believes that it’s his religious duty to sacrifice himself to be unwound.

This isn't a review for that book but let me just say that it caught my interest. I read the second one almost straight after and now, finally, the third one is out.

Um…..it’s ok.

It’s usually not a great thing if all you can say about a book is that it’s ok but I’m not sure I can give it much more praise. My main problem is about the plot. The first two books, Unwind and Unwholly, are both pretty much self-contained. You get the whole story from them. Unwholly does set up for Unsouled quite well but it had enough content to leave me satisfied. Unsouled feels more like a set up book, one that is all about setting things up for the next one. It’s not that stuff doesn’t happens and that the plot doesn’t advance but I don’t feel like I’m getting as much of the story as I did in the previous two.

This book was definitely about backstory, understanding the people working behind the scenes and their possible motivations. And honestly, meh. It’s not something we haven’t seen before and personally I’d have preferred it if there were multiple threats, not one big bad guy. But that’s just a personal preference.

The other main issue I have with it is that it doesn’t have a great moment. The other two books have both had a moment that crystallises in my mind as a great piece of writing. In the first book it was a chapter where the narrator is unwound. But Unsouled doesn’t have that.

Still, those two things aside it’s worth buying, if only because I have a feeling that the next book is going to be amazing. This series have always had great characters and their development is well thought out and interesting. The writing itself is ok, nothing to really write home about, but it does the job well. All in all I’d definitely recommend the series and if that means this book as well then I guess you should get this book as well. My meaningless rating is six out of ten and it can be bought on Amazon here.

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson - A review

I’m not really into comics but I can confidently say that Superman is the worst hero.

Seriously, he is. And I’m not talking about being weak or having the wrong power. He’s practically the definition of over powered. And that’s the problem. It makes him really boring. I prefer heroes like Batman and Thor because, although they may be powerful, they have clear limitations and have to come up with inventive ways of winning. Whereas Superman just brushes all other characters away. The only way to beat Superman is to either put him up against someone else OP, use kryptonite with depressing regularity or write him as somehow less powerful. It’s just annoying to read.

Anyway, rant aside I read Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson this week and I loved it. Set in a post-apocalypticish world random humans have been given super powers. These people, called Epics, did what any sensible person would. They don costumes, give themselves names like Steelheart and Nightwielder and proceed to slaughter and dominate the world.

Wait what?

Yes, in this story the superheroes are the bad guys. After realising that they were basically unstoppable they ripped the world to shreds and claimed the bits for themselves. The narrative is based in what used to be Chicago and is now called Newcago. Apparently originality isn’t a super power. The main villain is an Epic called Steelheart, who is basically Superman. He’s got a cape, he’s invulnerable to harm, he can fly, has super strength, can fire blasts of energy….basically he’s super over-powered. And I love it.

This may seem a direct contradiction to what I said in the opening paragraphs. Let me explain. As boring as Superman is there is one instance where I liked him as a character.  In the Injustice: Gods Among Us game, where he was an evil overlord. You see, being overpowered isn’t a bad thing for a villain to be. As long as they’re beaten in the correct way then it’s actually a good thing. It gives something for the protagonist to strive against and a feeling of accomplishment if the bad guy is ever beaten. Superman never really had to try. That’s why he’s a bad character. Darth Vader never really had to try. That’s why he’s a good villain.

Evil superheroes in general is something that I will probably never get tired of and it’s done really well here. As a balance to every Epic being a newly minted demigod they’ve all got a specific weakness, their kryptonite if you will. The weakness differs from person to person and could be anything, from a mood to a symbol to someone’s age. The problem is figuring out what that weakness is in enough time to be able to kill them.

With that basic premise out the way the rest of the book is fairly standard sci-fi story telling. Most of humanity is squashed beneath the spandexed foot of the Epics. But there’s hope in the form of a resistance, ordinary humans who call themselves the Reckoners and kill every Epic that they can lay their hands on. The main character is a teenage boy called David, who has the distinction of being the only person who has seen Steelheart bleed. Calamity ensues.

Can I just say how much I liked this book? Usually I like to talk about the faults with a story but with this one I honestly can only think of one. The plot has a good rhythm to it, always keeping a decent pace but never feeling rushed. The characters aren’t stereotyped and are mostly developed well. My only fault is here and that’s that two of the main characters aren’t really developed. I mean they’re interesting and all but you don’t really get their backstory. Looks like that’ll come in the confirmed sequel. But the setting is what I really like, as well as the way it’s thought out. It’s a very believable world. Dark, depressing and horrible but believable.

I can’t think of much more to say. It’s the first Brandon Sanderson novel that I’ve read and I’ll definitely be looking at his other work. It’s a good solid novel. There’s nothing really outstanding about it but I enjoyed reading it and I’ll probably read it again. Several times. If you like dark superhero stuff then definitely give it a look. The completely meaningless rating is a solid 7 out of 10 and the Amazon link is here.

World War Z - A Review

Ok, I want to make one thing clear, right from the start. This is a review of the movie, not the book.

This might seem to be a rather aggressive beginning to a review but it is important. The movie is almost nothing like the book. The book is about someone from the UN going around the world after the zombie apocalypse is over. It is made of interviews of people from around the world, each describing how their own country did or did not deal with the undead menace. There are one or two things I have issue with, like the guy from Britain being interviewed while wearing a kilt and talking about the Queen all the time, but in a genre that had countless books about zombies it’s something fresh and new. 

The movie is about a guy from the UN running about all over the world just after the start of the zombie apocalypse and trying to find what caused it/any way to beat it.

So. There’s almost no point in comparing the two of them. They share a name and not a lot else. And now I've got that out of the way, on with the review.

World War Z is a film that about Brad Pitt travelling all over the world and being chased by zombies in several exotic locations. This is basically it. He is supposed to be looking for something to help fight them but the way he eventually comes up with is kind of dumb and probably best ignored. I couldn't wait to see it, partly because I love zombies and partly because some of it was shot in Glasgow near where I live. I'm sad to say I was a little disappointed.

The film starts off pretty well. The introduction is several news clips strung together with animals eating meat and builds an effective sense of tension. Then we get introduced to Brad Pitt and his wife and kids, who seem to do little in the first 20 minutes of the movie other than hold him back. The first encounter with the zombies is done well as well. Honestly this might be my favourite part of the movie. It shows Brad Pitt lost and confused but obviously thinking and figuring things out. There’s a part where he thinks he might have been infected so he stands on the edge of a building so that if he turns he will fall off. I mean when was the last time you saw someone do that?

Sadly after that things in my opinion go downhill a bit. As I said he is sent round to various places with an expert in viruses or something, who is supposed to be their only hope, and a squad of SEALs for good measure. Five minutes after virus guy gives a speech on the plane to Korea about how he’ll be looking for clues to combating the zombie plague, and in the process talking about Mother Nature in a way that makes me think that he’s been single for a long time, he gets separated from Brad Pitt in a way so ridiculous that it was all I could do not to burst out laughing. Then it’s up to just Pitt alone to travel the globe, looking for clues and dodging zombies that might as well be ninja as they seem able to appear any time any where in ludicrously large numbers. And I know that that is supposed to be one of the things about zombies but usually it takes a few hours at least for someone to turn after they've become infected. In the movie it’s twelve seconds, which means that it’s pretty unlikely for someone who’s been infected to be able to hide among a crowd for a while.

However….I am a bit of a zombie slob so let’s just boil it down to its basics and look at what the movie offers. Does it give you large amount of zombies and running action. Yes. In buckets. Sometimes it’s a bit dumb but you get zombies leaping out at the drop of a hat and some really tense moments. Does it give you something that other zombie movies don’t? Yes. Usually zombie movies are about a small group of people wondering around a small location. This shows things from the perspective of the government and while this isn’t exactly unique it is rare enough to distinguish it from the rest of the herd. And as I’ve said you get a reasonably wide variety of locations in which Brad Pitt runs away from zombies.

And finally, is it enjoyable? Yes. Although it gets increasingly silly as it progresses if you’re looking for just a dumb bit of fun where you don’t have to think about the plot all that much then definitely go watch it. I mean I’m probably never going to see it again but I don’t regret that I did. Even if I did have to stop myself from laughing a few times.

So if this is what you want in a zombie movie then go ahead. If not then there’s plenty of others out there. So all in all, I’d give this movie a six out of ten.

Oblivion by Anthony Horowitz - A Review

I think it was a month ago that I mentioned that I was reading Oblivion, the last in The Power of Five series. It's not that it took me that long to finish it, as it only took me a few days. And it's not that I was too busy to write a review. I mean I have been busy and I've written most of a novel since then but I could have found a spare few minutes to type something out. It's just that I don't want to. It's almost as if I'm waiting for the book to change, so that I can write a better review for it. But I've done basically nothing of use today so I thought I'd write this thing now, if only to get it out of the way.
As mentioned previously Oblivion is the fifth and last in Anthony Horowitz's The Power of Five series and it took long enough to get here. The previous book, Necropolis, was released in May 2009. I'm sure there's a good reason why there's such a gap but I can't say it did much for the reading experience. After I started Oblivion I became uncomfortably aware that I'd forgotten large amounts of what had happened in the previous books. While it did begin to filter back in there were a few things early on that didn't make any sense. As this is more of a personal problem I can't really fault the book for it so I merely mention it to give you some perspective on what I'm writing. Maybe some bits aren't necessary as bad as I make them out to be, maybe it's just my memory playing up.
The book is split into ten parts, eleven if you count the epilogue, and each focuses on one or more of the Five. As you might expect at the end of the last book they were all split up and sent to various places around the world. They've also, minor spoiler, been sent forward in time by several years and in the interim the world has gone to hell, which is always nice to see in books. The first section of the book focuses on Jamie, one of the twins that appeared in the third book Nightrise. Sadly you don't get to see things from his perspective. Instead he's got a narrator by the name of Holly following him around. Holly is one of those people who always annoy me in books. They seem vaguely baffled by everything around them and don't seem to serve any purpose except to be someone for something to happen to. Which is what you're supposed to look for in a narrator I suppose but it's still not quite what I was wanting. She also has the side effect of preventing us from getting Jamie's perspective on things. I don't think we hear what he has to say for the first section, which is a bit of a waste. I liked Jamie, who got on with things and did them with a minimum amount of whining. I suppose I should give Holly some slack seeing as most of the world has been destroyed but as most of that seems to have happened when she was too young to really remember I'm not sure that I really want to.
As far as storytelling goes Holly is my main gripe. We get to hear from everyone else as the novel progresses  and their stories and methods are usually a lot more interesting. I was slightly annoyed that Matt, the main protagonist is the first and second books and the leader of the Five, didn't appear until page 263 but his section was so good that it was probably worth the wait. No, the rest of my concerns lie with the actual events of the novel and specifically the ending.
Let me put it this way, the ending was rushed. It didn't feel satisfying and it left me wanting more. Most of the novel had been a build up to it, playing pieces moving into position in a satisfying cerebral way. It was like watching some giant game of chess. You could see the general strategy and what they were trying to do but you were never quite sure whether they were going to accomplish it. When everything eventually does come to a climax, a climax that has been building for over 642 pages, it's over after only four pages. It's like pushing a bolder up a hill to drop it off a cliff then watching it tumbling through the air. It's what you wanted but it was over so quickly and the air offered no resistance and you wonder whether it was really worth it after all. Then comes the ending. It's...complicated. Or at least it's complicated to describe without revealing anything. Let me just say that I've seen a similar thing done with two other series and I'd say that both handled it better. It was just such a sudden transition from what we had before and it didn't seem to conform with what we had come to expect.
Then comes the epilogue, or envoi as it's called in a very prim sort of way, and we're back with our new best friend Holly again. Truly this character annoys me. She's got a narration style something like a mix between a teenager and an old, slightly senile granny. She basically rounds everything off and gives us a bit of detail on what happened to all the characters. Well, most of the characters. For some reason we never get to hear what happened to one of the best and most fleshed out characters that was in the book, and she did it in such a way to make me even more annoyed. The envio basically confirms what we could have guessed but it's nice to read it. I don't think that there shouldn't have been one, I just don't think that Holly should have been the one to give it. But again it could just be my disdain towards this character that makes me think like this.
There are a few other things that take the edge off the novel, so to speak. The bad guys are bad. That's it. Most of them don't seem to have any real reason except that they're greedy and want power. It might be nice to see someone who got in with the Old Ones for the right reasons but got corrupted. Instead only one character seems to be able to pull of being a moral grey area without appearing weak and he becomes all the more interesting because of it. Another gripe is that for some odd reason everyone has decided, through means unspecified, that they should get together and attack the Old Ones in some great Final Battle. While I'm all for the sentiment it appears as though most of the world is still unaware that they have anyone but themselves to blame for the troubles that they're facing. Even some of the people who turned up waving weapons in a generally enthusiastic way don't believe in them. Which kind of begs the question as to why they are there in the first place.
The last issue I want to talk about is religion. Usually I don't like bringing religion into reviews because I don't think that it is particularly relevant but as there are a lot of religion images central to this book I think it would be wrong not to give them a passing mention. And there are a lot of them in here. Anyone who was forced to sit through their school's Easter and Christmas assemblies would be able to notice that. The only thing is that Horowitz seems to want to have his cake and eat it to. The Five, and one especially, are portrayed in a Messiah-esque light with parallels that are obvious to anyone except the blind. However the rest of organised religion is seen as incompetent at best and downright evil at worst. I'm fairly sure that there was even a reference to Catholic priests abusing young boys at one point. Being religious myself in a happy-go-lucky kind of way I found the transition jarring. I'm not saying that some good points weren't made in context but if you are going to borrow heavily from anyone it's nice to have some acknowledgements that some of them are alright.
After ranting a bit in the previous paragraphs I should balance out this review by saying that it wasn't all bad. Actually the majority of it was pretty good. The action was enjoyable to read and the special powers that each of the Five had were used well and, this is important, were not just overused. Actually getting everyone into position for the final showdown was fun to read and built a lot of good anticipation.Chapter 8 was just beautiful and one of the best pieces of writing I think I've ever seen in my life. Seriously, anyone wanting to see what good writing is supposed to look like should go and read that chapter. It's a masterpiece. And there were interesting characters, Holly being the exception not the rule.
So would I recommend that you buy it? Well it depends. If you have read all the other book then yes, definitely. It will give you closure and put a end to a successful series. If you were just going to read it as a stand alone novel, putting aside that reading the fifth in a series is a terrible idea? Not sure. It is a good book and it might just be the years that I've been waiting for this that means that it can't possibly live up to what has been inside my head. But Anthony Horowitz is one of the most skilled writers of teenage fiction around at the moment and, while not being quite what I hoped for, this is a solid book. So I'd leave the decision for you. Personally I'd give it a rating of six out of ten for all the reasons I mentioned above and here's the Amazon link if you feel that you want to read it anyway.

The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan - A Review

Ah, the time has finally arrived. A new Percy Jackson book has appeared and much is the rejoicing across the land.
Ok, that might be over egging it a bit but it is roughly how I feel. There's very little you can say about the series that is bad (as long as you don't mention the movie. Never mention the movie.) You have a bunch of teenagers who run around with swords and fight monsters. You have well told myths and legends as a background. You get Greek gods who appear occasionally and either help or muck everything up. It's brilliant.
And it's well done. That's the important thing. You can have any amount of myths and legends but usually they're just a few well known ones that still seem a bit dated, no matter when it's based. With the Percy Jackson series they're all given modern context and this allows you to engage with them at a whole new level.
I should probably stop rambling on about how great the series is in general and focus on the book. Obviously if you haven't read any of the books prior to 'The Mark of Athena,' then stop reading this review now, go out and buy them. There will be spoilers for them, which just makes sense, considering that this is the eighth in the series.
When last we left our heroes it was all about to kick off. Percy had just been proclaimed Praetor and the Greeks and Jason were coming in their flying battleship to parlay. The epic quest to journey to Greece was about to get underway.
In other words there was a lot of expectation for this book to live up to. And I think it mostly managed.
There are a few things that might cause people some problems. There are seven demigods on the quest but we only see from the perspective of four of them; Annabeth, Leo, Piper and Percy. In that order. Which means that we don't see things from Percy's viewpoint, the main character of the first five books, until page 152. We don't get to see anything from the point of view of Jason, Hazel and Frank. This is quite a shame as they're supposed to be the Romans and this is the journey that takes them to Rome. So we see Rome through Greek eyes. This is probably on purpose but I really doubt that we're getting a Romans only book next time.
I also didn't find it as upbeat as it usually is. The Percy Jackson series often has problems solved in frankly ridiculous way or some light humour thrown in, like the karpoi offering everyone grain. There was some of that but all in all it was a more serious book.
That's the only criticisms that I can think of and to be honest I'm not even sure that they're criticisms rather than observations. Annabeth was slightly annoying at the start when she was missing Percy but that was quickly solved. Honestly I think the only reason I have an objection to that is because, since reading 'Twilight,' almost any romance seems off to me. The plot was fast paced and there were no obvious holes. The Greek and Roman legends were again used to great effect. And the combat was interesting.
Best of all there's going to be a sequel. Once again I'd thought that this was going to be the last in a series and I've been proved wrong. I have no idea when the next book will come out but I'm really looking forward to it.
All in all, I'm giving this book a nine out of ten.
And if you want to buy it, which I would recommend, the Amazon link is here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Heroes-Olympus-The-Mark-Athena/dp/0141335742/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349879642&sr=8-1

The Sacrifice by Charlie Higson - A Review.

It took a while for my local bookshop to get copies so it was about a week after the book was released that I actually managed to get my hand on 'The Sacrifice,' the latest book in 'The Enemy' series by Charlie Higson. This is one series that I really enjoy. Set in London it's got zombies, the only people left alive are children and they all get killed in really brutal ways. It's great. The previous three books all started by following one main character and also showing events from the point of view of a few others. And at some point these main characters all died, further enforcing the point that no one was safe.

This book follows that same narrative structure (though I'm not going to tell you if the main character dies or not.) The web of people relating what's happening has spread, so you're getting a wider picture than you were in the previous books, where most of the characters joined up in some way. Higson has also decided to relate the cause of the outbreak. Sort of. Before we had the kids hypothesizing all the different reasons that the zombies could have come about, which ranged from government tests to global warming. It was actually pretty entertaining and I think that that ignorance was good. It reinforced that these are children and that they don't naturally know everything. I don't think we needed to know why the zombies were here or why they act in a particular way. But whatever. We're being given a reason so there you go.

Not, of course, that it's as easy as 'This is what happens.' By the end of the book you still don't know exactly what's going on, though you can probably make a pretty accurate guess. And this is another facet of ‘The Enemy’ series. You're left wondering what happened a lot of the time.

Let me explain. The first book in the series is The Enemy. It has a perfectly normal linear timeline, going from point A to point B. It ends at a bit of a cliffhanger but that just leaves you looking forward to the next book. However the next book, 'The Dead,' is a prequel, set a year before 'The Enemy' and featuring almost completely different characters. It expands the general background of the story and lets you know a small bit about one or two of the characters that appeared in 'The Enemy.' Then the third book, 'The Fear,' is a continuation of one of the characters from 'The Dead.' It happens about a year after the second book but about a week or so before the start of 'The Enemy.' It continues on, again involving some of the secondary characters from the other two books who are beginning to get pretty central and involved, and ends at roughly the same point as 'The Enemy.' This should leave us with another nice linear book, which can tie up all the previous points and round everything off nicely. I was fully expecting 'The Sacrifice,' to be the last in the series.

But no. Instead 'The Sacrifice' starts eight days after 'The Fear,' ends. It is, as I think I said, a more widely spread novel so we see roughly three different story lines as different groups go hither and yon. Again, we get people from the previous books and again the world is expanded nicely. But we don't go anywhere near the group from the first book and we're still left on the cliffhanger of what happened to them, a cliffhanger that has lasted through three separate books. That has to be some sort of record. I think that the next book will be the last and tie everything up but for all I know Charlie Higson could be slowly trolling us and the next book will be set in Paris two years in the future. I wouldn't put it past him.

Don't get me wrong. It's a really good, effective way to tell the story. We get to see each character from several different points of view, can emphasize with almost everyone and understand why they're doing it. It's made the cliffhanger bigger in fact as we know more about what that group will be facing. But I just what to know what happens next.

While I have said that all of the books are quite violent, and they really are, this is definitely the tamest of the lot. In 'The Enemy' the characters had survived for a year and so were pretty tough but there were a lot of dangers out there and a lot of people died. In 'The Dead,' the outbreak had only just happened so everyone was pretty inexperienced and a lot more people died. 'The Fear' was just a bloodbath from start to finish and I would really recommend not eating anything while reading the first fifty or so pages. (Take it from someone who knows. It's a really bad idea.) But 'The Sacrifice,' although a fair amount of people do die, is nothing compared to the others, especially 'The Fear.' I'm not sure why, whether Higson just didn't have as many characters that he wanted to kill off or whether he got a lot of complaint letters from parents about their children not sleeping after reading the last one. For whatever reason I'd say that the age rating could be a whole two years younger on this one than the others. Make of that what you will.

However for all that this is still a really good book. The characters are interesting and engaging, the story is well thought out, with a possible exception to the cause of the disease (But he hasn't fully explained it yet so I'm withholding judgement) and the details are suitably gory. So I heartily recommend this series and this book with a 7 out of 10 rating.

Here's the Amazon link in case you haven't bought it yet: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Sacrifice-Enemy-Charlie-Higson/dp/0141336129/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349493113&sr=8-1

The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz - A Review

A few years ago I got the complete works of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle for Christmas and spent a pleasurable few weeks reading through them all.There was even included a short novel of stories about Sherlock Holmes that had been done by other authors. They were ok but I can't say I was ever really struck by them. They just didn't seem to live up to the standard that had previous been set. So when I learned that Anthony Horowitz was planning to write a novel about the famous detective himself I was conflicted yet hopeful. If anyone could carry on the work of Conan Doyle it was he.

And having just finished the book I find that it has lived up to expectations. The general plot is that Watson is nearing the end of his life and before he goes has decided to write out one case of Holmes' that never made it to print. However the country is at war (presumably the Second World War) and the scandal that publishing the case might cause would destabilise the government at precisely the wrong time. So once he finishes he will order the manuscript to be sealed away for the next hundred or so years, when society might be more able to cope with the scandal. The case was, naturally, the House of Silk. 

Now the real trouble here was to manage to create a scandal that really could have plausibly caused such shock, and I believe that Horowitz has managed to do that. The path to this conclusion is full of all we know and love about Holmes. In fact it really is all here, from the deducing of peoples professions to the Baker Street Irregulars. Even Moriarty makes an appearance. I might criticise it as trying to shove a lot of familiar items in to make us recognise and have a wave of nostalgia bear us through some parts of the story were it not all subtly woven into the plot in a way that made its inclusion natural and indeed necessary. Even through it was a good deal longer than all the other books, make no mistake; this was a Holmes novel in the best spirit of the thing.

However it wasn't perfect. My main problem with it was the trouble I had trying to place it on the timeline. It seemed to come at quiet a late point in Holmes and Watson's acquaintance and yet Moriarty is still on the scene. Though that might just be because it has been awhile since I read the originals. There was quite a lot of nostalgia used; Watson referring to previous cases a lot more than I remember him doing before. 

But It is a good book. A solid book. 

And a very entertaining read. I rate it at an eight out of ten and recommend that you buy it immediately. And here's the Amazon link so that you may do so.

Angel by James Patterson - A Review

Why do I keep doing this to myself? Why do I keep reading books by this author when they drive me to distraction? Well I’ll get on to that later but in the meantime, as you might have guessed, I've got another James Patterson novel to review. This time it’s ‘Angel,’ the seventh in his Maximum Ride series.

Now I’m not entirely unbiased in this review. I didn’t come to this book expecting nothing of it. I firmly believe that the series should have stopped at the third book, ‘Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports.’ I don’t think that it should have continued past that.

And yet here we are. At number seven.

Well let’s take a look at it then.

First off the beginning is a bit naff. James Patterson’s standard opening for this series seems to be, ‘They were shot at. Chaos ensues.’ This is itself stupid but when the attack on them comes after getting in a plane with those who were trying to kill one of them last book you start banging your head off the wall. It is made borderline plausible later on but it’s still pretty dumb.

Then you have the main villains in the book. Again, there usually doesn’t seem much point to them after the third book, apart from a few that have just been randomly tacked on. But these ones really take the biscuit. For one thing they pick the sublimely subtle name of ‘The Doomsday Group,’ which was so under the radar that Fang decided that they were the enemy after seeing them on the Evening News. This group appear to worship Maximum Ride and all other mutations, which is odd considering they appear to try and kill them in the first fifty pages.

And then you have the style of writing. James Patterson seems to be trying to leave every chapter on a cliff-hanger. Which is fine in principle but when your chapters are only two pages or so long it kind of leaves everything a bit highly strung. And also some of the methods used to do this are out of place and unexplained. Bombs go off that seem to have no purpose what-so-ever. They get attacked by random people. More random people appear who might have some significance but then again might not. And so on.

Finally the ending. Is annoying. Period. It doesn’t make sense for one thing. The whole scheme sort of comes together but is nowhere near as big as expected. The continuality seems to go. At one point I swear that someone pops out of a hole, hits a few bad guys then jumps down the hole again. And more pointless drama.

So that’s the annoying things about it. Let’s look at what it does well.

Ok, the romance and the fighting.

Maximum Ride has always had fighting in it, with the Flock seeming to be able to take out literally hundreds of foes at a time. Happily this time is doesn’t seem to be quite so ridiculous and what fights there were had been done well. So that’s a point in its favour. And then the romance. Frankly this is what I usually get the books for anyway. Fang, the previous book, ended with such a sweet letter that it completely made up for all the other discrepancies that that book had had. So I was looking for a follow up in this book.

Did I get it? Sort of.

There was a fair bit of the soppy stuff in it but it seemed more muddled and half hearted. One of the problems I’ve had reading these books is that it seems very of the cliché American Teenager. Lots of high-fives and ‘dude!’s. That isn’t really anyone I know so I can’t really relate to it. So while the relationship stuff was alright it wasn’t great. Which kind of summarises the whole book really.

And yet, when the final one comes out in February I’m still going to buy it. Why?

Because I do actually like the premise. I like a lot of what goes into the books. I don’t think they’re very well done and they make me as annoyed as anything but in parts they’re still enjoyable to read. So I’m giving this a five out of ten and hoping that it gets better for the finale and that James Patterson clears up some of the many, many loose ends that he’s left lying around.

And if you want to buy the book, here’s the link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Maximum-Ride-Angel-James-Patterson/dp/1846054664/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325203974&sr=1-4
If you want to see my more off the cuff review then click this link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibenoRw5lgM&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Super 8, a review

I know I usually do reviews of books that have been out for years and not films but I'm bored and what I'm planning for the reviews won't happen for ages. I was at the cinema today, I saw a good movie, I'm doing a review.

And it was a good movie. Super 8 follows an adolescent boy who has recently lost his mum and is stuck with your typical workaholic dad who doesn't really interact with him. In an attempt to get over it he joins a group of his friends in making a movie to enter into a local film competition. They've just persuaded a girl to join them and are filming a scene at a local deserted train station when the boy witnesses a truck driving into an oncoming train, derailing it and releasing the beast that it was carrying. The movie continues with the beast running amok, kidnapping people, stealing things and generally being a pest. Meanwhile the kids are using the crashed train and the presence of the army as background sets.

Most of the characters are developed well. The girl's father is at odds with the main character's dad, we learn more about the boy and his mother and more about the story behind the beast. If I have one complaint it's that only about three of the filming group had any depth behind them, the others only being around for a few useful skills, like an affinity for explosives. However it was a film, not a book and so there is a limited amount that can be done there.

The film itself is probably meant as a horror and therefore is as scary as a 12A can be. It produces this through the use of sudden shocks, though it managed that very well indeed. One of these shocks was so sudden that I've still got marks on the palm of my hand from where my nails dug in. As well as that you never really see the creature so there's the fear of the unknown playing a part. It reminded me a bit of the movie Cloverfield and the monsters didn't look dissimilar, though this one was much smaller. Having said that it was still large enough to make me wonder how it was sneaking around so easily.

The interaction between the characters was good too. The group of friends all talked over each other in a manor which was natural but still easy to follow. There was some quite sweet romantic scenes and some sad scenes, usually involving one of the two fathers, who both seem to have the same parental instincts as a dazed panda.

There are a few things I think could be better about this movie, though those are mainly nit-picking. When the train derails I personally think they went overboard on the special effects. There was a good two minutes of explosions, of pieces of wreckage flying everywhere and at the end the guy who drove at the train still survived. I also feel the dialogue could have been better. The boy's big speech seemed a bit hollow to me and over sentimental, though it could just be I'm deeply cynical. And when, at the end, he lets go of something very important to him I just don't see why he does it. It's deeply symbolic but again, not something I think would actually happen. The other complains are just little things. For example the girl's dad looks like the sort of person that should have a shotgun at some point but he doesn't. That sort of stuff.

When the credits started rolling my main criticism was that they hadn't actually let us see the movie that the kids were filming for the competition. Then it started playing and I shut up. For what it was, it was very good. It had a fair bit of humour in it and it was good seeing the scenes that we'd seen being filmed in the movie proper. And it was about zombies, which is an almost automatic seal of approval in my opinion.

All in all it was an exceptionally good movie. The parts were well acted and emotive. The story was just about credible. There was even a good moment when one of the people of the village being attacked by the creature thought that it was the Russians invading, which was just about the only thing that told you what time it was set in. I would heartily recommend it to anyone thinking about seeing it, whatever their age. I'd rate it a good eight out of ten.

As I can't link to Amazon this time, I'll link to one of the trailers. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCRQQCKS7go&NR=1

Trial by James Patterson, a review

I like collecting books. Not expensive, first editions. Not signed copies. Just books in general. I like to see them all arrayed on my bookshelf, complete series, all the works of a novelist. They don't always have to be brand new. I usually buy them from charity shops, if I get the chance. Which is what I did with 'A Final Warning,' part of the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson. I'd already read it but I didn't own it, so I thought it would make a nice addition to my bookshelf.

It was five minutes after I'd walked out of that shop that I remembered everything I'd hated about that book. Which got me thinking about other books of his that I'd read and how I'd been disappointed in those as well. But from what I know Patterson is primarily a crime writer. It didn't seem right to judge him based on his teenager works. So I decided to read a book from his Alex Cross series, which I gather is the one that made him as a crime writer.

And so I bought 'Trial.'

I read it. And I remain disenchanted.

The first thing to note is that it isn't actually an Alex Cross novel. It's set in the same universe but the actual events revolve around his grandmother's uncle and a lawyer acquaintance of his. Alex is mentioned in the foreword, only to say that he is writing the book himself by publishing the journals that the lawyer kept. So it's a book, containing a book that the character has written. Inception nonsense at it's best.

The general idea is that this lawyer, called Ben Corbett, is secretly sent by President Theodore Roosevelt to investigate reports of a mass increase of lynchings in the south. He is aided in this by Abraham Cross, the great uncle, and Moody Cross, his granddaughter. Once there, conventionally his old home town, he does next to nothing besides go and look at a few of the sites of these lynchings and start staggering about memory lane as if drunk. It's all there; the high school sweetheart who got left behind, the judge-mental father, the old best friend and the painful memories of his dead mother and of a lynching he himself once attended.

The plot moves along slowly until he gets in a fight to stop some white people drowning two black boys in a horse trough. As though realising that it's been quite a dull ride up until then the townsfolk kindly made it more exciting by lynching him in retaliation. They don't even make a good job of it. He survives, despite actively trying to kill himself halfway through. Obviously he was kind and wanted to help. Or maybe he was just embarrassed they'd done a half-assed job of it.

It goes back to boring, with him recovering at the Cross's house then managing to stumble into a Klu-Klux-Klan meeting. They don't do much, except try and show him that they're decent enough at heart by hanging someone in front of him. For some odd reason this doesn't work. But he was only a guest at this hanging, not an intended victim, so they let him go. Despite the fact that he's seen their faces he does not one thing about it, though in his defence the local Sheriff was one of the Klan's members.

Next word comes to him that a local gang were going to descend on the Cross household and possibly lynch them. He goes there and heroically defends them, taking several captive. These he does take to a local law man.

From there the book veers into a poor man's 'To Kill A Mockingbird,' but with a less balanced trial. I'm not going to relate everything that was dragged out in those pages. But I'll give it the dubious honour of at least making a bit of sense. Sense which was separate a bit later in the book, when the lawyer decided to anger the whole town then lay a trap for all those who came to beat him up. A riot ensued, which I'm sure did a whole lot for inter-racial brotherly love.

But it's not to say that the book didn't have good points. It is 485 pages long and I managed to get through it in roughly twelve hours, stopping occasionally to eat, watch stuff on Youtube and bang my head off a wall. It's nicely paced and reasonably engaging. I'm sure that if you're looking for some light reading then there's worse books you could buy than 'Trial.' But if you do read it be prepared do suspend your disbelief for a bit. And for that reason and those mentioned above I'm rating it at four out of ten.

As for me, I'm going to find one last James Patterson book, the first Alex Cross he wrote, and try and like it. If I don't then I'll try and find some other crime novelist who's main characters don't make me surprised that they don't die of stupidity. And when I do, I'll post the review right here for you.

The amazon link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alex-Crosss-Trial-James-Patterson/dp/0099543028/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1311989435&sr=8-2

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, a review

It was a few week ago that I bought the first two books in the Hunger Games trilogy and I was immediately hooked. Set in a bleak future where most of the surviving humans are forced to work under the rule of a privileged city, it was just depressing enough to appeal. The main character is selected to participate in the Hunger Games, a yearly tournament where a boy and a girl from each of the twelve Districts (Districts are like lesser cities) are dropped in an arena. The last one of these twenty four alive wins. And not only that, it's broadcast to the entire world. This is supposed to have been started because of a rebellion against the ruling city.

It's such an evil idea. And they're so well written. Set in the first person we follow Katniss Everdeen as she tries to survive a tyrannical government idly killing her, all the while having to put on an act for the cameras. And it has so much to say about oppression and reality tv.

I read the first two books in the space of about a day. Then I scoured the surrounding libraries till I found a copy of the last one, 'Mockingjay'. I settled down to read, wanting to know desperately what happened, as the second book had finished on a cliffhanger.

I'll tell you this now. If you've not read the first two books you should go and do so immediately. If you have and have formed any sort of liking or attachment to any of the characters you might not want to read on. For it is in this book that we learn some thing surprising.

The author hates her characters.

Well she must. She really must. They must have wronged her in some way. There can be no other explanation for what she does to them. There is not a single one spared. While the first two books were sad enough at points you got through it because there was always the light of hope. This book is nothing but horrible happening from start to finish. Lemony Snicket could take notes.

You may think that I'm being overly dramatic for effect. I'm not. I'm really not. I've gone through it again and checked. There is not one character spared. Anyone you can think of will in some way have their lives completely devastated, if they survive at all. In a way the content of the books is like the author's approach to the people in them. The first two books has her playing around with the characters, doing mildly horrible things to them, as is an author's right. Like the people participating in the Hunger Games. In the third book there's no games, there's just war and that's what Collins wages on those she wrote.

I'd love to tell you it has a happy ending. And maybe it does and I'll lying so as not to give away spoilers. But in the end it all seems worthless. Everything that has happened, everything that has been done throughout the books all seems to be for naught. Everything gained is lost. By the end of the book it's almost the same as the start of the first, though maybe slightly different.

And maybe the worst thing happens to the main character. Poor Katniss Everdeen. She might have been built up in the previous novels but she is systematically and professionally broken down into tiny pieces throughout the course of the plot.

I don't think I can say much more on this. The writing style is good. The scenes are set and described well. The world it's set in is near a masterpiece. The plot is concise. For these reasons I'd give it a good seven out of ten.

So I'll say this. Read the first two book, 'The Hunger Games' and 'Catching Fire'. They are brilliant and you could love them. But if you don't want to be completely depressed, stay away from 'Mockingjay'. If you do decide to read it, bring tissues. I know I needed them.

The Amazon link is: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1407109375/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=04SK22HQT2B2WR9EXV3M&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=467128533&pf_rd_i=468294

The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks, a review

Boy is revision boring. I mean really really boring. There's almost nothing to do and all my books have been locked away so I can concentrate. Of course all I did then was nick one of my sister's. Which is why I'm now doing a review on 'The Zombie Survival Guide,' by Max Brooks.

I think I'm the wrong person to be reading this book. For one thing I actually do take an interest in surviving zombie outbreaks and so have a bit more knowledge than most people who read this book will have. For another I believe all these books are flawed. But I'll get onto that in a minute.

Factually this book isn't bad. If you follow the rules set out in it you'll probably survive or at least take a good few zombies with you. There are a few slight mistakes though. For one it lists graveyards as being a temporally safe place to rest. While I have no problem with the logic that the chances of a zombie managing to rise from the grave are slight, graveyards to me still seem to be large open spaces were you can probably been seen. It may just be me. I live in Scotland. Maybe graveyards are different in America.

Which is another problem. This book is set in America and so assumes you'll have some sort of gun lying around the place. It goes on at length whether it is best to use a bolt-action rifle or a semi-automatic rifle. We don't have access to guns here. This means that about half the weapons section is useless.

I say half because there is a good list of melee weapons and a bit about their benefits and drawbacks. It comes to the wrong conclusion when it says that a crowbar is the best weapon (it's actually an icepick) but again, by following these rules you're likely to live longer than if you ran around aimlessly. He seems to want to cover all eventualities and so also includes the use of acid, biological warfare and radiation. Just where you'd get this stuff is unclear, especially as Brooks states at the start that you aren't to break any laws. Which is rubbish in itself, at least for the reasons he gives. He says it's so you don't get a criminal record (fair enough) but goes on to say that it's also so that if a plague of zombies do come the police won't see your criminal record and hence be less likely to listen to you. It may just be me but if I was a police officer then I'd be more likely to listen to someone who has been preparing to tackle the zombie in a serious capacity for a long time than some civilian bossing everyone around who I've never heard of. Then again, not breaking the law is good.

To round the book off nicely it included documented zombie attacks throughout the ages. These were very entertaining, as most things including zombies must be. Of course you could tell that these were made up as some fitted together and some were just perfect examples of what he'd been saying earlier. Which is, I guess, what most of my problem is with this book.

It's all just fiction.

Now I don't really believe that an outbreak of zombies is likely. Not in any way. But if it was then this book wouldn't be the most helpful. It's not that the advice it gives isn't good. Truth be told it's too good. No one just picking up the book will follow any of it. It's too hardcore. For example the list of weapons that he recommends you keep for anti-zombie home defence. It runs as follows;

• Rifle, 500 rounds
• Shotgun, twelve-gauge, 250 shells
• Pistol, .45 caliber, 250 rounds
• Silencer, (rifle)
• Silencer, (pistol)
• Heavy crossbow, (in lieu of silencers), 150 bolts
• Telescopic sight (rifle)
• Night-vision scope (rifle)
• Laser sight (rifle)
• Laser sight (pistol)
• Katana sword
• Wakizashi or other short blade sword
• Two knives with smooth, six-eight inch blades
• Hand hatchet

Which is quite a substantial armoury for one person and probably a pain to manage.

There are a few other things like this but for what it is, this book is good. It gives exactly what it sets out to give and is an enjoyable read. But if zombies are gnawing on the door then it probably won't be any help to you. I'd give it a six out of ten.

Now I'm off to do more revision and buy an icepick. Good luck surviving.

The Amazon link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zombie-Survival-Guide-Complete-Protection/dp/071563318X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1305333533&sr=8-1

City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare, a review

It was less than a year ago that I first learned of the Mortal Instruments series. I remember it well, as I was writing a story about pink lightsabers and time-travelling gnomes at the time and the person who told me fell asleep straight after. But they sounded interesting and so I read them.

The series was made up of three book, City of Bones, City of Ashes and City of Glass. And they were brilliant. I had finished them all in roughly two months and wanted more. The author published the first book, The Clockwork Angel, of another series, The Infernal Devices, which was set in the same world and I read it with great enjoyment. Then I learned that a fourth book was being written for the Mortal Instruments series.

To be honest I was a little worried about that. The last book had ended the series in a good way, tying up all loose threads and leaving you with a feeling of satisfaction. I wanted to know what happened next but I was afraid that the author wouldn't be able to continue it properly.

But of course I bought it. All the other books had been so good. I bought it and read it.

And it crushed my soul.

From what I can see there were three main reasons why the first few books were so good. There was a fair amount of good fight scenes, there was the dialogue and there was the romance. The person who first recommended the books to me points out that they all basically mean one of the main characters, Jace, but it doesn't sound right if I put it like that so I'll leave it as it is.

Let's start with the romance bit. In the preceding books the two main characters couldn't be together for complicated reasons but these were all removed at the end of the last book. So with that you'd expect them to be closer and having more romance scenes than previously. This isn't the case. There's yet another reason why Clary and Jace have to stay apart. He has dreams in which he kills her. I can understand the author wanting to keep the same sort of separation between them as she did in the other books and if it had been to the same degree as the other books that would have been fine. However it gets worse.

Then there's the dynamic between the two. The best way to think of Jace is probably as a bad-ass Edward Cullen. An Edward Cullen who would have kicked down the Volturi's door and pounded them all into the ground while telling them how much better he was than them. And Clary is no Bella. She's got tonnes of spirit when confronting her boyfriend and has pushed him around on a number of occasions.

So it's very disappointing that, when he eventually does tell her about the dreams, she isn't at all concerned and just meekly accepts it. This sort of thing winds on through the novel and peaks just about when she blames herself for everything that happened. Because, wait for it, she saved his life in the previous book. So everything that happened after is automatically her fault, in her eyes.

The fight scenes next. Some nice combat that should be at the heart of every story involving demon hunters. Only the first one occurs on page 217, almost half way through the novel, and it ain't that great. Until then we're treated to the life and times of Clary and all her friends. Honestly it was like some sort of supernatural tv soap. Which, come to think about it, I would probably watch, but it wasn't what I wanted here. While it was sort of nice to see their lives it just dragged on with two-timing, exs appearing from nowhere, a wedding looming. If they'd thrown in some demon slaying at the same time, or some real threat, then that would have been ok. If it had had plot, in fact. There was a few nice moments involving the Wrath of God when one of the characters was attacked but that was over quickly and the attacks themselves were so random and out of the blue they didn't really seem to have meaning. There were also other sinister things going on but they seemed somewhat distant from the characters and not really worth worrying about.

We got the dialogue, at least. There wasn't anything that wrong with how people were talking to each other. It's just that they didn't really have anything interesting to say.

It eventually wound up to the big confrontation. Again, the author must have faced problems. She killed off her big baddie in the last book. And laws of narrative mean that the new threat must be even worse.

Got to say, I think she over did it. Part of the plot was good and gave me what I wanted and expected, with the re-emergence of a past presence. But her main threat was too obscure to really be threatening. Too obscure and too powerful.

What this book did do was provide some fairly epic foreshadowing for her next book, the Clockwork Prince, which will be released in December. All through there are references to some of the characters and what might happen to them. It sounds good and I will definitely be buying it.

I'll probably get the next Mortal Instruments book as well. There's bound to be another one; they way The City of Fallen Angels was ended heavily implies it. I can only hope that it's a lot better than this one.

I'd, regretfully, give this book a four out of ten.

The Amazon link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mortal-Instruments-City-Fallen-Angels/dp/1406328677/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_2

Scorpia Rising by Anthony Horowitz, a Review

Yesterday was a fun day. It involved hiking up mountains and quite a bit of adventure. I'd like to call it heroic, if only because no-one else has. I may even write a short story about it, though probably not as in involves other people and they might not be happy with my representation of them.

But then today came and I found myself lying on the floor of the living room, barely able to move. The bright side to all this was that I got to read Scorpia Rising by Anthony Horowitz.

This is the latest and last in the Alex Rider series and boy do they end it with a bang. Anyone who has read the series in the past, which should really be all of you, will know that it's the ninth book to be written about the teenage spy. I was slightly worried about reading it as, to my mind anyway, the last book had been weaker than the preceding ones, with less motive and a mixed-up way of getting Alex involved. But this one is better. Much better.

Alex is given the usual series of gadgets and sent off to Cairo. But this time it's different from the others. The book is split into two segments and Alex himself doesn't appear till the start of the second, page 129. The first part we come back to his old nemesis, Scorpia.

All great spy novels have their made-up, evil secret society, like Spectre in James Bond, and Scorpia is the one in Alex Rider. And at the start you find out that they're terrified of him. There's a slightly comical scene depicting all these terrorists round a table and they're all treating Alex like some sort of unlucky charm. As well they might, he's foiled them on two other occasions. But none-the-less they've got a new evil plan and Alex is at the heart of it.

So it starts with Scorpia making the plan and then continues with Alex walking right into it. The plot swerves all over the place. At first it seems Alex isn't going to fall for it, then it seems like his fate in inescapable. It does this several times in true Horowitz fashion.

There's a whole troop of characters from the past. As it is the last book there have to be a few familiar faces, though if you want something that references the series in a big way then I'd check out the previous book, Crocodile Tears, which did it to a much larger degree. The story of a lot of people is tied off and you learn some surprising things about them. I think one of the biggest emotional journeys you take is with Alan Blunt. You begin to feel sorry for him, then at the end it all changes.

It's not the biggest surprise but I don't want to spoil that one.

By the end of the book I was feeling quite sad. Not just because of the way it ends, which would be understandable, but because this really is the last. Anthony Horowitz said he'd stop when Alex reached fifteen and that time has arrived. Everything is wrapped up. All characters explored. There are no loose ends left. Show's over folks.

What else is there to say really? I give this book an eight out of ten. And we can only wait and see what gets written next.

The Amazon link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scorpia-Rising-Rider-Anthony-Horowitz/dp/1406310492/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302655656&sr=8-1

The Dead by Charlie Higson, a review

I do love a good zombie story. As long as they are well told they can capture a lot of the thrill of reading adventure books, while making it a lot grittier. So I was delighted when I saw that The Dead by Charlie Higson was on a 'buy-one-get-one-free' offer at Tescos.

The second in the series The Dead is technically the prequel to The Enemy, which was set a year later. The basic premise of the books is that all the adults over the age of fourteen have been struck by a mysterious illness and have been either killed or turned into zombies, leaving only the children left to fend for themselves. Sort of like an even creepier version of the Pied Piper. While in The Enemy the kids have been around for a bit, have got organised and can generally look out for themselves, in The Dead the virus has only just struck a month before and no one really knows what's happening or how they're going to survive.

One of my favourite things about this series is that no one is safe. Higson is more than willing to kill off main characters if and when it's necessary. This is great. It keeps the reader on their toes, makes them more involved in the story and evokes greater emotion when someone that they've seen grow and struggle gets struck down as if by random.

The plot itself is immersive and fast paced. Higson puts a lot into his writing. There's drama, relationships, planning and religion, all set on the background of an apocalyptic zombie filled London. You run into some familiar faces from the previous book and you learn a little more about the disease, though there's still no-one who has a clue about it. In some ways their life is easier as there's more food lying around but they're still growing used to the new world around them and aren't really properly watching out for danger. It was released recently as well, on the 16^th of September last year, so there's a lot of references to modern things, like Lady Gaga. One of the characters is obsessed with books and at one point we find him reading Fever Crumb, which was the first book reviewed by this blog. It's little things like that which make it more realistic for me.

I heartily enjoyed the book. It was just what I was looking for, a little creepy and more zombie filled than the previous one. As I said previously it was easy to find a character you could connect with and the suspense was gripping. It wasn't really a scary book, though it had scary parts in it. But full of adventure and a plot that makes sense. I'd give it a six out of ten and recommend anyone buy it. You don't need to buy the previous book but if you read it out of order then you might get a shock at who you recognise.

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dead-Charlie-Higson/dp/0141384654/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302457652&sr=8-1

Also included at the end is a preview of the next book, The Fear. Since it is part of the book I'll be reviewing that as well.

Well, it's creepy. The small segment you see is from the perspective of one of the zombies. At first it seems harmless enough, just living in a cellar surrounded by broken computers. You get the feeling that undeath hasn't changed it that much. Then it goes out and becomes a lot more sinister. The Fear is a good name. And it looks so be a good book, so you might want to get it when it comes out, which seems to be the 15^th of September of this year. So read and enjoy.

Sharpe's Trafalgar by Bernard Cornwell, a review

What's better than a book that costs a pound? Four books for that pound, which also helps a charitable organisation. It was with this philosophy that I picked up Sharpe's Trafalgar by Bernard Cornwell for a low price and spent a pleasurable afternoon reading it.

For those of you that don't know the Sharpe series follows the career of the fictitious soldier Richard Sharpe as he rises through the rank of the British Army in a period stretching from just before the Napoleonic Wars to their end. He is present at a series of historic battles and usually manages to acquit himself well. The battles and situations themselves are meticulously researched and their accuracy can be assured in all but the details concerning Sharpe, though Bernard Cornwell usually mentions in the back any changes made and also sets and relates the historical context.

This is not the first Sharpe novel I've read, it's about the fifth. It's not the fifth in the series, it's the fourth, but I've been reading them out of order. Though in all fairness, that's how the author has published them, putting new books in non sequentially.

Anyway, back to the actual book.

We join Sharpe when he is in the position of an Ensign, returning to England from India to take command of a regiment stationed there. He travels by boat, of course, and when his ship gets taken by the French a chain of events are set in motion that sees him taking an active part in the battle of Trafalgar, the famous naval engagement where Nelson crushed the might of the French and Spanish navies. This book is different to the others that I've read in that Sharpe is on a ship, whereas before he was in the Army and walking. This means a vastly slower pace. Instead of a couple of battles in the space of a few months and lots of running about in between, those couple of months are just spent drifting through the waves. While this might make it boring otherwise, Cornwell manages to keep you engaged with various other threats and activities aboard the ship. This keeps us suitably entertained until we reach the big fight at the end.

You do obviously know what the eventual outcome of the battle will be but unless you're a history buff you probably don't know the facts behind it and how the battle was won. You learn them here, after watching the daring plan that seems like it's not going to work. The whole battle itself is conducted in two parts; one with you being aware of the fire and death issuing from the ships and another confrontation which has been gradually built up over the whole book. Of the two I'm not sure which is the more tense, as one of them is much more dramatic, while with the other you're more uncertain as to what the outcome will be.

The detail in this is amazing and gives it the necessary edge of realism that you need from a historical novel. I wouldn't call the descriptions beautiful or breathtaking but more gritty. You learn possibly more about the life aboard a ship than you might have wanted.

All-in-all, a good read. You get an interesting voyage, enjoyable characters and a big battle at the end. The plot is slightly slower then some others in the series but that's to be expected. I would recommend buying this book but you might want to read the previous novels, as they are alluded to in this book. The first in the series is Sharpe's Tiger, followed by Sharpe's Triumph and Sharpe's Fortress. The last one is a book I'm planning on getting myself, as it's not one of the ones I've read and from some of the description it sounds good. And reading more Bernard Cornwell can never be a bad thing.

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sharpes-Trafalgar-Richard-Sharpe-October/dp/000723516X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302390508&sr=8-1

Worst Case by James Patterson, a review

I'd had a reasonably tough weekend camping and when I got back I just wanted to relax. I've been watching episodes of a tv show called Castle so I was in a crime kind of mood. And so I picked up Worst Case by James Patterson.

It's not a bad book. It's not the first James Patterson I've read, though the others were all from his Maximum Ride series so it's the first crime novel. At the middle point of the Maximum Ride series he seems to have got environmentally conscious and this is carried on here.

The book follows police Detective Michael Bennett as he follows a case where rich teenagers are kidnapped and made to answer questions about the environment and world affairs. If they get too many wrong, they get shot. Backing him up is FBI agent Emily Parker. Both are single parents, both are good at their jobs so there's some nice chemistry between them.

Now this book is in the middle of a series so I don't think I have the full picture about his life. You learn the basics but there's still more hinted at. Which is perfectly natural and expected. Yet it all seems slightly hollow. You see the surfaced of everything but none of the emotion underneath.

There's another thing. They don't seem to spend that much time working on the case. At the end you see them working with fingerprints and stuff but before they just don't seem to care that much. Bennett spends a fair amount of his time with his kids, while not seeming too concerned about the case and Parker goes shopping at one point. They get a description of the person they're trying to find and then seem to leave it on a desk or something as nothing happens after that.

They do eventually catch up with the criminal, after he's left a trail of bodies behind him. To be honest I was kind of rooting for him. He had everything planned out so well and his intentions were sort of honourable. And the police seemed so inept. It was only at the last, and I truly mean last, moment that they managed to work out what he was doing and how all his victims were connected. At times you see things from the criminal's perspective so maybe I'm being too harsh, as the reader would naturally know more. But really, he was beaten by luck more than anything else.

However it was, all in all, a good book. You should probably read the preceding books in the series first, as I think you get a better idea of who Detective Bennett is as a person. But as it is it's still a good read if you want to just sit and admire the blood patterns for a while. I've included the Amazon link below, as I've only just thought of doing that. And in a rating out of 10? I say I'd give it a six.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Worst-Case-Detective-Michael-Bennett/dp/009952533X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302047170&sr=8-1