A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow. I loved this book to hate one or two characters. A simple four way story between four people destined to kill themselves. All on the same night. Together they awkwardly join together to become some eccentric gang of insane people gathered together towards a goal. Whatever that may be. By the end you want to throttle the young girl in the story and you want to hug the rest of them. It’s a fantastic little story of people, pain, struggle and in the end…twisted triumph. Love me some twisted triumph.

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Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Holy crap. Zombies. Star Wars. Han. Chewie. ZOMBIES! ONNOMNOM!

That’s all you really need to know. It’s fairly terrifying (descriptions might make you squirm) but it’s a nonstop adventure in the deep darkness of space where everyone screams. And wants to eat your brains. ONNOMNOM!

If you like Star Wars, Zombies, Alien and all kinds of spacey scarey stuff…you’ll need to give this book a run over your eyes. It’s a fun little peek into the darker aspects of the Empire.

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Ex Machina Vol. 1: The First Hundred Days by Brian K. Vaughan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Graphic Novels or “comic books” are always tricky. This one isn’t really. A cool little story with a mix of “Heroes”, “Batman” and a few others it takes a honest and fascinating look at life with superheroes. What it means to them, us and those around it all. It starts off a little preach with politics but sealed the deal as it went along. I’d be curious to see the rest of the series.

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Her site is here and it’s awesomely titled “The Untold Tales of the Average Nursing Student”. Jenn’s married these and living it up in Las Vegas. I’m pretty sure she’s going to make a great nurse and despite all the adventures ahead I think she’ll make it through alright. So go read her stuff and bookmark/RSS/etc her stuff. K? Good.

Below is a review of a book I read this weekend and finally finished in the wee hours of last night. It was surprisingly good!

Something’s Alive on the Titanic by Robert J. Serling

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Wow. This book was just gobs of fun for me. I’m an oldschool Titanic geek and parts of this book had me smilin’ wide like a fool. Some good haunting moments and pretty thrilling story combined with a acceptable ending makes this book something I’d enjoy reading again to pick up on details I missed. Fun and historical. Gotta love it!

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Keeping up with the fast pace of a first shift in hospital housekeeping is far different than the second shift I had worked on up until about two months ago.  The pace at the night hours was mundane and plodding.  It would make you wonder if you could keep going until the next crisis cropped up to give you something to do.  I yearned for first shift for a year and a half.  Thankfully for my mental sake God delivered me to the morning shift.

After hitting the ground running, stumbling and bumbling I’ve come to realize how lucky I was on the 3pm to midnight shift.  Now I’m trying to keep pace with the ever increasing rotating sprockets that push the day onwards.  I’ve got a long road to go but I’m firmly back on that road to success.  The New Year gives me a chance to strive for greatness, not goodness.

Let’s check in with our goals then shall we?

Terminator Salvation: The Official Movie Novelization by Alan Dean Foster

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The book itself is fairly mundane and follows closely to what I know of the movie. It’s a fun popcorn read and will keep you entertained. Meeting up with some more familiar characters was great but I grew to not really care for much of them as it just didn’t feel as if the writer was invested. Given that this is was adapted from script, it’s understandable.

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I finished the book this afternoon and was pleasantly pleased with how it all ended up. Since we’re clear of the release date I can talk freely.  Also, I’m putting a break here in case you haven’t read and don’t want to know the intimate details of the final chapter in the drawn out life of Harry Potter and friends.

Ron’s alive and marries Hermoine, has kids. Our boy Harry finally gets his Ginny and has kids named after family, friends and mentors. Snape was the good guy after all and Rowling does it simply and quickly so we can see what has really been going on with Dumbledore behind the doors of his office.

The opening and start of the book is great. We loose Mad Eye Moody at the start which is a bloody terrible thing. I loved his character (even more than Professor McGonagall who is an absolutely awesome character poise and all.) probably more because of the actor in the movies than the books. It sets the tone and send a clear message to the reader.

We’re going to lose a lot of people in the next pile of pages and we better be prepped for the worst. The list (I couldn’t remember) from Chiff.com as follows with my comments.

Professor Charity Burbage‘s death opens the book as she is the  Professor of Muggle Studies and to be honest I had no idea who she was until I read further.  Not a Harry Potter fan, I felt nothing terrible at not knowing.  However, Potter Fans are out there probably sending Fire and Brimstone my way right now.  We also lose Hedwig, which I didn’t even realize until I read it online just moments ago.  I don’t think I paid enough attention and may have dig back to find where the old owl kicks the bucket.  Of course Mad-Eye Moody falls to the ground to die, a terrible ending for such a great character.

Scrimgeour, the Minister of Magic bites the dust to be replaced by a Voldy company man and I really didn’t care about this one which might invite more hate mail from the Harry Potter world.

We lose Gregorovitch a wandmaker and I didn’t care about that one either.  This list is going to get me howlers by the minute.  Grindelwald, the dark wizard who again…don’t care about.

Bathilda Bagshot is killed (she’s some old friend of Dumbledore) to give Harry somewhere to go so the V man can eat him alive but that doesn’t work out very well.  Harry escapes another threat of death!

Dobby get his.  Which I actually felt bad about.  Dobby had gone from annoying to dangerous defender and I hadn’t expected it to make me wince.

Snape is blown away but not because Voldy finds about about his triple agent status.  We get to see more into the mind of the evil V man than ever before and it’s an interesting progression to see just how he got to where he was.

Crabbe, Tonks, Lupin and Fred Weasley die in the Final Battle of Hogwarts which as far as fights go, rocks the house that rocks the party.  We also lose 50 “red shirted” fighting members of Dumbledores Army, Order of the Phoenix and Hogwarts students.

Harry Potter does die but only to kill the part of him that is Voldy.  He meets with Dumbledore in a dream moment where we learn everything we had hoped to learn and more. You would think this would drag, but it doesn’t.  It was nice to see Dumbledore again and to experience his side of the story we’ve been told in and out of the previous pages.

Harry comes out of dream world, helps Malfoys know their son is still alive by whisper, they pronounce him dead, lie to Voldy and escape to find their son.  Harry meanwhile is marched into the school for all the survivors to see and at just the right moment vanishes beneath the cloak, another battle breaks out.  Bellatrix takes one in the chest by way of Mrs. Weasley in the only exchange that takes the language into PG-13 territory with a word that rhymes with witch. The final moment between Voldy and Potter begins and then ends with the Bad Man dead of his own curse.

Overall the books is a solid finish.  The middle literally sucks your soul like a dementor.  It’s great back history and shows you some things you didn’t know before but it takes forever to get there.  This could have used some work, but no book is perfect.

To review.  Opening chapters rock.  Solid foundation laid towards the middle.  Mucho sucko in the middle.  Mucho rocko at the end.  Seeing this movie on the big screen will need a master to compose in making it what it should be on film.

We find out what happens to everyone.  Neville becomes a teacher.  We also are given no ideas as to what happened between the end of the battle and nineteen years later on the 9 3/4 platform.  We’re also given the ability to imagine what happens after that train leaves for Hogwarts with another generation to wizards and witches to be…but something tells me Rowling will solve that problem in time or give someone else the wand to compose the rest of the story.

As for me, I’m happy to see Harry fade away.  It’s been a great run and I’ve enjoyed the books and will maybe enjoy the rest of the movies.  It’s time to move onto bigger and better books.

Can I just say all this ‘harrumph and ‘hooey in and about the final chapter of the Potter boy is just about too much? I enjoy a good book like anyone else and if my Sunday afternoon doesn’t include me sitting on the Comfy Chair with book in hand, someone’s gonna lose a digit!

But seriously. This whole idea that you can lock away these books and nobody can see it and if you dare say that you know what happens and the ending (I do) we’ll stick a subpoena in your eye or two if called for is a little loony. Far be it for me to take away what Harry Potter and his filthy (literally covered in it) rich creator have accomplished in the last few years.

This is the largest and most anticipated release of just about all time and the world deserves to celebrate and enjoy the moment because the reality is that we may not see something like this again in our lifetimes. At least I doubt I will before I kick the bucket.

I’ve read the spoilers (everybody dies and Dobby is the last elf standing in the Hogwarts Steel Cage. Stone Cold Steve Austin is the voice for the movie I hear…) and the book resolves pretty much everything. The ending is a touching moment and I concur with a reporter who said that Rowling gives Harry something he’s never really had which is a family. Having read the epilogue I am interested to now read the book itself to see the reasons for certain passages within the final chapter. It actually made me want to read the book more if that makes sense.

It does open up the chances of further adventures of Harry and the others. It does give us a chance to imagine our own history in the rather large section she doesn’t write about and that in and unto itself is possibly the best ending. We can now imagine what happens to Harry as he fades into the pages of literature and even create our own adventures of Harry Potter and the rest of the cast.

Harry Potter broke open the world of literature for children and families. The characters have graced innumerable walls of classrooms, bedrooms and tree houses. Imaginations have been sparked, kids are actually reading more than they ever were and just maybe the future of the book world looks a tad bit brighter.

What a difference fifteen years makes. R.L Stine was the best I could find in my day. We didn’t have wizards, wands and writing such as this that literally owned the market for so long. For one, I’m looking forward to seeing the next Harry Potter-esque book to capture the magic once again.

I’m not fan of the Potter like some people.  I’ve read all the books because if I didn’t I’d probably be labeled a leper, Nazi or some other nefarious title.  Maybe even “Muggle” or something.  I’m not waiting in line for the movies or the books but I do have a slight invested interest in what does happen within the pages of the last book.

The reality of these books is they have struck a cord in the young and old, bringing the world of imagination and amazement.  For all the controversy (bunch of bunk in my opinion) and the money sales (Rowling is worth gallons of green) the books are the best thing we as readers could have asked for.

I’m working the Harry Potter Release Party at my nearby Barnes and Noble.  I’m looking forward to the release of the final book because I anticipate much hand wringing, teeth gnashing and beaded brows.  I’m excited because people are actually looking forward to a book.  More people are interested in reading than ever before.

And we have a young wizard to thank for that.

It is bad that I’m trying so very hard to watch the movies and I’m really wanting to hit the fast forward button?

I personally have never really enjoyed hiking. Whenever the family would go out on an outing or something I would be the one not enjoying the whole hiking thing. My parents and younger brother loved it. I never enjoyed it. I always was the one making us turn back because my feet hurt or some other malady. There was some truth to the pain. It hurt like a…well, fill in the blanks.

When I saw this book in the middle of the Albertson’s book isle (I know, I’m living it up) I decided it was time to start reading again. In my younger years (read: middle and high school and some college) I was a voracious reader. I would take Jurassic Park and get through it in a day or less, no problem. I didn’t skip either if that was your next question. I just simply love to read. My creative brain imagines the situations and I immerse my self in that world. I just love it.

The book itself is a quick 394 pages but in it I found probably (because I don’t actually know, I’m just guessing) the reason why my brother and family love hiking. It is something that puts you outside your world and into the unfamiliar. Sure, there are maps, trails and markings but there is a small sense of adventure when you go hiking into the mountains, hills or whatever natural world you have outside your city.

There is a sense of life and of something else flowing right beneath the surface. Tonight I took my second walk in two days. Mind you it was just a walk around the block for about thirty minutes but I really actually enjoyed it all bundled up and feeling my heart moving something faster than lazy white boy. Reading Bill Bryson the whole hiking in the wilderness away from the world helps you see life for what it really is and I’m sad to report that Bryson (and myself as well) don’t think the Rat Race is what life is really all about.

Needless the book sent a spark through my brain. Hiking, walking and the like is something I could do to help lose the weight the Philippines had layered on my already white whale-esque body. I expect Captain Ahab to show up at my door and threaten me with a spear or something.

It’s not that bad actually, but it helps me to think in those terms. I don’t want to know what Ahab is gonna do with that spear…but I suspect it’s something unnatural. I need to motivate myself to get out and exercise and not just on a machine. Get out and live life as much as you can. Especially here in Denver where the wonder of nature is less than two hours away. Trails, hiking and campsites are there for the taking. I want to do that I want to move outside of my apartment life.

First I need to get to the point of taking a walk every day for a solid week. Then I can start looking at trails in town while eying the mountains. Spring and Summer are stumbling our way. The smell of the summer weather is wafting through the sleet and snow and calling my name.

Gotta start walkin’.