Audiobook: 18 hrs and 16 mins
Narrator: John Lee
First published: April 1st 2008
Rating: 5/5
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Six million years ago, at the dawn of the star-faring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones, which she called shatterlings. But now, someone is eliminating the Gentian line. Campion and Purslane-two shatterlings who have fallen in love and shared forbidden experiences-must determine exactly who, or what, their enemy is, before they are wiped out of existence. read more…
This past couple of months have been a little slower than their 2011 counterparts, with an average of only 4 read books per month. I’ve completed abandoned my Sherlock Holmes marathon for the time being, after having read the first five books featuring the famous detective. Perhaps I will pick it up where I’ve left it some day, but for now I will pursue other genres. Anyway, I’m really glad that, with the exception of the Sherlock Holmes books, I’ve managed to review all the books I’ve read so far.
The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle
Kindle edition
First published: January 1st 1902
Rating: 3/5
Holmes and Watson are faced with their most terrifying case yet. The legend of the devil-beast that haunts the moors around the Baskerville families home warns the descendants of that ancient clan never to venture out in those dark hours when the power of evil is exalted. Now, the most recent Baskerville, Sir Charles, is dead and the footprints of a giant hound have been found near his body. Will the new heir meet the same fate? (Goodreads)
The Big Jump, by Leigh Brackett
Kindle edition
First published: 1967
Rating: 3/5
New star-drive engines promise to open up the galaxy to human-kind. But the first ship to use the engines disappears and a sole survivor returns…alone and dying of some strange type of radiation.
No one can figure out what has happened to the ship or the crew. Nor does anyone know what happens to a ship travelling using star-drive technology.
Does some unknown horror await us out there? The only way to find out is to go out again. And Arch Comyn is determined to be the one to solve the mystery. But is he, and the rest of mankind, ready for whatever awaits us beyond the Big Jump? (Amazon)
Dead of Night: A Zombie Novel, by Jonathan Maberry
Audiobook: 13 hrs and 49 mins
Narrated by: William Dufris
First published: October 25th 2011
Rating: 4.5/5
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A prison doctor injects a condemned serial killer with a formula designed to keep his consciousness awake while his body rots in the grave. But all drugs have unforeseen side-effects. Before he could be buried, the killer wakes up. Hungry. Infected. Contagious. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang…but a bite. (Goodreads)
Apartment 16, by Adam Nevill
Paperback: 452 pages
First published: May 21st 2010
Rating: 4.5/5
Some doors are better left closed… In Barrington House, an upmarket block in London, there is an empty apartment. No one goes in, no one comes out. And it’s been that way for fifty years. Until the night watchman hears a disturbance after midnight and investigates. What he experiences is enough to change his life forever. A young American woman, Apryl, arrives at Barrington House. She’s been left an apartment by her mysterious Great Aunt Lillian who died in strange circumstances. Rumours claim Lillian was mad. But her diary suggests she was implicated in a horrific and inexplicable event decades ago. Determined to learn something of this eccentric woman, Apryl begins to unravel the hidden story of Barrington House. She discovers that a transforming, evil force still inhabits the building. And the doorway to Apartment 16 is a gateway to something altogether more terrifying… (Goodreads)
He wanted to roar like a lion on a cement floor. And bellow like a polar bear with yellow fur worn down to pink skin against the tiles of an enclosure in a zoo. The disgust must come. Let it drip down the walls. Scorch the ceiling black with hatred. Liberate rage.
Paperback: 452 pages
First published: May 21st 2010
Rating: 4.5/5
Some doors are better left closed… In Barrington House, an upmarket block in London, there is an empty apartment. No one goes in, no one comes out. And it’s been that way for fifty years. Until the night watchman hears a disturbance after midnight and investigates. What he experiences is enough to change his life forever. A young American woman, Apryl, arrives at Barrington House. She’s been left an apartment by her mysterious Great Aunt Lillian who died in strange circumstances. Rumours claim Lillian was mad. But her diary suggests she was implicated in a horrific and inexplicable event decades ago. Determined to learn something of this eccentric woman, Apryl begins to unravel the hidden story of Barrington House. She discovers that a transforming, evil force still inhabits the building. And the doorway to Apartment 16 is a gateway to something altogether more terrifying… (Goodreads)
Having just finished reading Adam Nevill’s Apartment 16 a few minutes ago, I want to put some words to virtual paper while the experience is still fresh in my mind. I chose my words deliberately, reading Apartment 16 really is an experience like few other.
This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang…but a bite.
Audiobook: 13 hrs and 49 mins
Narrated by: William Dufris
First published: October 25th 2011
Rating: 4.5/5
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A prison doctor injects a condemned serial killer with a formula designed to keep his consciousness awake while his body rots in the grave. But all drugs have unforeseen side-effects. Before he could be buried, the killer wakes up. Hungry. Infected. Contagious. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang…but a bite. (Goodreads)
I was in the mood for a zombie novel lately. The last (good) one I read had been Max Brooks’s World War Z, and I thought it was time for some more zombie fun. I kept hearing a lot of good stuff about Jonathan Maberry’s Patient Zero, but since that novel is apparently part of a series, and I didn’t know if I would like Maberry’s books enough to commit to reading a whole series, I thought I should give one of his stand-alone novels a try first. I am now positive that I will definitely read more of his works in the future, because Dead of Night is awesome! read more…
Kindle edition
First published: 1967
Rating: 3/5
New star-drive engines promise to open up the galaxy to human-kind. But the first ship to use the engines disappears and a sole survivor returns…alone and dying of some strange type of radiation.
No one can figure out what has happened to the ship or the crew. Nor does anyone know what happens to a ship travelling using star-drive technology.
Does some unknown horror await us out there? The only way to find out is to go out again. And Arch Comyn is determined to be the one to solve the mystery. But is he, and the rest of mankind, ready for whatever awaits us beyond the Big Jump? (Amazon)
Leigh Brackett’s The Big Jump was Phoenix Pick‘s free ebook for March 2012 (you can still pick it up by using the coupon code 9991393, which is valid until March 31), and after reading the synopsis and seeing how short it was (about 130 pages for the paperback edition, really more of a novella than a novel), I decided to give this old-school sci-fi story a try so I downloaded it. read more…
Original airing: 4 December 2011
Rating: 5/5
As my regular readers know (yes, all three of you), I rarely step outside the bounds of literature on this blog, but every once in a while something special comes up on my radar that I feel I simply must bring to your attention. Such is the case with Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror. Now, I’m not normally the one to utter statements such as the following, but in this case, it’s true:
Up to this point, Black Mirror is the best TV show I ever watched.
First, a little background. In case you’re not familiar with Charlie Brooker’s work—and I wasn’t before watching Black Mirror, but I’ve since fixed that—he is the creator of Screenwipe, a humorous TV show where Brooker shares an inside view into how the television business works, as well as reviews of British and international TV shows. I won’t take the spotlight off Black Mirror to say too much about Screenwipe, I just wanted to mention it and sincerely recommend that you watch it. read more…
As you will immediately notice, I’ve been on a Sherlock Holmes marathon last month, that actually started in January and is still currently running. I decided to read all of Doyle’s works that feature the famous sleuth after watching the wonderful British TV show with the same name, and since all of them can be downloaded for free on Project Gutenberg, I picked them up. Now, I probably won’t be reviewing these any time soon, as they surely don’t need any more reviews by now. Suffice to say that they are quite entertaining, especially the short stories, where the master of deduction really shines!
The Sign of the Four, by Arthur Conan Doyle
Kindle edition
First published: 1890
Rating: 3.5/5
“Which is it today?” Watson asks Holmes matter-of-factly on the opening page of the novel, “morphine or cocaine?” “It is cocaine,” Holmes famously replies. “A seven-per-cent solution. Would you like to try it?” Mary Morstan comes to Holmes in the hope that he will be able to solve a mystery. Ten years earlier her father, Captain Arthur Morstan, had returned to London on leave from his regiment in India where it is said that he and one Thadeus Sholto, “came into possession of a considerable treasure.” By the time his daughter arrived at his hotel, he had vanished without a trace. (Goodreads)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle
Kindle edition
First published: 1892
Rating: 4/5
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the series of short stories that made the fortunes of the Strand magazine, in which they were first published, and won immense popularity for Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. The detective is at the height of his powers and the volume is full of famous cases, including The Red-Headed League’, The Blue Carbuncle’, and The Speckled Band’. Although Holmes gained a reputation for infallibility, Conan Doyle showed his own realism and feminism by having the great detective defeated by Irene Adler – the woman – in the very first story, A Scandal in Bohemia’. (Goodreads)
Hood, by Stephen R. Lawhead
Audiobook: 12 hrs and 20 mins
Narrated by: Narrated by Adam Verner
First published: 2006
Rating: 3/5
For centuries, the legend of Robin Hood and his band of thieves has captivated the imagination. Now the familiar tale takes on new life, fresh meaning, and an unexpected setting.
Hunted like an animal by Norman invaders, Bran ap Brychan, heir to the throne Elfael, has abandoned his father’s kingdom and fled to the greenwood. There, in the primeval forest of the Welsh borders, danger surrounds him—for this woodland is a living, breathing entity with mysterious powers and secrets, and Bran must find a way to make it his own if he is to survive. (Goodreads)
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle
Kindle edition
First published: 1894
Rating: 4/5
Eleven of the best and most popular tales of the immortal sleuth include “Silver Blaze,” concerning the “curious incident of the dog in the night-time”; “The Greek Interpreter,” starring Holmes’ even more formidable brother, Mycroft; and “The Final Problem,” the detective’s notorious confrontation with arch-criminal Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. (Goodreads)
If you had the chance to change the course of history, would you?
Would the consequences be worth it?
Audiobook: 30 hrs and 43 mins
Narrated by: Craig Wasson
First published: November 8th 2011
Rating: 3/5
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On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed forever.
Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.
Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time. (Goodreads) read more…
Paperback: 992 pages
First published: 2007
Rating: 4/5
The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of finding the Northwest Passage. When the expedition’s leader, Sir John Franklin, meets a terrible death, Captain Francis Crozier takes command and leads his surviving crewmen on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. But as another winter approaches, as scurvy and starvation grow more terrible, and as the Terror on the ice stalks them southward, Crozier and his men begin to fear there is no escape.
The Terror is a fictional tale based on the lost Franklin Expedition. HMS Terror (from which the novel gets its name) and HMS Erebus were the two ships that left England in 1845 and were supposed to navigate and map the final section of the Artcic Northwest Passage, but instead found themselves icebound and never reached their destination. Not only did the ships not accomplish their goal, but they were actually never seen again. Despite numerous search expeditions for over 150 years, the ships have not been found to this day. read more…
I must admit, I’ve never been one for poetry. Sometimes I think I simply don’t “get it”, and that I’m missing out, because every once in a while a poem comes along that, for some reason, appeals to me greatly. What makes it even more mysterious is that I can’t really put my finger on what particular feature of a poem makes it a good one.
This being said, a couple of days ago I discovered this film and song adaptation to Tolkien’s The Mewlips, and I’ve been playing it non-stop ever since. The Mewlips is a hobbit poem that parents use to scare their children into forgetting any thoughts of adventuring. Enjoy the video (poem text after video):
Animation: Richard Svensson. Music and song: Colin Rudd. read more…
