Mid-terms

I've been having a bad couple of weeks. I'm sorry for the lack of postings, I have a bunch of reviews that I need to write up and I promise to do that soon. I had my last midterm today, so the semester is officially half over. My apartment is trashed. I know that's something that people say without meaning it, but it's true. There's something funky growing in the bathtub, I had to wash dishes because the kitchen was starting to smell funny, and I couldn't find any clean socks today. I can't see the kitchen table (which I use like a desk) because there is a whole mountain range of clutter on it (from my seat on the couch I can see bills, junk mail, catalogs, books, a bag of cookies, a sweatshirt or maybe two, two boxes of kleenex, a bag of rice that needs to go in the pantry and my purse). Oh, and Sims 3 Late Night was released yesterday so I didn't even study for my midterm today. Scarily I still think that I did all right. So, I hope to get all of this mess cleaned up and be back to regular posting again soon.

Sims 3 - Vampires

The vampires in Sims 3 are going to be awesome! A producer at EA games apparently feels the same way I do about, ahem, sparkling vampires because they started the most recent press release with this statement:

"Let’s get a few things clear – Vampires in The Sims 3 Late Night do not twinkle, sparkle, or cry. Vampire men look like men and vampire women, well, they’re clearly girls. When in daylight they smolder with fire and are in deep trouble as they should be. They aren’t “beautiful” in the eyes of silly, adolescent girls."

Check out the full release here!


That's freaking fabulous! I thought that the first thing I would do would be to have a sim create a band and become a celebrity. After reading this press release I think that the first thing I will do will have to be having a sim become a vampire.

Did I mention that I took October 26th off from work so that I will be able to stay home and play Late Night all day? The sad thing is that I will be knee deep in mid-terms that week. Think I'll find any time for studying?

Teaser Tuesday #2

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should be Reading Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

After two disappointing reads this week I decided to reread an old favorite that I knew wouldn't let me down.

BookGirl's Teaser:
"I cried out as a pulse of ecstasy shot through me from the lingering effects of the vampire saliva. The bleeding had slowed, and I wondered if it was from Jenk's pixy dust."
---From Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison

Kéthani - Review

Title: Kéthani

Author: Eric Brown

Synopsis: “When a mysterious alien race known as the Kéthani make contact with the people of Earth they bring with them the dubious gift of eternal life. These enigmatic aliens will change the course of the human race forever but also touch people’s live on a personal level, not least in a small town in the English countryside. But do the Kéthani have a hidden agenda and will the human race choose to evolve or turn in on itself in the face of this momentous revelation?”

Review: **Spoiler Alert** Science Fiction is my favorite genre. It’s also the genre about which I’m the pickiest. I really enjoyed Brown’s previous novel Helix. I was disappointed with Kéthani. Part of this is my fault. I thought that it was going to be an aliens-take-over-the-Earth horror/science fiction novel. It’s not. This novel is about everyone learning to live in peace and harmony and the implications of immortality. Can you say boring? The second cause of disappointment (this is the one that is not my fault) is the constantly switching points of view. Similar to the horrible book I read yesterday, Ex-heroes, Kéthani is written in part first person and part third person points of view, and the first person sections are not always in the head of the same person. It’s head-hopping and I hate it! If an author is going to write in first person they need to pick a character’s head to be in and stay there! This is another book to avoid if you can.

Publisher: Solaris
ISBN: 978-1844167128

Skip this book and read one of these instead:



Helix by Eric Brown (ISBN: 978-1844164721)



Beholder’s Eye by Julie E. Czerneda (ISBN: 978-0886778187)

Ex-Heroes - Review

Title: Ex-Heroes

Author: Peter Cline

Synopsis: “Stealth. Gorgon. Regenerator. Cerberus. Zzzap. The Mighty Dragon. They were heroes. Vigilantes. Crusaders for justice, using their superhuman abilities to make Los Angeles a better place.
“Then the plague of living death spread around the globe. Despite the best efforts of the superheroes, the police, and the military, the hungry corpses rose up and overwhelmed the country. The population was decimated, heroes fell, and the city of angel was left a desolate zombie wasteland like so many others.
“Now, a year later, the Mighty Dragon and his companions must overcome their differences and recover from their own scars to protect the thousands of survivors sheltered in their film studio-turned-fortress, the Mount. The heroes lead teams out to scavenge supplies, keep the peace within the walls of their home, and try to be the symbols the survivors so desperately need.
“For while the ex-humans walk the streets night and day, they are not the only threat left in the world, and the people of the Mount are not the only survivors left in Los Angeles. Across the city, another group has grown and gained power.
“And they are not heroes.”

Review: Superheroes and zombies together in one novel? I thought that Ex-Heroes had a combination that could not fail. Surprise. This novel was one big epic fail.
Fault number 1: Cline tries to do too much. There are too many main characters and too many plot twists. As a result the characters are one dimensional and the storyline is hard to follow. The confusing storyline leads into
Fault number 2: switching points of view. This is one of my many pet peeves. Pick a point of view and stick with it for goodness sake! Cline switches back and forth between first and third person points of view constantly and the first person chapters are never about the same character and he doesn’t tell you who it is for at least a page.
Fault number 3: Cline switches between “then” and “now” frequently. This would not be a problem, as he nicely labels each chapter, if it were not for the already prevalent confusion.
I almost gave up reading Ex-Heroes halfway through, but decided to stick it out in the hopes that it would get better. It didn’t. I think that I tend to be overly optimistic when it comes to books as they rarely let me down. I don’t recommend this novel. Don’t let the waste of my time be meaningless. Read something else!

Publisher: Permuted Press
ISBN: 978-1934861288

Don’t read this book. Try one of these instead:



Feed by Mira Grant (ISBN: 978-0316081054)
See my review of Feed here.



Monster Island by David Wellington (ISBN: 978-1560258506)
See my review of Monster Island here.

Monster Island - Review

Title: Monster Island

Author: David Wellington

Series: Zombie Novels #1

Synopsis: “It’s one month after a global disaster. The most “developed” nations of the world have fallen to the shambling zombie masses. Only a few pockets of humanity survive…
“In New York City, the dead walk the streets, driven by an insatiable hunger for all things living. From the other side of the planet, a small but heavily armed group of schoolgirls-turned-soldiers comes in search of desperately needed medicine, with a former UN weapons inspector as their local guide. They think they are prepared for anything. On Monster Island they will find that there is something worse even than undeath.”

Review: I read this book in one sitting. It’s a good thing that today was Columbus Day and so I didn’t have to work or go to classes. Once I started reading Monster Island I couldn’t put it down. Wellington’s characters are realistic and I couldn’t help feeling compassion for them. Dekalb, who is searching the world for the AIDS drugs he needs to give to a female warlord in Somalia in exchange for his daughter’s safety; Jack, the unwilling leader of 200 survivors in NYC; Gary, the doctor who figured out how to keep his brain functioning when he turned himself undead and is now stuck as something worse than undead and Ayaan, the Somali schoolgirl-turned-soldier who longs to live but knows that she will die.
The description in this book, while not overly graphic, is chilling:

"We could make out most of Liberty Island now and the shadow of Ellis Island beyond. The girls were pointing with agitation at the walkway that ringed Liberty, at the people there. American clothes, American hair exposed to the elements. Tourists, perhaps. Perhaps not.”
…“On the island I saw hundreds of them, hundreds of people. They waved at us, their arms moving stiffly like something from a silent movie. They pushed toward the railing, to get closer to us. As the trawler rolled closer I could see them crawling over one another in their desperation to touch us, to swarm onboard.
“I thought maybe, just maybe they were alright, maybe they’d run to Liberty Island for refuge and been safer there and were just waiting for us, waiting for rescue but then I smelled them and I knew. I knew they weren’t alright at all. Give me your tired, your poor, your wretched refuse, my brain repeated over and over, a mantra” (pg 4&5).

This novel started out as an online serial and was quickly picked up by a publisher because of its popularity. I think it’s excellent, although I do need to warn readers that it has a cliff-hanger ending. I can’t wait to get the next one to see what’s going to happen!

Publisher: Running Press
ISBN: 978-1560258506

If you like this book you may want to read:

Monster Nation by David Wellington (ISBN: 978-1560258667)

Feed by Mira Grant (ISBN: 978-0316081054)
Check out my review of Feed here.

Interview

Hi all. I had a bit of a bad week so I apologize for not posting very much. I did do an interview with a fellow blogger, Daniel Carter. You can see it here: Interview . His blog is great and these interviews with bloggers are truly fascinating. He also very nicely made me a logo. Look!


Isn't that awesome?
Thank you so much Daniel!

To Be Read #2

To Be Read is a weekly meme that I'll try to post every Sunday listing the books I bought/received that week. This meme was started by The Story Siren as: In My Mailbox. Check it out here
(Sorry I'm late this week. Work and school are kicking my butt!)
Here are the books that I got this week:

Late Night

I can't wait to have my sims start a band. The latest news from the folks at Sims 3 tells us how, in Late Night our sims can start up a band with their friends. Check it out here