Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
My Goodreads rating: 4 of 5 stars
OK so I was wary of this book because of the subject manner as I am a Christian. However, I know myself and I do not get offended easily and decided that I would give it a go. One thing I do like is how the book calls The Messiah Joshua, not Jesus.
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal is written from the perspective of Levi, also known as Biff. Biff is resurrected in modern times by an angel to put to words his testament to the life of Joshua/Jesus. His story fills in the “gaps” in Joshua’s live from the age of about 6 until he is crucified. Together Joshua and Biff have some adventures as they journey together to find the knowledge Joshua seeks to fulfill his role as the Messiah and Hijinks ensue.
While there are some parts of this book that will offend those who are easily offended when it comes to this subject, the story really does not feel as if it’s intent was to poke fun at Christianity, but rather to take a subject that is the source of some heated arguments and wars, and tell it with a humorous angle and some lighter tones. And of course, it is completely made up.
I would recommend this book if you know that this is a subject that you can tolerate to be seen from a fictional point of view.
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Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
My Goodreads rating: 3 of 5 stars
Catching Fire left me with mixed feelings. While I really dig the whole concept of the Hunger Games universe and the struggle that the districts and their citizens face, there are definitely parts I could live without. The whole “love triangle” aspect really did not do anything for me, especially since I was not able to connect with Katniss’s feelings on the subject. Perhaps I am not the target audience for that particular part of the story.
The Hunger Games left me wanting to continue the story so I jumped right into Catching Fire. While I loved the way the story is told I was really quite let down by both the first half of the book and the Hunger Games themselves.
The first half, Katniss really seemed to be naive to the politics and and rebellion sparked by not only the living conditions of the other districts but how her actions affected them. I get that she is young but she has has had to grow up fast and be the primary provider for her family.
The second half also was a little bit of a let-down as the hunger games did not have the excitement as the first time we were there.
Now that I am starting Mockingjay (book 3) I feel as though I could have skipped book 2 entirely.
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Ghost Story by Jim Butcher
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I have been a Dresden fan since book 1, and this book is probably the most unique book yet. I guess it is not a spoiler to tell you that Harry is dead since the book description gives that away.
Harry is usually a wizard of impulsive action, so not being able to affect the world directly is new to him and those of us who have come along with him for the ride so far. Jim Butcher (Author) still finds ways to make this work very well.
I would not recommend this book if you are new to the Dresden series as you will not quite understand the links between all the existing characters and previous sub-plots going on in the Dresden-verse. But I highly recommend this series!
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Private by James Patterson
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
This is what is set up for a first book in another series by James Patterson. It is (mainly) about Jack Morgan, a private investigator and his multimillion dollar, international investigation firm cleverly named “Private”. The firm has a crack team of specialists, with the tools and resources which makes the CSI “tech” stuff seem like Andy Griffith.
Through the book the firm is working Three main cases, none of which really offer any real challenge and the author (whoever that really is, more on this later) completely fails to build any suspense or mystery around any of the cases. IT felt overall too easy for the team to solve every case. There is not really much more to say about the book itself.
Maybe this is because James Patterson released 8 other books in 2010 (and another six already this year!). Now, if he really is writing all these books, then he is really just blowing through them without much effort and it shows with this book. My personal theory is that Mr. Patterson has found another way to rake in the money with less effort by letting others write books, and charging a fee to put his name on the cover. Maybe he even offers some advice or does some quick edits, but my guess would be not much more than that.
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Review: The Book of Fate by Brad Meltzer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Trying to really explain this book without giving too much away is such a hard thing to do, but here goes…
This book ties together the murder weapon that Cain used to kill Abel with Superman, and Cal Harper. Who is Cal Harper? Well to answer that too much would give away some of what I think makes Meltzer’s books so hard to put down. While Cal is trying to find out what has happened to his father who he has not seen since childhood, he gets wrapped up in trouble. A psycho is after Cal and his Father, Cal becomes wanted by the Feds and the only way they can save their lives and clear their names is to solve the mystery.
I love the gritty realism that Meltzer puts into his stories and the way he builds his characters. There are times you want to reach through the pages and slap them silly. Then as the story goes on you get glimpses into what is really driving them, their secrets and histories. There is some definite twists and turns along the way to keep you guessing.
As a side note I also listened to this on Audiobook read by Scott Brick. He did an amazing job bringing even more personality and feeling to the already amazing story.
This was my first Meltzer book, and now I am on a mission to read them all.
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Book Review: Dexter Is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay
Dexter Is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Don’t get me wrong, I still reccomend this book and the Dexter series as a whole is one of my favorite series. Let’s just get down to it shall we? The reason I rate this so low is probably because my expectations were set higher by the previous books. The Dexter in this book is NOT the Dexter I have come to love reading about.
In Dexter is Delicious, new Daddy Dexter is faced with horrors far more gruesome than serial killers and Rapists. No, I am not talking about the coven of cannibals either. Far worse, Dexter dearest has to face emotion brought on by the arrival if his daughter and the decision to put his dark past behind him and retire his dark passenger.
The whole book Dexter internally whines and whimpers about his feelings. We don’t get to see Dexter in action save a single scene. The whole book everyone else does all the heavy lifting while Dexter sits around sucking his thumb.
The writing and story telling are still very good but the story still left me frustrated with Dexter. I can read a ton of other “dime-a-dozen” detective novels if I wanna read about an every day guy solving a mystery and saving the day just in the nick of time. The appeal that Dexter had in the previous books has been the cold, calculated, justice dealing killer is gone from this book completely.
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Review: The Walking Dead Episode 1
Last night I finally got around to watching the first episode of AMC’s new series The Walking Dead. The Premise, for those who do not know, is about survivors of the zombie apocalypse.
The main character is Rick Grimes, a Deputy Sheriff who wakes up in the hospital after being shot in the line of duty to find the world has become a post apocalyptic zombie playground.
As this is a cable show, there is no shortage of violence and gore though it is at a level I would expect from HBO or Showtime. If graphic images of gunshots to the head disturb you, this show is probably not for you.
One thing I always find funny in any zombie movie/show/whatever is that the surviving people are always at a loss of what is happening. Nobody is like “holy shit its a zombie!” and people have to be told “dude dont get bit”. Really? by now with all the movies, books, comics and such you would think people would catch on to this fact.
Other than my little rant above, which is not specifically about this particular show anyway, this is definably worth a watch. That is, if you can stomach it. Gummy worms anyone?
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Think a week redux
Jonathan Coulton is re-releasing his thing-a-week series in real time!
“What the frack are you talking about?” you ask? Well let me tell you. coulton created a blog where he released a newly recorded song every friday for a year. Some were short clips to full songs.
you can check it out yourself at: http://thingaweekredux.com
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The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Just finished listening to this audio book. I stumbled across the podcast The Sword and Laser which is a sci-fi “book club” podcast. They were reading this book so I thought that I would take part and read it then listen to the podcasts.
If you cannot easily get past political messages in books, especially ones that are one-sided or not your own, or if you cannot get past about 30% of the story feel like it is preaching these politics, then I would NOT recommend this book for you.
If you can ignore this, then the story is tolerable. The concept is one of a computer, no… Super computer… that gains consciousness and befriends a human being, then becomes central in a political revolution. Also, the setting is mostly based on the moon.
I think that if I was not listening to the Audio book then I would not have got through it. The reader, Lyodd James. has narrated many audio books such as Ben Hur. He really made this story come to life with his accents and reading / voice acting abilities.
I would recommend giving this a try, but not to expect the best Sci-fi book of all time or to be blown away.
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Changes
Lots of changes have been going on in the Joeverse (Queue Ozzy here…).
Today was the first day at my new job. It was a typical first day. The first half was spent in orientation where I learned about the company, important contacts and information. The rest of the day I spent setting up my computer and getting logins for things I will need. Got to meet the other people on the team I am working on, and they all seem pretty cool. Though it is still in the setting things up phase I can tell that I will probably like working at this company.
On the home front Lillianna is doing awesome! Leanne was laid off from her job, but it actually works out for us right now as she can be home a little more with Lilli.
More changes are in the works for us but I’m keeping those under my belt for now.
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