Book Review: The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman (and art by Eddie Campbell)

Because if a cave doesn't have skull on it, don't go in it.


You ask me if I can forgive myself?
I can forgive myself . . .

Guys in kilts with questionable morals go on a quest to find a cave filled with Treasure with terrible and sad things involved.

So this is a short story, accomped with illustrations. It's basically a picture book for adults so what not to love. 

The illustration really go well with the story. They're pretty and sometimes creepy. (To think I studied Art.)

Since this is a short story, I can't really say much without it being spoilerly. I liked it. It features family, murder and the Scottish Highlands. It well written and I really like the ending. It was sort of perfect and twisted.

Overall, I gave it 5 out of 5 stars for just deserts. It typical Neil Gaiman goodness with awesome illustrations. Also the action book production is nice with fabric on the spine.

Book Review: The Long Fall by Julia Crouch

If someone likes to play game called "Danger" is when you leave them on the curb.

How far would you go to protect your secrets?

Greece, 1980

Emma takes part in a shattering, violent event. An event to which she is anything but an innocent bystander.
She is only eighteen, but this marks her fall from innocence.
It will haunt her for the rest of her life.

London, now

Kate has the perfect existence: a glossy image, a glamorous home, a perfect family.
But there are cracks.
All is not what it seems.

And now the two worlds are about to collide.
Somebody's out for revenge.
Someone who has been waiting thirty years...

I didn't really enjoy read this book much. It was alright but I got bored and frustrated whilst reading, mainly during the third Part. There were somethings I liked about this novel, the actual format was good.

It split into three parts, one switching between the diary of Emma and then third person narration Kate's life. Then the Part Two, is solely Emma and then Part Three is just Kate. I liked the diaries there were done well enough. The writing was well enough. It's plot and characters that get me down.

Okay, Emma can be seen as being naive and not being able to see warning signs but Kate is adult with experience. She does no checking and blindly follows someone with dodgy past. The scheme is overly complicated. Kate is meant to be really smart, at least in educational sense but none of that is reflected in her actions. I also found it hard to sympathise with Kate at all, I think it the way she was written and her thought path. Characters do stuff for no apparent reason that never plays into the story and have complete personality makes over, that whilst fit with the plot make me wonder why Kate was so trusting.

There is the effect to have a twisty turny plot but it just kinda fell flat with me. I think the opening prologue thing was a mistake because it makes what happens obvious so I start to wonder when they would just get to that part and how it would play into the story. Now that can be a prostive thing but I don't think it worked with this story. Generally, I thought the thing that connect Emma and Kate was dumb and never got Emma's reasoning (if I say more we get into spoiler zone).

Overall, I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars for luckless charms. I can't really say I enjoyed reading this as I had to focus myself through at lot. The second half of this book lets it down and which is disappointingly as I do like the format of the book and the certain plot points if done differently would have been great. I would give Crouch another chance.

I got this book off BookBridgr for Review.  It being published by Headline on the 19th June 2014 (tomorrow).

Weirdly Poetic.

I have a sleeping dog in my room that I think may be trying to keep me trapped in my room. He lays blocking the door. To leave I would have to stand on him and manage to get the door open though his body would stop the door in it's path. It's a good thing that I do not plan to leave my bed. I have blog posts to write and it's too hot to move.

The exact temperature I do not know, but room's location doubles it ten folds. I hadn't spent much time in my own personal oven that day as I had drove in and out of time after my sister who can't drive and volunteers three hours of her time whilst my mother asks when I will take my theory. I say the end of August as it is far away as she will be pleased with but who knows, maybe I mean the august after next.

Father's day present I brought, birthday present remains to be fulfilled. The gift of jeans cannot disappear with the intention of dinner. I also spent too much on myself after last week's twenty-one books to sit pretty amougst the other pile of tomes.  A candle holder, usefully for when modern light fails; vitamins to make stronger nails, brighter hair and skin involvement is a mystery; skin masks to peel away; and finally hair dye did I buy.

My hair has been tamed once more by others hands after years only mine. It is slightly shorter and certain top strands lighter. I do not care for the lightness so I plan to turn the lightness into brightness with shades of pink and purple. In a week or so.

Until then I have my books and videos to be busy with. My VEDJ project is going better than it started with each day have a video to go with it. Issues I did have on the cursed Friday the 13th as it rained where my creativity called for dry skies. Creativity was stilled until today where it finally flowed.

Father's Day is tomorrow, my sister never brought a card so now we're meant to share. She owes me a coin then. I've spoken all I have today, so I type to you the same day I always do when it comes age new. Farewell til then.

P.S. Yeah, I wrote the post in a weird style mainly because I haven't wrote anything creative in a while, maybe next week. If you want weird comments go by your parents room in oneies during unusual heat. 

Book Review: Zom-B: City by Darren Shan

Okay, for a sec there I thought we were in the Walking Dead.

How many survived the zombie apocalypse?
Where do the living hide in a city of the dead?
Who controls the streets of London?
B Smith is setting out to explore...

This is the third book in the Z-Bom series, I have done reviews of the first two books: Zom-B and Underground. Go check out those reviews if you haven't read them if you haven't as there will be spoilers for them in this review.

 A few interesting things are introduce/brought back to the series in this book. We have extreme religious nuts and get this very "The Walking Dead"ish speech from artist. He even says "I'm the Walking Dead" (that might be slightly wrong as I've lost the actual quote).

Through most of this I wonder if B had lost her brain. She does some dumb stuff and I think she doesn't really think everything through which has always been B's problem. She damages herself so much, she a zombie she can't heal she really needs to be more carefully that.  She generally puts herself in way too much risk. She is trying to be a better person but she still not doing the best job of it.

 I really don't like the "villains" very much, not in they villains ways. Just why more than anything. We get grimaces of them with no real answer to anything. I would just generally like more information. What is there motivation, why is this happening, how did this happened? Going off the end of this book we are going to get some answer in the next one.

Overall, I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars for painted zombies. I enjoy reading theses books but I am currently frustrated with the series at the moment. I shall continue on especially since I have the next one in my hands.

Book Review: Robot Uprisings by Daniel H. Wilson and John Joseph Adams

I'm currently not in talking terms with most of my technology.

Someday soon, our technology is going to rise up and we humans are going to be sliced into bloody chunks by robots that in our hubris we decided to build with chainsaws for hands. That's a fact as cold and hard as metal.

It is self-evident that our self-driving cars are going to drive us off bridges. Not long from now, our robo-vacuums will pretend to be broken and our love androids will refuse to put out until the house is cleaned . . . and we'll know that the inevitable robot uprising has finally arrived.

Well, maybe. But even if we are not 100% confident that this horrific future is going to happen, it's fair to say that we won't be surprised when the robots come for us. Because for nearly a century audiences have been entertained by the notion of a robot uprising.

In this collection, seventeen of the biggest names in sci-fi have explored their own visions of the classic robot uprising tale. The robots in these pages aren't safe, by any means. They are crouched in abandoned houses, eyes ablaze and chainsaws dripping with oil. But they are going to do more than slice us up. They are going to push us to consider our world of technology from new perspectives, on entirely new scales of time and space.

Even though this book is called the Robot Uprising, most of them don't involve what you would call Robots. More just AI in everything. I got to say I don't think it will be technology that will be the end of humanity especially since most tech seems have the lifespan of a well-cared for rabbit. Just don't let them build themselves and we're be fine. Oh, wait...it might already be too late. Okay, lets get into the actual stories.

Complex God by Scott Sigler: This was a strong one to open with. There is Harry Potter references so that makes it the best story ever. The tone was nice as well. Deep and questing humanity and all that jazz. And. 4/5 stars for frogs.

Cycles by Charles Yu: I quite like this one. It more interesting to be told the story from the point of view of the robot because motive is something I never really got about "Robot Uprisings".4/5 stars for Procrastinating Robots.

Lullaby by Anna North: Sing to the robots, save the house. This one is interesting as it actually set after a war with robots have already taken place. A young hacker moves into her grandfather old house which she hears is meant to be  haunted. It is *evil laugh*.  4.5/5 stars for incompetent  authority figures.

Eighty Miles an hour all the way to paradise by Genevieve Valentine: I liked the ending, it’s sort of sad. Also in this world, Britain would probably fine going off the ending. I'm disappointed that appears not to be a real song. 4/5 stars for death cars.

Exeutable by Hugh Howey: You should have better things to do in the robot apocalypse than have a pointless trial. Especially, since the person on trial could be valuable in his knowledge of Robots. 3/5 stars for idiots.

The Omnibot Incident by Ernest Cline: Really cute story about possible killer Robot set in the 80s. No, it not a fanfiction of Johnny-5. It should be. 5/5 stats for knife play.

Epoch by Cory Doctorow: This was sort interesting as it was about survival and think it made the good point as to why we would care about AIs. Why would we want Artificial Intelligence be a thing? 5/5 stars for non-sexy phone calls.

Human Intelligence by Jeff Abbott: Oh, the trickery. I could also get behind this apocalyptic scene with how believable it is to me. 5/5 stars for man's last hope.
 

The Golden Hour by Julianna Baggott: I like this one, kinda unique as it about a robot making human baby and loving it. Robots are still our overlords but questioned the relationships and emotion.4/5 stars for stolen DNA.

Sleepover by Alastair Reynolds: DUMB, DUMB, DUMB. There are so many things I did not like about this story. The concept, the structure, the suppose explanation. Basically, most of the human race has been put to sleep except for a group of caretakers. They wake up this guy to be a caretaker and explain absolutely nothing to him. They say there is a war, that’s it and he left to figure what going on himself.  The character were annoying as no one explains themselves. 1/5 stars for being Dumb, Dumb, Dumb.  Okay, I’m being a bit mean, but really don’t like this one.

Seasoning by Alan Dean Foster: It could be argued that humans could behind what’s going on in this story. I guess still sort of interesting and involves one of those unavoidable things of life: Food. 3/5 stars for making me want a pretzel.

Nanonauts! In Battle with tiny Death-Subs! By Ian McDonald: Lesson, boys should wear concealer too. Also protected your drinking glasses in bars and don’t brag to strangers about your job. 3/5 stars for being Nanotastic.

Of Dying Heros and Deathless Deeds by Robin Wasserman: Wasserman is the only writer in this anthology that I’ve read before (though I own others’ books and not hers). I generally like her writing style. This one was so sad and I had tears in my eyes at the end. 5/5 stars for alot of talking.

The Robot and the Baby by John McCarthy: This weird, kinda funny story, basically robot that sort of goes against it programming whilst keeping with it. 4/5 stars for spider legs.

We are All Misfit Toys in the Aftermath of the Velveteen War By Seanan McGuire: I liked this story but I think there was some issues with it. As not to spoiler it, let just say everything is on the internet. 4/5 stars for a updated horror cliché.

Spider the Artist by Nnedi Okorafor: Killer Robots and music. This was the only story not set in the west, definitely make it stand out more. It's set in African country (I can't remember which one). It has this nice soft tone, that almost musical so goes very well with the story. 4/5 stars for spurting oil.

Small Things by Daniel H. Wilson: This is the longest story in the anthology. It even had chapters. Because of it's length I did spend most of the time wondering when it would start getting interesting. Follows a shamed nano expert who tricked by the government (petty sure it's US but don't think it said it them), into going to a nano infested island with a mad scientist making them do weird things to living things. There is some horrific imagery in this story. 4/5 stars for

Overall, I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars for junked cities. I enjoyed reading this and there are some interesting, well-written stories in it so definitely recommend to robot and sci-fi lovers.

I got this book off Netgalley for Review. It's published by Simon & Schuster and has been out since April.

Broken Things.

 Hello friends of the internet, I went to Food Town Day today. Don't worry I didn't partake in any of that. I went to a café that opened everyday and ate food that you could get everyday. Okay, so I didn't really go to Food Town Day, It was raining so barely any one did go and it's a tourist scam anyway.

You're be horrified to find out that I broke my Book Buying Ban in a major way. I didn't just break it, I smashed it on the ground whist the glue was seting and then did that same thing again. Yes, I brought books three times this month. I brought 13 books on Monday, (I also brought a book for a pound but that doesn't count), four on Thursday and another five today. I have a serious problem. It's not my fault it's Waterstones. No, BookTube. Goodreads? Mine? No, it couldn't be. It's yours.

Okay, now I'm just blaming everyone. It's mine for being weak. Sure, I have excuses: my TV and laptop broke on the same day; making me depress and I buy books when I'm depressed. It probably not the best coping mechanism, but definitely not the worst. I went to steal my little brother's TV today but he was in there and still is. Not using the TV though. I've stolen my mum's laptop successfully.

I know why I do it partly, I just wish my book guilt would override my want of books. I shouldn't have decided somewhere in my brain because my TV and laptop broke meant my Book Buying Ban should match.

I have started a new system to tackle my Mount TBR challenge. Every time I read a book I don't actually own e.g. library, netgalley; I have to read a book I own before I can read another book I don't own. I have my doubts that I'll stick to it fully, but it should at least stop me having months without reading any books that are actually mine.

I'm also having a book giveaway on my BookTube channel, I'm giving away some books that I'm planing to get rid of anyway (mainly because I own several copy of them). That's all for this week, I'll leave with the giveaway video.

Book Review: Winger by Andrew Smith

This book rugby tackles you while you're playing rounders.


Ryan Dean West is a fourteen-year-old boy at a boarding school for rich kids. He's living in Opportunity Hall, the dorm for troublemakers, and rooming with the biggest bully on the rugby team. And he's madly in love with his best friend Annie, who thinks of him as a little boy. 

With the help of his sense of humour, rugby buddies, and his penchant for doodling comics, Ryan Dean manages to survive life's complications and even find some happiness along the way. But when the unthinkable happens, he has to figure out how to hold on to what's important, even when it feels like everything has fallen apart. 

I had heard a lot of hype for this book. I don't think that help as I spent a lot time wondering why this was so many people's favourite. To be honest it's the ending that leave me a little numb. Just no. Okay, I get why so many people like Winger. There is cartoons meant to be drawn by the character. Illustration are something I love in books, though I don't think all the comics made sense or add anything to the situation.

I think the whole book balanced on whether you like the main character Ryan Dean which I didn't really. He so needy and does the same dumb things repeatedly. Also we get told of his past mischief that I have hard time actually imagining him doing any of it. I just couldn't behind him at all. It doesn't help that the only girls we introduced to in this book are either described as hot or mocked for the looks and as Ryan Dean is the narrator he one doing it. The supporting characters were generally more likable.

There was this one scene that just felt so fake and really what the chances of that happening. It just seems the whole point of this book to give us, the reader a lesson out of the suffering of a character that's not main character (though who is hella lot more likable).

Overall, I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars for bloody uniforms. There was parts of this book that I enjoyed and found humours. However, with that ending it lost a whole star. Though, saying that I'm sure there is people who love this book because of that ending, I'm so not one of them. There is also meant to be sequel of this book coming out and I don't get why. I suppose there was meant to plans of action that Ryan Dean wanted to be doing. I would probably read it if it dropped into my lap but I wouldn't make any effort for it.

I got this off Netgalley for a review. It’s being published by Penguin on 5th June 2014 (Tomorrow).

Book Review: Smart by Kim Slater

 Jamie Oliver should read this book because it would tell him quite clearly what my generation thinks of him.

'I found Jean's friend dead in the river. His name was Colin Kirk. He was a homeless man, but he still wanted to live.' There's been a murder, but the police don't care. It was only a homeless old man after all. Kieran cares. He's made a promise, and when you say something out loud, that means you're going to do it, for real. He's going to find out what really happened. To Colin. And to his grandma, who just stopped coming round one day. It's a good job Kieran's a master of observation, and knows all the detective tricks of the trade. But being a detective is difficult when you're Kieran Woods. When you're amazing at drawing but terrible at fitting in. And when there are dangerous secrets everywhere, not just outside, but under your own roof.

When I first started reading this book I thought we had another Curious Incident in the Nighttime. Thank God, we don't. Let me start by saying I'm on the Autistic spectrum (Aspergers side of things), I'm also dyslexic and my little brother autisic so I know about kids with special needs. It's never actually said what Kieran has in the book but I did read a blurb that said it was Autism. Most of the books written in the point of view of  kids with learning disabilities (such as Curious Incident in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon) have this weird dumbed sort of tone, which I hate. Because it all about the disability and not the person with the disability. Smart's not like that.

Kieran becomes his own person. At first I thought it was going be one of those books, but it so not. Sure, his disorder does feature in the book, but in the capacity it does in the life of someone with that sort of disorder. It develops into this a really good story.

The plot is interesting. This is more of a character book, but there is a mystery of course. Everything goes in a nice circle, if that makes sense. It does deals with abuse, homelessness, drugs and other stuff. There is a few a sadish moments.

I really like the cover, especially since it so linked with the book and is interesting enough.

The characters are well developed. Even the minor characters are strangely memorable. Kieran get his information wrong sometimes, he says that the invisible coat from Harry Potter was made from the hair of a magical creature but that's not even how things become invisible in the world of Harry Potter, there was something else as well. He does a lot of drawing and wandering the streets. I think Kieran was quite likable, sort of humourist and does what he thinks is best. The characters are realistic is my main point.

Overall, I gave this 4.5 stars out 5 for missing sharpers. I enjoyed reading this book and have already started to bug people I know to read it.

 I got this off Netgalley for a review. It’s being published by Macmillan Children's Books on 5th June 2014 (Tomorrow).