A is for Awesome

I buy the majority of my books based off of suggestions from friends.   “A is for Alibi” is the best recommendation I’ve received in quite a while.

The book was a true pleasure to read.  Once I got past the 80′s setting and could visualize the clothes a bit better the main character became a real person to me rather quickly.

One of the things that stood out particularly to me was the difference in how the protagonist was presented compared to other mysteries I’ve read.  Sue Grafton managed to avoid having to callout why her character was quirky yet likeable, there was no scene with her character looking at herself in the mirror to describe herself or reminiscing on how her grandmother always told her she was a certain way.  Instead the character came to life through her actions and her interactions with the other actors in the novel.

I’ve already picked up B and I’m looking forward to diving in.

Thoughts on Redwall

After reading this book I was torn between staying with my own thoughts for a while to try and decide what I thought of the book and diving into reviews and info about the book on the net.

Lately my curiosity has been killing me, so of course I jumped online.  And I have to say I was surprised that this is considered a young adult book.

Just a warning that the following my contain spoilers, so stop reading if you havent read the book and don’t want to know what happens in it.

The most surprising things about this book don’t happen in the plot.  The characters appear to be laid out with their specific personalities and stereotypical skills of their animal in the wild.

The book has almost no sexual references, just a few shy flirting moments between mice.  Maybe that’s why it is considered  less adult book.  However, the plot has the ‘good guys’ who are stoic, brave, loving and homely animals take part in cases of mass murder with no second thoughts.

The path of the story follows an assault on the Redwall Abbey by an invading horde of rats, and at the same time a small abbot mouse goes on his journey to find his own purpose.

Throughout the two major themes there is a clear sense that the conflicts in the world are all against the environment, there are no characters that go through a crisis of morality or question their own actions.

With the events of recent years it is hard to watch as the animals of the Abbey boil their invaders alive in front of them, while at the same time believe that they are an untrained mass of country raised, loving, simple creatures.

New Year, New Plans

A new year makes me think of new things to try and a new chance to start over.  I’ve been talking about trying to learn how to cook for ages now, but I think this is the time to try it.

I’ve noticed lately a couple people talking about cooking everything in a particular cookbook so I decided to try the same thing.  I took a gander through my small assortment of books and picked out one I got as a gift from my sister.   I figure if I can cook something new two nights a week and have lefovers for one or two days after I’ll be golden.  If I get really great maybe I can taken leftovers for lunch at work the next day!

The book I picked out was Rachel Ray’s 365: No Repeats.  The stuff looks great, I know she likes leftovers from watching her show and all the recipes are based around 30 minute prep which sounds perfect for me.  Hell, I spend 15 minutes just nuking a frozen dinner most nights!

One of the other things that spurred me onto this plan was grocery shopping the other day.  I was starting to get really annoyed when I couldn’t find the frozen dinner I usually buy at the store while there was a sale on them.

Sounds like a great time for a change to me.

Disneyland!

I’m taking a quick break from packing and errands to get ready to go to Disneyland this afternoon. This has to be the happiest set of chores I do all year.

Even yesterday at work, which hasn’t been the most exciting week, blew by as I thought of things I need to take with me or do to get ready. I’m sure everyone is sick of me ending every sentence with “… and I’m going disneyland this weekend, I’m so excited!”

Even my car got some extra special attention this morning when it got an oil change and other liquids flushed for the big trip.

This weekend may seem like it has a lot to live up to, but I think Disneyland for me is a state of mind more than anything else. Nothing short of a major blizzard that shuts down LA could wipe the grin off my face.. and even if that happens I think I’ll find a way to have fun. This is my time to let my kid at heart out and take over, and wear silly hats and sparkly tshirts.

Coming out of the Otherland

I just recently finished the Otherland series by Tad Williams.  I have to give the man credit in two big areas.  First he wrote an amazingly complex story that intertwined and stayed cohesive over thousands of pages of an imaginary world.  Secondly, he wrote it in a way that kept me interested to follow his writting through that journey even when at times it felt like it would never end.

I honestly had no idea how the book would end until I got there, even during the last 100 pages of the saga I was unsure where things were leading.

But now that I’ve resurfaced and recalibrated my brain with a few murder mysteries and teen romance novels I’m unsure if the Otherland world is any more believable than the one in Twilight that I just tore through in a day.

In the past week i’ve dealt with data coruption on solid servers for no apparent reason after 4 years of running perfectly, my own computers having the most bizarre and annoying bugs where the mouse or keyboard would just stop working despite swapping out parts like it was a wholesale mouse/keyboard junkyard and just so many random glitches in computer software and hardware that the idea of a working virtual reality universe that mimics real life is completely insane to me.

Today I honestly believe it is more likely that vampires, werewolves and psychics exist than that humankind will find a viable virtual reality that passes the turing test in my lifetime.

So after all the great storytelling in the Otherland series which made for a great sci-fi read, I am accutely aware of the fiction part of that genre, no matter how much I wished I could believe again…. in anything.