Saturday, March 27, 2010

Bite Me, How to Train Your Dragon, and Other Reviews


I've been slacking in my blogging so these reviews are going to be short. I'll start with Bite Me by Christopher Moore. I don't know how he gets funnier with every book but he does. I lost count of how many times I laughed out loud in the first chapter alone, not to mention the rest of the book. The third and last book in his vampire trilogy (Bloodsucking Fiends and You Suck are the other two) this book primarily focuses on the adventures of Abby Normal, self-appointed goth minion to the vampire couple she discovered. I don't want to say too much to ruin any of the laughs for anyone. I recommend all of Moore's books to everyone. Read them.

I also read the Merry Gentry series by Laurell K. Hamilton. I know this is a very popular PNR/UF series, but I didn't really like Hamilton's writing style. It wasn't until the last three books that anything of any substance actually happened in the overall story. I know these are very popular books, but I can't really recommend them.
A couple Kindle freebies also made into my reading: Murder Takes the Cake by Gayle Trent and Moonstone by Marilee Brothers. The former is a nice little cozy mystery placed in a small town involving cakes, pets, murder, and old town secrets. It was a nice little book but I'm glad it was free because I would never pay for this. Moonstone was a nice Young Adult book. Again, I'm glad it was free because I would never pay for this. If you happen to have downloaded either of these when Kindle was offering them for free then read them, but I don't recommend buying them.

Today I went to see How to Tame Your Dragon. I WANT A DRAGON!! They're so awesomely cute! This was a really good animated movie. I highly recommend it to everyone. Last week I went to see The Bounty Hunter with my mom. Gerard Butler is nice eye candy but you can otherwise skip this one. And I rented The Marine only to look at Manu Bennett who plays Crixus in the Spartacus series on Showtime. Nice eye candy, truly horrible movie.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Alice in Wonderland and The Green Zone


Alice in Wonderland was visually stunning but the story was slow. This type of story lends itself well to Tim Burton's movie-making style. My favorite character was the Cheshire Cat; the animation and voice were absolutely perfect. I also like that Burton worked in Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky poem into the main story line. However, it would have been a better movie overall if it had faster pacing and possibly a more exciting Alice. I recommend this movie to any Lewis Carroll fan.


The Green Zone is about the first few weeks of the Bush administration's disastrous invasion of Iraq. It's a well made movie with great actors. I definitely recommend it as a good movie, but it made me so angry all over again that I came home from the theater pissed off and bitchy. If you don't want to drudge up those emotions again, you may want to skip this one.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Kim Harrison

Last weekend I got to meet one of my favorite authors, Kim Harrison, at a book signing in Lansing, MI. She was really funny and nice. She started by reading a short passage from her newest book Black Magic Sanction, the latest in the Hollows series, and then spent a good 20 minutes answering all kinds of questions.



I thought it was interesting that she doesn't have much input on her book titles or her covers. She started the series with modified Clint Eastwood films for her titles, then when she started gaining popularity her publishers took over the naming of her books. But they still stay with the Clint Eastwood theme. For book covers, they always ask her what she would like to see, she always says Jenks, they always say no, but they always end up with a cool cover anyway.



Then when it was time to sign the books, she would sign as many books as you had - no limit, which was very cool of her. And she posed for pictures with anyone who wanted one. She was just very accessible and down to earth, which makes her very easy to like. It's always a treat when someone you idolize for their talent turns out to be a good person too. What a treat to have met her.