Game Of Thrones In Space

Hola Readers, how are you all doing today?  I got a couple fabulous days off that were much needed and were used to my literary advantage...but more on that later.  One of the things I got finished was Caliban's War by James S.A. Corey, the second book in the Expanse series.  I loved the first one and was leery and excited to read the second one as more then once a series has disappointed in it's follow up.  Lucky for me I loved this book as much as the first one.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

At the end of the last book we left the crew of the Rocinante putting themselves back together after helping Detective Miller plunge the protomolecule ridden space station Eros into Venus.  If this doesn't make any sense...go read the book lol.  Anyways Holden and his crew are running around doing errands for Fred Johnson, the de facto leader of the OPA when they stumble across the aftermath of Ganymede.  Ganymede is a moon that has become the main food growing space for the Belt and it was attacked by an unknown monster like entity.  The attack wiped out all of the Earth and Mars marines stationed on the base except for one, our girl Bobbie.  The attack led to the very tense Earth and Mars factions shooting at each other and chaos reigns.  The ensuing violence pretty much decimates that Ganymede station and we meet Prax, a botanist who lives with his young daughter on the base.  Prax discovers his daughter is missing and kind of goes on a bit of a bender in his search for her.  Meanwhile back on Earth Chrisjen Avasarala, the under-secretary representing Earth in the UN is desperately trying to stay in the loop and maintain what peace she can between Earth, Mars and the OPA.  This is further complicated by people both above and below her pushing their own agendas.  Avasarala is particularly interested in keeping an eye on Venus and the energy spikes that seem to correlate with the monster attack.  Bobbie the Martian Marine is brought to the UN as the only survivor to show the video of the monster. Avasarala feels that there is more going on then meets the eye and hires Bobbie to work with her to find out what it is.  Back on Ganymede Holden and crew run into Prax and agree to help him find his daughter.  Their search leads to a hidden lab where Holden...who has had a much closer encounter with the protomolecule then anybody ever needs, realizes what it is they are seeing.  He get's everybody back to the ship and the heck out of dodge.  They fly back to Fred Johnson, where after a tiff, Holden and crew are once again free to take on any contract they want.  They set up a fund to find Mei, Prax's daughter and off they go.  Avasarala after some stuff realizes that one of the Generals is behind the whole "protomolecule as a weapon" thing and that he is trying to instigate a war.  She continues to play the political game, ending up with Bobbie out in space on a slow ship to Ganymede.  She contacts Holden and makes him an offer he can't refuse.  After they all get together on the Rocinante, Holden and his crew (Naomi, Alex and Amos...who are now equal owners of the ship and its profits), Avasarala, Bobbie and Prax pool their information and come to a horrifying realization.  Prax's daughter, along with many other children who have also gone missing, all had a very specific immuno disorder.  This disorder made it possible for them to infect the children with the protomolecule in an attempt to make a controllable weapon.  The problem with this is that they were never really controllable and one got loose and caused all the events from Ganymede and forward to occur.  We also get more info on Jules Mao...the father of Julie Mao from the last book.  We discover that his wealth and company are a huge part of what has made this atrocity possible.  Of course the biggest concern is if one of these monsters makes it anywhere where there is human in habitation...cause you know...it turns everybody into vomit zombies (still one of my favorite phrases).  Our people discover that lab base and fly there post haste.  After some political manuvering and a bit of threatening the crew make it.  They split up to accomplish various tasks and finally make it back to the Rocinante alive and with Mei and some of the other children.  Everybody goes to Luna to celebrate and reconnect with what family they have left.  Unfortunately the celebration is cut short when the news comes that Venus has spun off a comet size blast of protomolecule headed who knows where...and thus ends this second book.  Obviously there is a ton more as usual to this complex yet highly readable book, but as usual this is about the gist of it.

World Building - The series continues to build upon the last book.  This time however we get to visit some new places, namely Earth, Ganymede and plenty of various ships.  All of the careful world building and science of the last book were carried on in this book, making it a world that was easy to jump right back into.  I especially appreciate the little daily details that the authors pop in to remind us of the various environments our characters find themselves in, especially the different gravity types.  I really felt like I was hopping right back into a complete world.  Great job guys.

Story - I felt that this story really built on the completeness and simplicity (yet in a complete contradiction the complexness) of the first book.  I felt like the first story set us up to read through this story with complete understanding.  This story, with it's personal bits with Prax and his daughter, the larger political landscape and the even larger ancient alien threat to humanity all tied together in a whole that left me feeling satisfied while still wanting to hurry up and read the next story.  This is the kind of serial reading I like, where the story is not repetitive with the same formula over and over.  They are original stories that when all read together make an even longer overall story...very saga like.

Character -  We add a couple of new characters in this installment and I love each and every one of them.  In some ways, each character is a bit of an extreme version of a certain personality...on the other hand, each character also has various layers and motivations, making the more outlandish components of their persona's make sense.  I love the naturalness of the characters interactions with each other and how each one seemed authentic and genuine.  I also appreciated how the characters we already knew developed in a believable way considering the insane events of the first book.  Awesome characters.

Editing - The editing of this series is becoming on of my favorite aspects of these books.  These complex ideas, twisted politics, various characters and multiple places could very quickly become confusing, but between the authors and editors it is insanely readable.  Part of the ease of reading is that they use a trick that helps the Game of Thrones Series (hence the title...along with it is pretty much a similar feel...just in space...)which is each chapter belongs to a specific character and is labeled as such.  This takes the big crazy and funnels it through a single viewpoint...but more on that later.

Viewpoints - The first book in this series worked because we saw all the complexity funneled through two very distinct and two very different view points.  This book builds on what we learned in the first book and kicks it up a notch with FOUR viewpoints.  I like the characters they choose as they come from different places (Mars, Earth, Belt and Holden representing a kind of every man).  They are different personalities, different professions, different socio-economic classes...essentially every issue is shown to us from a sampling of who might be affected.  This expanded version of what we started with further enriches the world and story, yet still makes me feel like the book is readable without being overly bogged down.  I also feel like I am getting a mostly diverse view of events, not all one sided, no one planet or area is right, no one view is entirely correct...it's pretty open ended without being ambiguous...if that makes sense.

Micro to Macro - When a series is set in such an epic setting, I like it when they can focus on multiple layers, and this book does it beautifully.  I mentioned it before, but I like how we have the personal story of Prax and his daughter Mei, it puts an individual face on the impact of these vast and broad happenings.  I think even in real life we get so used to hearing these epic horror stories that we forget that individual suffer horribly because of these events.  We then expand to the politicol/soci-economic problems of Earth, Mars and the OPA.  This is a bigger issue, affecting more people and requiring a bigger and more complex solution, while still depending on the whims of individuals and their own prides and prejudices (see what I did their Austen fans?).  Then we expand into a universal concern as the protomolecule threatens EVERYBODY, doesn't matter where you were born, or where you work, or even how much money you have...this requires people to put aside individual concerns, patriotic alliances and work together in an unprecedented way to save humanity.  The various levels give the reader both somebody to root for and an epic horror to root against.

Names - Something I have noticed and loved as a bibliophile is the abundance of literary and historical references scattered through out the books.  In this book even the title has a Shakespearean origin.  Caliban is the twisted son of a witch who is a slave to the main character Prospero of the Tempest, until he throws off his shackles to disastrous effect.  This is paralleled in our book by the protomolecule/human hybrid monsters breaking the human constraints.  The names of the ships are especially fun to look up.  The Rocinante is named after the horse in Don Quixote.  The Barbapiccola is named after a philosopher and poet.  The Somnambulist is a pretty awesome word for sleepwalking and the Guanshiyin is a Hindu Goddess.  Pretty much anything with a name has some sort of cool story attached to it...jut another layer of awesome.

Overall - I am so excited that this second installment lived up to my love of the first book.  This is not always the case and I now have super high hopes for the next book.  I have been putting these books on my phone 'cause they are super easy to read a couple of pages inbetween calls and dealing with the monsters so they have been my go to books lately.  I give this book 8 out of 10 bulbs of coffee and am totally stoked to catch up on the tv show AND read the next book.  I recommend it to anybody who wants a solid scifi story, misses game of thrones and doesn't mind vomit zombies instead of white walkers or who read the first book and loved it.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Jumping The Pages

It is snowy, cold and blech outside...seems to be the perfect time to curl up with my computer, a cup of coffee and write a rambling.  Today I shall ramble on about a book that caught my eye called The Book Jumper by Mechthild Glaser.  I was at the bookstore looking for a completely different book, when the cover jumped out at me...and seriously with a cover like this I pretty much had to buy it.  It ended up being a bit hit or miss for me, though it did re inspire the return of my book journal...but before we get to that, as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Amy and her young mother Alexis are both in the throes of heartache.  Alexis has been dumped by her married boyfriend and Amy is experiencing the teenage angst of betrayal and embarrassment by a friend via social media.  They flee from their town in Germany to the tiny Scottish isle of Stormsay and their family home called the Lennox House.  They arrive fittingly in a storm and are greeted by the stern matriarch of the family Lady Mairead, Alexis's mother and Amy's grandmother.  They are welcomed on the condition that Amy learn how to become a book jumper.  What the heck is a book jumper?  I'm glad you asked.  You see on this little tiny isle there are two families, the Lennox family and the Macalister family.  These two clans have been responsible for hundreds of years for caring for the storylines of books.  They accomplish this by lying in a circle of standing stones, laying a book over their face then voila! they are in the book.  Amy chooses The Jungle Book as her practice book, but finds that she can easily move between stories, making friends with various characters.  Amy also discovers that she can jump into her e-reader and that she does not need to be in the standing circle to do so.  She is in a class with Betsy and William, the daughter and nephew of the current Laird of the Macalister clan.  Betsy is not a fan of Amy's, feeling she is too old to be properly trained...also she is a Lennox.  Will is cordial.  The three are taught by three guy's who are kind of monk like and are all scarred by burns.  While exploring the various literary worlds, Amy discovers that idea's are being stolen, altering the storylines in all the books in the world (yeah...we will discuss this later).  Nobody believes her, until she and Will discover the body of Sherlock Holmes in the real world.  Apparently Will would pull Sherlock out of the book to talk to him.  He vanished one day and it turns out he was murdered.  Apparently the Sherlocks in the other stories agreed to help out in the dead ones book so all was well.  The three students are taken to a place deep in the library and shown a story that explains a lot.  Apparently the Lennox family used to have a castle, but after a tussel, a fire broke out and destroyed it along with a one of a kind manuscript of a story not written down anywhere else.  The three teachers turn out to be the only characters rescued from the destroyed story and now live on the Stormstay teaching the new jumpers.  Amy discovers her mother making out with Desmond, one of the rescued book guys,  and after a bunch of angst and back and forthness learns that he is her father.  Yep, I guess when you spend most of your life on an island that only houses two families and a less then a dozen other people, you fall in love with the ageless book character...and then have a kid with him.  This helps explain why Amy is such an advanced jumper as in reality she is half fictional...yeah...anyways moving on.  We continue to go back and forth, Will and Amy fall in teenage love, accusations and suspicions fly 'cause nobody actually talks to each other and finally we figure out what is going on.  The old burned manuscript that had only fragments of pages and the three men saved had one more surprise.  Somehow the princess in the story also managed to escape the destruction and has been hibernating on the island.  She is a young, spoiled petulant thing who enchanted Will to be her Knight and jump into the stories to steal ideas.  She is trying to use these ideas to restore her story.  Once we know this we are able to piece together her story...which is not a very nice one. Most of the info finally comes from Desmond, who was the original Knight in the story.  Essentially the princess, when she get's bored, enchants a man to be her Knight, sending him out to slay a monster that is ravaging her kingdom.  The sick part is that the princess has actually turned the Knight into the monster, having him commit heinous acts, then sending him out unknowing to find the monster.  The only way to stop the monster is for the Knight to kill himself...starting the cycle all over again.  Will finds a way to stop the princess, getting himself killed in the process and Amy is able to return the idea's back to their original books.  She takes Will's body into his favorite book, Peter Pan and Tinker Bell is able to bring him back to life as a story character.  Amy spends most of her time in the books, exploring them with Will and that is how the book ends.

World Building - There is a lot of different ways to look at the world building in this book.  The island of Stormsay is fairly well realized, I could probably find my way around it if I needed to, and the atmosphere of it is complete.  The rest of it however is patchy.  I never got a full sense of the family, the history or the mechanics of the book jumping.  I felt I wanted either more information, or better merging of the different pieces of this complicated world.  I unfortunately did not get the feeling of full immersion that is the hallmark of a well built world.

Story - We have the problem of too many stories to accurately judge this category.  Some of these stories are more successful then others.  The best story in my humble opinion was the one of the ruined manuscript.  Through out the book, there are fragments given to us that make it sound like a fairly typical fairy tale, to find out that it is a pretty dark and twisted story is pretty awesome.  I feel like I did with the world building that if we had more information it would have been easier for the reader to see where all the various disparate stories tied together.  For me it was a bunch of flipping back and forth and wondering if I missed something.  In general, each story line was pretty good, they just didn't completely gel to create a whole.

Character - This book had a ton of characters in it.  Some where created just for the book and some were pulled from the literary world.  I was pretty ambivalent about most of the characters, didn't really hate any of them...but didn't really fall in love with any of them either.  For the most part, most of the characters where just there to further the story without a whole lot of personality, history or motivation.  Will, Amy and Alexis where the most formed of the characters, and I liked Will the best of those three.  Amy and Alexis where your fairly typical young mom/teenager duo that seems to be popular lately, didn't hate them, didn't love them.

Editing - So this book was translated from it's native German, which is pretty cool 'cause I love getting view points that are not typically American.  That being said, the flow of the book was not my favorite.  I felt that the there were to many storylines and not enough information.  While this is mostly on the writer, I feel an editor can maybe point out to an author that maybe the reader isn't in the author's head and needs some background, or history, or consistency for the book to work.  It isn't horrible editing, but like the rest of the categories...meh

Book Jumping - Ok, here we have one of my biggest issues with this book, and a particular literary peeve in general.  For me the overall concept of the book jumping left me with a ton of questions and very few answers, in fact it inspired me to get out my book journal again so that I could write down all my questions about book jumping.  Here are just a few thoughts I had.  Who discovered it? Why only these two families?  How diluted can the blood get?  Seriously how do these two tiny families keep track of EVERY book?  What is their purpose again?  If they are the only ones who can jump...aren't they the only ones who can mess up the story? Why are the characters aware of the jumpers?  Umm...about the timelines?  How do you turn the page?  Seriously, other then the mechanism of lying down and putting the book on your face there is not much given to us about the jumping.  I hate it when an author has a concept, especially a potentially good concept and then the execution is poor.  I understand that I will never have all the info or answers I want for things like this, and I don't always need them...I just want a concept to make sense. Since the book jumping was such a huge part of the book, I don't feel like I am wrong in wanting to know how it actually works.

Books About Getting Into Books - I have not yet found a book that has successfully executed a concept where characters from the real world can get into book worlds.  I have read some great ones that deal with elements of books in the real world, or authors or things like that, but anytime I read about a character actually getting into Wonderland, or Neverland, or Pemberly...it just does not work for me.  I think it's cause for me a good book world is complete and personal to the reader.  If you asked me to draw, or describe Pemberly and then you asked my baby sis to do the same thing, I bet you would come up with two equally valid, yet very different pictures.  So when an author tries to put a character into that world it infringes on my view of the world.  As for my own personal self, I'm always torn.  If I had the opportunity would I want to jump into a literary world, or is the bigger appeal the fact that I am completely outside of it?  Ok this is getting very philosophical and may require it's own post.

Fictional Father - After all of my mehness about the book...I have to admit I kind of liked the idea that Amy had a father that was a fictional character. Aside from the zillions of questions it brings forth, it also had the added advantage of me paring up literary characters and wondering what their offspring would be like.  I may have also had some literary fantasy's on which literary crush I would allow to father my fictional kids...

Overall Impression - Overall I feel pretty meh about the whole book.  It seemed to have a ton of stuff in it without really going anywhere.  There were moments of awesome and the concept was pretty cool, but the overall muddledness, lack of info and too many literary pet peeves made this book disappointing.  I feel that it had a lot of potential and if this author exports any other books over the pond, I will probably give her another chance 'cause I feel like she has good ideas.  I give this book 5 out of 10 inkpots and realize that other people enjoyed it more then I did which is also awesome.   Also the book cover is worth it just to have on my book shelf.   Happy Reading Everybody!

Oh Reading Tree Oh Reading Tree

Hi All!  FINALLY got a day off, first one over two weeks.  Got some reading done, got some shopping done and now I am finally in the holiday spirit.  To continue this holiday cheer, here are some super cool tree's decorated in a theme most literary.

Jane Austin Tree

I like the combination of little books and ornaments on this tree

Harry Potter Tree

I love this tree on so many levels, the cauldron base, the Hogwarts train and track, floating candles.  To make it even better it was built by the writer of one of my favorite blogs!  Go check out the detail pics.

Narnia Tree

It's a book, it's Christmas tree, it's all themed to my favorite book in the whole entire world....I seriously don't think it gets any better then this!

Lord of the Rings Tree

This tree just makes me smile...I think the giant spider with the book is what really makes this fantasy themed tree special.

Shakespeare Tree

All kinds of Shakespearen goodies on this tree.  I would love to sit next it and explore all the various items on it!

Ok folks, here is our quick dose of Christmas cheer, more to come including a holiday rambling later in the week.  Happy Reading Everbody!

Book Within Book

One of the many things I love about books and the reading community is how versatile and cross-referenced it is.  I have been noticing in so many of the books that I am reading that other books are referenced, or used as a focal point, or read, or written or some combination of these.  There are ton's of great books out there about books...if that makes any sense and these are always fun if a bit meta.  There are books that use a particular book as a jumping off point, or are referenced through out.  Some books just acknowledge their own characters love of reading.

I think what I love so much about all this meta booky goodness is that it shows just how huge, yet intimate the literary world is. An author can pop in a Shakespeare reference and most readers...no matter age or place or genre can get at least the gist of the quote.  Many classics make appearances that tie together the modern world with the older one.  Pretty much any time a book reference pops up in a book I'm reading, it doubles my literary enjoyment and makes me smile.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Christmas Party

One of my favorite things about my Hubbin is the random conversations he starts.  The other day he asked me what literary characters I would invite to my wonderful Christmas Party of Awesome.  So guess what, you guys now get to read a post about my fantasy literary Christmas Party.

The March Sisters - Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy from Little Women would be the first people I would invite.  There industriousness, creativity and varied personalities would be invaluable.  They would be able to help me plan and execute the party and during the event any other guest would find a kindred spirit in at least one of the girls.

Lexi the Fox - In the Legend of Holly Claus the little fox Lexi is the reason Holly is so well and appropriately dressed for all of her adventures.  I would hope that having this little vixen around would assure that not only would I look fabulous for my party, but that the guest would enjoy her spirit as well.

Mr. Tumnus - In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the faun Mr. Tumnus embodies the spirit of hope that the world can be a better place.  I feel that this guy could make my party a positive and fun experience for all of us, and if we were lucky we could get him to play his pipes for some entertainment.

The Weasley Twins - The intrepid duo from the Harry Potter series would bring the magic...literaly to our shindig.  Their sense of humor and inability to take anything other then fun seriously would be just the touch our party needs to bring it from good to AWESOME! And since there are two of them, we could spread the fun.

Heather and Morag - My favorite buddies from The Good Fairies of New York would bring the music and dancing...and probably a wee bit of mischief  to the proceedings.  Nobody would be able to keep still when these two go their fey music started...provided they could get along for the duration.

Calcifer - A fire demon who is also a sarcastic wit would brighten up the fete considerably (did you see what I did there...brighten...get it...he's a fire demon...I crack myself up sometimes).  He would have a place of honor in my fire grate and only be fed the best yule log.

The Ghost of Christmas Present - My favorite ghost in A Christmas Carol  would be the ultimate guest.  This jolly guy would bring the spirit, the charm. the feel and all the good stuff that the holiday season is supposed to evoke.  I can't imagine having one crabby guest with this guy in attendance.

This of course is just a few of the illustrious literary characters I would invite, but I have to save some good stuff for next year.  Who would you invite to your literary holiday party?  Happy Reading Everybody!

Books To Wear

I WANT THESE SO BAD!!!!!  Seriously, it's probably a good thing I don't get paid for a while 'cause seriously I want all of these!!!!!!!  You can find all of them at www.litographs.com which is quickly becoming a favorite site of mine. They are shirts made from the texts of the books they depict.  They come in various color schemes and seriously I NEED THESE!

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Pride and Prejudice (front and back)

Peter Pan (front and back)

Alice in Wonderland (front and back)

Phantom of the Opera

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Tempest

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Anne of Green Gables

So there is a billion trillion more shirts I want, and on top of that the site has totes, posters, and temp tattoos that are all super awesome (I'm not being paid I swear).  This is book love in one of its purest forms.  Sooooo if anybody wants to get me a present ANYTHING from this site is welcome...Happy Reading Everybody!

On Every Wall A Page

Sooooo....I'm trying to decide if covering my walls in pages is totally cool and awesome...or getting to the overly obsessed territory.  Take a look at some of these inventive ways people used there walls as one more reading space.

Vintage Wall

This person chose to do one wall in vintage pages in her bedroom

Pages In A Row

I like the idea that you can change the pages out on this wall any time you want

Page and Picture

This person has used simple pages as a background for a larger picture

Page Art

If a whole wall is a bit much, try this book page art instead

Open Book

If single pages are not enough, try the open book method

Alrighty folks let me know if you think this style of decor is awesome...or a tad bit over the top.

Happy Reading Everybody!

Books In My Dragons

I love dragons, I love books, I love books about dragons...how about some dragons made from books?!?

Dragon and Knight

Dragon On A Book

Dragon Book Sculpture

Paper Art Dragon

Dragon Map

I don't think I can ever get enough of my literary dragons!  Happy Reading Everybody!

Bookbrewskis

Beer is good, books are better, book inspired beer the best!

Hobbit Beer

Edgar Allan Poe Beer

Shakespeare Brews

Read A Beer

White Whale Ale

If you have time, click the links and check out some of the really cool stories behind these cool and refreshing drinks.  Until then drink up and HAPPY READING EVERYBODY!

Literary Themes of Christmas Trees

In my eternal search for all things bookish...and my love of Christmas, I have stumbled across these inspirational trees.

ARC Tree

This tree is decorated with items made from ARC's...which is about the only way I could justify tearing up a book.  Check out the rest of the post for close-ups, it is really well done.

Mad Hatter Tree

I am loveing this Mad Hatter tree inspired by Alice in Wonderland

White Tree of Minas Tirith

Not a traditional tree, but this is an awesome representation of the the White Tree of Minas Tirith from The Return of the King,  and would be cool for the non-traditional types. 

Narnia Tree

Once again click the link to get all the details.  I love the lampost topper as for me that is one of the most memorable book images I have ever read.

Harry Potter Tree

Yay Harry Potter!  In the books the importance of Christmas makes me smile, and this tree captures the book and the spirit perfectly.

Oddly enough I could not find any Jane Austen trees...so...I guess I know what I'm doing next year :-)  send me pics and tell me about your literary inspired tree!  Happy Reading Everybody!