The Road-Traveled Again

Okay, intro down now for the actual book. The Road centers around an unnamed father and his son in a post-apocalyptic world. It is never truly stated what happened to the world but it is described as being scorched and covered in ash so my guess is some kind of nuclear fallout. This would also help to explain why the days and nights are so bitterly cold, nuclear fallout bringing about nuclear winter. There are several reasons i like the story. The first of which is that it moves along quickly. Each new paragraph is basically a new part in the story so it is always moving forward. Another reason i really like story is because of how it paints the landscape that it is very vivid despite how dull it is. Your told how the world is dusty and covered in ash and the garages and homes that they come across are dilapidated but other than that it is all up to imagination.The last thing i like about the book is how it creates feelings of sadness in the reader. The simple conversations between the father and the son evoke basic feelings of sadness and this is something that a book does not commonly do.

The Road-an intro

So once again i started a new book. This time i went into a bit of obscurity from what i normally read.I decided to read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Normally, i'm not too big a fan of McCarthy for one simple reason: his writing style. He uses a very odd writing style in that he does not use punctuation of any kind really. Meaning that he does not use comma's, quotation marks, or semi-colons/colons. This can lead to very confusing paragraphs and conversations including more than two people. My first experience with this odd writing style was with his novel, All the Pretty Horses. From what i got through it was a good book but the lack of punctuation is what led me to stop reading it. The Road is different though. His sentence structure is simple in the story and the lack of punctuation is not a main problem. As for conversations it is very simple to follow because the majority of them are between the father and his son and you can always tell which of the two is talking.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

What is the purpose of the fight scenes?

The purpose of the fight scenes is to do two things. The first is to add action to the movie so that the audiences attention can be held. The movie is rather dull and the outrageous fight scenes are the only thing capable of keeping the viewers attention span past three minutes. The second reason for the fight scenes is to relay emotion that otherwise couldn't be expressed. The old saying actions speak louder than words is of particular importance to the fight scenes. There are several scenes in the movie that show emotions such as anger, the courtyard fight, or complete complacency, the bar fight. For these two reasons it can be seen why fight scenes are critical to the movie.

Game of Thrones. Better as a Book or TV show?

The simple answer is as a TV show. I tried to read the Game of Thrones book simply because i wanted to see how closely it followed the show. This effort lasted for about forty pages. The book, as far as i'm concerned was horrible. The style of writing that George R. R. Martin uses in the book seems to me to be some kind of forced higher level writing, similar to something you'd see from older novels from British Literature. This style of writing made it very difficult to casually read and was more trouble than it was worth as i decided. The second problem i have with the book is the annoying extra info that is presented all the time. Every time a character gets introduced there is a long winded paragraph about all these accolades and achievements and references to stuff that is absolutely not necessary. This itself was enough for me to put down the book after forty pages. So, in conclusion, as far as i'm concerned, Game of Thrones is meant to be watched on TV rather than read simply because it is easier to follow and more streamlined. Although it is annoying having to wait six months at a time for a new season. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers i guess.

A return to my favorite series.

I know i say i have a lot of long time favorite series of novels like the Mathew Reilly Scarecrow series or the Lincoln Lawyer series. But above all of these, my favorite series is known as the Oregon Files series by Clive Cussler. This series focuses on a group of, well, mercenary's to say the least but they don't take jobs for the wrong people. The group travels on an old rusted out cargo ship that has been retrofitted inside to be the most high tech boat in the world. The Oregon is described as a battleship in sheep's clothing by its captain Jaun Cabrillo. Each member of the Oregon at some point in their life is either ex-special forces or has some past experience with the likes of the CIA or DARPA. Recently, the series made a return after a rather long hiatus in the form of Mirage. I have only recently started the book and am honestly not very far into it but so far i am enjoying it and it seems to be a true return to form after the last one, The Jungle, failed to impress. Hopefully Mirage will hold up as good as my personal favorite in the series, The Silent Sea. Will it? Im not sure. I guess only time will tell.

Mockingjay a poor finish to a great series

So to start, I thoroughly enjoyed the Hunger Games series. The Hunger Games was a good book to build a foundation on and Catching Fire was a strong book to continue the series. My problem with the series lies in the last book, Mockingjay. Catching Fire ended with a great cliffhanger and a lot of open space that could have been written in. But instead of the amazing action filled conclusion to the series i hoped for, i was greeted with a slow and rather boring finale. For a lot of the book the only action that happens is the occasional leaving of District 13 for propaganda shoots. I was really expecting a lot more out of this book. I expected the book to start in the middle of war, which it kinda does, but i had hoped more of it would be centered around Katniss and her fight against the Capitol. Another problem that i had with the book was in the actual ending itself. At risk of spoilers i'm going to try to be vague but the ending to the book, as i saw it, was a complete cop out. So much more could have been expanded upon but rather it was just pushed aside to passage of time sentences. And lastly, the biggest problem i had was with the epilogue. The last chance to wrap up what the reader wants to know about the story and this one was wasted. It said some stuff that provided a small amount of closure but i think it could have been done better than a one page conclusion.

The Ten Rules of Being Human

The Ten Rules of Being Human
1. Stuff happens.
2. No one was good at something the first time they tried it.
3. Home is where you make it. Find it, make it your own.
4. The first one to get angry loses.
5. Luck favors the prepared.
6. Always go with the decision that will make the better story.
7. First impressions are key, make a good one the first time around.
8. The most important thing you can learn is personal responsibility. Bad things happen; its your job to overcome them.
9. Find your passion, then figure out how to get paid for it.
10. Only two things in life are certain, death and taxes. Take a chance with everything else.