Christmas Guest Post at Bookjourney

I know this is rather late, I just got home from a 13 hour day, but I wanted to let you guys know I have a guest post over at Bookjourney while Sheila is in Honduras.  I would love it if you stopped by and said hi.

Mailbox Monday for 12/6/10

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme created by Marcia at The Printed Page and is being hosted all this month by Lady Q at Let Them Read Books

I won Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol: A Pop Up Book by Chuck Fischer from Carol at Carol's Notebook.

Of Saints And Shadows by Christopher Golden

Synopsis From Back Cover:

When a rogue cardinal steals a book of dark magic called The Gospel of Shadows form the Vatican Library, his trails leads to Boston, where private detective Peter Octavian is drawn into a web of grotesque murder and otherworldly intrigue. For two thousand years, a secret sect of the church has been using the magic in that book to enslave and destroy the creatures of the supernatural... all but vampires, whom they call the Defiant Ones.

Father Liam Mulkerrin is a Vatican sorcerer, an assassin, and a madman intent upon launching a final purge that will eliminate the vampires forever.  But when Octavian discovers this plot, he will sacrifice everything he cares about to stop it... because Peter Octavian is also a vampire.

I read this book, actually the entire series, years ago but am not really sure what happened to the books themselves.  I think I sold them to a used bookstore the last time I moved.  I wasn't all that careful about what books I got rid of them, so I've been having to repurchase a lot of books as I find them.  When I saw this reissue mentioned on both Book Chick City and SFF Chat, I knew I had to get it again.

The story is pretty simple, and I'm gong to try and keep what I know about the rest of the series out of this review, it's your basic good vs. evil.  The twist is that the roles have been reversed.  This time around the vampires are the good guys and the church and it's agents are the bad guys.

For what ever reason the church, while subjugating and even destroying other supernatural creatures, were never able to get the vampires under their total control.  Instead they systematically brainwashed the vampires into controlling their own powers.  All those myths about daylight, garlic, shape shifting limitations, all of those supposed limitations are false.  They were all ploys used to get the vampires to act the way the church wanted them to.  Peter Octavian is the first vampire to begin to realize the truth, he starts to go out in the daylight and even turn into a column of fire.  But even he is unsure of how vast their powers really are.

The theft of the book though changes the church's game plan.  If that book falls into the hand of their enemies, The Defiant Ones make discover the truth.  So the Church under the influence of Father Mulkerrin decides to take them out for once and for all, eliminate them all during their gathering in Venice.  Little does Father Mulkerrin know what Peter and his allies, including Buffalo Bill Cody, have in store for them.

I first started reading Christopher Golden when he was writing books set in the Buffy universe and quickly fell in love with his writing style.  This series was the next logical step for me and it cemented my liking for him as an author.  This is the beginning of a interesting take on the origins of vampires and it's one I urge all fans of the genre to pick up and discover for themselves.

This qualified for the Venice Challenge hosted by Tasha of Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Books

Journey To The Center Of The Earth by Jules Verne

Synopsis:

With the help of his nephew, Professor Von Hardwigg decodes a manuscript that provides the starting point of one of the most amazing journeys ever taken.  Along with his nephew and a guide they pick up in Iceland, Professor Von Hardwigg attempts to prove that you can journey to the center of the Earth and come back to tell the tale.

This happens to be one of those classics that I've always wanted to read, always planned on reading, but never did.  I always found myself being distracted by new "shiny" books screaming for my attention.  Luckily, I found this and a few other classics at Barnes & Noble for less than $2 a piece in hardcover.  Now finally seemed like the right time to delve into a story that I knew but never read.

To be honest with you, I'm still not sure what I thought of it.  I think I went into it with too many preconceived notions about what was going to happen once they started their journey inside the tunnels and caverns of the Earth.  I was expecting a lot more action than what I got, though the action that took place was intense.  There were fantastic battles of extinct marine animals that threatened the lives of our travelers as they journey across a vast inland sea.  Not to mention the ferocious storm that almost killed them, the author brought that to life in such vivid detail that I felt I was on that raft with them.

What the book was about for me, as narrated by Harry, the Professor's nephew, was a journey more about the personal aspects of undertaking such a risky enterprise rather than the thrills and chills associated with traveling leagues under the Earth's crust.  It was about the wonderful interactions between the three characters and how each of them dealt with set backs and triumphs.  I found myself getting lost, not in the description of their environment, but in the way Harry chose to recount the story and how he dealt with the doubts and his lack of total faith in their endeavor. 

I loved this book, not in the way I thought I would, but loved it even more for that.  If you haven't read it yet, I would strongly encourage you to even if you are not that comfortable with the SciFi genre.  Like a lot of well written SciFi this story transcends any stereotypes you should have about it.

The Book of the Dead by John Lloyd & John Mitchinson

Part Of The Synopsis From Dust Jacket:

As the authors themselves say, “The first thing that strikes you about the Dead is just how many of them there are.” Helpfully, Lloyd and Mitchinson have employed a simple—but ruthless—criterion for inclusion: the dead person has to be interesting.


Here, then, is a dictionary of the dead, an encyclopedia of the embalmed. Ludicrous in scope, whimsical in its arrangement, this wildly entertaining tome presents pithy and provocative biographies of the no-longer-living from the famous to the undeservedly and—until now—permanently obscure.
Organized by capricious categories—such as dead people who died virgins, who kept pet monkeys, who lost limbs, whose corpses refused to stay put—the dearly departed, from the inventor of the stove to a cross-dressing, bear-baiting female gangster finally receive the epitaphs they truly deserve.

Out of the ninety billion humans that lived and died on this planet, the authors narrowed it down to just shy of 70 who whether famous or not, lived some of the most compelling lives you would ever want to read about.  This was a fun book that allowed me to learn more about figures that though familiar with, I didn't know all that much about.  Issac Newton, Ada Lovelace, Nikola Tesla, Tallulah Bankhead,  and General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, are just some of the notable historical figures that I learned more about in this book than I ever did in high school or college.

As enjoyable as that is though, what I really loved about this book is that I was introduced to people I had never heard of before, but should have know about.  I met Edward Jenner, an English doctor, who discovered a way to eradicate smallpox.  This is a man we should have learned about in school or in college at least and I never heard of him until this book.  I also met Mary Seacole, a Jamaican born woman who did so much to help out the troops during the Crimean War.  She is a fascinating woman and I have every intention of hunting down her autobiography, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands. 

My reading wish list has grown quite a bit since I read this book.  I've also added two books written by another woman I first met within these pages.  Mary Kingsley was a one of the first women to explore Africa and considering she was from the Victorian era, that's quite a feat.  She wrote two books, Travels in West Africa and West African Studies, and they are both books that I now want to read.  I'm also going to see if I can find any work by the Portuguese write Fernando Pessoa.  The man wrote, mainly unpublished even today, under a hundred different names.  The most amazing thing is that the writing style was completely different for every name.  I'm utterly fascinated by it and want to learn more.

This was a fun, engaging book that while not being able to give complex biographies of those humanized within it's pages, gives the reader a real sense of who these people were.  At least for me, it gave me all the more reason to keep reading about them to find out even more.

I found a short interview with the authors over at NPR if anyone cares to listen to it.

I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore (James Fry)

Synopsis:

Six children and their guardians escape from Earth as their home planet is being destroyed by a viscous race of alien invaders. Once on Earth they scatter into separate hiding places, hoping against hope, that their enemies won't find them.  However, one by one, they have been found and killed.  The first three are already gone, they are after number four now.  Now that number four is coming into his legacy, he may save himself and the others with his new found powers.

This is going to be my confession portion of this review.  I actually read this one months ago and it's been sitting on my shelf of books waiting to be reviewed.  I'm not sure why I've taken so long to get this done, but I'm going to chalk it up to my ambivalent feelings on it.

The book itself is entertaining, while I was actually reading it.  The plot line was well thought out and nothing that happened in the book felt out of character or unnecessary to the story telling. It was full of action from start to end and I really liked the characters.

There was nothing about it though that compelled me to pick it up and keep reading once I set it down.  It was more of an issue where once I started it, since I wasn't hating it, I had to finish it.  The problem for me was that nothing felt original.  I felt like I was reading a mash up up different SciFi works that I've seen before.  It has elements of Superman, The Thundercats (long with too many other cartoons to count), but what I was really reminded of the entire time I was reading the book was the TV show, The Powers of Matthew Star.
 
I will probably continue with the series, only because I want to make sure John (number four) comes out of this mess alive.  I just hope the next book is more original and less predictable.

Favorite Fictional Character --- Rugby The Christmas Toy

Can I just say how fricking excited that it's finally December!  I mean come on, how can you not get excited when Christmas is only a few weeks away?  If you can't, I feel bad for you.  Christmas is that time of year when no matter what else is going on in your life, the joy and happiness that the day brings helps lift it off your shoulders, even if for only a little while.

For the rest of the month, I'm going to be sharing some of my favorite characters from some great Christmas movies.  Some of them you will know, others you may not, but all of them are worth the introduction.

One of my favorite TV specials of all time was Jim Henson's The Christmas Toy.  I can only remember seeing it one time as a kid and that was the year it first aired, 1986.  I remember sitting on the floor, in front of the TV lost in a world where toys come to life when the humans leave.  After all, toys are made for playing and that doesn't stop when the people leave.

The hero of the movie, you could even call him an antihero of sorts, is Rugby.  Now you may be asking yourself, who the heck is Rugby?  Well I'm glad you asked!  Rugby the tiger was the adorable stuffed animal that one of the kids received for Christmas the year before and now that it's Christmas Eve once again, Rugby is convinced he has to get downstairs and get in the box all over again.  He is the star of Christmas after all, who could replace him?

Rugby, bless his cottony heart, doesn't understand that every Christmas brings new toys into the playroom and that even though he won't be the new toy anymore, he will still be loved.  Well Ruby sets out on his own, despite the warnings from the others that he could get caught.  By the way, that would be a horrible thing.  Because, you see, if a toy gets caught by a human in motion or somewhere they should not be, they are frozen forever.  In other words, they are dead.

The only toy willing to help him is Mew, the cat toy the others make fun of all the time for smelling like catnip.  They set out on their perilous journey and encounter many dangers on the way downstairs to the tree.  Eventually the others start to get worried about them and Apple, the rosy cheeked doll that Rugby replaced as the Christmas toy, sets out to find them and bring them back to the playroom.

I'm not going to go into any more details of the action, because I want you to watch this for yourself, but I will say tragedies and triumphs follow and Rugby can make me mad, sad, and happy all in the same movie.  He is a terrifically dynamic character that grows so much within that single evening.  I can never get enough of him or his friends and I know he'll always be my Christmas toy.