The Ultimate Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy by THE Douglas Adams

ONE OF MY FAVORITE NOVELS OF ALL TIME.

Let me start off by saying how much I love the way Douglas Adams writes. I love this book because it's a story a man, Arthur Dent and his average life, but told through the voice of the guide and how the universe is always bigger than him and there's always more facts that we realize.

I actually first was exposed to the BBC Radio Show before I read the book, which really reinforced the voices through out the book and the adventures Arther the average Englishman goes to small planets and deals with things and the guidebook narrates. Though, I must say Arthur is one of my favorite characters, I really enjoy Marvin the Paranoid Android always depressed and wallowing in his misery of his advanced knowledge and no one to relate to, completely bored with life and never put to his full potencial. The first series is my favorite, of the end of the earth, where Arther slowly comes to the realization that he is the last human alive after the Earth is destroyed for an intergalactic highway.

This book is remarkable and so much fun to read, I will read this again and again.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction Novel!

This story begins with the fall of civilization by something mysterious. Snowman (Oryx), a hermit resides near a group of human-like creatures known as Crankers take council in Snowman.

We slowly learn what actually happened, with flashbacks of Jimmy, who's Snowman when he was a boy. Jimmy and Crake his friend play games that are really out there and watch live executions and other obscene things.

As Snowman shifts between decades, we slowly get to piece together what had taken place and how everything fell apart so quickly. Also why he's left alone with the Childe of Crake and faces Crake's high tech bubble dome, and where he finds how the world came to grief.

Lilith's Brood by Octavia Butler

Yeah, Alien Story! Though not a classic one...

Lilith's Brood was fun. A story about the human race being saved from itself by an alien species. This species revered life unlike the humans. The Oankali as they were called were nothing like the humans, and with that in mind they thought leaving them be would be a bad idea and that they would attempt to end themselves through fighting and war. So they stayed and lived and worked together. This is all told through Lilith Iyapo, a woman who tries to help the other humans escape. The Oakali, stay for another reason as well, because they genetically manipulate themselves to to maximum efficiency. Though this leads them to a dead-end of the evolutionary scale. So they in turn want to breed with the humans in order to keep existing. I only read the first of the series, "Dawn", but from what I gathered it was not a classic tale of alien invasion. There was mutual means, but things go wrong as always.

Really fun read overall.

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Oh man, a near-future America with a taste of Cyberpunk

Snow crash is the mysterious new computer virus that seems to infect hacker's brains. This book was clever with the main character named Hiro Protagonist, which I feel was a filler name that just stuck.

Stephenson really liked to dig into the details. His details are all highly creative yet put in a very familiar place. The only thing that was really losing me is a backstory. I felt like it just kinda jumped into it. I felt this was a great world that he created but as far as the ending goes, I felt it went to quick. The pacing was all over the place. Over all this was a flawed but very entertaining cyberpunk story. It was a fun read, but something I probably wouldn't pick up again.

Though you can't really go wrong with a good Cyberpunk story with it's ballsy approaches to life.

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany

Babel-17 was a really great science fiction story, and one by the science fiction legends. The premise of this book is fantastic can't really go wrong with interstellar war. with the classic Alliance and the Invaders as the opposing force. Babel-17 is the Invader's new big bad weapon. Which really plays off of the Babel story in the bible, where the weapon is a language but acts like a computer virus that makes you think they way it wants you to think causing mayhem and sabotage. Rydra Wong with her unrealistic power of language osmosis, was a bit strange. But I went with it for the sake of the book.

Overall really fun read, and felt like a real classic science fiction story with some reinforced play on religious ideals.

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

I've always liked Sanderson's writing especially in the Mistborn series. Warbreaker was a great follow. The tail of a a woman named Siri who is sent to be the faceless God King's wife. I thought the character development was great as well as the elaborate world that he put you in.

Gods amongst men. I really, really enjoyed the thought of the "returned" the fact that Lightsong in particular was one of these living god's. I really felt that all the elaborate ideals that he established are logical and not really too out there. The God King as well, is not one I would want to cross. The ridicule that Siri had to go through that she was not allowed to look him in the eye and had to submit to him and to his will.

Over all really fun read.

The one factor that I didn't realize till later that this was his unedited book. I really like that he went "balls to the wall" with the thought of pushing out progress work to promote his published work.

BloodChild by Octavia E. Butler

Questions that arose:

1. -I was really curious to what these characters were? They kept that pretty vague, hard to picture what they were with their limbs and eggs.

2. - How were they different than the human they were cutting up?

3. - What the preserve was like? What was the land/environment like?

4. - Was the author trying to convoy spider like features, with the multiple limbs?

5. - Also, what was with the yellow eyes?

6. - Why was their a rifle? Why was it so important? The characters didn't seem like they needed weapons, being that they had claws, etc.

7. - What was the relation between the parasitic creature and the eggs?

8. - Did the human's have the eggs that the other creatures need?

9. - Where the humans just hosts for these creatures?

10. Did the eggs have special attributes? There was talk about them having some sort of healing ability.

After looking at the picture of the author. It did raise some questions for me:

Well honestly, in my head, with how dark this story was, I figured it was a short pale man who sat in front of his computer screen. I feel it bring up more questions for me as far as, why she would bring this up, what she was really basing this off of, as far as inspiration goes. I feel that it does change the perception of the actual story, cause I feel like she might have more of a culture reference that maybe I'm lacking. But I'm curious to what it is.

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

I loved the thought of the incarnations of gods disguised as normal people first and foremost. Fat Charlie, wasn't the most lovable character. Though you do feel very sorry for him throughout most of the novel. Especially when you find out he's not embed with his father's powers, his brother was. A brother he never knew about known as "Spider", which happen to morn their father over a drunken stupor. Then proceeds to "save his ass" by going to work for him as he slept him self to sobriety, then screws him by screwing his fiancée, literally.

I thought the way the roles changed between Charlie and Spider were great. The fact that Spider lives his life, by working at the end, but with his love Rosie (Charlie's ex). and Charlie and his great career as a singer who marries Daisy, and gets to live the life he deserved. Great twist of things. I would say the integration of the gods in this humanistic play of man (love/greed) was nearly perfect.

The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman

Let me just say, this is probably one of my favorites.

The world they create in this book is amazing, and sort of a new outlook. You still get the whimsical overlay, but the way it's done it's not too much. The book starts off with the main character, a younger girl named Lyra Belacqua, her and her magic creature bonded to her, which in this series they call daemons. You seem to be born with one, and it's your companion for life, and when your an innocent child, it can still shape shift. Then it shifts to her uncle coming to town, Lord Asriel. This is when Lyra becomes curious about the conversation topic "Dust".

She wants to go up North with her uncle, whom is alway traveling. But as usual he refuses, because it would be too dangerous. Lyra goes back to her friends, and one in particular Roger Parslow, who lives close to the college that Lyra lives in. This is where the conversation of whispers going around town that there is children being stolen by a group called "The Gobbler's". The Gobbler's still Roger, and this is when our adventure really starts, because Lyra feels that she has to save him, cause no one else will.

She then comes upon the cynical Mrs. Coulter who brings Lyra to London with her. Before Lyra leaves her master hands her an alethiometer, which would be the "golden compass" and tells her she must show it to no one, especially Mrs. Coulter. then she goes off on this adventure and makes alliances and gets herself caught eventually. Then she finds Roger at this place and escapes with him. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

The Annotated by J.R.R. Tolkien

Love this series. period.

I was recommend this series when I was a freshman in high school, and I remember picking up the first in the series "The Hobbit" where there is this well crafted world that I get dropped into. (Map included!) This long adventure story starts off with the Great Gandalf, a wizard that always has an adventure following close by. Gandalf visits a friend Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit. Which hobbits are not ones to go on adventure, they like to stay in and smoke their pipes and live in their hobbit-holes, completely content. But Gandalf talks him into taking on a journey with him and they go off through Tolkien's invented lands of forests and run into many dangers with great reward.

The great thing I love about Tolkien's writings is the way he lays things out in the beginning. He doesn't go into great detail of items or appearances, just enough to get the ball rolling.

Like when he's describing Gandalf, he mentions him wearing a grey hat. Nothing special, but it gets the image instilled in your head and you move on to the adventure ahead. Also another great thing about his writing, especially The Hobbit, in the first chapter especially, he talks to you and narrates it like a bed time story. Telling you as he remembers it, mentioning things, but never truly going into it unless it's essential to tell the epic journey.

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami

This story was interesting, but a tad confusing to be honest.

There was some interesting banter in this book. I felt like it was like going down a rabbit hole while the Narrator was the hunt for the sheep with a spot on his back. Certain parts of this book were just strange like the girlfriend with the ears that make sex a thousand times better. I actually laughed out loud as this point, just because it was just a silly thing to focus on and be aroused by, but to each is own. But he seemed like he needed an escape from his boring life, which he earns with this hunt.

This isn't what I thought I would be getting into as far as a "Japanese Horror" story goes. I thought it was going to be a ghost story like the Ring or something. This seemed to have more of a humorous undertone than anything. I did enjoy it, it was a bit hard to follow at times. But I thought it was a different type of story than I'm use to, which was nice to have.

Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice

Vampires!

I don't think there could be a better time to reevaluate the undead with the unholy hype of such series as..."Twilight", Which in my opinion has tainted the thoughts of this immortal creature. This book, in my opinion had the best outlook on a vampire, just hearing his lifetime.

Louis, the Vampire who's sitting for an interview with this boy discusses from the beginning of him as a human and how it all started for him. I thought the way it was written, with the "memory" idea, where we are traveling back with Louis as he remembers his years of being human and how it led up to him becoming a vampire. Then the transition of being trained by another vampire Lestat, and how after the basic lessons he has the feeling of detachment, and doesn't feel anything towards his mentor. As well as betrayal and the lost of a good friend makes this grow stronger. This feeling is something he truly realizes at the end, that a vampire's life is one that should be lived alone.

Monster Island by David Wellington

Zombies. Zombies. Zombies.

Finally, can't go wrong with a good zombie story. and just to one up that, this has an intelligent zombie; our good friend Gary. Humanity as a whole is on a limb, fighting off the zombies at the left over outposts. The story is mostly about Dekalb, a former UN weapons inspector and his traveling through New York City looking for AIDS medicine to save his daughter, Sarah, who just so happens to be held hostage over seas. This book was fast-paced action packed zombie novel. with the in and outs explanation of zombies in full. You can really relate to Dekalb and you can put yourself in his shoes.

Zombies as a whole, are just an interesting social commentary. I think this opinion varies though people to people. But the thought of "zombies" as the people that just live there life with no meaning and walk past you everyday not really phased. Especially for people who live their life's, to see someone who's just a drone and goes about their 9 to 5 and there's nothing more to them, and there's a quantity of these types. This is where I find the "zombie effect" lies.

Overall, loved this story.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Classic Horror would be the first thing that would come to mind.

This story is the essence of most horror stories out there. Though, most think that Frankenstein is actually the monster, it was Victor Frankenstein, the father of the monster. The monster actually didn't have a name. Victor being as a genius as he is starts to create a monster from found and stolen body parts then he brings the creature to life. The monstrosity that he created begins to haunt him. Victor's brother was murdered by the monster. The monster eventually finds Victor, his father and pleas for him to create him a companion. Victor can't bear what he's creating and destroys her. The Monster, declares revenge on him. The monster strikes his revenge on his wife, and murders her. Then Victor vows to take down the monstrosity he's created and has been haunting him. Victor chases him through the north, very ill he dies. The monster weeps over the cold body of master, then decides it's his time to die too.

I never really read the full story before, didn't realize it was filled with so much more morbid points.