Tag: book reviews

Posted in book reviews, bookit

Book-it 2012

Posted on by sokorra

Once again, I am going to be doing Book-it.  For those of you new to reading this blog, Book-it is a reading goal. We call it Book-it after the elementary school reading program where you got free pizza if you read a certian amount of books.  It was meant to promote reading in younger people.

THe Book-it we have here doesn’t really have any prizes except being able to say you read 50 books in a year.  I suppose if you want to, you can make your own prize levels if you so wish.

This year I’m also going to attempt to review books that are new to me.  I have a few books I tend to re-read every year so I won’t be reviewing them unless someone specifically asks me what I thought.

The Book-it runs from Jan 1 to December 31, and the goal is to read 50 books.  The guidelines for books are that it be able to be bought on its own (Short stories can only be counted as individual books if you bought it separately. A book thats a collection of seperate short stories is 1 book, not whatever number of shorts it has).  Text books can count if you do alot of reading in it (so no to math books, but lit books would count.  I’m counting my history books this year).

Graphic novels if they have a good bit of text to go with them can count. Comic books don’t.

There is a sort of cheat system I’ve developed.  ONe semester I had to read a bunch of selected readings.  It wasn’t a full book so I didn’t feel I could count it as a book, so I develped a method so that they can count.  Basically 5-10 of those can count as a book as group.  It depends on the length.  Shorter ones have a higher group #, longer ones smaller.

I’ll have a page with a list of books that I have read.  As well as my 100 movies goal.

I’m always open to book recommendations if you have any.

Posted in book reviews, bookit

Anne McCaffery’s Pegasus Trilogy (review, and general Fan babble)

Posted on by sokorra

One of my favorite series was Anne McCaffery’s Talent series.  It was the story of The Rowan, an orphan girl who had strong telepathic and telekinetic powers which her children and grandchildren inherited from her. The first book is about The Rowan (The Rowan), The second is about her daughter (Damia). The next three books (Damia’s Children, Lyon’s Pride and The Tower & the Hive) are about her grandchildren and their friends/family.

I thought this was the end of the story (though I wanted it to continue, as it was (and is) my favorite sci-fi series), but as I was wondering through the book store a few years back, I stumbled upon ‘Pegasus in Space’.  I noticed the name Peter Reidinger, a name I recognized from the Talent series as Rowan’s boss and Father-figure. So I picked it up, but I never ended up reading it till recently.

Continue reading “Anne McCaffery’s Pegasus Trilogy (review, and general Fan babble)” →

Posted in book reviews, book vs Movie, bookit, film

Book Review: Fantastic Four (Movie Novelization, Peter David)

Posted on by sokorra

Title: Fantastic Four
Author: Peter David (Based on Screenplay by Mark Frost, Simon Kinberg, and Michael France, who were inspired by Marvel)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Movie Novelization, some romance
Summery: Reed Richards, Victor Von Doom, Ben Grimm, and the Storm siblings go up in space to hold experiments with a cosmic cloud.  Things don’t go as planed, and the crew is hit by the cloud instead of being protected by the stations shielding.  Suddenly Reed can stretch his arms further then natural, Susan can be invisible, Johnny can turn into fire, and Ben has transformed into a man made out of rock.  Victor seems unharmed, but slowly he is transforming into a metal alloy, which turns to to be a bad combination with his mood.

Yeah, bad summery.  You can probably get the gist if you watch a cartoon, or read the comic.  I tend to stick to the film when it comes to Marvel stuff.  And I should probably mention that there are slight spoilers here if you are a Fantastic Four newbie.

I have read Peter David novels in the past.  He wrote one of my favorite Star Trek novels, Imzadi.  That was slightly different then this, as Imazdi was based within that universe while Fantastic Four is based directly on a script. I bought this after watching the movie so I already had the characters set in my head as the actors.  I liked it the first time through.  I decided to re-read it for this year’s bookit 50, and liked it again.

There was one issue I had with this book this time through.  Since the second movie hadn’t been out before I read the first movie’s novelization it didn’t phase me the first time, and I don’t think I even realized it till this time reading it.  The novel has a Frankie Raye, which if you have seen the second film you know she’s a character in that film.  One quite different then the one in this novelization. Although this does give me ideas for a fanfic where they ARE the same person (I doubt they are.  I just think it was a matter of Peter David doing his homework and the writers of movie II not taking his novelization into account when they wrote it.  Movie trumps book in this case)

Like with Willow, this book had some scenes that never made it to film or were cut during the final edit (and there are a few in the deleted scenes on the DVD).  Some scenes were completely different.  Like the scene where Reed and Susan talk about their relationship?  Happens in a different location then in the movie.

I enjoyed it. Its a good novelization.

Rating: 4/5
Bookit # (2/50) of (1/52)

Posted in book reviews, book vs Movie, bookit, film

Book Review: Willow (Wayland Davis)

Posted on by sokorra

Title: Willow
Author: Wayland Davis (based on the screenplay by Bob Dolman who inturn based it on a story by George Lucas.)
Genre: Fantasy/Movie Novelization
Summery:  Willow Ufgood, A Nelwyn farmer (and aspiring magican), is sent on a journey to return a baby Daikini to its people.  As always, this journey goes differently then planned.  He ends up teaming up with swordsmen Madmartigan, two brownies named Franjean and Rool and a transformed Sorceress named Fin Raziel to protect the baby from the evil Queen Bavmorda of Nockmaar who wants to kill her.

Apparently for the month of January, my theme for book reading is Movie Novelizations.  These are books derived from movies (as opposed as books on which movies are derived.) 

I borrowed this book from a friend because I loved the movie.  And I love this book too.  It follows the course of the film nicely, and as with all novelizations, has scenes that were cut out of the movie.  Many I wish had been included.  Like Madmartigan’s back story.  Or the back story of Bavmorda and Fin Raziel’s animosity towards each other (Not only is Bav evil, but she also stole Fin’s boyfriend!).

Anyway, The Pros/Cons

Pros

– Madmartigan’s Back story (he apparently was a weapons prodigy)
– Bavmorda Backstory
– The Nelwyns have more screen time

Cons

– The flashback style is kinda awkward
– It feels like it needs to be longer.

Rating: 4/5

Bookit # (1/50 of 1/52)

(I promise these will become better as I go.  Its been along time since I did a book review that was more “Eh, it was good”, so I need time to learn how to do it again.)

Posted in book reviews, essay, general, School related, writing

The 2010 Book-it

Posted on by sokorra

Remember when you were younger and the library had special summer reading (or during the school year sometimes) that if you read so many gooks, you’d get a gift card to Pizza Hut (or whatever)?  Well, my friends and I, seeing a similar non-organization based version of it, decided last year to have what we called ‘The Fellowship Book-it”.  The Fellowship is a nickname we gave our group after seeing LOTR.  Don’t ask.  Anyway, the point of the Book-it is to get back to reading.  And reading something that isn’t on the screen of one’s computer (Basically that news article on Britney Spears doesn’t count).   If you have a Kindle, or an ebook program, that’s different.

The Goal: 50 books during the year.  That is basically 1 book per week, with two weeks off.

Time Frame:  January 1st – December 31st.

The Rules (of the fellowship version, its not exactly a standard):

– This is not a competition, its a goal line

– The story you read must be able to be found by itself somewhere.  So a packet of short stories doesn’t count as five books.  You can count it as one book (But point it out that its a group)  If its an exceptionally long short story, an exception might be made (like the 28 page excerpt of St. Augustine I read last year.  I counted that by itself)

– Text books count if there is reading involved.  Math books do not count, there are more numbers then words. 

– A book counts once.  If you read it twice in one year, it still only gets counted once

– You can count books you’ve read before, as long as you actually read it again and don’t count it twice in the same year. 

– If you start a book in 09, and finish it in ‘10, it can count.

Most people just keep a list of what they read.  We are using a facebook group thing to keep track of what is what, and when someone reaches 25 we *plan* to have a pizza party.  (we kinda forgot last year).  Some people write reviews as they go along, and that is what I’m going to try to do

So I’m off to read.  Expect my first review to come soon.  Also, I read alot of Fandom fiction (movie novelization, spin off books etc) so expect some fandom talk as well.

If anyone would like to do this and has questions, feel free to comment or email me.  Its just a fun thing to do.  There is also a movie and TV episode versions I’ve seen, and I;m doing the 100 movies in a year one.  Its my first year.  So far so good, except I keep rewatching movies:)

Posted in book reviews, fanfiction

Heat Wave by Richard Castle

Posted on by sokorra

I got this book mainly because its a tie-in novel for castle, which is probably one of the most unique procedural.  And Nathan Fillion rocks.  But I digress.  This is about the book. 

Its about an NYPD detective named Nikki Heat, her two associates Raley and Ochoa, the ME Lauren and a reporter by the name of Jameson Rook (Which actually isn’t too bad of a name).  They investigate the murder of Real Estate CEO Matt Starr.

I liked it.  It had mystery, banter and a touch of romance.  There were certain things that I thought could have been better (I would have liked to have seen Rook’s POV sometimes). If you like the show, you’ll like the book because it reads like an episode.  You can figure out who is who in the book quite easily. 

I wouldn’t mind reading more of these.  Also, I want to know what Kate Beckett thinks of page 105.

Posted in book reviews, book vs Movie, film, School related

This week is theme

Posted on by sokorra

So, this week in Intro To Fiction, we are studying ‘Theme.’  Which always makes me think of “The Jane Austin Book Club” where Prudie goes on about “Jane’s Theme” and kinda gets on the nerves of everyone else there except for Grigg (who was uncomfortable as it was) and Silvia who was a little preoccupied with her own personal crisis.

I actually like the movie, but don’t like the book.  Which is an oddity because usually its either equal status or I like the book better.  I like to watch the film first because its like having deleted scenes when you read the book.  But in this case, THey changed enough of the book that I much prefer the movie.  Not to say there weren’t times I wanted something from the book in the movie, but generally the movie was better.  Plus Dean was a steelers fan:)

Another book that failed to meet the expectations of the movie was The Wedding Date (or Asking For Trouble if you want to read the book).  The book and the movie share a common plot…Older sister is going to younger sister’s engagement party and hires an escort to pose as her boyfriend.    The big difference between the movie and the book is:

  1. The book goes over a longer period of time, from the engagement party till after the honeymoon
  2. The names are different and everyone lives in England
  3. Sophie (Kat in the movie) lives with her best friend and friends brother and they take an active role in the story.  This plot is not in the movie.
  4. TJ is in the book, in the form of cousin Tamara who has a simular role, except she (and apparently 95% of the family) doesn’t like Paul (Edward in the movie AKA the fiancée)
  5. The fiancée is a jerk
  6. Kit (Jeff) and Bianca (the sister, forget her name in the move) actually stay together, they run off together after the honeymoon.
  7. Josh (Nick) isn’t an escort.  He was filling in for an actual escort, since his friend was running the company. 

Now unlike The Jane Austin Book Club, Asking For Trouble is equally as enjoyable as the movie.  Its just that they are almost two different stories.  And if I had to choose, I’d probably choose the movie.  If only because I hate that Kit/Jeff won in the end of the book and that Paul was a jerk.  Edward is lovable in the movie (half because of the character, half because Its Jack Davenport.

I’m going to be posting again tonight to get my entries up to the correct number.  I’m two down (one after this entry) from being an entry a day since I started.