Review: 1 Km de Cada Vez - Gonçalo Cadilhe

Title 1 Km de Cada Vez (One Mile at a time)
Author Gonçalo Cadilhe
Pages 193
Year 2009
Reading time 3 day (March 2010)
Rating 7 / 10

Well this was an odd book for me to read. I usually don't read this kind of book but this was a gift and I read it. This is a book of a "trekking" man. He gets his backpack and go around the world travelling. This is a book that with many of his tales. Previously published in a journal called Express they combined and published in a single book. Well within this book we can get some of his stories; some are a history of the place he is, others are about people who live there, others are something that remind him. Like in one story he remembered reading a tale of a portuguese writer and it influenced to become a trekking.

This book is not a travel guide telling us what should we visit. It's like a journal of small stories... It was a good read and my favourite parts were the stories telling of the history of some of those places. I enjoy history so everything new is good.

In the end I was pleased and some part of me wanted to read a little more of him but I bet that I will not buy. Maybe the person who offered me this book will offer me another.

Review: Hater - David Moody

Title Hater
Author David Moody
Pages 232
Year 2006
Reading time 5 day (February 2010)
Rating 8 / 10

This was the second book I read from David Moody. The first was about 4 years ago and it was called Autumn. The book was avaiable online and so I read it on my dead time at my work.

I remember enjoying the book but I didn't bought the other books (as I remember they were not avaiable via amazon). When I saw that he was releasing some new books I thought of buying them and so I did. Well, unfortunally this is the first book of a series (or something like that). I don't enjoy reading a book that is a part of a series that I don't have. Now I have to wait several months to read the following book.

Well nevertheless this was a good book. This book ends with a somewhat cliffhanger. Well if the book should have stayed like this it would be great but I enjoy the setting and the main character thus it's good to have a new book following this one.

The premise of this book is one that I remember seeing on a movie... Can't remembe what movie was... well but the premise is this. Something is changing people (unrelated) and turning them into frighting death machines. No they are not frightening to others, they have so afraid that they attack savagely at the person trying to kill it. Imagine a cat on a corner with nowhere to go... They will attack savagely against the attacker even if they know they are going to die. Well that's the premise. We watch the situation degradating in the streets of a city and in the TV they see that the situation is spreading to other parts of that country.

We watch the changing not only in the country but on the lives of everyone as everyone is watching the surrouding person waiting to be the next victim of that strange condition. As the story progress we see the main character changing to the Haters (the name given to the ones who change) and the progress to rescue his little girl that is the hands of his wife. Unfortunally and as the army gets to the street to contain the violence he is capture. In the end he escape and tries to go for his child. The book as I said before ends in a cliffhanger and we have to read the next novel to know what happens... Does he kill his wife and two boy children to recover the girl?

Keep it up Moody. I really hope to see the Autumn series published again. Maybe on an omnibus edition.

Book Review: Dead by Dawn Vol 3 - Anthology

Title Dead by Dawn Vol 3
Author Adèle Hartley (Editor)
Pages 246
Year 2008
Reading time 1 day (February 2010)
Rating 5 / 10

Well this was the first anthology I read for some time. I have bought several and I will be reading in the following months. They seem are easier to read on transports. This is a collection of 28 stories. Most of them are prose, well to be exactly only one is a poem.

With such variety of short stories I would have to like some didn't I? Well I did like 6 or 7 stories. The rest were dull, odd, without imagination or just not that good story (or writing).

We have small stories with only one or two pages which for me don't work out as good as other stories.

We have some stories withe the following subjects: The process of leaving a children in the woods, crazy people, psycopath point of view, perversion, old ghost stories, stories with meanings like love hurts (not the regular way), beware of what you wish, death makes us do strange things (and then substitute death with love), raping stories, a story of an awful christimans murder, nightmare assassins's, mistakes do happen again ("fool me twice....") and "do unto others..."

Some stories are just plain nosence and if they wanted to scare me well they didn't. The only scary part on those stories is how in the nine pits of hell were they chosen to be on this anthologies.

There are a few writers that I search more of their stories like: David Wesley Hill, Morag Edward, Jamie Killen, Paul Kane or Aurelio Rico Lopez III.

In the end I wasn't pleased by this anthology. I really hoped for some more. Or I must understand the Horror theme a little better.

Review Empire of Ants - Bernard Werber

Title Empire of Ants
Author Bernard Werber
Pages 305
Year 1991
Reading time 25 day (February 2010)
Rating 9 / 10

This was an interesting read. One of the most interesting reads I had for some time. This is not a novel but also a scientific book. And even a book that will tell you about social interactions.

I always loved ants. They are my favourite insects and one of the most interesting creatures on the face of earth.

This book was written into two perspectives. First the ant and as a human. There is a third that links both of them. They are written as extracts from a encycopledia that it's the plot in the human part. Well in the ant part (and the best) is about life on a hive as an ant and we can learn much from their habits and such. Probably there are some parts that the author invented and mix some things that are not present in europe (the action is no paris). Some plants and ants are not indegeounous from europe. But the plot is a good. It's the story of an male ant as he discovers a secret weapon that could damage the hive and he links with a ant queen (or to be) and a ant warrior. Then they took their own paths and as some die others come to realize the big picture. In this book ants behave as ants even if we see some actions that are common to humans and probably the ants won't feel. We get to learn much about the ants sociology and psychology (with all the pheromenones).

In the human part begins as some family inherit a house that as a cellar and everyone who goes down the stairs never comes out. It's not that well devolped and it's only important for the last pages as we see the interlinked stories of ants and humans.

The end is pretty good and after I read somewhere that this is the first book of a trilogy but if you read it you will have a solid book with a solid ending.

The problem is that this is a translated book from an french author... and I don't know french and both second and third weren't translated. Oh well maybe one day...

In the end I would advice this book to anyone who wants to read a good book with deep meanigs and a socialogy book, if you like ants than this is also a book for you and if you want just to want to read a book that explores another worlds inside our own I would advice as well...

Thoughts (I b) Why do I have Blog?

This is not a self piety post of why don't have more posts. I really don't care.

This is to explain why do I post this reviews. I have more than 1500 books and I started posting when I tried to remember one book I read some years back and I couldn't. It was very perturbing to me. So I started making these reviews and with them I can remember a book.

It's very rewarding to have some people comment, followers and seeing that several people come every day.

Most of reviews have no comments and I bet that it will never have. Why?

And this is a critic to some bloogers out there. Some of the blogs only have comments and so many views because they have books to giveway from some companies. How can you trust a blogger that says that received a book from a publisher and they have a review... I wonder how can they be a impartial? They want to continue to receive books so they will give a good review.

Oh well, there is a name for people who sells that way.

Why did I say that? because I have more than 1500 books and I pay for each one and of course I would like to receive one or two free from time to time. It would be nice.

I have all Black Library, Solaris and Abaddon books. I have most of the Orbit and Angry Robots books. It would be nice to receive one or two free... But if to receive it I would have to add a nice coloured review than I would probably won't wanted it.

Well it's nice to have my blog. My comments are few but if you could check it I have three authors comments and for me thats my reward.

As I said before I have this blog for me. Because I am afraid to lose the knowledge of the books...