Disaster Movies - Part I

I always loved disasters movies and books. Having dozens of books and movies from time to time I get in the mood and start reading/watching... This all began with The Towering Inferno and other book which unfortunally I don't remember... It was a sad movie... I watch those movies when I was 9 or 10. To this day I never re-watched them but I still remember them vividly.

Well but this is the week of Disasters Movies. Having start with the popular 2012 today I watch a movie call Tidal Wave. It's a korean movie, the first disaster movie made there. It's about a ... tidal wave like the one that stroke the south of asia in 2004. It has some rare moments os pure distress and sorrow. The movie effects are very good for a budget of only 16 million us dollars. I think that in the end you couldn't have asked for more. The story is much more than a disaster movie like 2012 but it has some other issues... guilt, love, sorrow, parenthood and so on... It's more focused on the people rather than the tsunami. Well you could check it out... Either movie is great and should be watched... One for the special effects and the other for the plot itself...

Links for the movie:
Wiki
imdb

Book Review: The Return of the Time Machine - Egon Friedell

Title The Return of the Time Machine

Author Egon Friedell
Pages 127
Year 1946
Publisher Daw
Reading time 1 day (November 2009)
Rating 2 / 10

This book its the sequel to the H G Wells Time Machine or at least it should be... or not? The book was written in the beginning of 40 before the German invasion. Wells at the time was alive so Friedell starts his narrative with fictious (never denied by Wells) between himself the writer and the Time Traveler who is supposedly alive in London. He reveals the mishaps with time travel. The book is frivolous at that is the word for this book. He spends much of the time talking about scientific dificulties with time travel without saying anything of interesting (pseudo-scientific I might add). In the year of 1995 London is suspended in the clouds and earth is tended by holographic gardeners. (Bare in my mind that the book was written in 1940's and many scientific discovieries were taking place so It's conceibable.. in a way). The book talks nothing of the Eloi or Morlocks, about humankind or even of his travels into the past. In the end the Time Traveler in Friedel meets a woman and give up time travelling in favour of family.

In the end I don't think this book is worth the title of Sequel to the The Time Machine. No justice in the name...

Book Review: Hail Hibbler - Ron Goulart

Title Hail Hibbler
Author Ron Goulart

Pages 157
Year 1980
Publisher DAW
Reading time 2 days (November 2009)
Rating 2 / 10

This was one of oddest books I read this year (or the last to be precise). This book passes in a world a lot different from ours... I found it hard to get into the story and characters. I must say I only finished the book because the book was short or else I would have give up. The only thing worth mention is the funny relation between the detective and his wife (the other detective) and the funny situations they get themselves into... even if they didn't make sence on my head. Maybe that's why this book is part of a series called Odd Jobs Inc. I won't try any more books on this series but I am willing to try reading the famous Vampirella novels he wrote.

Review: The Big Four and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie

Title The Big Four
Author Agatha Christie
Pages 282
Year 1927
Publisher RBA
Reading time 5 days (January 2010)
Rating 7 / 10

I've been reading the Agatha Christie's novels for some time. Apart from the short stories this was the weakest book but nevertheless it is a good book... but not the standard of the other books like Murder in Orient Expess or Murder of Roger Ackroyd. The plot was a bit different from other novels... On this book we have Poirot against the big(est) four masterminds on internacional crime. Interesting or not one of them resembles Fu Manchu. The others are a billionare, a mad scientist and the destroyer (the guy who does the dirty work). This four are behind everything that unrest the world. Even behind Lenin and Trotsky (who are puppets on their hands). Of Course their plot is ... take over the world.

Well this book fails everything Agatha has written before or after. It seems this book was in a hurry to get something out on a dealine or ... maybe it wasn't written by her (?). It's predictable, pointless and very far-fetched. I think this was the book someone read and then it was inspired to do 007. If you like james bond movies then read this book ... there is no point reading if you don't like James Bond.

Saying that read another book by her if you want to start reading Agatha Christie novels... I have made some reviews on my blog. Search them...

Title The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Author Agatha Christie
Pages 310
Year 1926
Publisher RBA
Reading time 3 days (November/December 2009)
Rating 10 / 10

Well this was some fun reading. It has something I didn't saw anywhere before. It's on the first person but... the end suprised me and I bet it suprises everybody. It is a masterpiece how Agatha writes in the first person and he (SPOILER ALERT) is the killer. How about that? It's completly briliant and it's the most controversial mystery novel of the 20the cenutry. You know it nearly got Agatha Christie out of Detection Club? (It's an organization of writers who agreed to play fair and adhere to a code of ethics in their writing to give the reader a fair chance at guessing the guilty parties). The oath was ... Do you promise that your detective shall well and truly detect the crimes presented to them using those wits which it may please you to bestow upon them and not placing reliance on nor making use of Divine Revelation, Feminie Intuition, Mumbo Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence or Act of God?)

This book will shock you. It's well crafted with devious plot devices and I say Christie raise a level with this book. It's a genius because she had the imagination to do something original. If Murder on the Orient Express is her most famous book this is her best book as she said on her bibliography.

Review: The Cellar - Richard Laymon

Title The Cellar
Author Richard Laymon
Pages 254
Year 1980
Publisher Headline
Reading time 6 days (July 2009)
Rating 8 / 10

Lately I am into horror books but reading a good horror book is dificult because most horror books doesn't scare me at all... some of them are not even interesting. Nevertheless I went into it with a good impresion of the reviews... and I was glad I did it.

This book is called The Cellar which is the only atraction of a little village called Malcasa Point called. This house doesn't have any windows and was the site of gruesome deaths... Well so what to do with this house? Let us make a theme tour and make money out of it...

The book starts with a typical manner, intrducing the reader to what appears to be somewhate standard "horror novel" style opening. The introduction, title and subject points to another attempt to a basic book of horror but this is not the case.

The storyline breaks away from the predictable route and turns or weaves into a tale of bizarre full of bestiality, paedophilia, torture, blood and sex. If any of this things bother you be careful reading the book... The plot is the killings but another sub-plot involves a sociopath killer ex-husband who rapes, murders and steals his way through until they meet (the plots).

The end is quite bizarre and it has a twisted ending.

There are somethings that could be done better but int he end I was glad I had read the book. Not scare but maybe the next book by Laymon will do it...

Review TV Series - Friends

Now that's how a series should be. After seeing the first season in december. January is the season two. Well I am greatly enjoying the series... It's becoming one of my favourite series of all times.

These guys can make a serie interesting and enternaining with their jokes and differences between all of them. I am supporter of all Ross and Rachel thingy... and when they kissed and finally make out... Well that was something...

As I said I liked all characters... but Chandler Bing is my favourite character... The all satyrical guy who makes fun of everything is great. Great concept creating it... Well let us see. I am on season 2. There are 10 series so... I am going for a treat.

Book Review: When The Wind Blows - James Patterson

Title When the Wind Blows
Author James Patterson

Pages 468
Year 1998
Publisher Headline
Reading time 3 days (January 2010)
Rating 3 / 10

This was the worst book I read in a year or more. I have failed to finish a couple of books last year, but none was worst that these one. It sounded a good story and that's why I pick it up. Having read a previous book by him (The Jester) and liked it I thought this one was had the same formula... It had but everything was horrible. The plot was dull and after the first chapters it went nowhere. The "Good"characters are excepcionally good (and adonis like) and the "Evil" guys are masters of horror alike. They are non-dimensional without true human qualities. They are just evil or good. take a pick. Even the writing was completly strange and went nowhere. It just add chapter after chapter. The book had more than one hundred chapters... some of them I just read a sentence a page after a while. They didn't add anything. Then the female main character was on the first person and the rest of the book in the third... what?? That's even weirder...

If you want to read about animal experimentation well read The Island of Doctor Moreau. But stay away from this book...

Review: The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett

Title The Colour of Magic (1st on Discworld)
Author Terry Pratchett
Pages 285
Year 1983
Publisher Corgi
Reading time 5 days (January 2010)
Rating 7 / 10

After reading Mort and enjoying the book I wanted to read more from the Discworld so I start where I shouldn't had start or else I might give up reading them. In this book we follow the adventures of Rincewind the Wizard and his new found friend Twoflower, the first tourist and his weird luggage with a hundred feet. Well as I said before I didn't start with this one and thank Perkunos. Why? Well let me tell you something... In 2004 I bought several Terry Pratchett books. Mort, Carpet People, Colour of Magic and a couple others. Well as Carpet People was the first book he released I started there. Well I didn't enjoyed the book so I waited 5 years to try again. This time I started on Mort and I enjoyed so I thought maybe there are good books and bad books... Let start again. And so I did. I started from the beginning. Well I didn't enjoyed that much. It was good don't get me wrong but maybe I would wait a year or so to read another... Now I know he can make good books and bad books so I have to keep reading and find those gems... Well now for the book.

This book is the collection of four short stories tied-in together.

The story begins in Ankh-Morpok and until then it was doing nicely but afterwards I just lost interest but I continue reading because I don't want to end up with un-finished books and because I really want to like Pratchett. I think his ideas are good and his satyrical/humurous/parody way is somewhat funny. I just hope he improves with the passing of the books. Mort was better in this way. Maybe because of Death.

About the characters... Õne thing I thought was that the writing style overshadow them as we wanted to get to learn more of them... But saying that the Luggage was the most interesting of them all and that's saying much. Rincewind is a failed wizard with a craven nature. He only knows one spell that he saw in a book and after memorizing every other spell doesn't want to be in his head. He meets the first tourist who is an insurance salesman (that unfortunally tries to teach the branch to his fellow new friends but just makes them burn half the city). Rincewind becomes an un-hero sort of a guy throughout the book and dull and anoying... Well and Twoflower... It's just there. He i a blissfully ignorant, cheery rube, blundering on protected from harm by his own inability to understand the danger he's in. One thing that make me thing is... In the beginning only Rincewind spoke is language but by the end he could speak with several other without problems.

I really hope that in the later novels he focus more... I read somewhere he should be Douglas Adams of Fantasy. I really hope he can make it because in this book I wouldn't have said that... Let us see...

In the end I must say this book is dull. Don't start on this book if you want to get into Discworld. Try Mort (it's the only other one I know) but it's a good book with Death as the Main character.

Review: Desert Raiders - Lucien Soulban

Title Desert Raiders (Imperial Guard IV) The Battle for Skull Pass
Author Lucien Soulban
Pages 243
Year 2007
Publisher Black Library
Reading time 4 days (January 2008)
Rating 9 / 10

Having read the previous novels on this series, Fifteen Hours by Mitchel Scanlon, DeathWorld by Steve Lyons and Rebel Winter by Steve Parker and loved them all I had to read this one straight away. It does continue the good reputation of this series. As the previous novels brought to the ribald the Catachan Jungle Fighters or the Vostroyans or in the later novels the Valhallan Ice Warriors or Cadia this one brought the Tallarn Desert Raiders. I like reading about the Imperial Guard Armies. I must say I like more of them than the Space Marines.

This was the first book I read of Lucien Soulban (he wrote another book a year before called Fleshworks in the Necromunda setting which Ifailed to read so far) and I was impressed. I really hope to see more of him in the following years. (For the time sone he doesn't have any book to be release until January. Maybe Black Library will not give him another book. The other authors of the Imperial Guard are well estabelished... Steve Lyons that penned the Death Guard already wrote a lter novel called the Ice Guard and is going to write Dead Men Walking later in December. Steve Parker tht wrote Rebel Winter already wrote another book called Gunheads (also in the imperial series) Michael Scanlon who wrote the first book already penned the Descent of Angels in HH series and in the coming months will be releasing, this time in fantasy, Call to Arms. The last author Aaron Dembski-Bowden that penned Cadian Blood (Which I will review later) is a rising star in Black Libray because he going to release three books in one year, first Soul Hunter in Mars, HellReach in May and the First Heretic in November. But enough of this and lets talk about the review...

This book is a straight forward novel with a good plot. The plot is simple... a Enigmatic call for help in a planet and the Tallarn are sent to investigate. There they find they are not alone in the planet. That's where the tyrannids appear. Always love a good tyrannid battle and this one was not the exception. The ending was predictable and it was a good story that makes you think of time travel or such...

But the book is not all that straightforward. Being a new regiment composed of Turenag and Banna (arab/berbers alike) alliance there are some divergences (as it happenned in our own history when several arabs tribes allied). The author does a great job building the tension between them. When they find a Cavern filled with layers of verdant jungle both alliances want permision to colonize Khadar. That's when a new threat arrives... the Tyranid Horde. But who needs Tyranids when the humans are fighting themselves so nicely...

So as I said.. Half the book is about in-fighting between the Imperial Guard Regiment and the other is the fighting of the tyranids. Both are great.

In the end I enjoyed the book and it gave me a feeling of satisfying... As the previous novels I would advice you all to read this book if you want to read a good war/intrigue novel. (To 40k fans or not).

Book Review: Counting Up, Counting Down - Harry Turtledove

Title Counting Up, Counting Down

Author Harry Turtledove

Pages 412
Year 2002
Publisher Del Rey - Ballantine Books
Reading time 14 days (January 2010)
Rating 5 / 10

Well... This was an odd book. Having heard that he his a master of alternate history I had to read something by him. I have some novels of the World War Series but after reading this book I will have them stand-by for another time...

This book is the collection of 17 stories.

I can't say I enjoyed it. I did not. Most of stories are dull and without purpose. There are some who I liked like After the Last Elf is Dead a story depicting a what if of (anti-)Tolkien's LOTR. In most books of fantasy out there ends nicely with the forces of good wining. So Turtledove came up with an idea of what's like an evil wining? It's a straight story about a high captain and his conquest for it's lord. This high captain admires it's opponents for fighting for a lost cause and the ending was nicely done. I would like to read novel with evil characters and such...

Most of the other short stories are bad. Some of them I couldn't finished for being so uninteresting like Deconstruction Gang or the Green Bufallo.

Forty, Counting Down and Twenty-One Counting Up are two good stories and good aditions for this book depicting what alternate history should be. (Well and time travel). Must and Shall is a different story of what if in the all North Vs South in the American Civil War. Usually (and Harry have several books with it) the alternate history depicts the South wining the war. But on this one the North did win the war but treat the Southerns as almost as slaves. It was a detective story and a nice one.

The Phanton of Tolbukhin and Ready for the Fatherland are two forgottable stories adding nothing intesteting.

Other nice stories were Il's ne passeront pas or In this Season. The other stories were unteresting, some with plot holes and un-appealing that I didn't finish...

Having failed to read anything by him with the sole exception of In the Presence of Mine Enemies a long time ago (which I didn't finish) I am afraid of picking up another book by Harry. He writes several books a year. Each book with 400 or 500 pages. How can he do it? Maybe the great output of books make them weaker. I hope I am wrong because I already have several more books by him and I hate to have just because of the covers...

Review: The Battle for Skull Pass - Nathan Long

Title The Battle for Skull Pass
Author Nathan Long
Pages 125
Year 2009
Publisher Black Library
Reading time 2 days (May 2009)
Rating 8,5 / 10

Since I do not have a scanner I will put the cover of the box set (which is the same as the book).

This was the companion book of the new box set of warhammer fantasy. I bought the gameboard and the novel. I already painted some goblins but I am not that good at painting... Should try more.. maybe on this holidays...

Well on this novel we see the fighting between the dwarves against goblins. Here we have on one sight a Dwarven Thane trying to recover the Pass and make a house of them own. In the other we have a goblin who's trying to become a big chief (he had a cool name like Earscrapper). The narrative switchs between the dwarves and the goblins point of view. Nathan Long has done nicely for a greenskin perspective and I think it could be done on a larger scale like a full lenght novel. How cool would be to read a novel about a Orc Champion or such thing.

We are presented as I said with both sides and we learn about Goblin and Dwarven societies and their armies. This is a propaganda book and you could reanact with the miniatures. The end was a good ending and even if one side did win (the dwarves), they are so fragile than another incursion of the greenskins would surely repel them from the new achieved home. That's what so great... A typic warhammer ending.

Nicely done Herr Long.

Review: Space Hulk - Gav Thorpe

Title Space Hulk
Author Gav Thorpe

Pages 125
Year 2009
Publisher Black Library
Reading time 2 days (September 2009)
Rating 8 / 10

This is the companion book of the Space Hulk Boarding game. It depicts the in-fighting of Blood Angels Terminator two squads against a an alien races called Tyrannids.

This book was done perfectly. Better was impossible. I had read the stories of each character on a White Dwarf magazine and then reading this book was the culminate of a great Story. There are great characters here and I really hope that we could see more of them (some of them since some died)

Gav Thorpe grabs the game concept and writes a good story. The tension is the most important trait of the game and the book didn't failed there. Will the marines accomplish their mission? Will all of them live? Can they do it before time runs out? He (the author) switchs the action between the two squads and builds a tension until the end. Gav as you knows have written the famous Last Chancers (about a penal squad) and one of the most mythical books calle Angels of Darkness.

In the end it was a good book and a good companion of the game. I really loved it and the only thing that I think could be improved would be the ending. As the other companions books they suffer from a rushed ending (but still this was the better one).

Gav Thorpe now is penning a trilogy depicting the fall of elven nation with Malekith and the next book for 40k will feature Eldar. He is also releasing a book for Angry Robots company.

Review: Daemonslayer (III) - William King

Title Daemonslayer
Author William King
Pages 285
Year 1999
Publisher Black Library
Reading time 12 days (August 2007)
Rating 10 / 10

After reading Skavenslayer I waited for a couple of months to read Daemonslayer. Well I read it and love it. It was as good as the previous novel. This was the first book as a all novel thingy... I enjoyed it and ended up so good as Skavenslayer.

In this book the duo is travelling north to Karag Dum one of the mightiest dwarf cities. It was lost over two centuries ago in the last incursion to chaos. Since there is no news from them and now due to a new machine they can reached without going insane or mad or die by the Chaos Wastes.

Our heroes travel to a Tower where they join other dwarves and by Borek Forkbeard (the one leading the expediction). Some of them will be recurring characters such as Snorri Nosebiter and the Mad Inventor Malakai Makaisson. There they travell by a zepellin to the mightiest of the northern citadels.

In this book Thanquol and his lackey Lurk Snitchtongue appear yet again with Snitchtongue travelling north inside the machine.

William King can really make us flop each page full of battles, strategies and traveling. If the last book we learn about Skaven Society here we learn about the Dwarven Society.

So what's they after? Well besides trying to figure out about the lost dwarves they want to find as well the Hammer of Fate and the Runemaster's Axe.

In this book Gotrek fights a Bloodthirster of Khorne (Greater Daemon of immense power). In the end Gotrek established as quasi-invicible. What in the name of Sigmar is more powerful that a Greater Daemon? Well at least he loses and eye on this novel.

Here you find more about Felix developning as a character. He is becoming a different person from the first novels and there is also love involved on this book. Also Felix is starting to becoming more and more akin to Gotrek....