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05.07.05 by Dindrane @ 3:17 am 
Written by Laurell K. Hamilton Incubus Dreams ostensibly follows necromancer Anita Blake as she fights crime, tries to stay alive, and bones an ever-increasing number of men in order to feed the awfully convenient ardeur--the irresistible craving for sexual contact that she inherited from her vampire lover and "master," Jean Claude. Long time Anita fans will want to know the following: we get more Jean Claude than we have in a long time, and Richard seems to be back, but how long that lasts and what his role will be is still up in the air. Edward, alas, does not make an appearance, nor does Asher. Much of the story revolves around the subservient were-leopard Nathanial, as well as Anita's "relationship" with the implausibly "perfect" Micah, the erstwhile pard leader. The mystery/crime to be solved is, as always, secondary, and even more so in this novel. There's really very little pretense here--this book is about Anita and her "love" life, which gets increasingly dull as the pages wear on. Sure, the first sex scene, even two, has some promise, but how many sex scenes can one read during a book you didn't pick up for solely that reason? They become tedious and frankly boring, and simply skipping them would lose you about half the book. Categorized as: Books and Reviews
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04.12.05 by Doc @ 2:22 pm  
Written by Simon R. Green John Taylor has spent the last few years trying to forget his past. From a dingy office in a bad part of London, he works as a private eye, assisted greatly by a supernatural (literally) ability to find anything that someone wants found. He can't pay the rent, sleeps on the sofa in his office, and generally exists as an embodiment of every P.I. cliché in the book. That is, until his newest client walks in the door. Joanna Barrett is a very wealthy woman, and her daughter has gone missing. Sounds like little trouble, until Ms. Barrett mentions where her daughter is believed to have gone: Nightside. Nightside is Taylor's home, or was. It's the dark heart of London, possibly of the world, a place where it's always 3 a.m. and where anything can be bought for the right price. Nightside is a magical place, inaccessible to most ordinary people, but Taylor isn't ordinary. He's not sure what he is, exactly, as he has no idea who (or what) gave birth to him...only that it was horrible enough that his father drank himself to death shortly thereafter. Taylor has been running from Nightside for years, because for some reason a large number of very powerful people there seem to want him dead, for reasons he's never been clear on. But he needs the money. Badly. And the girl could be in serious trouble if she stumbled into Nightside accidentally or fell in with the wrong crowd once she got there. So Taylor takes the case, and must step back into the dangerous world that he's been trying to forget, risking his life to find some pampered rich girl runaway before she gets herself killed, or worse. Categorized as: Books and Reviews
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12.07.03 by Dindrane @ 11:26 pm 
Written by: Roger Smith This fascinating text was designed to help teachers of any subject integrate environmental education into their classrooms. Carefully designed to be usable in grades 4-9, this book is an invaluable resource for teachers, parents, homeschoolers, and just concerned individuals alike. Part I of the book is devoted to "Exploring the Environment and the Universe," with such lessons as viewing the stars, exploring time, and developing empathy. Part II is dedicated to Change, and projects here include making fossil casts, demonstrating earthquakes, water erosion, and observing metamorphosis in animals. Part III is "Unity: The Wholeness of Nature," where students look at such lessons as Nature’s interconnections, food chains, biomes, endangered species, adaptations to change, and much more. Part IV is the Finite Planet, and students will learn about such things as forests and how trees modify climate, population and food issues, waste management and junk art, and the touch process of making choices about dealing with the environment. All activity sections come with a "learning objectives" statement and full background notes, and each individual activity is clearly worded and includes suggestions for use. Pages are easily separated from the binding for photocopying, and all hand-outs are copyright free, so that they may be actually used in a classroom situation where you might need 30 copies of a given page. Categorized as: Books and Reviews
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12.07.03 by Widge @ 5:54 am  Written by Neil Gaiman Coraline Jones is a young lady who is very, very bored. Her family has just moved into a new flat and her mother and father have plenty of work to do that doesn't involve keeping her entertained. Her new neighbors, two former actresses and the ringmaster of an all-mouse circus, seem interesting enough--but interactions with them can only take up so much time. In her explorations of her new surroundings, Coraline finds a door that doesn't go anywhere. When the building, formerly a house, was converted into flats, they separated one half of the structure from the other with a brick wall--so this door opens onto brick. But one day the door opens on a corridor, one that leads to her other flat. And to her other parents, who want nothing more than to keep her entertained and well-fed...forever. Many, many moons ago I had the distinct pleasure of hearing Gaiman do a reading of about the first third of this novel, which he introduced as a "spooky story for little girls", and I never forgot Coraline or her button-eyed other parents...and how the entire thing creeped the hell out of me. And now that the rest of the story is known, I can say it was definitely worth the wait. Categorized as: Books and Reviews
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12.07.03 by Dindrane @ 3:14 am  Written by: Mark Z. Danielewski House of Leaves contains text that you may recognize from a song by the musical artist Poe. This is the least of the oddities you will discover in these pages. It is at best a work of literary genius. It is at least an experimental text with interesting adjuncts and lexicography. The truth, as always, is somewhere in between. It is reminiscent of Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer for its complex narrative layering. Appendices contain poems, collages, sketches and photos, quotes, and a series of letters from Truant's mother in an insane asylum written to Truant. The premise of the layout is a kind of frame story: Johnny Truant has found an incomplete manuscript written by an old blind man named Zampanò. The text is ostensibly either an academic discussion of a non-existent film, or a novel. Truant is never certain. House of Leaves at large is annotated both by Truant himself and by the "editors." The film in question, "The Navidson Record," is supposedly a documentary made by a photojournalist who has moved into a house that is not what it seems. The least surprising thing about this house is that its internal measurements are in fact larger than its external dimensions. The strangeness progresses from there. Categorized as: Books and Reviews
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