1. Were you disappointed that we didn’t get see any more of Bianca and Harry together? 

Not really. I feel like Jim Butcher is saving her for future plot-lines. She pretty much did her part in this story, but as a character there’s much more interesting baggage to be rummaging through, there. I expect to learn more about her in the next books.

2. We finally get to see Harry go on the magical offensive in this section of the book. Any favorite action moment?

The part when Harry masters the demon and Victor is shrieking, “What are you doing? Kill him, I say! Kill him!” or to that effect but the demon turns on him, instead. It was quite satisfying. Uhh…also, the part when Harry wakes up to realize Morgan just gave him CPR.

3. How did you feel about where Harry and Murphy’s relationship was at when the book ended?

It was frustrating and also cute. Frustrating because Murphy kept messing up Harry’s plans and not trusting him even when she was lying on the office floor being saved by him whilst slowly dying of scorpion poison. But it was also cute because Harry genuinely respects Murphy and their friendship (or, could it become more?) causes him to grumble only slightly under his breath before rushing off to get her out of a sticky situation she didn’t even know she was in. But, definitely, the breach of trust between the two thanks to Harry’s complicating situation might make things tense between them for a while. I feel like Murphy’s not someone who trusts other people easily but she obviously cares about Harry, and it may take a lot to completely ruin their relationship with each other.

4. (This question morphs somewhat into Jeff’s ‘Harry and Murphy’ question, but) How did you feel about the wrap up after the climax, the brief mentions of various characters as part of Harry’s closing narration?

The ending was fitting of a literature-noir. I both liked it and wished for a little more – I guess it’s just perfect, then, for the first book of a series. I certainly finished the book with a sense of elation for Harry’s ultimate success at fixing most of his big problems – I wanted to give the guy a high five and a pat on the back (and possibly, a towel and a dry change of clothes, the poor man seems to run around in the rain naked more than is usual).

5.  Now that you’ve seen Harry in all three acts of a story arc, what are your thoughts about him as a character, particularly in light of this being a debut novel for the series.

I began the story not really feeling anything special for Harry. He seemed to fit into the stereotypical detective persona, and that was comforting, at least, but not much connection beyond that. As I continued reading, he started to grow on me. I have to confess that I don’t often read first person pov books where the main character is a guy, I guess ‘cause I don’t connect as well. The second stage of attachment began with me wanting to give Harry a hug or pet him, the poor guy! He drew out the nurturing instinct in me! Then, I started to empathize with his crazy and sometimes just plain stupidly annoying situations (i.e. the White Council stuff involving Morgan). I moved on from being all, “Aw, poor puppy dog,” to “Oh snap! Nice entrance and very nicely done! You show him! (massive grinning following)”. I don’t know exactly when I moved from bleeding heart mother-relationship to best buddy bro-handshaking-sidekick relationship. I kind have this weird, sisterly feeling towards him, now. Like I want to nose around in his basement, or muss up his hair. Weird, eh?

6.  And finally, a two-parter:  Discuss your overall experience with the book and/or the group read and will you be reading the next book in the series?

I’m sorry to say I was being really not dependable in terms of my contributions to the group read. But, one thing that fell out nicely is my new series and character discovery! Yes, I will be reading the next book. This first one had an excellent plot and even more importantly, a relatable character.

Title: The Hum and the Shiver

Author: Alex Bledsoe

Genre: Fantasy, magical realism

Synopsis and impressions:

Down in the hidden nooks of Appalachia, secrets are buried deep and forgotten. The Tufa people, reclusive and hostile to strangers are tucked in the silence of these hills, their songs linking their stories through the generations. A very beautiful and realistic bit of world-building, I must say, with familiar myths woven in so expertly – I was thrilled to read it! I just love Alex Bledsoe’s use of music in his world – there’s something so transcendental and ancient about music and it just glued my eyes to the page.

The story focuses on the main character, Bronwyn, who is completely opposite from the Tufa community she grew up in, making her a black sheep of sorts at the beginning of the book. She was injured while performing a heroic rescue and is sent back home to recuperate mentally and physically. Waiting to greet her is a creepy “haint/ghost”, and the big mystery is finding out what it wants from her. Bronwyn is a very likeable character – strong (and not just from her military training), but also with realistic flaws leaving room for satisfying character growth. The story is really about her and her self-discovery and how she re-traces her identity back to her roots.  It’s not hard to fall into the shoes of most of the other characters, too, and get dragged into the story (joyfully, of course). They’re fleshed out pretty realistically, and their reactions to the clash of the modern world with their quiet, hidden one, makes an interesting entertaining read.

The pacing of the story may be a bit slow for some readers, but it was just right for me! The title captures the feeling of the story very well… a bit of shivery-ness in a rumbling hum, is how I imagine it. I was surprised at how much I would enjoy this read, though I did suspect it…

Excerpt: 

She wanted to stare straight ahead, at the fresh lines painted on the highway after the state repaved it earlier in the spring, but there was no resisting the pull of the mountains. At first she looked only with her eyes, cutting them enough to see the lush trees and rolling slopes visible past the MPs standing at the deck rails beside her. But like that first taste of liquor to an abstaining drunk, it only made it worse. The leaves sang to her, tunes blew through the breeze, and for a moment something that had been silent and still since she’d left this place vibrated deep in her chest. But it was only a moment; like everything else, it faded to numbness and left her aware of its presence but unable to actually feel lit.

Except somehow, she sensed danger. Not the immediate kind as she’d known in Iraq, but real nonetheless. It was like a shadowy animal glimpsed over the tall grass that ducked out of sight the instant before she turned to look directly at it.

Now, I’ve received my copy from the lovely people at prbythebook.com. Thank you very much! They have offered to give away a copy to a reader! How nice are they?

Anyway, if you are interested in reading this gem (and you live Canada or the US), please e-mail me your information at this_is_shar(at)live(dot)com by Oct. 7th. Include your name and address and I will pick one person at random to receive their copy!

Don’t make me repeat this information like one of those annoying telecommercials!

Rating: 4 troubled musicians

Introduction

Love the introduction, I do! Get some good insight into the Neil Gaiman cave of wonders! Funny how he dreamed up “I think…that I would rather recollect a life mis-spent on fragile things than spent avoiding moral debt” and that he remembered these particular lines and woke up with a pen to write it down! (Sometimes I dream up – I believe – wonderful things, and they are followed by another dream in which I possess a pen and I have written down those wonderful ideas – so that once I have woken up I feel like I have just gyped myself). What do you think he means by this? He says he doesn’t know what he means by fragile things, either. Perhaps a life spent doing risky breakable potentially hurtful things is a life spent more fully than one where the person’s a-scared of everything and won’t do anything beyond staying on the sidewalk, safe? Here are my impressions and questions for the first three shorts:

A study in emerald

This is a story that, each time I read it, I feel like my neurons are arc-sparking across vast empty spaces in my brain to make new connections. Full of lovely Aha! moments for zombie-brained, me.

I am curious to know at exactly what point you guys clued in on the familiarity of the main characters? I didn’t figure it out until Baker Street was mentioned and even then, I wasn’t completely sure until Lestrade strolled into the picture. Even then, I didn’t clue in to the weirdness of London until the scene with the Queen. All that talk about something mysterious happening to our narrator in the caves of Afghanistan, and the ichor on the walls from the Prince – it totally went over my head the first time I read it. I should have figured something was up, Neil Gaiman introduces each chapter with a local ad of some sort, which I found squirmingly amusing. My favourite is the one selling “Jekyll’s Powders” – “Too many people, both men and women, suffer from CONSTIPATION OF THE SOUL!” I really wanted to laugh like a little troll, but I was in a public place and had to subdue my inner me. (I would buy it in vanilla).

More than the main mystery at hand, did you pick up any funny cues for dramatic irony? Like when our narrator and his friend go to Drury Lane to watch a play. The first play was about mistaken identities. And what about the Restorationists, hm? The first time I read the story, I read it for the actual mystery – plotwise. The second time I read the story, I was reading for Neil Gaiman’s little clues, now knowing the ending and the two sets of characters. As usual, I’m always half-certain I’ve got it right as well as squeamishly half-certain I’ve got it completely wrong and I’m crazy. I always feel this way reading a Neil Gaiman story.

Some questions I still have about this story: what was all that about the “Dynamics of an Asteroid” paper and “wild theories furthering the relationship between mass, energy and the hypothetical speed of light”? And also, why did Neil Gaiman give our friend the names Sherry Vernet and Sigerson? Any thrilling connections to made there that I can’t seem to make?? Please enlighten me so I can enjoy this story more! The only thing I can think of – don’t make fun of me! – is that Albion is on another planet? Or in another dimension? It’s called New Albion, after all – anything with New before it must be on another planet in my logic. In the mean time, I will probably re-read it again.

The Fairy Reel

My favourite part to read is “And sang and whirled and sank and trod and/ skipped and slipped and reeled and rolled/ Until, with eyes as bright as coals, they’d/ crumble into wheels of gold…”

The fairy world seems pretty much wild and scary. The things they do with a heart, man.

If I were to extract meaning from this poem, I would wonder how dreams and death are related to being old? And it seems like the voice of the poem is regretting his decision to be double-souled yet, the line, “the single-souled, who dare not feel/ The wind that blows beyond the moon..” makes me believe that it is a good thing – an act of courage in some way – to dare to wander the Fairy world? But then once he lets his soul/heart go there, he gets wound up in the fairy reel, and is helpless to do anything except watch as the folk do what they will to it and use it against other humans?

October in the Chair

I wouldn’t trust anybody to convince me these were the characters of each month except for Neil Gaiman. Of course, now that Neil Gaiman has defined such personalities for each month, I can’t think of them as having any other personalities but the ones they have in this story. And anyway, I’ve always liked October the best. And I agree with June, there are a whole lot of someones in the woods watching them (I’m close enough to smell the sausages). Who wouldn’t want to gate-crash on this assembly, if possible?

The beginning of October’s story kind of reminded me of the beginning of Mio my Son by Astrid Lindgren. The boy seems pretty much all alone with no one who seems to really care about him or remember him in their selfish busy lives except to point out how insignificant he is (“he is the runt of the litter. Look at him. Look at us.”) And, once the name sticks, everyone starts heaping on the insignificances on him everywhere he goes until he kind of fades from the memories of people. It remains ambiguous whether Karl from Mio my Son and Donald from this story die from their sorry situations or enter another sort of adventure (perhaps, it’s the same thing).

And the whole search for the sea resonates with all these other stories I’ve read (the most recent being Carrie Ryan’s The Forest of Hands and Teeth where Mary’s searching for the ocean in zombie-ravaged country). What is it about the ocean? Does it signify the beginning of an adventure into the unknown – here, death, likely?

I feel very sorry for Donald. He doesn’t fit in with the life he was born into. No one understands him or bothers to really get to know him – they just label him something and shove him under a rug, basically. He may be a runt of a boy, but that’s not all he is, but that’s all he is to others.

He’s brave to go off like this on his own. He hopes that helicopters and dogs will go after him. He also hopes that he can return one day, older and wiser and better somehow, and his family will welcome him back with relief and delight and awe. Perhaps his dramatic change from this adventure will finally make his family realize that he’s not just the runt. But in his heart, perhaps he thinks he’s already been forgotten. Even if he’s found and taken back home, he’ll just fall back into the old routine of being forgotten. I forget his name pretty much right after it was mentioned because he’s called the runt throughout the story. Just like the boy ghost is called Dearly because he’s forgotten his own name. Sadly, though, even the ghost boy’s ghostly neighbours don’t care about him, preferring to sleep rather than “be bothered to just go and see stuff and do things. They can’t be bothered with [him].” The runt and the ghost boy have a lot more in common with each other than their own respective worlds.

May I say that I’m glad not to know what’s in the tumbledown farmhouse? It sounds sinister.

I like the ending of the short story. “We can’t help who we are.”

My Challenge Choices:

Peril the Second

-Blackbringer by Laini Taylor

I’m ashamed to say I have not read any of her books. But, I recklessly (with great belief in the enthusiasm of bookster friends in the physical and non-physical universe) have decided to dive in and pre-order Daughter of Smoke and Bone (if this review by Chelle does not convince you, I don’t know what will). In the meantime, I will try my hand at breaking Blackbringer’s spine.

-The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

I’m also ashamed to say I’ve never read any Oscar Wilde books. But, Jenny has expressed such boundless great affection for him and his work (and all people on good terms with him) that, naturally, I would be curious. (seriously, if you search “Oscar Wilde” on her blog, like, every other post pops up) I’m already halfway through this one – one step ahead of my procrastination!

Peril of the Group Read

-Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

I have this on my shelf back in my Neil Gaiman bookcrush days and my short story obsession phase. I’ve posted about some of his short stories before (M is for Magic) and now am so glad that there will be other people reading these at the same time so that I can figure out some puzzles that have been clacking around under the hood. I’m so glad I hopped over to Kailana‘s blog and found out about this!

-Storm Front by Jim Butcher

Jim Butcher is new to me completely. I haven’t even heard of him, much to my dismay. Some sparkly excitement rubbed off on me when I was jumping around Anastasia’s blog and witnessed a mini-gush over there for the Dresden Files. So, now I must try.

The Group Read idea, in particular, is awesome for me. I’ve been feeling so lonely over here at the lab, I haven’t caught anyone reading during the lunch break or doing any literary activities ‘cept ingesting scientific papers. I miss English Lit classes. This Group Read thing will have to replace that hollow.

If you want to join, just go to Carl’s blog Stainless Steel Droppings and sign up!

Anyway, I arbitrarily picked the 2009 British film From Time to Time. Actually, not really arbitrarily. I wanted to watch it because it’s a time slip movie which Julian Fellowes adapted from a novel (The Chimmneys of Green Knowe) by Lucy M. Boston. As some of you may know, Julian Fellowes also wrote the Downton Abbey series, which is (insert wordless cry of enthusiasm!).

This cute film is set in two times: the present, 1944 as WWII is ending and the soldiers are returning home, and in the past, several generations ago during the Napoleonic Wars. It’s about a boy, Tolly, who’s sent to live with his granny at the ancestral manor, Green Knowe. Granny has not been able to keep the place in as good repair as she would like to. The manor is full of disused wings, and narrow twisty corridors, and cemented doorways and crumbling structures. You need to bring a flashlight with you to explore many of these nooks, and you can’t be afraid of a little dust and scuttling things. Forget about traveling to Hawaii, this is my dream adventure vacation!

Athelhampton House where the movie's filmed

The first night Tolly spends there, Granny tells him all about the people in the portraits that grace the walls of the old manor. I’m so jealous! I’ve always wanted to know more about my own family tree, but could never get past my great-grandmother on my father’s side who was adopted (it’s a secret wonder of mine to know where I get my good traits and my bad traits from and how the others handled theirs). When Tolly loses himself in the bowels of the manor, he sometimes thinks he hears echoes of voices from the previous inhabitants. The atmosphere reminds me so much of The Secret Garden, which I visit on a regular basis via my love-to-shreds copy (seriously, its binding is taped together but I refuse to buy a new one!). Then, one night, he’s woken up by an apparition of a girl. His granny seems to take everything in stride – she’s used to the visitations. One day, however, not only does Tolly see the children, he gets transported back in time to when the manor was teeming with activity. It could happen any time in a given day. One moment, Tolly’s following Mrs. Tweedle the housekeeper down a drafty corridor, the next moment he’s helping one of the children from the past hide inside a cupboard! Some of the people in the past can see him and interact with him, others can’t, which becomes very convenient for Tolly to help them resolve the big family issues of their day (and add a little modern technology to the past ). There is one big mystery that’s a particular challenge to solve…if he can solve the family mystery of the past, perhaps he can help granny with a few troubles in the present.

I love these time adventure stories – did you ever read Caroline B. Cooney’s Time Traveling series (with the Lockwood family)? Or Janet Lunn’s The Root Cellar?  Or watched the movie, Tom’s Midnight Garden? I’m glad to add this movie to all these other old favorites.

I got spooked (ghosts scare me, hands down), I griped the edges of my seat during exciting bits, I chuckled during the silly bits, I wept silently during the heart welling bits. This movie has made me want to read the actual novels by Lucy M Boston – where kids toast bread in big old fireplaces, and rummage about in the attics full of old stuff. Where I live, every house is less than 20 years old, there’s nothing but insulation in the attics as far as I know. It’s the standard suburban neighbourhood – seriously, almost every house looks the same, and is allotted the same amount of front garden and back garden with the same driveway. No old or haunted houses here (though I’ve tried to make up stories about a certain alleyway with a big lamppost in it). It’s a little tougher to imagine old secrets lurking around every corner, but I’ll keep trying! In the meantime, there’s plenty of opportunity to get sucked into a good story to make up for suburbia.

For those of you who’ve watched this movie, Sefton (played by Douglas Booth)  gives me a little bit of a Keira Knightley vibe…

Now I shall eagerly await the second season of Downton Abbey (coming out this November, I believe!).

Author: Lauren Oliver

Genre: Science-fiction, near-future dystopia

Days to read: One

Pages: 441

Synopsis and Impressions:

What a crazy world we live in. But do you think it would be even crazier if there was no such thing as love? If love was genetically bred out of us? Okay, let’s discuss this like newbie philosophers. If I take this idea to the extremes – if there’s no love – there can’t be no hating either, correct? The two work opposed to each other. The more you can feel love, the more you can feel hate and yakkity yak along those lines. Hello! We can save the world, people! (that’s totally what the brilliant scientists of near-future Maine are going to win the future Nobel Peace Prize for) What am I talking about?! Just forget about hating, there’s not going to be any feeling whatsoever! Let’s just say that, shall we? Because to me, love is such a strong human emotion that it’s very difficult to separate its taint from all your other emotions. If you feel fear for your life, could you feel fear because you love yourself and your life too much to let it go (for example)? Or, maybe you feel brave in the face of fear because a loved one is at risk? Or is fear an instinct…? Anyway, there are just so many kinds of love: love for your parents, love for your siblings, love for your darling loved one…heck, even love for your laptop.

So, here the book industry has presented to us the latest “zombie” book – I call it a zombie book because the disease that is eradicated for your own good is the disease of love (amor deliria nervosa, as Lauren Oliver names it). And it makes you a beautiful, mild-mannered, wrinkle-free zombie that can march through life without heartache. Or, at most, only a silly memory of a heartache that will cause you to convince other budding under-18-year-old Romeo and Juliet enthusiasts that their love is a contrivance of their young silly hormones going wonkers and that they shouldn’t have midnight trysts and do anything silly in the name of a heart disease.

Okay, I admit, a lot of my paragraph 1 philosophical probing has very little to do with Delirium by Lauren Oliver. In this book, the main type of love that is considered dangerous and must be loped off from that darned frontal cortex of yours is the one that flourishes between two people. In particular, it affects romantic love and lust and everything in that package. Also, it affects love between siblings and parents, but that is not the main dish in this book.

Let me tell you, if you heard about this book and thought, “Wow, this one’s going to be sappy and romantic, I’ll bet.” You bet right. But sappy and romantic in a very heart-thrilling, gut-punching, deftly written – feeling-ful way. A very good way. I don’t think I’m a sappy romantic. I never liked reading Romeo and Juliet in high school. I disliked Romeo for being so mooney and ending up mooning himself to death (though I did like Juliet for being smart and diplomatic and trying to find an actual solution to things). So no, I’m not a hopeless romantic. So, this book is totally accessible for the non-H.R.s among us. Characters are lovely and cutsey and tryst-y rebel lovers. After an early curfew of 9 o’clock, the illegallove-hunting volunteers (you can top up your volunteer hours doing this!) begin their prowl and they have walkie-talkies and everything and they will find you and your loved one and bring you to this horrible smelling pit of a prison where you can die from a real health problem. If you are suspected of encouraging the disease to spread, you can be sure to end up there, labelled a Sympathizer. No decent citizen complains much, though, except the occasional cows that end up in places they shouldn’t be. Most people are too busy living their lives with an extra hole in their brain to care much about anything.

Illegal underage loitering! Put your hands up! (or let us tie them to beds with nylon rope and register you for an early procedure)

This book is about Lena and counts down to the day her brain surgery procedure will happen. It begins with her eagerly looking forward to being inducted into the love-free world of adulthood, so that she’s safe from becoming a madwoman like her mother was before she killed herself from missing her father too much. On the day of her interview with the scientists/psychologists, however, her best friend, Hana, starts whispering worrisome rebellious things into her ear as if she’s having doubts about the procedure. Then, Lena botches up her interview questions by forgetting that her favourite color is blue not grey and rambling on about Romeo and Juliet, to the dismay of her interviewers (funny thing about that interview…it’s kind of like a matchmaking session). To make things worse, mysterious boy eavesdropping on her interview diseases-up her feelings and now she’s afraid she might be sick. But all’s not what it seems in dystopia-near-future Maine, and it takes a lot of love and pain to make Lena realize the truth and have the courage to let her palpitating-heart lead the way.

So much to love about this book and this crazy place on the coast. Some of the little infodumps – quotes from The Book of Shhh (a guidebook everyone seems to use in this world) and other fictional facts – that introduce the chapter are sometimes eerily familiar warnings that sound true:

Symptoms of Amor Deliria Nervosa

PHASE ONE

preoccupation; difficult focusing

dry mouth

perspiration, sweaty palms

fits of dizziness and disorientation

reduced mental awareness; racing thoughts; impaired reasoning skills

PHASE TWO

periods of euphoria; hysterical laughter and heightened energy

periods of despair; lethargy

changes in appetite; rapid weight loss or weight gain

fixation; loss of other interests

compromised reasoning skils; distortion of reality

disruption of sleep patterns; insomnia or constant fatigue

obsessive thoughts and actions

paranoia; insecurity

PHASE THREE (CRITICAL)

difficult breathing

pain in the chest, throat, or stomach

difficulty swallowing; refusal to eat

complete breakdown of rational faculties; erratic behaviour; violent thoughts and fantasies; hallucinations and delusions

PHASE FOUR (FATAL)

emotional or physical paralysis (partial or total)

death

If you fear that you or someone you know may have contracted deliria, please call the emergency line toll-free at 1-800-PREVENT to discuss immediate intake and treatment.

Doesn’t this sound just like a pamphlet or an ad for some debilitating disease? I’d believe it. Incidentally, I’ve gotten some of those phase four symptoms simply from reading a super-awesome-book like this one.

Also:

In the decades before the development of the cure, the disease had become so virulent and widespread it was extraordinarily rare for a person to reach adulthood without having contracted a significant case of amor deliria nervosa (please see “Statistics, Pre-Border Era”)….Many historians have argued that pre-cure society was itself a reflection of the disease, characterized by fracture, chaos, and instability….Almost half of all marriages ended in dissolution….Incidence of drug use skyrocketed, as did alcohol-related deaths.

People were so desperate for relief and protection from the disease they began widespread experimentation with makeshift folk remedies that were in themselves deadly, consuming concoctions of drugs assembled from common cold medications and synthesized into an extremely addictive and often fatal compound (please see “Folk Cure Through the Ages”)….

Finally:

Humans, unregulated, are cruel and capricious; violent and selfish; miserable and quarrelsome. It is only after their instincts and basic emotions have been controlled that they can be happy, generous, and good.

— The Book of Shhh

So anyway, on the topic of the huge messed up future Maine – this is what happens when you let scientists handle matters of the heart. Everyone knows that a scientist acts and thinks literally with cool removed logic, right? (I consider myself a biochemist, hence a scientist; hence I can make this tongue in cheek comment about dystopias and blameworthy corruption-enabling scientists.)

Here’s another text fragment I like:

What is beauty? Beauty is no more than a trick; a delusion; the influence of excited particles and electrons colliding in your eyes, jostling in your brain like a bunch of overeager schoolchildren, about to be released on break. Will you let yourself be deluded? Will you let yourself be deceived?

This one was apparently from the fictional work, “On Beauty and Falsehood” from The New Philosophy by an Ellen Dorpshire. Way to tackle an age-old Keatsian debate by tearing it apart into electrons bombarding each other. You’re ruining the fun!!

So. By the end of the book my heart was squeezed to death. Which is a good sign. The excerpt for Pandemonium (book 2) is making me want to give free hugs. Can’t wait!

Rating: 4.5 notes discovered in The Governor’s air-cupping hand.

Other reviews:

-Sheila from Book Journey: “Lauren Oliver has done it again.  Delirium is a story that I was not sure about picking up (much like her first novel Before I Fall).  I didn’t know if I would like the subject matter and when i first heard about this book I felt it had a techy feel to it that I was not sure was for me.  Yet I had to admit that it took me a while to pick up Before I Fall as well, and I came out of that read gushing about the inner story line and deeper meaning of the book. “

-Emily from Emily’s Reading Room: “The writing definitely carried this book for me. Had the writing not been as good as it was, I probably would not have liked it nearly as well as I did. In fact, while I was in the moment reading the book, I had almost no complaints. It wasn’t until I sat down and really thought about the story that I thought about a few inconsistencies.  I’ll definitely pick up more books by Lauren Oliver in the future, because I certainly was taken with her style.”

-Ladybug from Escape in a Book: “ really liked the characters in this novel, they were belivable and cleverly written. My favorite character was Grace, Lena’s six year old cousin, who due to a traumatic experience dosen’t speak one word. Grace just somehow touched my heart. This story has it all; action, romance, tragedy, angst and more.”

-Speed Reader from My Favorite Author: “DELIRIUM has an interesting premise – it’s a dystopic future where love (amor deliria nervosa) has finally been recognized as a disease and a cure is available (aka: required). And like any good dystopian story, you have (1) a controlling government who promises that their tactics are for everyone’s good and protection; (2) the obedient masses who are dull and colorless and lifeless but don’t realize it; (3) a rebellious “other” group who live outside the organized society but who like to create trouble and hopes to overthrow the controlling government; (4) an innocent teenager in the society who whole-heartedly believes all the government propaganda until shown the “truth”.”

-The Book Muncher: “Delirium is a tragically beautiful masterpiece of dystopian fiction. I love reading about dystopias because they are removed but usually not entirely implausible situations of the world gone wrong. Oliver’s dystopia in Delirium is just riveting. The thought of love as a legitimate disease is both fascinating and appalling at the same time. And Oliver sets this world up wonderfully by giving adequate background to the development of the cure, the present procedures set in place to prevent an outbreak of the deliria, and the relationship between the deliria and society.”

Title: Divergent

Author: Veronica Roth

Genre: Dystopia, Sci-fi

Days to read: One

Pages: 487

Synopsis and Impressions:

People are trying to fix the world (as per usual) and someone brilliant came up with the idea that people should split themselves up into factions depending on what exactly it is they blame the world’s problems on. What an idea:

“Decades ago our ancestors realized that it is not political ideology, religious belief, race or nationalism that is to blame for a warring world. Rather, they determined that it was the fault of human personality – of humankind’s inclination toward evil, in whatever form that is. They divided into factions that sought to eradicate those qualities they believed responsible for the world’s disarray.”

Political ideology, religious belief, race, nationalism…these are all simply BIG topics upon which people upload their foibles (yes, I used that word). Everyone’s unique, and has a billion words they could use to describe their personality, but everyone also has an underlying inherent tendency in their character which is the filter through which everything else spills out. I’m not sure if the citizens of this future pick the factions they belong to by looking at their worst faults and wanting to improve them, or by looking at which faction already matches their existing personality, ‘cause obviously it’s harder to pick the faction you think you’ll least enjoy.

Anyway, check out the different factions (I’m sure you’ll agree that these are the main points of blame if and when you start thinking about blaming personality traits):

“Those who blamed aggression formed Amity.”
[...]
“Those who blamed ignorance became Erudite.”
[...]
Those who blamed duplicity created Candor.”
[...]
“Those who blamed selfishness made Abnegation.”
[...]
“Those who blamed cowardice were the Dauntless.”

People of each faction also have ideal jobs, like a person from Amity could work as a nurse, a person from Abnegation could work in the government (so that they can make selfless choices on behalf of everyone) and a person from Dauntless could beat the crap out of criminals. The ideal world, certainly.

Of course, there is a bit of imbalance in these factions. I mean, Erudite and Dauntless, wow, my imagination churns up potential evil villains from those factions that are either genius mad scientists or crazy bungee-jumping pyromaniac types. But those two factions would also be the ones I would tend towards based on my personality. If I were to play the blame game, I would agree with “goody goody” Amity and Abnegation (but I can see how Abnegation can also create the world’s biggest Monster). But I’m too selfish to actually join their group. See how it works?

In this story, Tris is an Abnegation girl on the verge of adulthood. After taking a “personality test” (and what a personality test that was…nothing like the ones on coolquiz.com), she has to decide which faction she wants to belong to. Something funny happens during Tris’ test, however, and she finds out she is “Divergent” meaning the results of her personality test are too ambiguous for the computer to fit her in any particular faction. Everyone’s hush hush about it. Her examinator, a cool Dauntless chick, warns her to keep this problem to herself. Tris doesn’t know why it’s such a big deal, but one thing she confirmed from the test is that a life of grey clothing and looking at the floor and letting everyone take your seat on the bus – a life in Abnegation – is not for her. Choosing the most fitting faction is only the beginning of her problems, however. Will her family forgive her for forsaking her faction? Will she ever get used to life in her new faction? Growing up has never been tougher.

Wow Veronica Roth! Debut author awesomeness!

If I tell you about Tris, you’ll probably be able to guess which faction she ended up choosing. So I won’t tell you about Tris. She’s a surprising character, and her voice is totally likeable and, just like any human being, can’t be accurately categorized. But if you have to choose, you have to choose.

I like how Tris grows and changes by the end of the book. At the beginning, she was totally engrossed in trying to figure out why she can’t just be happy in her own faction. Everything’s pretty black and white for her. If you’re in Abnegation, there are certain personality traits you have and certain traits you probably don’t have much of. By the end of the book, however, she sees that each faction’s pretty messed up and the criteria that separates them gets all blurred. People she thought she knew do 180s and turn out to be just as surprising as her secret “divergent” label, subverting their “stereotypes” when important action/decisions must be taken. The world’s already a dystopia (I can’t imagine how segregating people into camps will do anything for improving harmony and understanding and tolerance) but it falls into a dystopia of dystopias as the people in each faction begin to lose sight of the original purpose of the factions.

The book’s dark. Noone’s safe. The world’s become a stricter place where everyone’s got to pull their weight. But it’s also terribly entertaining and has its funny moments and its moments of exhilaration. So snuggle up in your blankets with warm cocoa at the bedside and read about a potentially terrible future. But enjoy!

Anyway, I’m a big fan of quiz-taking-for-fun, and I just did an online version of the Aptitude Test. Like I suspected…

Rating: 4.5 citizens who like to scorch bugs under a magnifying glass

Next book out is Insurgent in 2012! Yay!

Other Reviews:

-Cat from Beyond Books: “The entire dystopian world that Roth creates is fascinating to me. The five factions are so interesting and their reaction to each other intriguing. The fact that you have to abandon your family if you choose a faction other than the one you grew up in seems very harsh to me but it made the book all that much more interesting. How society things you can only think one certain way your entire life is beyond me. People who always tell the truth and tell it like it is (Candor) shouldn’t negate them from wanting to help others or give up their seat on the bus to someone in need (Abnegation). I don’t see how one virtue cancels out the other.”

-Alex from Electrifying Reviews: “While reading, Divergent made my heart race, my palms sweat, and it made me shutter. Reading this book was more of an experience than anything else. At first, I was a bit apprehensive of the story being set up. But Veronica Roth doesn’t even need to drag on about the completely unique and brilliant dystopian society she has created, because you are living the story.”

-Emily from Emily’s Reading Room: “There were so many things I loved about this book. Right from the start we are introduced to a society that has created a system based on values, which seems like a great idea, right? As you read, you try to figure out which faction would best represent your values. Do you value courage, honesty, selflessness, or knowledge? Soon you discover, along with Tris, that it’s not as clear as it first appears. Breaking rank from your family is dishonorable, and not all factions are considered equal. Even within factions there are tensions and disagreements about what they truly value. All of this together creates an internal and external conflict that is so complex and interesting, I couldn’t put this book down.”

-Kay from the Infinite Shelf: “I don’t want to give the impression that I didn’t enjoy the book though, because I did. And oh, did I love Beatrice! She was such a great character : hard, selfish at times and selfless at others, showing courage when she was scared, definitely different from most female leads in current YA novels. I also appreciated that, while she had a definite romantic interest for a certain guy very early in the story, it didn’t take all the space. She lived her own adventure, which he happened to be part of, rather than at the center of.”

-Chelle from Tempting Persephone: “From the beginning, I wanted to rally behind Tris; I wanted to experience her pain and pride, her uncertainty and exhilaration, but felt removed from her instead. That sense of withdrawal had nothing to do with disliking her; Tris was a strong, stubborn heroine who was determined to justify and prove herself. It had nothing to do with her narrative voice, which was uncluttered and honest. But it had everything to do with the fact that her character didn’t engage my emotions. I’d love to be able to provide a reason why, or to give examples to validate that feeling, but I can’t. Tris and I, we just didn’t click.”

-Thea from The Book Smugglers: “Yes, a few of the things about the YA paranormal “dystopian” genre that generally piss me off are present here (i.e. the tepid insta-romance, the tendency for everyone to OMG LOVE AND WANT TO PROTECT! the little pretty protagonist, Tris). BUT! These annoyances are saved by an unconventional character choice, because Tris is not your usual Mary Sue. She’s selfish. She’s manipulative. She’s vindictive as hell – and I LOVED that about this book. I mean, at one point, when a character asks for her forgiveness, she coldly refuses. Really coldly. I mean, holy masked avenger, Batman. It’s brutal, but refreshing (since these heroines are so often little goody-two-shoes that forgive even the most heinous acts). I also loved that Tris gets seriously beat up, and while she does toughen up and become a better fighter, she never becomes an amazing badass-sharpshooting-ninja warrior, and that’s cool. I loved the believable tension between herself and her fellow initiates, the discrimination she feels as a “Stiff” (Abnegation-born), her anger with her family, and, most of all, how tough she has to become to survive and truly be dauntless and a divergent.”

-NotNessie from Ultimate Book Hound: “LOVED IT. A must read for dystopian fans and anyone who loves an exciting, high-stakes story.”

-Prophercygirl from Wondrous Reads: “Divergent was full of edge-of-your-seat action, and had handfuls of twists just waiting to be discovered. It was gripping in the best way, in that I’m-not-moving way that eats up a whole day and leaves you breathlessly in need of the sequel. Finishing Divergent reminded me of when I turned the last page of The Hunger Games for the first time, and all I could think about was either re-reading straight away or ambushing Suzanne Collins’ editor for the next book. If I could do that here, I so would. Veronica Roth has exploded onto the YA scene leaving a cloud of dust in her wake, and she deserves every minute of adoration that comes her way.”

Title:

Author: Carrie Ryan

Genre: post-apocalyptic zombie fiction

Pages: 310

Days to read: one

Synopsis and Impressions:

Imagine a zombie apocalypse happened. And people just weren’t careful enough in barricading themselves and saving their butts from being bitten (too busy throwing their delicious bodies into the mindless swarm whilst urging their loved ones to save themselves….) and infecting and thus fuelling the continuation of said apocalypse. Long after all the wisdom of gun and ammo production has been forgotten, and people are reduced to using sticks with pointy ends (and lots of handy axes) to fend off the shambling horde. And a very long time after the origin and making of chain-link fences has fallen into myth and legend.

And not only can they mutate to become faster at chasing and biting, the zombies in this book can hibernate so as to extend their living undeadness for a good while longer after the recommended expiration date so waiting it out is not the best option.

Such is Mary’s world. People stay within the safe perimeter of their gated settlement, doing farming and hanging out with friends and family and falling in love and getting hurt the normal ways one gets hurts (ie. falling off stout buildings and getting the occasional fractured limb). It’s a pretty decent life considering all the time they’re doing these mundane things their zombie neighbours are piling up outside and vandalizing their fences with all that gnawing and repetitive banging of withering limbs against it.

As the reanimated corpses salivate and claw at the barriers surrounding her, Mary is doing her laundry and holding hands with a nice boy who she only regards as a friend and trying to figure out if she should try to like him back or if she should try flirting with his brother for whom she has the hugest crush on. Typical teenager-y drama-stuff. Then the sirens wail and people start panicking and climbing up into treehouses and prematurely pulling up ladders and being douchebag survivalists (zombies can’t climb for Pete’s sake! Otherwise the fence would not stop them…). That’s when Mary remembers – how can she be so irresponsible! – she was supposed to give her Mother moral support during zombie visiting hours. Sure enough, her Mother’s gotten into trouble and now has the option of either killing herself prematurely before the zombie infection takes hold (she might secure a place on the family plot, then) or, becoming a zombie and someone having to behead her in such a state in the near future. Mother wanting to be with long-lost-to-zombies-Father, decides to do the latter. Her last words to Mary are about going to find the mythical ocean, because, of course, a forest full of shambling, mildly aggressive and very hungry dead things would prevent travels to foreign bodies of water. And also, it has yet to be proven to the forest-folk whether zombies can swim or not. This is only the beginning of Mary’s obsession about oceans.

There’s also a slightly alarming sisterhood of zombologist nuns that like to initiate their newbies to the world of nunnery by telling them about winemaking and then putting them into small enclosures for the purposes of scaring the crap out of them into dedicating their lives to serving God.

Aside from being mildly depressing, the book did bring up some interesting zombie-human dynamics. Mostly people wondering what it would feel like to become a zombie – hoping that somewhere deep inside of their primitivized and damaged brains, they could still recognize the faces of their loved ones? This is partly the reason why Mary’s mother decides to let herself become a zombie. Out of love. Kind of tragic. Also, Mary spends a lot of time looking at old photographs of happy carefree people and morbidly wondering if those very people are now grudgingly waiting for her to move out of their houses and stop wearing their clothes or just give them her brain as rent.

It can be pretty gloomy living in Mary’s as-yet-unzombified head. She’s one dissatisfied and unhappy person. She can’t figure out what her role is in her community and no one seems to understand her restlessness. Surprisingly, she doesn’t want to be a nun, and she doesn’t want to be a good housewife.  She labels herself as selfish and she’s not just saying that out of insecurity about herself. She almost always makes the choice that is better for herself and worst for the harmony of the community (according to the sisterhood, anyway). When things take a turn for the worst (zombies are persistent), Mary wants to go to the ocean. And she will go with or without the few people who still care about her. What the heck, Mary? Unless the ocean can decapitate, it will most likely be bringing up bloated, uglier undead (admittedly, watching Pirates of the Caribbeans has made me knowledgeable about this matter, though those were magicked zombies…).

“Mother?” I whisper at daybreak. There was a new moon last night and I spent the hours in the darkness listening to the rustling of dry leaves behind the fence, my mind imagining the worst possible scenarios. Every creak I heard was the fence breaking, every scratching the Unconsecrated finally finding weakness in the metal.

Now the air is gray and moist and I crawl on my hands and knees closer to the pen that holds my mother. She is there, in the middle of the ground and she is so still that for a moment I think she has died and is about to Return. Bile and terror rise in my throat but are trapped. I feel the need to scream but I am utterly silent with my mouth open and teeth bared.

My legs tangle in my skirts and I claw at the ground and am almost to the fence when I hear the Guardian behind me. I look back at him, pleading with him. “She is still alive,” I tell him, because I just know that she is. He looks over his shoulder into the mist and, seeing that we are alone, he nods as if giving me permission and I lace my fingers around the thin rusted metal of the fence, feeling its sharp cold edges bite into my palms.

“The ocean,” my mother mumurs. Sharp as a crack she whips her head around and I see that her eyes are wide and unfocused but lucid. She crawls toward me until our hands are linked together through the fence.

“The ocean, Mary, the ocean!” She is speaking so urgently now, her mouth moving rapidly. I am afraid that the Guardian will think she is crazy and has turned and that he will kill me but I can’t pull my hands back because my mother’s grip is too tight.

“So beautiful, the ocean.” She repeats the words over and over again, her eyes becoming bright with unshed tears. “The water, the waves, the sand, the salt!” She is shaking the fence now and it causes undulations to ripple outward to either side, the metal swaying back and forth. I am amazed that she has this strength; she has been dying for so many hours.

“It consumes me,” she says, her voice only a whisper.  She reaches one finger through the wire and strokes my wrist. “My little girl,” she tells me. “Do not forget my little girl.” Tears slip out of her eyes and I hear the Guardian shout behind me and then my mother slumps to the ground, her fingers slipping away from mine.

Clockwork by Philip Pullman

Phillip Pullman fiddles with the gears and rachets of a bit of fictional clockwork machinery to get a good story ticking. This is an awesome, slightly spooky little book that comes with curiously eerie black and white illustrations that look like the people in them are fading into the nothingness between the pigments…(artwork by Leonid Gore). There are technically several little stories in this book, but I can’t separate them at all. The first story is about a writer who basically pantzies it for the thrill of making stories up in front of drunk audiences that are eager for a good scare. There’s also a burned out and bitter apprentice clockmaker who has to come up with something amazing as his final test before his official induction into the clockworker’s guild. There’s a boy with certain strange problems and a girl who’s kind enough to help him. Somehow, by careful tweaking of pendulums and suspension springs and winding squares, Phillip Pullman links them together to make a delightfully suspenseful and cutsey creepy read.

“I was looking at one of the old clocks in the Science Museum in London one day, and I thought it would be fun to try and write a story in which one part turning this way connected to another part and made it turn that way, like cogwheels of a clock. And when it was all fitted closely together, I could wind it up and set it going.”

Pretty neat how it all works out. This one can be read in less than one hour but leaves lots of think about, particularly the nature of malfunctioning clockwork devices and the inevitable winding down of such things. Gak! I shouldn’t relate so much to a certain clockwork character…

Once upon a time (when time ran by clockwork) a strange event took place in a little German town. Actually, it was a series of events, all fitting together like the parts of a clock, and although each person saw a different part, no one saw the whole of it; but here it is, as well as I can tell it.

After that intro I was all ready to snuggle down with this book half-wishing I owned a grandfather clock.

(Rating: 4 black cats)

Mio My Son and The Brothers LionHeart by Astrid Lindgren (artwork by Ilon Wikland)

           There’s a whole world of comfort in reading Astrid Lindgren books. Bad things happen, but good and kindness and courage always win. ALWAYS. And bad dudes get pulverized by their own meanness.

Mio My Son is about a boy, Karl, who one day disappears from the quiet Stockholm neighbourhood where he lived with his couldn’t-care-less foster parents. This story could become very sad and pathetic from there – the kid’s all alone in a park, and nobody cares enough about him to go looking for him! – but instead, it becomes a grand adventure where everyone who matters is looking for him and have been waiting for him to return for years. It all starts when a nice lady asks him to run and do a small errand for her – deliver a card to a King in Farawayland! Karl gladly goes and one thing leads to another and he finds himself in this beautiful new place, where Fathers are loving and children ride ponies and play all day with awesome friends and eat glorious tasty food. But, just like all the other Astrid Lindgren books, things that appear perfect on day one don’t stay that way for long. Either the main character gets restless or he can’t ignore the secret unhappiness and nervousness of the folk around him. In this one, there’s some BIG evil that requires Karl to be braver than he ever thought he could be.

Did you listen to the radio on the fifteenth of October last year? Did you hear them asking for news of a boy who had disappeared? This is what they said: -

“The stockholm police are looking for nine-year-old Karl Anders Nilsson who has been missing from his home at Thirteen North Street since six p.m. on the day before yesterday. Karl Anders Nilsson has fair hair and blue eyes and at the time of his disappearance was wearing brown shorts, gray pullover, and a small red cap. Will anyone who can give information as to his whereabouts please communicate with the police?”

That is what they said. But no information was ever given about Karl Anders Nilsson. He disappeared completely, no one knew where. Nobody knows except me, for I am Karl Anders Nilsson.

(Rating: 4.5 whispering wells)

The Brothers LionHeart is a pretty unique story. It’s about a kid, also named Karl, who has a sickly disposition and is constantly bedridden. His older brother, Jonathan, however, is everything a brother could be. Jonathan looks like a little prince and behaves like an angel. Everyone loves Jonathan and Karl looks up to his older brother so much! When Karl hears one day that his sickness may mean that he will die young, Jonathan comforts him by telling him of a magical land far away from earth – called Nangiyala, a beautiful place full of cherry blossoms and idyllic farms, where people still sit around campfires and tell each other sagas. Jonathan paints such a lovely picture of Nangiyala that Karl is almost convinced it wouldn’t be so bad to die, the only thing is he would be apart from Jonathan, which he could never bear. Again, you might think the story gets really dark and sad, but that’s not the Lindgren way. This is where the fun and adventures begin, and big epic battles against terrible evils must be fought and small children must be brave. I really like this book – it just makes me feel so warm inside. The ending in particular was quite surprising, I don’t know exactly what to make of it, but the bond between the two brothers was very touching.

Now I’m going to tell you about my brother. My brother, Jonathan Lionheart, is the person I want to tell you about. I think it’s almost like a saga, and just a very little like a ghost story, and yet every word is true; though Jonathan and I are probably the only people who know that.

Jonathan’s name wasn’t Lionheart from the start. His surname was Lion, just like Mother’s and mine. Jonathan Lion was his name. My name is Karl Lion and Mother’s is Sigrid Lion. Father was Axel Lion, but he went to sea and we have never heard from him since.

But what I was going to tell you was how it came about that my brother Jonathan became Jonathan Lionheart, and all the strange things that happened after that.

Jonathan knew that I was soon going to die. I think everyone knew except for me. They knew at school, too, because I was away most of the time, coughing and always being ill. For the last six months, I haven’t been able to go to school at all. All the ladies Mother sews dresses for knew it, too, and it was one of them who was talking to Mother about it when I happened to hear, although I wasn’t meant to. They thought I was asleep. But I was just lying there with my eyes closed. And I went on lying there like that, because I didn’t want them to see that I had heard that terrible thing – that I was soon going to die.

I was sad, of course, and terribly afraid, and I didn’t want Mother to see that. But I talked to Jonathan about it, when he came home.

“Did you know I was going to die?” I said, and I wept.

Jonathan thought for a moment. Perhaps he didn’t really want to answer, but in the end he said:

“Yes, I know.”

Then I cried even more.

“How can things be so terrible,” I asked. “How can things be so terrible that some people have to die, when they’re not even ten years old?”

“You know, Rusky, I don’t think it’s that terrible,’ said Jonathan. “I think you’ll have a marvellous time.”

“Marvellous,” I said. “Is it marvellous to lie under the ground and be dead?”

“Oh,” said Jonathan. “It’s only your shell that lies there, you know? You yourself fly away somewhere quite different.”

“Where?” I asked, because I could hardly believe him.

“To Nangiyala,” he said.

To Nangiyala – he just threw out the word as if it were something everyone in the world knew. But at the time, I had never heard it mentioned before.

“Nangiyala?” I said. “Where’s that?”

(Rating: 4.5 Tengilmen)

I always almost want to cry whilst reading an Astrid Lindgren book but at the same time feel loved and taken care of and off dreaming nostalgically of childhood. Kind of gives me the same vibes as that Shel Silverstein poem about ” The Giving Tree”…

Hello everyone! I will be away this weekend and well into middle of next week doing fun outdoorsy stuff where probably a computer will not be very useful (but I will be reading, of course, so reviews will likely be upcoming!).

In the meantime if you like zombies chasing you for your brains you might like this. Also, my brother recently finished that Battlestar Galactica series and I asked him to write a review to post on my blog so here it is:

Battlestar Galactica – a typical Sci-fi series? I think not. 

Hi all. I’ve recently concluded the last of 4 seasons of Battlestar Galactica, which I really can’t get out of my head. I have to say, this is one of the best TV series I’ve ever watched. With elements of political intrigue, mystery, drama, romance, action, religion, philosophy and spirituality, it packs plenty of brain food and is not your typical pew pew fire the lasers sci-fi.

First off, the story is deeply rooted in realism. Although humanity has reached a certain level of technological advancement, it isn’t overdone. You don’t get that detached feeling that often breaks your suspension of disbelief. For instance in Star Trek, (no offence to you trekkies out there, I’ve watched a few season here and there myself), your brain has to cope with the fact that the universe is a messy, messy place with thousands of species of all shapes and sizes. I mean, the crew of several ships are composed of guys with ridged foreheads, cyborgs and all other manner of strange alien species for goodness’ sake.

In Battlestar, there is a clean dichotomy between two species: humans, and their creations, the Cylons. There are no lasers or phasers, shields or cloaking devices; just good old artillery and bullets, which is oddly comforting in a way. Hearing the muffled whirr of artillery being fired in space, or seeing a nuclear warhead soundlessly detonate is something that can strangely be related to on a visceral level.

On the subject of visuals, many sci-fi series or movies fall short. To create futuristic technology and sets is a daunting challenge, especially on the shoestring budget that many TV series are unfortunately allotted. On many levels I can relate to how these people feel. Many times i’ve felt majorly turned off and sometimes even disgusted with the way some science fiction or fantasy books have been interpreted on screen, even knowing that the production crew did the best they could on the budget they had. I can tell you one thing though, the visuals on Battlestar will not let you down. Simply put, they are visually stunning and will serve to awaken your imagination.

Visuals are just the tip of the iceberg though, in terms of elements that make this show work. It is primarily a character centric show, and over the various episodes, I can honestly say that I started to bond with many of the characters. I’ve watched many series in my life, and most of the time when somebody dies it’s like oh, now he’s dead. ok… moving on. I attribute this to the suspension of disbelief that I was talking about. I understand that characters need to be killed off in unbelievable ways sometimes, but often it’s just the script writers’ way of adding more unneeded drama to the show or simply to break monotony… and frack that kind of scriptwriting! In Battlestar people die, but the suspense of disbelief is not broken. People die because of events which have long been leading up to their deaths, or due to unforeseen events just like in real life! Because of this, you are able to bond with the characters knowing that their lives and deaths will be considered in a careful manner, and that they will not be disposed of at the scriptwriter’s whim. Anyways, i’ve been blabbing on and on -don’t even get me started on the awesome soundtrack accompanying and complementing the show.

There is so much more to say about the story, characters and themes but in the end, it is really something that you just have to experience for yourself!