It's Getting REAL Bad...And Disappointments

Chris did a bad, bad thing...not really. I went to Barnes and Noble. I did good though. I only bought three books and didn't spend a lot of money at all. The sign that it's getting bad though is that I'm buying books that I've already read and own! I bought another copy of Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys because this one just looked so cool and it has a built in blue silk bookmark and it was only $5.98! I had to have it :p

I picked up Jasper Fforde's The Big Over Easy off the bargain table as well. I've been wanting to read this one for awhile too. It is an investigation into the murder of Humpty Dumpty and is the first book in his Nursery Crimes series. I know a lot of people who were disappointed by this book, but I had a friend who loved it, so I'll give it a try.

Finally, I picked up Stephen King's new book, Blaze which is written by his "alter-ego" Richard Bachman. Should be interesting. Sounds like typical King. I usually enjoy his books. Plus I had a coupon from B&N in my email for this one, so it was pretty cheap as well.

Now, the reason for me going to Barnes and Noble to begin with was because Amazon told me that today was the day when the new, hardcover, Charles Vess illustrated version of Neil Gaiman's Stardust was going to come out. So of course, I hardly got any sleep last night. It was like Christmas eve to me. Did it come out today...NO! I had this big post plan where there was going to be pictures of the book with poppets looking up and Handel's Messiah playing in the background while your computer radiated a yellow glow and Yvaine would fall from the sky and plant a kiss on you (or for you ladies, Tristran would stumble through the door and fall into your lap and plant a kiss on you) and all would be well in the world. But I'm sorry kind readers, none of that can happen, because the book is not available today.

I leave you with two other things that upset me. Darla D. wrote a post yesterday about the banning of a summer library program for children that sounded amazing. Read about it here. Made me very upset. Stephanie wrote a post today about this horrible article that once again visited the debate of book bloggers vs. "professional" book reviewers. Read that one here. Also upset me.

Good day to all of you!

And right as I was about to hit "Publish Post", all these came in the mail :D This was the under $30 pile I mentioned last week!

Cell by Stephen King

Cell phones. Everyone has one these days and it seems that the world couldn't function without them anymore. Suspend disbelief for a second. Imagine a new wave of terrorism where a terrorist could create a program that sent an electronic pulse through a cell phone that reprogrammed the human mind and caused pure chaos. Wiped the hard drive clean in a way leaving only man's most primal urges...the urge to kill. Scary thought. Though it could never happen in real life no matter how you look at it, it's still a scary end to the world, and would be a widely effective means of doing so. And that's why this is a work of fiction, and very good fiction at that I might add.

I must say that Stephen King has really improved as of late as a writer. I used to like King occasionally, but thought of him as kind of a joke (though there are a few masterpieces like The Shining in his collection). His latest two books, Cell and Lisey's Story, are wonderful though. King has gotten a much better feel for character development, and I find that I attach really closely to his characters. Several parts of this book almost managed to choke me up.

On October 1st, Clay Ridell is walking around in the heart of Boston after having his comic book finally accepted for publication. While waiting to get ice cream, a woman hangs up her cell phone and goes mad, biting and killing a man. Suddenly this erupts all around him and in a matter of minutes (we're talking everyone who has a cell phone), the apocalypse seems to begin. "The Pulse" has erased everyone's mind and eventually forms a telepathic link between all of "the phonies". Clay meets up some of the few who don't have cell phones and the book follows them struggling to survive and find ways to save the world. While trying to save the world, Clay is constantly on the look out for his young boy who owns a cell phone but may or may not have had it with him at the time that the pulse started. It is eventually discovered that "the phonies" "reboot" at night by "sleeping" in fields in masses and listening to elevator music. Opportunity strikes, but of course salvation is not an easy task.

So that's a very non-descript description of the book, but I don't want to give anything away. What I really liked about this book, is that it's the first real piece of Science Fiction that I have read by King, and I was very pleasantly surprised. This book looked incredibly stupid to me, I must admit, but it was a present from my brother so I figured I'd read it. I'm really glad I did. More than anything it feels like a really great, classic zombie story with a modern twist. It's not all blood and guts though (though there is certainly alot of that), it's also a very human and very touching story.

I never thought that I'd be recommending Stephen King twice in one year, but I do highly recommend this book. It's a wonderful read that is constantly engaging. Not much filler in here. My only complaints are that not enough closure is gained at the end (for me anyway), and we're never told about who or what created the pulse in the first place, though we can assume that it was a terrorist attack. Maybe a follow-up short story would be nice. Give it a shot, it's great.

One more interesting piece of knowledge - at the end of the book, it is announced that Stephen King does not own a cell phone.

I Love DVR

This is a post about nothing really. I just feel like blogging, so I decided that I shall just type and see what spills out onto the computer screen.

I have a new love in my life and her name is DVR (Yes, I'm a tad delirious from a very long day). In fact, I am currently DVR-ing Heroes even though I could probably just watch it now rather than recording it and watching it later. Now there's no more worrying about having to possibly skip class late on Monday nights to watch Heroes (yes I'm that addicted to this show). Heroes truly is a wonderful show. It's like a new Marvel movie every week. I was so excited when Marvel started doing all of their movies, now I get a new live action comic book every week. I love the art in Heroes that Isaac does. He would be the really cool guy who's eyes roll back in his head as he paints the future. The artist who actually does the paintings is named Tim Sale. I'd like to see more of his work.

I'm currently reading Cell by Stephen King, and I must say that it is much better than I thought it would be. I pictured a trapped in a phone booth kind of book, but it's totally not that. It's actually a really great zombie story so far. My little brother got it for me as a christmas gift when he saw that I was reading Lisey's Story. I didn't know if I would like it, but it's really good so far. I've never considered myself a Stephen King fan, but these latest books are great. Sure they're a little pulpy, but still a fun read.

Dinner time. Hope everyone's week got off to an ok start...mine was just long, and tomorrow will be longer.