Monthly Recap - December 2012

I did a few book reviews in December. These were for these books:

• Catastrophically Consequential by Stephen C. Bird
• Kate Winslet reads Mr Gum and the Biscuit Billionaire
• Kate Winslet reads Mr Gum and the Goblins
• Geekhood: Close Encounters of the Girl Kind by Andy Robb
• Bedtime Little Ones! by Claire Freedman
• The Odds by Adam Perrott
• Stormdancer: The Lotus War Book 1 by Jay Kristoff
• Cinderella's Secret Diary by Faye Hanson
• Bond on Bond by Roger Moore

And a couple of book that are on my reading list for 2013:

Bond on Bond by Roger Moore

Who better to provide an insight into James Bond, and we are talking about the movie James Bond in particular, than one of the actors to have played James Bond? Well maybe all six of them but instead you'll have to make do with just Roger Moore's version of the story. Obviously that means that his films have the best coverage (and Daniel Craig's probably the least), with some good anecdotes in amongst the facts. It also means that you'll have to make do with Roger Moore's writing style, which is a little bit like his James Bond style of being light-hearted and jocular, but fine by me.

There are a number of chapters here, some better than the others. Obviously things like the villains, the girls, the cars etc are covered. The gadgets chapter wasn't necessarily the most interesting with bits being like reading a technical manual, but the chapters on the people, like the girls, or the insights into the filming schedule were much more entertaining. However, Moore being the gentleman, does keep some of the leading lady anecdotes anonymous.

There are glossy pictures throughout to accompany all the text and at the end you have pictures of all the posters from the films (up to Quantum of Solace) with the details of the films such as budget and takings.

Of course if you are an avid collector of Bond stuff you may have seen much of this before but for me it was a good Christmas present to read and look at.

This book is listed on Amazon UK HERE.

Cinderella's Secret Diary by Faye Hanson

Everyone is familiar with the Cinderella story. Plus there are so many versions of it in book form. So how do you put a fresh spin on it? Well, this secret diary is that fresh approach.

My 6-year-old daughter loves this book. She loved it before we even read it. This is because it is like a scrapbook throughout with Cinderella putting in a lot of keepsakes of her time being treated like a slave by her stepmother and ugly stepsisters, and among the keepsakes are some that you can remove - Cinderella's invite to the ball, a paper tiara and a paper folding make-up mirror. It looks beautiful. Also the opening page is clever in that it says "This book belongs to..." with the ... being filled in with Cinderella and she likes that.

Then we read the story which is very well done, although the entries are not the longest. It comes across how quickly things happen between Cinderella's dad and the stepmother, how quickly things change for her, how much work the ugly sisters and the step mother are making Cinderella do and the hardship she is suffering. Then there are extended entries covering the day of the ball and the events after happen so quickly to give us the happy ending.

Perhaps it is a little short but fairy tales are, and this is so well presented, and little girls love secret things don't they, so what's not to like?

A little snippet of the artwork inside

This book is listed on Amazon UK HERE.

Stormdancer: The Lotus War (Book 1) by Jay Kristoff

UK edition

US edition

In this fantasy world Stormdancers are warriors of old who according to legend rode into battle on thunder-tigers, or griffons. But those days are gone and thunder-tigers are now thought to be a myth. However that is until a shogun sends his chief hunter Masaru out on a mission to catch one. For Masaru this represents a change from his normal life of drinking and smoking as he drowns away the bad memories - he would be out hunting but the animals are pretty much gone because of the way the country is run on the blood lotus plant, a plant that pollutes the land but is useful to the shogun for the steampunk machinery in the book, and the stormtrooper like guildsmen it runs, as well as providing the weed that the populace smoke.

So Masaru goes on the mission with his 16-year-old daughter Yukiko, and others, in a sky-ship and they capture one, but because it is a thunder-tiger they had to go into a storm to get it and the storm sets fire to their hydrogen-filled ship. Yukiko though stays with the thunder-tiger and releases him from his cage, as well as befriending him as they spend time together on land as he is grounded thanks to the cuts to his wings that were inflicted in capturing him. She does this through her power that allows her to get into the mind of animals, a power that would lead to her death if the guild knew.

Together they get to learn the real story of their country and the real tale of their leader. They then set about trying to assassinate him.

So that is the plot. There is also a love-interest between lead-character Yukiko and one of the shogun's guards, but that wasn't all too convincing to be honest. Yukiko had moments thinking about the green-eyed guard who she only glanced at one-time near the beginning of the book, and based on this one glance it seems a bit of an unlikely happening. Obviously they meet later. Also unconvincing was the fear that Yukiko felt when caught by a renegade group of anti-shogun countrymen she meets in the wilds of the mountainous north when they do nothing really to make her fear them.

And one other gripe I had with the book was that the map at the beginning of capital city Kigen had a hexagonal building for the chapterhouse when throughout the text it was always referred to as having 5-sides.

Also the book does take a few pages to get into. Not only is the book set in a fantasy world you need to learn, it is also a Japanese style world. There is a glossary at the end of the book which can help with this, which I only found out at the end, and the world is worth getting into because the story is good.

The book is designed well with the maps at the beginning, the clan logos that are atop the chapters, the way the text indicates the thunder-tiger talking to the girl and so on. The story is a well-written story and has been set up for future adventures to occur in this world, although this book is perfectly good as a stand-alone with a satisfying ending.

I may well check out future novels in the series.

Found this fantastic art at: http://genzoman.deviantart.com/art/Stormdancer-284860432

And the video trailer:

This book is listed on Amazon UK HERE.

The Odds by Adam Perott

At first I thought this book would be a bit like The Borrowers, with small people going around "misplacing" things. It is actually about a family of Meddlers (or Pranksters) called the Odds, and Meddlers are "about as tall as a medium-sized garden gate".

At first the Odds played tricks on each other before they going off on their separate ways to play individual pranks individually, e.g. the children Edgar and Elsie playing tricks at their school, before reconvening. That is the first half of the book and it felt a lot like Monty Python and the Holy Grail in its structure up to here without much of a plot and just things happening very separately. Then the second half had them come back together because Mr Odd had discovered that the Plopwells of Snootypants Manor were plotting to bulldoze the Odds street to replace it with a supermarket. This meant that instead of pranking separately and against each other they would need to work (or prank) together to get the Plopwells to stop, but whatever pranks they pulled just didn't seem to work. Things then come to a head in the chapter "To prank the unprankable foe".

There are drawings throughout the book to accompany the text, a map of the town Trott at the beginning, and a multiple-choice set of questions at the end to determine how much of a meddler you are. I read it with my 6-year-old daughter. Her favourite bits were the map, the questionnaire, and some of the bits that made her chuckle in the story, but overall she wasn't too interested which makes me think that with all the pranking going on this book would be better suited for boys.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

The Odds will return in "The Odds Strike Back!"

Bedtime Little Ones! by Claire Freedman and Gail Yerrill

This is a well drawn rhyming book written for bedtimes. However with sparkly bits on every page this distracts little ones from sleeping as they try to feel them instead of drifting off to sleep. Or maybe this is the point because the story is about some animals going to sleep whilst some others struggle to keep awake.

Anyway a rhyming tale, taking perhaps 2-3 minutes to read, about animals going off to sleep. Whether it is better than all the other many books out there with the same theme I wouldn't be able to say.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Geekhood: Close Encounters of the Girl Kind by Andy Robb

Geekhood is essentially about finding out that it is best to be yourself, even if you are a geek in which case embrace your inner-geek.

Archie is the 14-year-old hero of the story. He terms himself a geek, and he has issues. His inner monologue is constantly talking to him, mainly to belittle him. Later he comes into contact with a girl, and for a geek he builds this up into something big, even trying to change himself for her by honing his psychic self. And through this and the impact it seems to be having on him and his life he realises, perhaps, that it is better just to be yourself.

The book contains humour, mainly through the teasing of Archie's inner monologue and the banter from his close band of geeky friends. I wouldn't say Archie comes across as a geek in the traditional glasses and inability to communicate sense though, but then you can define geek as whatever you want probably (there is a good opinion put forward in the book on this).

I enjoyed the book and it made me chuckle in places. It would probably suit young men from 13-years up. 

http://www.geekhood.co.uk/

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Kate Winslet reads Mr Gum and the Goblins

This is a review for the audio CD of "Mr Gum and the Goblins". The story is split over two CDs with running time of 1hr20. I put them on for my nearly 6-year-old daughter who loves them. Here are her quotes:

"It was super."

Why?

"Because we heard about granny and I liked it when she takes a sip of cherry, and she talks to Danny who lives in Australia on the phone and asks is it great to be old, and Danny says yes."

What else?

"Polly found the 200 people who ran away in September, and they were goblins. Mr. Gum and Billy Williams spied on them and they pretended to be the the Goblin King and the Burger Wizard because they wanted to make Polly's favourite town into Goblin City."

Anything else?

"At the end Polly said it was a big, piggy feast."

So you can see the sort of ideas that are in the book, and how it is good for children's imagination.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Kate Winslet reads Mr Gum and the Biscuit Billionaire

This is a review for the audio CD of "You're a Bad Man, Mr Gum." The story is split over two CDs with running time of 1hr20. I put them on for my nearly 6-year-old daughter who loves them. Here are her quotes:

"It was great. I love it. It was super."

Why?

"Because when the man in the moon tried to eat the shooting star he nearly ate it, but he missed."

What else?

"When everyone celebrated the festival of leaves because it was the first day of autumn."

Anything else?

"The pretty ladies dancing were silly because the teacher was telling them to dance silly."

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Catastrophically Consequential by Stephen C. Bird

I won this book in a Goodreads First Reads contest.

This is not a book with a plot. Rather each chapter is a little story. And the experimental nature of them totally ruined them for me.

The first chapter was fine, a story about a guy having flashbacks, although it could have been fleshed out a bit.

Then the second chapter is where things start to go wrong as it contains wacky character names, and over-the-top place names, that they take over the story ruining it in my opinion, but that is nothing compared to the next two chapters which are written in an accent that I couldn’t work out decisively, and that made these chapters near unreadable.

The fifth chapter reverses the trend and gives a little story with inspired character names, Mannequin Streetwalker, inspired presumably from a similarly named Star Wars character, but whose nature very much matches her name. But again the story could have been fleshed out.

And then the remaining nine chapters descend into stream-of-consciousness nonsense with wacky place and character names remaining. It was a bore to follow, and even then I didn't.

Not even the cover is good.

(This book is available on Amazon here.)