Rant: Book to Movie Adaptations

I have 2 passions in life - reading books and watching movies/TV series. And these 2 passions of mine cross paths when an adaptation is made of the books on film. And being a human being I have an opinion about it.

Let me answer the fundamental question of what I think of Book adaptations - I am for them. I like quite a few of them actually. I'll explain why.

I know there are a lot of people that do not enjoy the book adaptations that are made. This is mostly because of the strongly held belief that a movie is never as good as the book. I agree with it too. But that has never stopped me from liking the movies that have been based off of books. I try to look at a movie as a different entity altogether. Of course I do not always succeed at this.

Let me take example of what  think are adaptations that suck and get them out of the way before I start stating why I actually like adaptations.

• Let's start off with Eragon. This movie was based off of the series by Christopher Paolini. I loved this series when it had come out. I saved up money to buy the books in this series. I was so excited when I found out there was a movie coming out and then I watched the movie. I hated it. It was nothing like the book. I lost interest in the books too and have till date, not read the last book in the series. 

• Then there's Twilight. A lot of people might say they hated the books but let's not kid ourselves. This series is one of the guilty pleasure reads for a lot of us. It is a series that has made a lot of people start reading or get back in to reading, like it did with me. But the movies did not even live up to the books. The major issue with this adaptation was the acting. 

So an adaptation might be ruined because of the inability to cover the story in 2 hours or because of wrong casting choices or even because the reworked screenplay has very little to do with the book. Sometimes the whole character gets changed or cut from the adaptations.

Now let me give examples of book adaptations that make me say that I like movie adaptations.

• No list would be complete without Lord of the Rings. If ever someone needs to learn how to make an epic fantasy movie from a book, this is how its done. It stayed true to the characters and the world. That is not to say that a few liberties were not take with the screenplay, Arwen did not appear a lot in the book, but that was handled beautifully in the form of dreams/visions Aragorn has. There were a lot of things in the books that were left out in the movie but that was OK because the movie in and of itself was enough. This is a movie which can be watched without having read the books and that is a huge plus.

• Another series that has to appear on this list to make it complete is the Harry Potter series. I have to admit that looking back the movies started getting better from the 3rd one onwards. The first two movies look a bit too kiddy for me now. Nut keep in mind that I am now (for all intents and purposes) a grown up now. But for those of you who like their book to movie adaptations to stick to the story in the books this is perfect. I cannot think of Ron, Hermione the Weasley twins or anyone else without associating them with the actors from the movies. This is a series that I grew up with. It holds a very special place in my heart and the movies did justice to that.

• To Kill a Mockingbird is a movie that made me pick up the book. And this was a beautiful story. There was an element of mystery, drama, familial love and it touched upon racism too. 

•  The Shining was a movie which chose to take a different tack than the one taken in the book. Though the basic premise was the same the story was not completely as the one Stephen King wrote. When it comes to this movie and book I look at them as something that is completely separate and different. I love both of them in their respective mediums.

• The Green Mile and the Shawshank Redemption are other Stephen King books that have been made in to a movie (its actually a lot easier to list books of Stephen King that have not made it to the screen than the other way round)

• 2001 : A Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke is one of my favorite Sci-Fi series. I reread this book every couple of years. For a science fiction movie that was made in the '70's it was very well made.

There has been a recent rise in a lot of YA books being made in to movies which is great as a lot of people would then learn of the fact that they are in fact originally books and read them. But it feels like it has become a trend to just make a movie out of the books on the best seller lists. And a lot of the movies are not made in 1 part but are made in 2 parts, especially the last movie in a series. An example being Breaking dawn or even Hobbit. I would love the movies to be made because the content is great and they actually plan on making a good movie, and not to cash in on the controversy surrounding a book or the fact that it is a best seller. 

But all in all, as in all things in life, there are good things and bad things when in comes to Book to Movie adaptations. But I tend to look at the good rather than the bad. 

Things I Hate About Reading

I Know! I Know!I just wrote a post about me Loving books, why am I saying there are some things I hate about it? Well it's more of a Love/Hate relationship that I have with reading. So after having listed down the positives I thought I'd list down a few negatives as not anyone can take the negative effects of reading -

1. You finally find a book that you really LOVE, with the characters that are fully fleshed out and the world building that is epic and then once you are done reading it's DONE. That's it. You no longer get to know what happens with them, how the protagonist you invested so much time in lives after he/she overcomes whatever obstacles they had. I do not get to read about how they live after. I mean after having read all those pages about how the protagonist overcame his/her circumstances to live their life in peace, we do not get to see any of this peace. Especially Harry Potter. I would have liked to read about Ron proposing to Hermione, or Harry to Ginny, how George coped with Fred's loss and a lot more. 
2. I love book series. But I also hate them. Why? Because if it is a series that is still not complete I have to depend on the kindness of the author to release the next book early. But does that happen? No. So we have to wait so loooong before a book comes out. Like the next part in the Throne of Glass series, Lunar Chronicles, Game of Thrones and many more.
3. Finances. That's another thing. I always need to buy books but my bank balance says I can't. Partly because a lot of the books I want to read are not available here in India or are imported so I'd have to shell a lot of money for them. And not being able to buy them makes me depressed. It's kind of an addiction.
4. Another downside of this attachment to reading is the Reading Slumps. I think it should go into the medical dictionary. It is the worst feeling ever. I am currently in a Reading Slump and I just pick up a book and not finish it. I want to read a book but my brain just will not let me. Some slumps last for a week and some a few months. Thankfully I haven't had a slump last a few months since college. 

These are the negatives of reading. There might be more but these are the most problematic ones. If anyone is reading this do tell me if you have anything that you "hate" about reading.

Rant: What Reading has done for me

I have always been a reader. When I was a kid it was books by Enid Blyton and now that I am older I still read her books along with a few other. Reading has always given me a sense of peace. My parents encouraged me to read when I was young.

I was not a child that enjoyed playing with dolls or playing house. I tended to only be friends with people that I had known for a long period of time as I did not make friends very easily (that is not entirely true today). I was never completely at home with the friends I made at school. I think they felt it too and I wasn't necessarily close to anyone in school. I don’t mean I don’t have any friends from school, I still keep in contact with quite a few of them, but none of them were my “Best Friend”. There was no one that I could really open up to. This is where reading helped me the most. I mean improving my vocabulary and giving me confidence in the language is all well and good but it also gave me the ability to create worlds in my head where I didn't feel as awkward, where even my awkwardness was a prized quality.

I do not remember the first book I read. But I think I can tell when my love for stories, which later extended to love for books, began. When I was young, maybe 3 years old or so, I remember my mother sitting me down and teaching me Shlokas (religious poems) and telling me their meanings. She also used to tell me and my sister a few years later, stories from the Mahabharatha and Ramayana. The stories were so rich with characters and the world full of great heroes and villains that I fell in love with it.

I guess I gradually went on to read fairy tales and other children’s books like the ones by Enid Blyton and Franklin W. Dixon. I read of kids my age, who were not unlike me, that went on adventures. I mean who wouldn't want to have a Magic tree in the backyard that was inhabited by wonderful creatures or find lost treasure and catch bad guys? I used to put myself in the same situation that my favorite characters were in, not as the characters but as one of their friends.

As time went on I read more books. I discovered Lord of the Rings, one of my favorite series of all time. I also fell in love with Harry Potter. I have never restricted myself to a genre. I've read Horror (mostly Dean Koontz and Stephen King books), Sci-Fi (Asimov, Clarke etc.), romance (Julia Garwood), Thrillers (Patterson, Deaver), Crime (Agatha Christie) and many more. Each book egged on my growing imagination. When I get bored I just go into a world that I had read about or even mix them up. I make up different scenarios in my head where characters from different books meet.

This love for reading that seemed like something that made me an outsider among people suddenly became something that I shared as something in common in college. I met a friend who loved reading as much as I did, though she was not necessarily someone who would fangirl. But suddenly I had someone to talk to about books. And this made reading all the more precious to me.

By the time I passed out of college and got a job I had discovered different mediums on the internet through which I could express my love for reading and also meet and interact with people that share the same interests as me. I got introduced to Booktube on YouTube, blogs and Bookstagram on Instagram. I have made great friends especially through Instagram and have finally connected (online) to people in the same country and even city as me. We might actually plan on getting together sometime soon.

This is what reading has done for me. It has given me a great imagination, albeit a weird one, great friends – in real life and otherwise and it hss also made me write, which I am not that great at but if the protagonists of books have taught me anything, it is to never give up.

Book Rant: Classic Literature

As previously mentioned in another post of mine, I have this habit of reading from the same genre continuously if I find that I loved one book from the same genre. A while back it was Zombie/post Apocalyptic books and then it was dystopian. I think it's going to be the 'Classics' this time round. I just finished reading H.G. Well's The Island of Dr Moreau, War of the Worlds & The Invisible Man and also Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice and Frances Burnett.

In addition to reading a lot of classics I've suddenly bought quite a few of them. And I've bought the Penguin English Library collection that have beautiful covers. I now own the 3 books mentioned above and Persuasion & Emma by Jane Austen, David Copperfield & A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Fairy Tales by Hans christian Andersen and  Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. And the best part about classics is that there's always an edition that is not hard on your wallet. So rest assured that I did not spend a lot of money on these books.(Though it does depend on what you would define as "not a lot of money")

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H.G. Wells Books

I read 3 of H.G. Wells' books - The Island of Dr Moreau, War of the Worlds & The Invisible Man. He has also written The Time Machine but I somehow could not finish it at this point in time. I got distracted by other books. So let us talk about the 3 books I did read. If I had to rank the 3 books I did read The Invisible Man would be ranked 3rd, The Island of Dr Moreau would be 2nd and the War of the Worlds would be 1st.

The Invisible Man was an enjoyable enough story but I just could not relate to the Main Character (MC) at all. I found that the other 2 books that I read were far more interesting than this book. One other reason could be that I loved the Hollow Man better.

I want to talk about the Island of Dr Moreau and War of the Worlds together. Now these stories were very interesting to the say the least. What bowled me over was that these books were set in the late 19th or early 20th century. And they are Science Fiction!! I loved the conflict the MC goes through in Moreau and the narration in War of the Worlds was just Amazing. War of the Worlds was like a Steam punk novel before there was any Steam punk. Both these books, in my opinion, will always be relevant. It is not hampered by time. I mean these books talk about aliens and genetic modification.

I would recommend these books to anyone who loves Science Fiction.

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Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

There are some books that I always go back to re-read. Pride & Prejudice is one of them. I finally bought a copy of my own and it is the beautiful Penguin English Library edition. I have always loved Liz Bennett and Darcy. This time around I felt I understood Darcy more than I did Liz. The last time I had read this book I was as indignant as Liz with Darcy, I mean in my eyes he was an arrogant jerk. But this time around I could see the circumstances through his perspective.

This is what makes me re-read books. The books kinda change for you as you grow older. There is always something new that you can glean from a story, a new perspective at the least. And the romance... It's just perfect. This is why the book is a classic. I would recommend this book to everyone - especially to people who hate insta-love.

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Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

I had read the abridged version of this book when I was a lot younger. So when I got my hands on the unabridged version of this book I pounced on it. I had watched the movie adaptation of the book too. As it has been over a decade since I had read this book it was like I was reading it for the first time.

It was a different feeling reading this book as an adult. I found Mary to be spoiled, at least in the first half of the book. I mean the author herself states so. The story portrays her changing from a self-centered spoilt brat to a pretty agreeable child. I also love the depiction of the moor in this book. I could just visualize the scenery and the garden. Reading this time made me appreciate the writing more than the actual story. But if I were still in school I would have loved this book as much as all the Enid Blyton books I read when I was younger.

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I can tell you one thing, reading the classics wins you brownie points from your parents and also makes you seem very intellectual. This could be because people think that reading something that was written more than a 100 years ago automatically makes you smart. I mean the War of the World is not all that different from the Sci-Fi of today but its got the advantage of age on its side.

I would like to read Little Women and Jane Eyre next. Maybe not immediately but I would definitely read them in the next couple of months.

Book Review: Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

Soooo... I though I would get back to reviewing books by reviewing a book that had a very different approach. And for that I chose Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion. I heard of this book after the movie came out. And for some reason I held out on watching the movie before reading this book. That was a great decision.

'R' is a zombie. He has no name, no memories, and no pulse, but he has dreams. He is a little different from his fellow Dead. Amongst the ruins of an abandoned city, R meets a girl. Her name is Julie and she is the opposite of everything he knows - warm and bright and very much alive, she is a blast of colour in a dreary grey landscape. For reasons he can't understand, R chooses to save Julie instead of eating her, and a tense yet strangely tender relationship begins. This has never happened before. It breaks the rules and defies logic, but R is no longer content with life in the grave. He wants to breathe again, he wants to live, and Julie wants to help him. But their grim, rotting world won't be changed without a fight...

As you can tell from the synopsis, this is a zombie story. What attracted me to this book was that this was a zombie story told through a zombie's perspective. That in itself was a winning plot in my mind. I admit that R is already a different kind of zombie when it comes to the others. He actually thinks. But what was even more interesting was that the zombies were not as mindless as we would assume. The zombies actually had a sort of society. It was like they were a community - they had a place of worship, a school, of course a school where they taught the young how to kill humans but a school none the less and they also had a concept of marriage.

One of the things that Marion made clear early on was that the zombies ate not because they felt hungry for nutrition but they just felt hungry with something other than their stomach. They could relive a persons memory by eating their brains. This is important because this shows that even though they were the living dead, they were trying to experience the life force by eating brains, by having those concepts of humanity that you would think that the living dead might not have. 

When R attacks Perry, a member of a salvage team, and eats his brains something happens. He suddenly decides to save Julie, another member of the team and girl friend of Perry, and takes her with him to his home at the airport. it is through his interactions with her that he sees the changes that happen. He starts speaking longer sentences, he doesn't feel as hungry as before and so on. Another change is that he starts dreaming. It is just Perry's memories at first but he slowly starts dreaming his own dreams. 

On the other end of the spectrum are the Living who have walled up a stadium and are living inside of it. The Living are barely surviving. They guard their borders, send out salvage teams to get necessary items, teach the children to hunt and kill the zombies. The people in charge think it more important to just keep fighting instead of preserving life. It is from this environment that Julie, Perry and their friends hail. There is a part in the book where Julie asks her friends what they dream of doing. Perry, who wanted to previously wanted to be a writer does not see a point in it anymore, he doesn't understand whom it would benefit. What would be the point of writing a story in a world that is in its last leg? This is how the living live now. They live to survive. The zombies were just the last nail in the coffin to a world already ravaged  with wars before the plague.

In the end the dead are more closer to living than the Living are. The dead are moving towards reclaiming all that they had lost in this plague but the Living have lost touch with all the good parts of being human and are just wrapped up, not in hate, but in fear and fear has always brought out the worst in us humans. 

That is why this book isn't just a zombie book. It is more than that. Even I did not expect such deep messages from this book. I mean it's such a small book too. Just 240 pages long. But it packs such a punch. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I loved it that it made me think so much. If anyone is hesitant to pick this book up because it has got zombies and the like, don't be. It's just that the setting is such that there are zombies. 

I rate this book a 4.5/5

Travelling...Via books

Whenever someone gets asked a question on what their hobbies are, the stock set of answers are: I love reading, I love music, I love travel and so on. I am not going to comment on the reading bit, because hello, this is a blog where I talk about books (and movies and other things, but mainly books). And I will maybe tackle music another day but I would like to talk about traveling as a hobby.

Someone recently asked me if I liked to travel, and I answered saying yes. And I do like traveling, especially with friends and family (right now more with friends than with family - a deliberate shout out to my family, who have gone on trips with out me :P ). But what with a busy work schedule that my friends and I have we are unable to really travel as much as we would like. So even though I answered with a yes I added a caveat saying: 'I like traveling, but I use books to travel'.

Now when I said this to this particular person, and to a lot of other people, he looked at me weirdly. Like I was the most crazy and laziest person on earth. And that offends me, even though it is true that I am lazy and I am definitely certifiably crazy, that they assume I must just not like traveling and am finding a lame alternate.

It is not true that I would not like to travel if given a chance. Come to think of it, I have traveled quite a bit. I've not gone overseas but my father loves traveling so he has taken me and the rest of the family on quite a few trips (near or otherwise). But traveling within the world that is created by a book is just amazing. And I am not bound by boundaries at all. Not just physical boundaries but the boundaries of space and time are of no match to me when I am reading a book. If a book is well written then it can take you to different locations like America (almost every YA book and various other adult books that I have read), Sweden (the Patrik Hedstrom series), Egypt (Sphinx  by Robin Cook), Russia, France, Brussels (Bourne trilogy) and it can even let me travel backwards and forward through time. And I didn't even need any documentation.

I have also traveled to distant planets, parallel universes (where I am just as lazy as I am now but either super rich and intelligent or super poor :P) and to Middle Earth of course. It might seem lame to some but I think of this kind of travel as preparation for actual travel. I know of a few places to visit in the countries I mentioned above and what is generally accepted or not accepted there. I also learn a bit of their culture and laws.

And if I ever meet a troll I know that I should keep them talking till the sun comes up (LOTR) or that I should be wary of black monoliths on unknown planets (2001: A Space Odyssey). I will always travel with a towel as that would be my best friend (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and to keep garlic and silver on my person while I travel if I ever meet pesky vampires or werewolves.

All in all I would say traveling via books has actually made me more prepared than anyone else who has not read. So take that all you doubters and travel snobs. I, I mean my imagination, has clocked more kilometers than any of you. And to all you readers out there, Have a happy journey!!

My Book Habits and Pet Peeves

I have been in the habit of reading ever since I can remember. I attribute this part of my character to my parents. My mother encouraged me by teaching me shlokas (poems), telling me their meanings and telling me stories. My father encouraged me while leading by example. We have always had a lot of books at home. Cultivating the habit of reading from such a young age has resulted in me having a few book habits and pet peeves.

My pet peeves are:

1. When people mark their places in a book by dog earing the pages. 
2. When people write in the margins of my book. I'm fine with people writing in their own books. I actually like owning second hand books that have notes in them, as long as I have a pristine copy for myself.
3. One of my other pet peeves is when someone opens a book really wide and cracks the spine beyond recognition
4. Licking a finger and then turning a page
5. People blurting out spoilers from the movie version in front of me when they know I haven't read the book or watched the series. (Though I have to mention here that I did this to my sister once, and I am extremely sorry that I did.)

My book habits are :

1. If I love a particular book I tend to keep reading books from the same genre for the next 3-4 books. I have done this quite a few times. Last year I read Boneshaker by Cherie Priest and I liked it. This lead me to read Feed by Mira Grant, World War Z and Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks.
2. When I am reading a book I'm falling in love with I imagine myself in the world created by the author. I do not necessarily imagine myself as one of the main characters but I start creating a character of my own that I think would fit in to this world. 
3. I not just start living in the world but start to make up stories for the characters even after the book has ended. I am great at imagining these things but really bad at writing them down.

These are only some of my pet peeves and book habits. I cannot seem to think of more but I am quite sure I have a few more of both. Maybe I'll update the list whenever I do remember. So what are your pet peeves and habits when it comes to books?

The Effects of Book Hauls on life in general & TBR Shelves

I just ordered 9 books off of the internet. I do not know why I do this to myself. Though in my defense I have been holding off on buying books for a few months now. And then someone told me about the clearance sale on Flipkart and I just freaked out. I got two, that's right TWO hardcover books for less than 700 rupees. That's less than 10 USD, which is rare in India.

It is a good thing that we are now able to get a lot of books in India that were not really available to us before. But there is a problem that arises when there are addicts like me around. I allude to my addiction to books. The minute I hear of a good book, I need to read it.

I do read e-books but somehow its not the same. So when I read a book and love it enough, I buy the physical book. And sales like the ones this past weekend encourage me to buy books I've not yet read but have heard a lot of. My family might be horrified to learn that I ordered NINE books but what they do not know is that I passed over buying double that number of books. They would not understand that this is actually shopping in moderation for me.

I justify my buying of books by saying that I do not buy high ticket items like clothes or jewellery. But that actually pisses my mother off more I think. She would actually prefer me wearing better clothes. So buying books gets me into trouble with my Mother and also my Grandmother.

Another problem that arises is that of space. I am have stacked my books in boxes, in my closet, in shelf space behind a mirror and at my home in Karimnagar. I have close to 200-250 books that I bought with my own money or received as gifts. Now, when I have to move out and go to a place of my own I'll have to search for a place that can accommodate my existing collection of books and the future books that I will buy.

The major problem with me buying books is that my To Be Read shelf increases by those many books. One of the things I do to offset this is that I first read the e-book version and if I really love it I get the physical book. This helps me keep my TBR shelf in check. This would be a great solution if I didn't discover new books that I would just love to read every other day.

Anyway, no matter how much I think I'm going to curb on my spending when it comes to books, it ain't gonna happen. I'll just have to be very careful and save before I splurge. I will try and spend money on books when there are sales like the one Flipkart had just a few days ago.

If anyone is curious as to the books I got this time around, they are:

1. Blood Red Road by Moira Young
2. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa
3. Flipped by Wendelin van Draanen (Hard Cover)
4. There is no Dog by Meg Rosoff (Hard Cover)
5. Nobody's Girl by Sarra Manning
6. Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley
7. Persuasion by Jane Austen
8. Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas
9. The Melancholy of Mechagirl by Catherine Valente

Word for the day

Hey Everyone! I don't know if I can keep up to what it says on the post title, that is come up with a whacky word for the day, but I just saw this online and had to post it. And these words do not have to be confined to the English language. They could be from any language.

The word I found today aptly describes me as I am today. And it is a Japanese word. It is :

TSUNDOKU

I think the picture explains it all. What do you think? How many of you are doing this right now? Letting your TBR list pile up?

This gives me the kick in the pants I need to finish reading these books before I buy any more.

Random Thoughts/Rants Contd.

I recently got a hike on my salary (Yaaayyy Me!!!). So you could say I've had a cash windfall this month. So I went a little crazy and splurged on books. In my defense this is probably the 2nd or 3 rd time I have indulged myself the whole one year I have been employed. I usually buy maybe a couple of books a month. But in the past 2 weeks I've bought 24 books. I know, It's crazy. On top of this I have another 7 books in my cart on FlipKart. And my hands are getting itchy again. These are the times when I think 1) Why aren't books cheaper and more available where I am? and 2) Why aren't I richer?

One of the reasons I've been crazy with my online book shopping is, apart from the afore mentioned windfall, is that I have discovered a few wonderful blogs. They are Blog of Erised, Paperiot, Books of Amber. They have great reviews of books. Most of them review YA but these books lead me to other great books. For this I am eternally grateful to Goodreads. I would not have come across so many great books otherwise. I also took part in a Read -A - Thon hosted by Books of Amber. This was so much fun. The rules stated that I would have to read only debut authors. So I tried to complete 3 books but I finished 2. Which is still a great achievement considering the time limit was 4 days.

I read Mila 2.0 and Pivot Point. As you can see both are from the young adult genres. This is something else that I need to  be grateful for. The discovery of great young adult books. after having read these debuts I was really floored. I mean these are debut authors, maybe just a few years older and sometimes even younger than me. And they have come up with such great stories. And it is not just these authors that I am in awe of, but all of them. I mean can you imagine the work that goes into a 250-300 page book?

They have to think up a reasonable storyline, great characters - I mean a story would fall flat on its face if the characters were not well developed. Take the case of Cinder for instance. The basic premise is that of Cinderella, a story that has been around for years and years. No matter that the setting has changed, it is still the same basic story. But Cinder, as a character made a huge difference in this story. And to make Cinder into such a kick-ass heroine, a good background needed to be built for her. I mean part of a persons character is built by the situation in which they have found themselves in life, over time. And the author has to create a world for these people to inhabit. And most importantly in my view, he/she would have to be true to their characters till the end.

This is just unfathomable to me, how one person can come up with all of this. I mean you might think that if you've read one dystopian novel and you've read them all. But that is not true. This is the case with every genre. Yes there are exceptions to this rule but  that is beside the point. One of the authors that I have recently read who has blown me away is Brandon Sanderson. I heard he was finishing the Wheel of Time series after Robert Jordan passed away. I did not even know of him. Then I was surfing the net trying to find a good fantasy novel to read and I stumbled across the Mistborn trilogy. I read the Final Empire and I fell in love. It has all the elements that make a great story. And Sanderson's world building skills are A-MA-ZING!

This brings me to another thought that has been niggling my brain. A long time ago I had read a short story where an author could bring to life the world that he writes about. He then goes on to write himself into the story (I think there was an episode like that on the X-Files). Anyways, I suddenly thought what if this happens every time someone writes a novel or a story? I mean there is the multiple universes theory right? So maybe the things that an author writes about are things that are happening or have happened in a parallel universe? Something to think about innit? Anyways, this is the end of this slight mental detour. This is rantception at its best :P A rant in a rant.

The above paragraph of detour aside, what I am trying to say is that I truly appreciate all the authors out there who put in a lot of work and effort in to making characters and worlds for us readers to enjoy. books have always been my avenue of escape. The best part is it is an accepted mode of escape. I mean parents actually encourage you to read, unlike watching television.

And it is not just the published authors I would like to thank but also the would be or aspiring writers. Because without them there would not be these amazing blogs out there. The blogging community is so full of talent. I feel like I am worse than an amateur when it comes to blogging. They actually not only write about their passion but also encourage others to follow their passions. They might not directly do so but with the amount of time and effort and love that they put into their blogs I cannot help but feel encouraged to do the same.

I know this blog does not have a great look or have many followers. For all I know no one might be reading this post. But I will try harder. I have always loved reading books and watching movies. I know I do not have the technical knowledge for seriously reviewing a book or a movie. But I do know what I like and do not like. So I will start as I have with reviews that are based on what I felt while watching the movie or reading a book (this is where I showcase my opinion after all). Maybe somewhere down the line I will get good enough that people will actually listen to my suggestions.

So here is a huge thank you to all the authors (published and aspiring alike) and all the bloggers blogging about their passion.

Book Reviews

Sorry I've been away for so long. My days at the office suddenly became quite hectic, so I've not had the time to even open the blog. But fear not!! I have been able to read quite a few books. I have recently finished reading - The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey, The Surgeon & The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen, Amnesia Moon by Johnathan Lethem, The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu and The Mad Scientist's Daughter by Cassandra Rose Clark.

I had already started on a review of The 5th Wave but had not been able to post it up on the blog. I will do so now and also write what I think of the other books (though the review might not be as elaborate as the one for The 5th Wave)

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

The book had me in its sights the minute I saw that the description said it was a little like Ender's Game. I am also a sucker for a good post-apocalyptic, dystopian novel. This was a good book. I am looking forward to the sequel in the series. This is why I read trilogies and quadrilogies or any series for that matter, when they are already done or almost done. Then I do not have that agonizing wait ahead of me waiting for the end of the book and closure. Or at least I hope for closure, sometimes the quality of the story in the books slips, by the time the end is near. But one can always hope right? And that is basically the theme of every post-apocalyptic book for me - Hope.

Movies have conditioned us to think that when aliens finally make first contact, then it will either be to befriend us or to destroy us for our planets resources or to enslave us. This book falls in the "they've come to annihilate us" category. We also think (probably because of our egos and Star Trek) that the aliens will resemble us, in some basic way. Like them being bipeds and having a humanoid form. This book counters those beliefs by making the aliens that attack earth into beings of pure consciousness.

The strategy used by the Others, as Cassie calls them, is, I have to say genius. First they put the people on edge by showing themselves and not doing anything for almost 10 days. Then they knock out everything electronic using an EMP blast. This was the 1st wave. The 2nd wave was literally a wave in the forms of tsunamis and the 3rd wave was a plague that leads to the death of nearly 7 billion people. The 4th wave are the silencers. The Others in the guise of humans. So that humans couldn't trust anyone.

This book had good characters. Most of the book was in Cassie's POV. I like that she was not a born Bad-Ass. Before the arrival she was a normal teenager with a crush on a classmate (Ben Parish). She was pushed to the edge when she lost her mother to the plague, seeing her father killed and her little brother taken from her.

In the beginning of the book we find her just surviving. Her only goal - to stay alive to see the next day. She has learnt not to trust anyone. And because of this, when she meets another person after a long while, she does not trust him, even when he is in need. This pushes her over the edge and finding Sammy becomes her lifeline.

Then she meets Evan Walker. Who rescues her when she is freezing to death after being shot in the leg. he nurses her back to life and maybe that is why she does not immediately mistrust him. It is this very human need in her that makes her want to trust him that I love best. This has been written very well. Even when she finds out that he is one of the Others she still wants to trust him. This is what the Others saw as a weakness. But is also humanity's greatest strength along with the ability to love.  

Moving on to the topic of the Others I love that they did not make them up to be some kind of reptilian like life form. Instead they are pure consciousness. Also the conflict between their own ranks where one faction pushes for total annihilation of the human race the other pushes for coexistence. Also the Others, while on Earth conquering the human race, have to be in human form. They have absorbed their human counterparts. Not completely replaced them. It is this dichotomy that Evan Walker embodies. While the majority of the Others find humans repulsive or not deserving of earth, then there is Eva Walker. He feels a sense of liberation in his human body. He seems more in tune with his human side. This is what makes it so difficult for him. He has his loyalty towards his own kind and also the love the feels towards a girl   whose race him and his kind are determined to kill. I lie that the author didn't make him go cold turkey towards killing just because he fell  in love with Cassie. He just spared her and kept on fulfilling his mission of being a Silencer. I appreciate that the author does not take us readers to be dumb and did not bring about a drastic change in either personalities, be it Cassie or Evan. It was his love for her and also his wish to be rid of the duality within him that he does what he does at Camp Haven. 

Camp Haven being compared to Battle School from Ender's Saga might be a bit of a stretch. It is similar yes. But Battle School  was far more dangerous in my opinion. There all the adults were against you (at least that is what the kids felt). Here  at Camp Haven the kids kinda felt secure with their handlers/guardians. 

All in all this was a good read. I guess I went off on a wide tangent with this review. It has become more of a rant. Well maybe you can think of it as a rant about The 5th Wave instead of a review per se. Now that its been a few days since I finished the book I'd rate it a 3.8 (leaning towards 4).

The Surgeon & The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen 

Let me just start off by saying that I love the Rizzoli & Isles TV series. I really enjoy the dynamics between the 2 main leads. Having said that, it was really disappointing to me that the books did not do for me, what the TV series did. I understand that the TV series is an adaptation and not a carbon copy of the book. But I would not have enjoyed the books even if I had not seen the series on TV. The books just did not capture my continued interest. Rizzoli was such a drag. She hated herself, her family, her colleagues (or at least she did not trust them). She did not even have one friend. I'm sorry to say this but this could be because of her attitude. I mean she doesn't always have to act so tough. She acted like being a woman was the worst thing that could happen to her. She could've leveraged the fact that she was a woman quite a few times, but she didn't do that. Not all female cops have to be rigid as she is. She just went on and on about how it is so difficult to be in the police force. I mean I'm sure it is but all she does is whine about it.

The author has not leveraged the rapport/friendship that could be portrayed between Jane and Maura at all. Maybe that happens in the latter books. I'm still debating whether or not I'll read the rest of the series. I rate both the books 2/5.

Amnesia Moon by Johnathan Lethem

I was going through the posts over at the Book Smugglers when I read about The Angry Robot Publishers. I went to their site and was really psyched about the books showcased there. I read a few blurbs of the books on the site and I was very excited about them. Amnesia Moon was one of them.

I did not know what to expect from this book. The description sounded different and intriguing. I still do not know what to make of the book after having finished reading it. If a book is to be classified as good if it makes you keep coming back for more, then this is a good book. But I kept wanting to go back to the book because I could not understand what was going on in the book. It was weird. I can't say if it was a good/bad weird. I think I liked it. It was a plotline with which a lot more could have been done. A lot more could've been done with the concept of the dream sharing. If this was where the story was going this could've been made in to a novella instead of a Novel. Maybe I just didn't get the book (not just maybe, I just didn't understand a lot of the book). But in my opinion it was still a better read than the first 2 installments of the Rizzoli and Isles series. So this was a 2.5/5 for me. 

The Mad Scientist's Daughter by Cassandra Rose Clark

I really liked this book. A lot of people might say this book reminded them of The Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams. But that is not completely accurate. Here Finn, the android, is not looking to 'be' human. He is at peace with the fact that he is a machine. The similarity between this book and Bicentennial Man is that Finn falls in love with Cat & in this book she loves him back. To me this story was reminescent of a small part in teh Asimov book, I, Robot, where a little girl has a robot playmate/nanny. 

This book is not about the fighting for the rights about robots . It is a part of the story but not the core of the story. This is basically a love story in which one of the lovers happens to be an android. And through this book, Cassandra makes us think what being a human really is. I am not saying there was a revelation at the end as to what constitutes humanity. I liked it that it made me think about it, if you know what I mean. It was also made me think of what it would take to love someone for being all that they are and not just what we want to love in a person.

I enjoyed the journey that Cat took in her life. It was a beautiful journey with all the ups & downs. This is the sort of book that you love more once you are finished with it. I really loved this book. I rate it 4.2/5.

The Lives Of Tao by Wesley Chu

Let us get the obvious out of the way. The 5th Wave has a similar setting of an alien being inserted in to the human consciousness. I concede that. But in the case of The Lives of Tao, te alien and the human host co-exist. I mean how great is that? 

This book was not written like a typical Sci - Fi book. It had more of a spy thriller feel for me, that reminded me of the Bourne trilogy. 

Tao liked to call the relationship between him and his host as symbiotic but in my opinion the human did not really have much of a say. He/she had to take part in a war that has been raging for nigh on 500 years between entities that have been stranded on earth for the past 65 million years. There are of course advantages. The human host gets the benefit of all the knowledge accumulated over the lifetime of the alien being - be it Prophus or Genjix.

The writing in this book is quite fast paced. The Prophus who are said to be on te side of humans don't come out smelling of roses in this conflict. But that is the necessity of war. I am unsure of whether this book is a stand alone or a part of a series. I hope it is a series. If it isn't then the ending sucked for me. I would rate this book a 3.7/5.