Random Thoughts

If anyone ever reads my blogs (which I doubt) you will know that I love to read and also watch movies and TV series. Though at this point in my life I watch a lot of movies and series, I still love reading books more than anything else. I do not read non-fiction much (actually none at all). Though I have read the biography of Che Guevara and Mein Kampf (this was when I was very young so I never finished reading Mein Kampf). I just cannot bring myself to read non-fiction. It doesn't excite my imagination as much. And that is what I read for. The images that a book conjures up in my mind.

When I read a book, not only do I imagine the world in my mind but also picture myself in the world created by the author. There are those that say that one day we'll have technology that will make us live through the stories in the books, like the Holo-Novels in Star Trek. But I already experience that now with my mind. I am sometimes just a spectator in the world of the book or I am sometimes one of the characters in the book. It could be the lead or even one of the secondary characters if I think their personality is like what I'd like to think of my own. I mean what is the point in choosing to be a character that you already are? Doesn't it just defeat the purpose of our imagination? Also who would even know when it's all in your mind...

The only way I curb my reading is by differentiating between Fiction & Non-Fiction. Which still leaves me with an unlimited number of books that could catch my fancy. I read almost every sub-genre of Fiction, be it, Crime, Thriller, Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance, Sci-Fi, Young Adult, and many more. I don't know if everybody does this or if it's only me but I start to wonder what would happen if the characters or story-lines of a few books got crossed or mixed. I start making up my own story in my head. It isn't all made up by me. I use elements of both or more worlds that I take the characters from.

My favorite book is Lord of the Rings by Tolkien. I love almost all of the characters in that book. So it is painful for me to let go of the characters after a series is done. So I keep them alive in my mind by bringing them into the world of another book that I love or am finding interesting at any given time. Another magic system that I found had a lot of potential was that created by Paolini. I was fascinated by the relationship dynamics between a Rider and his/her dragon. So I imagine what it would be like if the worlds of Paolini, Tolkien, Robert Jordan (most fantasy novels based in a world or time different than our own) collided with our own world? I could never find a good example to explain to people but I imagine these characters as something like the Q from the Star Trek Franchise. They travel through time and space and dimensions. So do these characters. Though they are better people than the Q we know from Star Trek. I imagine them as the "Q-Jedi" of all dimensions. They uphold justice.

You could call it Fan fiction on a bigger scale as it doesn't just encompass one story or two. But I guess I will not be able to pen it down for 2 major reasons. 1) It would probably be plagiarism as I would be taking elements from a lot of books from different authors. 2) This is the most important reason - I suck at writing. I wouldn't even know where to start. or the technicalities of writing. So all of this will remain a product of my imagination and never get translated into any writings. I will still enjoy my musings on what would happen if Aragorn were alive in this day and age. What if the world of Wizards and Witches  as portrayed in Harry Potter were combined with the world created in Twilight?

I know I sound like a loon. And a little weird (OK maybe a lot weird). But sometimes when I'm sad or even bored I just go in to these worlds that I have created for myself and when I get back to reality, reality is that much easier to handle. Don't misunderstand, I have friends. Goofy friends who are weird, though maybe not as weird as me. But sometimes it's just not possible to dump on a friend. So I think what would Legolas have done? Or Arya? Or Vin? And that just gives me the courage to face whatever it is life throws at me.

All I'm saying is I love books and I'm weird in a way that I create worlds in my head to keep enjoying the books that I love. If there is anyone out there who does the same thing or at least something similar please drop a line to me. I'd like to know I'm not alone or the only one who is like this.

Movie Review : The Croods

I went to watch The Croods over the weekend with a friend. I went in to the movie thinking of just relaxing and enjoying the movie. I was pleasantly surprised when I started actively having fun. I haven't enjoyed an animated movie like this since the "Ice Age" series.

It was the same old spiel of the baby leaving the nest and the father feeling insecure about it but t was shown in a slightly different way. My favorite character in the movie was "Belt". Even though he had no dialogues he was such a great character.

This is a great movie to watch with friends & family. I would give this movie a 3.5/5.

My Birthday Haul This Year

I have great friends. They know that the best gifts that I could ever get are books. I want to thank all of them.

These are the books that they have given me.

This was gifted to me by my colleagues. They know my love of books but did not know that I have not read the first part of this series or have the books. But it has turned out to be a good thing as it gives me an excuse to get the rest of the books.

I have already read this book but I didn't have a physical copy. For this I thank Vikrant.

My father is as avid a reader as I am. He has a huge collection of Books & Comics. One of them is the Calvin & Hobbes collection. My friend Ankur was lucky to have xhosen the 2 that we didn't have back home :)

I love the LOTR series and connected books. I tend to read LOTR at least once a year (if not more). I already have the 3 books along with The Hobbit and Silmarillion. The person who got this should have known that. But he still got this for me because this is the 75th Anniversary special of The Hobbit. So he has made a proper LOTR Geek out of me with a copy to read and another to Keep on the shelf :P Thank You Aashith.

I recently discovered the works of Brandon Sanderson. I really loved the Final Empire, and have said so in an entry on this blog. I also went on to read The Emperor's Soul and Legion. I like the worlds he has created. So this is a great gift from my sister Babbi. I get to read it in a book form and not online.

I discovered Manga quite accidentally. But I have been reading a lot of it in recent times. And Akira is one of my favorite Mangas. I gifted myself the 1st volume. The rest were given to be by Ashish and and my best friend Chaitra. Because of them I now have the whole Akira collection. I now plan on acquiring another Manga collection. Probably Monster.

This years birthday was the best in terms of my gifts. I want to thank all my friends for the love they have shown.

Book Review : Mistborn The Final Empire

I have got to say this out loud (figuratively speaking of course). I am LOVING 'Mistborn : The Final Empire'. It has been a long time since I was genuinely excited about a book and I haven't even finished. I'm so glad this is not a stand alone book but a trilogy, a complete one at that. I don't have to wait for the books to come out. I can't believe I came to this book so late. But we have a saying in India - 'Der aye, Durust Aye'. It means - 'I might be late to the party but I'm here to enjoy the party now' :)

A lot of people ask me why I read so much. And a few of my friends look at me askance when I tell them I only read fiction. They think it is too childish and doesn't have any relevance to reality. In my opinion this is the wrong mind-set. And through this book Brandon Sanderson has proved that fiction - fantasy is not childish & that it can be intelligent and make you think. Really think.

Some people might just reject this book by reading the jacket cover or by hearing it's from the fantasy genre. They are doing themselves a disservice. If anyone reads this blog, I'd advise them to pick this book up. This book isn't just about a bunch of people using magic. Its a lot more.

The magic system in this book is great. Sanderson's done a great job with it. It seems simple enough at first glance. The Mistings or Mistborns "burn" metals, that they drink down, to attain powers like soothing or rioting other peoples emotions or to achieve superhuman strength or senses. But as you delve deeper into the magic system it gets more intricate. Not everyone can do this. This system is called Allomancy. There are 8 metals that they can use. Only the Mistborns can use all the metals. The Mistings can only use one metal. And Mistborns are always people with noble blood in them.

The magic system is not all there is to this book. Brandon Sanderson didn't stop at creating a magic system. He also created a social structure. There is the Lord Ruler, the Master of all things. Lord Ruler is said to be immortal, a "sliver of infinity'. He is said to have defeated some evil called the "Deepness". And after that he ascended and attained immortality. He favors the noblemen who supported him before ascension and their descendants. He has also enslaved a whole group of people called Skaa. So this story has political intrigue too.

There is also a thieving crew. This story has a grand heist!! This particular crew is made up of Mistings and 2 Mistborns. And what do you expect the Job these guys are pulling is? They are trying to start up a rebellion amongst the downtrodden Skaa people, to overthrow the tyrannical Lord Ruler.

So there's magic, political intrigue and a thieving crew. What more encouragement does a person need to read this book?

The story is not the only thing done well. If it were then it would not be as good. The characters are well written. Not just the protagonists (Vin & Kelsier) but the supporting characters too(the thieving crew). Sanderson lets the characters grow slowly, but not so slowly that we lose interest. He has paced the story well. We learn something new about the characters almost every page.

Sanderson knows how to keep you on edge. I want to know a lot more about Vin & Kelsier. What is the Deepness? Why is the sun red and why does ash fall from the sky? And why does the mist descend on the final Empire every night?

This is how a book should be. I haven't even finished reading it and I'm already looking forward to the next installment in the series. There will be another entry in my blog once I finish the book so that I can write about Vin, Kelsier and the rest of the crew.

A Good Day to Die Hard

I have been an ardent fan of Die Hard since I was young. I have watched all of the previous 4 movies. My favorite was always the Die Hard 1. And it still is. The 5th installment to the Die Hard Franchise is not a great movie. It is something that newbies to Die Hard might not really like the movie and might find better fare elsewhere.

A friend of mine, who isn't really a huge fan of action movies like Die Hard, had gone to watch the movie first. I asked her how she liked the movie. She knows me really well and said "you'd probably like it, but they destroyed too many cars in the movie." I thought she might be exaggerating, but she was not. It looks like close to a 100 cars or more were destroyed during the making of just the opening chase scene. It started out with 3 cars being blown to smithereens and then different cars were either mowed down or pushed over bridges and in one scene Bruce Willis drives his car on the top of multiple cars. It was kind of cool.

I have to admit Die hard 4.0 was better than A Good Day to Die Hard. The chemistry between Bruce Willis and Justin Long was great. I really liked their repartee. The chemistry between Bruce Willis and Jai Courtney was mostly non-existent. I just could not feel anything for the relationship. I wanted John and his daughter to reconcile int eh previous movie but in this movie I was not at all invested in their relationship. The dialogues were funny but not as funny as they were in the previous movies.

So this is a movie that can be enjoyed by fans of the series but it might not be a movie for the general populace. I'd give the movie a 2/5.

Book Rant: The Parasol Protectorate Series

I haven't really finished the Parasol Protectorate series completely. I have read 4 out of 5 books in the series and am halfway through the 5th. I had not heard of this series at all. I was trying to search for good Steampunk novels and came across this series. The first Steampunk novel i read was Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. So i was expecting something gloomy and serious from Soulless. Then I realized this series was called the Parasol Protectorate. This series was very funny. It  was completely different from what i was expecting. In a good way.

SPOILERS AHEAD

What I am loving the most in the series is that the female protagonist has been very consistent. She comes off as a tough and opinionated woman. Except for how quickly she accepted her husband in the 3rd installment Changeless. The books have woven a very good world. It's funny to me how Alexia is a part of the supernatural world but is oblivious to most of its machinations. This always lands her in trouble. And what novel based in England in the 1800's is complete without a butler like Floote? He is one of my favorite characters in the series. The others being Biffy and Professor Lyall and of course Ivy Tunstell who isn't the airhead she seems to be.

I am fascinated with this alternate reality where the supernatural have been integrated in to polite society. But not all over the world. Only in England. The Italians abhor them, the Americans are scared of them. The way Queen Victoria is portrayed reminds me of how Cleopatra is portrayed in the Asterix series. In that case it was Cleopatra's nose and here Queen Victoria's Height. The relationship between Lord Maccon and Alexia was not portrayed as well as it could be. The relationship between her and almost every other character was written better.

I am looking forward to knowing about Alexia's father in the final installment of the series and to see how the author ties up most of the story lines in the series. This series has had its highs and lows but all in all this is a fun read. I would give it a 3.8 or 4 out of 5.

Book Review : Feed by Mira Grant

I have recently started revisiting my obsession of reading books. Over the past 3 years the number of books I've read has dropped. Mostly because I was busy with my MBA and later with work. My Asian drama obsession/addiction might have pushed this other addiction to the backseat but not anymore. I have sorta kinda brought both addictions in balance (if its even possible).

Usually when  read a book I start reading books of the same genre for a while, and if the book has sequels that are out then I tend to read the series continuously. I wanted to finally try reading Steamppunk and read Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. This book lead me to Feed by Mira Grant on Goodreads. For one thing I am glad that this is a trilogy that is completed. Secondly, Even though this book falls under the Zombie genre it had very little to to do with Zombies.

There are some people who were unhappy about the book not being too Zombie-centric. But I liked the way it was portrayed. This story was not what I was expecting. I thought it would be all blood and gore but it gave more of an insight into how a presidential campaign would be run and how the protagonists Georgia and Shaun Mason stay true to their journalistic integrity and to the truth. The only spin is that all of this is happening in a world overrun by zombies.

The story behind how the Undead problem came about was something different if not completely unique. Most movies depict the dead waking up from the graves because of a virus(mostly developed as a Bio-terror agent). Here 2 viruses were used separately to cure 2 diseases. One the common cold and the other cancer. The combination of the two is what causes the dead to rise. And in this version, like the virus responsible for the cold, this virus lays dormant and is present in every mammal.

Coming to the characters, I liked the Mason siblings. Of course in this book it was narrated by Georgia for most of the book so her character was to me more fleshed out than the rest. But I got to see through the eyes (or in this case blog) of Shaun and other bloggers and saw the world in their point of view. The characters of Shaun and Georgia, being opposites, that is one is gregarious and throws caution to the wind and the other is cautious and a bit of an introvert, might be done to death. But here, it works. At least for me. What I appreciate is that this did not mean that they were a complete unbeatable duo in the work they chose. They still needed someone else to complete the team.

The classification of bloggers in the field of journalism was a good touch. The Newsies, Irwins and Fictionals. The sum of them was better than the parts which was a nice message saying that though they could do well alone but were the best when all three worked together.

---------Spoiler Ahead-----------

People might say its hard to be relate to the part of Georgia's character that was ready to give her all for her ideals, which was the truth. Maybe they are right. It is difficult for us to believe in such a person existing in present times. But isn't it human nature to hope? Also for me its books like these that inspire us to do better. All of this comes from a place in the human nature that strives to be better. Also when someone asked the protagonist if it was worth it the answer was no. To that person the loss of all the lives of all the people involved was something that should not have happened. Shaun just wants his sister back.

All in all I'd give this book a 4 out of 5. I look forward to reading "Deadline" the second part of the trilogy.