Disjointed Digression

I just finished reading The Prestige by Christopher Priest.
Let me start off by explaining why I picked this book to read. To be completely honest, I wanted to read the book before I saw the movie. About a month ago, I saw a trailer on Geekdrome for The Prestige. The problem with seeing a trailer on Geekdrome, is that you cannot hear it, due to the too guys talking about it. I stopped Geekdrome and downloaded the trailer. That day I ordered the book from Amazon. I have a bad habit of wanting to read a book before I see a movie. For some reason I cannot do it the other way round. Now, I had not seen the trailer for a few weeks, when I started the book, unfortunately I had see advertisements for a similar looking film called the Illusionist starring Ed Norton. Thus in reading the book, I was constantly imagining Ed Norton as one of the characters, even though the part is played by Hugh Jackman in the film. But I digress…

The Prestige is an interesting book. It is all about magicians at the turn of the 20th century, but it never gives away any magical secrets. That was not the reason I was reading it, I wanted a good story. I was not disappointed. I enjoyed the book thoroughly, but I will admit that in the end, I felt like there should have been more. The story is in a general sense about a feud between two families, and about how it starts with two stage magicians in the late 1800s. Most of the story takes place in the late 1800s, and is told from the point of view of both magicians via memoirs. Not wanting to reveal too much, I will say that the story is compelling, but in some parts it could get bogged down.
I recommend reading it, I don’t think you will be disappointed.

After I finished the book, I went back and re watched the trailer for the movie. Already I’m seeing some differences in betwixt the novel and film. The film still looks good, but it also looks like it has been “hollywoodized”. Regardless, I think the movie will be good. I hope I can come back in a month or so when the movie is out and vindicate myself. Knowing my luck though…

Having been on a zombie kick for a little while, I decided to keep it going and read Reign of the Dead which I stumbled upon at Amazon.com.
This novel is pretty much standard zombie fair with a little bit of a twist. Most zombie stories focus on one group of Survivors, from beginning to end. Reign of the Dead does this as well, but lets you see how the survivors come together. Not much of a difference, but it’s something.
The story follows the survivors from one “secure” location to another. The biggest twist in this story is that there is mention of scientists attempting to find a cause/cure. That was one of the selling points for me.
The down side to the story…
It reads like a first novel, which I’m guessing it is. (No offense to Len Barnhart, at lest they got published, all I do is blog). The book read like the author was trying to make an epic zombie story, but in the end ran out of time and just wrapped it up quickly. Another thing is that the characters were almost all one dimensional. Flat as pancakes. I never cared one way or the other about them.
In all honesty I should have sought out this book at the library. It’s worth a read if you Really like zombies.
If you are looking for a good zombie story, and are not afraid to read a “graphic novel” (yes a comic book series collected into book form) then I would recommend The Walking Dead
The Walking Dead follows a similar story line (hey it’s a zombie story they are pretty much the same) but is much better written. (BTW, thanks to Beav for suggesting I read Walking Dead) The characters are much more rounded and the story seems to have a bit more of an edge to it. Truth be told, The Walking Dead is more of a look at humankind than a zombie story.
To sum up… If you want a good zombie story and are not afraid of being labeled a comic nerd, then pick up The Walking Dead (you could always order it from amazon and no one would know you were a comic nerd ).

So I decided to finish Cell.
Cell is a a novel where Stephen King takes the idea of zombies and adds his own twist to it. I have mixed feelings about the novel. It seemed like I was reading some other author trying to imitate King, for the most part. At other times, it was very much a Stephen King book. Maybe he was trying to take a different direction with his writing, I don’t know. I mentioned to Candy that it seemed like the book was being written as a movie. Not that the book was in screen play format, but the story just seemed to like it would transfer to the silver screen with ease. Also it was short for a Stephen King book. Granted he wrote it in under a year, but I was expecting a more to the story, especially when I reached the end. Seeing how it is an homage to zombie movies, I guess he decided to give it a zombie movie feel.
I thought the novel was pretty good, but I was not too big on the ending. I’d recommend waiting for the paperback.

On a related note, it appears there is already a movie version in the works… according to this article.

I’ll admit I picked up The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse because I thought the title was funny. I had not heard of Robert Rankin before, but the blurb caught my attention too…
Once upon a time Jack set out to seek his fortune in the big city – but when Jack finally gets there, it is Toy City, formerly known as Toy Town. And there is a serial killer loose upon the streets. One by one, the old, rich nursery rhyme characters are being brutally slaughtered. The Toy City police are getting nowhere; Bill Winkie, Private Eye, has also mysteriously vanished, leaving only his sidekick, Eddie Bear, to take care of business. But Eddie’s ready, and when he teams up with Jack, the two set out on an epic adventure. Not to mention a lot of heavy drinking, bad behaviour, fast car chases, gratuitous sex and violence, bizarre toy fetishism and all-round grossness. Of a type not normally associated with Toy Town.
So I gave it a shot. I started out pretty good. The story was goofy and fun. Then it got to the middle and I could tell it was fraying like an old rope getting ready to let go. And let go it did. In the last sixty pages or so, it just sort of died. There are a lot of nursery rhyme references and a few toy references but that just cannot hold the story up. I was hoping with a title like The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse that the book would be either goofier or funnier than it was. At the end the author takes a stab at political figures, I guess he figured he had already ruined the immersion factor so why not bring current events into it.
If you want to read a story about nursery rhyme and fairy tale characters out of their usual setting, Id recommend picking up a Fables collection. Yeah, its a graphic novel, but its ten times better than The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies.

As most of you know I’m a big fan of Kevin Smith. I picked up this book, signed from his website (the pic is a link to buy a signed copy) along with a Big Ass Jay to compliment my Big Ass Silent Bob.
Much like buying a book written by a stand up comedian some of the material I have read or heard before. I would say that I had probably encountered about 1/3 of the book online before getting the book. But it is a collection of his writings, I expected that to an extent.
The book weighs in at 325 pages. While that seems like quite a bit its not really, like any good college student, Kevin cheated a bit. Instead of double spacing, he (or his editor/publisher,whatever) decided to center the text on the pages so that there is a 2 inch (or so) border of blank (unused) space. I don’t begrudge him the unused space, the book seems a bit heftier than it is, so you feel like you accomplished something when you have finished it in one day.
The book covers casting for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Kevin’s dislike of “greasy” Reese Witherspoon, his dealings with “morbid obesity” and medication to try to help with that. Also there are two interviews one with Ben Affleck and one with Tom Cruise. There is some coverage of the making of Jersey Girl. Also there are a few miscellaneous articles about his wife’s nude portrait, lapdances, comic books, and probably a few other things I have forgotten.
Most of them are witty, quick reads. But his obvious heterosexual obsession with Ben Affleck is a bit creepy, especially in the interview where he basically verbally fellates Affleck. He also has much love for Tom Cruise, and Jennifer Lopez, and just about everyone he mentions in the book (barring Reese Witherspoon). I’m not sure if Kevin just likes to have a lot of friends or if he’s making sure he is not burning bridges so that he can work with these people again. Either way, it kind of makes me wonder what you have to do to get on Smith’s bad side? From the essays he seems like an easy going kinda of guy who dabbles in self deprecation
Overall this book is most likely for the Kevin Smith fans. If you don’t care one way or another about him, you probably won’t enjoy it. If you are hoping for a story about any of the characters in his movie, this is not it. It’s a collection of essays he wrote online and in British magazines. I recommend it to fans of Kevin Smith who want to see a little bit of a different side of him. It’s a fun quick read.

My take on Bruce Campbell’s latest literary escapade.

The Book was released in August. My Order had not shipped by last week, I was a little concerned, because the local comic shops had already sold out. I was bitching and moaning about this to Beav when he said “Try Talesofwonder.com!”

This is the book that Kubrick based Full Metal Jacket on. Actually the movie follows the book pretty closely. Of course there are variations. I don’t think that anyone would really say that FMJ has a happy ending, but compared to the book, it is. The book is brutal. Its like Catch 22 inverted and forcibly crossbred with The Catcher in the Rye.