Book Review: Darker Things by Rob Cornell

I’m a pretty avid reader. I would say “voracious” but I tend to go in spurts where I spend most of my free time reading book after book after book and then go several weeks without reading anything (other than my daily news feeds on the internet, that is). Lately I’ve had some trouble finding anything that grabbed my interest beyond the first chapter or two. Personally, I blame George R.R. Martin, who’s epic writing style has nearly ruined me for being able to read other authors (he needs to hurry the hell up and finish book six of A Song of Ice & Fire, dammit!). I also kind of lost my love of Terry Goodkind’s Richard & Kahlan novels due in part to his repetitive dialogue and constant preachiness regarding Objectivist philosophy (not that I entirely disagree with that school of thought, but I don’t read fiction to understand philosophical points of view; I read fiction for entertainment).

Several months (actually, almost a year) ago my Twitter feed was followed by one Rob Cornell. I typically ignore follows unless I happen to know the person in real life, but this time I decided to return the follow. Mr. Cornell is a writer, albeit not of a genre of fiction I normally go for, but I decided to follow him on Twitter nonetheless just in case I decided I wanted to check out some of his work. Well, recently I did just that; Darker Things (The Lockman Chronicles, book 1).

As previously mentioned, Darker Things is not typically the type of novel I would read. Being a long time fan of Fantasy and the occasional science-fiction piece, I’m not normally a fan of horror, thrillers, and the like; or, what Cornell calls “urban fantasy”. With all the vampire craze these days with the True Blood series on HBO, not to mention the Twilight novels and movies that are so popular (although I can’t imagine why), I was a bit skeptical of reading something that (at first glance) would fall into that niche. Well, I was both proven wrong and pleasantly surprised that Darker Things is decidedly not a “vampire novel”. I think the authors label of “urban fantasy” is probably the best way to describe it. Yes, there are supernatural elements (vampires, ghosts, werewolves, magick, etc.), but that doesn’t seem to be the focus. It’s more like an espionage/thriller/action story that happens to include elements of the fantastical. I would say more, but I really don’t believe in spoilers in a book review.

I took advantage of the free sample on my Nook, which included the Prologue, Chapter 1 and about half of Chapter 2. That was enough to get my hooked (especially since Cornell didn’t waste much time getting right into the action) and I quickly found myself paying the $2.99 to download the complete novel (note, I happened to catch it on sale - but the normal price for the ebook is still only about $3.99; when you consider that a typical mass-market paperback these days runs $8-10, this is a great bargain and you don’t have to kill a tree to read it).

The characters are well thought out and developed. The story moves along quickly with each chapter ending in way that makes the reader want to turn the page to find out what happens next. The author definitely keeps you guessing; I can’t call this novel predictable by any stretch. If I had to give any critique at all it would be Cornell’s tendency to use sentence fragments when conveying a character’s inner-monologue instead of using semi-colons, but that’s merely a stylistic thing I suppose and in no way detracts from the quality of the story itself.

I thoroughly enjoyed Darker Things and look forward to reading the next two books in the The Lockman Chronicles.

Darker Things is available in several formats for download:

• Nook

• Kindle

• Kobo

• As well as multiple, non-DRM formats from Smashwords

If you’re still into dead-tree versions of books, well, you may be out of luck - but Smashwords does have formats that are viewable in a browser, Adobe Reader or a word processor, and I guess you can always print it out yourself if that’s really a big deal for you.

~ JC

The Great Book Debate

I love books; not just reading them but collecting them (1) as well. I’ve blogged recently about having purchased a Barnes & Noble Nook. I have several ebook apps on my Android phone including Nook for Android, Kindle for Android, and Aldiko (2). Part of the debate when deciding what to read next, for me, is whether or not to get it in ebook format or “dead tree” format. One the one hand, I love the feel and smell of real books, but with ebooks, I can carry several with me at one time without making my backpack weigh a ton. Of course, not everything is available in ebook format yet, so sometimes the point is moot.

I already own books that I have yet to read, both hard copy and electronic. I also have a growing list of books on my wish list in my Nook account. There are books by authors I have never read (or even heard of before) as well as ones by authors that I have considered amongst my favorites. The challenge here is, do I go with an author, and genre, I am familiar with and, based on experience, am fairly sure to enjoy, or do I take the gamble of reading something completely new?

To add to this conundrum of what to read, and in what format, is the option of audio books. I’ve not ever really used audio books before (3), although I do see the appeal of them. To a certain extent, I view audio books as sort of cheating. It’s not really reading; it’s listening to someone else read. One of the things about reading that I love is that it allows me to tune out for a bit. I typically try to find a quiet place to read, where there are few, if any, distractions. However, in our current society of “go, go, go”, finding time to do that isn’t always so easy. There are only so many hours in a day, and even when I get home from work, there are household responsibilities that have to be taken care of (laundry, taking out the trash, etc.). Even on the weekends when it would seem I have more “free” time, there are errands to run. These things lend themselves to wanting to give audio books a try.

Whatever the format, one thing is certain - with the declining quality of television, I really need to make more time to read.

~ JC


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(1) Note: the collection I have listed on LibraryThing does not (yet) include all of the ebooks and various gaming materials I have in PDF.
(2) Aldiko is actually the first ebook reader I ever used. After attempting a few ebooks on my Android phones and determining that I liked the idea of ebooks, I bought a Nook in order to enjoy ebooks on a larger screen.
(3) The only time I can recall using an audio book was in college, when I had tons of required reading to do. I remember listening to the Old Testament on cassette to satisfy the reading requirements for my Old Testament Survey class while simultaneously reading various textbooks.

Hungry for the Games

I just finished reading The Hunger Games a few days ago. I had been reading the Song of Ice & Fire series and had just finished book four of that series and, well, just needed a break from Mr. Martin’s very epic series. I had gotten a free ePub version of The Hunger Games when I bought my Nook, so I decided to give it a shot.

I have to admit something. Despite it being the first in (apparently) a very popular trilogy and being made into a movie that comes out in a few weeks, I had never heard of The Hunger Games before being offered the free Nook edition. Not even a little bit. Ok, so it’s been years since I worked in a bookstore and was “in the loop” as to popular author and title trends, but I still feel a little bit surprised that I hadn’t even heard of this trilogy. But I digress.

So, I’ve now read the first book. What’s my honest first impression? It’s a little predictable and has a lot of borrowed themes (‘The Lottery’, ‘The Running Man’, ‘Firefly/Serenity’, ‘Survivor’, and Lord of the Flies all come to mind). A friend of mine also asked me if I found it strange that the lead character was a bit of “a moron”. To be fair, I think calling Katniss a “moron” is completely inaccurate. She’s actually very intelligent. She’s just impulsive and doesn’t always stop to think about her actions thoroughly. Ok, and she’s a bit dense when it comes to reading people, particularly when it comes to someone showing genuine love for her, but hey, she’s only 16 (for starters) and she’s also gone through a lot of emotional upheaval.

At any rate, I did enjoy the book, plan on seeing the movie, and do intend to read the remaining two books in the trilogy because I am interested to see where the story goes. But I do have to admit, had it not been given to me for free, I probably wouldn’t have even considered it. It’s nice to be pleasantly surprised by a book and have it turn out to be better than you were expecting it to be.

~ JC

Nook Tablet – First Impressions

Yesterday I finally went out and purchased a Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet. I researched and compared the Nook, the Kindle Fire, and several other tablets over the last few months before finally settling on the Nook Tablet. I'll admit, I came quite close to just getting a seven inch Android Tablet instead, but frankly, when comparing reviews, and considering that I don't necessarily need a full blown tablet, I ultimately decided on the Nook. At $250 it's still cheaper than most other tablets on the market and at seven inches instead of ten, it's much more portable for my needs. I also chose the Nook over the Kindle due to the Kindle's apparent dependence on cloud based storage. Now, I dig cloud based storage (I have Dropbox account as well as a Skydrive account, and lately I've been making pretty heavy use of my Google Documents account as well), but I really liked that the Nook supports both on board and microSD storage and the ability to import ebooks I already own as a result. After all, neither of them have a 3G nor 4G radio and require access to WiFi to connect to the internet, so being dependent on the cloud to view my stuff isn't very helpful if I'm not near a WiFi hotspot for which I have access.

So, here's the Pros and Cons I've found with the Nook Tablet so far; bear in mind, I've had it less than twenty-four hours at this point, but I have been playing with my new toy pretty heavily since getting it home.

Pros:

• On board storage of 16GB with support for up to 32GB of microSD storage
• Size – very portable, although it is heavier than I was expecting it to be, but still lighter than carrying around a hardback book
• Touchscreen – very responsive, very easy to read. It does smudge and show fingerprints pretty bad, but then again, so does every touchscreen I've ever used.
• Nook Friends – I didn't think I'd find this to be a Pro or even something I'd necessarily use, but it's actually pretty cool that I can sync my Google and Facebook contacts with my Nook and view things that my friends have read and recommended.
• USB transfer – plugged into my PC via a USB cable, transferring my existing ebooks, music, etc to the Nook is very very smooth. Essentially, it's no more difficult to do this than it is to use a thumb drive.
• Reading – the built in Reader app can render both ePub and PDF formats. In fact, it does a better job of rendering PDF documents better than the built in PDF reader, which I find strange, but it's nice to have the option of using either one.
• B&N Online – when connected to WiFi I can access Barnes & Nobles' online store and download books and media that they sell directly to the device. I also really like the fact that, if I'm in a B&N store, I get free access to WiFi and the ability to sample almost any book in their catalog for free for up to one hour before deciding if I want to buy it or not. I can also access and purchase comic books, magazines, and newspapers. And what I like about the magazine and newspaper option is that I can choose whether to buy a single issue, or pay a monthly subscription fee (rather than having to commit to a full 12-month subscription for print editions).
• Speaking of WiFi, the setup for this was very smooth. I've connected to both the WiFi at my apartment and at my best friend's house with no problems or glitches. I haven't tried it at a B&N store yet, though.

Cons:

• Charging – the Nook can only be charged using a wall outlet. It will not charge from a USB port, which is disappointing and also very odd to me considering that every other USB enabled device that I've ever owned will simultaneously charge while I'm transferring my files. It also takes 2-3 hours to get a full charge that lasts (according to online reports) for 8-9 hours. I've not pushed the limits on this just yet, but I did give it a full charge when I got it home and used it pretty heavily for about eight hours afterwards, and it was only down to about 40% when I decided to put it back on the charger this morning.
• Apps – OK, I knew this going in, but the fact that I can only access apps available from the Barnes & Noble App Store is proving to be a bit more irritating than I thought it would be. Compared to the Android Market, there are far fewer apps to choose from, and fewer still that are free. I've found a few articles on ways around this limitation that I'm sure I'll play around with over the coming days.
• Auto adding to the home screen – It's really rather annoying that, when I open up an app, that it automatically adds itself to the home screen. I'm hoping I can find a setting that will negate this. Granted, it doesn't hurt functionality, but I would much rather decide for myself which apps I want readily available on the home screen versus ones that I can access as needed from the full App menu.
• Browser – I've never been impressed with the stock Safari browser that comes with Android devices (the Nook is the third Android OS based device I've owned, the first two both being cellphones). I've had the browser force close on me several times, most notably when trying to view notifications on Facebook. Thankfully, one of the few free apps in the B&N App Store is Dolphin Browser, which I've used before on my my cellphones and which I'll undoubtedly download soon. I've also attempted to play music through the browser using my Slacker Radio account (since the app for it isn't available in the B&N App Store) and I couldn't even get the page to fully load. So far, this is just an annoyance, not a Con, that I'm hoping can be overcome by getting a different browser app.

All in all, I really just wanted an eBook reader, but chose the Nook Tablet to be able to have, at least, some tablet functionality instead of just a reader. I'm pretty confident in my choice of the Nook Tablet. There are few irritations and quirks to get used to and overcome as it does function a little differently than a pure Android tablet. What I like the best, though, is that I can carry the equivalent of a stack of books and gaming manuals around with me without making my book bag weigh a ton.

~ JC

Damn it Feels Good to Be a Lannister

If you haven't seen this video, and you're fan of 'Game of Thrones', you totally should do so... go ahead, I'll wait.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60Znn2_jDIc

I read a lot. Maybe not as much as some, and certainly not as much as I'd like to, but I do read a lot. I've read the original Dragonlance Chronicles, The Sword of Truth series, a fair amount of the Star Wars novels and of course I've read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and most of The Chronicles of Narnia, et.,al. But no series of books has gripped me the way George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice & Fire series has. I'll admit, I'm a late comer to this series, which started in 1996 with A Game of Thrones. And I'll even admit that I wasn't inspired to read them until HBO began producing a series based on them.

The first book, A Game of Thrones, was published in 1996. By the time fans of the series were eagerly awaiting book four, A Feast for Crows, to come out, I was working at a Books-A-Million in Fayetteville, NC. The series seemed interesting enough, but I didn't really feel like starting a series that was already three books deep (as a side note, as much as I love sci-fi and fantasy, it has always irked me that no one ever seems to write just one book in that genre; everything always ends up being trilogies or well beyond). Anyway, I had pretty much decided back then that I wasn't going to read this series. I was even a little bit perturbed that HBO was making a series out of them. I mean, that seems to be the status quo in Hollywood anymore – find a popular book series and turn it into a half-assed adaptation for the either TV or the big screen. Still, HBO usually does a pretty good job with this, but seeing as how I didn't have HBO, it really didn't matter.

A few months ago, though, I managed to get my hands on the HBO series. It was very well done, and the plot twists and surprises got my attention. So, I went to my local bookstore and picked up a copy of the first book. I was instantly hooked. Even though I had watched the HBO series, and knew what was going to happen, Martin's writing style (and the subtle differences between the books and TV series) had me turning page after page after page.

I am currently reading the fourth book. It has, admittedly, taken me no less than a month to read each book; they're that long, but also that compelling that I don't want to just rush through them. I'm not that fast of a reader as it is, but I find myself reading just a bit slower with this series because they are so rich with character development and plot twists, that I don't want to miss anything.

HBO is currently working on season two of its adaptation of the series. I've already noted some things that HBO has done regarding casting, and even re-naming characters, to make me worried that they might fuck this up, but I really hope not. So far, they've done a great job at following the books. Regardless of what HBO does, however, the books themselves have definitely made it into my all-time favorites list of literature. Martin has been heralded as “The American Tolkien”, and with good reason. His storytelling ability is that epic! If you haven't read these, you should, in my not-so-humble opinion.

~ JC

Legend of the Seeker No Sword of Truth

I've been a fan of Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series of novels for a decade or more. I've read them all, even the ones that weren't that interesting or seemed overly preachy with his Randian Objectivist views. Still, they were a great series of novels and I still highly recommend them to everyone. So, imagine my excitement when, a few years ago, it was announced that a syndicated television series based on those books was being produced. “Legend of the Seeker” premiered in November 2008 and ran for two seasons until May of 2010. I caught parts of episodes when it was first released and immediately hated it! I do realize that TV shows and movies never follow a novel precisely, but with “Legend of the Seeker” character's personalities, even main characters, seemed to be changed wholesale, the stories of all of the novels were mashed together, characters that never existed in the novels appeared, etc. etc. I really felt like the TV producers had totally fucked up a great book series and stuck a giant middle finger up at Goodkind's fans. I refused to watch it despite Terry's posting on his website (I think that's where I read it anyway) that fans should let the books be the books and the show be the show and not try to compare them. So, I tried to watch another episode; and failed. I just couldn't watch them destroy what had been my favorite series books for the last several years.

So, I recently discovered that the entire first season of “Legend of the Seeker” is available for viewing for free via Hulu (season two is available to Hulu Plus subscribers). So, I'm giving it another chance. I'm trying to watch it as just a television show based in a fantasy setting. It's difficult, because I loved the books so much and the TV show really fails at following anything resembling the story-lines of the novels. As a stand alone show goes, it's ok, assuming you liked Hercules and Xena (Sam Raimi produced both of those plus “Legend of the Seeker, by the way). I've actually watched the first five episodes of “Legend of the Seeker.” I think if I hadn't read the novels, I'd enjoy it more, but I still find myself picking apart all the things in the show that are blatantly wrong compared to the novels. Richard (the Seeker himself) for example, lacks the reasoning ability in the show that he has in the novels and way to impulsive most the time. Kahlan, the Mother Confessor in the novels, is just another Confessor in the books and not even the last of her kind. She's also more harsh and bit bossy in the TV show. First Wizard Zedd is just as powerful in the show, but lacks the whimsical, playfulness of the Zedd in the books. In the books, he's pretty much the last living wizard, while in the show he's just one of many powerful wizards of The First Order. Also, when the hell did Kahlan become über-awesome at fighting hand-to-hand with a pair of daggers? I don't remember that shit in the books. She was taught, much later in the novels, by Richard to use a sword, but in the TV series she's wicked awesome with knives from the very beginning. At least the fight scenes are well filmed and choreographed.

The casting for those three main characters is also a little bit off. Bridget Regan, asKahlan, is probably the best cast character; Regan is gorgeous, and actually plays the part of Kahlan quite well. I like Bruce Spence as Zedd decently enough, but Craig Horner just isn't a big enough guy to be Richard in my opinion. Richard was always described as rather tall and muscular (he's a woods-guide before being named Seeker, after all). Horner's got a pretty athletic build, but he's not that tall. In fact Spence is taller than Horner, and I always pictured Richard as being taller than Zedd, not the other way around.

Ok, ok. I realize that I'm picking nits here, and enough reviews exist online as it is now that I really don't feel the need to go into tons of details, especially since I'm only five episodes into giving it another chance to grab my attention. I’m' just saying, as a stand alone TV show “Legend of the Seeker” does ok, but as an adaptation of an epic series of fantasy novels, it sucks.

I'll likely finish watching the first season, and if I ever can afford to subscribe to Hulu Plus, I'll even watch the second season. But, The Sword of Truth this show is definitely not! I'm just getting tired of Hollywood's penchant for the last decade or more of not creating anything new or original. Seems like popular book series and classic 80's TV shows being re-imagined or turned into crappy syndicated series or movies is all that Hollywood's so-called writers can come up with anymore. It's why I really don't care that I don't have cable right now, and why I don't feel like spending the money to go to the movies anymore. As long as I have access to websites like Hulu (which has a lot of older, good TV shows) and good bookstore, I'm good.

~ JC

How To Care for Your Books: 5 Tips Home Hacks | Apartment Therapy Boston

Since I didn't write a blog this week, I thought I'd share this link I found this morning. It's definitely in keeping with my last post :-)

Enjoy! ~ JC

How To Care for Your Books: 5 Tips Home Hacks | Apartment Therapy Boston

Of course, if we all switched to e-books, then this becomes a moot point. Then again, I'll always own real books, so this is a great list of tips.

Paper vs Screen (or Real Books vs E-books)

One needs only look at my collection of books to know that I am a bit of a bibliophile. I'm not just someone who enjoys reading, but I really love the books themselves. I tend to collect anything that I read, and only begrudgingly part with a book, and then only if it was really one I didn't enjoy, I just really need the shelf space to accommodate, you guessed it, more books. So, it shouldn't be any real surprise that one of the first things I downloaded when I got my Motorola Droid over a year ago was an app called Aldiko Book Reader. I've also downloaded quite a few E-books as well, but up until now, haven't read a single one. Recently, while between books (meaning I had just finished one and was deciding what novel to read next), I starting browsing through the list of items I had downloaded to my Droid. I ended up reading the poem “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe. It was the first time I had actually used the e-book reader to read more than a page or two of anything.

Reading that classic poem got me to wondering about if I'd actually enjoy reading a full length book on such a small screen.^* So, to accommodate an experiment I decided to download an e-book for which I also own an actual copy of the book. So, when I'm at home, I read from the hard copy, but having the same book in electronic format on my Droid allows me to be able to pick up reading a few pages when I'm out and about even if I've forgotten to take my book with me. So far, I have to admit, reading a book on my phone isn't as bad I thought it would be. The tricky part, so far, with reading a book via two media formats is keeping the bookmarks synchronized. Whenever I read the book, I have make sure I move my bookmark in the e-book and vice versa or I end up reading the same pages/chapters twice.

Now that I've established that I'm perfectly content with reading a book on my smallish phone screen, I now have to decide if that will become the future of how I read books. As I mentioned before, I love books – the way they feel, the way they smell. I can easily spend quite a bit of time (not to mention money) at a bookstore. However, Aldiko has access to quite a large library of free, public domain books as well as more current books, usually for a bit cheaper than buying the hard copy. Then there's also the ability to get e-books via bit torrents.

There are also other concerns to take into account when collecting books. They take up a lot of space, and they can also be quite heavy when packed in boxes (something I have to consider since I'm still have most of my collection in storage in North Carolina and am currently establishing residency in Atlanta, GA). My old college buddy Sam had some interesting insights on this very subject some time ago. Rather than re-listing them all here, I'll suggest you read his blog entries “Digital Dilemma” and “Kobo Impressions”. The only other comment I'll make is that, while Sam bought a dedicated e-book reader, I rather like the fact that my smartphone has the ability to function as an e-book reader using the Aldiko app (or others) as well as access the internet. In other words, I only have to carry one mobile device, where someone with just an e-book reader would need to carry at least two (the reader plus their cellphone).

~ JC

PS. I should be noted that I have only cataloged physical books using LibraryThing. I've yet to catalog my e-books/PDFs save for a few.

* The Motorola Droid has a 3.7” screen

Culling The Stacks

I am a bibliophile (that means I love books, before any of you pervs out there think otherwise). I don't just love to read books, but to collect them as well. In fact, though it's been ten years, I still have a good bit of my college text books. I hate to part with books, especially if I've actually read them. I also once worked for a bookstore. So, you can imagine that with my employee discount and the fact that bookstores have clearance tables and sales all the time, that I've managed to build up quite the stack of books to go along with all my college text books that I never parted with. Well, you'd be correct. In fact, I quit working at said bookstore about six years ago, and I still have books purchased from there that I've not read yet. The problem I now face is, I must cull my collection of books. As I said before, I hate to part with books, but it's become necessary for a number of reasons, not the least of which is space to keep them all.

Reason the first – I just plain have to many damn books. As of the moment of this writing, my collection stands at 277 books. That's not counting books that I've lost, given away or long since traded to local used bookstores over the last twenty or so years. Nor is it counting the various gaming manuals that I've obtained in PDF format rather than hard copy (although, I do plan to catalog those into my LibaryThing listing as well). Truth be told, I really have to reason to keep all those college text books anymore, and I've also manged to collect some series of novels that I've lost interest in and probably won't ever get around to reading. So, why not get rid of that stuff and make room for books that I will read? Makes sense, doesn't it?

Reason the second – most of my collection is all in boxes in a storage building. A couple of years ago, and argument between my uncle and I (which has since been forgiven and forgotten) caused me to move out of my Grandmother's house and move in with my fiancee and her family. The result was that I had even more limited space for my belongings than before. So, all of my books that I had already read or were reference materials (those damn text books again), were boxed up and put in the storage building in the back yard. Thank God I have the aforementioned LibraryThing account, else I'd never know what I have down in that building. So, there you go – I have a bunch of stuff I'm not reading or referencing and it's taking up space in my in-law-to-be's storage unit collecting dust and generally being in the way whenever we have to dig out the Christmas decorations or anything else from storage.

Reason the third (don't ask me why I've been tagging my blog sections as though I were Lemony Snicket) – I'm moving. Not just to another house or apartment, but completely out of the state of North Carolina. The job market here's gotten pretty crappy, so after years of goading by my best friend and his constant offers of a place to stay, I'm heading to Atlanta to try my luck in the job market down there. So, I really don't need to drag along a bunch of books. I also could use all the extra cash I can get to pad the bank account until I find a job down there. So, I'll be selling off as much of my book collection as I can (or am willing to part with), hopefully before I leave for Georgia at the end of September. Incidentally, I've listed the items I've already had my fiancee list for me on Ebay at the bottom of this blog, in case you're interested (wink, wink).

So, as I cull through the stacks, the hard part will be deciding what stays and what goes. I'm also hoping that I can manage to actually sell the ones I decide to get rid of on Ebay rather than taking them to a used bookstore. The used bookstores where I live typically don't pay cash, they give trade credit. Of course, trade credit does me no good because, first of all, I'm trying to get rid of books, not collect more, and secondly, trade credit at a used bookstore in Fayetteville, NC does me absolutely no good if I'm going to be moving to Atlanta, GA. Most, if not all, of the old theology books from college will go for sure. After that, quite a few of the books on Paganism and Wicca will likely go (most books on that topic manage to be redundant anyway). I've already posted all of the Magic: the Gathering series of books I'm willing to part with on Ebay (again, see the list below). I'm just really not looking forward to foraging around in that stuffy storage building, let alone the thought of removing books from a collection that has taken me the better part of a decade to gather. *Sigh*

~ JC

PS – I probably should also mention that I'm just not yet ready to jump on the ebook bandwagon. Yes, they're convenient. Yes, an ebook reader would allow me to carry several books with me at one time without the added weight. As much as a technology and gadget geek as I am, books are one of those things that I'd just rather have the real thing. An ebook reader can never replace the feel and smell of a real book. I actually have an ebook reader app on my Droid device and have downloaded several public domain classics for it. I've yet to read any of them because of the small size of the screen and the fact that I don't feel like I'm actually reading a book.

Ebay Sales (note, theses are all scheduled to end on Monday, September 13, but whatever doesn't sell, I will have my fiancee re-list)

The Moons of Mirrodin (Mirrodin Cycle book 1)

Rath and Storm (Anthology)

The Colors of Magic (Anthology)

The Dragons of Magic (Anthology)

Time Spiral Cycle (books 1-3 as a set)

Ice Age Cycle (books 1-3 as a set)

Ravnica Cycle (books 1-3 as a set)

Odyssey Cycle (books 1-3 as a set)

Masquerade Cycle (books 1-3 as a set)

Invasion Cycle (books 1-3 as a set)

Just a quick note here: I at one time was attempting to collect and read all of the Magic: the Gathering novels. As you can see, I collected quite a few. I've only managed to read the first two books of the Artifact Cycle, however, and now that I no longer play the game, I'm really not as interested in reading the novels as I once was. So, in my efforts to reduce the number of books I own, particularly ones that have become of no interest to me, these were the first (of probably many) to make it onto Ebay.

Do Replicants Dream of Electric Blade Runners

I am usually pretty apprehensive about movies or television shows being based off of books. I mean, I understand that for the sake of time things need to be condensed and edited, but sometimes stories are just completely changed, using only characters' names and locations from the book (e.g., every version of The Three Musketeers I've ever seen or that horrible piece of shit “Legend of the Seeker” which destroyed Terry Goodkind's masterful Sword of Truth series). There have been some notable exceptions, such as Peter Jackson's rendition of The Lord of the Rings and the more recent Chronicles of Narnia movie adaptations which actually seem to follow the books fairly closely. Typically, I've found that seeing the movie before reading the book is the better way to go, as it makes the book that much better (and also helps with visualization at times). However, years ago I watched the movie “Blade Runner” and until recently had been unable to find a copy of the book it was based upon due to it apparently being out of print. Thankfully, the folks at The Science-Fiction Book Club, along with Dell Publishing, have re-released Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick. After reading the book, I found a desire to dust off my DVD of “Blade Runner” and compare the two as I remembered the movie seeming to have more action than the novel, which seemed a more cerebral endeavor.

Upon actually sitting down and watching the movie again this morning, I realized how very different “Blade Runner” is from the novel that inspired it. I sat down with pen and pad in hand to make notes, but five minutes in abandoned that notion and just sat back and enjoyed the movie. The differences were that vast. The “replicants” in the film were completely different and much more sinister than the androids, or “andys” in the book. The protagonist is single in the film, but married in the book – although he does fall in love/have an affair with one of the replicants/andys in both. There are entire characters and scenes in the movie that the book never even implies, and the population in the movie is much more vast than the post-apocalyptic society presented in the novel. I could go on and on.

The point is, why does Hollywood always manage to take a perfectly good story and muck it up? Granted, in this case, if Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was produced word-for-word as a movie, it would be pretty boring (the book is less action and more written to make you think). However, it always seems that films based on books or short stories regularly make over arching changes that are unnecessary. There are a few exceptions (as I mentioned above) but even in those exceptions there are still scenes left out or even inserted.

I love a good movie, but honestly, a good book is infinitely better. When a good book is made into a good movie, that's awesome. When a good book is made into a mediocre movie, it makes me sad. So, I'm not really sure how I feel about the “Blade Runner” versus Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep dynamic because I liked both of them, even though saying the movie is based on the book is a bit of a stretch; inspired by would be a better description. At any rate, it does reenforce my convictions that Hollywood is running out of ideas for movies and television and justifies my love of books.

~ JC