Rudi, the son of Chief McKenzie, is all grown up. Since he was born there has been a big prophecy surrounding his life. This time, the prophecy comes true, and he has to get out of Oregon and the Willamette Valley, out to travel to Nantucket. A man from Nantucket had the vision of his prophecy and traveled walking and by horse, to Oregon, and now Rudi is going back with him, along with the usual childhood friends.

This is the first part of a second trilogy. I guess the first trilogy was about the parents getting used to the change, and settling in. This trilogy is now about people used to being part of the change. There’s still old people, of course. I am interested in the fact that Signe Larsson, while Juniper McKenzie and Sandra Arminger are ever present in the book. This time around, it’s their children who are at different risks, however, parents and older people are also part of this book, even if just at the beginning.

I’m still impressed at how people have “grown” to learn how to use other stuff instead of what we have been used to. Here I am, writing to you from a computer, when I couldn’t do it if I was living their life. I would, though, definitely take up archery lessons if I had time!

All in all, this was one book I couldn’t put down. I finished it in a week! Usually took me around a month. I blame The Boy for that. Making me read the Hyperion series was a difficult read, and now, everything else seems easy enough to finish quickly!

I… I really don’t know what to say about this awesome step by step guide on how to become a ninja and part of the I.O.N. (International Order of Ninjas). I’m not sure if the I.O.N. will come after me for mentioning I read it, but they will probably do something to me if I do reveal any of the details in it, so, go ahead, and read it.

Either that or don’t read it. There’s always the possibility of the book killing you. It, or the tasks you need to go through to become a ninja.

Me? A ninja? Probably. I’ve read the book. The book didn’t kill me. The I.O.N. hasn’t killed me as of yet and I’m always on my toes, so this is probably as good as it gets. I’ll keep on working my nice little normal job, but you’ll never know, when looking at me, I might be a deadly ninja ready to attack if you piss me off. And if I don’t attack you at that precise moment, beware, I might just be taking my time.

I personally enjoy it because I have been in the city. I DID find Jar City somewhat more interesting, however. Even so, having read it 5 years ago I can’t exactly recall the details.

What’s Voices about? A guy who lives in a hotel basement, and works as a doorman, has been found, half naked, stabbed to death. This doorman had been a “child star” but, sadly, grew up and could not continue with that life. However, we can find a few people who both loved his music or wanted to get their hands on his (now exceedingly pricey) vinyl recordings.

Erlendur (the main detective in Indridason’s novels) decides to stay in the hotel for a week, trying to find out more about all the different people that worked, lived and knew our main – dead – character.

*Sigh* I wish I knew enough Icelandic to read the original. The English version was pretty good, I admit, but I have this thing where I would’ve liked to read DeSade’s Juliette in French, or Voices or Jar City or Angels of the Universe or Reykjavik 101 in Icelandic.

Maybe it’s time to take the dust off my two Angels of the Universe books (one in English, one in Icelandic) and try to start and understand a bit more….

And suddenly, this ad appears:

(click on the image to enlarge)

I did not know I was interested in big assed Argentine girls… I don’t usually go for big assed guys, regardless of personality

Stay classy, Google….stay classy.

So I had already read Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things, which has the story of The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch. This time around, I’m just talking about the graphic novel, which of course, doesn’t add a lot of detail, however, gives you a different picture of what you had already seen.

And excuse me, if I don’t write much about this particular graphic novel, but… as when people say “the book was better than the movie”, well…. “The story was better than the graphic novel”.

This is the “lost entry” from when everything was erased. Hooray for backups!

The Rise of Endymion is the conclusion of the Hyperion series, which we can all know for sure took me a LONG time to read, however it was worth it.

It left me with a few questions unanswered and I’m wondering if I didn’t read a tiny little paragraph that might explain one or two of those questions, but I’m not going to re-read all four books again to find that out.

I can tell you it’s wonderfully written, you get excited about what will happen in the end, you don’t want to put it down, you want to go on and on until you finish but your eyes are closing and, damn you have to work tomorrow.

However it all comes back to Religion, Power and Love in the end. Hasn’t the church been powerful enough in our lifetime? Imagine a future where you HAVE to convert to be helped with the greatest medical advancements, to be able to travel and not be persecuted.

Think of us humans and the inevitable fear of death. So the church takes away that fear. You can die, but you’re resurrected, as easy as 1, 2, 3. You just have to add this thing to your body, which will help you to be, as Captain Jack Harkness, of Doctor Who and Torchwood fame says “the man (or woman) that can’t die”. Oh, but you can’t accept the church and not take the thing it’s all or nothing!

And one girl helps set it straight. She does not consider herself a messiah, even when everyone does. However she helps people realize you don’t need to live forever. You don’t need a thing strapped to you, and if the church was REALLY following what God/Jesus/Buddah/, they would care for EVERYONE not just those that accepted your favorite brand of religion.

Have I enticed you enough to read all four of those books? Good, go right ahead! You won’t be disappointed.

Seems like WordPress is much better for this kind of stuff than what I had before, and I have finally finished migrating to that.

I will start with my usual entries (including the one that got lost) during the week. Meanwhile, please enjoy, look around, if I’m missing your site send it over so I might add it to the link section and comment!

(Click on the image to enlarge)

People. Really. REEAAALLY….. Bill Gates is NOT going to send you money, the nigerian are NOT going to send you gazillions of dollars and you will not be coursed by the lonely virgin if you don’t forward the email to 7 people. You will also won’t be finding happiness if and only if you forward something to 12 of your closest friends.

So do as I do, click on REPORT SPAM as soon as you receive them. These people have to be taught a lesson.

Extrapolating this book to the Emberverse universe which I have also been reading for some time, it would be a very useful book, in the case there’s no more electrical and everyone has to fend for themselves.

The Zombie Survival Guide showed me how to fend myself, how to get myself ready literally for an apocalypse where we would have to defend from something that could kill us in seconds.

This book is serious. Gives you how much food, what kind of places you can and can’t live in and how you can defend yourself. Shows you how you HAVE to trust the people you have survived with and who might be in charge of carrying/working on what.

I do recommend it, even when we would probably never afford to find the kind of fortresses and the kind of weaponry we would need to save ourselves from zombies.

However, humans always find a way to keep on living.

Seems to me ( and Marvel fans can correct me ) that these guys were here since the beginning of time and they can’t remember. I have no clue what happened for them not to remember, however, I can say it was an interesting story, and that I was glad to read it, however I am going to comment on something completely different than the story itself. The characters, or, their evolution.

The Eternals were originally created by Jack Kirby and, at the end of the book, you can see the “originals” Some of the ladies in those old comics actually had hips! and were not exceedingly thin! Our vision of beauty has sure changed, and I’m unsure to say if it’s a good or a bad thing.

However, to me, it was interesting to see the contrast from Jack Kirby’s Eternals to John Romita’s Eternals. 70′s… 2k’s…

A good story, I would like to understand actually who/what Sprite was, and why he couldn’t grow up.

As usual, thank you, Mr. Gaiman, for doing such wonderful Graphic novels.