Theatre of the Gods by M Suddain Review

Theatre of the Gods by Matt Suddain
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was fantastic! The plot jumped all over the place for the first 300 pages with hilarious results and considering the main objective of the Character Fabrigas is to jump to another universe, this works beautifully.
One of the things I loved the most of the pop culture references. I wish the "traditional sea shanties" had continued into the second half of the book because the image of a dirty, disreputable rabble of grisaled sailors singing mixed up versions of pop songs is one of the funniest things I have read...ever!

The second half of the book is where the plot settles down and goes in a more linear fashion. This is where the action really heats up and once the homunculus shows up we're really cooking with gas.
Awesome book really worth the read.
I want more from these universes.

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April Book Photo Challenge Day 7 Socially Awkward Character

I have two favorite socially awkward characters that I just couldn't split and I just relised that they sit together on a shelf.

Dirk Gently knows so much and can read so much into everything that people miss judge him to be socially awkward. Abit like Sherlock Holmes but without the class. I use one of his phrases all the time when I'm doing bugger all and people think I'm smart; "What are you doing?" I'm making a topographic map of my navel" It a great way to shirk people off without them feeling like they are being shirked off.

I love Rincewind. I have loved Rincewind for as long as I can remeber. His pathological fear of just about anything has never stopped the world from inflicting his destiny on him wheather he is having fun or not, usually not. He knows he is socially awkward and would just like to left along but the rest of the world and even some magic spells don't notice or just don't care. Good thing he is a wizard otherwise he might have to deal with the oppiste sex too.

I love these two and have taken on board a lot of their traits over the years. They have a special place in my heart.   

A round up of the weekend's reading

Finally the last thing I read this weekend was volume 1 of Attack on Titan. 4/5 stars

This was the first manga/ comic book I have read this year which is pretty amazing becasue usually they are about half of my reading list.

I have started this series because the anime was recommended to me by one of my students. Turns out there is only one season so far and on further research, the production company that makes it is saying they have no immediate plans to make another. In other words they totally underestimated the extent of the appeal that this show would have. Which in hindsight is a bit silly. 

But I digress. The first volume of Attach on Titan works in about 3-4 of the frist episodes of the series. There was a lot more detail on the back story of some of the characters in the anime and some new characters altogether but I liked the pace of the manga better. Just a pity its not coloured.

The story so far...

Titan (3-15 metre tall humanoid creatures) have taken over the planet (presumably) and drive the humans close to extinction.  The humans now live in a small piece of land ringed by three massive walls with small, almost sacraficial towns jutting out of them in half moon shapes. This has been the situation for 100 years. Then the town where Eren, Mikasa and Armin live on the outer most wall is attached by a colossal titan and the town and the entire wall area is lost. Eren vowes to kill all titans after seeing hi mother eaten by one. Five years later, the three of them have finished there training and are planning on joining the Recon Corps when the second wall is attached by the same colossal titan and thebattle ensues.          

I am loveing this series and have so many questions from the anime that need to be answered. I will be reading the next one this weekend.

Around up of the weekend's reading part 2

The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas 4/5 stars

For a book about thought experiments and the "troposphere" or Mind Space" this book is incredibly visceral.   

The incredibly broken character of Ariel Manto is at times hard to read due to her complete and utter disregard for her own personal safety, both for her body and her mental health. However, the journey this book takes is one that my mum has been trying to explain to me for years. (If it wasn't for the disturbing sexual encounter within I would probably give it to her to read but no.)

I would have been a 5 star book but for two elements. 

1. The explanations of the pain of the lab mice. I have worked with these particular strains of lab mice and I left because of, amongst other things, the occasional mis treatment of them. Nothing as explicit as juggling them or putting live ones in with dead but just little thing I could reconcile with like the unnecessary over breeding and then the inevitable culling.

2. The odd, unexplained militant vegetarianism. I think this must go along with the anti cruelty to animals thing but that tied in with the slight undertones of anti Darwinism made it a little off putting for me.

In short, loved the story and the thought experiment backdrop, didn't like the politics. But just like my childhood, I can pick and choose the bits and pieces I like and discard the bits I don't.  

A round up of the weekend's reading

I managed to finish three books over the weekend (yay me!) This speed reading training is really doing something.

I thought i would give a quick round up of the three very different books.

Firstly we have:

Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton 4/5 stars

Well in a complete change of pace I read a non-fiction book. Its a first for the year. Just a Geek is an autobiograhical account of Wil Wheaton and his coming to terms with his Star Trek: The Next Generation past. I takes the form of augmented blog post from Wheatons website(s). As Wheaton comments that in the beginning, he is listening to that "prove to them all" inner voice so there is a lot of boasting about things that aren't quite true but the agumentation give a good insight into what was really going on and how much he really did strugle. 

I remeber Wil on Star Trek but that not really where I came to know him as an actor. His appearances on Big Bang Theory as himself are great, but what I loved him in was the Sci-Fi show Eureka, where he played a high strung and emotional scientist who often gets quite angry. What I was really happy about was to learn that he is nothing like these characters and really....just a geek like the rest of us, who drops in the odd Simpsons quote too.

More to come. 

In addition to this, I have finally been inspried to read Ringworld because of an account in the book where Wheaton meets Niven and both have a little fan boy moment. Thats kind of cool. So Ringworld, here I come!