An idea for a baby shower gifts

It is summer. It is the season of weddings and also for babies. I recently had to buy some books for a friend's baby shower and was agonizing over what to get. If you work around books or are around kids, you know the quintessential books that people get for new babies: Goodnight Moon, Pat the Bunny, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, anything Eric Salle, and so on. Even while working at Barnes & Noble, I was still at a loss of what to get for my cousins' kids.

But I found a cute little book series for kids that takes a spin on Goodnight Moon. The series takes the idea behind Goodnight Moon and adapts it to certain states, cities, or regions of the world. The one that I like is Good Night Minnesota (naturally, since I'm a born and raised Minnesotan). It's a cute look at some of the local cities and natural beauty of the chosen state. I think it's a great way to help your child (or the child if it's a gift) to learn about their state on a level that they can understand. I found some inside pictures of what Minnesota has to offer:

Get the little ones ready for the Great Minnesota Get Together!

Prepare them for the grandeur and beauty of the North Shore.

But there are books for at least every state. I looked them up on BN.com and tried to find a list of them, but there are so many! I went through four pages of search results (I typed in "Good Night" under the Kids' Books tab and hit ENTER) and after a while of writing down all the ones of the series, I felt pretty certain that each of the 50 states has a book (Oregon, North Carolina, Wisconsin, California, to name a few), some cities have their own books (i.e., New York City, New Orleans, Denver), with some places (i.e., farm, country store, lake, zoo), and even some international destinations (Montreal, Toronto, Canada, and Israel) are represented in this series. I also found Good Night Baby Jesus in case there's a Christmas birthday for the child, or for a good religious gift for the child.
If you want a more specialized/personalized gift for a child, I would certainly recommend getting one or more of these books for them. If they like oceans, farms, or want to learn more about the city/state they live in, these are great books to get. And... if you have a sports fan in the household...

These sports teams, and many more, can be found at BN.com (or other bookstores) if you search for "(sports team's name) 101" or "(sports team's name) ABC", and if your local bookstore doesn't have it in stock (if you live in MN and want a NY or CA themed book) I'm more than willing to bet that they can order it for you; and remember, if you have to order it make sure to plan ahead for order and mail travel time so that your books will get to you before the party. So yeah. Here's some ideas for you if you find yourself in a predicament of not knowing what to buy that new little one in your life.
If you want an idea of how many books are out there in the Good Night... series, here's a list of the titles I took from the 4 pages I looked through at Barnes & Noble's website:
Florida, Oregon, Denver, Hawaii, California, Georgia, New York City, Nevada, Maryland, Michigan, Miami, Chicago, Boston, Maine, Pittsburgh, Colorado, Seattle, Israel, World, Farm, Lake, America, Toronto, Beach, North Pole, Canada, Zoo, New Jersey, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Nantucket, New York (state), Montreal, New Orleans, Baby Jesus, Country Store... and that's just from 4 pages!! The search results of "Good Night" brought up thirty-six pages. 

Fibble: Where the Lying Kids Go by Dale E. Basye

I finished Fibble: Where the Lying Kids Go by Dale E Basye last night. The fourth installment in the Heck series happily lives up to its predecessors.

We pick up with Milton and Marlo Fauster in their respective adventures in Heck, namely the fourth circle called Fibble, which resembles a three-ring circus complete with big tops and circus tents. The vice principal of Fibble is none other than P.T. Barnum, this time with flaming pants and a horde of shrimp goons. The story of Fibble focuses a little more on Marlo's adventure in the circle, as she is trapped in her brother's body; picking up where Blimpo left off, the Fauster siblings are traveling around in each other's bodies. Being trapped in Milton's body is awkward enough, without being around the dreamy boy she met in Rapacia, Zane, who is now in Fibble. Besides trying not to flirt with Zane in her brother's body, Marlo has to navigate Barnum's web of lies and deceptions in order to stop the ring leader's plan to send underworld products up to the surface in a twisted marketing scheme. In between trying to avoid the mind-numbing blanket of lies, Marlo has to endure yellow journalism class with Mr. Hearst, voodoo economics with Nixon, and a pseudo prophecy class with Nostradamus. There's a bigger scheme going on with Barnumn and Fibble and Marlo is determined to figure it out. 

While Marlo is Milton on Fibble, Milton is Marlo in her infernship with Satan's new production company: T.H.E.E.N.D., a TV station that has found a way to beam its underworldly shows up onto the surface. Milton's supervisor in the studio is Orson Welles, who tries to relive his surface glory days. Milton finds himself in charge of picking the shows for the new TV station and preview submissions to the lineup. One video rubs him the wrong way and seems more real than any of the other entries. Milton slowly realizes that the TV show named "The Man Who Soldeth The World" is in fact real and that the Earth is really being sold to aliens, and the reality deal is going down in video installments. Milton isn't sure how to stop the selling of the earth, or the growing plot to send to world into premature apocalypse due to the uber religious shows being broadcast by T.H.E.E.N.D. that are sending the people on the surface into faith-based riots. There is a grand scheme to sell the world and it is somehow linked to the goings-on down in Fibble. Towards the end of the book, the two siblings finally reunite in a last ditch effort to thwart the plot against the world. 

Fibble is another great entry into the Heck series, as I stated before. It maintains the twisted humor, dark commentary, and tongue-n-cheek play on words that made the first three books so much fun. The book focuses on the thin line between truth and lies, pointing out some of the ways that the world and people twist and turn things to make them appear far better than what they really are worth. It also enlightens the little lies we tell ourselves, and the devastating impact one endures when one finally breaks down and takes a hard look at who they really are. Basye does a terrific job blending the twisted humor and childish gross-out elements with more adult themes---and by "adult themes" I mean the heavier, more mature themes of faith, life and death, personal reflections, and self-sacrifice for the greater good. This is a great series that works for both adults and children, much like how Pixar films have the obvious child-level humor but then on another level there's the humor/story that's aimed at the adults that children won't get until they watch Toy Story, WALL*E, or UP again in 10+ years.  

So here is my updated rating of the series with the addition of Fibble: 

Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go: 8

Rapacia: The Second Circle of Heck: 

             Where the Greedy Kids Go: 7.5

Blimpo: The Third Circle of Heck: 

            Where the Fat Kids Go: 7.5

Fibble: The Fourth Circle of Heck: 

           Where the Lying Kids Go: 7

Circles of Heck series thus far: 7.5

I can't recommend this series enough. In fact, I just borrowed my copy of Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go to a friend of mine so she can enjoy the greatness of this series as well. The fifth book, Snivel: Where the Whiny Kids Go is out now, in hardcover. I will have to wait for roughly a year for the paperback to come out. I don't know what it is, but I can't read hardcovers. I can count the number of hardcover books I've consciously, purposefully read on one hand. But, if you can read multi-coverd books, go out and buy the hardcover and read away! And while you're at it, pick up the other four books, too!

Howl's Moving Castle: The Book vs. The Movie

I will admit I saw the Studio Ghibli  adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones' fantasy tale (the link sends you to the Disney related site, the actual website for the animation studio is in Japanese). I adore manga and anime, and Howl's Moving Castle the movie version is one of my favorite anime of all time. I realized I needed to read the book, since I was chastised by a teenaged girl when I was helping her once in the Teen section at the Barnes & Noble. She was looking for something to read, since she had already "read everything". I'd suggested Howl's Moving Castle, to which I received the hipster wannabe reply of "I already read it." I then mentioned I've seen the movie, but hadn't gotten around to read the book yet. Which then came the even more snotty, hipster reply of "The movie is nothing like the book, *eye roll* The book is so much better."

Well, excuse me.


I'm afraid to admit that I was a little guilted and shamed into buying the book the next pay period because of what the girl said. Nine times out of ten, the book is better than the movie. So much does get lost between the two mediums; I figured that the book would fill in some of the blanks that I naturally figured were there.

The two might be fire and ice in their differences.

First, the basic premise of the story.

The land of Ingary is a magical land, full of demons and spirits, sprites and faeries, wizards and witches, and all things fantastical. But there are also normal people as well. One of those normal people is Sophie, a young girl who works at a hat shop in Market Chipping. She is just trying to get through life in the shadows of her two beautiful and successful sisters, as well as trying to just carry on with normalcy while the nations are preparing for an eminent battle. Apparently a prince was kidnapped from Sophie's kingdom and the government blamed a neighboring kingdom. On day, while minding her own business, Sophie inadvertently insults a witch. But not just any witch, the Witch of the Wastes: one of the most feared magic users in all of the kingdoms. In a slightly confusing exchange between the two women, the Witch of the Wastes curses Sophie so that she slowly turns into an old woman. Ashamed of what happened to her, Sophie goes off into exile, but also on a quest to find someone who can lift this curse.

Her travels bring her into the Wastes, a vast wilderness where most of the wizards and wizards live away from civilization. While out in the Wastes, she meets Howl, who is comparable if not more powerful than the Witch of the Wastes; rather she runs into his magical conglomeration of a house. It walks on giant legs and is a mismatched collection of house parts. She finds herself invited into his home and passes herself off as a cleaning lady. While in the home, she meets a varied cast of characters: Marko, Howl's apprentice,  Calcifer, the fire demon who kept the magical house moving, and Howl himself. She makes quick friends with Marko and Calcifer, but Howl is impossible to get along with.

Where the two versions of the story branch off drastically here. The movie focuses more on the coming battle and how the two warring kingdoms are biding for Howl's help. Howl doesn't agree to take either side and lives in the strange limbo of his house. Howl hides from the world in his house and refuses to take responsibility. The movie also focuses on breaking Howl's own curse, a promise he made to Calcifer when he was younger that binds the two together: if Calcifer dies, or burns out, then Howl dies, too. Now Sophie's focus is on Howl and trying to figure out his curse and how to help him break free.

The book focuses more on Howl as he slowly grows and gets some maturity. He faces the reasons why he has hid, and what he is hiding from. More is revealed about the relationship between the Witch of the Waste and Howl, how he had broken her heart once because he was selfish, arrogant, and immature. Howl makes it difficult to live with, but Sophie knows that she has to tough it out to get him to lift her curse without telling him about the curse. The book also reveals a delightful little tidbit about Howl's past: He's from another dimension. I won't tell too much about this part, because it'd be a spoiler, and I hate spoiling things. But it's a super cute part of the story. That little plot twist was not even touched on in the movie. The book also shows Sophie going off to face the Witch of the Waste herself, since Howl is still too scare/immature to face his own problems. Here, in her battle with the Witch, Sophie finally breaks her curse and finds out what happened to the kidnapped prince.

I think the main difference between the two tales is that Hayao Miyazaki boiled down the main plot of the book and just focused on the relationship between Sophie and Howl. Diana Wynne Jones' original tale has a lot more subtly and character building between all the characters, although it still focuses on Sophie and Howl. The personal growth of Howl from spoiled, immature boy to understanding and responsible man is gradual to Sophie in the story---if not nonexistent; but the reader can tell that being around Sophie has changed Howl and he does certain things to and for her to try and show he's changed.The journey of Sophie toward the releasing of her own curse is even more subtle in the book than the movie. Of course in the movie, the visual cues help add context and help the viewer understand what's happening. The subtle reveal in the book is almost missed until the very end.

I know that comparing the book and the movie is like trying to herd cats (which is actually not as hard as people make it out to be) but the two are so similar and yet utterly different that now I see it's almost impossible to explain it without having experienced the two for yourself. I still adore the movie, far more than I enjoyed the book. I enjoyed the book, since it gave me a new view into the tale of Sophie and Howl, filled in Grand Canyons' worth of holes that the movie left out. I understand now the reasoning for the movie (and other books-turned-movies) cutting out so much and sticking to the main plot, removing all the necessary filler and side tangents that eventually brought us back to the main plot. But just like the much love (and much criticized) Harry Potter movies/books, the movie would be very long and if not unbearably sluggish, if they kept everything from the books.

I recommend watching the movie first, then reading the book. For some reason, when I did it that way, I found it easier for me to keep the two versions separate. I still found myself comparing while I was reading: "That wasn't in the movie... WTH? That wasn't in the movie... that part is different from the movie..." But that's a natural thing to do; it could have been much worse and probably ruined the movie for me if I did the reverse.
On my scale of 1 (literary hari kari) to 10 (literary orgasmic bliss), I give the movie version of Howl's Moving Castle a strong 8. The book version I rate at a 6. It was a good tale, but I still prefer the movie version. Sorry, all you purists out there. Both are strong tales and worthy of one's time and adoration.

Monster Zombie Series by David Wellington

David Wellington's story is one that all amateur authors/online bloggers dream about. He started out posting chapters of his stories on his website, in the old fashioned serial format that authors used back when newspapers and magazines were the blogs and websites of their time. The response to his tales was so great it finally garnered the attention of a publishing company. And viola! He got published and has eight, soon to be nine, books out in major markets for all to enjoy. Wellington has three series, a zombie series, a vampire series, and a werewolf series (so far has one book, not sure if there will be more). This review will focus on the zombie series.

The series starts with Monster Island. How the story is structured shows the serial beginnings of the tale, where every other chapter is told by the two main characters, Dekalb and Gary.  I forgot Dekalb's first name and I'm trying to page through the book to figure this out. Oh well. The book starts a few months after the zombie plague spread across the world like wildfire. Dekalb is on a mission to return to New York City---from where he and his young family had fled only a month before---to go to a hospital and get HIV medication for the African dictator who offered his family shelter from the zombies. With a group of teenage girl warriors, Dekalb has to navigate the plague riddled streets of the what was once the greatest city on the earth to find a hospital that has the necessary medications. Without them, he will never see his daughter again.

The other main character, Gary, was just trying to survive the zombie attacks. He was a nurse in a hospital, and when the infected started coming back to life and eating everyone in sight, Gary hid in a room and strapped an oxygen mask on and waited to die from his own bite. Here is where the zombie genre gets tweaked on its ear a bit: Wellington introduces sentient zombies. He, through Gary, offers this explanation: Zombies are mindless eating machines because during the process of dying, the brain looses oxygen and when the virus (or whatever causes zombies) runs through the blood to keep the body going after death. So how do you keep your senses about you when you get turned into a zombie? Keep a constant supply of oxygen running through to your infected brain to keep it alive after it changes. So Gary is a sentient zombie... with a little something extra. Gary and Dekalb eventually clash as their paths cross into an epic showdown that is exciting and a fresh view of the genre.

The sequel to Monster Island is more of a prequel. With Monster Nation, Wellington reveals to us how the zombie plague started. We are taken on this journey through the eyes of a young woman with no memory of who she was, or how she wound up on an oxygen bar on a boardwalk in California. Again, the story bounces between the girl, who eventually chooses a new name, Nila, and an army officer, Captain Clark, who is charged with containing this sudden spike in horror and cannibalism; but there are no true chapters. The book is split into Parts, and the only break to tell the switch between POVs, are bolded paragraphs that signal national broadcasting warnings about the strange epidemic sweeping the nation. Nila is a young woman with no past and is unaware that she was the first sentient zombie. The oxygen bar in California? Yeah, that's how that started, after getting bitten by a crazy person (zombie), Nila goes to an oxygen bar to get a blast of energy, and ends up dying while hooked up to the O2. Now with no idea who she is, or what is wrong with her, all Nila knows is that she's drawn by this strange call, this strange sense that something is pulling her to the east. Through various trials, Nila finally makes it to Colorado.

Along the way, she and Clark cross paths, both trying to figure out what is drawing the zombies to Colorado. Clark believes that this walking, talking, and congitive zombie is the key to the cause of this horror. At one point, Nila is captured by Clark's army and she finally realizes what she is, which makes her want to follow this eerie siren's call to find out what caused her death and second life. I won't reveal what caused the zombie plague, because that would take the fun out of what would make for a great summer read, but in true Wellington style, it changes the game a little in the world of zombie fiction.

The final chapter of Wellington's trilogy is Monster Planet. This books picks up 12 years after the events of Monster Island, and we are finally introduced to Dekalb's daughter, Sarah. Left alone with the militant group of women warriors by her father all those years ago, Sarah is now making the same trip her father took to the States. She arrives in New York with Aayan, one of the original teenaged warriors who accompanied her father over a decade ago, as well with other warriors. The group is on a journey to kill one of the strongest sentient zombies in the world, the Tsarevich, a young Russian boy who has amazing powers over other zombies (if you read the first book, you'd know that the sentient zombies have strange 6th senses). Sarah is special in her own right: she can see the energy signatures that zombies give off, allowing her to see into the more "supernatural realm". Also helping Sarah along this strange and gruesome journey is the advice and company of the ghost of the zombie (person?) who had killed her father, Ptolemy, an Egyptian pharaoh who wants the spirits of his mummies released, and eventually one very strange Druid, Sarah's journey to figuring out how to stop the Tsarevich and what was screwing up the ebb and flow of life and death is wrought with supernatural craziness. She also finds out what happened to her father---and that will both blow your mind and wrench your heart. After being attacked by the Tsarevish's forces, being separated from Aayan, Sarah begrudgingly joins forces with her super natural comrades and heads west.

Aayan, on the other hand, is facing a different set of troubles of her own. Captured by goons of the Tsarevich, she is traveling with them towards the source of the zombies (figured out in book 2), in order to grant them even more power. While in their captivity, she is faced with her own mortality, tempted by the zombie croonies to become one of them. They all have various powers that set them apart from humans and zombies alike, what would it be like to have that power? Have near immortality and supernatural abilities? The once battle-hardened warrior, ardent killer of all things zombie... soon finds herself asking those questions and honestly considering the possibilities. Sarah and Aayan eventually meet up far from New York at their original goal in Colorado. What results is a battle for the ages, two forces wanting the source of the zombies for two very different reasons, and Sarah has some hard choices to make in order to save herself and all of mankind.

This series is a great addition to the zombie/horror genre. Full of gruesome visuals, not-quite-reality technology, and supernatural twists, Wellington has penned a truly original zombie tale that fits well in the cannon of zombie lore and fiction. After a while, one can only watch or read so many zombie movies/books. If you subscribe to the Romero cannon, zombies are slow and dumb, pitiful and mindless eating machines. Or if you subscribe to the 28 Days or The Crazies camp, zombies are caused by more man-made viruses gone horribly wrong, but the zombies (are they really zombies if they don't die and come back?) are fast and vicious killers. With Wellington's zombie universe, there are still the dumb, mindless zombies that go and eat whatever is living, but he adds the notion of intelligent zombies that really hasn't been done before. The closest, at least to my knowledge, is seen in the last two movies of Romero's, Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead, where the zombies exhibit lingering imprints of their daily lives: they perform their old tasks (ie, pumping gas, walking an imaginary dog), or in Shaun of the Dead, the dead were easily trained to perform repetitive tasks, since that's all their brains could handle. Wellington's smart and "specially enabled" zombies make for a more intriguing tale and offer new questions and possibilities for the genre. Hell, if Stephanie Meyer can make vampires freaking sparkle (and make a hundred trillion dollars off ruining the genre forever), I think Wellington can make them have fun telekinetic powers and not do much damage to the sanctity of zombies.

And now my rating of each book, and then the series as a whole. On my scale of 1 (literary hari kari) to 10 (literary orgasmic bliss), I give the Monster Island series the following scores:

Monster Island: 8
Monster Nation: 7
Monster Planet: 7
Monster Zombie Series as a whole: 7.3

If you like zombies, horror, and monster stories in general, I think you'll like this new take on an old topic. If you're a monster purist, this trilogy might be a little too much for you to swallow, but if you keep an open mind, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse: A Review

This was a fun read. If you like your faerie fairy tales a little skewed and aimed at a more adult audience, then Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse, by Robert Rankin, is for you. Think Disney, Mother Goose, and the Grimm Brothers got sucked into a gritty, film noir type mystery tale with a disillusioned-yet-wise detective... who just happens to be a teddy bear.

We first meet Jack, a young man who is tired of the dust and simpletons of the rural life and heads to the big city to make his fortune. He heads off to Toy City, the New York City of fairy tale land. Sadly the small town boy is no match for the nitty gritty city and just when he thinks he should return home, he runs into Eddie Bear. Eddie is a walking, talking teddy bear, the rough-n-tumble sidekick of one of Toy City's most famous detective. Who has mysteriously gone missing. The two unlikely comrades join forces to figure out what happened to Bill Winkie, Private Eye. Eddie becomes Jack's unofficial guide to all things Toy City, exposing the sheltered lad to all the dirty, sexy, druggy, and deviant characters that were kept far from the fairy tales, even the original Grimm versions.

Along the way the two get caught up in a twisted trail of grisly murders of famous nursery rhyme celebrities, such the likes of Humpty Dumpty and even Mother Goose herself (it'll make you look at Thanksgiving turkey in a different light). The clues of Bill's disappearance seem to line up with the sudden celebrity deaths, which drives Eddie and Jack to find the truth even more fervently. But the nursery rhyme serial killings aren't just gruesome, they are also punctuated by a partially eaten chocolate bunnies left as calling cards. Whether an arm, ear, or other chocolaty body parts are missing, the sugary treats become deliciously twisted calling cards. Soon all Toy City is crippled by this serial killer and it is up to Eddie and Jack to figure out the clues by diving deeper into the seedy underbelly of the city, turning over the darkest rock and uncovering whatever secrets lie there.

This is certainly not your mother's, or even your children's nursery rhymes. If you thought that Shrek because it spun these classic stories on their ear, then Rankin spins these tales around and knocks them flat on their collective ass. Rankin's tale starts off a little slow and takes a little getting used to how he paces the flow, but I personally think it's because he's British and they don't use this " type of quotations marks but only the singles ' for when people talk. It confused me, but I quickly got over it.

I rate this book on my scale of 1 (literary hari kari) to 10 (literary orgasmic bliss) at a comfortable 6. I highly recommend this for those who like their crime novels with the flare of the salacious with a noir chaser. It's certainly a different take on "contemporary fairy tales" which I think the more mature reader will appreciate. 

Loss of a True Visionary and Backlog of Reviews Updates

Ray Bradbury
1920-2012

I'm certain most of you have heard this already, but I felt I needed to mention this sad news and offer my two cents. Tuesday, June 6, 2012, renowned author Ray Bradbury passed away at the age of 91. You may know (and maybe dread) him from high school English class from being forced to read having the pleasure of reading Fahrenheit 451. Others may have been introduced to him in other ways and enjoyed their encounters with his works either in class or outside the school setting. I know in Minnesota high schools, F451 seems to be the perennial favorite of English classes. Back when I worked at Barnes & Noble, I had taken many a high school student back to the Sci-Fi section to pick up their mandatory copy of F451 for English class... and how many times we sold out because of 3 high schools' worth of students coming to our one store and the schools not telling us that this current semester was Bradbury semester. 

I have only read F451, and that was back in junior year AP English. I didn't understand it then, at least not all of its amazing messages, because my adolescent brain hadn't yet matured enough to understand dystopian societies. The only things I remember for F451 was the girl dancing in the rain, they burned books (SPOILER!), and that the guy's name was Montag---which is German for Monday. Oh, and the creepy bio-mechanical slug beasts called Hounds (?) that sniffed out books. I think later that year, or my senior year, we read Orwell's 1984 and I knew that blew straight over my level of understanding. I remember more of F451 than I do of 1984. I recall an awkward real like sex scene (vs the virtual government-ordained method), Group Think, Group Speak, and "Double plus good."

But now, that I've matured by 10+ years and had experiences out in the world that broadened my horizons and understanding of how the world really is, I'm pretty certain that I am prepared to handle those dystopian books. A couple of years ago, I read Animal Farm, which I remember having been mentioned in an episode of the original X-Men cartoon of the 1990s. Beast was reading it when he was in a mutant detention center, being held by the anti-mutant riot/task force. Being in my late 20s/early 30s, I could understand that Beast holding that iconic book meant more than my little prepubescent brain could comprehend. When I was done reading it, I couldn't stop with the real-life applications of Orwell's socialist and oppressed farm to what I was seeing and hearing about in our world today. That got my brain thinking. I should really go back and reread F451 and 1984, now that I'm mentally prepared to understand what Orwell and Bradbury wanted to get across to their readers. I had always meant to pick up F451 again, and now that Bradbury has passed, I suppose as some sort of tribute, I could pick it up again. I think I have it on my bookshelf still. 

But Bradbury did more than become the unwilling bane of high schoolers' existences. He, like Orwell and H.G. Wells, helped usher in the science fiction and fantasy genres as we know them today. With him, and his peers, we wouldn't have some of our great epics of our time, like Star Wars, Avatar, Dr. Who, Aliens, Star Trek... anything about other worlds, time travel, aliens, or the coming of wicked things... we owe it to Bradbury's influence on more modern authors. So while you get inundated with memorials and video clips, sound bites and quick blurbs at the end of news shows, show your gratitude and respect to a great author in your own way.  Either pick up one of his books, one of his esteemed peers', or pop in Star Wars Episode IV. 

Thank you, Mr. Bradbury. Thankfully, you were alive to see how beloved your works had become. And how truly... *ahem* admiring... your fans are: 

Warning... strong language and suggestive lyrics. If you're easily offended... you might want to skip this... But it's a great, funny tribute to a girl's fave author in a cheeky way NSFW

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So here's the updated list of my books to review, so far:

• Dead of Night
• Crooked Little Vein (4-11-12)
• Homer's Odyssey (3-26-12)
• Crimson City Series  (6-5-12)
• Circle of Heck series (thus far) (4-8-12)
• Joe Ledger series (thus far)  (3-27-12)
• Mutant Island series 
• Double Booked for Death (3-15-12)
• Family Affair
• Sacre Bleu
• How I Paid for College  (5-2-12)
• Attack of the Theater People!
• Liberty (5-7-12)
• Tattoo (Jennifer Barnes) (4-30-12)

Crimson City Series Review

The Crimson City series. What can I say about this amazing series? This was the series that not only introduced me to the genre of paranormal romance, but it also helped me bounce back from a pretty bad break up. Cliche, I know. But it happened! More on that in the latter portions of this review. Crimson City series was originally a 6 volume collaborative series that offered the reader the chance to view the same literary world through 5 different eyes. The series starts off with the introduction of Crimson City and the main themes that will pop up through the rest of other books in the first volume, Crimson City, by Liz Maverick. 

Original cover art work (love!)

Crimson City is set in the not-so-distant-future, in a world were humans, vampires, werewolves, and demons are fully known to the other species. There is a certain heirarchy the the species, with vamps on top, then humans, then werewolves, and finally demons. Demons don't normally live in our world but in a paralell plane, but from time to time a demon finds a magical dimensional doorway that allows them to access our world. Crimson City is the tongue-n-cheek nickname of Los Angeles, given because of the high volume of paranormal species and the violence that comes from the varied groups living together. We are introduced to Fleur Dumont, the youngest of three vampire siblings who form the governing body to the most powerful vampire family in Crimson City. After tragedy strikes the Dumont family, Fleur is left to pick up the pieces and figure out who is targeting her family and other vampires. Along the way she meets a lost, and perhaps kindred soul, in Dain Reston; a cop who has unknown skeletons in his closet and is searching for the memories of a previous life that seems more foreign to him than the vampires and wolves around him. Together, the pair fight through intrigue and political chess to figure out who was behind the Dumont hit, all the while dancing on the knife's edge of passion and desire neither had known before. 

The next in the series is A Taste of Crimson, by Marjorie M. Liu. We step away from the glitter and prestige of the vampire world and delve into Keeli Maddox's world of werewolves, full moons, and living in abandoned subway tunnels. Being third on the totem pole of species, the werewolves live mostly underground in Los Angeles' long forgotten subway system. Other packs live in the least desirable parts of the city above ground, but the Maddox clan, one of the most powerful in the city, resides in the subway. Keeli is next in line of her pack and is struggling to find her place in the realm of powering and governing. Nearly escaping a strange encounter with an even stranger creature, Keeli meets Michael, a vampire enforcer who is entrusted with the task of hunting down a rogue vampire. The pair continue to bump into each other after both spotting this strange creature---a pale, bald, floating humanoid that seems to be drawing them further and further down the rabbit hole. While trying to determine this creature's origin, Keeli and Michael are also drawn into the middle of boiling race tensions between the vampires and Keeli's pack. The key to settling the race war seems to lie with the mystery being, only if Keeli and Michael can get to him before it's too late.

The love scenes in this one are HOT!

The third (and may I be so bold as to say my favorite of the original series) is Through A Crimson Veil by Patti O'Shea. Now we are introduced to the misunderstood demons. By now, the events from the first two books meld together and begin to show the main theme of the books: there's an upheaval in the balances that tie the human and demon worlds together, and somewhere in Crimson City is the one thing that can save the world from crumbling into pieces. Mika, a half-demon, is on the hunt for that item and she believes she has finally found it. But it's in the possession of a demon hunter. A fellow half-demon who despises the demon side of his lineage enough to be hired out to kill them. He has a power artifact that may hold the key to saving Crimson City and the world as we know it. Only if Mika can get close enough to the distrusting Conor to show him the beauty in his demon side, as well as the power he has kept in his magically fortified house. As Mika and Conor get closer to reaching an understanding, other dark forces who want Conor's artifact to permanently open a door between the demon realm and the earthly plane, come knocking on his ruin-sealed doors. On top of this, Mika and Conor are brought together by a strong bond that is neigh impossible to ignore, a love and combining of two souls that has the power to keep the dark forces at bay and to bring some resemblance of stability to the veil between worlds.

The fourth tome is A Darker Crimson, by Carolyn Jewel. Not only do we see more demons, but now we get a glimpse into their world, known as the plane of Orcus. Claudia Donovan, a human cop, has to find a way into the demon world to save her daughter. She was kidnapped by a demon named Lath that claims they are eternally bonded and meant to be together... and that if she comes to the demon plane to be with him, he'll give back her daughter. Not knowing how to get to the demon plane on her own, Claudia seeks the help of Tiberiu, a vampire who has his own secrets. Unsure of who to trust, Lath or Tiberiu, Claudia accepts his help to cross the veil between worlds to track down her daughter. The world of Orcus is all at once beauty and power, deceit and pain. At its best, the glamour of Olympus and the magical science of Atlantis, then in the next heartbeat it looks more like the spice world in Dune with deadly beasts and expansive deserts. Claudia has to put her trust in Tiberiu in order for her and her daughter to survive, but now being this close to Lath is causing the strange bond between them to blur the truth and his silver-laced words together, making it hard for her to remember why she came to this confusing world in the first place. Only Tiberiu's calm guidance and strong heart can bring Claudia back from the brink.

Number five is Seduced by Crimson by Jade Lee. This tale takes a more Eastern flare, with a Buddhist/Taoist vibe. With more demons slipping through the broken seal between earth and Orcus, the fabric of the cosmos is at stake. Enter the daughters of the Phoenix Tear, young girls with special connections to the very energies of the earth, whose special powers just might be able to calm the savaged magic that holds the demon and human worlds together. The Druids, another group who is attuned to the magical energies of the earth, send out one of their most powerful to track down the last known Phoenix Tear: Xiao Fei. Though he is a powerful Druid... Patrick is anything but prepared when he actually finds the last Phoenix Tear. In a move that proves to damage his cause rather than promote it, Patrick and Xiao Fei need to hunt down another energy source that will help heal the rift between the two worlds. Of course, there are demons and other dark forces out and about who try to keep the pair from obtaining their goal, and also who want to see the last Phoenix Tear dead. Patrick and Xiao Fei are have a tight deadline to find another similar energy to match the Phoenix Tear to perform the ritual that will hopefully restore the energies of the earth. Although, the power that they seek, is closer than the two of them realize. 

The last in the original six volumes is Crimson Rogue,  by Liz Maverick. She gets to bookend the series because I believe this was her brain child. In this installment, the fate of the world is finally decided. We met Cyd, Dain Reston's old police partner, and she is a little worse for wear. She had always been self-destructive, but now her paths are taking her down darker and darker roads. No longer in the Crimson City Police Department, Cyd wanders the underbelly of Crimson City in search of... something. Something to calm the demons that howl in her brain, silence the memories of the hell she had escaped (which she had entered in Book 1) and make life a little more bearable. And that something finds her in a seedy bar, and his name is Finn. He is about as damaged as she is, a man with no past in search of a future, a metallic man known as a mech. A failed experiment of the government's to try and combat the supernatural species, a fusion of machine and flesh, which leaves the man a hollow shell. Cyd and Finn go in search for answers for their respective problems, which turns out to bring them closer together. Cyd's hellish time in Orcus changed her somehow... making her not quite human... but maybe something more. Together, the two lost souls find that they have the ultimate power to finally seal the rifts between Orcus and Earth, and bring balance to the earth, as well as their tormented hearts. (This book has the most heart-wrenching love scene I've ever read, I got a little misty eyed after I read it!)

So the world is saved now (not really a spoiler, it's kinda of obvious), so now we can have fun exploring more of the world of Crimson City. About a year or two after this series wrapped (Crimson City first run publication July 2005---which I have!), Liz Maverick brought out an anthology featuring 4 of the original authors (Maverick, Lee, O'Shea, and Jewel) to pen four more stories about the City, called Shards of Crimson. Here we see how others in the city lived during the events of the main books, a sort of "how the other half lived"; how others picked up the pieces after the smoke cleared. Some of the original characters pop up in one or two of the novellas (short stories?), which is kind of fun---like a "where are they now?" feature. It's a must have if you read the whole series and thoroughly enjoyed it (which I certainly did---more on that later). 

Then, in 2010, Liz Maverick published Crimson & Steam, number 7 in the series. The series had been long read and sitting nicely my shelf, my fangirl love of the series had finally simmered... when this news flashes across my Twitter and Facebook feeds. WHAT!? *le squee!* It picks up after the events in her short story in Shards of Crimson. So you have to read it now! Sadly... I have yet to read it... *hangs head* I've been crazy busy the last two years (I went and got engaged and married in the last two years, and that doesn't leave a lot of time to read, and I have a huge backlog of Must Read Books). But I will read it and post a review of it when I do. When it was first coming out, Ms. Maverick did an ARC giveaway, and I was one of the lucky few who got an ARC in digital format. Sadly, I can't read on the computer screen that long, so I was only able to get about 3 chapters in before I had to give up (I'm sorry, Liz!). I felt so bad, I went out and bought a paperback copy so that I could give the story the proper attention it deserves. Ugh, just writing this is filling me with reviewer's guilt. 


Okay, on to how this magical series helped heal my broken heart. Here's the story: It was the summer of 2005, and my then boyfriend and I were cruising through his local B. Dalton's (back when they existed!), when I saw Crimson City on the NEW IN PAPERBACK shelves. There was something about the girl in leather pants, perched on a gargoyle high above a futuristic city that caught my eye... I don't know why. It spoke to me. I sadly didn't buy it that day because I either had no money, or not enough money for the movie we were going to do see. Fast forward seven months and it's January... and I'd recently been dumped by said boyfriend---on my birthday no less---and I was an emotional wreck (Truly, there's a file in a psychiatrist's office as proof). In hopes to cheer myself up, I went to the Mall of America early spring 2006 and walked into the huge discount bookstore (that's no longer there), when I saw Crimson City again on the shelf... along with two others in the series... Something snaps in my brain and, even though the memory of the book fans the embers of a love gone horribly wrong, I go out and buy all six books in one shot at my local Barnes & Noble. I spend the rest of Spring 2006 reading these books in rapid succession, and the incredible rush of the stories, the white-hot passion of their love, the intricate worlds and characters drew me in and made me forget old whats-his-name, and helped me get back to emotional normalcy, as well as help form the pieces of what would eventually become an idea for a grand fantasy series of my own (Relic Chosen series that I've been working on for 8 years!)


So thank you, Patti O'Shea, Liz Maverick, Carolyn Jewel, Marjorie M. Liu, and Jade Lee. Your amazing stories of magic, vampires, werewolves, demons, their exciting adventures and fights, and even more exciting love stories helped me in more ways than you'll ever know. You helped to heal my heart and bring me back from the brink of darkness to finally realizing my calling, to write stories of magic, love, trials, and triumphs that are hopefully deserving of their predecessors. I tip my Thesaurus to you, you Literary Mavens. 


If you haven't noticed, I love this series. It means more to me than most series/books on my shelves. But, that doesn't mean it doesn't get a rating on my scale. Individually and as a series overall, from 1 (literary hari kari) to 10 (literary orgasmic bliss):


Crimson City: 8
A Taste of Crimson: 8.5
Through a Crimson Veil: 9
A Darker Crimson: 7.5
Seduced by Crimson: 7.5
Crimson Rogue: 9
Shards of Crimson: 7
Crimson & Steam: N/A


Series Overall: 8.07


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A Parting Note: If you get the chance, hunt down the original covers of the first six (7 if you count the anthology). I know the ebook versions (and most likely new editions of the print) are coming out with new covers that just show off a lot of skin of attractive people (which is cliche in the romance genre), but the original covers offer so much more about the story: that there's action, adventure, mystery, a meaty plot than just a tumble or two between the sheets. Yes, romance and sex are a part of the story, but that shouldn't be the only reason you pick up the book. For an example of the newer covers, go to Patti O'Shea's website and look to the left so see the new cover of her contribution shows two hot, trim bodies, the man standing behind the woman, and their hands are in the process of pulling up her shirt. Eh. 


While the original cover shows Mika and Conor rushing down a dark alley. Ooh... why are they running down an alley? Are they running from someone or chasing after someone? What's so important at the end of the alley, or so deadly at the mouth? There's all these questions posed by that and all the other covers... The guy pulling up the hot chick's shirt just tells me they're attracted to each other and that eventually, if not real soon, they are going to have sexy times. The cool story-driven cover was lost on Crimson & Steam, because apparently showing a half naked man (or woman) on a romance book will ensure it to be purchased. But if that's what the publishers so naively think, then how did the first run of the series become New York Times Bestsellers? All the people on the covers are clothed. 


Sorry... got on a tangent there. Stop reading me rant and go buy these books, dammit!