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Nice! Nice! Nice! HeartSick is the first book in a series written by local transplant author Chelsea Cain. Cain moved from the midwest to Washington and currently lives down here in PDX with the rest of us crazies. Reading books in cities you know is always enjoyable. Reading books that give shout out to places, businesses, and other things you frequent is even better. With original writing that is descriptive and tangible, this book is easy to get sucked into. It has a plot line that both Jennifer (my wife) and I were able to pinpoint the bad guy during, but only a couple chapters before everything disentangles in the end. Kudos on that Chelsea. Even though we were able to deduce the culprit, the characters are so well written that you are engrossed and have to find out how everything culminates. HeartSick (Chelsea Cain) Series: Archie Sheridan & Gretchen Lowell (Book 1) 336 pages Minotaur Books ISBN-10: 0312368461 ISBN-13: 978-0312368463 The story details the ...

Reviews: Severance Package –  Duane Swierczynski The Lone Ranger and Tonto fistfight in Heaven – Sherman Alexie Duane Swierczynski… people in the book world will remember him for books like “The Blond”. Comic book readers will remember him as the new force behind the Marvel series Cable and Iron fist.. he also has a couple one offs i have never heard of. Severance Package was published last year. I had seen it on a number of bookstore shelves but never bothered to pick it up. It looked like manga and i just dont dig on the manga. US comics yes, Japanese comics, rarely. Yes, I remember.? no judging of books based on how they look… bad jason BAAAD jason.. So I am at work one day and a friend of mine, Shannon, caught me downstairs and pressed its glorious rough paperyness into my hands. Its rough cut pages and soft wafflely cover immediately caugth my attention. The front cover carried some cheesy text, “ever want to kill your boss? well guess what, the feeling is mutual”.. i could ha...

Parasite Positive by Scott Westerfeld Publisher:  Little, Brown Book Group (Import – June 30, 2007) and Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis Publisher:  William Morrow/HarperCollins (Hardback – July24, 2007) ~~ Enjoyed two books in the last couple days. one definitively more than the other. I picked up a brand new discount bin copy of Scott Westerfeld’s  Parasite Positive . It is an imported book. The US Title is  Peeps . The name of the book from the UK is far better. Peeps is fine for slang but is a lame name for the book itself in my opinion. But that is a Strike against the publisher not the Westerfeld. The last thing i want to do when I pick up a book is look at the binding and wonder why there is not a yellow marshmallow Easter chick on it instead of humans Peeps look like yellow fluffy sugar coated dog turds, and thus make me feel funny.. inside.. my stomach..  This book is pretty enjoyable, a little bit frustrating. Set in the current times, imagine a wor...

COLD TOM  BY SALLY PRUE Suggested Reading level:  Ages 9-12 Hardcover:  192 pages Publisher:  Scholastic Press (June 1, 2003) I picked this book up about a month ago in a bargain bin at Barnes and Nobles. They were charging a dollar for it. I read the inside cover and decided, what the hell, its only a buck.. The cover art for the hardbound book was worth a dollar by itself. it was glossy and reflective. if i were a raven, i would rip it apart and love on it for its shininess. I read it cover to cover in a couple hours, reading it slowly because it was a combination of harsh and soft writing. the character Tom was very conflicted and he needed a little more care in reading. I have been meaning to write a review for it for a while, but have been so busy that it has sat in my “incomplete drafts” untouched except for the placeholder blog title. This changed earlier today. I was reading some other book sites that i lurk on (only recently started even commenting), It appe...

END OF THE WORLD BLUES BY JON COURTENAY GRIMWOOD Paperback:  368 pages Publisher:  Spectra (2007) interstellar gods managing the leftover refugees of humanity. our world iss nothing but a constructed barrier of safety created by them to allow us life. think this book is sci-fi? it is not.? this book is a thinly veiled series of structured thoughts showing the smallness of our universe. everything we know is insignificant.? interestingly enough, everything outside our understanding is also also insignificant. From the the Hagakure, The Way of the Samurai - “Among the maxims on Lord Naoshige’s wall there was this one: ”Matters of’ great concern should be treated lightly. Matters of small concern should be treated seriously. Among one’s affairs there should not be more than two or three matters of what one could call great concern. If these are deliberated upon during ordinary times, they can be understood.” These are ordinary times and the deliberation of concerns will not be fu...