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This book was FUNNY. It is straight up Christian faux-fiction, a complex parable with all the standard moving parable parts: a moral to teach, animal characters, convoluted answers that force the reader/listener to consider various perspectives. To that point, Christian literature in general could learn a lot from how this book was presented. As an Agnostic, I read it based on the title, was sucked in after less than a page, and finished it thinking “Man. that was pretty damn good”. Imaginary Jesus, written by Matt Mikalatos, had me going. The basis for this book can be likened a lot to Gaiman’s American Gods, in the aspect that people’s gods can have different flavors and idiosyncrasies. In American Gods, a person or group brings their gods with them, as with the Vikings crossing the Atlantic. Their gods wax or wane in power depending on the tenacity of those who believe in them. But where American Gods was tightly centered around the lost gods, Imaginary Jesus is all about just one. ...

Review posted over on BookCyclePDX for a crappy good Stephanie Meyer book. Go check it out if you are interested.. it’s nothing special though. The book or the review, both are mediocre. [  More at BookCyclePDX.wordpress.com  ] REPOSTED - My apologies in advance, but I am going to be a little bit negative for a few minutes. Not entirely negative though   just a little bit. ?The Host? by Twilight series author Stephanie Meyer was a sham, an enjoyable sham, but a sham all the same. Touted as her first ?Adult Novel? (meaning not young-adult), readers will be left a wanting? wanting the adult aspect that is referenced in all the marketing material. This was an adult novel only in the fact that it did not have teenage vampires and Werewolves in it. The writing style was juvenile and repetitive, it was completely lacking in difficulty. At most points, it felt like i was reading a really large 7th grade reader. But that aside, I have read a number of YA novels I have enjoye...

I love when authors are handed either a deal too good to pass up or are needing some extra barbecue cash, and take up the mantle of authorship to write shitty movie adaptation books. Piers Anthony wrote the novelization of ‘Total Recall’ (based on the PK Dick short), Orson Scott Card novelized ‘The Abyss’.. and apparently S.M. Stirling wrote a trilogy of Terminator Universe novels. I picked up T2 Infiltrator for a two dollars at Goodwill. Anyone who knows me is aware that I really think Stirling is a bad writer. I like his plot lines and a lot of characters, but in general, I find that his books piss me off more than they are enjoyed, they drag on and are soooo soooo soooo heavy handed.. In this case,? I thought, ‘hey, its Stirling, I should give it a shot. Worst expected scenario is that it would be hum drum and just pass some time’. Turns out that it was a damn good book. Knowing that time is elastic, and apt to revert to it’s original shape, SkyNet’s goal is now to work in the backg...

Tokyo Zero  (My Tokyo Death Cult) I am sure there are a number of people out there who truly enjoyed Marc Horne’s Tokyo Zero. I am not one of those people. It had its moments, and it kept me involved enough that after start/stopping it over a month, I was able to finish it. I did not really enjoy it though. It was kind of like weak chocolate milk.. it was good, but it did not satisfy. Essentially, it is about a man who’s father is the head of an anti-humanity cult. they are working to remove the human population of the world, weeding it until the garden is clean of pesky pests. The main character goes to Tokyo, and infiltrates a different cult who has their own agenda. The goal of this group is to release a series of Sarin gas bombs in the Tokyo subway system. For those who plan to read this, I will save the plot details so you can still be surprised. The characters in the book were decent (a couple were actually stellar), the story was pretty up my alley, so I guess the key factor...

Cyberpunk has traveled a long beautiful road, but most people who have ridden it are too plugged in to even notice the scenery. Normally, when the layman is looking out the window, the cyberpunk enthusiast is either jacked into a device or dreaming of jacking into a device…. of which both perspectives sound very? perverted. Informatics has made great leaps, especially in the area of machine/human interaction. Gone are the days of simple calculation enhancement via abacus. The overly complex arithometer is a thing of the past. Our Bandai Tomagotchi digital pets have all died, been buried, and are taking a thousand hours to decompose in the landfill. The Texas Instruments Graphing Calculator that my high school friends most commonly reprogrammed to use as a TV remote has been replaced with complex cellphone Apps.. Skipping ahead to later next generations. Pink Carbide, E.S. Winn’s opening novel to his self titled trilogy, takes place in the twenty-second century (the 2160′s to be more pr...