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Every issue of this series gets stranger and stranger. So how can I talk you into reading it? Edward Penishands, TripleX parody figure behind the pr0n of the same name. Makes an appearance in issue two and subtly added to the front cover. I can only imagine if TRex performs a flailing Wynona Rider dancing flurry if snow scene while edward wriggles his hands in the air... Yes. Ive seen the pr0n on vhs a hundred years ago. Ahem. Read it, but watch where you sit, it might be sticky. The thing about Auteur is that no matter how many times you read each issue, there is some nuance you missed, some element that will catch you eye, some area which causes you to question "should I be offended? should I be disturbed by may unstoppable laughter?" Runonsentance.. If you are someone like me and do not mind stripping the issue, each issue contains a center fold poster. Just pop the staples, and post it in your office cubicle. Keep a motivational poster to cover it up when your boss is nea...

Dinotrain is a high paced rhyming story of several dinosaurs going on a trip via train. They hit various snags as they go and are forced to think quickly in order to remain safe. The Dinosaurs have a rumbling journey which will lead them to bigger and better, though probably predictably similar, adventures. All Aboard the Dinotrain (Deb Lund | Howard Fine) Age Range: 3 and up Lexile Measure: 500 30 pages HMH Books for Young Readers ISBN-10: 054755415X ISBN-13: 978-0547554150 This is a great book for boys and girls, but bad for parental sanity. Kids Perspective: DINOSAURS! rawRAWRawr!!! My son despised this book at first, I think that some of the words were confusing and caused him to lose interest, several Dinowords on each Dinopage are prefixed with Dino for no apparent reason. We came back to this book a month or so later and he began obsessive rereading. He interacts with the pages and wants to know the names of each dinosaur. He also appreciates when people read the 'Kersplash!...

A couple weeks back, a good friend of mine asked me for a suggestion on a new series to invest time in. I immediately suggested Joe Ledger. I gotta stress to people the importance of paying attention. A mere two days after giving this suggestion, he had completed book ine and started book two. To his surprise thiugh, Code Sero was similar in name but was NOT the second book. The level of mind numbingly important spoilers in this book should deter anyone from skipping books. JUST DONT DO IT.   Textually, there is a LOT going on in this plotline. The world is under attack by seemingly unrelated terrorist attacks, they seem random and the only potential element tying them together is a cryptic message broadcast across all TV and Internet capable systems. The message is from Mother Night. She advises the world that she exists, then shares a cryptic message to some faceless masses. The Department of Military Sciences watches as the horrors of their past lurches forth with an unspeakable...

Otis, the little red tractor, 'putt puff puttedy chuffs' around the farm. One day he becomes friends with a baby cow. What happens when a strong new yellow tractor comes to the farm? A solid book regarding friendship and hard work. Great for ages as early as 1 or 2. The pages and drawings are easy on the eyes. Five star book! Otis (Loren Long) Lexile Measure: AD840L Series: Otis (Book 1) 40 pages Philomel Books ISBN-10: 0399252487 ISBN-13: 978-0399252488 Kid Perspective: Otis was an instant classic in our household. My son adores this book and is in the range of 1-3 reads per day. It is a very cute and well written book that he has not yet chosen to chew on or use as a step stool, or chase one of the dogs with. Many pages are fun to play "show me a ________" with, allowing him to locate dogs and ducks in a where's waldo style read... even though it is not written that way. Plenty of pages describe actions Otis takes like leaping and spinning, this is fun to read a...

Beatrice Sparks is well known for taking the words of teenagers and bulking them up with fictional fluff to make them sell a specific narrative. Drug addiction, homelessness, angst and suicidal tendencies, all of these are fair game within her edits. When I was a kid though, I did not know any of this, and as with many kids, we read these stories with a sick guilty pleasure. There was even a little "training manual" feel to them as we picked apart things we knew vs those elements we did not. Jay's Journal was no exception to this. In fact, growing up in Utah, Jay's Journal had a specific allure to the teenage crowd as it was purportedly written by a guy in our area during my parents generation. Debunked, it is shown that minimal amounts were factual and all the juicy details were fiction. With that said, who cares! I tracked down the revision of this book that I read as a teen. Kid filled with angst slaughters cows and drinks their blood straight from the vein? Ritu...

50 word review: Teen Literature. A serial killer murdering homeless gay males. A Hetero rebellious youth fighting against bible thumping father. The killer begins communicating with said rebel. Interestingly, teaches tolerance, acceptance, introspection, and that today's youth can change dogma. Morality tale, semi-christian, wasn't sure what I was getting into, enjoyed it though. Reblurb: Not needed, origination blurb was well written as was the novel. Publishers description: Noah Nordstrom has been dissing the religious beliefs of his father, who hosts a popular Christian radio show and whom Noah accuses of spreading hate. When two local gay teens are murdered, Noah’s anti-evangelism intensifies—he’s convinced that the killer is a caller on his dad’s program. Then Noah meets Will Reed, a cool guy. But when he learns that Will is gay, Noah gets a little weirded out. Especially since Will seems really into him. Noah gives Will the brush-off. Meanwhile, the killer is still at la...

Extinction Machine follows the trend of DMS fighting battles against foes of legend. In this case, Aliens. Or more accurately, humans in a 50+ year secret race to recreate technology from downed alien craft (roswell et al). My opinion of the book should not block a fan from reading, or a potential fan from starting the series. This is just me being a cry baby fan boy who is potentially over critical. Extinction Machine - Joe Ledger: Book 5 (Jonathan Maberry) 448 pages St. Martin's Griffin ISBN-10: 0312552211 Hrm. This was my least favorite of the Joe Ledger series by Maberry. It isn't that the plotline was bad, it wasn't in fact, it was really quite good. The trouble was the heavy handedness and some love interest concerns (potential love interest concerns for the main character). With out getting too deep into the plot details, Maberry goes against his normal grain of eloquently spoon-fed details which make the plot hum and vibrate with goodness. In EM it feels more like h...

While I will discuss some editorial complaints in this review, I found this book highly positive, and was very intrigued by the overall concept. Please try to recognize the dynamic as it unfolds. This is an excellent book that I enjoyed a great deal.. But with some proposed "tweaks" from myself, a reader ;) Finding Fracesca (Stephanie Correa) 129 pages Vervante ISBN-10: 1940847672 ISBN-13: 978-1940847672 While I was mid way through reading the nightmare that was American Psycho, I was teeming on the brink of 'not-okay-ness'. I was approached to read and review a self described Self Help book. My brain was melted and I felt pretty gross at that point. To be honest, this unnatural mental status helped drive my agreement to read what I would normally not. After reading the author's site, it sounded clean and refreshing and was a complete juxtaposition from current status. What better way to climb out of the hole I was sitting than something epically positive: The ...

Rarely have I been confronted by a book that makes me feel sick for humanity, a book that causes me to question my taste as a reader, and or a book which is so brilliantly put together that I can justify ignoring my impulses to turn tail and run. American Psycho.It was disgusting and offensive, yet, I read every word of it. Ellis's American Psycho was brilliantly written and masterfully sewn together to create the view of a killer in decline. It deserves a place on my book shelf, but will never be suggested reading, I will never loan it out. I would ask people I care about to never read it. Presenting in detail an utter disregard for human life, women in particular, I had trouble fathoming the filth my 'soul' was accumulating by proxy of the character Bateman. The despicable and cruel beyond description, he was neither sinister nor evil. Bateman simply wasnt human. Applying morality or ethics to the character would be no different than saying an inanimate macaroni s...

Teenage girls read very stupid books, and apparently so do I. And I enjoy them greatly. Backstory: My wife decided to revisit some of her childhood years by picking up some old teenage angsty trash novels. You know the kind I am talking about, like sweet valley high but lacking the SVH vague long term character arc; the long winded modern fables dragged out over several books; where you are shackled with a moral passed to you on a platter by heavy hands. This one has the moral but comes at it like a teenager, quick with minimal forethought and absolutely no staying power. No sequel was ever expected.Jenn, my wife, decided to tackle a sad little book titled 'My Secret Love'. This two hundred and nineteen page treasure is part of the Sweet Dreams "Special" series. As she consumed it, she kept pulling me away from important tasks like dishes or toilet scrubbing, in order to read me important passages. When she forced me into the inside cover page excerpt is where I go...

You want a review? It is simple, I looooved this book. From the addictive green cover and clean artwork till the last page. RawBlurb Suggested read. This book does deserve a reblurb however.. The original was found very very lacking. In fact, had it not been for my love of the cover, I may never have given this book a shot. I often find that it is in the favor of the author to foster "judging a book by it's cover". Reblurb: You think that the current debates over pro-life and pro-choice are lively? Well have you heard about The Cure? This is going to knock the world on it's ear. The pro/pro debate is gonna be irrelevant. It might even take a turn and become a pro-abortion vs "what's the other choice again?" conversation. The Cure, what is it exactly? No, not the British goth/pop/rock band. The Cure resolves the ultimate disease, OLD AGE. Sure it is illegal, you need to back alley it, you have to pass cash under the table and use a secret knock....

Years ago, I read and reviewed Fat White Vampire Blues. In that novel, Andrew Fox introduces us to a series of absurdly fascinating characters, including the title fat vamp character Jules Duchon. Jules is a huge man, a giant, disgusting, vampiric tub of lard. He is smaller than the oracle record keeping fat vampire in Blade. He is smaller than a house. But his 400-500 pound size is becoming a problem for him. An undead of his size cannot simply stalk prey, let alone the prey he prefers. Jules enjoys the a or of humans that are equally fat. He wants triglycerides and fat blood that taste so good on his tongue. Jules has eased this need by driving a cab. He picks up prey, gasses them, then gorges on their semi-narcotic laced blood in privacy. Bride of the fat white vampire is equally as fun to read as the original novel. But also incredibly easy to spoil. Rather than doing so, let's focus in what makes this vampire series different than all the other trash in the genre. • T...

For those who are reading Maberry's Joe Ledger series, this book is going to knock you on your ass. Assassin's Code - Joe Ledger, Book 4 (Jonathan Maberry) 432 pages St. Martin's Griffin ISBN-10: 1250006678 ASIN: B00A17NS2O It continues to follow the arc of fighting unknown evils in a world where we are kept blissfully unaware of the horrorshow behind the scenes. Ledger and the DMS have already conquored biological warfare, genetic engineering, nazis offspring, secret societies, varying global destruction plots, and the trust of bottled water.. How is a guy supposed to top that? Maberry has no trouble doing so. He pulls from his world an ancient pact in the middle east, rival factions and an absolutely f*cked up history for some potential Department of Military Sciences allies, some long awaited glimpses into Church (the man and the org) backstory, and a whole lot more. The difficulty here is a this is book four in a series. Book five is already on shelves, the sixth book i...

Okay. So over beers, I suggested to a good friend, Rich, that he should invest time in the Hyperion Cantos (Dan Simmons). I swear, Rich got a twinkle of evil in his eye, and he made a devilish deal. If I wanted him to read The Hyperion Cantos, I would have to agree to read The Death Gate Cycles, a series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. I generally trust Rich's perspective, so the fact he was exchanging a 7 book series for my suggested 4 book series never read false to me. Book one of seven: Dragon Wing, where to start. Well, let it be known that I am not a reader of DragonLance novels. The fantasy genre just isn't my cup of tea, there are some authors I have enjoyed, but fantasy tends to be more miss than hit when I am concerned. My reading experience: It took me two months+ to slog through through three hundred and forty pages Even with access to appendices, I wanted to strangle Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. The number of concepts and words that were unexplain...

This book is incredible. It is no written master work, nor will it be any more than what it is now in the eyes of the world, but it is incredible all the same. If you are even reading this review, you should be reading this series. Spoilers? They don't matter. You know how this ends. It is nothing more than sci-fi geek porn dictating events that ultimately lead to the same conclusion as the movies you have already watched or the comics that Dark Horse os prepping to release. Humans die, robots are destroying.. the story is all in the details of how it happens. After a fight in Antarctica, John Connor is tearing himself apart. before dying horrifically, his girlfriend entered a code base which would permanently disable SkyNet from moving forward into existence. John pushed the button to activate the kill code... Or did he? Everything he remembers is muddled, it is fuzzy and mixed up and highly emotional. Perhaps he was wrong and was told NOT to activate the code. He doesn...

The media tells us that in 1971, an unknown man hijacked a Boeing 727 in the PacNW and threatened to blow it up. We are told that with a load of cash strapped to his chest, he bailed from the plane, and was never seen again. The media had no name for him, creating the moniker D.B. Cooper to help sell stories and apply a name to the penciled sketches of his face.. These statements are fiction. D.B. Cooper is not actually missing, he is not what he appears to be. The media does not know that they were fed the truth disguised as a nickname. Cooper is a ghost, a nobody, an educated guess, a mythological being. As with any good ghost, Cooper has been recruited into the CIA, becoming one of the alphabets top tier spook assassins, Soon to be on another alphabet most wanted list..  'The Glut', a playground space in the communal human subconscious. Following the disappearance of his daughter, Cooper finds himself able to spend near endless time in The Glut, no longer requiring halluc...

I just finished reading the "Premature Release" of Oni Press's new comic series 'The Auteur', and if this series fails to gather interest in the comic scene I will be flabbergasted and disappointed. Fans of commonly recognized Auteurs like (but not limited to) Hitchcock, Kurisawa, and Tarantino will get a kick out of this. Looks like the pre-release of this has been available since around October of 2013. au·teur ( ôˈtər/)  noun 1 . a filmmaker whose personal influence and artistic control over a movie are so great that the filmmaker is regarded as the author of the movie. Movie producer T-Rex opens with a drug haze akin to Fear and Loathing, and is jolted back to reality with a cup of hot coffee + cobra venom. He is searching for inspiration, he is looking for a way to get his vision on film. 'Presidents Day' will be his savior, he will make a film that will blow away the critics, he will redeem himself in the eyes of the...

Original cover Have you read any Stephen King novels? Did they have a psychic with a deadly illness or physical ailment? Well, prepare for more of the same. I didn't have strong feelings for Joyland. For being part of a Hard Boiled novel series (via publisher Hard Case Crime), I was left wondering if it was ever going to pick up pace. In the classic King formula, Joyland is about an author (no surprise) who is writing about the past (no surprise) and the terrible experience he had to overcome (still no surprise) with the help of a terminally ill psychic child.......No Suprise.. There is a murder, there is a ghost, fortune teller, cranky old people, and carnies. And no real surprises. Was it good? Well yeah, look who wrote it, of course it was good. Was it anything new? No.. Was it hard boiled, no no no.. Just more of the same. Fans should read it, but don't expect ground breaking new King work. It is more interesting as a carny life retrospective than anything else. I found tho...

I was checking the iTunes App Store to see if google had released a new version of the blogger app. The current version is buggy, limited, and serves little purpose outside the realm of a simple text editor. I found myself surprised, noting that the version I have from May 2013 was supposed to include horror and fear, prolonged graphic and sadistic violence, and much more... I feel like I must have overlooked these features, though infrequent, I should at least know where they are activated.

This is not a book review, this is a book demand. If you are a fan of the Quantum Leap television series then you must read this. Do not be confused, Prelude is the 4th book in the multi-author QL series, but whatever. I make no claims against the others, but i bet they are decent or there wouldn't be so many of them.. Or perhaps they are "Crappy Good". I won't bother with a full review, but I do feel that a reblurb of the novel summary is warranted ;) New Synopsis: You know how it ends, socially awkward Beckett steps into the Quantum Leap system and his consciousness is transported haphazardly to the past. He cannot remember anything and travels time perpetually looking for a way to get back home. This gives you the back story, the politics, the subterfuge and grandstanding. This pieces together a firm picture of what happened before, and who Beckett was before losing his memory and becoming the worldly man he is now. Wanted to know about how Ziggy wor...