Tag: Reviews

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Book Review: Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

( #warmbodies )

Hollywood is full of clever bastards. The Walking Dead is an extremely popular television show and comic book. It is also Feburary and a few weeks away from Valentines Day. What is a crafty movie executive to do? A romantic zombie movie or a romzom of course. I have been bombarded by ads for “Warm Bodies” for a few months and then I happened to read that it was based on a book…

… and said book was said to be considerably darker and deeper than the romzom version. So I downloaded it.

Warm Bodies is a short and enjoyable novel. It took me a few hours to read it and I liked it. The book is an obvious riff on “Romeo and Juliet”. The zombie’s name is “R” and the lead female is “Julie”. Her dad is in charge of the human survivors and clearly would not approve of his daughter’s necrophilia. Both characters have to buck their social norms to be together.

I suppose my only issue with the book is that the zombies have a society. If you see the commercial for the movie, you get the impression that “R” eating Julie’s boyfriend makes him start thinking and living again. The book also pushes this idea, but the zombies are clearly organized before “R’s” encounter with Julie. The zombies can sort of talk and there is a hierarchy to their society. They have strategy to eat humans. So they are not the typical zombies from the movies even before the main plot thread starts to happen.

The book tries to make “R” the zombie messiah and a romantic lead and those two thread compete for room in the book, but since this isn’t “War and Peace” you get over that problem pretty quickly. One thing I really appreciated about Marion’s writing is that he did not use the same terrible cliched words that every zombie writer uses – gore, guts, meat, disemboweled, and of course braaaaaiiins.

Bottom line: Fun and quick read – I recommend it.

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Book Review: The Twelve by Justin Cronin

( #thetwelve @jccronin )

“The Twelve” is a sequel to Justin Cronin’s “The Passage” which I read a few years ago. I liked Cronin’s take on a vampire apocalypse. Cronin opted out of the typical gore-fest that seems to be a natural reaction to the “Twilight Vampires” (aka kind of wimpy) by telling a cause and effect story. The book is told in two timelines: how society falls and then 100 years into the future as society attempts to rebuild.

The Twelve continues the storyline in the future and but also revisits the initial outbreak to introduces a few new characters. Overall, I liked the book. But my enjoyment relied heavily on my enjoyment of the first book. The first section (revisiting the outbreak) is like a prequel with different characters (their viewpoint of what went down). While I liked how the outbreak was fleshed out, those chapters were not critical plot points. I am going to bring up some spoilers about the plot in this review, so this may be a good time to stop reading if you don’t want to know too much about the story.

**SPOILERS**

The prequel characters establish the bloodlines of the future characters which added depth, but like I said, not critical. The prequel chapters also establish the concept of a “familiar”. Every vampire can make a helper that has some powers and needs to drink blood, but they don’t change into monsters.

The main story is that one of the helpers, who is a fairly sympathetic character, is used to create a city/society of immortals that capture and enslave the remaining humans and of course feed them to the vampire overlords. This totally makes sense except for one thing…

There are twelve vampire leaders (hence the twelve) and the millions of vampires running around are basically mindless zombies controlled by one of the twelve. If you kill one of the twelve, all of the vampires in their bloodline die. A major part of the book is the twelve are moving to this vampire city to feed in comfort. But the city has been in progress FOR DECADES. Slaves are being fed to the zombie vampires for no real reason. At one point, The Twelve kill off most of their zombies because there are too many vampires hunting the remaining humans. Why feed the slaves to the mindless zombie vampires?

The “familiars” go through all this trouble to capture and enslave humans only to happily feed them to the mindless zombies. This would make sense if this was occurring with the twelve, but they don’t show up until much later in the book.

Also, most of the twelve head vampires are not fleshed out. Cronin spend most of the first book on a vampire named “Babcock” and singles out two vampires called “Martinez” and “Carter” in the second, but the others are just in the background. Why not just make 6 lead vampires?

**END SPOILERS**

Even with those illogical plot points, The Twelve is an entertaining and well written novel. Cronin is very good at giving the book a sense of history and handles the time shifts well. The book does suffer from middle child syndrome, but Cronin does a nice job setting up the third book. It is clear that the trilogy has a “big bad” and he was saved for the third book which should deliver a satisfying conclusion.

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Computer Joey: Android Tablet Reviews

( #nexus7 #kindlefire )

I did a video review of 3 different android-based tablets that I currently own:
Asus Nexus 7
Kindle Fire
Toshiba Thrive

My intent was to point out the positive features in each rather than expose tons of flaws. If you are in the market for a new tablet, I hope this helps you make a decision.

PS: I have been beta testing more videos on the site the last few weeks, let me know if you like the new media/content.

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Book Review: I Suck at Girls by Justin Halpern

( @justin_halpern )

I knocked out Justin Halpern’s “I Suck at Girls” in a few days and it was a very quick and enjoyable read. I haven’t read Halpern’s previous book “Sh*t My Dad Says” and frankly avoided it after seeing three seconds of the William Shatner TV show…

For Reference:

Forgetting the TV show, Halpern has a comfortable conversational style to his writing and I greatly appreciated the fact that he doesn’t stretch his word count to make his publisher happy. The book tells the story of Justin’s failed romances leading to the day he proposes to his girlfriend. The stories are endearing and makes you root for a happy ending.

Halpern’s father (from the previously mentioned “Sh*t my Dad Says”) plays a major role in the book which (I think) holds the book back. The man’s comments and insights are humorous and spot on, but the book really didn’t need it to tell the story. I would be happy to read Mr. Halpern’s observations in the other book, but I feel “I Suck at Girls” didn’t need Justin’s dad to stand on its own.

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Concert Review: Wilco and Avett Bros @ Camden Water Front

( @wilco, @theavettbros )

Opening Act: Dr. Dog
Venue: Susquehanna Bank Center – Camden, NJ
Date: Saturday, July 21st, 2012

NOTE: I didn’t take any pictures of video because it just seems kind of stupid to take crappy grainy pictures or poor quality audio. So I will post some quality videos I find on the net so you get the idea.

[Dr. Dog]

Website: DrDogMusic.com

Dr. Dog is a Philadelphia based band that I got turned on to a few years ago. I thought they were good band but honestly never really gave their albums much thought after that first spin. That was a mistake. This band thrives playing on stage. Their material totally popped in the live setting – it was dynamic and LOUD (my chest was thumping during the entire set). I was impressed with their set, but I do wish they could have stepped up the on-stage banter for their hometown audience (but I suspect they had extremely limited time on stage with the other acts).

[The Avett Brothers]

Website: TheAvettBrothers.com

Frequent readers of this blog know that I am a huge fan of The Avett Brothers. These guys have been touring non-stop for the last few years and are still pumping out excellent material. The band’s live shows are what makes them special: they have a excellent work ethic and they bust their asses on stage. This was the fifth time I have seen the band and they still exceed my expectations (they are not resting on their success).

The band played for about 90 minutes and they were bouncing around the entire time. I am not going to run down the entire set list, but they hit all of the fan favorites with a nice mix of all of their albums. They closed the set with “Kick Drum Heart” but did an epic southern rock style jam at the end which was an interesting (and welcome) new element to their live show.

I honestly feel that The Avett Brothers are the best live act in the country right now. Go see them if you have the chance.

Previous Avett Brother Reviews:

[Wilco]

Website: WilcoWorld.net

It took about 40 minutes for the stage crew to move the Avett’s equipment and set up Wilco’s stage. They had these pieces of fabric hanging down in long knots (like 20-30 foot lengths) – they were on the stage the entire night and I was wondering what they were for. Turns out the band had images projected on the ropes for a very cool effect during their set.

Jeff Tweedy was not in a mellow mood, the band came out on the stage ready to singe faces. The first 6 songs were very loud. I honestly don’t know what the opening song was – wait checking the internet – “Art of Almost” – I am not sure if there was an actual melody to that tune, just sound. Hell of a way to wake up the audience. I appreciated the rocked out/artistic set because it was an excellent contrast to the Avetts.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay the entire concert because we had a baby to go home to (this was our first time leaving him with a sitter). Fun Side Note: There was a couple that brought their two young children to the show sitting right in front of us, they made it half-way through the Avett’s set before they left. Note to self: Resist the temptation to take son to concert until he is potty trained. We cut out during “Hate It Here” which was sad, but I appreciate the band coming to the Philadelphia area and putting a damn fine effort on stage.

Previous Wilco Reviews: