Category Archives: Literary

Literary Review: Dark Lover (Book 1) by J R Ward

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Title: Dark Lover
Author: J R Ward
Series: Book One
Format: Audiobook

So, I have been listening to another paranormal romance novel, well series really… in this case it is the start of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series by J R Ward. Currently in its 10th novel / 11th book, it was introduced to me by a friend of mine not long ago due to our love of paranormal romance / fantasy.

Since traditional romance novels tend to be very stale and bland for me nowadays I was needing something with a little bit of spice. Did I ever… with a well thought out mythology and background this series had so much that I could totally sink my teeth into (pun totally intended). The first six books in the series revolves around the six “Brothers” of a race of vampires, whose primary goal is to protect their race from prying eyes and extinction.

The first book in the series focuses on the point of view of Wrath, the leader of the “Brothers” and the reluctant king. He has long ignored his birthright in favor of being a warrior and had always felt comfortable in that role. Also nicknamed “The Blind King”, Wrath is a male vampire completely ill at ease with his birthright and has a lot of male pride.

When his friend’s (Darius) death wish was for Wrath to watch over Darius’ half-breed daughter Beth and ease her into the possible transition of becoming a vampire, Wrath does so reluctantly only for the wheels to turn him towards his destiny. Then again Beth was very reluctant when it came to Wrath:

Perfect date material. A vampire with the social equivalent of road rage.

Available Summary:

In the shadows of the night in Caldwell, New York, there’s a deadly turf war going on between vampires and their slayers. There also exists a secret band of brothers like no other – six vampire warriors, defenders of their race. Among them, none relishes killing their enemies more than Wrath, the leader of the Black Dagger Brotherhood…

The only purebred vampire left on the planet, Wrath has a score to settle with the slayers who murdered his parents centuries ago. But when one of his most trusted fighters is killed- orphaning a half-breed daughter unaware of her heritage or her fate – Wrath must usher the beautiful female into the world of the undead…

Racked by a restlessness in her body that wasn’t there before, Beth Randall is helpless against the dangerously sexy man who comes to her at night with shadows in his eyes. His tales of brotherhood and blood frighten her. But his touch ignites a dawning hunger that threatens to consume them both…

I could go on and on about the series and the mythology, but why repeat through the motions when others have already done so. You could find the links at my “Literary” page under “Entertainment“. I would suggest going to Book Thingo where they have actually supplied details about each of the individual books in the series as well as extra information from the rest of the series:

Book Thingo: Black Dagger Brotherhood Cheat Sheet Part 1
– The Scribe Virgin and her single act of creation
– What is the Black Dagger Brotherhood?
– Black Dagger Brotherhood: Wrath, son of Wrath
– Class Structure and Civil Unrest
– Wrath the Fair

There are nine Cheat Sheets at the moment, one for each novel in the series (minus the Dossier). What was really nice about the cheat sheets is that they tend to follow the series in order for the most part. Giving the reader a chance to follow along and understand the absolute necessary pieces from each Cheat Sheet and building them as you read through the series.

Since the cheat sheets do a really good job of not only talking about the individual novels but the storylines of the primary characters throughout the series… the most I’ll do is introduce my own thoughts and opinions of the book in question:

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Literary Review: Blameless by Gail Carriger

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Title: Blameless
Author: Gail Carriger
Series: Book Three
Format: Audiobook

Technically, I listened to this audiobook a few weeks ago, I have just been so damn busy lately with theatre that I haven’t had the chance to write my thoughts about this particular book in the series. Ah well, better late than never. 🙂

If you’re curious, this is the third in the five book series:
– Book 1: Soulless
– Book 2: Changeless
– Book 3: Blameless
– Book 4: Heartless
– Book 5: Timeless
In any case, I found myself rather intrigued with the third book of the Parasol Protectorate series.

Let me get this out in the open and out of the way, as much as I understand Lord Maccon’s emotions and reasoning for doing what he did, that doesn’t excuse his behavior at all. I am really ticked off with him, the way he treated Alexia and his lack of desire to understand her point of view until his Beta verbally whacks him over the head and even then. *SIGHS* Except I know of a few guys that would react the same way, and it still ticked me off. In fact I was so upset with Lord Maccon’s conduct that even though I knew what he did over the course of the book and how he was somewhat regretful of his actions, I found myself wanting to scream at him over and over again. Granted reading about Lord Maccon’s inebriation was rather comedic at times and when his Gamma disappeared I knew almost instantly why, but seriously if it were me I would have made it hard for Lord Maccon to get back into my good graces. But then being a woman that was once in love, it wouldn’t take much more than Alexia because dammit, I’d still love him too, it is infinitely easier to forgive someone that you are in love with, because you can’t help but think nothing but the best of them. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lady Maccon had actually forgiven him while they were still apart and she knew that he wanted her. *sighs* In fact, this is best summed up by Lady Maccon herself:

You mean while I’ve been running across Europe pregnant, escaping ladybugs, flying in onithopters, landing in mud, and drinking coffee, you have been inebriated?

Anyway, I digress…
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Literary Review: Changeless by Gail Carriger

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Title: Changeless
Author: Gail Carriger
Series: Book Two
Format: Audiobook

So here we are, the second audio book of the Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger: Changeless. I don’t know where to begin… well I guess I’ll start with the technical aspect of the audiobook. I rather enjoy listening to Emily Gray’s interpretation of the variety of characters in Changeless.

Part of the reason I never mentioned Emily Gray during my review of Soulless was simply because I wasn’t entirely sold on a female voice emulating so many male voices. I loved Emily as she interpreted Alexia, her sisters, her friend Ivy and even Lord Akeldama… however. So I chose to wait and give it another audiobook to see if my feelings have changed, and in honestly because Changeless has so many female characters taking center stage, this made the listening experience much more pleasurable.

While in the first novel we were introduced into Gail Carriger’s interpretation of the supernatural world and how they are integrated with society at the time. This second novel delves more into the unknown of the supernatural… primarily the preternatural.

Alexia is as witty and stubborn as always, and while her husband has run off to Scotland to take care of a “family problem”, she is trying to figure out what is causing the mass exorcism of the ghosts in the London area and the humanization of the vampires and werewolves. After a little digging around, Alexia believes that the solution involves following her husband up north, into Scotland.

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Literary Reviews: Blink vs. Think (Part Two of Three) by Malcolm Gladwell

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Title: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Format: Audiobook

So in part one of this series I wrote about how I balance decision making between logic / reasoning and gut instinct / intuition. Also noted was the self-awareness that I was using logic and reasoning far too much in my life and the active shift towards integrating gut instinct / intuition into my conscious thought.

In the last post, I also mentioned two books that I have read that also lead into those trains of thought. I don’t believe in going down just one road or the other, but rather finding a balance of both. So this particular post will be my thoughts / review on the book Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. While the third post in this series would be about the rebuttal book Think!: Why Crucial Decisions Can’t be Made in the Blink of an Eye by Michael LeGault.

Blink dives into the hypothesis that “quick judgment” decisions work just as well if not better than decisions based off of extensive analysis. The author also talks about how one’s likes and dislikes, prejudices and stereotypes, and biases can color their gut instinct / intuition. But how can one tell if they have an unconscious bias?

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Visual Art Commission: The “Expanded” Genres by Tony Akins

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Disney has ruined fairy tales for me, well for all of us really. I mean we grow up thinking that there is a happily ever after, except when we start reading the original fairy tales that the Disney versions are based off of, we end up with a rude awakening. Namely that the fairy tales don’t really have a ‘happily ever after’ in fact they usually have a warning label or a lessons learned disclaimer on the back.

Interestingly enough, I started to really enjoy the original fairy tales and soon started to look for other tales from various other cultures to satiate my thirst. That was when I was introduced to “Fables”.

You see, Fables is a comic series from Vertigo that takes all the beloved fairy tale characters and sends them to live in New York City, far from their Homelands where a singular enemy has turned all these beloved characters into refugees on the Earth or Mundy as they like to all it. Not only is this a witty conglomeration of every beloved fairy tale that you can possibly think of, but the creator of the series: Bill Willingham, has quite intelligently combined fairy tales and nursery rhymes together when necessary.
– Take the Big Bad Wolf for example (also known as Bigby Wolf in the series), he is a singular character in the Fables universe, but he is the same major wolf character in a variety of stories.
– Snow White is widely known as the beloved princess of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, but she is also the sister to Rose Red in the fairy tale of Snow White and Rose Red. In the Fables universe she is also introduced as the uptight, strict deputy mayor of Fabletown.
– Little Boy Blue isn’t quite so “little”, rather he is not only Snow White’s right hand man in the mayor’s office, he also has a hell of a military back story from back in the Homelands
What Bill has done is very creatively and realistically tied together stories to create a richer back story to these beloved characters in such a realistic and natural way that you can’t help but love them even more.

Then Bill did something new, he expanded upon the universe and created a world of Literals beings who were essentially the personification of literary themes and terms. The Editor became Mr Revise, Deus Ex Machina became Dex, and the various fictional categories became The Genres. All of these characters found in the spin-off series: Jack of Fables.

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Literary Review: Soulless by Gail Carriger

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Title: Soulless
Author: Gail Carriger
Series: Book One
Format: Audiobook

A friend of mine has been recommending this series (Parasol Protectorate) to me for months now. I finally checked the book out from my local library, only for life to get in the way and I never touched the book that was in my possession for almost a month and a half. So I sent the book back to the library and continued onward, meanwhile my friend recommended getting the audio book instead and listening to it while I worked.

Well, considering that I have borrowed audio lectures from The Teaching Company via the local library, one would have thought that I could have made the leap myself. Unfortunately, I did not… primarily due to my desire and love to sitting down and curling to a good book. However, as my time is fairly limited nowadays it became increasingly clear that I am better off listening to lectures and audiobooks as opposed to trying to find time to just sit down and read. *sighs*

In any case, I decided to begin listening to audiobooks by going for the series that has been recommended by my friend: The Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger… and the first of the series, Soulless.

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Literary Review: The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

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Title: The Illustrated Man
Author: Ray Bradbury
Format: Audiobook

Over the last weekend I listened to the audiobook version of The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury. This was given to me as a recommendation mainly because I was asked to provide ideas of a scripted series with a bit of a science-fiction touch in the vein of Serenity/Firefly and the Illustrated Man and Metamorpheses were recommended as a basis for what the creator was looking for the stage.

I didn’t know what to expect from this series when I sat down to listen to it while I worked. Whatever I was expecting, what I ended up getting definitely wasn’t it. The best way to describe this series of works is that every short story dives into a different aspect of the human psyche while setting it in a more science-fiction, futuristic environment. So in all honesty a lot of these short stories do not necessarily have a need for a science-fiction, fantasy component, but it does help to drive the purpose of the story across.

Because there were so many short stories, I’ll go through a handful that actually caught my attention:
– “The Veldt”: This short story seems to be Mary Poppins meets Star Trek’s the Holodeck. Parents with very busy lives have a high tech nursery built into their home to keep their children happy. If I were to take this to the present time, I would say substitute the high tech nursery with video games, computers, television, etc. This story (to me) is more of a cautionary tale for parents in regards to parenting their children or letting technology to become the parents. I understand that we all live such busy lives that it becomes very easy to just let the children sit in front of the television and have them watch cartoons or let them play video games, but sometimes kids just needs to get out and be with other people or spend time together with the parents. Nothing beats true parenting than the parents themselves.

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