On the high wind: a review of The Curse of the Wendigo

In the name of all that’s holy, tell me why God felt the need to make a hell. It seems so redundant.

Monstrumology is the science of dissecting truth from superstition — or debunking myths altogether. In The Curse of the Wendigo, it specifically involves understanding and maintaining humanity in a world of monsters.

I really liked The Monstrumologist, Rick Yancey’s first book in the series, when I read it last year, and I’m ashamed it took me this long to pick up the sequel. It was, most assuredly, well worth the wait. I’m only saddened to learn that after the next book, The Isle of Blood, there’s just one more (The Final Descent releases in September). Of course, a fourth book almost didn’t happen at all.

Awesome book cover Friday: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Bit of a late post today, but I really like this cover. It’s for Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami.

Anyone know where you can find this exact version?

Here’s a description of the book:

Japan’s most widely-read and controversial writer, author of A Wild Sheep Chase, hurtles into the consciousness of the West with this narrative about a split-brained data processor, a deranged scientist, his shockingly undemure granddaughter, and various thugs, librarians, and subterranean monsters–not to mention Bob Dylan and Lauren Bacall.

What do you think?

Awesome book cover Friday: Irregular Creatures

Happy Friday! Today’s book cover pick is Irregular Creatures by author Chuck Wendig.

I love cats, so … yeah.

The book is 99 cents on Amazon and actually sounds pretty cool:

Contained within are nine stories featuring bizarre beasties, mythological mutants, and overall “irregular creatures” – including flying cats, mermaids, Bigfoot, giant chickens, and mystic hobo hermaphrodites.

It also includes stories about a radioactive monkey (cocktail … which I’m guessing doesn’t end so well for the imbiber) and a zombie that won’t die.

If anyone reads this, let me know how it is! I’m actually quite tempted to buy it, but I have a couple other books that are taking priority at the moment. This is only 45,000 words, though, so I may get it anyway.

Enjoy the weekend!

Our tragic flaws: a review of The Fault in Our Stars

Cancer is a disease that most of us bumble through the world caring little about until we encounter it for the first time. I don’t mean in textbooks or television commercials but in a fellow human being. Once it affects someone you love, you see it everywhere, an unseen force that Won’t Stop Taking Lives.

I was lucky. My family’s experience with cancer, which has been quite personal, was tame compared to what it could have been, to what I know it can do and how quickly and unfairly it can kill. I’ve seen it reduce people to shells in a matter of months, robbing wives of husbands and sons of mothers. Not that something else, like a car accident, makes any sort of sense either, but cancer is a cruel sickness: what’s ruining a person’s life is life itself — cells that grow in a way they shouldn’t.

So first, The Fault in Our Stars is a coming-of-age novel. Secondly, it’s about cancer. And also love. Someone’s going to die, and you’re probably going to cry.

When e-readers trump books (and vice versa)

E-readers are better when:

1. You want to hold a cup of tea and read at the same time without cramping your hand.

2. You’re reading in bed and want to keep your arms warm under the covers.

3. You’re on the go and can’t pack a dozen books to take with you.

Actual books are better when:

1. You find them used somewhere — because discovery is half the fun.

2. You want everyone to see what you’re reading, especially if it’s massively long because ooohh, or you want to turn pages and smell them because aaahh.

3. They’re signed.

Or, if I need to throw something at someone, I’m definitely not going to hurl a $300 device.

Why do you prefer one or the other?

Tomb Raider: Savagery, legacy, and survival

On the island of Yamatai, everything can be conquered with fire. Really unrealistic fire.

March’s reboot of the long-running Tomb Raider video game series takes Lara Croft back to the beginning — to her first real adventure. She’s young and pampered, but she loves archeology. She convinces the team aboard the Endurance to brave the Dragon’s Triangle, where she believes the hidden island of Yamatai is located. Then their ship crashes in a curiously violent storm and, well, welcome to the jungle.

The whole point of the game is to show how Lara transforms from naive girl to hardened survivor. She takes the life of a man to save her own, hunts wild animals for food, and fends off wolves. She overcomes her fears and kicks a lot of ass.

Tomb Raider is also a game in love with fire. Lara lights torches, huddles around campfires, burns salvage and blockades, shoots flaming arrows, explodes oil barrels, and so on. It’s a foolproof solution to almost every problem and scenario, and it burns neatly, igniting only what it’s supposed to before putting itself out.