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Thanks! I'll take a look at those.

Now for my review of Eragon:

I read Eragon and I'm working on Eldest. These are clearly juvinile books, which would be why they'd be found in the 'youth' section of your book store. Honestly the movie of Eragon was better than the book. The book is an ok read but not great. If you want something you don't have to strain yourself to read or think about too much then this is a good and relaxing way to while away some free time. It is hugely derivative, so much so that I found myself thinking at one point that David Eddings had done it better. Which is to say that it's so derivative that it's distracting. That's not even going into the clear Tolkien rip-off going on.

The publicists want you to know that the author, Christopher Paolini graduated from High School at the age of 15 and started working on Eragon at that time. What they conveniently neglect to tell you is that he was home schooled, passed with C's and his parents own a publishing company. So once he got the book written they printed it and peddaled it to every place they could until someone picked it up.

The most obvious result of the nepotism involved here is that apperantly C.Paolini's parents cannot bear to cut a single precious word he's written from any manuscript. Now I'm a pretty forgiving reader and I am not one of those people who edit as they read but let me tell you, he NEEDS (I cannot emphasize this enough) NEEDS an editor. Apperantly they're letting Microsoft Word's spell and grammar check do all the editing for them.

In conclusion, the books are so far enjoyable reads and the young author shows promise. The books are afflicted by all the things youth would give them, callowness, derivativeness, a certain amount of pretentiousness but given time I think he could outgrow these things, as we all do and become a decent author. With the caveat that he finds himself a real editor.

If I haven't mentioned it before I AM LEGEND is a must read. I did my final paper for my writing class on it and it's fantastic. It truly changed the face of horror today.

I just finished up Orbit by John Nance and will be writing up a full review later.

There's supposed to be another major motion picture of I Am Legend coming out soon starring Will Smith.

Chernobyl is a tough go. It's got a lot of politics in the story and, honestly, I find political intrigue to be boring.

What is Gods Politics about? Literally the politics of gods?

Nope, it's a religous look at politics as viewed through the lens of the Bible and what it actually says, not what a lot of religous types and politicians want you to believe it says.

Which is not to say that it is completely accurate and the final word on anything but it does point out a lot of surprising hypocricy and reaffirms other suspected hypocracies. A word which I've totally forgotten how to spell.

It's not totally negative, otherwise it'd be an impossible read. Rather it points out discrepancies and points to solutions that are based upon what is supposed to be, rather than what cynics and power mongers want to be.

yey! i love the charles dexter ward one as well. but my all time favorite is 'the thing in the moonlight'. only a page but oh so powerful

i've had a collection of his short stories for years but it's kinda heavy sometimes so i've notfinished it - i always find myself re-reading them too!

books int what they used to be wink