Wild Magic (opinion of the audiobook)

I have read this book many times, I love it to bits. And this will have been the second time I’ve listened to the audiobook version of it. I have to say that I like Cloud and the Kraken’s voices best (though why I liked the kraken saying “pacifists” I shall never know). Onua had a good voice too though. I seriously need to get more audiobooks, they’re awesome. Anyway, I’m straying from the topic aren’t I? XD I’ve made a review of Wild Magic before, which you can find by searching the blog archives, or just by going to the books page and reading through the titles. “He said” or “she said” bits were taken out because they were unnecessary, but I enjoyed it anyway. XD The post that I made with the link on how to put mp3 files into the audiobooks section on iTunes was what I found while trying to put Wild Magic into my iTunes library. I found the recording at the library and decided I needed it on my computer. And so that was that. It has led to me wanting to get more audiobooks. XD Audiobooks are awesome, even though I like reading books too. But once again I ramble, there is really no point to continuing this post. I have put together a few points but there aren’t any more to make are there? So I say good bye dear readers! I shall post again soon! ^_^

- LCD

The Truth About Horses, Friends, & My Life As a Coward

When you’re afraid of horses you’re afraid of horses. But you’d never expected to be tortured by horses would you? Sophie does. She tells every new girl the story of Heidi and the horse cart (which was pulled by their pony, Really, a.k.a. Really MEAN), which scares them off forever. She does this to save them from “torture by horses”. When she was five they got a pony named Really. I already told you that they think her real name is Really Mean. Of course, they don’t have any way to prove it. Sophie’s mother is an “artist”, and decided that they needed a pony. So they got the pony, and Really bites, kicks, and is nasty. So they generally leave the fat little tyrant alone. Then their mother gets the bright idea to get ANOTHER horse. Sophie pleads against it this time, because she knows better.

Unfortunately, her sister and mother win out against her father, and so they get a pure Arabian mare. She’s swaybacked, has a goiter on her neck, and is named Sweetheart. She is just what her name suggests. In the ring. As soon as they take her out of the ring they find out how very tricky she can be. She knocks Sophie’s sister off using a tree branch, then prances for home. Her tricks include developing a sudden cough, limping (this is obviously fake because when Sweetheart gets tired, she switches the limp to the other leg), and holding her breath when they put on the saddle so that it’s loose and they slide off later. But that’s not the last horse they get. No… the next one was just supposed to be a horse they were boarding, but instead, Fancy Free became a permanent resident.

Fancy Free became known as “the moose horse”. You can find out why yourself. Anyway, she’s the size of “a small elephant” and has hooves the size of “pie pans” according to Sophie. Fancy Free is obedient and loyal… the problem with this is that she’s a little too obedient. According to Sophie, she would run off the end of the dock if you asked. Through almost all Sophie’s horse troubles there has been her best friend, Melissa, who is horse crazy. She earned the respect of Sophie when she was thrown, pushed against things, or scraped against things eight times by Really. And she almost got rolled on, but she jumped off then jumped back on. Yup, Melissa’s a brave girl.

The other friend that Sophie gains is named Rachel, a girl who she scared off at one point with some exaggeration about her horses. Rachel turns out to be a good friend. Rachel goes shopping and talks, Melissa does horse riding and supports her with horse things. Eventually, with the help of her friends, Sophie learns to ride, and is very happy. It’s a good book, even though it’s short. It’s got lots of amusing things too. So it’s basically a story about friendship and conquering a fear of horses. I think I know a few people I should share this story with. XD Anyway, it’s something that you’d probably enjoy. ^_^ Check it out!

- LCD

The Eyeball Collector

The Eyeball Collector by F.E. Higgins isn’t as scary as it sounds. There isn’t a person going around and killing people so he can collect their eyeballs. Oh dear, I’M sounding gruesome now. Not good. Sorry. Anyway, the villain of the story (who goes by many names, let’s use the false name of his that is Gulliver Truepin) collects false eyeballs. He gets seven in the end, one for each day of the week, with the seventh being the most extravagant. The main character is named Hector Fitzbauldy (pronounced fitz-boe-dly). His father was a butterfly collector (I forget the fancy word used for butterfly collecting), and taught Hector how to kill and pin butterflies to cards. So one day Mr. Truepin comes calling and uses blackmail to get Mr. Fitzbauldy to agree to give him money. He eventually gives treble the amount, and even then Truepin sells the story to the newspapers and ruins the Fitzbauldy’s. Hector’s father is buried in a pauper’s grave, and he is left penniless.

Luckily, there’s a lady who takes him in and gives him a place to stay, she takes care of other homeless boys and gives employment to a girl called Polly. There are extracts from letters the author found throughout the story,  all addressed to Polly, though they were obviously never sent. The story is fascinating to say the least, Hector is very good at riddles, so he answers any riddle a person throws at him. One day a stranger gives him the riddle known as “The Landlord’s Pickle”. Then the stranger leaves him to answer it when next they meet, and seems sure that they will. The stranger reappears two more times in the story, once to save Hector from a wild boar (I forget the specific type, but it was rare, and very delicious), and another time because Lord Mandible thought he was poaching.

Hector eventually gets hired by Truepin (who is posing as a baron) to hatch butterflies on the night of the Withypitts Midwinter Feast. So he comes and meets Lady Mandible. She’s FREAKY. her nails are trimmed so that they’re more like talons, and she’s got sick tastes. Hector finds out that her butler has leeches on himi every night sucking at his blood, and then he squeezes it out so she can use it to PAINT. Sick. And then later, Truepin, to get in her good books again, hires a cat eater to entertain her. The man eats one of Lord Mandible’s beloved cats. I felt so sorry for him. Anyway, things don’t turn out the way Hector thinks, but there is a relatively happy ending. It’s a pretty good book, and I think I shall be having to examine F.E. Higgins’s other books.

- LCD

Stone Heart

‘God helps them what help themselves.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Means hold my hand and run like a bastard.’

I love that quote. I don’t know why, but I love it. There are plenty of good quote worthy lines in Stone Heart (by Charlie Fletcher). That is the first one in my opinion. The speaker for the first and third sentences was the Gunner, for the second sentence, George, the main character, was talking. This story has what you might call alternate dimensions. George is on a field trip with his class and gets in trouble for something he didn’t do, so he leaves the museum. Angry, he punches a stone dragon, expecting to hurt his hand. Strangely enough, he doesn’t get hurt, but the head snaps off the dragon. This sends George into an un-London, which is an alternate London. George discovers almost immediately how it is different from his. How? Well a stone pterodactyl peeled itself off the building and chased him through London. Three stone salamanders also joined the chase, and he was close to getting it when he was saved by the statue of a gunner, who is called the Gunner (simple to remember). The Gunner is made of bronze, and has a rain cape. I like him. Anyway, he shoots George’s pursuers, then has to run with him to a safer place (which brings about the quote that I gave). George learns that the Gunner is a statue with a spirit, statues that have spirits are called spits. Statues with no spirit, like the pterodactyl and the salamanders, or gargoyles and dragons, are called taints. Half human half animal things like sphinxes are half spit half taint.

But there is “another player in the game”. Her name is Edie. And she is a glint. She has no idea what a glint is, and only discovers that she is one when the Gunner calls her that. It had started raining, so the cat-like gargoyle pursuing them had to leave and go back to the building it was made for. Because it has to do what it was made to do. Anyway, later, Edie finds out from the sphinxes that a glint is someone who can see through all layers of what is, what isn’t, and what might be. So she is able to see the spits and taints move for example. Glints are bad luck, and they can glimpse the past, which is rather painful for the glint and the statue (if she is viewing the past via a statue). It’s a really good book, there’s a good plot. It turns out George is a maker, and he’s the first maker to ever break something (the dragon at the start of the book). He has to “make amends” at the “stone heart”, which might or might not be the London stone or whatever it’s called.

Meanwhile, they’ve got enemies, oh yes they do, the servants of the stone for example. The Raven and the Walker. The Walker is always walking, he can’t stop, it’s impossible for him. He is easily forgotten (one of his powers) and can make it so he can’t be seen. Cool powers, it’s a pity they belong to a bad guy. The Raven is quite amusing at points as well, especially the part where the Fusilier got it. XD This book was recommended to me by the friend who does the flash fiction blog with me. And she’ll be lending me the rest of the books so there will be reviews up of those too. Anyway, this is a very good book, which I’m sure you’d like if you like the idea of alternate dimensions, or worlds being like layers, one on top of another. I give this book a ten out of ten (or if I want to be ridiculous, one hundred out of ten). And I add it to my current group of favorite books. I shall have to see if I can get it on audiobook for my mp3 player.

- LCD

A new art link added – Ytje

Thanks to Lyric Wiki, I found the band Harvey Danger, and thanks to them, I found Ytje. This is her artwork for their album Little By Little…

Rather pretty I must say. Anyway, a link to her website has been added under the art links, and if you’re interested in Harvey Danger, or downloading Little By Little, they have it available for download (free, that’s the keyword) on their website. I’m downloading it right now as I type. XD Here’s the link.

- LCD

MP3 to Audiobook in iTunes link

Hey people! ^_^ In the quest (in which I searched the web, got away with hardly any stickiness, and searched through tons of bundled up pages (who I freed of course), and hardly any knights) to find out how to put an mp3 in the audiobook section on iTunes, I discovered lots of videos and blogs, but my quest came to an end here. It’s relatively easy to follow the instructions. You should have seen me when I got the first CD of the first Immortals book by Tamora Pierce (the book is called Wild Magic) into the audiobooks. I was so excited I think I nearly got a stitch. Like you would from running. Anyway, now that that most important link is in the post, and I have been ridiculous, there really is no point in continuing this post, even though that would be quite amusing.

- LCD

Dragonsong

It’s sort of a good thing that I read one of Anne McCaffrey’s books before, it helped me know who some of the characters are, and understand a couple of things, like the Threads from the Red Star. Anyway, this book is set seven Turns after the five weyrs from the past came forward in time to help deal with the Threadfall in the book that I read before this one, which would be Dragonflight. The main character in this story is called Menolly, the unusually tall and musical daughter of Sea Holder Yanus. Of course, the Half-Circle Sea Hold is old fashioned you might say. Girls can’t be Harpers is an example of their thoughts. Of course, the problem with that is that Menolly was taught how to sing and play instruments by Petiron, the old Harper. She knew the songs better than he did in the last months he was living, and she did “tuning” as her parents called it, making up tunes and songs of her own. Of course, she was allowed to do this while Petiron was alive, but as soon as he was dead and she’d sung the song for his passing, Yanus forbade any tuning or singing for her. So Menolly does it in secret, and is allowed to do the Teachings for the children, songs they should know and all that. When the new Harper (named Elgion) arrives though, she made a mistake and accidentally did a bit of tuning, and unfortunately, Yanus heard.

He came and bent her over the tall Harper’s stool and beat her across the shoulders with his belt. Have I shown yet that I hate Yanus and really like Menolly? No? Well then now you know. So it goes on until Menolly accidentally cuts her hand. Her mother tells her she cut a tendon and will never be able to play instruments again. And later when Elgion plays songs, her mother pinches her and tells her that she cannot sing loudly, she must sing quietly as befits a girl. So Menolly just leaves the hall, despite her parents hissing at her to get back and behave. Eventually she runs away. At an earlier point she observed fire lizards mating, and then when she saw them again, she saved their eggs from the rising tide. When she runs away, she goes there again and this time she saves the fire lizard hatchlings from dying because of the Threadfall. She gives them the spiderclaws she caught, feeding them. She Impressed nine this way without meaning to. Impressing is something that happens with dragons and fire lizards, if you take care of them and talk to them once they hatch, they then belong to you and you alone. There isn’t any way to change it. They die when you die.

Over a bit of time, Menolly starts teaching her dragons to sing you might say, they hum along in tune with the music she plays or sings. And she names them too. The little gold queen fire lizard is Beauty, the bronze ones are Rocky and Diver, the brown ones are Lazybones, Mimic, and Brownie. The blue one is called Uncle, and the green ones are Auntie One and Auntie Two. After awhile, she is out looking for food with her fire lizards and Threads start falling, she is saved just in time by a dragonrider. Then she is taken to Benden Weyr. Of course, the rider didn’t see her fire lizards, and somehow, Beauty managed to find Menolly at the weyr. It’s a really good book, only 192 pages, ensuring its a quick read, but its still pretty good. I especially like the design of the fire lizards, they look dnagerous, but lovable at the same time somehow. I’d say that Manora was my favorite character besides Menolly, but still, Master Harper Robinton is also quite funny. Read the book, it’s amusing.

- LCD

Bartimaeus (Book three): Ptolemy’s Gate

This book is unlike the first two, where it switched from Bartimaeus to Nathaniel (in the first one), or Bartimaeus to Nathaniel to Kitty (in the third one). Sure it doesn’t have a new character being focused on, but the thing is, it also focuses on Bartimaeus’s time with Ptolemaeus (a.k.a. Ptolemy). In fact, the first chapter (you could say) is set on a time where Bartimaeus pretends to be Ptolemy, and saves him from four assassins. It was quite funny in its own way. Then we come to Bartimaeus in the present times. Trapped on Earth for two years, his essence in sore need of recuperation, and yet Nathaniel (Mr. John Mandrake) doesn’t give it to him. So he’s squashed under a lavatory, with only his head showing, unable to get it off himself. Thoroughly humiliating. When Ascobol (another djinn who serves Mandrake) frees him from the lavatory, he goes off to recover, leaving the other djinn to fight the battle, because he is too tired. Then he thinks about how any sane master wouldn’t have kept him on Earth so long (which tells you what he thinks about Nathaniel).

Meanwhile, the aforementioned magician is completely comfortable in his house in London, in fact, he’s having toast with jam and reading the morning newspaper. How very rude, seeing as his “servants”/”slaves” are out there possibly dying. Very, very rude. Anyway, Bartimaeus doesn’t come back so Ascobol makes up some lies to get Bartimaeus in trouble and all that, so Nathaniel gets out his scrying glass and gets the imp to fetch Bartimaeus. Of course, the imp can’t get him to come. So of course Bartimaeus knows there will be consequences, exactly what he wants. Because he needs to talk to Nathaniel. Unfortunately though, Nathaniel has Ms. Piper there as well, so Bartimaeus can’t call him “Nat” or go “Ahthaniel“. XD He’s so subtle isn’t he? So he is given the mission to just tail Clive Jenkins, who is involved in a conspiracy against the government which involved murder. Plus, Jenkins is working for Clem Hopkins. The promise is that once he does that, he will be dismissed to recuperate.

So he goes off to do so, in the form of a bedraggled sparrow. Meanwhile, Kitty Jones is still alive (Bartimaeus told Nathaniel that she had died saving him), and has two false identities. Lizzie Temple and Clara Bell. She is working as an assistant for a magician called Mr. Button, who only conjures entities from The Other Place to find out about them. She also works at The Frog Inn and occasionally delivers books for Jakob’s family. She’s working for Mr. Button and learning magic so she can summon Bartimaeus, the only person she wants to summon. This is my favorite book out of the three, mainly because it tells us more about Bartimaeus’s past, and then around the end of the book Bartimaeus and Nathaniel have some very amusing conversations. And then there is also the fact that Kitty uses Ptolemy’s gate successfully. And we also find out who’s been behind all the bad things happening in the other two books (I don’t mean just the magicians, I mean the magician responsible for the events in the Amulet of Samarkand and The Golem’s Eye). It’s quite surprising actually.

Plus, the ending is rather surprising too, even if what happens to Nathaniel is a little sad. I end this review here seeing as I’ve got Avatar in my mind, and can’t seem to give the best review of this book at this time. I hope it was a good one anyway though. ^_^

- LCD

Avatar

First off, I went to watch it with my sister and one of my friends yesterday, so that ensured that it was going to be awesome, because my friend had had it recommended to her, like I had (by ten different people around ten (or was it twenty?) times each). I just didn’t realize how awesome it was going to be. This is mainly because we watched it in 3D (sure our eyes were a little red, okay okay, my sister’s eyes were COMPLETELY red at the end, but still, it was all good). It just looks so REAL in 3D (yes, I know that’s the whole point of 3D movies, I just had to say it, I haven’t watched anything in 3D for ages you see, and I haven’t been to the movie theaters in ages either). Anyway, the movie starts with you flying over the landscape over this unidentified (soon to be identified) planet, and some guy starts narrating. His name is Jake Sully, and he’s one of the main characters.

Excuse me, I just had a funny moment. You know how I just identified the guy as Jake Sully? Well just now, I called him James Sully. XD Forgive me if I make that mistake in this post. There is no character in there called James as far as I’m aware. XD And names are kind of hard to remember for certain characters… but back to the story! ^_^ So Jake Sully has been dreaming of flying (how very obvious from the intro), but the weird thing is, you don’t dream in “cryo”. They’ve been on a space ship for five years and (I forgot however many months) and so they are told that yes they’ll be hungry and weak, it’s to be expected. Anyway, they’re floating around in zero gravity or something like that, for they have arrived at their destination! A moon called Pandora (does that name ring any bells?). It’s exciting enough already with just the 3D glasses (did I mention how real everything looks? Yes yes I know I’m ruining this review with repeated mention about that, sorry! I won’t do it anymore!) So Pandora is a nice planet, tons of trees, and when you first look, no life except that of humans. But when Jake Sully rolls himself off the ship (he’s got a wheelchair), he sees long, very strange looking arrows sticking out of the wheels of a bulldozer.

Humans have to wear masks on Pandora, because the air isn’t good for them, it will first make them go unconscious (only twenty seconds required), and will kill them next (in four minutes). Jake’s brother Thomas was shot before they got on the ship for his money, he was a scientist, and he was supposed to control an avatar, which is like a body made from human and Na’vi DNA. Jake is only able to control it because he’s got his bro’s DNA, so the Avatar will be able to respond to him. He has no idea what to do of course, and he’s never had any training with this sort of thing before, which makes Grace (the leading scientist) assign him as a bodyguard for them instead. On their first outting, Jake wanders a short distance away from them (armed with a gun of course), and notices some strange plants, he reaches out to touch one, and it shrinks. He starts touching the others and they shrink too, then the last one he touches sets off the others and they all shrink, revealing some other creatures (called Angtsìk by the Na’vi, be warned, I will be using the names the Na’vi use for the creatures in this review), one of them does a little territorial display, so Jake has to just hold his ground.

It starts charging at him at one point (I would have run screaming then, but he still held his ground), but then stops, turns, and runs. Jake thinks he was successful and starts feeling all good, but he’s not the reason it ran. No… a predator showed up, a Palulukan. By humans it is called a Thanator. According to the director, “The Thanator could eat a T-Rex and have the Alien for dessert.” Freaky sounding isn’t it? And especially freaky in 3D (I’ve GOT to stop bringing that up, I’ll bore you all to tears with my talk about 3D movies). He asks Grace if he should run or stand his ground. She goes “Run…. definitely run!” So of course he runs. It almost gets him a few times, and he wastes his bullets shooting at it. The way he finally escaped was jumping over a cliff into a waterfall. Grace and Norm (another human controlling an avatar) couldn’t find him, so Trudy (their pilot who doesn’t have an avatar) said they’d have to leave him for the night), and Grace said “He won’t make it ’til morning.” Is that ominous or what?

During the morning he’s almost killed by a female Na’vi called Neytiri, but a seed from the sacred tree lands on her arrows so she doesn’t shoot. Did I ever mention that Na’vi are around ten feet tall? Anyway, that night, Jake is attacked by Nantang (a.k.a. viperwolves), and Neytiri saves him. But when he thanks her, to his surprise, she responds in English going “No thank! This is sad!” When he apologizes she tells him he’s like a baby and makes lots of noise, and that the Nantang wouldn’t have had to die if he hadn’t made noise. So he asked her why she didn’t just let let them kill him then. She doesn’t reply to that. She walks away, but he keeps on following her, asking her things, she tells him to go back, etc. etc… but then more seeds from the sacred tree appear. He knocks one away but she stops him and tells him that they are harmless. Lots land on him, then blow away. When other Na’vi come and are going to kill his avatar, Na’vi stops them and tells them that there was a sign from Eywa. So they take him to the Hometree, which is the largest tree on Pandora (seriously, it’s HUGE), to talk to parents. The father is the tribe leader, and the mother is the spiritual leader (she interprets the will of Eywa and all that). Neytiri’s clan is the Omaticaya. Mo’at (Neytiri’s mother) chooses her to teach Jake the ways of the Omaticaya.

So when his avatar falls asleep, Jake wakes up at the base. The first thing Grace asks is if his avatar is safe, Jake says it is, and he also says that they won’t believe where it is. The colonel (Miles Quaritch) promises to pay to get Jake’s legs fixed (they are really thin and look plain unnatural) if he’ll pretend to be one of the scientists and give them information on the Hometree, which is planted right above the largest, purest bunch of unobtanium on the moon. Grace knows she was talking to them, but he was her only way to get back in with the Omaticaya after the school was closed (that explains why the Na’vi know how to speak English).

This movie is a really visual one, so you know what the funny thing about it is? Even if I told you in detail about every single scene (which would make a really long review), and told you what happens at the end and everything, you still wouldn’t actually know what happens in the movie you could say. If they made the movie into a book, it wouldn’t be as good as the movie. I’m serious… I loved this movie, it’s really really good, I’d say my favorite characters were Grace, Neytiri, Mo’at, Max, Norm, and Trudy. They were just awesome. Out of those mentioned though, Neytiri and Trudy are my absolute favorites. Watch the movie, for it is probably one of the best movies I’ve seen. And guess what? In this review, I didn’t even get close to  the halfway point in the movie, I’ve probably only told you about a quarter of what happens in there.

- LCD

Two reviews soon

Hello blog readers (I can’t say “my many blog readers”, seeing as I don’t know how many people actually read my blog consistently), I have watched Avatar in the theater today, so there will be a review of it coming. Before that, I finished the third book of The Bartimaeus Trilogy, which, as you probably know if you’ve read my other posts, is called Ptolemy’s Gate. So that means there will be two reviews for you lucky people! One is a book, the other is a movie! Oh, and did I mention I saw Avatar in 3D? Totally amazing, especially seeing as I was around the front row. It seemed like things were going to come out of the screen and hit us, so there was the overwhelming urge to duck. I’d better save the rest of my experiences for the review, otherwise I won’t have too much to say, other than explanations about the plot. XD

- LCD