Miss Muppet ate my hamster!

Catching up on Kindle Korner......

2011-11-11T13:33:00.000Z

Since I spoke to you last, I have read a couple more titles on my Kindle and found another book to go onto my 1001 Books list!

First up is Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith which is a new entry, number (67), on my 1001 Books And Authors You Need To Read Before You Die list!

Child 44 is a fictional account of serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo and follows the story of Leo Demidov, a MGB Agent in Russia's Secret Police, who discovers a link between a series of child murders and sets out to discover the culprit. The problem..... in Stalinist Russia, crime does not officially exist and Leo's investigation is an embarrassment both to the Government and to Stalin's perfect society! Leo is first transferred to a remote outpost and then hunted by his own colleagues as he refuses to let go of his investigation and finds himself questioning the very system he is a part of!

This is a highly engrossing read, a real roller coaster of a thriller and comes highly recommended! It is a shame then that its sequel, The Secret Speech, was such a disappointment by comparison! With a third book due out next year, I strongly believe this will prove to be the strongest book of the trilogy and that is why it makes the list!

Meanwhile back on Kindle, the F.Paul Wilson short story, Demonsong, proved to be very disappointing! The tale of how Glaken and Rasalom first met offered little in the way of new knowledge and left me with more questions than answers to the extent that I almost wished I had not read it! Likewise short story, The Butterfly Effect, was another let-down ~ telling the story of a dad who brings home some caterpillars in a container for his kids to watch progress into butterflies. Like the tales in M.J.Winn's short story anthology, this didn't really go anywhere and seemed to me to have little point to it!

The other full books that I have read on Kindle include the two concluding installments of Christopher Hunter's The Days And Months We Were First Born novella trilogy which brings his epic end-of-the-world story to a tidy and satisfying end! Though I actually had to pay for these, they were well worth the money and highly enjoyable! I do think they would work better as one complete tale rather than three separate novella but then that is not down to me and is at the author's discretion. Whatever......because for the amount that I paid for them, it was still cheaper than buying a tree-book!

I have also read Jenni Pox by J.L.Bryan which is a Carrie-clone telling the story of a young girl who is cursed with killing or making ill any living thing she touches skin-to-skin. Things get even more complicated for her when she discovers that she is not the only one in her town with abilities and that she is part of a much larger scheme of events! But though this story showed a lot of promise, the end result was very average and not at all everything it could've been! Though not awful, still this E-book managed to be more than a little of a disappointment and I would only download others in this series if they were free!

Finally, I have just started the classic Land That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I am not sure if I have read it before (I had a spate of reading the classics such as The Three Musketeers and Dickens when I was much younger) but fondly recall the film starring Douglas McClure with its awful, awful effects that consisted of sticking bits of cardboard to lizards then enlarging them on film to make them look like dinosaurs! Am really enjoying this at mo and have the two sequels on my Kindle also to read! Great vintage fun!

Till next time....Laters Taters! Sparky xxxx

Correspendence from an author.....

2011-11-01T22:23:00.002Z

So, I am a member of a group on Facebook called Free Ebooks UK-Sharing Group and the other day saw a couple of posts by Christopher Hunter who, as you may recall, wrote the excellent Unravelling that I recently download and added to my 1001 List. So, I decided to post a Link to my Blog there and tell him how brilliant I thought his book was. His response....."Wow Mark, thank you!!! This has made my day and I was already having a good one as was. I will share the link with others, and just to point out, I consider this a novella trilogy as opposed to a novel trilogy. It's open to personal interpretation (some people have even claimed this as a short story!), but just wanted to give you the author's statement. Really appreciate you taking the time and hope you enjoy the rest of the series. :-D"

How cool is that?

In other news, I also received the following E-mail from author, Michael Winn:

"Hey, Mark. I’m Michael Winn, the author of an ebook you’ve recently downloaded from Amazon. My publisher, Janice, at Janday Publishing e-mailed you a free gift certificate for The Dead Dog and Other Tales of Tragedy and Triumph. If you’ve had time to read it, I would be very grateful if you would post a short review on Amazon UK. I’m anxious to know the thoughts of avid readers. Hopefully you loved the book and will have some good things to say. And if you didn’t like the book? Well, as my mom taught me, sometimes it’s more polite to say nothing at all... :) Either way, if you post a review and would like to receive a free copy of a second book from the publisher, just let me know at this email or contact me through Facebook – I’ll be sure to let the publisher know to send you one right away. Thanks!

Kind Regards,

M.J. Winn"

I quite enjoyed getting that E-mail right up until the point where he says "And if you didn’t like the book? Well, as my mom taught me, sometimes it’s more polite to say nothing at all." Errrr.....censorship!!??!! What, you only want to hear my opinion if I enjoyed the book? Errrr...sorry but it doesn't work like that! Actually I just read the book, a collection of short stories, and pretty much thought it dull and uninspiring with stories that never seemed to go anywhere and didn't have any point to them! Remember I talked about Virtual kindling? Well, along with Surviving The Fog, this E-book is certainly it! Big question is do I tell him what I think?

I think discretion has to be the better part of valour but I will be posting a passively negative review on Amazon because I think it is my due as an amateur reviewer. I have a duty to report how this book made me feel and I refuse to lie, either by omission or more directly, because it goes against all my principles!

The other book I have just finished is Amanda Hocking's Hollow land which is a zombie apocalypse novel very much in the vein of 28 Days and Weeks later! The book begins with Remy, a young teenage girl quarantined in a Government Facility, finding herself fighting for her life when security becomes compromised. Forced to flee, she sets off in search of her baby brother who was one of the first to be evacuated. Because her brother has a secret; and one that has ramifications for the future of the entire human race!

This was a good book aimed at younger readers and if the ending was a tad flat, it was only because it is paving the way for a sequel! I wouldn't say it was brilliant but was certainly better than Zombie Apocalypse recently reviewed by Lainy over on So Many Books, Not Enough Time recently which was highly original, depicting the use of Twitter during the beginning of the Zombie outbreak amongst other things, but which ended on a very silly and almost damaging note that threatened to discredit all that came before. At least Hollow Land stays pretty consistent throughout and is what it is ~ a teenage Zombie novel that flows at a fast pace and is reminiscent of Justin Cronin's The Passage at times.

Next to read on Kindle ~ have just downloaded a free short story from F.Paul Wilson from web-site Smashwords that details the early days of the conflict between Glaeken and Rasalom from his Adversary and Repairman Jack series!!! Am so excited to have found this for free and cannot wait to read this being a big fan of his Secret History Of The World!! The link to download it yourself is here:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/23892 The book comes in a Mobi file which you can download to your Kindle using a USB cable!

Oh, I just remembered, I have also recently read the short story, Tales From The Void:Scarecrow which I downloaded from Smashwords. A short horror tale set in an alternative world of Goblins and Trolls it was alright but nothing groundbreaking and okay for what it was. Basically a force of Magick breathes through from something never fully explained called The Void, awakening an ancient evil lying at rest inside an old scarecrow. One to read only if you have nothing better on the go....until next time....

Happy reading......luv Sparky xxxxx

Kindle Korner Kontinues......

2011-10-28T23:09:00.000+01:00

Well, I am afraid to say that The End Of The World ended up being more than just a little bit disappointing! Not only was the climax of the story a bit obvious but I got the feeling ultimately that the whole thing was just being odd simply for the sake of being odd as the story never really ended up going anywhere in the end! A shame...because to start with, it looked like it had potential!

Thankfully, the next book on my Kindle (another freebie) more than makes up for what End Of The World lacked! The Days and Months We Were First Born- The Unraveling (Book 1 of 3) By Christopher Hunter is so good it makes number (66) on my 1001 Books And Authors You Need To Read Before You Die list!! Martin Jacobs wakes up one morning in the not-too-distant-future only to find his whole world turned upside down! A man-made virus has begun sweeping the planet separating everybody into one of two groups: those who are immune and going to survive and those who are going to die!

Jacobs' girlfriend goes into a complete breakdown when she learns that all her family have been condemned to an early grave forcing Martin to go on without her. As society breaks down, he joins a local Militia struggling to keep control and keep the streets clear of bodies but then they learn of a group of scientists holed up in a Campus building who may well have been responsible for the release of the virus in the first place! Martin has his reservations but even he cannot predict what will happen next.....the ramifications of which will greatly affect what is left of the world!

This book reads very much like Stephen King's The Stand but on a much less epic scale! There are no big battles between the forces of Good and Evil, no clear cut division of black and white merely more and more shades of grey and what we are left with is King's masterpeice stripped to its barest bones giving this paticular novel its own clear identity! It is a gripping read, highly addictive and only the beginning of a forthcoming trilogy of novels, the second of which is currently available from Amazon! Have no doubt, as soon as I get paid I will be buying the next book in the series as this was something I REALLY could not put down! I loved its style, adored its fresh approach to a familiar theme and think the story shows lots of potential for expansion over the next two novels! Where things are going to go next, I could not even hope to predict and that just makes this story and its characters even more exciting! I cannot wait to see where Christopher Hunter is about to take us next!

Kindle Korner round-up.....

2011-10-26T23:53:00.000+01:00

First up, I have finally finished the Infinities collection of short stories and novel samples on my Kindle and found it, as a whole, largely unsatisfying. The rest of the collection included a story entitled The Wooden Horse by John Grant which tells the story of a vet who makes the decision to change his career to become a film critic after watching a series of unusual war movies at his local art house cinema. This was a not bad, little bit wishy-washy, alternative history tale that felt a tad bland.

Next up was Phoenix Man by Gary Kilworth about a man whose dangerous obsession with fire and the ability to continually set himself alight damages his relationship with his girlfriend and has disastrous results. This was slightly better and a neat little tale from an established author from whom I have only had minimal experience.

The next book sample comes from Kaitlin Queen and is called One More Unfortunate which reads like a pretty standard and unimpressive thriller which, in these opening chapters, really fails to ignite any interest!

One Step Closer by Iain Rowan is the next short story and isn't bad but falls a little short of being perfect. Still, it isn't bad and might inspire me to read more of his work....

Spotted Lilly from Anna Tambour comes next and is another book sample about a girl who signs a contract with the Devil and has a week to reconsider before the deal becomes final. Okay but not something I would want to continue with.....this is followed by Memory by Linda Nagata which looks like it might be a very impressive sci-fi novel with lots of potential; The Red Church by Scott Nicholson which also looks like it might be an engaging Supernatural thriller; The Disappeared by Kristine Kathryn Rusch ~ an author I have enjoyed before but whose book sample here fails to impress on so many levels and The Immortal, a sample from Steven Saville ~ a near future story that may just have potential but that I would have to see about...

Overall, to summarise, the Infinities collection was not a bad download but only contained a few stories and samples that I might be interested in. Still, it will be intresting to see if I disccover any new authors because of it...

The other stuff I have been reading on my Kindle include Surviving The Fog which I have reviewed on Dooyoo as follows: "This is the second free book that I have downloaded onto my Kindle and, unfortunately, is the first to be sent to the Archives; the virtual bin held in storage at Amazon where books can be dumped from your Kindle to be restored at a later date if you so wish. The idea of this is that the Kindle only holds 3500 books approximately so you can store those you don't want at Amazon until such time as you want to read them again meaning you only have to download titles once!

Fog reads like a cross between Stephen King's The Mist mixed with Under The Dome with elements of Kit Craig's Gone thrown into the mix for good measure! A group of High-School children on a camping exercise are at a group of Lodges up in the Appalachian mountains when a heavy, dense fog descends ~ cutting them off from the rest of civilisation. Entering the fog has disastrous results: the group's adult supervisors set off to get help and never return and there are later reports of screams being heard in the fog as others are taken as they try to escape!

The group of young children face a struggle to survive as they brace themselves to hold out against an indeterminable future. And when they find out they are not alone in the mountains, things do not get much better.....

This had the potential to be a really good story but unfortunately falls flat from the flaw of not being paticulary interesting throughout! No real explanation is ever really made of the fog, until the author lazily chucks in one possibility right at the end almost as an after-thought, and, aside from at the start, the fog is pretty much ignored ~ it could just as much be a wall of pineapple jelly that stops them from rejoining the rest of the world!

It also quickly becomes confusing just who this book is aimed at! My first impressions were that it was a young adult book but casual use of the C-Bomb and some sexual scenes pretty much rule that out in theory! Certainly though, there is little enough here to keep grown adults interested for long!

The characters are bland, the situation ~ not much better!

Overall then, this is one to avoid if you are a Kindle user!

Summary: Not a very satisfying read...." Definitely Kindling then and one to avoid!

I have also read Fairytale by Maggie Shayne which is a novel published by Harlequin which is the Canadian Company associated with the Mills And Boon brand over here in England! This is not exactly your traditional romance story though with a tale that sees the main protagonist, a troubled young man called Adam, falling in love with one of two twin sisters who share Royal Fae blood and whose destiny is all tied up in rescuing the Fairy kingdom of Rush from Dark forces that seek only to control and destroy! This was actually a lot better than it sounds and not at all the slushy romantic nonsense you might otherwise have expected from the Harlequin brand! I kind of got the impression that the Company is branching out and though this was only an okay read, it did make me want to read the follow-up novel at some stage which follows Bridin's battles to regain her Royal Crown over in the Kingdom of The Fae! Not at all bad for a freebie!

Next up, I have just started The End Of The World by Andrew Biss; a bizarre comedy fantasy that sees a young man forced out of his parents house after years spent in seclusion who finds himself almost mugged before he ends up at a B And B with an eccentric selection of fellow guests. I am not saying this book is at all weird or surreal or anything but lets put it this way: so far the main character has been introduced to a Serbian woman who has no stomach, an American con-man/ business man who lives in the refridgerator and a Preacher who emerges from the kitchen sink! So far though, it is quite entertaining...just very, very odd!

Until next time...here's Sparky's Kindle Korner signing out! Laters y'all! XXXXX

And Venus was her name.....

2011-10-14T08:31:00.000+01:00

The next two stories in the Infinities anthology that I am reading on my Kindle are a short story and a book sample, both by Eric Brown. Venus Macabre tells the story of a performance artist putting on his last ever dramatic performance to a select crowd on the planet of Venus.....but behind all the showmanship lies a secret, hidden past that riddles him with guilt and consumes his whole being. Meeting up with a big fan several weeks later, the artist seeks absolution and contrition but his fan has other ideas.....

A Writers Life is a sample of the novel by the same name and basically tells the story of an author who discovers, by accident, the controversial work of a cult Science Fiction writer and decides to investigate not just his life but also his bizarre disappearance that led to an overnight cease in his work. Both these stories are okay but seem to me to lack any depth and I was not overly enamoured with any of the characters involved. Neither of these samples or examples of Eric Brown's work would encourage me to pick up anything else by him and though they are not awful, it is fair to say I was not impressed! Sorry Eric.......

Introducing Sparky's Kindle Korner.....

2011-10-13T20:42:00.001+01:00

Well, I have just finished The Blood That Bonds by Christopher Beuchler ~ my first free Kindle book as recommended to me by the lovely Lainy and as also featured on her Blog "So Many Books, So Little Time" ~ which is the first in a new trilogy all about a series of Vampire who exist hidden amongst us, emerging only to feed and create new fledglings. Two is a heroin addict and a prostitute, forced into her life by a cruel and vicious Pimp when she is hired by the Vampire, Theoren for a single night's pleasure. But Theroen has more than just sex on his mind; he wants to take Two as his Vampire bride. For Two, it is a chance to escape her former life and begin anew but for Theoren, it is just the start of his problems as the Master of his clan, Abraham, questions his decision and decides to take action against him.......

This was a brilliant book and so much better than I might have expected! It put me in mind of Nancy.A.Collins' Sunglasses After Dark, which starts off the Sonja Blue series, mixed with just a hint of a subtle nod towards Anne Rice and really was a gripping and amazing read. Finishing it, I so wanted to continue on with the story and catch up with what happened to the characters next ~ so much so that I have already downloaded the second book in the series, Blood Hunt, at a cost of only 99p! Definitely one to get then for all you Kindle users out there and also a novel that will definitely be making my 1001 Books List! So it is that The Blood That Bonds becomes book number (65)! A big, big thank-you must go therefore to Lainy for recommending the book in the first place! Cheers Hon ~ you really are the best!!

The only other two titles I have read so far on my Kindle are the free-to-buy novella Re:Union by Eric Liu and an anthology called Infinities ~ which is basically a collection of short Sci-fi tales and sample chapters from a small selection of new and established authors.

Re:Union tells the story of a man who has been searching for his lost love for the past fifteen years and ends up meeting her again at a virtual school reunion situated in a futuristic version of Cyberspace. But he soon realises that all is not what it first appears and is forced to make a decision that goes against everything he has ever lived by and which ends up testing his moral principles to the limit! This is a neat little tale that shows plenty of promise and was highly enjoyable. Was it worth downloading? Certainly seeing as it was free but I don't think ultimately I would have paid for it!

Infinities begins with a short story called The Man Who Built Heaven by Keith Brooks which has since been incorporated into a larger novel by the same author called The Accord. The Man Who Built Heaven tells a similar story to the last novella in that it follows an established scientist working hard to create a virtual world where people's personalities can continue to exist long after their body has died. But an illicit attraction to a married colleague working on the same project causes continual distraction ending in tragic consequences. Again this is a really good little Sci-fi tale and would really encourage me to read more by this author! In fact, I may well have to check out The Accord because I would love to learn more about the characters featured here and I will definitely be looking out for more of his short stories!

So, a good start to my Kindle experience then with three decent reads and so far no sign of Kindling......can this good run continue..? Who knows but I have plenty more free stuff to read that I have downloaded from Amazon and have even bought a couple of titles. One of these is the aforementioned Blood Hunt which carries on from The Blood That Bonds, the other is the first in a series set in and around The Body Farm facility in Tenessee by a pair of authors who call themselves Jefferson Bass. And if you know me at all, then you will know I am looking forward to THAT!

The law of the playpark........

2011-10-12T10:30:00.001+01:00

I want to talk to you today, especially those of you who are parents, about a hidden threat that lurks in and around our childrens' play parks. That threat is not dirty needles, nor is it dog poo left behind by lazy owners to lazy to sully their hands with the excrement deposited by their perfect little darlings that are replacements for the children they were unable to or just never got around to having. No, today I want to talk to you about The Weirdies!

I'm not talking about potential Pedos', though they could justifiably fall into that category too but which thankfully I have yet to encounter, but instead the kind of people who hang around childrens' play parks for legitimate reasons and then feel the need or compunction to talk to you about totally random and useless shit! In the past few months, I have had two of these such people approach me so, although they are not necessarily overly prevalent, they do constitute a threat to something I like to call "Sparky's time of Peace and Quiet."

I go to the park to give myself a little break. Emilie can go off and play by herself, or with friends if there are any over there, and the only time she really needs me is for pushing her on the swing, to which I am more than happy to oblige, or when she wants Daddy to go onto the roundabout until he gets dizzy which she finds most amusing! Other than that, I go over there to get ten minutes Peace and enjoy whatever book I am reading at the time. Not necessarily to talk.....and not about whatever random shit enters that little thing that Weirdies mistakenly call their brain but is instead an extension of their mouth!

First Example: we are at the park, me and Ems, just us enjoying our time out of the house in the fresh, beautiful air. She is happy playing, I am happy reading my latest Deathlands book. Along come two Council guys to empty the nearby bin at which point, the older of the two asks me what I am reading. Nothing wrong with that so I oblige him by explaining it is just a bit of pulp Sci-Fi, some random guilty pleasure that just kills a bit of time but which I nonetheless enjoy. So he then goes on to talk to me about how he enjoys Sci-fi (at which point, warning bells begin to sound...) and how his wife picks him up titles she thinks he will enjoy whenever she goes to CarBoot or the local Charity shops of which there is abundance in Dereham! Still nothing wrong there until he then starts going on about how he likes Sci-fi because "YOU JUST NEVER KNOW....SOME OF IT COULD BE VERY CLOSE TO WHAT'S REAL!!!"

He then goes onto talk to me for ten minutes about the possibility of Extra-terrestial life, visitors from other planets and how it is a big universe out there and surely there must be some intelligent life out there somewhere and who is to say they haven't visited us before, there's all those strange lines in the Aztec desert and that guy Daiken thought that God was an astronaut and then there's those markings on cave walls that look like aliens and.......BORING!

Now I'm all up for a philosophical discussion on the very nature of God and the possibility of alien life on other planets but NOT when I am at the park with my daughter please! There is a time and a place, it's called "down the pub", and I really don't want to be talking about this when I am enjoying some quiet time reading my book and watching my daughter have fun! But of course, I am polite so I just sit there and nod and smile until the weird man goes away to empty something else at which point I tell Emilie we are now going home and that if she really wants to play, we can come back later. Like maybe when the Weirdie has gone away. Worst thing is ~ the guy waves at me as we are leaving as if we are now suddenly acquaintances instead of me just being somebody random that the lonely man decided he wanted to talk to until that person lost the will to live!

I would have dismissed this as just an aberration but then a couple of weeks ago, I was accosted again!

This time it was a granddad who had come over with his wife and their grandchild. He started talking about how he had come down from Manchester or somewhere and how Norfolk was very pretty, very picturesque to which I agreed. He then started on about someone he knows in Holt who claims that the only problems she has in her little cafe is with the young people in the town and the so-called "feral youth!" Cue a lengthy discussion about the recent riots all around the country and how the "feral youth" were supposedly responsible. Except it wasn't just them! He has a friend on the Force down in London, a member of The Met no less, and he tells this guy about how most of the troubles down there were caused by blacks. And of course they get away with it because it is all P.C gone mad! I mean he doesn't mind them coming over here and settling down with our women and taking our jobs (and that, I think, is very considerate of him really don't you?) but why can't they just behave themselves? I mean they are more like animals than men and the "feral youth" don't know any better (because presumably they have never been shown the difference between right and wrong ever and are unable to exhibit any kind of restraint of course) and so get pulled into the whole thing by following by example. Blah blah blah, blah-de-blah blah!

What is it with these people that makes them think I actually give a shit? They see me with my daughter, think "oh look, there's a captive audience" and just start unloading. If you see me at the park with my daughter, don't start talking to me unless you have something to say worth listening to and just because I have a little girl, don't presume you can talk to me. If you're a Yummy Mummy or a Milf then I will quite happily talk about our children, what they get up to at school etc etc. Even if you are a fellow Dad, we can talk about our kids, exchange child-rearing tips whatever. But don't come up to me and start puking out random shit that I have no interest in whatsoever! I never had this when I used to go out on my own but now, not even just at the park, I have the most random people stopping and talking to me just because I am a dad. Frak off!! I am not the most social of people and really, there are days when I really could not give a shit what you think! So do one!

Jeez honestly what IS it with these people? Am I the only one? Surely not....surely some of you other mums and dads must have experienced this out there? It can't be just me who has encountered theseWeirdies who feel the need to start such mundane and pointless exercises in conversation can it?

Maybe it is just me, I don't know...all I really know is that when I am at the Park, it's my time alright? So just think before you approach me and do me a favour, if I'm reading ~ just let me be okay?

Thanx

lots of love...Sparky xxxxx

Joining the reading revolution......

2011-10-10T10:15:00.000+01:00

Once again I have proved to myself why I should be careful before adding book titles to my 1001 List willy-nilly as a book I might have added fails to bear up under scrutiny. I had been all set to add James Bradley's The Resurrectionist to my list when I decided to re-read it figuring, as it is a short book, it would not take me too long. Unfortunately, though I enjoyed it first time around, on second reading I found it all to be a bit disappointing!

The story begins in Georgian London with Gabriel Swift apprenticing to a renowned Anatomist only to fall foul to the pleasures of Opium and Dice and who then finds himself falling in with a notorious Body-Snatcher or Resurrectionist when it becomes time to pay his dues. His Master expels him from his Apprenticeship and things all go a bit foul. Then the story jumps to Australia in its closing chapters as Swift attempts to start a new life and leave his demons behind....

What starts off promising ends up being a bit of a shambles. The book is good but as a complete whole feels fragmented and a bit disparate from itself at times. It is a shame as I recently recommended this to someone who has it on their TBR pile and was considering picking it up! That said, I seemingly enjoyed this more first time around. It is just a shame that it did not match up to my high expecting standards upon a second read!

In case some of you may not have known, last week was my birthday. Mrs.Sparky bought me a Touch-Screen Smart Phone that I am slowly getting to grips with with my fat and clumsy fingers, her mum bought me John Connolly's latest Charlie Parker thriller and I used the rest of my money to buy a Kindle!

I had been umming and aahing about buying one for some time but an E-mail from the Martyn Lewis Money-Saving website finally convinced me! Amazon has just released a new Slim-line version of their Kindle with no Keyboard so have slashed the price of the original models but also have begun selling refurbished Kindles at a bargain price too! Seeing as how the refurbished models still come with a years warranty, I went for the refurbished (I'm not proud!) and I love it! Though I do feel a little bit of a traitor to my Tree books, frak it!

Downloading a book to your Kindle takes sixty seconds tops, it has an in-built dictionary so no more looking up words you don't know and even has a web browser that works off of your Wi-Fi so that you can access the web! I went for the wireless option not the 3G so I cannot access the web anywhere but I don't think I will need that option at any rate. On Thursday, I was all over Facebook shouting out to the world about my new Kindle and cannot shut up about it at home either. I am so excited!

The good thing is that there are plenty of books that you can download for free. Many of the classics are out of copyright so you can get hold of them easily enough but there are also pages on Amazon of free indie authors whose novels are available for nought too! My good friend Lainy (whose Blog "So Many Books, So Little Time" {shameless plug}so encapsulates my whole philosophy when it comes to reading) has already recommended one particular E-book for me and so far, I am loving it! But I have also downloaded another couple of freebies!

All of which means that soon I have decided to start a new irregular feature: Sparky's Kindle Korner in which I will be taking an irrelevant look at some of the stuff you can download from the net for your Kindle and telling you whether or not it is any good! My plan (a work in progress) is to not give it any kind of usual rating but instead mark it in one of two categories: if I rate it Kindle that means it is a good read worth downloading, but if I rate it Kindling it means it is only good as fuel for a virtual conflagration!

Good idea or not? Thoughts would be appreciated.......

Anyway, that's all for now ~ this is Sparky signing out! Laters Taters!

The Last Supper.....

2011-10-05T10:45:00.000+01:00

So, last night I had to attend this Company do to say thank-you to some of the staff for all our hard work at The Hotel this last year. All the upper and lower echelons of management were invited which meant that Heads Of Department and their Number Twos got to go ~ hence my invite. The gathering took place at our Sister Hotel in Norwich and consisted of a three course meal with Champagne and Canapes to begin. Sounds alright doesn't it? Actually it was one of the most boring nights of my life!

I don't mean to sound ungrateful but the thought of spending time with the majority of the people I work with in an environment outside of work REALLY does not enthrall me at all at the best of times, let alone at something as formal as a sit down meal!

It didn't exactly help that I was pretty much informed by H.C (Head Chef) that I had to attend! Those of you who know me will know that I am not particularly keen in conforming and if you tell me I have to do something then it makes me less inclined to do it!

Basically what happened is this: I walked in to work the other Friday and there was an envelope waiting for me with my invite enclosed. I opened it, looked at it and thought "What a nice gesture, that's actually quite nice of them for a change....first I get a small pay rise, now this!" Then I considered who else would be going!

Thinking about the people I might have to sit next to filled me with dread. Out of all of them, there were very few people that I actually wanted to be near. I mean sitting in a room with Fingers (nicknamed that behind his back because he is missing a couple of digits), Miss Piggy (with whom I have a bit of a shady working relationship with at the best of times) or our Function Un-co-ordinator let alone my immediate boss, H.C, really did not appeal. Still I thought maybe it wouldn't be sooo bad.....

Then H.C comes out with a little comment about how it was the kind of thing that you couldn't really say no to, assuming I am going to turn down the invitation before I have even made my mind up, and tells Richard The Manager that he has told me I have to go! To be honest, one of the things that swayed it for me was when Richard turned around and said he was surprised I was going to go as I didn't normally do these sort of things. This kinda made me want to go so I could stick two fingers up and say "Naaah ~ see I did turn up!" Also, I was curious at seeing the other Hotel and having a swanky meal cooked for me!

The best thing about the evening was the food! After Canapes we were treated to an Amuse-Bouche of a pea and mint soup and cheese straw then given a small choice of starters and mains. I had Cajun Beef Skewers which were very tasty and a Rib-Eye steak, Medium-Rare, with Bearnaise Sauce and it was all cooked to perfection. Finally we were given a pre-dessert, a refreshing Sorbet with some Strawberries on the side, and again a small choice of desserts from which I chose Poached Pear with Ginger Ice-Cream which was simply sublime!

The food was the dogs bollocks and looked amazing and tasted really good but service was sooo slow! We sat down a little after 8 PM to eat and sweets went on the table about 10.30 PM-ish. Which was fine except I spent most of the evening bored off my tits. Not just because I wasn't drinking but also because I just found conversation with the people I work with extremely tiresome and there was only a few sparse moments where I felt relaxed and actually enjoyed myself.

I guess I went because I didn't want to look ungrateful and wanted to show I did appreciate The Company taking time out to show how grateful they were for our efforts especially as my job can often be a thankless task at times but they were still going at around 11 PM and by then, I really had had enough! It was all I could do to stop myself from just going to the toilet and making an escape without looking back! In essence, it was four hours of my life that I just lost that I could have spent sitting with my wife and daughter!

I know how this makes me look ~ it makes me seem ungrateful, selfish and a bit spoilt but you know what, who gives a Frak! This is my life, I get one chance to live it how I choose to and why should I spend it doing something I really don't enjoy? I think I summed the whole evening up aptly twice ~ first when I texted Mrs.Sparky to tell her it was "Food off of MasterChef but with the company of CrimeWatch" and then later at home when I told her I would rather put my nuts in a blender than sit through all that again!

There is a reason I don't socialise with people from work, or rather THOSE people, and last night proved it! There were exceptions, I did get on with a few of the people I spoke to there but as a whole I really could have done without all that and don't think I would do it again if I was invited. Or maybe I would because the food was pretty much top notch but I had a chance to escape a bit earlier when Mrs.Sparky's colleague Sarah made her excuses and left and I thought I would stay a bit longer so that I didn't look rude. Big error and one of two schoolboy mistakes I made last night! (The other was trying to gauge where to sit and ending up at the top of the table right next to the two Directors, only one of whom I enjoyed talking to ~ the other being his usual self, a bit of a prig!)

Needless to say, I will not be posting this Blog Post on Facebook! I don't particularly want the wrong people reading this after all and taking it the wrong way and I cannot be arsed to frak about with the Privacy settings just so only the select elite few get to read it! If you can't come on here to read this then that's your let-out and really you're not missing much by not reading this....But I do think I should add that the evening was a very nice gesture but too much about brown-nosing, networking and earning a few precious Brownie points for my liking!

I really am NOT a people person and last night kind of proved that to me! Like I tried to explain to Richard last night I do do eating out, I am just selective about the company I keep. And last night, the company really wasn't to my liking....

This is Sparky signing out and asking: Do You wanna die young or would You rather have fun? I know what my answer would be!

Tastes like chicken......

2011-09-29T14:29:00.001+01:00

Number (64) on my 1001 Books And Authors List is the debut novel from Michael Faber, Under The Skin. 

Isserly drives the Scottish highlands every night picking up hitchhikers and taking them back to a derelict farm. But she is no innocent sweetheart heading out for one night stands. Isserly is not from our world, has been painfully and surgically altered to look like us and is bringing back "Vodsel" males (their name for our species) to her farm to be fed up and slaughtered like cattle; later to be shipped off to her home world as a rare and extremely expensive meat. Sounds preposterous? Maybe, but instead of just any old piece of imaginative Sci-Fi, what we actually get here is a highly addictive and strangely compelling narrative that aims to subtly undermine conventional society and question everything we thought we knew and often take for granted.

Under The Skin asks some very important questions. If it is okay for us to harvest other animals for food, why is it so wrong for us to feed on each other? Why are some animals more exempt than others? Why IS it okay for us to eat cows, sheep and pigs but not okay for us to feed on dog or cat? Wherein lie the distinctions?

Isserly and her fellow visitors look on us as just dumb animals, referring to themselves instead as human. Often in her travels on the road, Isserly looks upon our race in disdain. And when a high-ranking member of her society pays a visit to our world and the hidden manufacturing plant that processes the meat and asks whether she or anyone else there has ever eaten sheep, Isserly looks on him with disgust. Namely because her race, in their native form, closely resemble sheep in appearance and it would be unforgivable to slaughter something so close to what they think of as human!

This is one of those novels that defy convention. Its style of writing is very much similar to that of Iain Banks and reads a lot like The Crow Road or The Wasp Factory. In the fact that it is mainstream Sci-Fi without actually reading like Sci-Fi means that it has much in common with Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go and its ending is as poignant and it is tragic with a climax that will leave you gasping for breath. There is so much to like about this book that a single Blog Post cannot do it justice. It is everything I like to read in a very good novel ~ it has emotion, it has style and it forces you to ask questions both about yourself and the greater world you live in without you even realising you are doing it. I really cannot recommend this enough...which is why it makes the list!

And the list goes on.....

2011-09-23T13:19:00.003+01:00

Have thought of a few more entries to add to my 1001 List Of Books And Authors You Need To Read Before You Die.

Number (60) is The Night Pirates by Peter Harris and Deborah Allwright; a children's book all about a little boy who is taken away on a midnight adventure by rough, tough little girl Pirates! These Pirates are stealing the front of the little boy's house as a disguise for their ship when Tom asks to come along and what follows is a simple but incredibly fun tale that has quickly become one of my favourite books to read Emilie at bedtime!

Numbers (61),(62 and (63) are the novels All The Rage, Hosts and The Haunted Air all by F.Paul Wilson which form part of the Repairman Jack series that ties in with his Adversary Cycle that began with The Keep.

Repairman Jack is a man who fixes things. Not appliances, situations. Much like The A-Team, if you have a problem you need sorting and if you can find him, then Jack can deliver! He first appeared in The Tomb, the second of Wilson's Adversary novels but here returns in his own series that continues the story around the events in his other series.....

The basic premise of The Adversary Cycle is thus: there are two supreme forces at work in the universe. One is ambivalent to us and pays us scant notice, considering us as no more than pawns in a colossal game of Chess. The Other is pure Evil and sees us as a weapon to use against ourselves! It takes great pleasure in setting ourselves up against each other and watching us all die and the only reason its opposing number wants to stop this is because sentient life in the Universe is rare and that if we destroy ourselves, then its power will be weakened giving The Adversary the upper hand.

Jack became caught up in this battle when he meddled in matters in the novel, The Tomb, and now is being fronted as some kind of champion against the forces of The Adversary. Each of the successive stories after Legacies, the first independent RJ novel, follow Jack as he tries in vain to fight his destiny as events gather towards one big final battle which takes place in the last Adversary book, Nightworld. I have not read this book yet as I want to read all the Repairman Jack books first but this is a good thing because it was published previously and is now being edited to fit in better with the Repairman novels. The best way to describe these two series is to compare them to Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Although the main events occur in The Adversary Cycle, much as with King, Wilson incorporates lots of minor events into the mix that help contribute to the bigger plot and much of these take place in the Repairman Jack series.

All The Rage, Hosts and The Haunted Air are the best three of the four novels in this series I have read. To my mind, they are much better written and more enjoyable than The Adversary novels though I have only read The Keep, The Tomb, The Touch and Reborn in that series and still have Reprisal and the afore-mentioned Nightworld to read. These, however, I am waiting to read until I have completed the Repairman books.....

Until laters, see ya

Love Sparky xxxx

Obsessive much...?

2011-09-23T10:10:00.007+01:00

Have been thinking again about my 1001 List of Books And Authors To Read Before You Die and have decided to edit it some more as well as adding a few new titles. Instead of having all John Connolly's Charlie Parker novels collectively on my list, I feel perhaps I should list them individually; especially as I am not sure if the last book in the series quite makes the grade to be included! The first truly disappointing entry of them all, I enjoyed The Whisperers but just not as much as the others so far hence why I have decided not to include it!

The newer books that I want to add include Consider Phlebas and Look To Windward, both by Iain.M.Banks. Two of the Culture series, they are both proper heavy-going serious sci-fi novels set in a universe many hundreds of years ahead of our own! The Culture are a collective group of sentient life-forms and planets who have come together to form a coalition with the intent of better enriching the lives of other civilisations. But some see this as gross interference especially when The Culture start dabbling in naturally occurring events and upsetting the status quo of a planet for their own ends! Consider Phlebas is set during a massive war between The Culture and a race called the Iridans who support the right to uphold their own faith and beliefs. It is a bleak tale but also, at times, a righteous old-fashioned good ol' gung-ho space adventure! The characters are beautifully imagined and the whole plot just sweeps you up and pulls you in before you know it until you can almost forget that there is a more serious, almost satirical message, behind the massive plot! As the first of The Culture novels, it sets the scene marvelouslly for the later novels and can easily be compared to such sweeping epics as Arthur.C.Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama series and Greg Bear's Anvil Of Stars!

Look To Windward is set several decades later and is the seventh book in the series but ghosts from the past remain to haunt Agents of The Culture and soon a devious plot is underway to make them pay penance for concieved former War Crimes that they may well have been responsible for! Another epic tale, it left me quite literally breathless with its sheer scope and scale and is another brilliantly classic sci-fi tale!

Banks writes as both Iain.M.Banks and simply Iain Banks; the difference being that the former title is that under which he writes his sci-fi; the latter, under which he writes the more regular novels set largely in our own, more familiar world. Under the name of just Banks, he has been responsible for the likes of The Wasp Factory and The Crow Road, the latter of which was made into an excellent BBC series! This is an author who is truly talented and has many strings to his bow and if you have not picked him up before, may I suggest you do so!

The other books I want to add are Heartsick and Evil At Heart; the first and third books in the Gretchen Lowell series. Gretchen is a serial killer with a so far undisclosed number of victims, Archie Sheridan is the man who brought her to justice but nearly died in the process. Now addicted to prescription drugs and with an unhealthy obsession with Gretchen born from Stockholm Syndrome, Archie is pulled back onto the job as head of The Beauty Killer Task Force to hunt a new killer but is forced to accept having his story re-told at the same time by reporter, Susan Ward. This is an awesome series so far with only four books written ~ the first novel groundbreaking in the way it deals with Gretchen as a Hannibal Lecter type villain whilst still maintaining a sense of humour and even poking fun at the fact that comparisons will be made between the two killers. (In one scene, Gretchen greets Susan Ward in prison with the words "Hello Clarice!")

The third novel, and easily the best of the series so far, takes a long, hard look at America's obsession with serial killers (and not just America) and the Media's bid to make such killers almost celebrities in the same satirical way that Natural Born Killers tried to do on film. Gretchen is on the loose, still playing games, and angry that someone is killing in her name. Archie is in drug rehabilitation and seconded in a mental institute of his own choosing but finds himself slowly being drawn out once again to face his obsessional behaviour and address his addiction head on! Again, this is another brilliant piece of crime fiction that, though fairly easy to read in a P.J.Tracey kind of way, still manages to surpass anything produced by that mother-daughter writing team. Highly recommended!

So the new list reads as follows.....

1) The Terror by Dan Simmons

2) Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

3) From A Buick 8 by Stephen King

4) Mao by Jung Chang

5) IT by Stephen King

6) A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

7) Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay

8) Ways To Live Forever by Sally Nicholls

9) Charlotte Grey by Sebastian Faulks

10) Headhunter by Michael Slade

11)Every Dead Thing by John Connolly

12)The collected work of Clifford.D.SimaK

13)Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

14)The Elvis Cole novels by Robert Crais

15)The Quiller novels by Adam Hall

16)Kamikaze by Michael Slade

17)Lost And Found by Oliver Jeffers

18)The Grail Quest trilogy by Bernard Cornwell

19)The Study Trilogy by Maria.V.Snyder

20)The Stone And The Flute by Hans Bremmann

21) Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb

22) Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb

23) Ship of magic by Robin Hobb

24) The mad ship by Robin Hobb

25) Ship of destiny by Robin Hobb

26) Fool's errand by Robin Hobb

27) The golden fool by Robin Hobb

28) Fool's fate by Robin Hobb

29) Shaman's crossing by Robin Hobb

30) Forest mage by Robin Hobb

31) Renegade's Magic by Robin Hobb

32) The dragon keeper by Robin Hobb

33) Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb

34) The Silver metal lover by Tanith Lee

35) Wizard and Glass by Stephen King

36) Mission by Patrick Tilley

37) Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

38) The dark tower by Stephen King

39) The rosary girls by Richard Montanari

40) The Chemistry of death by Simon Beckett

41) Written in bone by Simon Beckett

42) Whispers of the dead by Simon Beckett

43) Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

44) The complete Deathlands series by James Axler

46) We need to talk about kevin by lionel shriver

47) The book thief by marcus zusak

48) Dark Hollow by John Connolly

49) The Killing Kind by John Connolly

50) The White Road by John Connolly

51) The Black Angel by John Connolly

52) The Unquiet by John Connolly

53) The Reapers by John Connolly

54) The Lovers by John Connolly

55) Consider Phlebas by Iain.M.Banks

56) Look To Windward by Iain.M.Banks

57) Heartsick by Chelsea Cain

58) Evil At Heart by Chelsea Cain.

59) Wild Swans by Jung Chang

As for Lainy's comment on a previous post; Have no fear, there is very little that will EVER stop me reading! I am known in my family as the one who always brings a book, sometimes two, wherever he is going. I am rarely, if ever, found without a book secured somewhere on my person. Obsessive much...? You could say that! I am a true Bibliophile in that I often get a compulsive need or desire to sort through my books. This 1001 list is just the latest in many such lists that I have compiled over the years in my bid to record my favourite books!

As a child, I would list and rate books I had read out of 10 but liked so many, and dis-liked so few, that inevitably everything on my list was getting 8's and 9's so eventually decided to rate just out of 5! At times, I have compiled little chronologies of series, such as EdMcBain's 87th Precint, so that I could keep up with characters and events that followed on from book-to-book and am always sorting out and adjusting my shelves; not just to make more space but also to clear deadwood and lose books I no longer intend to re-read. Bit then, this is a haphazard idea because there are a number of books on my shelves that I have owned several times, having previously decided not to keep them then changing my mind years later!

I suffer a little from OCD, and my main focus of that illness surrounds books. I can tell you where and when I first read certain books or how and where I obtained them. To me, every book tells a story far beyond what is contained within its pages. A little sad? Maybe...but books are my addiction, reading is my life and nothing not even Xbox can come between me and my obsession!

Can I describe the feeling I get when I discover a gem hidden in a charity shop that I have been keeping my eyes open for ? No, I cannot. Likewise I cannot explain why I feel the need to buy more books when I have so many on my TBR still to be read!

I have been contemplating the purchase of a Kindle, takes up less space ~ books instantly available ~ but have decided to put off said purchase until I clear my afore-mentioned TBR a bit. Hopefully this will give me an incentive to speed up this lengthy process......only time will tell!

But I don't think you should be holding your breath any time soon........

A quick look at the new entries to my 1001 Books And Authors list

2011-09-14T17:28:00.000+01:00

Just wanted to take a quick look at the most recent books that I added to my 1001 Books And Authors list because last time though I added them, I diudn't take time to discuss them or why I was adding them and I DO so like to do things properly. First up was Fingersmith which basically can be summed up thus:

"The first of Sarah Waters books that I both read and enjoyed, Fingersmith is a brilliant Dickensian tale of orphans, the seedy criminal underworld of 19th century London and mis-placed identity that has much in common with Oliver Twist to which there are many crafty nods throughout the course of the novel.

Sue Trinder has been brought up an orphan in the house of Mrs.Suckesby surrounded by ne'er-do-well types, screaming babies and the popular fence of stolen goods Mr.Ibbs after her mother was hanged for murder within sight of her bedroom window.

A regular caller, known only as Gentleman, pays a visit one evening with Sue in mind for a devious scam. She will go to a mansion house, out in the country, pose as a Lady's maid and help Gentleman to seduce a young girl under the care of her eccentric uncle with the intention of marrying her and stealing from the Lady her inheritance- a portion of which he will give to Sue and Mrs.Suckesby for their part in his nefarious schemes.

Of course things do not, as they are wont not to do, go as planned and Sue finds herself falling deeply and emotionally for the Lady she is supposed to be serving. Gentleman is determined not to see his plans come to naught and starts to show his more vicious and mean-spirited side and then, at the plans cultimation, events occur which throw everything on its head." (Taken from my review on Dooyoo!)

This was a gripping read that I enjoyed from start to finish, though it was not exactly my usual type of reading fare! The only other novel I have read by Waters, Affinity, was nowhere near as good but this was a truly memorable reading experience!

Written In Bone and Whispers Of The Dead continue the story of Dr.David Hunter as he resumes his career as a Forensic Scientist examining the bodies of the recently dead. For a pair of sequels, both these novels are bloody good with the first seeing the Dr trapped on a remote Scottish island hunting a killer or killers with no means of escape until a vicious storm abates which, despite the cliche plot, really works effectively and the second seeing Hunter returning to the Tennessee Body Farm where he learnt his trade only to get caught up unintentionally, and a little unwelcomely, in a serious Homicide investigation on foreign soil! Both books left me eagerly wanting to read the fourth installment which I haven't yet got hold of!

Finally, there are the Deathlands novels which I briefly discussed in my last Blog post.

These novels are ghost-written by a series of authors under the name of James Axler after the original author, Lawerence James passed away. Published by the same people who produce the Mack Bolan, Excecutioner series, this epic cycle of books currently runs at a little over a hundred titles. So far, I possess no more than thirty! They are not so easily obtainable over here as they are in the States but thank god for Bookmooch, Amazon and occassionally Ebay!

Set a hundred years after a nucleur war has left America devastated, and now known as Deathlands, the books follow the exploits of one-eyed Ryan Cawdor and his bunch of warrior survialists who travel across Deathlands using secret Matter-Transporter Gateways hidden in Military Redoubts buried beneath what was once the USA. Occassionally, the Gateways take them outside America ~ colonies on other planets and as far-flung destinations as Japan, Russia and the Moon have all been hinted at or featured over the course of the series and even Time-Travel plays a part as one of Ryan's number was "trawled" forward from the Eighteenth Century just before the war by scientists known as White Coats! Some of the titles are better than others with most of the better ones being written by the original author but I enjoy this series so much, that for me it truly is an essential read!

Though the books can probably best be described as Pulp-Sci-Fi, many of the titles bring up important issues like the futility of nucleur war, the after-effects of such a senseless act and the ramifications for future generations! In one novel, Keepers Of The Sun, in which the group find themself in what is left of Japan, a piece of footage is described of one survivors account of Hiroshima and discusses whether America was right to drop the A-bomb; serious stuff indeed! So you can see that although these books won't be to everyone's tastes, there are important reasons, not just selfish ones, why I include them in my list!

Finally for a new addition to the list, I would like to add (48) Sworn To Silence by Linda Castillo; another crime novel but this time set in and around a small Amish community!

"Sworn To Silence is the debut thriller of female author, Linda Castillo and is unusual and unique in the fact that it is set entirely in and around an Amish community. Painters Mill consists of two sets of people ~ those who are Amish and those who are not ~ but Chief Of Police, Katie Burkholder, is able to straddle the line between them quite confidently. She used to be Amish before traumatic events shook her world and she chose to walk away from her vows of faith. Now she is back and, as the Head of the local Police Force, is about to discover that some secrets just won't stay buried!!!

When a young girl is found murdered with a set of roman numerals carved in her chest, it brings back painful memories of another serial killer who terrorised Painters Mill several years ago. Only three people still living know why the murders stopped so suddenly and one of them is Katie Burkholder. For reasons known only to her and two others, she is convinced that these lastest attacks are the result of a copycat killer despite simliarities and not the original murderer returned and is determined to solve the case without outside interference. But the local Selectmen think otherwise and, in a last ditch attempt to resseurect a near-disgraced Homicide Detective's career, arrange for someone more experienced to come onboard with his independent perspective.

John Tomasetti is a widower and a drunk who has had his own share of traumatic experiences and has his own personal demons to face. But he is not stupid and soon works out that Kate has something in her past she would rather stay hidden! Slowly the truth comes out and then it becomes a race against time to track down a killer before he can strike again!

Sworn To Silence is an awesome, awesome thriller and one I would not hesitate to reccomend! Inevitable comparisons will be made to Harrison Ford's film, Witness, but in truth, this is nothing like that!" (Taken again from my Dooyoo review!)

My only concerns are that further books in the series will not be as good because just how many serial murders can you have around an Amish community? Not that much surely but only time will tell.....

Other books that I have been reading lately but that don't warrant inclusion include John Ajvide Lindqvist's Handling The Undead, his follow up to Let The Right One In which is nowhere near as good and never really goes anywhere with the interesting ideas and concepts it explores (the recent dead return to life not as zombies but as troubled souls) and Mo Hayder's Gone which started off well but then all went a bit pear-shaped at the end!

Until next time, laters people

Sparky xxxx

On updating and editing my 1001 Books and Authors list

2011-08-30T14:48:00.011+01:00

Ow! It's been over a month since I last updated this Blog and I really need to do a lot better than that! I don't want this Blog to just become one of those that just gets forgotten about and abandoned and just ends up slowly gathering Cyber-dust in a dark, dingy little corner of The Web!!

What's more, I really need to get on with my 1001 lists! It is just that life is so hectic that often I can find a thousand and one other things to do rather than come on here! I have no excuse but partly my reticence to come on here has a lot to do with the fact that, at the moment, I have become largely apathetic about my online existence. Facebook really doesn't interest me at the mo, other than for playing Scrabble or new game, Sims Social, and as a result, I am hardly in contact with any of my Online friends. To those of you reading this at the moment, I am sorry and don't take it personally, it is just everything else in my life at the moment is taking priority!

One of the main things I am doing at the mo in my spare time is playing Fallout3 on Xbox! Set in an alternative future Washington DC where nucleur war has devastated much of what was once the USA, your job is to track down your father whilst completing missions and objectives for the other people that you meet struggling to survive in this atomic wasteland. It is lots of fun, absolutely huge and has five extra Downloadable Mission packs to add on to the main game giving it lots of longevity. It is the only thing I am playing on Xbox at the moment and you could say that I am more than a little obsessed! It reminds me a lot of the Deathlands books by James Axler that I am likewise addicted to and which are also set in a nucleur-devastated future. The books are proper modern pulp fiction and published by the same company (Gold Eagle) who publish the Mack Bolan and Executioner series of novels but I love them and though not all of them are totally brilliant, the vast majority of the books that make up the Deathlands cycle really keep you wanting more!

Anyway, back to my 1001 lists.....

Firstly, I have decided to edit my list of 1001 Books And Authors You Really Need To Read Before You Die. This because if I don't, I feel I will never live to complete it. So, now all my favourite Robin Hobb books are listed seperately rather than collectively, boosting up the numbers. Also, I have a few other books that need adding to the list.....

So, this is the list so far....(with the additions already mentioned in this Blog and a few newer ones to the list now added)

1) The Terror by Dan Simmons

2) Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

3) From A Buick 8 by Stephen King

4) Mao and Wild Swans by Jung Chang

5) IT by Stephen King

6) A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

7) Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay

8) Ways To Live Forever by Sally Nicholls

9) Charlotte Grey by Sebastian Faulks

10) Headhunter by Michael Slade

11)The Charlie Parker novels by John Connolly

12)The collected work of Clifford.D.SimaK

13)Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

14)The Elvis Cole novels by Robert Crais

15)The Quiller novels by Adam Hall

16)Kamikaze by Michael Slade

17)Lost And Found by Oliver Jeffers

18)The Grail Quest books by Bernard Cornwell

19)Poison Study by Maria.V.Snyder

20)The Stone And The Flute by Hans Bremmann

21) Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb

22) Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb

23) Ship of magic by Robin Hobb

24) The mad ship by Robin Hobb

25) Ship of destiny by Robin Hobb

26) Fool's errand by Robin Hobb

27) The golden fool by Robin Hobb

28) Fool's fate by Robin Hobb

29) Shaman's crossing by Robin Hobb

30) Forest mage by Robin Hobb

31) Renegade's Magic by Robin Hobb

32) The dragon keeper by Robin Hobb

33) Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb

34) The Silver metal lover by Tanith Lee

35) Wizard and Glass by Stephen King

36) Mission by Patrick Tilley

37) Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

38) The dark tower by Stephen King

39) The rosary girls by Richard Montanari

40) The Chemistry of death by Simon Beckett

41) Written in bone by Simon Beckett

42) Whispers of the dead by Simon Beckett

43) Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

44) The complete Deathlands series by James Axler

46) We need to talk about kevin by lionel shriver

47) The book thief by marcus zusak

Speak to you all soon hopefully....

1001 books update....

2011-07-14T22:16:00.001+01:00

Number 27 in my 1001 books and authors to read before you die list is We Need To Talk About Kevin; a thrilling fictional account of one mother's attempts to come to terms with the fact that her son was solely responsible for a High School shoot-out along similar lines to the Columbine massacre. In between visiting her son in prison, Eva writes letters to her ex-husband in a desperate effort to work out where they both went wrong and how she might have done things differently.

What I like best about this book is the way it addresses the whole Nature vs Nurture debate and, with plenty of twists and turns, ends up being compulsive reading for anybody who either is a parent or thinking about becoming one! I also love the way that, in the final chapters of the book, we begin to realise that all is not necessarily as it appears and that Eva is much less a reliable narrator than we might have first have thought! This throws everything into a new perspective and gives the novel a touch of realism because, as everyone knows, our memories are often unintentionally unreliable and, very often, people remember the same event in many different ways! Though the early chapters are a little long-winded, once this novel really gets going it is very hard to put down!

Number 28 on my list is The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak; one of the few novels to ever make me cry! Liesel is very young when Death first crosses her path; she is being shipped by train to live with a Foster family in Berlin in the early days just before The Second World War when her younger brother dies from malnutrition and starvation.

Over the course of the next few years, Death crosses her path three more times and, during the course of this journey, develops an obsession with the girl he comes to know as The Book Thief. In a series of anecdotes, Death tells us her remarkable story and brings us firmly into the life of this young girl forced to grow up long before her time. To say any more would give too much away but rest assured, by the end of this tragic tale you will be needing a tissue! It is a beautiful tale told from a very different perspective to that we normally see in books about The War and is one of the greatest stories I have ever ever read in all my life!!

Adding to the list.....

2011-06-27T00:13:00.000+01:00

The next films to find a place on my 1001 Movies To See Before You Die list are, as follows: (5) HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN, (6) THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX and (7) THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE having just watched them all in the space of 1 week in time for the release of THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2 (the final ever Harry Potter) which is coming out in just a few months!

Why include these particular films in the series and not those I have missed out? Well, the reason is because, quite simply, I feel these are the better of the later films and the ones I have enjoyed the most. And this list is, first and foremost, a personal choice and I am not going to include movies that don't, for whatever reason, quite make the grade!

For me personally, DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 1 just feels like an overlong prelude to the inevitable final battle and though I enjoyed it, I preferred the other films that made the list better; GOBLET OF FIRE just feels like it is reverting back a little to the earlier films with its emphasis on the Tri-Wizards Competition and it is only the last act that really redeems the film for me; and CHAMBER OF SECRETS just feels a little to similar in style to the first film and so slightly loses its own identity! Again, these are just personal observations and I would welcome quite gladly anybody else's thoughts or opinions!

Meanwhile, a new addition at (25) to my 1001 Books And Authors list is THE ROSARY GIRLS BY RICHARD MONTANARI. This is an awesome start to an ongoing Detective/ Police Procedural series that shows plenty of echoes of the better of Michael Slade's Special X books mixed with shades of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels! This first book deals with a killer of Catholic schoolgirls and is a very strong first novel in the series which is why it goes on the list!

With that in mind, for me number (26) then has to be THE CHEMISTRY OF DEATH BY SIMON BECKETT; another cracking debut Crime thriller all about a Forensic Scientist who chooses to go back to being a General Practitioner in a small Norfolk village after a personal tragedy that leaves him bereft of his wife and child. Unfortunately, he finds his past catching up with him when he discovers a dead body in the woods and realises a killer is living amongst the locals and only his expertise can help catch them! This is the first of three novels but of them, it is also the best! The Scientific Forensic knowledge is thoroughly detailed and often quite grisly but it makes for a very compelling read!

More 1001 movies.....

2011-06-21T09:32:00.001+01:00

Film number (3) in my 1001 movies to watch before you die is HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHERS STONE which I watched again last night for the first time in ages, in preparation for the final movie out later this year!

Harry Potter discovers that he is a wizard when he is invited to attend Hogwarts School Of Magic but soon realises his fate is tied in with a much bigger destiny when he learns that his parents were killed by an evil necromancer named Voldemort. PHILOSOPHERS STONE sets the scene for the rest of the series and follows Harry in his first year at Hogwarts and is, quite simply, a beautifully shot children's movie. Some of the set pieces, including a life-size chess board that comes to life and a three-headed dog, are simply sublime and the film is full of action and adventure the whole way through! Big stars such as Robbie Coltrane, Richard Harris and Alan Rickman all have cameo appearancesand everything about the film is just wonderful. I enjoyed watching this again last night much more than I thought I would and can't wait to re-watch the next film in the series, CHAMBER OF SECRETS, so that I can carry on with the story!

Number (4) on my list just has to be ICE AGE, another cracking children's movie ~ this one animated and based around an unlikely group of friends who join together to try and beat the oncoming ice age and help return a small human child to his neanderthal family. The film introduces to us a truly wonderful set of characters from Sid the Sloth through to Manny the Mammoth and Diego the Sabre Tooth Tiger. But of course the star of the film just has to be Scrat!! A kind of prehistoric squirrel-type-creature, Scrat is obsessed with burying his acorn and keeping it safe but when his first attempts end in disaster, he ends up spending the rest of the movie chasing it around trying to get it back! These comedic scenes wonderfully interact amongst the main storyline to create a seamlessly brilliant movie that is just hilarious to watch no matter how many times you have seen it!

This has just got to be one of the best animated features ever made and always cracks me up every time I see it! Two sequels so far have followed and, I am reliably informed, a fourth film is coming out next year!

Personally, I cannot wait.......

1001 movies to see before you die.....

2011-06-20T00:50:00.003+01:00

Okay, so watched CLOVERFIELD again tonight for like the third or fourth time and decided it was high time I started something I have had in the back of my head for a while now.....okay, okay I know I am a bit behind with my 1001 Books And Authors To Read Before You Die list but this should be much simpler as many of the movies on my list I won't need to re-watch to know if they should really be there and we should get through this list a hell of a lot quicker!

Number (1) has to be of course CLOVERFIELD; a modern monster movie for today's generation!

 Shot in a Blair Witch shaky camera style, the movie follows a group of friends attending a party for their pal, Rob, who is going to work in Japan. The first twenty minutes or so (of this 75 min movie) are fairly slow, setting up the characters as one of the friends, Hug, films testimonials from some of the guests and attempts to document the party. Then there is a massive tremor and all the lights go out!

Heading to the roof, the guests witness several kinds of explosions going on in the Manhattan area where they are situated. When shrapnel and debris starts hitting the roof, the guests panic and all descend to street level...where all manner of Hell is busting loose!! Suddenly something huge comes bouncing through the streets causing widespread devastation everywhere it hits.....and it is not until several seconds later, as the camera pans round, that you realise that this is the head of the Statue Of Liberty! What follows is a tense and action-packed sequence of events as Rob and his friends attempt to get across the city to Midtown where his girlfriend, Beth, is trapped! It is a nightmare journey and, with Hug filming, we get to go with the friends every step of the way.....

I love everything about this film; the authentic camera work, the action, the way you never really get to see the monster in proper close-up! It is a proper modern-day classic piece of cinema and though there are those who absolutely hate it, I think it is one of my two favourite horror movies of all-time!!

So, what is number (2) ? Well it simply has to be {REC}; a Spanish film about a television journalist and her camera man who are following a Fire Engine around for a late-night documentary. Called out to an Apartment building where an old lady has been trapped, the pair first get an inkling something is wrong when the old lady attacks the Firemen and a local Police Officer when they go to her aid. Pretty soon, the whole building has been sealed off and no one is allowed in or out. Quickly it becomes apparent that there has been an outbreak of some kind of deadly infection.....and it is starting to spread!! The reporter and her camera man are trapped....and so are the rest of the inhabitants! Their only chance of survival ~ trying to find somewhere to hide!!!

Rec is another short movie filmed in the shaky camera style of Blair Witch. though it is slightly less than Cloverfield because, here, the camera man is supposed to be a professional. Much of it is shot in the dark and it has subtitles but don't let that put you off as this is a nasty, nasty, NASTY film that left my heart racing the first time I watched it! It wasn't so much that I was scared as it was the Adrenaline rushing through me when I watched this but one thing is certain, it is a long time since a film did that to me!!! Like Cloverfield again, it is a relentless roller-coaster ride and definitely one of the greatest horrors of all time! I cannot praise {REC} enough!

There is a sequel, that goes into more detail about the infection and, although still good, does not quite match up to the terror of the original because you have more of an idea what is going on second time around. There is also two other films due ({REC} GENESIS and {REC} APOCALIPSIS) due to be released that will tie off the story. I look forward to them with baited breath because {REC} remains one of the scariest movies I have ever seen!

How not to drive.....

2011-06-15T17:40:00.029+01:00

A couple of quirky news stories have caught my eye the last couple of days, both concerning cars and examples of bizarre driving behaviour. First today I saw this on the Orange home page:-

15 June 2011, 12:34

Woman drove car down staircase

A Chinese woman drove her car down a shopping mall staircase after following signs to the car park.

Xiang Zhen said she saw a parking sign with a direction arrow in the mall in Liuzhou, southern China's Guangxi Province.

But when she followed it, she found herself stuck halfway down a staircase that was clearly not designed for cars.

"I saw a sign overhead saying 'car park' so I drove under it, but the road instantly plummeted and became so bumpy," said Xiang.

Local trader, Xie Xiangrong, who has a stand under the stairs, said: "I heard a loud noise, and when I looked up, a car was driving down towards me.

"I ran for my life down the stairs with several other shoppers."

Xiang left her car on the stairs and called a local breakdown company to winch her car back onto solid ground.

The mall has admitted the sign should not have been there and is in talks with Xiang over compensation.

Then, yesterday, I saw this:-

14 June 2011, 11:56

Car packed inside van - sideways

Police in Germany were stunned when they pulled over a white van - and found a car packed on its side in the back.

Two men from Kazakhstan had decided to save on a trailer cost after snapping up the silver Mazda 626 to ship back home.

When the car didn't fit in the van the proper way up - the two men called a few pals and loaded it in on its side - putting a mattress underneath to stop the doors getting scratched.

The trip back home for Konstanty Krol, 38, and Cezar Chmielewski, 28, came to an end when police stopped the heavily laden vehicle after seeing it lurching from side to side in Bargthheide, Germany.

Konstanty told the German Herald newspaper: "I don't know why we were stopped - we had taken great care to get the car into the van. It was safe - we hadn't noticed any problems.

"It is a long way back to Kazakhstan with petrol prices as they are it would have been too expensive to drive the Mazda back. We didn't have a trailer, but it fitted perfectly into Cezar's white van."

A police spokesman said the van and the car were confiscated and the men ordered to return with a proper transporter for the car before they would be allowed to continue the journey.

The spokesman added: "It was bizarre. I have no idea how they got the car into the van as it would have been very heavy. Amazingly the car didn't have a scratch on it - even though it had been rocking from side to side in the van.

"Nevertheless we cannot allow dangerous loads on our motorway. It was a danger to other road users as well as themselves. The van could have toppled over at any time."

And who says the news can't be fun?

And now, time to die.....

2011-06-14T10:19:00.000+01:00

There was a lot of talk and controversy this week surrounding the documentary, hosted by Terry Pratchett, about a man with Motor Neurone disease who had chosen to travel to Switzerland and uphold his right to take his own life. The documentary came under the spotlight because it filmed right up until and during the moment of his passing. I didn't watch, and that was a personal choice, but I understand it was very moving, emotional and thought-provoking.

Though I personally have no interest in watching someone die, and find the thought quite distasteful whatever the reason for its broadcast, I can fully appreciate why the programme makers made the decision they did to show the death in full. It is important that we, as human beings, are given the right to choose the manner of our own passing should we be in a situation from which we are never going to return though whether or not I would make a similar choice, I am not sure. (I think I would rather go out kicking and screaming!) I also think it is important that people be educated and see exactly what goes on in such clinics as, with similar schemes forbidden in this country, it is important that people be aware of all the facts before making an informed decision. Assisted Suicide seems to be a dirty phrase in this country but I think we all have to remember it is our life and we probably should be given the right to end it when we choose.

Though it is a different matter entirely, I had an uncle who killed himself by breathing in exhaust fumes a few years ago now. He did it because of financial worries and depression but my thoughts have always been that, despite the damage and hurt it did to the rest of Mum's family, it was his decision and you have to respect the fact that it was his life to do with as he pleased to a certain degree. The question there is as to whether or not he was in his own mind when he made the decision and that is something no one will ever know. But essentially, why does anyone else have the right to say that, if we have considered all the options, we shouldn't be allowed to take our own life?

It is a difficult and troubled subject and maybe the death of two relatives in recent years (I lost another Uncle this year to complications of Pneumonia and Emphysema) was still too raw for me to be able to digest the programme objectively. Either way, I can fully understand why the decision was made as to why to show the programme and why Terry Pratchett, diagnosed with Alzheimers in the last few years, would want to help make the show.

I just didn't want to watch it.

If only we, in this country, were given the right to make other choices so easily.......

God created Man, Man creates Monsters.....

2011-06-12T23:48:00.003+01:00

It has been an interesting time for Science this week...with developments that will shock and terrify those who think that we, as Humanity, are playing Dice with God, and awe and inspire those of us who believe that knowledge and modern technological advances are the way forward for the betterment of our race!

Things kicked off at the beginning of this week with the announcement that Scientists in China are currently working on cows that will be able to produce drinkable human breast milk or its nearest Scientific equivalent within the next couple of years! Below is a direct quote taken from the Sky News pages: THIS IS NOT A HOAX!

"Chinese GM Cows Make Human Breast milk

3:49pm UK, Monday June 06, 2011

Holly Williams, Beijing correspondent

Chinese scientists have genetically modified dairy cows to produce human breast milk, and hope to be selling it in supermarkets within three years.

The milk produced by the transgenic cows is identical to the human variety and has the same immune-boosting and antibacterial qualities as breast milk, scientists at China's Agricultural University in Beijing say.

The transgenic herd of 300 was bred by inserting human genes into cloned cow embryos which were then implanted into surrogate cows.

The technology was similar to that used to produce Dolly the sheep.

The milk is still undergoing safety tests but with government permission it will be sold to consumers as a more nutritious dairy drink than cow's milk.

Workers at the university's dairy farm have already tasted the milk, and say it is sweeter and stronger than the usual bovine variety.

There are 1.5 billion people in the world who don't get enough to eat. It's our duty to develop science and technology, not to hold it back. We need to feed people first, before we consider ideals and convictions.

Professor Li Ning, director of the research project

"It's good," said worker Jiang Yao. "It's better for you because it's genetically modified."

The scientists have also produced animals that are resistant to mad cow disease, as well as beef cattle that are genetically modified to produce more nutritious meat.

The director of the research project, Professor Li Ning, says Western concerns about the ethics of genetic modification are misplaced.

"There are 1.5 billion people in the world who don't get enough to eat," he said. "It's our duty to develop science and technology, not to hold it back.

"We need to feed people first, before we consider ideals and convictions."

In contrast to Europe, China has eagerly embraced genetically modified food.

GM cooking oil, papayas, tomatoes and potatoes are already widely available.

Insect-resistant rice and corn modified to help pigs absorb more nutrients were both recently approved by the government."

In other news an American Baseball Player, who had been injured in his long-standing career as a Pitcher for The Yankees, has been given a second-chance at continuing his dream. Apparently in a ground-breaking treatment, part of his fat was removed from his torso, spun through a Centrifuge to seperate the Stem Cells and injected back into his arm and shoulder so that damage sustained could begin to repair itself. Again, this is not made up but real authentic news.....again, I quote (this time from http://investorstemcell.com/forum/stemcell-news/1942.htm):

"Stem cells treatment on baseball player

Colon owes resurgence to stem-cell treatment - CBSSports.com

By Evan Brunell

Somehow, Bartolo Colon has made himself relevant after missing a full season of baseball and injecting his fastball with life, with an average speed of 91.7 mph arresting a decline that started with the White Sox in 2009.

Despite being knocked around in his last start, Colon now has an impressive 3.86 ERA that is actually higher than it should be, as his 2.79 xFIP indicates. He's made four starts and three relief appearances and has bailed New York out of the Phil Hughes-sized hole the youngster left as he battles his own mysterious velocity problems.

Stem cells may be to thank. As Peter Griffin once said on Family Guy, "why are they not funding this!?"

Colon left baseball in '09 with pain in his right shoulder thanks to a rotator cuff tear among other issues and accepted an invitation in March 2010 from Drs. Sergio Guzman and Lionel Liriano to undergo a stem-cell transplant and later a "booster shot," as DiarioLibre.com writes.

"We did not want to do a trial on a young 23-24 year old because the effectiveness could be questioned due to his age," Guzman said, after their original goal of Pedro Martinez did not come to fruition. "We did it with a veteran and we hope that Felix Sanchez and other Dominican athletes that have suffered injuries will also submit to this treatment so that they can prove what can be done with stem cells."

Both bone marrow and fatty tissue (and there certainly was plenty of the latter for Colon) were taken out of his hip, put through a process, then inserted in the shoulder. He was then injected with a plasma shot, which other big-leaguers have undergone for treatment. Each procedure took no longer than 40 minutes with minimal recovery time, and doctors contend that this process is more economical than Tommy John surgery, which is more expensive and requires a long rehab period.

"We have not invented anything, nor have we done anything new. This is being done the world over", Guzman added. "We received some training overseas to handle this type of things. Harvard University donated the centrifuges. This is no invention. What we do is take a little bit of bone marrow and we put it into an affected area."

Prior to the procedure, the doctors received approval from MLB owners, lawyers and doctors before moving forward. While it's unlikely this surgery will supplant Tommy John surgery, it could be another medical advancement that could keep pitchers on the mound longer. Jake Peavy, pitching Wednesday night in his 2011 debut, is another pitcher who has undergone fairly new surgery.

The article, which was very fawning and pro-Dominican Republic to the point where you had to tune out the obvious bias (example: "... credit that goes to a team of surgeons made in Santiago de los Caballeros with the most advanced knowledge of present day medicine" -- we'll shortly learn that there's plenty of credit to go to a US doctor), made no mention of Dr. Joseph Purina of Florida who says he was part of the team that treated Colon.

“This is not hocus-pocus,” Purita told the New York Times. “This is the future of sports medicine, in particular. Here it is that I got a guy back playing baseball and throwing pitches at 95 miles an hour.”

Liriano says in the article that Purina was the one to provide the information and specialty to make the procedure possible, although Liriano had a major influence in selecting Colon and bringing the whole team of doctors together.

The Yankees were not aware of the procedure until just before the Times story ran, and notified baseball which is looking into it. Purina has previously used human growth hormone, banned by basbeall, in similar treatments but says he did not do so in Colon's case.*“I just won’t give it to [professional athletes],” Purita said. “I don’t need the stigma and that kind of reputation.”

Colon brushed off inquiries, saying "I don't know, I don't know," when asked about the procedure. Not much conclusion can be drawn from this as Colon speaks limited English.

Colon's agent, Mitch Frankel, for his part, believes the treatment helped Colon's resurgence, but wasn't the major part of it.

“The doctor feels that it definitely gave him a jump start to his improvement, although for me, personally, I don’t think Bartolo was focused on baseball mentally or physically for the last few years,” Frankel said. “I believe the problem was that and not his pitching. And I think once he made that determination, you can see the success.”

Up next could be a scientific study, because even with Colon's success, there isn't much information that can be extropolated from the procedure to date."

So you see, sometimes the truth REALLY is stranger than fiction! There are those who will be disturbed by stories like this in the Press. Personally I take all this as an encouragement that Science is not just about developing new and better ways to destroy each other but in moving forwards to better the Human Race as a whole.

They say that from little acorns, big Oak trees will grow.....who knows what other scientific advancements might develop in the next few years based on research and experiments being conducted right now? Remember both these stories when next you think perhaps that we are living in an age where Science and Technology have started to stand still. And remember, just because Scientists might play at being God, it doesn't make them Gods! What they do today, in the future could benefit us all.....

Sparky out! xxxx

Parenthood....

2011-06-10T13:22:00.003+01:00

Sometimes we don't always appreciate our parents. This week, I had cause once again to appreciate mine.

Tuesday night is my weekly shopping night. Wednesdays are the start of my two and a half days off and I cannot be doing with going with Emilie so I go late after work, around half past ten.

This week as I got out the car, my alarm was bleeping to tell me something was amiss. I figured it was just the indicator, which doesn't always click off when I turn into a parking space, so flicked that up, shut the door and flashed the central locking. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, I did not hear the alarm still bleeping and so went off to do my shopping; unaware I had left my lights on!

When I returned, you can guess what had happened! Yes....flat battery! I do have jumper cables but, at that time of night, there was very few people about. And I knew if I phoned my Breakdown people, (not the AA but a cheaper company), they could take ages to come out as I would probably be classed as a low priority!

Luckily, my parents live only about ten miles or so from the Supermarket I use on my way home so I decided to give them a call to see if they would mind just popping out to bail me out. I DID point out that they were under no obligation but still they agreed and came to my rescue! We had a few problems in the dim light of the parking lot because on the battery of a Corsa, you don't get a red and black wire but a brown and red but fortunately there was an AA van parked just up the ways and he shined his headlights on my car so we could better see what was what. Oh....and my jumper cables were too short because Dad's battery is at the front of the engine and mine is at the back so we had to use Dad's cables to start me up!What's more ~ I tried to offer them a fiver for coming out so late and helping me but they wouldn't even hear of it!

Anyway, the long and short of this post is that we don't always appreciate our parents and can be guilty occasionally of taking them for granted! I just wanted to say sometime in the next few days, take a moment and think about all the ways your parents might have bailed you out or given you assistance in a time of need and take time out to show you appreciate them! They won't be around forever and you will miss their guiding hand when they are gone so make sure you treasure them while they are still here!

And if you are a parent, like me, think about that the next time your little one drives you mad, gets you exasperated or makes you want to scream! Just think ~ there were plenty of moments when you too were like that growing up and your parents are still always there for you now!

Maybe if we were all a bit more appreciative of each other, there would be less hate in this world!

And that's Sparky's thought for the day!

Ciao xxxxx

Home truths.....

2011-06-10T12:48:00.003+01:00

This week, I have mostly been discovering that I am no longer as young as I once thought I was!

To quote Samuel.L.Jackson, "Example...."

On Monday, on Radio One, it was announced that this week was Dubstep week. This basically entailed all the Radio One D.Js' promoting Dubstep and playing examples of the genre whilst also guiding listeners to the Radio One Website where you could play around with some bangin' tunes and sound effects yourself and lay down your own Dubstep track with some pretty funky beats. Monday night also saw Dubstep artist Nero playing alongside the British Philharmonic Orchestra for a one-off performance on Zane Lowe's show. Remembering how Portishead once did something similar with the New York Philharmonic, (as did Metallica I do believe > Actually I have been informed it was the San Francisco Philharmonic with Metallica!< ), I thought I'd check it out. Needless to say I was not overly impressed!

I think I must just not be cool enough for school to listen to Dubstep! The Philharmonic Orchestra was awesome but the bits with Nero really just didn't seem to fit! With Portishead it worked and, from what I have heard of the sessions with Metallica, this also was pretty awesome and amazing. With Nero....not so much! I really don't think I get the whole Dubstep Genre....it just sounds like a more grimey version of Drum And Bass of which I am not paticularly a fan but have heard a few decent examples. (I'm thinking here of a Drum And Bass version of Careless whisper I own on a Ministry of Sound album!)

It makes me sound old I know but Dubstep mostly just sounds like a noise to me! One of the worst tracks around at the minute, and apparently one of the most recent examples of Dubstep, is The Bass Cannon which, to me, just sounds like mental torture! I have to change stations whenever this comes on ~ it is just atrocious!!!!

The other reason why I think I am getting old is because on Tuesday night, traditionally the night before me having two and a half days off from work, I decided, as per usual, to play Xbox. Not a problem except that I was close to completing the main storyline on Fable 2 and was determined to finish it so that I can Download the extra content for next week on my two weeks off from work. Hmmm....well, anyway, I finished playing at 3:45 am Wednesday morning!

Wednesday I was fine but Thursday, I felt like I had a hangover! I went to bed fairly early on Wednesday night and got a good nights sleep, more than I normaly get on average, and yet still all day I felt exhausted with the fringes of a headache just bordering on the edges of my frontal lobes! I really must start to learn that I am no spring chicken any more and cannot keep behaving like I am still in my twenties! My main problem ~ I am still a really big kid!! The thing is.....I'm not sure I'm ever gonna learn........

Silly Sparky......xxxxxxx

He's Back (The Man Behind the Blog...)

2011-06-06T23:56:00.003+01:00

Yeah Yeah....I know it's been awhile but y'all know how it is ~ life just keeps getting in the way! Bet y'all thought I had abandoned this right? No such fracking luck!! Just consider my temporary absence these last couple of months to be like my sabbatical or like my year out or something...cos now, Sparky is back innit!

Have been meaning to get back on here if only to update my 1001 favourite books and authors list which, at this rate is going to take me until I'm 1001 to finish! The problem is that I only want the best of the best going on my list and sometimes this means re-reading stuff to make sure I am certain in my own mind that they are justified a place! A tad anal perhaps? Maybe....but, case in point: until I re-read them, I was convinced I would be adding Richard Laymon's Darkness, Tell Us and Resurrection Dreams on my list. Unfortunately, after refreshing my experiences of these books, although they are both good and two of the best examples of his work, they just lacked a certain something; that spark that makes a book truly memorable above and beyond unforgettable and resonates somewhere deep inside. Non-Bibliophiles won't get this but all my friends from RISI or Babbling Books may have a stronger inkling of what I am talking about. There are certain books that just stay with you no matter how much you read them and these are the books that make the list. Others which are still great but just don't leave enough of an emotional impact on me just don't cut it I'm afraid and though I suspect that at least one of Laymon's books might feature in the future, right now the two in question, which I still thoroughly enjoy, just don't quite make the grade!

Number 23 on my list, and another book that I re-read recently and that is rather topical considering the recent movie adaptation, is Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. It is unlikely that any of you who already have knowledge much either of the book or the movie will not already know the big Spoiler that is pretty much central to the plot but for those who DO remain unclear, suffice to say I will not spoil it here! Basically the story focuses around the lives of a close knit group of friends attending a "Special" school for certain children and follows their, sometimes sad, sometimes tragic, journey into adulthood and their inevitable fate which they have been born to fulfill. Some have criticised this book for being a little bleak but I enjoyed it and almost view it as a prequel or precursor to Michael Marshall Smith's Spares ~ which may give away the big Spoiler to some of you who may be familiar with HIS work.

Number 24 is Stephen King's final Dark Tower novel. I was not sure if this would be included as some have classed it as a little unsatisfying. Me, I enjoyed it more second time around and think it easily as strong as Wizard And Glass (Book 4)! It brings most of the plot to a tidy close and features an emotional end to the journeys of many of the central characters. As to the unsatisfying ending? Well I'm not going to be giving anything away but King does provide you with a choice. Once the main story ends, you are given the chance to leave things there with no real end to Roland's quest and no answers as to what lies at the top of The Tower. Or you can continue and read the final chapter which explains everything and brings (some kind) of closure to the series. It is this closure that many fans find unsatisfying but, in King's defence, it must have been hard to bring such an epic Opus to a close and there is a strong argument for King actually finishing this large body of work, that stretches way beyond these seven volumes and into the majority of all King's other novels, rather than leaving it to be finished after his death as has happened, for example, with Robert Jordan's Wheel Of Time fantasy series. I like this book and think it is a strong ending with many happy resolutions for those who have come this far with the oft-selfish and obsessive Roland and I personally like the way that certain aspects are brought full-circle. (you will understand if you read it!) The only thing I didn't like ~ PARTIAL SPOILER ALERT ~ was the death of Flagg which felt a bit sudden and over too quick for such a long-running character who has appeared in so many forms and guises over the years. But then, if you have read The Stand then you will know that what happens is not necessarily the end.....

That's all for now folks but more soon, I promise, in a couple of days with more books I have been selecting for my list! Trust me ~ we're not done yet!

Ciao peoples!

Sparky xxx

Alternative classic novels....

2011-03-30T13:19:00.004+01:00

Just a little something I have been playing with....lol

Dereham Photo Blog: #5

2011-03-02T14:16:00.000Z

This van has been seen a couple of times on my road and, in fact, I have even parked behind it a few times where I park outside my house. For obvious reasons, I kind of found it quite amusing! (If I have to explain why, you probably shouldn't be reading this Blog. Or be allowed scissors. Or be allowed to go to the toilet on your own!)

Meanwhile, again on your right, is what I consider to be real graffiti. These were discovered by me in my nearest local city, Norwich, down a back alley close to the marketplace. As you can see, they are much more skillful and talented pieces of work than that which can be found in my own town, Dereham. I think they are dead cool which is why I decided to include them here!

Dereham Photo Blog: #4

2011-03-02T14:07:00.000Z

Thought I'd have a long-awaited and anticipated return to my Dereham Photo Blog posts with some new entries for your perusal....

These first two are of a strange-looking moth that I discovered on the wall outside our kitchen at work. Thought the colouring was really different which is why I took these photos......never really seen anything quite like this before!

And now....to our right, we have some local coloured grafffiti taken on the way to one of our local parks....hardly Banksy I think you will agree and anyway, what sort of a tag is "London Stona"? Not only is it shite but you are obviously illiterate because you cannot even spell Stoner right! Twat!!

A few photos of Emilie.....

2011-03-02T13:50:00.002Z

We recently found a few old photos of Emilie on one of Mrs.Sparky's mobiles so I thought I would upload a small selection here so that everyone can see just how much she has grown! Some of these are really old but in all of them my little girl is just sooo cute! These are a few of my favourites that we found......

A little update......

2011-03-01T14:30:00.001Z

First of all, for some of you on Facebook this will be the last time you read this. Facebook has changed it's Privacy settings with it's new layout meaning that many of my recent posts can be read by anyone who is on my friends list on FB. Seeing as how some of my posts refer to ppl I work with and some of them are amongst my FB friends, this is not always a good idea! With that in mind, I have decided to stop exporting my Blog to Facebook automatically and instead do it manually. That way I can edit the Privacy so that everyone except for the people I choose to exclude can see it and I know when it is going to appear rather than me writing a post and it doesn't appear on Facebook for several days! That's another thing that irritates me!!! So, if you can still read any of my future Blog posts on Facebook then it either means they are not about you, I like you or I just couldn't give a shit if I cause offence! Lol!

The latest word is that Paul Cook, the guy I told you about who had been chatting to underage girls, has allegedly been arrested! This is the latest rumour to go about but cannot confirm how true it is. Still, we can but hope that another sexual predator has been removed, however temporary, from our Society and perhaps now, Teen Chat-rooms might be a little safer. A couple of ppl have tried to defend his actions saying he is just a bit wierd, has never had a boy/girlfriend and cannot communicate with ppl which is why he then goes off to chat to young girls but let's not make excuses! I would not like someone like him chatting to my Emilie when she is older and, in my opinion, he deserves everything and more that gets thrown his way! Bloomin' sicko!

One sorry and a surprising sex-pest shocker!

2011-02-04T13:57:00.000Z

First of all, an apology. In talking both to my wife and other people at The Hotel, it now turns out Bea is not the same age or older but younger than me! Ooops!

Mrs.Sparky was at great pains to inform me that the woman in question is about a year younger than her making her around thirty or thirty-one not thirty-seven plus......errrm, whoops!

My excuse is that she is South African so exposure to the elements has perhaps made her look a little older than her years but still feel I should aplogise anyway for any offence I might have caused!

And I probably deserved the response from my wife I got when I happened to blurt out that "She must have had a hard life then!" Sometimes my brain should really engage before my mouth decides to operate!

Anyway, it's all good and I would just like to say I am heartfeltedly sorry but basically that's just me and if you don't like what I have to say then you know where the door is!

Meanwhile, in other news, I have been greeted by the shock revelation that someone who worked at The Hotel until last year in a management/ supervisory role has been revealed on a Predators Exposed Blog as a sex pest who has been having explicit chats and camming with underage girls on teen web-chat sites!

There are full text transcripts and creepy Web-Cam pictures here of exactly what he has been getting up to!
http://predatorsexposeduk.blogspot.com/

How creepy is that? The guy left The Hotel allegedly because of stress and that he no longer wanted to work there with no goals or aims or even another job to go to! It was alleged he had few friends outside of work and was a bit of an Odd-Bod but still, no one expected this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Someone else who works at The Hotel was directed to the site and fowarded it to all to the Duty Managers by Facebook P.M. By now, word has spead round most of The Hotel as Gossip often does and everyone is now aware of it!

Talk about freaky! It just goes to show you never really know someone but I doubt anyone ever expected this! Many of the text transcripts are very recent too!

OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This about sums up my reaction!

Found out about this last Sunday at work but when got home, the Blog had been shut down to all but invited readers ~ no doubt because someone was alerted by all the traffic they were getting as word spread around the staff but now the Blog is up and public again! Paul has been allegedly informed and, strangely, has disappeared off the face of Facebook as we know it! At least under his real name!!!!!!!!

Have decided to follow the Blog and keep tabs on any new developments! But is sooooo freaky to think that only a few months ago I ws working with him and that he was working alongside all the 16 and 17 year old penquins!

Just goes to show...you never know who you think you know and you should ALWAYS be careful whom you talk to online!!!!

The 7 undeadly sins.....

2011-01-30T00:01:00.001Z

I just wanted to congratulate a couple of fellow Bloggers for their excellent contributions to the 7 Reasons website which is very, very funny!

Basically it is a Site where two friends come up with a series of lists of 7 Reasons why something is or isn't a good idea with hilarious results. For example, please check out this: http://7reasons.org/2010/08/26/7-reasons-that-lampshades-are-stupid/

7 Reasons why Lampshades are stupid! If this doesn't amuse you, I don't know what will!

Have you tried perhaps the T.V series, Come Fly With Me? Starring Matt Lucas and David Walliams instead? You haven't......best not then, it really isn't that funny!

It's only a game......

2011-01-29T23:40:00.000Z

Why are some people soooo obssessed with their Gamer scores on Xbox Live? True, it is nice to have lots of G Points but who REALLY cares if you have a lower score? Not me! I get just as much enjoyment if not more out of just playing a game rather than trying to get all the achievments.

For those who are unitiated in the ways of the Xbox360, when you play a game on your console you can earn up to 1000 points per game for performing certain achievments. These can be anything from completing individual levels of a game to rolling your car 5 times or achieving a certain amount of head-shots. For every game the maximum amount of points you can get is 1000 but often some of these achievments can only be done by playing multi-player games online or completing a game on Hard mode! Sometimes a game only has 5 achievments, such as completing every successive level in a game, but these still have to add up to 1000 points so you can see sometimes it is easier to get all the achievments on a game than on others.

One of the women at work, call her Bea, has a husband who requested to be my Xbox friend; this means we can see when each other is Online and what game we are each playing and also can look at each other's Gamer Cards which record our scores. Lately she has become obsessed because my score was only like 3000-something. She and her husband lent me this game where you only had to play 5 minutes and press one button to get all achievments and an easy 1000 points. Fair enough. But they also lent me Terminator:Salvation and told me it was easy and that their kid completed it in like 3 hours or something. Both games were lent me so that I could "get my score up!"

So okay, I load it in and yes, it is fairly easy but it is slow to load and you can't skip the cut-scenes between playing so that every time you die and reload your last save, you have to sit through them all again! Boring!! I like played it for an hour, got a bit bored and went back to Batman:Arkham Asylum which I had nearly finished and was enjoying more instead!

Anyway, I bump into her today and Bea is like "So what's taking you so long with Terminator?" and I'm like "Well, like....I've not played it since Tuesday night because I was trying to get to the end of Batman!" and so she's like "Well I'm going to get my own Profile and I'm going to like thrash your score really quickly and beat you!" and so I'm like "Big Fracking deal!"

{Aparently, her and her husband were watching my Profile the other night to see how many Achievments I got on the games they lent me. Errr...like...hello? Sad much?}

I mean this woman is older than me and always bitching about her husband playing like loads of Xbox but still is giving me shit because my Gamerscore is a little low. And I'm like thinking "Jeez girl...back off and get a life!" I mean I like Xbox as much as the next guy but I want to enjoy my games not just play them to build up points on my profile! And maybe it's just me but as much as it might be nice to have a high score, I have a life you know and cannot be arsed obsessing about how I can get more bragging points which is basically all G-points are! They are no good for anything else!

Well, I know you are all bored now with my geeky Xbox talk so I'll wrap this up but honestly....when you start getting that obsessed with G-points, and not just your own or your husbands but someone elses, then you really need to have a harsh word with yourself! I mean there are other things I like doing too, yeah? Like spending time with my wife and daughter or reading...I mean it's not like I've got two ton of books to get through or anything? Friends from RISI will know all about that little obsession, I'm sure!

Anyway, until later......wah wah wah wah wah.....Game Over!

C U Next Time Blog Pals xxxx NarkyMarky

Additions to 1001 Books and authors for January....

2011-01-28T13:30:00.000Z

Next up on my list of 1001 authors and books you really need to read is (23) Mission by Patrick Tilley! It is an odd read but a highly engrossing one all about a Jewish Lawyer dating a nurse who comes into the E.R one night to pick her up and finds her treating the body of a bearded male with severe injuries to his feet and hands and a spear wound in his side. This patient is Jesus Christ, not an imitation of the Messiah or a reincarnated impersonator but the real Jesus and he has thrust himself forward in time to bring a message to humanity and spread The Word. And he has chosen these two perfectly normal individuals to do it!

The book is very well written offering an alternative version to events in Bethlehem and beyond to those we might be familiar with. The concept is basically that Jesus and the Angels are extra-terrestial in nature and involved in an Intergalactic conflict that has gone on for Millenia and though this might sound controversial and blasphemous, it is actually handled very subtly and well.

It is the best book Tilley ever wrote and a real masterpiece that is genuinely worth picking up! Don't be put off by the subject matter even if you believe and have faith because it is a book that really makes you think and has a nice,
clever twist at the end that ties up all the loose ends that appear through the narrative. I really cannot reccommend this enough ~ it is an awesome, awesome life-changing book!

Not my car.....

2011-01-28T13:13:00.000Z

This is not my car but it has got similar damage to that done to mine so thought I would include a pic anyway! As you can see, there was not much left at the front!!!!

Back from the brink......

2011-01-28T13:05:00.000Z

Well, I'm back after an extended annual absence that always seems to happen around the December-Janaury point of the calender due in part to Xmas being my busist time of year and also to me finding it inordinarily difficult to start Blogging again after so many weeks not doing it!

Much has happened whilst I have been away. The big thing in the last week is that Emilie has begun pooing on the potty after weeks of creating and refusing to go in anything other than a nappy! She would go for a wee on potty or toilet but not poo and I don't know what has changed but a bit of patience with her has certainly paid off and now, once she has realised she can do it, she is going on the potty all the time! We have made sure we give her lots of praise and encouragement and all of it is genuine. I am soooooo nproud of my little sweetheart for takling this big step and now can stop worrying about whether she was ever going to be fully trained!!

The other big thing is that I smashed my K.A up in the recent bad weather over December. I was coming down a slip-road that had not been properly gritted, hit black ice and spun out of control. It was quite worrying and when I saw a white van headed towards me, there was a moment when I thought my number might be up!! The van hit me at the front end of the drivers side but very nearly managed to miss me! I mean we are literally talking about a matter of milli-seconds! My car would not start, the wheels were locked into place and the other drivers ending up calling an ambulance because they were not sure if I was hurt. I smacked my head but otherwise was thankfully unharmed! My K.A however was a write-off!!

Take a tip ~ DO NOT EVER EVER TAKE CAR INSURANCE WITH FIRST CENTRAL INSURANCE!

They are absolutely awful ~ insisted me going through the claim over the phone in the ambulance before they would recover my vehicle for assessment despite the Police telling them it was a hazard and needed moving; point-blank refused me a courtesy car because it was a write-off but also held off organising me a hire-car until their own Independant Assessor could confirm this and were nothing but a nusiance to try and communicate with! They are the worst Insurance company I have ever used but be warned ~ were the number one cheapest on Comparison site, Go Compare! In future, I will check out Martyn Lewis' website before I go with a company I have not heard of before as there were lots of disparaging comments about them on the forum there. Either that or I will go with a reputable company whom I have heard of before even if it does cost me a little more! Either way I would neither use First Central again or reccommend them to anyone! And, when I get a few moments to spare, I am also going to be writing to Watchdog, the Ombudsman and anyone else I can think of complaining about the level of service I have recieved! Basically the company was just forking me off so they didn't have to supply me with a car and that really isn't good enough!

Luckily, mum was able to lend me some money until a settlement came through for my old car and I was able to find a little Corsa relatively quickly with low mileage and for a reasonable price! It has only a litre engine meaning it has no real guts and takes an age to get to speed, but will be cheap to tax and is slightly more economical than my K.A was especially in these times when petrol prices are going up and up!

Anyway, that's about all for now.....nothing else immediately springs to mind that I wish to share so until next time....

Sayonarra folks!

X-Factor ate my hamster!

2010-11-10T13:14:00.000Z

So, apparently it turns out that X-factor is fixed! Who would've thought it! I mean imagine it...the shock!

Host Dermott O'Leary has apparently come out and said that Cheryl Cole's decision not to vote on the show at the weekend was a deliberate conspiracy hatched by the judges just before the show came back on air after a short break, to get rid of the candidate they wanted gone rather than the one who stayed even though her performance was weaker. Apparently, and I wasn't really watching so wasn't really paying attention, the one who stayed forgot the words and pretty much resorted to just begging for her position live on stage! According to The Sun, which I perused whilst waiting to get my hair cut today (I don't read that muck anymore than I would ordinarily watch X-Factor!), Dermott accidentally let this information slip out giving more ammunition to the loser's father who has slammed the show in recent days in the press!

Surely no one can be THAT surprised? It must be pretty obvious to anyone with a brain-cell that the show is a complete and utter farce? In the small bit that I saw the other night, a group (I will not even attempt to pretend I knew who they were) slaughtered, or should I say raped the life out of, the classic song Kids In America. It was right proper lowest-denomination telly and I felt myself getting dumber and dumber with every second that passed!

This latest scandal comes hot on the heels after Louis Walsh described one contestant as a "young Lenny Henry!" Personally I can't see what is wrong with that....after all, at least the contestant WAS black! It could have been worse, he might have said "You remind me of the late Roddy McDowell in Planet Of The Apes" or "One of them Gollywogs like what my neice, Lucy, had when she was little..." or even "You remind me of a young Shirley Bassey" even though the contestant was male!

God...why do people spend sooo much time on this fracking shit? It's a pile of crap, it's shit telly and it has no relevance. In a year's time no one will remember anyone on it! And that includes Cheryl and Danni too with any luck!

2010-11-10T12:56:00.000Z

Number 22 in my 1001 list is my favourite book in The Dark Tower series by Stephen King; Wizard And Glass. You may well have read my other posts on this series and wondered why I had not entered any of the books or the whole series in my list earlier but the truth is that out of all seven volumes that make up this epic tale, Wizard And Glass is easily and by far the best and the only one of the novels that I feel is truly worthy of being included!

It carries on directly from events in book (3) The Wastelands with Roland and his Ka-Tet facing imminent death at the hands of Blaine The Mono as he hurtles across the country on a kamikaze suicide final run. Only by beating the computerised train at riddling can the Ka-Tet hope to survive and as their vast knowledge of riddles begins to run dry, so too does their time begin to run out!

Of course, it will come to no surprise to learn that Roland and his posse do indeed beat Blaine at his own game, otherwise the series would no doubt all end here! But their eventual destination is as about as far from Mid-World as you can possibly get...though where they have ended up is a world that will seem eerily familiar to fans of King's work!

Settling down for the night in this strange new land, Roland and his Ka-Tet sit down to have a palaver. And it is then that Roland reveals a story of his past that tells of how he first set out on his quest for The Dark Tower and what befell him when he first became a Gunslinger; the last of his kind!

This flashback story takes up the majority of the book and is a welcome return to the essence that made The Gunslinger such a joy to read. "Is (Roland's) story a Western?" Boy Jake asks. "All Roland's stories are Westerns," replies Eddie and though this is not strictly true, it is true that the moments when this series is at its best owe much to sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns!

Everything about this book makes it my favourite of the series from the images of Roland and his buddies sitting around a camp-fire telling stories to Roland's anecdote of his first love and the tragedy that ensued when he and his former friends found themselves way out of their depth in a back-waters town crucial to the fight against harrier, John Farson! The story that is gradually revealed here finally gives a human face to Roland The Gunslinger and reveals exactly why he is now the way he is. It also goes some ways to explaining his obsession with The Dark Tower and offers a suggestion why he might want to reach it so bad!

At its heart, Wizard And Glass is yet another love story. And yet, all around it are a series of events that have dreadful consequences for Roland and his home of Mid-World! Words cannot describe how much I love this entry in the series and it is even one of the finest books that King has EVER written, not just a part of The Dark Tower series that encompasses all of his work and is connected in some way to all he has written!

Love is a many splendored thing......

2010-11-10T12:37:00.000Z

Book 21 in my 1001 list has to be Tanith Lee's The Silver Metal Lover! It is a classic sci-fi romance all about a spoiled little rich girl, Jane, living in a dystopian society who falls helplessly in love with a new pleasure droid capable of imitating human emotion. Before long, just being in her presence seems to be making S.I.L.V.E.R more human with real genuine emotions not just synthesised replacements and soon the two find themselves struggling to survive as not just society but even Jane's own mother turns against them and their supposed infantile infatuation with each other!

When S.I.L.V.E.R's creators introduce a recall, pulling all of the robots in his model type back to the factory following complaints, Jane and S.I.L.V.E.R hit the road in a bid to escape but their love is doomed from the start and what we are left with is a tragic Romeo And Juliet story for a twenty-first century cyberpunk generation!

This is a real classic piece of sci-fi that is forgotten or ignored ninety-nine times out of ten by people who have failed to hear of it or have perhaps been put off by Tanith Lee's other work which never quite matched the dizzy heights that this book achieves. Certainly it is amongst my favourite novels of all time and still brings a tear to the eye every time I read it. Think Bladerunner but without the guns and blasting and maybe you will get close; this is a book that asks very important questions about what it is to be human and begs the age old riddle: just what exactly constitutes a soul and could it be recreated in an artifical enviroment?

The first twenty books on my 1001 books and authors to read before you die list....

2010-10-29T11:42:00.002+01:00

This is my updated list of the first twenty books in my 1001 authors and books to read before you die.......

1) The Terror by Dan Simmons

2) The complete work of fantasy author, Robin Hobb

3) From A Buick 8 by Stephen King

4) Mao and Wild Swans by Jung Chang

5) IT by Stephen King

6) A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

7) Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay

8) Ways To Live Forever by Sally Nicholls

9) Charlotte Grey by Sebastian Faulks

10) Headhunter by Michael Slade

11)The Charlie Parker novels by John Connolly

12)The collected work of Clifford.D.SimaK

13)Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

14)The Elvis Cole novels by Robert Crais

15)The Quiller novels by Adam Hall

16)Kamikaze by Michael Slade

17)Lost And Found by Oliver Jeffers

18)The Grail Quest books by Bernard Cornwell

19)Poison Study by Maria.V.Snyder

20)The Stone And The Flute by Hans Bremmann

Childe Roland to The Dark Tower came.....

2010-10-29T11:29:00.001+01:00

I am obsessed with Stephen King's Dark Tower series!

I have just finished reading the Marvel comic book series which starts with the past events depicted in Book 4: Wizard And Glass and carries on with new and original stories that take us right up until The Battle For Jerhico Hill which sees Roland first start off on his quest to reach The Dark Tower.

This has prompted me to read the Stephen King novels again as well. So far I am up to Wizard And Glass and throughly enjoying them once more but, as I remember (and I have only read the end books once), the series begins to decline from here onwards as Roland gets closer to his goal! Wizard And Glass though is truly amazing and really helps us understand the boy that once was The Gunslinger before he started out on his life's journey. It is good because in Wizard And Glass, we do not just get a flashback story but also get to pass through an alternate version of the world featured in King's novel, The Stand!

On a slightly different note, this has also prompted me to finish my painting of The Dark Tower that I started back in Febuary. I will post a photo here in a couple of days but if you check out my Profile on FaceBook, I will also be posting photos of all my other paintings too! I cannot believe it has been nine years since I last painted anything except for a birthday card I drew for Emilie recently with a Toy Story theme. Hopefully this might inspire me to do more painting......it would be good if it did!

Anyway, I am a bit behind with my list of 1001 books and authors you really need to read before you die and haven't updated for a while so it is time to give you another!

This time, the book I wish to include is (20) The Stone And The Flute by Hans Bremmann. It tells the story of a young man, Listener, who comes to the aid of a fallen enemy in battle named Arno who gives him a mystical stone amulet in gratitude. Listener spends all his life trying to discover the secrets of The Stone and has lots of adventures in the meantime that see him turned first into a Faun and then later into stone for several decades. As well as all this, Listener is also able to find true love and ultimately he comes to the realisation that what he has finally found may be far more valuable than anything else he might have sought!

This is less one story but instead several different sub-stories all cleverly inter-linked and joined together to form a cohesive whole. It is a book I first read at a very young age but which has stayed with me through until adulthood and is still a firm favourite of mine. The test of a good book is one that stays with you through the years and loses none of its magic or charm. This is truly one of those books!

When I get angry and I get pissed.....I sit myself down and write a list...and you've made my Shitlist!!

2010-10-25T23:12:00.000+01:00

Grrrr......every time I try to make a concerted effort to spend more time on this Blog and give it more of my attention, things always seem to get in the way and I end up neglecting it all over again! Anyway, am going to try and be a bit more regular (o'er missus!) from this day on but am also going to stop worrying about it if I don't manage to keep to my promise. After all, this is my Blog and I shouldn't feel guilty about whether or not I keep it updated; it's up to me what I write and when I choose to write it!

Isn't it funny how the actions of just one person can really frack you off? There's this D.M (Duty Manager) at work whom we will call BH who has been there for a while. She is abrasive, constantly narky and walks round with a bag of potatoes on her shoulder as opposed to just a chip. With one comment, she can somehow manage to piss everybody off and get their backs up without even trying but goes around thinking everybody loves her. Well...Newsflash....Everybody thinks you are a fracking bitch and if any woman deserved a slap, it would be you!

I try not to HATE anybody as HATE is a very strong, powerful and negative emotion but some people just beg to be despised. Which is why, tonight, I have belatedly added BH's name to my Shit list; so called after the song by the group L7!

This list so far comprises of only three people: Penguin Zero, whom I infamously had a run-in with some time ago as readers of this Blog may remember; Creepy Crazy Dave, our freaky Kitchen Porter who has earned himself the moniker Captain Slow of late because he is so useless and is one hell of a nutcase who really has more than just a few spanners loose in his toolbox: and now BH, a stupid little bitch who now works part-time since the birth of her little boy and really can't seem to be able to take the pressure of working at The Hotel any more meaning that she storms about throwing her attitude around like a squat, obese Storm-trooper managing only to leave a trail of equally fracked-off people in her wake!

It's not just me either; Bon Jovi Roy has a similar reaction to her that I do, if not magnified ever so slightly. It is just one more way in which me and him are alike and another reason why we get on so well!

Until a hopefully-much-happier next time......Au Revior Mon Amis

Sparky xxxxxx

Twitter ate my hamster...2

2010-10-05T09:08:00.002+01:00

Tweet @ 09:08 ~ How can anyone diss Split Second on Dooyoo? It is a classic Rutger Hauer sci-fi flick and is British!!

Twitter ate my hamster...

2010-10-05T08:09:00.000+01:00

Tweet @ 08:08 ~ Yesterday was a freebie- today, day 2 of hols, must DO stuff!

I don't normally use Twitter, but if I did......11

2010-10-04T16:43:00.001+01:00

Tweet @ 16:40 ~ Poor Picasso.....Emilie just WILL NOT leave that poor cat alone. Means well but I bet he don't see it like that!

Tweet @ 16:42 ~ Now she's reading him Night Garden stories! LOL!!

I don't normally use Twitter, but if I did......10

2010-10-04T14:01:00.002+01:00

Tweet @ 2 pm ~ phew-exhausted after making lots of product suggestions on dooyoo for graphic novels, hope they don't take too long to process!

I don't normally use Twitter, but if I did......9

2010-10-04T12:37:00.002+01:00

Tweet @ 12:37 pm ~ hmm manky sarnie ham rates joint first place I think!

I don't normally use Twitter, but if I did......8

2010-10-04T12:31:00.002+01:00

Tweet @ 12:30 pm ~ is there anything worse than manky milk?

I don't normally use Twitter, but if I did......7

2010-10-04T12:14:00.000+01:00

Tweet @ 12:13 pm ~ just found out why shouldn't let Ems go upstairs for wee on own! she had been up 4 a while so went up 2 find she had put my hair gel in hair and squeezed half a tube over her top and the duvet!

I don't normally use Twitter, but if I did......6

2010-10-04T11:50:00.000+01:00

Repeating a joke new chef Alex at work told us via Tweet @ 11:48 am ~ asked gal in bar "can I call u Gillette?" She says "why bcos I am best a man can get?" I said "No cos u r bout 2 b used repeatedly n left bloody!"

I don't normally use Twitter, but if I did......5

2010-10-04T11:42:00.000+01:00

Tweet @ 11:42 am ~ 2 days till Spamalot! yaaaaay!

I don't normally use Twitter, but if I did......4

2010-10-04T11:38:00.000+01:00

Tweet @ 11:37 am ~ wishes Ems would learn she can't do everything on own, sometimes she NEEDS a little help! Bless, daughter is sooo independent now!

I don't normally use Twitter, but if I did......3

2010-10-04T10:51:00.003+01:00

Tweet @ 10:50 am ~ really should be getting on!

I don't normally use Twitter, but if I did......2

2010-10-04T10:48:00.002+01:00

Tweet @ 10:47 am ~ @ 3 yrs old, daughter Emilie already understands value of money! keeps going through my pockets and stealing my change 4 her money box!!

I don't normally use Twitter, but if I did......

2010-10-04T10:36:00.002+01:00

So, been a bit of an Internet recluse these past few months for a variety of reasons that incorporates XBOX LIVE and a busy time at work but am off on holiday this week so am taking the opportunity to revisit my Blog and try and be more proactivewith it! With that in mind, I have also decided, for this week only, to try and use my Twitter account a little more than I might have done in the past to Tweet everything that I get up to. For those of you who don't follow me there (sparkymarky1973) but do follow my Blog either on Facebook or at Blogger.com, I have decided to simultaeneously post my Tweets on here. So be prepared for a few random Blog posts, some mundane observations on life in general and a complete Blog overdrive as I flood these pages with the intimate details of my experiences this week!

Tweet @ 10:27 am ~ Is it wrong that on the first day of my holiday, I have so far acheived absolutely nowt?

More 1001 books to get excited about!

2010-08-11T11:06:00.000+01:00

My next book on my 1001 list is (19) Poison Study by Maria.V.Snyder. This is what I have written about it on review site, Dooyoo....

"It's not often that I get this excited about a new fantasy series but I can honestly say, with my hand on my heart, that Poison Study is a brilliant start to what looks like will be a series to remember! Although I am probably some way behind, I have only just discovered this author and, from the strength of Poison Study, I can honestly say that in Snyder I may have found at last an equal to my favourite fantasy author, Robin Hobb!

Poison starts much like Hobb's Assassin books with a young girl being held prisoner in the castle dungeons for the crime of murder. As the next to face the noose, she is given a choice; either she goes to the executioner or she becomes the next food taster for the Commander....a job that has its obvious perils as she will have to be trained to reecognise a whole host of different poisons in order to detect their presence in the Commander's food!

The decision seems like a no-brainer but, with the father of the man she murdered very influential in the Castle Court, Yelena soon finds herself facing death and danger at every turn; not just when she tastes the Commander's meals! With plenty of people only too glad to see her dead, her new life becomes a constant challenge...not least when she comes to the realisation that she is far more than she appears to be with a latent and hidden ability to do magic; yet another thing that endangers her life because magic is banned in all Ixia and is only practiced over the border in Sitia!

Everything about this first novel screams Robin Hobb! We have the mentor, Valek, who takes the place of Chade in the Assassin books and the whole training to be a spy that closely resembles the training that Fitz had to undergo in Hobb's novels. The way that Yelena has to fear constantly for her life and becomes embroiled in political espionage and intrigue is likewise similar but that is not to do this book any disservice as this is a very different series! It quickly becomes apparent that this trilogy is going in a different direction to the Assassin novels and I only make the comparison to emphasise how greatly impressed I was with this debut fantasy novel!

There is very little wrong here and I, for one, could find no faults other than it is a little short! That is no bad thing however, as too many fantasy novels try too too hard to become great epics and it is nice to find a book for once that contents itself with the story it has to tell and that is it!

I bought this for £1 from my local Sainsburys but it is available for an equally low price from Amazon online. It has been around for a while as this was first published in 2005 and there are two other volumes that follow this entitled Magic and Fire Study. And you can bet your bottom dollar that I will be picking those up as soon as I can lay my hands on them!

If you like Robin Hobb and think that other authors just can't compete then check this series out! You will not be disappointed!"

If the rest of the series is as good as this, then I will edit the list to include the whole trilogy rather than just this book but I thought it important that this got a mention straight away as it has been a long time since I last got this excited about a series and anyone who knows how much I love Robin Hobb will know that I do not make the comparison lightly!

Reach for the sky!

2010-08-06T10:15:00.006+01:00

At the minute, Emilie has this obsession with Toy Story and watches each of the first two films at least once a day so last week we took her to the cinema to see Toy Story 3! It was her first cinema experience and I think she loved it though she was a bit restless and kept getting up and moving around and didn't want to sit on a seat on her own as, in the Dereham cinema, they still have those seats that flip back up! Yes, no modern cinema for us Dereham folk ~ they even still tear off the ticket stub which was something Mrs.Sparky had never seen before showing the difference between our generations! It was actually quite nostalgic for me and certainly made the whole experience more personal. And yes, Toy Story 3 is AMAZING and easily the most emotional of the trilogy. Andy is going to college so there are lots of heart-wrenching moments as he prepares to give up the toys he has grown up and played with all these years, leaving Woody, Buzz and the rest of the gang facing an uncertain future!

Work at the minute is becoming a right drag! I find myself very low on tolerance at mo and very close to losing my temper quite a bit at the minute! I do not know why but it all feels pretty shitty right now and I am really not enjoying it at all. I know it will pass and that this is just a phase I go through every so often but that doesn't make it any easier!

Tuesday when I mentioned I was looking forward to Daddy Day on Wednesday, my one day with Emilie all to my own whilst Mrs.Sparky is at work, one of the girls who is also a mum said "And you're looking forward to that?" I think she finds being a mum a bit of a strain and harder work than she thought it would be but I was like "Hell yeah!" That is the only time, apart from holidays, when Emilie is all mine to myself and I love those days to bits and cherish every moment of them!! Emilie is my little girl and I love her to bits and would not change the days I get her to myself for the world!!!!

Finally, I just wanted to add another couple of books to my 1001 list. Firstly the kids book, (17) Lost And Found by Oliver Jeffers. It is the tale of a young boy who wakes up to find a penquin on his door and becomes determined to help him find his way home but when he gets to the North Pole, he discovers that the penquin was not lost, he was just lonely! It is a lovely illustrated book that is very simple but magical nonetheless! Emilie loves it, though it is out of favour at bedtime at mo, and loves to sit there reading it and looking at the pictures! There is also an animated movie narrated by Jim Broadbent but, whilst this is still good, it loses a tiny bit of the magic of the booK. It is easily the best of all the books we read at bedtime and that is why it makes the list!

The next entry is (18) The Grail Quest books by Bernard Cornwell about an English archer called Thomas of Hookton who sets off to fight the French when he discovers his father was once the guardian of an ancient secret, the location of The Holy Grail, and that foreig mercenaries working for the French are determined to lay their hands on the treasure. It is a gripping historical tale full of medieval blood and gore and highly detailed battle scenes based on real historical events. Though the story itself is fictional, the real backdrop of the action makes this trilogy a compelling read and these are easily the best novels of Cornwell's I have read; far better than the Sharpe novels that, whilst good, are no match for these!

Right that's about it right now...till next time.....

TO INFINITY.....AND BEYOND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Things that make you go hmmmm.....

2010-07-28T14:14:00.017+01:00

Continuing my list of 1001 authors and books you really need to read before you die, and let's face it I need to get a move on or it will end up taking me forever to complete it, my next choice (13) is something I read and mentioned last year!

Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist is an alternative vampire tale translated from Swedish. Twelve year old Oscar is a loner who has few friends and is bullied at school when a new girl moves into the apartment next door. The pair quickly become play-mates but there is something strange about Eli far beyond the fact that she kind of smells funny or that she only appears at night. For Eli is not in fact a girl.....and Eli has been around for a lot longer than just twelve years....!

Gripping, scary and often quite nasty, this is the first debut horror novel in a long while to impress me and though the original language film based on this book is a little slow-going, a Hollywood remake is well on its way to completion. If you are looking for something different and more faithful to the vampire legend than say...Twilight for example, then this is for you!

Next in my list (14) are the Elvis Cole novels by Robert Crais. These Detective noir novels feature the wise-cracking Private Eye, Elvis Cole, whose office is adorned with Disney characters, and his silent but deadly partner, Joe Pike. Although I haven't read all the books in the series to date, I have read most of them and haven't found a bad one yet! Robert Crais' stand-alone book Hostage was made into a film starring Bruce Willis so some of you might have come across his work that way. Regardless, Robert Crais is an author you need to check out if you enjoy gritty crime novels and his Elvis Cole series particularly stands out!

Which brings me to my next choice for inclusion (15) which are the Quiller novels by Adam Hall. Much like the Elvis novels as mentioned above, I have yet to encounter a bad entry in the series which follows the misadventures of a British Secret Services Agent in his various missions overseas during the height of The Cold War. I know what you are thinking....you have heard it all before and that these books, many of which are now out of print, are just part of yet another spy series in the vein of James Bond but you would be wrong! Quiller has no secret gadgets and no marvellous tricks at his disposal save for his own wits, ingenuity and his skill in martial arts. In many novels, he even refuses the use of a gun! Each novel is presented as a debrief report so there is little mention of anything not related to the mission in hand and very little is ever revealed about Quiller's personal life or relations. We don't even know Quiller's own name or the department for which he works which is always only ever described as a unit that doesn't officially exist. If Quiller gets into trouble, in most cases he is on his own and the British Government will deny any connection to his involvement. In this way, this series is much more realistic and believable than most espionage thrillers in this genre! And that is why I wish to include them on my list! The books were due to be made into a film series but, due to arguments over rights etc, only The Quiller Memorandum has ever been made. If you have not seen it, it is well worth a watch but the books are a thousand times better!

Finally, the last book I want to include today is (16) Kamikaze by Michael Slade; someone whom I thought would be highly unlikely to get another mention on this list! Ever since the writing team of Canadian lawyers broke up leaving just one partner writing with his daughter, the Special X series has suffered from not being quite as accomplished as it once was. Kamikaze however, restores the series back to its former glory of novels such as the original book, Headhunter, which rightly earned a place in the top ten for its gripping plot and ingenious twists! Kamikaze is here for a different reason. It is here for the same reason that books such as Charlotte Grey are here. Kamikaze makes you think!

The plot here alternates between the Pacific war of WWII and modern day Vancouver as a US veteran travels to a conference there as Keynote Speaker. A Japanese Yakuza War-lord, who lost all his family in Hiroshima, has sworn a blood oath to take vengeance on the veteran, who flew in the infamous Enola Gay that dropped the bomb, known as Little Boy, but has not reckoned on the determination of the RCMP, and more importantly Special X, to stop him!

With much of the story being told in flashback, and scenes set both at Pearl Harbour and in the aftermath of Hiroshima's destruction, the book is highly compelling reading that begs the question were America's actions in the Pacific War any better than the actions of those terrorists who flew the planes into the Twin Towers on 9/11? Can such whole scale loss of life and destruction ever be justified? In the wake of information that suggests that Japan was bombed BEFORE EVEN BEING GIVING THE OPTION OF SURRENDER OR WITHOUT ANY TERMS OF NEGOTIATION EVER BEING DISCUSSED, you have to stop and ask yourself what right America had to ever make such a decision! How can such a large scale loss of life, not just at the time but for generations to come as the after-effects of the bomb continued with radiation poisoning ultimately leading to whole families being wiped out long after Ground Zero, ever be considered as justifiable? Why was America allowed to drop not just one BUT TWO Atomic bombs in what amounted to one of the most horrifyingly shocking atrocities of any war then or since!

The sections in Kamikaze that deal with Hiroshima left me feeling disgusted and ashamed even though I am not American because I belong to the descendants of the supposed victors of that war; The Allied Forces! One thing that this book very accurately puts across is that History certainly is written by the winners and I was not expecting when I picked this up this book that it would make me think quite this much! Because of the issues it raises and the moral spin it puts on events all of us take for granted that we know about, that we are taught in school, this book comes highly recommended!

Slade has also written a previous novel to this in the same vein set around Hitler's Bunker called Swastika and if it is anything like this, I cannot wait to read it! Kamikaze is a prime example of Slade at their best and if you only read one of their novels, it should be this one! It is right up there with books such as A Thousand Splendid Suns and Wild Swans for its importance!

A shocking but brilliant read!

Right, well that's that for a while! Time for a breather, I think, after all that. Speak to you soon...stay cool, Sparky xxxx

I don't belieeeeeeeve it!

2010-07-21T14:03:00.003+01:00

Can it be possible? Can it have been nearly six weeks since my last Blog post?? Sorry, I've no excuse for not being about much but it's true I have been a bit distracted lately and it is just sooo easy to forget all about this whole Blog thing when you have other things on your mind! And then of course, the longer you leave it the harder it is to get back in the swing of things!

There is so much I could choose to tell you right now....I could tell you about how I seem to be making a habit of upsetting people at work of late (~~three~~ .... ahem, four so far this year); I could tell you about the two young waitresses at work who allegedly slept with a couple of the long-term residents at the Hotel (which considering their young age, was the result of much gossiping and scandal amongst the staff); I could tell you about H.C who has returned to work this week after a knee operation following two operations earlier this year to remove cataracts; or I could tell you about my determination that, now me and Mrs.Sparky can't afford to move like we planned, there is nothing to stop me keeping my eyes out for another job...one potentially with better hours so I can spend more time with my family! I could even tell you about my friend, Samantha who has just had a little baby girl called Lola Grace in the last few days and whom me and Mrs.Sparky are going to visit tomorrow. Unfortunately, I cannot really be bothered so you are going to have to fill in your own details for now.....

Have been reading lots of books of late, too many to mention, but some of those that I have picked up include.... Drood by Dan Simmons (engaging and entertaining period tale about Dickens' final years that ends rather unsatisfyingly), UFO In Her Eyes (a strangely disappointing book, set in a China of the very near future, all about how a close encounter with a flying saucer affects not just a simple peasant girl but all her fellow villagers as well), Red Azalea by Anchee Min (a slightly lacklustre biography all about the author's first sexual experiences whilst living under the reign of Chairman Mao in the midst of the Cultural Revoloution that was no match for the vivid imagery of the far superior, Wild Swans) and Gail Porter's autobiography which is an okay read but not as good as I thought it might be with only scant mention in the closing chapters of her experiences with Alapecia.

Will be back soon (I promise this time!), but for now I've gotta go.....y'know what they say... the devil makes work for idle hands and all that!

They Came And Ate us...

2010-06-09T13:55:00.003+01:00

Next to feature on my 1001 list (12) is the collected work of popular sci-fi novelist, Clifford.D.Simak who was born in 1904 and died in 1988. His work was published extensively throughout the late sixties and seventies and had a resurgence in the mid to late eighties. Featuring a wide variety of both classic and original sci-fi ideas, his novels were highly successful and he was regarded amongst some of the greatest sci-fi writers of the time! His work often followed similar themes, usually to do with mankind's first contact with alien species', and, though he was not noted for ever writing one classic single sci-fi epic that stood out above the rest, still his novels were of a consistently high standard!

Not all his books were a roaring success though; a couple of attempts he made at fantasy fiction were not as well written or as enjoyable as his mainstream sci-fi but then even Stephen King writes the occasional duff novel and he is one of my favourite writers of all time! Some of my favourites of Simak's novels include They Walked Like Men, Shakespeares Planet, The Visitors and Catface but it is difficult to pick between his extensive back-catalogue of novels as the majority of them are as ground-breakingly breath-taking as they are inspirational to read!

One of the main characteristics of his novels that makes them so poular is the sense of community that all his books bring. Many of his novels have a relatively small cast, sometimes no more than two or three characters feature throughout the whole of a story, and many of them likewise are set in small American towns in and around Winconsin. Whatever your thoughts on Simak, there is little doubt that he was one of the all-time sci-fi greats comparable to the likes of Asimov and Arthur.C.Clarke and it is only regretful that in later years, his books have become less well known! Here is a link to his Wikipedia page if you want to learn more about him...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_D._Simak

Faith of The Fallen....

2010-06-08T12:18:00.005+01:00

Next on my list of 1001 books and authors you really need to read before you die is (11) The Charlie Parker novels by John Connolly (whom I mentioned before last year when I was reading The Lovers). These novels, the latest of which is The Whisperers, follow the exploits of ex-Cop and Private Detective, Charlie Parker, whose wife and child are brutally murdered by a serial killer known only as The Travelling Man! In Every Dead Thing, the first of these novels, Parker hunts down the man responsible and finds himself developing a kind of sixth sense that allows him to see the spirits of the recently dead. Parker soon finds himself driven to hunt down other bad men of a similar nature almost against his will as though he is being directed by a higher force...but before long, the forces of Darkness begin to fight back! Fallen Angels, Demons and the ongoing them of a much larger imminent battle between the forces of Good and Evil begin to turn up all through Connolly's novels but one of the best things about these books is that many of the paranormal occurrences are left to the readers own interpretation. If you want, you can read into all that happens to Parker as a form of mental break from reality brought on by Post Traumatic Stress left over from the brutal murder of his family. But you can also read into it that Parker is in fact someone important; an unknown quantity that will play a large part in things yet to come!

These are very dark and graphic serial thrillers that are seriously not for the faint of heart! The theological aspects set them apart from anything else available in this genre and though Connnolly's latest, The Whisperers, is not quite as good as some of the others in this series, it is still miles ahead of what most thriller writers have to offer!

A new start...

2010-06-04T11:29:00.003+01:00

In the last few weeks I have kind of over-indulged and slipped into naughty habits of just buying stuff that I want with little thought to consequence. Hence this month, money has gotten a little tight and I am very glad that I am getting paid on Monday!

With this in mind, I have decided that for the next month I am not going to buy anything for myself! No books, no matter how cheap, no DVDs, no sweets ~ nothing! I am going to really deprive myself. I don't need any more books, I have loads on my TBR as well as all the books I am re-reading at the moment, and if any do come out there is no rush to buy them~ I have to learn that I don't need them there and then; I can wait!

My aim is not to buy any more books unless I sell or mooch some of the vast number of books on my TBR! And not to buy any more DVDs until I have watched some of those I have bought and not even seen yet!

I am also going to try AGAIN to keep a record of everything I spend starting from Monday when I start another weeks holiday. That way I can keep a note of where all my money is going and see where I need to cut costs! I am determined to try and get my expenditure down. We may not be able to afford to move right now but maybe I can help make this seem a little bit more likely by not treating myself and only buying essentials. I have tried before to keep records unsuccessfully but always lose heart, cannot be bothered after a few weeks and always end up giving up! This time though, I am going to try again and by posting that I am doing it on here, hopefully this will help my motivation!

Anyway, I will keep you informed how I get on and try to keep you updated with my progress. Until next time.....ciao peoples xxxx Sparky

Thank you for loving me!

2010-06-04T11:06:00.005+01:00

Lately a few things have happened in my life (that I don't want to go into here in part because there are some things in my life that I truly believe should remain private) that have lead me to realise how lucky I am to be married to Mrs.Sparky! She is so kind, thoughtful and understanding and sometimes I really don't think I deserve to be with her or to share our beautiful daughter, Emilie, with her. This is a little bit to do with the self-doubt that runs through the very core of my being but also as much to do with the fact that I don't always appreciate her as much as I should. I know, or suspect, that all of us are guilty of this sometimes but with her feeling a little down at the moment, I wanted to take this opportunity to publically declare just how much I love her and tell her how glad I am that she came came into my life! I may not always tell her but I like to think she knows these things. Sometimes though, I guess it is just nice to have these things affirmed. Which is why I have decided to write this post! And also why I think the lyrics of Bon Jovi's "Thank-you for lovin' me" are so appropiate to my relationship with my wife!

"It's hard for me to say the things
I want to say sometimes
There's no one here but you and me
And that broken old street light

Lock the doors
We'll leave the world outside
All I've got to give to you
Are these five words when I

Thank you for loving me
For being my eyes when I couldn't see for
Parting my lips when I couldn't breathe
Thank you for loving me
Thank you for loving me

I never knew I had a dream
Until that dream was you
When I look into your eyes
The sky's a different blue

Cross my heart
I wear no disguise
If I tried, you'd make believe
That you believed my lies

Thank you for loving me
For being my eyes when I couldn't see
For parting my lips when I couldn't breathe
Thank you for loving me

You pick me up when I fall down
You ring the bell before they count me out
If I was drowning you would part the sea
And risk your own life to rescue me, yeah

Lock the doors
Leave the world outside
All I've got to give to you
Are these five words when I

Thank you for loving me
For being my eyes oh, when I couldn't see
You parted my lips when I couldn't breathe
Thank you for loving me

When I couldn't fly
Oh, you gave me wings
You parted my lips when I couldn't breathe
Thank you for loving me

Thank you for loving me
Thank you for loving me
Oh for loving me"

One of the things getting Mrs.Sparky down at the moment is the fact that it is looking increasingly unlikely that we will be able to afford to move in the next few years and, in order for us to have another child, which she really wants, we would need a bigger house. I know sometimes you can overthink things and that sometimes you just have to go for them because otherwise what you want will never happen, but you also have to be practical too and our house really isn't big enough! It distresses me too, maybe not as much as Mrs.Sparky it is true, but I am trying not to dwell on it too much. Right now, all I am thinking about is how lucky I am to have such a lovely family. My depression has not surfaced so far this year and ideally I would like it to stay that way! Sometimes you just have to be thankful for what you've got and shouldn't try to dwell on things that could be, but on the here and now!

1001 books or authors to read before you die...the first 10

2010-05-28T01:13:00.002+01:00

Just to recap, these are the first 10 Authors or books on my own personal list of 1001 you need to read before you die! Remember, they are not in any significant order but listed simply as I remember them and decide to add them to my list!

1) The Terror by Dan Simmons
2) The complete work of fantasy author, Robin Hobb
3) From A Buick 8 by Stephen King
4) Mao and Wild Swans by Jung Chang
5) IT by Stephen King
6) A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
7) Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay
8) Ways To Live Forever by Sally Nicholls
9) Charlotte Grey by Sebastian Faulks
10) Headhunter by Michael Slade

Now, onto the next 10............

Somebody's hunting heads....

2010-05-28T00:53:00.005+01:00

Number (10) in my list of 1001 authors and books you really need to read before you die is Headhunter by Michael Slade; a superior horror-thriller that is notable for the fact that it is so exceptionally written and chock-full of nasty twists, turns and surprises! Set in and around Vancouver, it follows a task-force of Canadian Mounties as they struggle to track down a vicious and deadly serial killer admidst a wholescale media frenzy....nothing new in that you might think, but this is one thriller that if you have not come across before, you really really need to pick up! Just when you think everything has been resolved and that the story is all over, Slade takes everything you thought you knew and throws it on its head for a shocking and gruesome finale that leaves you positively reeling with shock and excitement!

Michael Slade was the pseudonym for a team of Canadian Criminal lawyers who teamed together to turn writer and wrote a whole series of dark thriller novels known as the Special X series featuring a cast of characters who, for the most part, all got their first debut here! Special X are not actually formed until the third novel in the series, Cutthroat, but events in this book have repercussions all the way through the series right up until the last novel written by the original team which was Shrink, or Primal Scream as it would later be known. Following Shrink, the original team disbanded and writing duties were taken up by just one of the lawyers alongside his daughter, Rebecca Clarke. Arguably, after this acromonial split from his colleagues, the books slightly went down in quality whilst still featuring those characters of the original Special X team who had managed to survive. Headhunter though, remains to this day the strongest and most shocking of all the novels that followed and is right up there with my favourite books of all time!

Honestly when it comes to dark thrillers, they don't get much darker than this.....!

Sometime in the near future.....

2010-05-14T10:55:00.004+01:00

Well, Face book has been a bit slow uploading my Blog of late so if you are reading this via My Notes on Face book then the year is probably now 3000. Not much has changed but we live underwater. Oh and your great great great great granddaughter?....Yes, she's pretty fine!

But seriously...it's been over a week since the Election fiasco and we finally now have a new government! Of course, the big news was all those people who didn't get in to vote before the booths shut at 22:00 and got turned away but I see this has mostly been forgotten about now in the press. Mind you, if you had 15 hours or so in which to vote, surely it's your own fault if you didn't get there in time? I know they say that there were big queues in some constituencies but I am sure that this was as much down to people leaving things right to the last minute as it was the "fact" being bandied around that more people turned out to vote than was expected. Hell, they had a big drive going on days before encouraging people to get off their backsides and vote, so honestly what did they expect? Like..duh! "Oh yes, we know we persuaded you to turn out to vote but like we weren't really expecting you to do so...we were just like saying y'know? We didn't mean it?" Cretins!!!!

So yeah, even though Conservatives didn't win the majority, (they got the most seats but apparently you need to get 51% to be in power and they didn't quite make that margin- yeah, I don't get it either ~ how can you get more seats than anyone else and still not win? Fracked up isn't it?) David Cameron is now our new Prime Minister after having to near enough boot a reluctant Gordon Brown out the door of No 10! But hey, good news for us Lib Dems because that lack of majority has meant that the two parties have had to join a coalition. A bit like Chamberlain and Hitler, one supposes....two opposing forces trying desperately to find middle ground. But which is which? Only time will tell.....but it is a interesting time to be living in right now, I can tell you! America has a black President, we spent almost a whole week with no official Government and now we have got a Government but it is being run by the two runners-ups because no one, in a General Election, could decide who they actually wanted to vote for!

Wouldn't it have been interesting to see what would have happened if all those people who didn't get a chance to vote actually voted? I suspect the results may have been just that little bit different....

A fair debate....

2010-05-06T15:09:00.007+01:00

Just to say, I did try to find comedy posters of the other Political Partys but they seem strangely absent! There's not even any poking fun at the B.N.P that I could see,,,,very disappointing!

That is, until I visited B3ta.....

Vote None Of The Above....

2010-05-06T14:07:00.008+01:00

So, it's Election day and I'd thought I'd have a little fun with some comedy campaign posters I have found posted on the net! You may have seen some of these already, but I found them rather amusing!! Please note, this in no way indicates who I am voting for...it's just that Cameron's Campaign posters have great comedy value!!

Now if Party Political campaigns were more like this below, then I would be more inclined to know who to vote for! This is what we need to bring in all of those people who don't bother to go to the polls! We need to Sex things up a bit! If Politicians looked more like this first image, then loads of blokes would vote in their millions!! Yes, it's sexist; yes, it's chauvinistic but yes, we all know it's also true! But don't worry, I haven't forgotten you girls...wouldn't you be more inclined to vote for a particular Political Party if your candidate looked like the second image below...?

2010-05-04T12:01:00.003+01:00

My next choice on my list of 1001 books and authors you need to read before you die (9) is Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks of which some of you may have seen the movie starring Cate Blamchette in the title role.

Charlotte falls in love with a British Airman who is promptly shot down over occupied France during The Second World War. Determined to discover his fate, Charlotte travels overseas as a British Courier to work with the French Resistance Movement and try and locate her lost love but gets caught up in the events around her and soon learns some of the true horrors of war. Especially when she becomes involved with a number of Jewish families who are being hounded by their own friends, neighbours and countrymen!!

This was far different from what I was expecting and is no simple romantic spy drama but in reality a gripping portrait of a very grim period in our recent history! The pieces with some of the Jewish families are extremely moving, especially one chapter focusing on two boys whose parents have been already sent to Death camps, and there were many times reading this when I had a lump in my throat! I have not seen the film, and suspect it will have been hollywoodised and many of the more poignant moments dropped in favour of the romantic sub-plot, but this is truly one of my favourite books of all time! I have read a few other books by Faulks that in no way compared to this, so have reason to believe this is the best thing he has written, but have Birdsong still waiting on my TBR pile and will reserve judgement on whether he is a one-book wonder until I have digested that. Suffice to say, this is another of those books that you REALLY should read and gives you a REAL insight into what went on in Occupied France rather than the 'Allo 'Allo version. Not that I am dissing 'Allo 'Allo you understand, I enjoyed that show as much as anyone, but this gives a much more gritty and realistic depiction of what went on and reveals the true story behind the daft, slapstick comedy!

Okay, I lied....

2010-05-04T09:40:00.004+01:00

Maybe I won't be Blogging every day, lol! One day into my holiday and already I have missed a day's post! Still yesterday wasn't like a proper day of my holiday because it was a bank holiday and more like a bonus day! We had intended to go out, the three of us ~ me, Mrs.Sparky and Emilie, but it was such a miserable day that we didn't bother in the end! Instead we all had a day of doing very little. Me and Ems played with her Duplo and took a little trip to the shop to get stuff for tea but that was it! It was sooo nice and relaxing!

Last night, watched Ferris Bueller's day off again! What a classic eighties' movie. The late John Hughes was a brilliant director and every thing he touched in the eighties seemed to turn to gold. And, of course, I take Ferris' message to heart- Life moves fast; sometimes you need to stop and look around once in a while or you might miss something!! How true!!!!

Ways To Live Forever

2010-04-29T21:56:00.005+01:00

My next choice for my list of 1001 Books And Authors has to be (8) Sally Nicholl's debut novel, Ways To Live Forever! A right proper weepy, it tells the tale of 11 year old Sam who has an obsession with random facts, believes in UFOs and ghosts and has never kissed a girl. Oh yes, and he has Leukaemia! His parents and Doctors won't talk to him about dying, and often go out of their way to avoid talking about it, so Sam becomes determined to seek out the honest answers for himself along with his best friend on the Cancer Ward. At times highly emotional but always uplifting, honest and funny the book is nowhere near as depressing as it sounds and concentrates in the main on the positive attitude of Sam as he copes with his illness in his own very special way! Totally recommended, this is another book that moved me in ways I cannot even describe. Even writing about this novel now reminds me how important and special a read this is and anyone who hasn't read it is missing out a treat! This book really goes a long way to showing just how fragile our life is and how important it is to live each day like it is our last and makes a person appreciate what they have in life rather than wishing it away for something they might never achieve!! Truly a classic read that deserves all the praise and more that I can heap upon it!!! Just remember to pack a box of tissues when you read it! You have been warned!!!

Yes I AM still here....

2010-04-29T21:45:00.003+01:00

Just to let you all know that I haven't abandoned you, just not really had a lot to Blog about lately that is in any way, shape or form interesting. Nothing new there, I hear you say, but hey, you are sooo gonna regret that next week because I have a weeks holiday and I intend to write a Blog-post EVERY SINGLE DAY to make up for all those I've missed these last few weeks!

Actually, I really need to get a move on with my list of 1001 Books And Authors You Need to Read Before You Die!! Especially as we are only up to no 7 right now and we have a loooong way to go! Other things I intend to do next week include doing some proper writing (I have a couple of short stories logged in a word document that I really ought to be finishing!!), finishing my Dark Tower painting (and showing you guys my autistic...I mean ARTISTIC....talent) and spending lots of quality time with my daughter of course. I would include my wife there but she is going to have to work for most of my week as normal as that is just the way things have worked out this year!

And the beat goes on....

2010-04-08T13:22:00.003+01:00

The next book in my list has to be Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay (7) which looks at a forgoten period in World history when French Gendarmes were responsible for rounding up large numbers of Jews under the orders of the Nazi German High Command in Occupied France. The book is split into two perspectives; one based at the time of the events in question and one several decades later as a Journalist uncovers Sarah's story.....

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.

Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.

Whilst the segments of the novel that tell the story from a modern perspective are slightly less engaging, and Julia is a difficult character to like for a number of different reasons, the historical chapters really sweep you up in the story and emotionally destroy you. These are real events that being recounted here, even though the story and characters are fictional, and for many years France has tried to deny they existed and had much mention of them censored in the history books. As Tatiana herself says at the close of this novel, there are many people in France itself who are not aware that these atrocities happened as thousands of native Jews were shipped out to Aschwitz or other Concentration Camps simply to fill a quota. One of De Rosnay's few books that has been translated into english, this is another compelling read that sits right up there with The Diary Of Anne Frank though of course here, none of the characters are real.

more 1001 books and authors....

2010-04-08T12:26:00.006+01:00

So not been about for a few weeks, and there is no proper excuse for that ~ it's just that life has gotten in the way, but thought it was about time I Blogged again and, more specifically, presented you with more of the 1001 books and authors that make up my list of those that you really deserve to read before you die.....

Number Six on my list of 1001 books and authors you really need to read before you die is A Thousand Splendid Suns by the highly acclaimed author, Khaled Hosseini who was also responsible for The Kite Runner. Whilst The Kite Runner is an equally good read, and was made into a successful movie last year, it kind of lacks the depth and intensity of Splendid Suns which is far superior in scope and deliverance and is an exceptional book to pick up that will change your life and the way you percieve the world around you!

Splendid Suns tells the story of two very different women whose lives become intertwined when they both become wives to a shoe maker from Kabul. It is a story of the jealousy that initially surrounds these two women, the harsh regime they are both obliged to live under, the personal circumstances that are thrown their way that complicate their lives and, ultimately, how the two women form a bond and unite together to try and escape the oppression they are forced to endure on a daily basis. It is a strong novel, an uncompromising read and often a very hard book to pick up ~ not because it is hard-going but because it is difficult to read what these two women are forced to go through even when they become determined to change their lives for the better. As well as providing a valuable insight into the lives of women in Afghanistan, it is also a highly addictive story that sweeps you up and refuses to let you go until its final climax. One book I would reccommend to anyone they should certainly most definitely read! As Jonathan Yardley said in the Washington Post "Book World": "Just in case you're wondering whether Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns is as good as The Kite Runner, here's the answer: No. It's better."

Random ingredient of the day .....brought to you in association with Haribo and Wikipedia!

2010-03-17T14:51:00.003Z

Whilst eating a bag of Haribo Maom mix the other day, kindly donated to me by my wife, I had occassion to peruse the ingredients list and came across something I have often seen listed in such sweets that is called Carnauba Wax. Puzzled as to the true nature of this afore mentioned ingredient, I decided to look it up. This was the result:

"Carnauba, also called Brazil wax and palm wax, is a wax of the leaves of the palm, Copernicia prunifera, a plant native to and grown only in the northeastern Brazilian states of Piauí, Ceará, and Rio Grande do Norte.^[1] It is known as "queen of waxes"^[2] and usually comes in the form of hard yellow-brown flakes. It is obtained from the leaves of the carnauba palm by collecting them, beating them to loosen the wax, then refining and bleaching the wax. Carnauba wax contains mainly esters of fatty acids (80-85%), fatty alcohols (10-16%), acids (3-6%) and hydrocarbons (1-3%). Specific for carnauba wax is the content of esterified fatty diols (about 20%), hydroxylated fatty acids (about 6%) and cinnamic acid (about 10%). Cinnamic acid, an antioxidant, may be hydroxylated or methoxylated.

Carnauba wax can produce a glossy finish and as such is used in automobile waxes, shoe polishes, dental floss, food products such as sweets, instrument polishes, and floor and furniture waxes and polishes, especially when mixed with beeswax and with turpentine. Use for paper coatings is the most common application in the United States. It is the main ingredient in surfboard wax, combined with coconut oil.

Because of its hypoallergenic and emollient properties as well as its shine, carnauba wax appears as an ingredient in many cosmetics formulas where it is used to thicken lipstick, eyeliner, mascara, eye shadow, foundation, deodorant, various skin care preparations, sun care preparations, etc.^{[citation needed]} It is also used to make Cutler's resin.

It is the finish of choice for most briar tobacco or smoking pipes. It produces a high gloss finish when buffed on to wood. This finish dulls with time rather than flaking off (as is the case with most other finishes used.)

In foods, it is used as a formulation aid, lubricant, release agent, anticaking agent, and surface finishing agent in baked foods and mixes, chewing gum, confections, frostings, fresh fruits and juices, gravies, sauces, processed fruits and juices, soft sweets, Tic Tacs and Altoids.

Though too brittle to be used by itself, carnauba wax is often combined with other waxes (principally beeswax) to treat and waterproof many leather products where it provides a high-gloss finish and increases leather's hardness and durability.

It is also used in the pharmaceutical industry as a tablet coating agent.

In 1890, Charles Tainter patented the use of carnauba wax on phonograph cylinders as a replacement for a mixture of paraffin and beeswax.

When used as a mold release, carnauba, unlike silicone or PTFE, is suitable for use with liquid epoxy, epoxy molding compounds (EMC) and some other plastic types. Carnauba wax is compatible with epoxies and generally enhances its properties along with those of most other engineering plastics.

An aerosol mold release is formed by suspending carnauba wax in a solvent. This aerosol version is used extensively in molds for semiconductor devices. Semiconductor manufacturers also use chunks of carnauba wax to break in new epoxy molds or to release the plunger when it sticks.

Carnauba is used in melt/castable explosives to produce an insensitive explosive formula such as Composition B, which is a blend of RDX and TNT."

Hmmm...yummy. Enjoy your Haribo folks!