V is for Valkyrie » Books

I Hate This Book….Twilight

branwynne77 — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:42:43 +0000

Twilight By Stephanie Meyer

Twilight has quite possibly the most annoying lead female character. Ever. Even more annoying than …well, Hermione Granger. Or Lisa Simpson at the peak of her case of know-it-all-itis. It’s more than Bella Swan–hideous name– being annoying…she’s not interesting. She’s blah, meh and craptacular all rolled up into one teenybopper package.

Really, this book is pure drivel. I couldn’t even make it halfway through before throwing it to the floor in self loathing. A pox! A pox on that book. I have never hated a book as much as I hate this one. It’s…just horrible. I can’t believe I wasted six whole bucks on it.

There are no likeable characters (I know, I know..I like the Punisher, but at least I can see where he came from. Hey, at least he’s interesting too.) that entice me to care for them. And if I don’t like the characters, I’m not going to enjoy the book. And if that book serves as romantic inspiration for young women…. I feel sorry for the men they’ll meet.

This novel has either been written by a hack….or a thousand monkeys high on crack. You pick what you want…but I’m going with the latter.

To anyone that likes this book, hip hip hooray….it’s just not my cup of crack tea.

Write Stuff

branwynne77 — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:31:37 +0000

“Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.”
—Stephen King

Stephen King is more profound than a lot of people give him credit for; I adore his writing and study it every time I read one of his books. I always find something new in them, a layer to the story that I have overlooked in previous reading. (Or just plain forgot!) I think people tend to, pardon the pun, write him off because he’s been put into the horror category.

Horror is definitely an under-rated genre. I digress, though.

Actually, I think great intelligence and insight on human psychology is a must to be able write horror convincingly. The writer’s job is to scare the hell out of the reader…and since all the reader has to go on is words on a page, it is imperative that the writer picks words carefully and hammer them into a believable plot, as well as create identifiable characters, that hooks them into that world and scenario. And that, my friends and neighbors, is key to good writing.

Writing fiction makes me happy, even if I don’t let anyone else see what I create. I’m feeling the urge so I guess it’s time to get off the ol’ blog and start writing.

What Dreams May Come

branwynne77 — Mon, 26 May 2008 15:16:02 +0000

I love the lyrical beauty of the title, so simple and elegant. So I had to pick up the book. I watched the movie with Robin Williams sometime ago and had liked it.

The book is, like so many others, much better. Thick. Meater. More philosophical. I loved it and it should be a must read on everyone’s list. I like how Richard Matheson invisions the afterlife, which accomodates people’s differing tastes.

My heaven would be quiet and filled with books. And horses. And free WoW. I digress.

At the heart of this story is the author’s philosophy on what happens after we bite the big one, the love story seems like an after thought, as a way to delve into the workings of how the afterlife works. I guess that’s ok, because there are moments of such clarity into the main characters’ relationship that the love they share almost feels geniune.

This is a novel whose themes of hope and love and to live life without fear are important to take in and absorp. Read it. It’s great.

Related books: The Lovely Bones

Clan of the Cave Bear

branwynne77 — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 04:20:33 +0000

I happen to enjoy this book quite a bit, even if there aren’t any vampires or unicorns or fire breathing dragons. Or spandex clad, big chested ladies flouncing around acting all herotic and hoity toity.

It’s a very detail look on what life could have been like in the Ice Age, with some exceptions. (Like I doubt if the Clan’s brand of mysticism was real.) It’s compellingly well written and engrossing. I like the sense of scope and enviorment, the characteration is great. The author created believable characters and it’s a wonderful narration of the struggles to exist that primitive man had gone through.

It all starts out with a young girl (a Cro-Magnon, who weren’t unlike us) being orphaned and injured. Against all odds, she is picked up and nurtured by the Clan–known to us as Neanderthals.

The heroine, Ayla, isn’t annoying or cloyingly helpless. She exhibits a normal desire for living and freedom in the Clan’s repressed and unadaptable society. Her reactions seem normal for that kind of situation she had been forced into. It’s interesting reading about someone making their way through a foreign culture…and it also shows the reader the basic need to fit in that we all have.

And there’s a hidden message that sometimes, no matter how much we want to, we can’t fit in. When we can’t, we just have to pick ourselves up and find a place that we do belong.

Other books in the series:

Valley of Horses
The Mammoth Hunters
Plains of Passage
Shelters of Stone

The Golden Compass: Just a Novel/Movie or an Attack on Christianity?

branwynne77 — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 02:25:47 +0000

So the author is an atheist writing childrens’ books. I notice no one really objects that several Christian authors put some theology in their fantasy fiction. Anyhow, big whoopin’ deal. To be honest, a lot of kids are exposed to all sorts of different ideas in school, so they’ve already been “opened” to atheism. I read it and it’s a simple novel, but nothing to bunch up anyone’s underwear. Hell, even watching the news, or reading the paper, at night is enough to make anyone question their faith.

I thought this was a land of the free, where we could read what we wanted to without fear of being censored. This novel is simply one man’s opinion of how he sees organized religion in general–he’s not picking on Christianity. He is making an observation on every single one. So I’d like to tell these people to please respectfully refrain from going into outrage. He is ENTITLED to his opinion.

“When you look at organized religion of whatever sort – whether it’s Christianity in all its variants, or whether it’s Islam or some forms of extreme Hinduism – wherever you see organized religion and priesthoods and power, you see cruelty and tyranny and repression. It’s almost a universal law.” –Philip Pullman

So, he’s isn’t against Christianity….he is just against organized religion as a principle. Me? I tend to think that organized religion and crime have a lot in common. But, to be fair, I have to say that I see kindness and sympathy from devout folks too. Christians are among the finest people I know, but then so are pagans.

I think some people (overly religious folks) are too concerned with ideas in books that they see might challenge ideas in their book. Maybe they take other books seriously because they get most of their belief system out of one.

The narrow minded Christians that are making a bad name for their religion everywhere, I’ve found, are getting increasingly paranoid. Paranoid equals dangerous. It seems that every intelligent question regarding doubting the “Christian” faith is seen as an attack, and that’s a shame because I feel that questioning faith actually makes it stronger. Some fanatics in America are insisting that they are persecuted, even if Christianity IS the leading religion.

Well, Jack White [From the band White Stripes] says it best in one of his songs: You can’t be a pimp and a prostitute too. That is to say, you can’t be the majority of something yet be shunned and persecuted.

I’m diverging from my original train of thought. People who bitch and moan about these books “corrupting” faith in God, need to stop it and take a good long look out in the real world and at other Christians. After all, some strains of Christianity are the main cause of atheism.

branwynne77 — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 05:05:00 +0000

(That Renfield book I was reading–started off so good then wound up as flat as an abandoned can of Coke. I hate it when good books go bad. Thanks for ripping me off, B & N.)

One of my favorite authors is Stephen King, one of America’s preeminent writers, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know what it is about his
writing, but it is incredibly rich. Like the literary equivalent of Divinity fudge. It seems that he channels people from another dimension to
ours through his written words. His characters almost feel real, and the danger in some of the books is tangible.

I think it’s in all the details he provides in his novels. He’s got a firm mastery on how to create tension in his plots, but I like how he creates
characters, how he makes them spring to life in my mind and how I am loathe to close the book because I don’t quite want to leave the characters he had so carefully constructed.

IT, for example. That book is an epic like Lord of the Rings, except Pennywise (the antagonist) is much more evil and crazy than Sauron was ever drempt up to be. IT has, I believe, a similar ending. The friends, having got rid of the evil, eventually forget each other and move forward with their lives. I guess in a way, forgetting is sadder than being left behind.

IT is my favorite non Dark Tower novel of his. There are so many contrasting ideas in that 1000+ page novel. Friendship, courage, death, and standing true to yourself and your friends are just some of the themes found here. Yeah, there is a lot of profanity and subjects on sexuality that are pretty much taboo, but oh well. I love the book anyway.