Disappearing Posts? It’s time to start the move!

By on April 23, 2012

As hinted at in the past, I am work­ing on a new site.  While I have been Urban Bach­e­lorette in some form since 2009, it’s time to step up my site and move to a bet­ter fit­ting moniker.  I am proud to announce that as of April 30th, Urban­Bach­e­lorette will be fully tran­si­tioned to Stain­sOn­TheP­age.

Between now and April 30th, I will move some of this con­tent there, and the rest will be archived for my per­sonal use.  I will be con­tact­ing those of you I have a work­ing rela­tion­ship with to let you know of the changes so you can update your links as well.

I have not decided if I will con­tinue to use Urban­Bach­e­lorette for more per­sonal posts, or if I will end this chap­ter in my blog­ging life.

This is both a wel­come tran­si­tion and a sad time as Urban­Bach­e­lorette was my first foray into the blog­ging world and book reviews.  I will not post any­thing new here, and I hope you will con­tinue to fol­low me over at SotP.  I already have a cou­ple of posts ready to go and I can’t wait to con­tin­u­ing shar­ing my thoughts with every­one through my new site.

So what are you wait­ing for? Head over to Stains On The Page and tell me what you think!

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Graphic Design: 2013 Calendar

By on April 19, 2012

The newest project I sub­mit­ted this week, required a themed cal­en­dar for 2013.  Given vam­pires as my theme, I couldn’t have been hap­pier with the way they both turned out.  Only one was required, but we had to dig­i­tize two designs and choose the best to sub­mit, but I liked both and fin­ished them.

The one sub­mit­ted for a grade was the Castl­e­va­nia theme with the moons, which C will be keep­ing once returned.  For my office, I fin­ished the Vam­pire Bunny since it’s def­i­nitely more my style.

 

 

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Graphic Design: T-​​Shirt

By on April 18, 2012

This project required a t-​​shirt design with a music theme, two col­ors plus black, on any color t-​​shirt we wanted.  The idea behind it shows how to design with lay­ers for each color that would trans­fer to a screen print­ing press.  It was a chal­lenge to think in three col­ors, but I think it turned out well.  I recently dis­cov­ered a video of Lind­sey Stir­ling online and fell in love with her style and tal­ent with the vio­lin, so I made a t-​​shirt design for when she decides to go on tour.

 

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Review: Before the Fall After the Fall During the Fall by Nancy Kress

By on April 7, 2012

Title: Before the Fall After the Fall Dur­ing the Fall
(Ama­zon, Goodreads)
Author: Nancy Kress
(Ama­zon, Goodreads, Web­site)
Series: None
Pub­lisher: Tachyon Pub­li­ca­tions
Genre: Sci­ence Fic­tion
For­mat: Paper­back
Source: Bought from Bookstore

Syn­op­sis:

The year is 2035. After eco­log­i­cal dis­as­ters nearly destroyed the Earth, 26 survivors—the last of humanity—are trapped by an alien race in a ster­ile enclo­sure known as the Shell. Fifteen-​​year-​​old Pete is one of the Six—children who were born deformed or ster­ile and raised in the Shell. As, one by one, the sur­vivors grow sick and die, Pete and the Six strug­gle to put aside their anger at the alien Tesslies in order to find the means to rebuild the earth together. Their only hope lies within brief time-​​portals into the recent past, where they bring back chil­dren to replen­ish their dis­ap­pear­ing gene pool. Mean­while, in 2013, bril­liant math­e­mati­cian Julie Kahn works with the FBI to solve a series of inex­plic­a­ble kid­nap­pings. Sud­denly her pre­dic­tive algo­rithms begin to reveal more than just crim­i­nal activ­ity. As she begins to real­ize her role in the impend­ing catastrophe, simultaneously affect­ing the Earth and the Shell, Julie closes in on the truth. She and Pete are con­verg­ing in time upon the future of humanity—a future which might never unfold. Weav­ing three con­sec­u­tive time lines to unravel both the mys­tery of the Earth’s destruc­tion and the key to its sal­va­tion, this taut adven­ture offers a top­i­cal mes­sage with a sat­is­fy­ing twist.

Review:

Hav­ing been a fan of Kress’ work for years, I couldn’t wait to get this book in my hands.  This amaz­ing book kept me inter­ested to the very last page.  While there are three time­lines within the story, Kress’ abil­ity to weave the three together with­out los­ing the reader aston­ishes.  Her beau­ti­ful sto­ry­telling mas­ter­fully crafts a tale of mys­tery and intrigue.  Many ques­tions arise and they are answered as the story comes to its impres­sive cli­mac­tic end.  While this is only one short book, per­fect to read in a day, it reminds me of read­ing the ‘Beg­gars’  trilogy.

I highly rec­om­mend you read this book, espe­cially if you are a fan of Kress’ work and if not, what a won­der­ful book to start your obses­sion with her writing.

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Review: Picture the Dead by Adele Griffin

By on April 2, 2012

Title: Pic­ture the Dead
(Ama­zon, Goodreads, Web­site)
Author: Adele Grif­fin
(Ama­zon, Goodreads, Web­site)
Series: None
Pub­lisher: Source­Books Fire
Genre: His­tor­i­cal Romance, Para­nor­mal Thriller
For­mat: Paper­back
Source: Pub­lisher pro­vided review copy

Syn­op­sis:

On the home front near Boston in 1864, Jen­nie feels her twin’s pres­ence like “a wave crash­ing over me” moments after he dies in a Union field hos­pi­tal. Over the next year, she senses his pres­ence and, more strongly, that of her fiancé, their cousin Will, who also died in the war. Will’s brother Quinn arrives home wounded, gaunt, and haunted by his expe­ri­ences. When his painful rev­e­la­tions change the way she thinks about Will, Jen­nie faces hard choices and tries to con­tact the dead for guid­ance in dis­cov­er­ing the truth. Brown’s evoca­tive black-​​and-​​white draw­ings of pho­tographs, let­ters, and other doc­u­ments such as news­pa­per clip­pings appear between chap­ters in four-​​page, black-​​paper sec­tions rep­re­sent­ing Jennie’s scrap­books and, equally, pos­si­ble evi­dence in the mys­tery. Although Griffin’s vivid writ­ing will draw read­ers into Jennie’s first-​​person nar­ra­tive of love, doubt, and mys­tery, the tale goes beyond her par­tic­u­lar ghosts and also shows how broadly the coun­try was haunted: sur­vivors by the loss of loved ones and sol­diers by wretched mem­o­ries. A Civil War ghost story with gothic overtones.

Review:

I took longer to read this than I had planned since it was a short book, but I did enjoy it.  I had my sus­pi­cions through­out and was pleas­antly sur­prised to dis­cover that some of them were true.  Jen­nie is a well-​​developed char­ac­ter and as the story unfolds, Grif­fin draws the reader into the story.  Directed towards six to nine year olds and I can see myself at that age enjoy­ing this book a lot.  Filled with images of Jennie’s scrap­book, the reader gets a more tac­tile approach to the book than mere sto­ry­telling.  If some of the let­ters had been more read­able, I would have enjoyed it even more, sleuthing through the hand­writ­ten clues along with Jen­nie, but even not being able to read it all, I didn’t feel it detracted much from the book itself.

There are a few nice twists to this story, and over­all I would rec­om­mend this book to young chil­dren with an inter­est in ghosts and his­tor­i­cal fiction.

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Review: Type Matters! Simple Tips for Everyday Typography by Jim Williams

By on March 20, 2012

Title: Type Mat­ters!  Sim­ple Tips for Every­day Typog­ra­phy
(Ama­zon, Goodreads)
Author:  Jim Williams
(Ama­zon, Goodreads)
Series: None
Pub­lisher: Mer­rell
Genre: Non-​​fiction
For­mat: Journal/​Paperback
Source: 60 Cycle Media

Syn­op­sis:

Back of the Book:

Nowa­days, most of us work on per­sonal com­put­ers and have access to hun­dreds of dif­fer­ent type­faces.  We’d all like our let­ters, reports, school projects and other doc­u­ments to look as good and be as read­able as pos­si­ble.  How­ever, few of us can use typog­ra­phy effec­tively.  Type Mat­ters! is per­fect for desk­top ref­er­ence, and is packed with every­day tips for those keen to improve the look of their type, whether it be on screen or in print.  Beau­ti­fully designed to rein­force the prin­ci­ples dis­cussed through­out, Type Mat­ters! shows exactly what makes good typog­ra­phy and what doesn’t, pre­sent­ing clear guid­ance on how to cre­ate doc­u­ments that are both read­able and elegant.

From the Publisher:

Once upon a time, only type­set­ters needed to know about kern­ing, lead­ing, lig­a­tures and hang­ing punc­tu­a­tion. Today, however, most of us work on com­put­ers, with access to hun­dreds of fonts, and we’d all like our let­ters, reports and other doc­u­ments to look as good – and be as read­able – as pos­si­ble. But what does all the con­fus­ing ter­mi­nol­ogy about ink traps, let­ter spac­ing and visual cen­tring mean, and what are the rules for good typog­ra­phy? Type Mat­ters! is a book of tips for every­day use, for all users of typog­ra­phy, from stu­dents and pro­fes­sion­als to any­one who does any lay­out design on a com­puter. The book is arranged into three chap­ters: an intro­duc­tion to the basics of typog­ra­phy; head­line and dis­play type; and set­ting text. Within each chap­ter there are sec­tions devoted to par­tic­u­lar prin­ci­ples or prob­lems, such as select­ing the right type­face, lead­ing and the treat­ment of num­bers. Exam­ples show pre­cisely what makes good typog­ra­phy – and, cru­cially, what doesn’t. Author­i­ta­tively writ­ten and designed by a prac­ti­tioner and teacher of typog­ra­phy, Type Mat­ters! has a beau­ti­fully clear lay­out that rein­forces the prin­ci­ples dis­cussed throughout.

• The ulti­mate book of typog­ra­phy tips for any­one inter­ested in improv­ing the look of their type

• Clear subject-​​by-​​subject struc­ture helps the reader quickly iden­tify the rel­e­vant topic

• Ele­gantly designed, with soft flexi bind­ing, rib­bon place­hold­ers and an elas­tic enclo­sure, ideal for handy desk­top reference

My Review:

When Rob at 60 Cycle Media con­tacted me to review this book, I was excited.  It’s not my typ­i­cal kind of book, but I recently fin­ished a typog­ra­phy assign­ment for my graphic design course, and the focus of my next dig­i­tal imag­ing project is on the use of typog­ra­phy, so this came to my atten­tion at the per­fect time.

This is a book that is more than just pages filled with infor­ma­tion.  It’s an expe­ri­ence.  The soft, journal-​​like appear­ance of the cover makes me want to hold it in my hands, and the two rib­bons, red and black, cry out for you to find a place to mark a page with them.  The pages are heavy stock and add to the over­all feel­ing that this book will last a life­time or maybe even two.

Geared toward novices, I also see it being use­ful for more advanced typog­ra­phy learn­ers by pro­vid­ing a lit­tle more his­tory and excel­lent exam­ples of what is a good and what is a bad use of typog­ra­phy.  The text is often repeated in var­i­ous type­faces, but it pro­vides so much more than just what the words are con­vey­ing.  Printed in red and black text, Williams cer­tainly did a superb job in lay­ing this book out for his audience.

I read that Williams wrote this as a primer for his classes, and I can only imag­ine how use­ful this was for his stu­dents, so I’m very glad he decided to make it avail­able to more peo­ple in such a won­der­ful edition.

Not only did I learn some inter­est­ing typog­ra­phy facts, but I also fig­ured out what I am going to do for my dig­i­tal imag­ing project on typography.

This book releases in April and I hope if you have an inter­est in typog­ra­phy, or know some­one who is, pick up a copy or give it as a gift.  It will make its new owner very grate­ful indeed.

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More of That Takes the Cake 2012

By on March 20, 2012

Instead of pub­lish­ing these in small groups, I decided to share the remain­ing pic­tures of these truly amaz­ing cakes with you here.  Please click on the small pic­tures to see a larger slide show as these need to be seen in all their detail.  I par­tic­u­larly like the Zom­bie Bunny at the end, and am con­sid­er­ing it for my next birthday.

All of the cakes there were amaz­ing and I give a warm thanks to the spon­sors who bring all these won­der­ful tal­ented peo­ple together for a great event.  I can’t wait for next year’s!

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Review: The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher

By on March 12, 2012

Title:  The Water Wars (Ama­zon, Goodreads)
Author: Cameron Stra­cher (Ama­zon, Goodreads)
Series: N/​A
Pub­lisher: Source­books Fire
Genre: Young Adult, Sci­ence Fic­tion
For­mat: Paper­back
Source: Review copy from Publisher

Syn­op­sis:

Wel­come to a future where water is more pre­cious than oil or gold…

Hun­dreds of mil­lions of peo­ple have already died, and mil­lions more will soon fall-​​victims of dis­ease, hunger, and dehy­dra­tion. It is a time of drought and war. The rivers have dried up, the polar caps have melted, and drink­able water is now in the hands of the pow­er­ful few. There are fines for wast­ing it and prison sen­tences for exceed­ing the quotas.

But Kai didn’t seem to care about any of this. He stood in the open road drink­ing water from a plas­tic cup, then spilled the remain­ing drops into the dirt. He didn’t go to school, and he trav­eled with armed guards. Kai claimed he knew a secret-​​something the gov­ern­ment is keep­ing from us…

And then he was gone. Van­ished in the mid­dle of the night. Was he kid­napped? Did he flee? Is he alive or dead? There are no clues, only ques­tions. And no one can guess the lengths to which they will go to keep him silent. We have to find him-​​and the truth-​​before it is too late for all of us.

My review:

The world of Water Wars is as dry as you would expect given the title, but the story itself is even drier.  This sounded like a great choice, one that could stand out in the ever-​​increasing num­ber of young adult dystopian nov­els.  Unfor­tu­nately, it didn’t hold up.  The char­ac­ters weren’t inter­est­ing, and even the bit of love spark­ing between Kai and Vera feels thrown in and lifeless.

The first half of the book is decent, but once you reached the half-​​way point, the adven­tures of Vera and Will as they search for Kai become cra­zier and cra­zier.  Even in a world with­out read­ily acces­si­ble drink­able water, these sce­nar­ios are just too much.  While I do think the point Stra­cher makes about con­serv­ing water and a pos­si­ble future for our world if we don’t con­serve, I think it comes across as too preachy in this book.

If you’re a big fan of the young-​​adult dystopian books that are every­where, give it a shot, you might like it more than I did.   The cover is truly beau­ti­ful, but not even that make this story worth­while in my book.

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Typography — Learning Something New

By on March 9, 2012

I did a small project based on Typog­ra­phy for Graphic Design which you can see here.  How­ever, we didn’t spend too much time dis­cussing it.  My Pho­to­shop class, how­ever, has a big project com­ing up that revolves around typog­ra­phy.  I received a request from 60 Cycle Media to review their new book, Type Mat­ters! and it couldn’t have arrived at a bet­ter time.

I’m only a few pages in, and I’ve already learned some­thing new.  The terms upper­case and low­er­case in regards to type comes from the days of metal set­ting the type.  The cases con­tain­ing the cap­i­tal let­ters was in the case above the case con­tain­ing the small let­ters.  Hence the cap­i­tals were in the upper case and the smaller let­ters were in the lower case.

I’m very intrigued by what the rest of the book will hold and how it will ben­e­fit my next project on typography.

Are any of you typog­ra­phy fans?  What’s your favorite font?

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Graphic Design: Logo Project

By on March 8, 2012

It’s almost Spring break time and the mid-​​semester exams are under my belt.  My recent project for graphic design entailed design­ing a logo for a shop using my ini­tials or my name in the title.  I chose to do a flower shop and a tat­too shop, and the tat­too shop came out bet­ter than the flower shop, so that’s what was turned in for a grade.  Here are pic­tures of both.  Part of the require­ments included reduc­ing the logo down to a busi­ness card size to ensure the graph­ics would look good at a smaller size.

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Review: Alison Wonderland by Helen Smith

By on March 7, 2012

Title:  Ali­son Won­der­land (Ama­zon, Goodreads)
Author:  Helen Smith (Ama­zon, Goodreads, Web­site)
Series: None
Pub­lisher: Ama­zon Encore
Genre: Mys­tery, Fic­tion
For­mat: Paper­back
Source: Author sent a copy for review.

Syn­op­sis:

After her hus­band leaves her for another woman, twen­tysome­thing Lon­doner Ali­son Tem­ple impul­sively applies for a job at the very P.I. firm she hired to trap her phi­lan­der­ing ex. She hopes it will be the change of scene she so des­per­ately needs to move on with her shat­tered life. At the all-​​female Fitzgerald’s Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion, she spends her days track­ing lost objects and her nights shad­ow­ing unfaith­ful hus­bands. But no mat­ter what the case, none of her clients can com­pare to the fas­ci­nat­ing char­ac­ters in her per­sonal life. There’s her boss, the estimable and tidy Mrs. Fitzger­ald; Taron, Alison’s eccen­tric best friend, who claims her mother is a witch; Jeff, her love-​​struck, poetry-​​writing neigh­bor; and—last but not least—her psy­chic post­man. Her rela­tion­ships with them all become entan­gled when she joins Taron for a road trip to the sea­side and stum­bles into a mis­ad­ven­ture of epic pro­por­tions! Clever, quirky, and infused with just a hint of magic, this humor­ous lit­er­ary novel intro­duces a mem­o­rable hero­ine strug­gling with the every­day com­plex­i­ties of mod­ern life.

My Review:

My first reac­tion when I fin­ished this book was ‘Huh?’  I wasn’t sure what I had just read or why.  The title intrigued me and if I had come across it in a store with the new cover I def­i­nitely would have picked it up myself.  How­ever, after read­ing this, I’m not sure if I should rec­om­mend it or not.

The char­ac­ters are def­i­nitely inter­est­ing.  Each char­ac­ter has its own quirks and adds to the story, but what is the story?  That seems to be the biggest ques­tion.  There is no real con­clu­sion to the story, nor is it writ­ten to lead to a sequel.  I feel as if Smith started with a great story and yet dis­tracted by ran­dom tan­gents along the way.  The ‘end’ with the sheep hybrid and the farmer who cares for it didn’t seem to fit in and feels like a gra­tu­itous ‘eww’ moment so there is some­thing mem­o­rable about the book.  Although it’s not mem­o­rable for a good reason.

I’m not sure who I would rec­om­mend this to, but if you’re expect­ing a lit­tle PI mys­tery mixed with some chick-​​lit like events, this is not the book for you.  I feel that Smith has a way with words and could write a won­der­ful book, per­haps her oth­ers are more like that, but this one just isn’t it.

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That Takes the Cake 2012: Dragon Adventure

By on February 27, 2012

This year’s That Takes the Cake show was AMAZING!  The theme was Cake-​​a-​​Lot: Knights of the Turn Table and there were so many won­der­ful entries.  I took so many pic­tures that I’m break­ing this post into a series, so keep an eye out for many more beau­ti­ful cakes.

This is prob­a­bly my favorite piece on dis­play this year.  The small fig­ure in the front cen­ter moved up and down, and the tree stump had a mov­ing door so it opened and closed reveal­ing the lizard inside.  The dragon looked almost real and I wish I knew who designed it.  The judg­ing was hap­pen­ing while I was there, so the names of the cre­ators were hidden.

 

(The images are quite large, so please click on the thumb­nail to see them larger and in more detail.)

 

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Graphic Design: Typographic ID Project

By on February 27, 2012

These were the results of my typo­graphic ID project for my graphic design course.  Some of them came out very well, while oth­ers could have been bet­ter.  I’m enjoy­ing learn­ing all about design as well as tricks and tools in Illustrator.

Aller­gies and Music made it to the final project.  Sug­ges­tions from oth­ers con­firmed my thoughts on adding some lines across the mid­dle of the soup bowl so it looks more bowl-​​ish.  What do you think?

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Graphic Design: Negative/​Positive Icons

By on February 23, 2012

My sec­ond project for the graphic design class is negative/​positive icons.  I had fun with this project, although not as much fun as the project I’m work­ing on (Logo Project) or the Typo­graphic ID project I just turned in.  I have to say I dis­like the pen tool in Illus­tra­tor, but I’m sure with prac­tice I will get bet­ter with it.

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Review: The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

By on February 21, 2012

Title: The West­ing Game (Ama­zon, Goodreads)
Author: Ellen Raskin (Ama­zon, Goodreads)
Series: None
Pub­lisher: Puf­fin
Genre: Young Adult, Mys­tery
For­mat: Paper­back
Source: Pur­chased from Half-​​Price Books

Syn­op­sis:

When an eccen­tric mil­lion­aire dies mys­te­ri­ously, 16 very unlikely peo­ple are gath­ered together for the read­ing of the will–and what a will it is.

Review:

I read this as a child and was recently reminded of it.  I sought out a good con­di­tion used copy for my col­lec­tion as it is def­i­nitely a book I want my chil­dren to read.  I’ve read this so many times, you’d think I would remem­ber who the mur­derer is and how it was done, but even with this read, some things were famil­iar, but it was still a sur­prise in the end.

This is a good mys­tery with some unique char­ac­ters and an inter­est­ing set of cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing their arrival at Sun­set Tow­ers.  It reminds me of And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie which is also an excel­lent mystery.

If you read this as a child, re-​​read it.  If you haven’t read it yet, pick it up.  I re-​​read it in an evening and it is well worth your time.

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Review: Bumped by Megan McCafferty

By on February 20, 2012

Title: Bumped (Ama­zon, Goodreads)
Author: Megan McCaf­ferty (Ama­zon, Goodreads, Web­site)
Series: Bumped
Pub­lisher: Balzer & Bray
Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian Fic­tion
For­mat: Kin­dle E-​​Book
Source: Net­Gal­ley

Syn­op­sis:

WHEN A VIRUS makes every­one over the age of eigh­teen infer­tile, would-​​be par­ents must pay teen girls to con­ceive and give birth to their chil­dren, mak­ing teens the most prized mem­bers of society.

Sixteen-​​year-​​old iden­ti­cal twins Melody and Har­mony were sep­a­rated at birth and had never met until the day Har­mony shows up on Melody’s doorstep. Until now, the twins have fol­lowed com­pletely oppo­site paths. Melody has scored an envi­able con­cep­tion con­tract with a cou­ple called the Jay­dens. While they search for the per­fect part­ner for Melody to bump with, she is fight­ing her attrac­tion to her best friend, Zen, who is way too short for the job.

Har­mony has spent her whole life in reli­gious Good­side, prepar­ing to be a wife and mother. She believes her call­ing is to con­vince Melody that preg­ging for profit is a sin. But Har­mony has secrets of her own that she is run­ning from.

When Melody is finally matched with the world-​​famous, genet­i­cally flaw­less Jon­doe, both girls’ lives are changed for­ever. A case of mis­taken iden­tity takes them on a jour­ney nei­ther could have ever imag­ined, one that makes Melody and Har­mony real­ize they have so much more than just DNA in common.

Review:

I pushed myself and man­aged to fin­ish this one, but it was def­i­nitely a strug­gle.  I can’t hon­estly rec­om­mend this book to any­one and I cer­tainly wouldn’t con­sider it good for young adults.  This coun­try faces an enor­mous prob­lem of teenage preg­nancy and unplanned babies.  Yes, I do under­stand the genre is dystopian, but I believe the mes­sage teens would come away with is more pro-​​teen preg­nancy than not.  It seems as though (Author) is head­ing in that direc­tion in the sequel to this, but I will never know as I do not plan to read it or any other books by her for that mat­ter.  The writ­ing itself isn’t hor­ri­ble, but it’s filled with made up slang and it seems the only thing on the minds of these girls is sex and who is going to get pregnant.

(Author) does a good deal of devel­op­ment and change with the two main char­ac­ters, but it’s not until the very last part of the book that you really see the dilem­mas Melody and Har­mony are fac­ing.  With the flip­ping back and forth between per­spec­tives of two twins, it would have been ben­e­fi­cial for (Author) to make their names a lit­tle less inter­change­able.  I found it hard to remem­ber which twin was nar­rat­ing and there aren’t a lot of clues in the chap­ters to help.

Over­all, the writ­ing lacked some much-​​needed devel­op­ment, the char­ac­ters needed to be more dif­fer­ent from each other, and the over­all story could have used a lit­tle more dystopian feel to it.  This was much, much too bright and bub­bly for a dystopian novel where teen preg­nancy is a must due to a virus (more back­ground on that would have helped the story as well) and the future of the human race is depen­dent on teens pro­cre­ation before they are affected by the virus.

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Review: Slipping Reality by Emily Beaver

By on February 17, 2012

Title: Slip­ping Real­ity (Ama­zon, Goodreads)
Author:  Emily Beaver (Goodreads, Web­site)
Series: None
Pub­lisher: Author­house
Genre: Young Adult
For­mat: Kin­dle E-​​Book
Source: Net­Gal­ley

Syn­op­sis:

In a time of hard­ship and heart­break, some­times, real­ity just isn’t enough. Slip­ping Real­ity is the story of fourteen-​​year-​​old Kate­lyn Emer­son, who, when faced with the glar­ing real­ity of her brother’s ill­ness, rebels against the truth by slip­ping away into the depths of her own imag­i­na­tion. There, she finds the kind of sup­port and com­fort she feels she deserves. There, she does not have to feel so alone. And yet, as Katelyn’s grasp on real­ity begins to unravel, so too does the story of a girl who grew up too fast and fell apart too soon. Emily Beaver’s debut novel is a com­ing of age story that deals with the tri­als of young grief, insight, and growth where it’s least expected.

Review:

It took me longer than planned to read this book, but some­times life gets in the way.  For Emily Beaver, and her char­ac­ter, Kate­lyn, life got in the way of her nor­mal life as well.  The story is told from a young girl’s per­spec­tive as she deals with the final­ity of her brother’s bat­tle with can­cer.  She finds escape in her imag­i­na­tion, although at times, her fic­tion is so believ­able, you begin to won­der what’s real and what’s not.  Beaver’s writ­ing is amaz­ing, but you don’t dis­cover that until you are well into the book.  The begin­ning of the book goes back and forth between real­ity and imag­i­na­tion so much that it’s hard to keep track of where you are and what’s hap­pen­ing.  I think with a lit­tle edit­ing this could have been fixed up.  Once the base­line of the story is set though, you are drawn into a world that allows Kate­lyn to deal with the anx­i­ety and issues she has related to her brother and best friend dying.

There are a lot of raw emo­tions in this book, and it’s hard not to feel for both the char­ac­ter and the author.  At the end of the book, there is a note from the author detail­ing how she came to write this story about her strug­gles with her brother’s death at a young age from can­cer.  The begin­ning of the book is clearly writ­ten by a 14 year-​​old, but you can see her writ­ing blos­som as she devel­ops the story.  I am excited to see what comes from her in the future.

I would highly rec­om­mend this book to any­one who has lost a loved one, or is deal­ing with the loss of a loved one to can­cer.  I would also rec­om­mend this to teens who are deal­ing with a loss of any kind.  I know read­ing sim­i­larly themed sto­ries as a young adult helped me through some hard times and I know I would have read this had it been released all those years ago.

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Graphic Design: Black Boxes

By on February 6, 2012

My first assign­ment for my graphic design class was the well-​​known Black Boxes.  It seems that every­one who has ever taken a graphic design course does this project.  You are given 12 words and must use four black squares to rep­re­sent these words.  From the 12 pre­lim­i­nary designs, you choose the four best and cre­ate them in Illus­tra­tor to turn in for a grade.

My final project was mounted on a pre­sen­ta­tion board and looked very good, but I didn’t remem­ber to take a pic­ture before turn­ing it in.  There­fore, you get to see a final Illus­tra­tor doc­u­ment and not the full pre­sen­ta­tion, but it will serve the purpose.

 

I’m actu­ally enjoy­ing the way this class makes me think.  Our next project is with neg­a­tive and pos­i­tive space which I’m look­ing for­ward to as well.

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OpEd: Word Choice and ‘Dumbing’ It Down

By on February 2, 2012

I’m sit­ting in my Tech­ni­cal and Busi­ness Com­mu­ni­ca­tions course and tonight’s topic focused on word usage. In par­tic­u­lar, we dis­cussed the ‘Lad­der of Abstrac­tion” and how word choice is impor­tant in your writ­ing. I under­stand the impor­tance of choos­ing the cor­rect word to con­vey my point. I under­stand that not everyone’s vocab­u­lary is as exten­sive as mine. How­ever, I strongly believe that sim­pli­fy­ing my word choice to enable another to eas­ily under­stand my point not only does a dis­ser­vice to my read­ers, but to me.

If I write so it’s under­stood by all, I can­not use words that would bet­ter express my thoughts nor can I add to my reader’s vocab­u­lary thereby improv­ing them as well. I know that some­times I need to con­sider my audi­ence a lit­tle more, espe­cially for work pur­poses when I com­mu­ni­cate across cul­tures. How­ever, for this blog, my audi­ence is com­posed of other avid or aspir­ing read­ers. I assume that they are as intrigued to dis­cover new words and their mean­ings as I am.

I also enjoy search­ing for a new word I’ve come across in my read­ing and dis­cov­er­ing the mean­ing and the usage of words. A quick search online will often take me to a site where I can learn more about a topic related to what I’m read­ing and how that par­tic­u­lar word con­veyed the mean­ing the author intended much more vividly than a more com­mon word.

I hear many things said about our edu­ca­tional sys­tem in the United States and espe­cially here in Texas. If we are sim­pli­fy­ing our words and not encour­ag­ing our youth and adults to be intel­lec­tu­als, then aren’t we con­tribut­ing to the prob­lem? A quick look at the pop­u­lar books of today and you can see a seri­ous decline in writ­ing. Take for instance the Sookie Stack­house series which in my hum­ble opin­ion isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Yes, I have read one and tried to read a sec­ond, but I couldn’t get past the juve­nile style of writ­ing. Another exam­ple that comes to mind is the Twi­light series which has spawned a fol­low­ing unlike we’ve seen but it isn’t the writ­ing that caused it. These two series do not chal­lenge the reader and can be likened to the trashy romance nov­els our moth­ers and grand­moth­ers read. What hap­pened to a chal­leng­ing lit­er­ary read?

Unless you are on the Hon­ors track in school, most stu­dents aren’t exposed to Shake­speare or Faulkner or other great lit­er­ary mas­ters. We are not grow­ing intel­lec­tu­ally nor are we chal­leng­ing our youth to think out­side the box. We are teach­ing that edu­ca­tion is merely a method of obtain­ing a bet­ter job. Through stan­dard­ized test­ing and the ever-​​increasing ‘dumb­ing down’ of our media, we are seri­ously hurt­ing our future.

To bring this to con­clu­sion, while my word choices and writ­ing will con­tinue to improve, I will not ‘dumb’ down my writ­ing. I will not choose words that are eas­ier to under­stand by all. If I write some­thing that prompts some­one to Google a word then I have added to their edu­ca­tion, their cul­tural cap­i­tal, and enriched their lives.

 

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Review: Alice: Madness Returns

By on January 31, 2012

Despite being stuck at the bot­tom of a water­fall for a very long time, I loved the orig­i­nal PC game.  I had high expec­ta­tions of the new ver­sion, and Amer­i­can McGee did not dis­ap­point.  It took me a while longer than expected to obtain the game, but once I did, there was no going back.  The first night I played for three hours straight and only stopped then because my eyes were red and blurry.  Yes, I stared at that screen with­out a break and appar­ently I didn’t blink enough.  That is the mark of a truly won­der­ful game.

The orig­i­nal PC ver­sion was quite a chal­lenge, and I found the same to be true of the Xbox 360 ver­sion for the sequel.  I like that there is a pro­gres­sion through the tools/​abilities so that it’s not over­whelm­ing try­ing to remem­ber what but­ton does what from the start.  It builds up in skill and while there were def­i­nitely some try­ing times, I never wanted to throw the con­troller down and give up.

The graph­ics as you can see in a quick search are amaz­ing as well.  In par­tic­u­lar, I loved the Veil of Tears and the Hatter’s Domain.  Both are filled with won­der­ful detail and gor­geous scenes.  Char­ac­ters that you met in the first are back in the sec­ond, and I was happy to revisit some of these intrigu­ing crea­tures.  Along with some new ones, this game has a bit of everything.

Over­all I would say the graph­ics are much more inter­est­ing than the game itself, but I believe that is because while it’s a newer spin on the story, it’s still the same story heard time and again.  The graph­ics are beau­ti­ful and at times can dis­tract you from the game as you gaze around in won­der through Alice’s eyes.  But don’t look around too long or you might find your­self lost or fac­ing a horde of mer­ci­less crea­tures out to attack you.

One last thing that I really enjoyed was the pep­per grinder weapon.  That is truly a whim­si­cal yet per­fect weapon for this mys­te­ri­ous world.

Two thumbs up for the peo­ple at EA.  You did a great job, and I would love to see you do some­thing as great as this with another child­hood story.

 

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Review: Werewolf Descent by Elizabeth J. Kolodziej

By on January 30, 2012

Title: Were­wolf Descent (Ama­zon, Goodreads)
Author: Eliz­a­beth J. Kolodziej (Ama­zon, Goodreads, Web­site)
Series: The Last Witch Series
Pub­lisher: Third Broom on the Left Press
Genre: Para­nor­mal Romance
For­mat: Paper­back
Source: Review copy pro­vided by author

Syn­op­sis:

Last witch in the world, Faith Scott, and her Irish vam­pire boyfriend Trent have just come back from fight­ing for their lives to recover the Vam­piric Blood gem and Were­wolf Moon gem. Think­ing they could finally relax and work on the romance grow­ing between them, they now meet a mys­te­ri­ous psy­chic vam­pire named Vin­cent who has his heart set on being with Faith.

Soon bizarre killings of Zou Tai’s were­wolf pack begin, with rumors of an alchemist pos­sess­ing the famed philoso­phers stone being the assailant; which, causes Faith to turn to Vin­cent for help in fig­ur­ing out why the were­wolves are being murdered.

It isn’t long before all those around them test Trent and Faith’s love, along with their abil­i­ties, once again. It is all Trent can do to keep Faith safe by his side while both go up against a pissed off alchemist, decep­tive gods, and hav­ing to res­cue the were­wolf prince; yet, after a deal with the God of Were­wolves will Trent be able to save him­self too?

Review:

An inter­est­ing sequel to Vampyre Kisses, but dis­ap­point­ing over­all.  The first book took a new twist on the vampire/​girl rela­tion­ship we’ve all become so fond of, but this one seemed is more about how Faith must choose between one of two very dif­fer­ent vam­pires or a were­wolf, or any other ran­dom male char­ac­ter thrown into the mix.  Dif­fi­cult as it is to not fall in love with Trent, through­out this sec­ond book, I found myself dis­lik­ing Faith more and more and feel­ing that he might be bet­ter off with­out her.  Some­times you can’t help who you fall in love with, and the Trent/​Faith rela­tion­ship is one of those instances.  I’m not say­ing she should be a woe-​​is-​​me, I can’t do any­thing with­out my boyfriend by my side char­ac­ters that have over­whelmed the genre, but she goes from being a good girl­friend to tak­ing what she has with Trent for granted when faced with Zou Tai and Vin­cent through­out the sec­ond book.

The twist at the end, while noble and expected of Trent, was by far the most trou­bling part of this series.  I can’t say I would have liked it more if the author had changed it around so things hap­pen dif­fer­ently, but I do know that I don’t see a rea­son to read the next in the series when it arrives.  I know should the descrip­tion even hint at a pos­si­ble change in the way things are left at the end I will pick up the third to see what hap­pens, but that puts a lot of pres­sure on the short teaser.

The writ­ing cer­tainly improved from the first book to the sec­ond and I found the plot is much less jum­bled than the first, but there was a lot going on in a short amount of time and space.  At times, I felt there could have been some action taken out and some reflec­tion or added descrip­tions of the scenes added to help pace the story better.

Despite my sad­ness on the out­come of the main plot twist, I do not regret read­ing this book and did enjoy it to some extent, how­ever, I know this is not one that I will want to re-​​read.

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OpEd: SOPA/​PIPA and Copyright Law

By on January 19, 2012

The world has been up in arms over the SOPA/​PIPA bills intro­duced into the House and Sen­ate.  I am against both, and was happy to see them pulled and the sup­port peo­ple showed for those oppos­ing it.  How­ever, I don’t know how many peo­ple noticed that while that was in the fore­front of our minds, the Supreme Court was deter­min­ing the fate of copy­right laws and many works already in the pub­lic domain.  The Supreme Court decided they should allow works by for­eign artists to move out of the pub­lic domain and back under copy­right pro­tec­tion.  Now as a blog­ger, I feel that given the results of the Golan v. Holder case, I now have to make sure that what I quote or use in my posts that was in the pub­lic domain remains in the pub­lic domain.  Oth­er­wise, I am faced with legal action and/​or fines that even small com­pa­nies can­not afford, so how could I afford them?

How did this hap­pen?  Well in part because those for this adjust­ment of copy­right law were backed by those that are also back­ing SOPA and PIPA.  The music indus­try, the movie indus­try, and large cor­po­ra­tions are all push­ing to pro­tect their money.  I’m fine with copy­right as it existed before this deci­sion.  I under­stand copy­right and agree with it.  If I cre­ate some­thing and some­one uses it with­out my per­mis­sion to make a profit, then yes, by all means I will enforce my rights as the owner of said prop­erty.  But when some­thing that has been under pub­lic domain for years past the orig­i­nal copy­right time frame sud­denly goes from being pub­lic domain back to being pro­tected, that is some­thing I do not agree with.

Edu­ca­tion in this coun­try is appalling at best and through Google, libraries, and the Guten­berg Project, many of those works that would not oth­er­wise be avail­able to stu­dents of all ages, are now read­ily avail­able.  Chang­ing the avail­abil­ity of these works so that more peo­ple can expe­ri­ence and enjoy them increases our pop­u­la­tions cul­tural cap­i­tal.  Why should we let that be taken away?  We are up in arms over the Inter­net being mon­i­tored and con­trolled, but we are let­ting the smaller issues slide by with­out so much as a sec­ond thought.

If the peo­ple have their rights taken away in a big way, peo­ple notice imme­di­ately and cause an uproar, but when it’s taken piece by piece over time, do we notice?  What can we do about it then when we become use to the things as they are?  It’s only a lit­tle thing we lost right?  Peo­ple will say it doesn’t mat­ter.  But in the end, if we aren’t aware of these lit­tle things and fight them with as much vehe­mence as we fight larger things like SOPA/​PIPA we will all end up los­ing more in the end.

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Review: The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man by Mark Hodder

By on January 17, 2012

Title: The Curi­ous Case of the Clock­work Man (Ama­zon, Goodreads)
Author: Mark Hod­der (Ama­zon, Goodreads)
Series: Bur­ton and Swin­burne
Pub­lisher: Pyr
 Genre: Sci­ence Fic­tion
For­mat: Paper­back
Source: Received review copy from publisher.

Syn­op­sis:

It is 1862, though not the 1862 it should be…

Time has been altered, and Sir Richard Fran­cis Bur­ton, the king’s agent, is one of the few peo­ple who know that the world is now careen­ing along a very dif­fer­ent course from that which Des­tiny intended.

When a clockwork-​​powered man of brass is found aban­doned in Trafal­gar Square, Bur­ton and his assis­tant, the way­ward poet Alger­non Swin­burne, find them­selves on the trail of the stolen Gar­nier Collection—black dia­monds rumored to be frag­ments of the Lemurian Eye of Naga, a mete­orite that fell to Earth in pre­his­toric times.

His inves­ti­ga­tion leads to involve­ment with the media sen­sa­tion of the age: the Tich­borne Claimant, a man who insists that he’s the long lost heir to the cursed Tich­borne estate. Mon­strous, bloated, and mono­syl­labic, he’s not the aris­to­cratic Sir Roger Tich­borne known to every­one, yet the work­ing classes come out in force to sup­port him. They are soon riot­ing through the streets of Lon­don, as mys­te­ri­ous steam wraiths incite all-​​out class warfare.

From a haunted man­sion to the Bed­lam mad­house, from South Amer­ica to Aus­tralia, from séances to a secret labyrinth, Bur­ton strug­gles with shad­owy oppo­nents and his own inner demons, meet­ing along the way the philoso­pher Her­bert Spencer, Isam­bard King­dom Brunel, Flo­rence Nightin­gale, and Charles Doyle (father of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).

Can the king’s agent expose a plot that threat­ens to rip the British Empire apart, lead­ing to an inter­na­tional con­flict the like of which the world has never seen? And what part does the clock­work man have to play?

Bur­ton and Swinburne’s sec­ond adventure—The Curi­ous Case of the Clock­work Man—is filled with eccen­tric steam-​​driven tech­nol­ogy, grotesque char­ac­ters, and a deep­en­ing mys­tery that pushes for­ward the three-​​volume story arc begun in The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack.

Syn­op­sis:

Hod­der recently won the Phillip K. Dick Award for the first in this series, The Strange Affair of Spring-​​Heeled Jack, and it is no won­der that this is a wor­thy follow-​​up to the first book.  The story con­tin­ues the tale of Sir Fran­cis Bur­ton, and his pals, as they become involved in the mys­te­ri­ous miss­ing dia­monds.  The title char­ac­ter, one Clock­work Man, starts off this adven­ture, but other than a bit part, he doesn’t play too heav­ily into the story.  This is some­thing I would have liked to see change.  How­ever, Hodder’s skill at draw­ing a reader in to the story allows you to quickly for­get that this isn’t the story you thought it was going to be.  It is all the bet­ter for that.

The events of the first book have changed things in Burton’s Eng­land when this story picks up and Hod­der del­i­cately weaves the two together into one won­der­ful story.  I can only hope the third in the series, which recently arrived on my doorstep, will round out this three­some into a won­der­fully intrigu­ing tale.  Rem­i­nis­cent of a Wilkie Collins mys­tery or a good Sher­lock Holmes story, even if you are not a huge fan of steam punk, these are books worth read­ing.  Hod­der brings the world of Bur­ton and Swin­burne to life through the use of illu­mi­nat­ing descrip­tions, and famous and infa­mous names from his­tory, which only draw you deeper and deeper into his world.

Hod­der leaves the sec­ond book at the per­fect point.  I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the third in the series, and I believe that Hodder’s abil­ity to weave the three inde­pen­dent sto­ries together so that they are at once their own book, and part of a whole makes this series one of the best I’ve read in a while.

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Review: The Restoration Game by Ken MacLeod

By on January 16, 2012


Title: The Restora­tion Game (Ama­zon, Goodreads)
Author: Ken MacLeod (Ama­zon, Goodreads, Web­site)
Series: None
Pub­lisher: Pyr
Genre: Sci­ence Fic­tion
For­mat: Paper­back
Source: Received review copy from Publisher.

Syn­op­sis:

There is no such place as Krass­nia. Lucy Stone should know — she was born there. In that tiny, trou­bled region of the for­mer Soviet Union, rev­o­lu­tion is brew­ing. Its organ­is­ers need a safe place to meet, and where bet­ter than the vir­tual spaces of an online game? Lucy, who works for a start-​​up games com­pany in Edin­burgh, has a project that almost seems made for the job: its orig­i­nal inspi­ra­tion came from The Krass­niad — an epic tale, based on Krassn­ian folk­lore, con­cocted by Lucy’s mother who stud­ied there in the 1980s. As Lucy digs up details about her birth­place to slot into the game, she finds her inter­est in the open secrets of her family’s past — and the darker secrets of Krassnia’s — has not gone unno­ticed. When a Russ­ian — Geor­gian bor­der war breaks out, Lucy has to move fast — and return to Krass­nia her­self, to the heart of the moun­tain that holds Krassnia’s dark­est and old­est secret. But noth­ing Lucy has dis­cov­ered can pos­si­bly pre­pare her for the cru­cial role she is des­tined to play in The Restora­tion Game …

Review:

I’ve heard many good things about MacLeod, and so I was inter­ested in this book before I really knew what it was about.  When it arrived, it was put on the pile, and even­tu­ally I pulled it out to read.  I can hon­estly say it was inter­est­ing, but not in the least what I was expect­ing. Mar­keted as a sci­ence fic­tion book, but for the 5% (and that’s being gen­er­ous) that is lite sci­ence fic­tion, I don’t think it should be con­sid­ered as such.  It’s more of a polit­i­cal thriller and focuses on the per­sonal jour­ney of the main char­ac­ter, Lucy.  She is taken from her safe world work­ing for a com­puter gam­ing com­pany and thrown into the world of intrigue her mother and pos­si­ble fathers are involved in.  The pos­si­ble fathers sub-​​plot is thrown in there, I think, to add some depth to the story, but mostly I found it con­fus­ing in a is he or isn’t he kind of way.

I think this story would have held more inter­est for me if it had focused more on the sci­ence fic­tion points that are brought up towards the end.  MacLeod deliv­ers some seri­ous ides to mull over in your head awhile and per­haps even to ana­lyze over a cup of cof­fee with your more ‘what if’ ana­lyt­i­cal friends, but they are thrown in almost as an after thought.  With a lit­tle more devel­op­ment of those ideas, and a lit­tle less polit­i­cal this and that, this story could have been a great story.  As it is though, I find it hard to rec­om­mend it to any­one who is not already a fan of MacLeod.  This will not stop me from try­ing another of his books, but until I read another, I don’t want to pos­si­bly turn peo­ple from him if this is not a good exam­ple of his abilities.

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Review: The Thirteen Hallows by Michael Scott and Colette Freedman

By on January 14, 2012


Title: The Thir­teen Hal­lows (Ama­zon, Goodreads, Web­site)
Authors: Michael Scott (Ama­zon, Goodreads, Web­site)
Colette Freed­man (Ama­zon, Goodreads, Web­site)
Series: The Hal­lows Saga
Pub­lisher: Tor Books
Genre: Thriller, Hor­ror, Fan­tasy
For­mat: Hard­cover
Source: JKS Com­mu­ni­ca­tions (publicist)

Syn­op­sis:

The Hal­lows. Ancient arti­facts imbued with a pri­mal and deadly power. But are they pro­tec­tors of this world, or the keys to its destruction?

A grue­some mur­der in Lon­don reveals a sin­is­ter plot to uncover a two-​​thousand-​​year-​​old secret.

For decades, the Keep­ers guarded these Hal­lows, keep­ing them safe and hid­den and apart from each other. But now the Keep­ers are being bru­tally mur­dered, their prizes stolen, the ancient objects bathed in their blood. Now, only a few remain.

With her dying breath, one of the Keep­ers con­vinces Sarah Miller, a prac­ti­cal stranger, to deliver her Hallow—a bro­ken sword with dev­as­tat­ing powers—to her Amer­i­can nephew, Owen.
The duo quickly become sus­pects in a series of mur­ders as they are chased by both the police and the sadis­tic Dark Man and his nubile mistress.

As Sarah and Owen search for the sur­viv­ing Keep­ers, they unravel the deadly secret the Keep­ers were charged to pro­tect. The mys­tery leads Sarah and Owen on a cat-​​and-​​mouse chase through Eng­land and Wales, and his­tory itself, as they dis­cover that the sword may be the only thing stand­ing between the world… and a hor­ror beyond imagining.

The Thir­teen Hal­lows is the begin­ning of a spell­bind­ing new saga, a thrilling tale of ancient magic and mod­ern times by a New York Times best­selling author and an award-​​winning playwright.

Review:

Let me start off by say­ing, if you read the 13 Tid­bits about The Thir­teen Hal­lows and didn’t run out to buy it, why not?  Hmm?  This is one that you will not only crave more, but you will want to share it with your friends as well.  I know the per­fect per­son who will be get­ting this for their birth­day if they haven’t already read it.

If you saw some­one being attached, would you step in and help or turn the other way?  A chill­ing thriller, the story starts off with a young woman help­ing an elderly woman when she is attacked by two thugs.  Unbe­knownst to her, she is now at the heart of a cen­turies old strug­gle to pro­tect the Hal­lows of Britain.  Filled with beau­ti­ful details of the Hal­lows, and mixed in with some blood and gore, this has a bit of every­thing.  Those try­ing to gather the Hal­lows together are ruth­less, and will stop at noth­ing to see their mis­sion accom­plished.  Yes, there is plenty to send shiv­ers down your spine, but for an adult thriller, I don’t think the blood­shed is overdone.

Scott’s work may be bet­ter known for his young adult Alchemist series, but he’s going to have a large adult fol­low­ing as this series takes off.  As for Freed­man, I haven’t read/​seen any of her works yet, but she’s on my list of authors to get to know.

I highly rec­om­mend this book to any adult, and older teens.  This is a series that adults who loved Harry Pot­ter will embrace for its fan­tasy and mys­tery ele­ments and one you will want every­one you know to read as well.

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