S by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst

And now for a book not on any of my lists... S by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst. This book needs a bit of explanation... since it is a pretty original type of book. The name on the cover of the slipcase is S... but inside it is a book titled Ship of Theseus by V.M. Straka. Now this book is made to look like a very old copy from a library and is stuffed full of random things like postcards, articles, letters, pictures and even a napkin that continually try and fall out of the book. Also the margins are completely filled with notes between two people who are sharing the book back and forth... so really there are three different plots going on here.

First is the text of the book Ship of Theseus by the fictional author Straka. The book tells the strange story of a man with no memory that gets picked up on a weird ghost ship and travels around the world being manipulated to kill people while searching for a woman that he may or may not love or even know. Very strange, intriguing and unique...

Next are the footnotes (and introduction) to the text that seem to reveal another story about the relationship between Straka's translator and Straka himself and a mystery about who the true identity of the author really is. This part really reminded me of Pale Fire.

Third are the handwritten notes in the margins that reveal a story about two students that pass the book back and forth as they try and solve the mystery of who the author really was. They soon start thinking that someone is after them to not solve the mystery of who Straka really was and become more and more paranoid. They also leave random stuff for each other in specific parts of the book.

I have to give the book credit for being an original type of book and I don't really see how it could ever be reprinted in any different format without loosing something. And I was really into it while I was reading it... but in the end I have to give it only a B+.  Mostly because the book brings up so many questions and doesn't answer quite a few of them... especially about what really happens off the pages between the two students. I shouldn't be surprised... after all J.J. Abrams did help create Lost.

Oh yeah...there's a Don Quixote reference too. 

Mystery Book # 1 The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - The Sign of Four (Book 2 of 9)

The second Sherlock Holmes novel, The Sign of Four, is almost as enjoyable as the first one. In this case Sherlock and Watson get involved in a mystery about a stolen treasure and of course a murder. I don't really have too much to say about it, but just like the first one, this book is a fun fast read and that I really enjoy Doyle's writing style. The only reason I'm giving it an A- is that it isn't quite as good as the first book (the back story of mystery isn't quite as weird as the whole Mormon kidnapping plot in A Study in Scarlet). I'll just add that it is interesting that Sherlock is shown to be a drug addict here... that's something that seems to not make it into most Sherlock Holmes movies or TV shows.

Horror Book # 14 - They Thirst by Robert R McCammon

First off it I'll just say it took me quite a while to get through this book... first because I moved and had to spend all of my free time doing stuff around the house and then because I became addicted to NCAA Football for XBOX and couldn't stop playing it. Originally I thought I'd finish the book before Halloween... and now here it is a week into 2014 and I finally got through to the end. Now it may seem that this would indicate that I didn't enjoy the book, but really it is just the opposite. If I'm not enjoying a book I usually force myself to get though it as fast as I can (like when I read the final Girl with the Dragon Tattoo book in two days). Every time I picked up They Thirst during my lunch break I enjoyed reading a chapter in which vampires took over Los Angeles.

The plot of They Thirst is fairly simple but also epic in scope... vampires are taking over Los Angeles (the week before Halloween) with the intent to take over the whole world. The vampires are the scary traditional type of vampire - they are burned by holy water and crucifixes, they can't go into sunlight, and they are totally vicious and bite and kill tons of people. No glittery vampires that girls will fall in love with here. There are quite a few characters (most of whom die horrible vampire related deaths) and even a whole subplot about a serial killer on the loose. And like Los Angeles, the characters are all fairly diverse... but in the end the main (human) characters are a cop, a priest, an actor, and a nerdy teenager.

As a horror book it really delivered... there are numerous scary scenes (though I guess most of them are of people being attacked by vampires) and the end really pays off and isn't disappointing at all. There are a few other books on the horror list by Robert McCammon and now I'm really looking forward to reading them. I'll have to give it an A.

Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Skottie Young

It has been awhile since I've put any new reviews and even longer since I've finished a real book. First there was the whole buying a house thing and then moving into that house, and then unpacking everything in the house and then once all that was done instead of resuming my reading I ended up buying NCAA Football 13 for XBox and am in the middle of trying to win the MAC conference championship in my third season at UMass.... So eventually I'll finish that book that I've been reading since well before Halloween. But since Christmas came and passed I used that opportunity to buy a Neil Gaiman children's book, read it quickly, and then use it as a gift to someone. I've known that some of his books venture into YA territory but I was curious how weird one of his children's books would be.

So I don't really have that much to say about Fortunately, the Milk except that it is a pretty good book for kids I guess. The premise is that a dad goes out to buy milk for his kids cereal and ends up taking a really long time so he has to make up a crazy story to tell his kids about what took him so long. His story has time travel, dinosaurs, pirates, etc. I suppose I really wouldn't recommend it if you have to actually pay for it, but if someone hands it to you and you have nothing better to do it'll pass the time. I'll give it a B.