Tuesday, November 16, 2010

October Book Report

I was sitting here, enjoying my elevenses (pumpkin spice latte and raisin bread toast with cream cheese) and thought I would do my October book report. Only 3 books, but a couple of those were real doozies. All were enjoyable.

“Wicked Appetite” by Janet Evanovich

“Naked Heat” by ‘Richard Castle’

“Peg Leg Pete” by Mel Ellis

Evanovich’s newest series introduces a new lead character, Lizzie, but includes the already familiar Diesel and Carl the Monkey. Just like the Stephanie Plum books, this one is a real hoot. Maybe even a hoot and a half (high praise from me!). The setting is Boston and has a touch of supernatural added. This book dealt with one of the Seven Deadly Sins: Gluttony. Can’t wait for the next book in the series. Sure hope it’s Lust…

The TV show Castle is one of my favorites. I love Nathan Fillion and he is just great in this show. He plays a mystery writer attached to the NY police department. Some very bright person decided to come out with a book supposedly written by Richard Castle, (Fillion’s character) and based on the characters in the TV show. This was last year. The book, “Heat Wave” was such a hit that they decided to follow it with a sequel. It helps if you’re a fan of the show and know the characters and can see the similarities between the people in the show and the people in the book. The books can be enjoyed on their own, though. I loved them both.

Mel Ellis was a sports/nature writer, but wrote other books as well. “Peg Leg Pete” was the story of an injured mallard duck that his daughters adopted. This was NOT a Disneyesque, cute little animal story. Yes, Pete recovered from his injuries and eventually went back into the wild, but Ellis was very graphic in his description of the injuries and what had to be done to help the duck. Ellis loved animals and nature, but acknowledge that nature is wild and a lot of times capricious. Not all animals are cuddly. Some cuddly animals eat other cuddly animals. Not all of them survive the winter. That’s the way it works. To get along in and with nature you have to recognize this. I really appreciated the down-to-earth approach in this book.

Friday, November 5, 2010

intangible Grail

OK--here's my other "quest" I mentioned in the last blog...

At one point in time I had so many bookmarks on the computer that I tried to transfer all of them to word and print them out, leaving only the ones I used all the time on the computer. There was one site that I had visited a couple of times that had the first two chapters of a self-published sci-fi book. Then you’d have to buy the book. At that time I really had no discretionary funds to get that book. Some time later, I went back and tried to find that bookmark. It wasn’t on the computer and it wasn’t on any of the lists I’d printed out over the years. I went through every single one of those printed bookmarks, by the way. It was such an intriguing book, and I’ve always wondered how it all turned out. I’ve tried every trick I know of to tease Google into letting me find it, to no avail. I’ve looked at so many sites that have online books, self-published books, sci-fi books, what have you. So I will give you the basic plot line and see if any bells ring.

A man does some kind of software work. He has a girlfriend he loves. He’s fairly happy. He’s hit by a bus and killed. He wakes up in a hospital-like room. He remembers “seeing” his parents and girlfriend at his funeral. He’s naked under the sheets, and when he removes them, he sees he has no true sexual features on his body. A woman comes into the room and greets him as if she knows him. She is also naked, with no true female sexual features. His memory is somewhat spotty, but he slowly realizes that he is “home”. His entire “life” as a software guy with a family and such, was only a game. As in computer game. A HUGE computer game. People from time to time would enter this game and the only way you could tell if a person was “real” or part of the program was by the color of their eyes. I don’t remember what color was real and was color meant a program person. I also don’t remember why the man was terminated from his game and made to return. He seems to be in Heaven. God is really the computer that runs everything there. I do remember one scene where the man and his companion are going somewhere, and their mode of transportation is sitting on the grass, and the grass moves them along. I really wish I could find the site and get that book! Of course, this was all many years ago. The guy who wrote the book may not be on the Net anymore. The book may not have sold and he quit writing. Or he may have sold a bazillion of them and become famous and I have NO IDEA WHAT HIS NAME IS!

So there ya go, Gladys. A pretty little puzzle, no?