Pat's Book Reviews: Robopocalypse

I'm just going to go ahead and get the comparison out of the way first. Robopocalypse is the robot uprising version of World War Z. There's no way to deny that. It seems that Daniel H. Wilson is the Max Brooks of robots. Whereas Mr. Brooks wrote The Zombie Survival Guide, a handbook for surviving a zombie apocalypse, Mr. Wilson wrote How To Survive A Robot Uprising. Typically, this would annoy me about an author as I would just assume that Wilson is copying what Max Brooks does, but just inserts robots instead of zombies. I think the reason that I'm ok with Wilson doing what he does is because, as opposed to Brooks, Wilson has a Ph.D. in robotics, so he clearly loves what he's writing about as much as Brooks does.

As I said, Robopocalypse is very similar to World War Z in that it too is written in a post war manner by a surivor who is now recounting the war and it's highlight moments. Instead of having a UN inspector compiling a report for a counsel like what happens in World War Z, Robopocalypse's narrator is a common foot soldier named Cormac Wallace who stumbles upon a detailed data core shortly after humanity defeats the robot leader who started the war. This data core contains details on how the robot uprising started and follows key figures through the ensuing war that raged across the planet. The book is supposed to be the result of Cormac transcribing what he finds in the data core to paper.

What works best about this book is that unlike World War Z, this story focuses more specifically on a smaller cast of characters, which it follows from shortly before the outbreak of the war to it's completion (or their death along the way). Having a core cast that the reader could connect with and care about added to the emotional drama and tension of the story. When a character dies in Robopocalypse, it means something. That was something World War Z lacked in my opinion. Written as if it was a committee report, it was incapable of adding a deep, personal narrative.

What doesn't work for Robopocalypse is the pacing. It's far too quickly paced in my opinion and the story keeps jumping ahead by months at a time. The book is only 340 pages or so, but it could have easily been 500 or 600 pages and I would have been totally fine with that. The characters are interesting and different, the story has a lot of possibility and the period of the war and it's build up covers almost 4 years of time. As I was reading the book I kept wishing the author would slow down and take more time with certain things. As it was, the book is fun, but it flys by at a breakneck speed. As a result, it loses out on a lot of potential depth it could have had if it had just taken the time to move a little slower.

As for the uprising itself, I very much enjoyed how it all went down. The story is set in a slightly futuristic society where household robots are commonplace and all modern cars are either computer controlled or computer assisted. When Archos, the superintelligent A.I. that begins the uprising, is created he quickly subverts these machines and uses them against humanity. It's a mark of all true science fiction to be a stern warning about mankind's reliance upon technology, and that is a point that is brought home rather brutally in Robopocalypse as literally billions of people are killed by their service robots or are run over by their own cars. It's bloody as hell, but it's a fun read.

Overall, the book makes for a fun, quick read. It lacks the level of detail that Brooks brought to World War Z, but it makes up for that with a more human approach to the storytelling. Robopocalypse is certainly no masterpiece of literature, but it does have high value as being the literary equivalent of a cheesy popcorn action flick. No wonder Stephen Speilberg is in talks to direct a film adaptation of it. This story lends itself beautifully to a silver screen translation. I just wish the book was a little longer.

Final Grade: B-

The Best Book Trailer Ever

I've known about the book Night of the Living Trekkies for a while now. I'd read about it online, I'd seen it at comic con, but at no point was I ever interested in reading it. As amusing as the concept of blending Star Trek and zombies is, I think I've just been getting to the point where I'm kind of over zombie stories. They are everywhere lately. There are zombie books, zombie comics, zombie games, zombie movies. Everywhere you turn, you'll find something about the undead. It's as if there actually has been a real, honest-to-god zombie invasion taking place in popular media.

I had thought I was was over it, but then I saw the above trailer.

Holy crap if that isn't the most brilliant bit of marketing I've ever seen, I don't know what is. I now find myself dying to read that book. If it's even half as amusing as this trailer is, it'll be totally worth reading. I also now find myself wishing that this story gets turned into a full on movie. I could only hope that the movie will be as low budget and cheesy as the trailer is. It's the campiness of the effects and the bad Star Trek costumes that really makes this trailer pure nerd gold. Can we just give the guys who made the trailer more money so they can shoot the whole thing? Please?

The Greatest Winnie The Pooh Story Ever Told

The 100 Acre Woods is typically a very peaceful place. On an average day, the most exciting thing that may happen is that Pooh could get his head stuck in a honey jar, or Tigger and Rue could go bounding around causing minor annoyances to those around them. This new story, however, does not take place on an average day.

Alien Vs Pooh is the story of what happens when the denziens of the 100 acre woods wake up one morning to find a batch of facehugger eggs in their midst. What happens from their is pure storytelling greatness. The art style of the book is classic pooh too, which only adds to the appeal of this rather amazing web comic.

Be sure to check out the whole story HERE. There's even some surprise guests along the way too. It's available to be read in three different sizes. I highly suggest the Large size, to fully enjoy the details of the art.

I'm not sure who made this, but whoever they are, they're geniuses in my book.

Abraham Lincoln Is A Bad Motherfu... Shut Yo Mouth!!!

Hey Man, I'm just talking about Lincoln. You know? Our 16th President. The man was many things. A freer of slaves, a leader during troubled times, a lover of beards and tall hats. But did you also know he could give Buffy a run for her money?

That's right people, Abe Lincoln hunted the children of the night. Vampires. We're not talking about the wussified sparkling kind either who mope around and date teenagers. No, we're talking about killers. Beasts disguised as gentlemen of the day. They're a blight on this world, and Honest Abe could honestly kick their asses when he needed to.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is a book that will be coming out soon. It was written by Seth Grahame-Smith, the same guy who gave us the ever amazing Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and if his past work is anything to go on then this book will be a must read. Above is a trailer for the book that the publisher Quirk Classics has put together, and it's nothing short of amazing. Witness the glory as Lincoln takes down a vampire John Wilkes Booth.

I can only hope one thing after watching it myself, and that is that the actor who plays Lincoln in this trailer will be cast to play him again in the full length feature film that is sure to be adapted from this in a few years time. That guy is bonafide bad ass!!!

Oh, and speaking of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, there's a prequel coming out for it called Dawn of the Dreadfuls, and it too has a completely rad trailer for it. Check it out:



Seriously, why doesn't Quirk Classics just expand out and start making low budget horror films too? I'd watch the shit out of that if it was a full length film. It's beautiful. At the very least, you know that the films they made would easily be ten times better than any of those SyFy channel Original movies.

Wes' Book Review - Twilight: Breaking Dawn

 

Okay, here we go, last book in the series.

 

Breaking Dawn picks up just a few short days away from Bella's wedding to Edward. This is a fairly uneventful part of the book designed no doubt to drag out every smooshy feeling that can be contrived from a female heart. Jacob, who has been missing since the end of the last book, even comes back to town to see Bella on her wedding day. The only thing of note that occurs is that Jacob finds out that Bella and Edward plan on attempting to have sex before she is changed into a vampire. Convinced Bella will die in the process Jacob attempts to start a fight with Edward at his wedding, but is soon stopped by the rest of his pack of wolves. Immediately after the wedding Bella is swept off by Edward to an island owned by the Cullens off the coast of Brazil.

 

Isle Esme (a gift from Carlisle to his wife) is where the first attempt at coitus takes place. Bella wakes up the next morning feeling better than she ever had in her life, on the other hand, Edward is ashamed of the bruises he seemed to have left all over Bella's body. Edward refuses to try again, in spite of Bella's many attempts after that. One night Bella wakes up from a nightmare crying and attacks Edward (sexually) unaware, and makes it through the event without any bruises. From there on out it's a complete fuck fest. Prompting Bella to reconsider being changed into a vampire. If Bella were to be changed, then all she would care for is blood, the lust for it overtaking her every thought, and she couldn't get her sex on like she was currently. Once again I ask; are you sure you want to be a vampire you crazy fucking dame? First it's "oh I love Jacob AND Edward", now it's "I don't want to be a vampire just yet, I'm really enjoying the cock". Edward should punt this bitch into the ocean and fuck the vampires from Alaska post haste. Also once you get passed the wedding and the honeymoon, you realize that you now know how Meyer wants (wanted? is this bitch married?) her wedding and honeymoon to go down.

 

Quickly something becomes amiss as Bella has the early onset of morning sickness and a visible preggo belly. Edward calls Carlisle, who confirms that he thinks that Bella could possibly be with child. Edward and Bella flee back to Forks while Bella seems to grow ever larger by the minute. Edward, Carlisle, and anyone else with common sense, want to get the beast out of her before it can kill her, so Bella calls Rosalie looking for a bodyguard for when she gets back to Forks to protect her and the baby.

 

Then for some unknown reason Meyer decides to mix it up with the formatting of her narrative and switches to telling the story from the point of view of Jacob. Okay, vampire baby I'll give you. It happened in Angel, and it led to the shittiest story lines in the show based on Conner, the worst character to grace a television show since Dawn. I'll let it fucking slide. Switching narrative points is a lousy trick, and you're a hack writer Meyer.

 

There's some inconsequential attempt at getting Bella to have an abortion and then attempt to have a child that won't be born by eating it's way out her stomach like the babies in Alien by Jacob, Bella doesn't go for it.  Bella is determined to have THIS baby, though it's easy to see that it's killing her.

 

So Jacob's pack find out about Bella's pregnancy, and though they're completely cool with Bella becoming a vampire, her having a vampire child is completely beyond them and they decide they have to go kill Bella. Jacob, who wanted to kill everything in sight when he found out that Bella was going to be changed into a vampire refuses to kill Bella to rid them of the baby. Jacob uses his heritage as the official and actual alpha of the pack to leave the group and set off on his own to basically become the Cullen's lapdog.  One of the wolves Seth, goes with him, followed eventually by Seth's sister and scorned woman from earlier in the series, Leah. With Seth Leah, and Jacob protecting the Cullens, the pack doesn't have the nerve to go kill Bella.

 

Eventually the realization occurs that it isn't that the baby is killing Bella, just that it needs blood, and is draining Bella slowly. so starts Bella on her first vampiric act, a steady diet of human blood, as bought with enormous fortune of the Cullens and Carlisle's medical connections. Once again prompting the question, why not just live on donated blood? Isn't that MORE humane that running into the woods every so often to slaughter some innocent animals with your teeth? Maybe I just know too many vegans.

 

Now that Bella was in perfect health again, and so was her unborn infant, the infant uses it's new strength to start breaking her ribs from the inside. Damned if you do, damned if you don't I guess.

 

Slowly but surely the Cullens and Jacob become a tight knit little group of oddities. Even the spats between Rosalie and Jacob, who dislike each other vehemently, seem more sibling like. Even though all of this requires Jacob to be around Bella nearly twenty four hours a day, and takes it's obvious emotional toll on him. At this point you're just kind of waiting for Jacob to imprint on something and get it over with, and actually it seems, Jacob is also. Just when Jacob seems to get most fed with the entire situation Bella vomits a geyser of blood, which I assume is supposed to be the half vampire baby being born to a human version of the water breaking.

 

What follows is the most violently and gory scene in the entire series. Bella's stomach is torn apart leaving only a gaping hole where the lower part of her torso used to be and her back is broken by the infant in the process. Awesome. Bella's heart stops in the process and Edward injects a syringe filled with his own vampire venom directly into her heart, then proceeds to give her CPR to push the venom through her system. Jacob is convinced that Bella is dead but feels strangely compelled to stay near the infant in spite of his gut instinct to run far away. Jacob is pissed at this baby girl, and just when he's about to tear the baby apart, his last act as a living person as he would almost instantly be murdered by the Cullens, Stephanie Meyer pisses right into my fucking eyeballs while laughing what I can only assume is a witches cackle. Jacob imprints on the fucking baby. Fuck this book, seriously.

 

By the way, the babies name is Renesmee, a mix between Renee (her mother's name, and Esme (Edwards "mother's" name). I'll be calling her by the nickname Jacob gives her in the book though, Nessie, as it conjurs images of the Loch Ness Monster and not terrible made up names that idiots are probably going to start using on actual children in real life soon.

 

Hey back to Bella's point of view. Awesome.

 

Bella lays on the bed completely motionless for three days as she burns in agony from the vampire venom in her system changing her. Bella eventually wakes up a vampire (finally) and takes to it like a fish to water. She feels the thirst, but can seem to control her emotions much better than anyone has ever planned. Out hunting with Edward, Bella smells some hikers and takes off after them on pure instinct. While being chased by Edward, Bella turns to fight him off so she can go drink the hikers, but regains her composure and then flees in the opposite direction of the hikers. Something completely unheard of for a newborn vampire. Of course this bitch wouldn't kill anyone, god for-fucking-bid anything cool happen. We get details as told from Bella's point of view of course about the heightened senses. Smell, sight, and hearing all honed to Wolverine like abilities, and Superman style strength and invulnerability. All of the awesome for Bella and none of the entertaining drawbacks. Bella has enough control to even hold her own daughter without feeling the thirst.

 

We find out that Nessie has her own ability, to touch anyone and convey her thoughts to them, which is sort of the opposite of what Bella can do by blocking all other abilities out her head. Nessie, I forgot to mention grows at an accelerated rate. even the pregnancy lasted only a few weeks, maybe a month, I don't really recall any actual numbers being thrown around, just that it was FAST. Bella is scared Nessie will grow old and die quickly because of this, but I'm sure you're not worried as I wasn't either because it seems nothing ever terrible and permanent ever seems to happen to Bella ever.

 

Jacob overhears that the Cullens might move across the country and decides to out himself as a wolf to Charlie. This is so that Charlie would know that the world he lived in was filled with magic, and anomalies and the sort and would be prepared to come see Bella, who he has been told is sick in bed at the CDC in Atlanta. Charlie takes the whole event with the attitude that he doesn't REALLY want to know more than he absolutely has to and that as long as Bella is happy, he is okay. Bella doesn't even have to out herself as a vampire to Charlie in the end, even if being near him was probably supposed to be incredibly dangerous as he was the first human Bella had seen in person since becoming a vampire.One of Bella's super vampire traits, evidently super self control.

 

So Jacob, Bella, and Nessie went out hunting one afternoon, and get spotted by Irina, a vampire who had come to apologize to the Cullens about something that escapes my memory, and honestly isn't important at this juncture. Irina sees Nessie, and is off like shot to tell the Volturi on Bella. I guess another thing the Volturi are strictly against is infant and child vampires. This shit finally has some hope of getting really interesting. The Cullens know what all this means instantly and they begin whipping an army of vampires together hopefully big enough, not to stop the volturi, but to at least get them to hesitate long enough to hear that Nessie isn't a turned vampire, but a freak of nature, and not as dangerous as the children vampires of before who wreaked enough havoc to be outlawed. Alice grabs Jasper and hightails it out of there, leaving the Cullens convinced they had been abandoned by them.

 

So the Cullens get their friends together from every corner of the earth. A lot of whom have their own special vampire abilities. The Vampires who come are mostly won over by the idea that Carlisle isn't actually looking to pick a fight with the volturi, just attempt to get them to listen, and by Nessie using her ability to show them her thoughts and prove that she is of no harm, isn't a full vampire, and thus isn't the product of any broken volturi laws. The Cullens are sure that it isn't really what the volturi are out for anyways, but that the mental abilities of Edward, Alice, and even Bella now are more what they're looking to gain by killing the rest of the Cullen family.

 

Bella learns that as a vampire her ability to block out others mental attacks can be projected onto others to protect them now that she has heightened vampire abilities, this comes in handy later.

 

So the fateful day that Alice had foreseen arrived and the Cullens and their army of witnesses met with the volturi and their own collection of vampire witnesses from all over in a field. If you're thinking what I'm thinking, then we both thought wrong, because these motherfuckers don't even so much as get into a sissy slap fight. God fucking damnit. What happens is Bella learns that not only can she project to proect against others mental attacks, but that she can do so over a very large range over very specific targets. It works out later when the volturis strong mentalist assault from Jane (makes you feel pain) and another who's name escapes me  that can make your senses  fail you, including sight.

 

There's several exchanges between Aro and Edward, Carlisle, and a few vampires who came to bare witness (but secretly agreed to fight alongside Carlisle if that's what it came down to). The volturi discover the truth of situation, and in spite of that want to destroy the Cullen coven anyways to take Edward and Bella as their prizes. there's a great little speech at one point where an Egyptian vampire by the name on Benjamin points out that even though the volturi have seen that the child is no harm to their way of life the volturi press the issue and that it will lead to them all be subjugated by the Italian coven. A very serious accusation to make amongst vampire who all consider themselves above any sort of ruling laws that aren't specifically designed to hide them and their way of life.
Just in the nick of time,  Alice arrives back with Nahuel, another half-breed vampire human! Seeing that a half breed vampire human could grow to maturity (which takes about seven years at the accelerated rate pf halfbreed growth Jacob will be glad to know, but my lunch that I vomited up when I thought about Jacob being in love with a baby wasn't) without ever exposing the vampires or their way of life pretty much clenches the vote up .

 

Pressed into such a hard corner, having to fight what is essentially a fair fight after ages of slaughtering all they came across, the volturi take their votes on how to deal with the situation and decide that they are going to leave the Cullen clan alone. That's it, they just leave. Hundreds of vampires and wolves all just standing around in a field waiting for one cool ass epic battle to break out and they all just walk away. The volturi go down to South America where Nahuel is from to find his creator and deal with him for having purposefully created half-breeds, but we don't even get see them murder him. I mean Irina gets it at one point for bearing false witness against the Cullens, but with armies ready to go, this was a painfully disappointing ending. This was like Battlestar Galactica bad as far as endings go. Everyone lives happily ever after? No one gets killed? What the FUCK. When I read the volturi were just leaving you'll have to imagine me yelling "MEYER!" like I was in Wrath of Kahn.

 

Want to know what I think?

 

Not that you couldn't already tell but I'm pissed. I defended you and your books Meyer. Yes, I hate them, but I hate them for very much more validated reasons than the "vampires don't sparkle" army. I gave them a chance, and I can say time and time again Meyer chose the easiest possible path through her stories. A lot of what was going to happen was painfully obvious long before it ever actually occurred (see; Jacob imprinting on a goddamn newborn). Long before it ever happened my little sister received a text saying "if Jacob imprints on that baby I'm going to shove this book down my own throat and choke myself to death".

 

Not killing any of the central characters? Really? Even Rowling had the cajones to off some of the most beloved characters in her Harry Potter series. Because Rowling knew, like all good writers, if you want to take your story from good to legendary, you gotta kill some people the fans love. Don't believe me? Ask any Joss Whedon fan. End of fucking story. Anya was the best character in Buffy and she got the axe. Wash, log in the chest. Penny, piece of death ray to the torso. It's just how good storytelling works. I went into this book expecting someone to go down. Maybe Bella would eat her own father, thus making the book an instant classic in my heart. Maybe Rosalie would die protecting Bella's child and the two would part being closer than Bella ever thought was possible. Jasper dies protecting Alice. Edward Cullen bites it protecting the child and Jacob marries vampire Bella and they live with the Cullens forever. ALL of these possible plot lines are a million times cooler than anything that actually happened in this fucking book. Why? I have no idea, maybe Meyer is more scared of someone dieing than Bella was before she was changed into a vampire. For whatever reason, fuck you Meyer.

 

I thought I was grossed out when the wolf imprinted on the two year old, but you proved me dead wrong, it could evidently get much worse. So thank you again from the bottom of my colon for making Jacob imprint on Nessie, it was not only painfully predictable storytelling on your part, but deeply disturbing. Even more so when you take into account that Meyer is Mormon and their history of marrying 13 year old girls to 35 year old men. Maybe you can make polygamy a central point in the next book you write.

 

Did I mention I was angry about the ending. No battle? None? Is there like an alternate ending version of this book I can buy where instead of drinking too much potion and sleeping too long, Ash kills a deadite in the middle of a crowded S-mart? I'll be glad to rewrite this review if you rewrite the last four chapters of that hellish book Meyer.

 

Also, lastly, STOP STARTING EVERY FUCKING SENTENCE WITH A CONJUNCTION!!! IT'S JUST BAD GRAMMAR!!! It was REALLY starting to grate on my nerves. That means sentences don't start with the following words; but, and, also etc etc.  "But then Alice shows up" works just as well as "then Alice shows up" without the easily corrected grammatical error you hack writer!

Serenity Flies Again On The Printed Page

 

Hey all you Browncoats out there, I've got some good news for you.  Even though Joss Whedon's Firefly may be dead as a TV show and movie franchise, the adventures of Captain Malcolm Reynolds and his crew aren't over just yet.  It has been announced that an officially licensed series of short stories about the folks from Firefly will be released soon by Titan Books, and best of all in my opinion is the fact that the amazingly talented sci-fi writer Jane Espenson will be writing one of the stories.

 

From the Sci-Fi Wire:

 

Writer/producer Jane Espenson—who wrote one episode of the Fox sci-fi series [Shindig] but is a longtime friend and colleague of Whedon's going back to her days on Buffy the Vampire Slayer—told us that she will be writing one of the stories, centering on the characters of Kaylee and Wash (obviously set in a time period before the events of the movie Serenity).

 

"I'm writing a short story set in the Firefly universe that someone's putting together," Espenson said in an interview on Sunday in Pasadena, Calif., where she was promoting her upcoming Syfy series Caprica. "Titan Books is putting together a collection written by various of the Firefly writers. But [it's a] very short story, ... 2,000 words."

 

She added: "Oh, I just came up with a very clever little short story that involves Kaylee and Wash, two characters that we haven't seen together that much."

 

I've actually been wondering for a while now why we haven't already seen a book series about the Firefly universe.  All of the other popular sci-fi properties I can think of have their own book series. Just wander into the sci-fi/fantasy section of any bookstore and you'll find tons of books for franchises like Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Battlestar Galactica and even Doctor Who.  This just begs the question, where the hell have our Firefly books been?  Sure, there have been some comic book mini-series runs here and there, but what about full-on novels? 

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that we are getting a collection of short stories here, but why hasn't a full length book about Firefly been commissioned?  You just know that fanboys like myself would scoop that thing up in a heartbeat.  What happened after the events of Serenity?  How does Zoe handle Wash's death?  How well adjusted does River become after finally getting her issues over the whole Miranda thing resolved?  What happens to the Reavers after their major clash with the Alliance?  All of these questions would make for some great books, and we loyal Browncoats would buy these books in droves.  Seriously Mr. Whedon, why hasn't this been done yet?

 

Maybe these short stories are just their way of testing the waters for a book series?  If so, be sure to buy this set when it comes out.  Maybe if it sells well we'll finally get the full story continuation that Firefly fans have been craving for years.

Pat's Book Review - Deathtroopers

 

When Deathtroopers was first announced back in February, I thought it was a joke at first.  A Star Wars horror book?  No way!  Star Wars has always been a very PG universe.  That means no explicit sex and no major blood and gore.  Did you ever notice how everyone ever shot with a Blaster or sliced in half with a Lightsaber never bleeds?  That's what I'm talking about.  PG Universe.  So the idea of a dark and disturbing horror story set in the Star Wars universe just didn't seem like a realistic possibility to me.  When I saw the cover of the book (pictured above), I thought it was some sort of prank.  And when I found out the book was supposed to be about zombies, I was even more convinced it was a joke.

 

But color me suprised, it was real.  Lucasfilm had agreed to allow a known horror writer named Joe Schreiber to write a full-on R rated horror story set in the Star Wars universe.  Being the fan of both Star Wars and zombies that I am, you can imagine that I was pretty excited.  I've spent the last few months eagerly awating October when I would get to read a tale that blended two of my favorite genres into one.  Well, that time has finally come.  The book came out a few weeks ago, I have finally read it, and I am here to share my opinions.

 

Before we get going though, I am going to throw out a MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING here.  I'm not going to reveal every single plot point in the story, but there is definitely one major suprise in the book that I am going to discuss as it pertains directly to some of my thoughts and feelings about the book.  So consider yourself warned.  Ok, here we go.

 

Let's begin with a brief summary of the plot set up, shall we?  Death Troopers is a story that takes place about a year before the events of Episode IV:  A New Hope.  The Empire is firmly in charge of the galaxy, the rebellion has started up and is going strong, Alderaan is still around and the name Luke Skywalker hasn't been heard of by anyone other than some punk kids on Tattooine.  We begin aboard an Imperial prison barge called The Purge as it is flying out to a remote penal colony to drop off a bunch of prisoners.  On board along with hundreds of other prisoners are two teenage boys named Kale and Trig Longo.  They and their father had been arrested for being petty grifters a few weeks back.  Their father had been killed on board the Purge a week or so earlier by a prison guard named Jareth Sartoris, and now the boys had been left to fend for themselves. 

 

They run afoul of a prison gang pretty quickly and are very much worried for their lives when the day-in and day-out routines aboard the prison barge are suddenly interrupted by a major mechanical failure of the ship's engines.  While still a long ways away from the prison colony, the ship drops out of hyperspace in the middle of nowhere.  The Imperial officers running the ship determine that their engines are completely shot as well as the long distance communications systems.  With no ability to go anywhere or call for help, the Purge finds itself in a very desperate state.  Luckily for them though, their sensors are picking up an Imperial Star Destroyer close by. 

 

Something's strange though.  The Star Destroyer isn't responding to any of their hails.  The ship's systems are running, but only a dozen or so life signs are registered on board the massive craft which typically has a crew of 10,000.  Not knowing what else to do though, the Purge's captain orders two teams to board the Star Destroyer to try to find out what's happing over there and to possibly salvage repair parts for their own engines.  Jareth Sartoris ordered to command the teams. 

 

On board the Star Destroyer, no signs of life are found.  It's as if all of the ship's crew had just up and vanished.  Jareth's teams split up and go searching for parts.  A little while later, after some searching, his engineers find the parts they need to fix the Purge's engines.  They call the second team but get no response.  Figuring they must have already gone back to the Purge, Sartoris and his team return to the ship as well.  On the way back down to their ship though, something strange starts happening.  Two or three members of his team start showing severe signs of an infection.  They begin coughing and vomiting and suffering from seizures. 

 

Once back aboard the Purge, the team is taken to the medical bay where the chief medical officer, a woman by the name of Zahara Cody, attempts to treat them.  The disease is like nothing she's ever seen though, and soon enough she realizes that it has already spread throught the entire prison barge.  The disease is lethal too.  Within hours, over 99% of the ship's crew are dead.  The few survivors must have some natural immunity to the disease. 

 

It's here that the story really gets going.  The disease is obviously what creates the zombie army our survivors have to deal with.  At this point, the only people left alive are Dr. Cody, Kale and Trig , Officer Sartoris, and two unknown prisoners who had been holed up in solitary confinement this whole time.  More on those two in a bit though.  As a setup for the story, I was really hooked into how things were going.  One of my favorite things in a horror story is watching as the situation goes from normal to all sorts of messed up, and the author did a great job here.  The prison barge was already a crappy place to be stuck on at the beginning of the book, but as the disease spreads it goes from being crappy to being a living hell hole.  Dead bodies are everywhere, they've covered the walls and floors of the ship with vomit and blood and god knows what else from the disease.  The stink of death is everywhere aboard the Purge. 

 

As horror stories go, that's a pretty sweet setting.  I was really looking forward to seeing the dead stat to rise, and how our main characters would deal with them.  I was also really enjoying the fact that I was getting to read a Star Wars book that didn't have any major characters from the movie in it.  One of my biggest pet peeves about Star Wars books is the fact that the same characters are used over and over and over again.  Exactly how many times do Han, Luke and Leia have to save the galaxy anyways?  20?  30?  100?  In a story telling setting that is literally the size of a galaxy, why do we always have to go back to the same five people time and time again to save everyone?  Are you telling me that no one else is available to save the day for once?

 

My favorite Star Wars books by far have always been the X-Wing series by Michael Stackpole.  Aside from my love of X-Wings in general, this is because the majority of those books are about new characters we've never seen before.  Sure, some minor characters from the films like Wedge Antilles are there in force and you'll get the occasional one or two page cameo by Luke, but the vast majority of those stories were about characters who had never appeared in a movie.  That's a rarity in Star Wars books, and I was absolutely loving that this book was only featuring characters I'd never heard of before.  It was new people doing new stuff.  I was all for it.  Besides, how could you possibly include any of the major existing characters into a zombie story anyways.  That would be insane, right?

 

As I said, I was really enjoying the book's set up and was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the zombies when the ship's Dr. decides to head down to solitary confinement to try to save the two unknown prisoners that are down there.  This too had me excited as I had no idea who was down there and I was looking forward to more new characters to read about.  Soon enough, Dr. Cody gets down to solitary and opens the cells.  And then it happens.  On page 96 of the book, everything that I had been loving about the story so far entirely goes away.  On page 96, what was obviously meant to be a cool suprise for Star Wars fans takes place and not one, but two major characters from Star Wars lore step out of their cells and into this story that they really have no right being in.  On page 96 he swaggers out of his cell with a lop-sided grin a mile wide.

 

Han Fucking Solo.

 

Yeah, that's right, Han Solo and Chewie just happen to be prisoners aboard the ship that is about two seconds away from being introduced to a full on zombie apocalypse.  I'm pretty sure my jaw dropped when this happened.  I was shocked, and not in a good way.  I was not happy to see this development, no not at all.  I was angry.  Why the hell would you include Han Solo and Chewie into a story of this nature?  They were a total distraction to what the focus of the story should have been, the zombies and the survivors.  Han and Chewie are a known element.  We all know that there's no chance in hell that either of these two are going to die from a zombie bite, so any potential dramatic tension regarding them is completely non-existant.  It's like watching a horror film after being told in the opening credits who's going to live and who's going to die.  It sort of defeats the point.

 

The enjoyment of a good zombie story is getting to find out who lives and who dies.  Zombie stories are survival tales where we see a rag tag group of people who are forced to work together, and you know that most of them aren't going to make it.  Having Han and Chewie in there just ruined everything.  It was pretty obvious at that point who our survivors would be, and who was about to become zombie bait.  Who do you think will survive a zombie apocalypse, Han Solo or some random Imperial guard named Sartoris?  That's almost like asking who would die in a Star Trek away party, Kirk, Spock, McCoy or Ensign "No First Name" Johnson?

 

It's not that I don't like Han Solo.  I fucking love Han Solo and Chewbacca.  They (along with Lando) were my favorite characters from the original trilogy.  I love reading about them.  I've read tons of books about them.  However, I did not want to read about them here.  They would have been the last people I would have wanted to see in this story.  You can imagine then that I was highly disappointed at this point.  The book I had been waiting months for had just been ruined, but I was determined to try to enjoy the rest of it.  After all, it is a zombie book and I hadn't even gotten to the zombies yet.  I couldn't quit now.  So, pushing aside the bitter taste in my mouth, I plunged on.

 

I will admit, the rest of the book is decently entertaining.  It's not a great book by any means.  There's nothing mind blowing about it, but it definitely has some solid strengths going for it.  Author Joe Schreiber is a very talented horror writer.  He did an excellent job of making the story every bit as gory and gruesome and creepy as it should have been.  Never before in a Star Wars book have I read lurid details about peope's limbs being severed or intestines falling out.  Never have I ever read detailed descriptions about what happens to someone who takes a blaster shot to the face (it's really not pretty).  As a writer, Schreiber excels at conveying the dark and bloody world of Death Troopers.  This definitely isn't your typical Star Wars book.  This is something far uglier, and I mean that in the best way possible.

 

The book is also rather short (only 234 pages or so), and it's paced very well.  It's a quick and easy read and at no point did I feel that the story felt bogged down or slow.  The ending is a little abrupt though and felt a little anti-climatic.  I was expecting some big action sequence near the end where they blew up the Star Destroyer or something, but that never really happened.  On the plus side though, the story is entirely self contained.  No prior knowledge of Star Wars other than the movies is required to enjoy this book.  Even if you've never read a Star Wars book before, you can still pick this up and be completely entertained.  I liked that a lot as most Star Wars books these days are heavily steeped in expanded universe crap to the point where if you haven't read every other Star Wars book first, you'll have no idea what's going on.

 

Overall, the book is fun.  It's entertaining and will definitely appeal to both fans of Star Wars or zombies.  However, it's a bit short and the inclusion of Han and Chewie was a really poor decision in my opinion.  Maybe it's just me, but I think it's entirely possible to have a good Star Wars book that doesn't feature any characters from the film at all.  I think Death Troopers would have been better had Han and Chewie not been it it.

 

Final Grade:  3 Stars out of 5

Wes' Book Review - Twilight: Eclipse

 

When we last left Bella, Jacob Black had just simultaneously thrown a wrench in her plans to become a Vampire and gotten her grounded for a really long time by revealing ton her father that she owned a motorcycle (go team Jacob!).  What's a girl to do? I guess plan on fleeing as soon as you're graduated to Alaska where you will pretend to be attending college, but actually have your boyfriend, Edward, attend to you as to make sure you don't kill anyone in your fresh vampire blood lust. While this is going on we hear of an every rising body count in nearby Seattle (dead people!? I'm listening), which not only Charlie Swan (as a police officer) is interested in, but something the Cullen's have been keeping an eye on. Because much like a Harry Potter book, there's no such thing as a coincidence.

 

Bella is soon relieved of her punishment of being grounded, on the stipulation she tries to spend more time with people other than her vampire boyfriend. Mostly what her father means is, Jacob Black, who he prefers far over Edward (and I did too, way to ruin the one good character, but I'm getting ahead of myself here). Edward uses the new found freedom to bring up that Carlisle and Esme (his "parents") had given Bella tickets to visit her mother Renee in Jacksonville Florida for her birthday. So Bella and Edward visit Florida, only for her mother Renee to say something along the lines of "wow you two really are inseparable and he seems to always be protecting you". Bella writes her mother off by making her feel crazy, which I guess is what happens when you used to seem like a pretty decent girl, and somehow in the course of three books became kind of conniving.

 

Bella and Edward return and Jacob has been calling all kinds panicked after ignoring Bella's calls before she left for Florida. Being inept, Bella doesn't realize that her trip away could have meant she was changed into a vampire, thus starting an all out war between the Cullens and the werewolves. Jacob even goes to Bella's school to make sure she hasn't been changed yet and there's a little stand-off between Jacob and Edward, sadly though, neither bothers to entertain ME by tearing the others arms off a'la Chewbacca (be patient Wes, it'll come eventually). So Jacob tells Bella that Victoria (the red haired Vampire that's hunting Bella for revenge against Edward for her fallen love James, a vampire who hunted Bella in the first book, and was killed by the Cullens) came back into town looking for her, and that was the reason Edward actually took her to Florida.

 

Since Alice can see the future (a skill that seems to get a little more powerful in each book as to the suit the storyline) Bella decides after getting the day off from work unexpectedly to race down to LaPush to see Jacob before Edward can stop her. Edward's still apprehensive about letting Bella hang out with werewolves because they might accidentally kill her, even if the viewpoint is only slightly more hypocritical than when Bella assumed the werewolves were the ones killing people in New Moon. Bella fills Jacob in on the events that took place in Italy and Jacob fills Bella in on the entire story of when Victoria was in town and how it almost came down to a fight between Cullens and the werewolves because there might have been some territory crossing. Jacob tells Bella about imprinting, which I've heard about in groundhogs before (thank you Margo Handwerker), but evidently werewolves do also. What happens is once they lay eyes on someone, they fall instantly in love with that person and will do anything to be around them, to protect them, and be whatever it is they need. It had already happened to members of the werewolf pack, once between the leader Sam and his girlfriends cousin (ouchy!), another time between one of the werewolves and a girl that sat next to him in school, and thirdly on a two year old girl.

 

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you Stephenie Meyer? I don't care about the character, I'm concerned about you, for thinking about that. Lets not dwell because that might be an entire article to itself just there, but I don't care about the myth here, that's just icky.

 

Things are heating up, and when Edward leaves town to kill some big game and drink it's blood, he leaves Bella in the care of Alice, against Bella's will, because all she wants to do is go hang out with werewolves again. Though this does give Rosalie the chance to tell her story about how she became a vampire. An upper middle class potential trophy wife to be, Rosalie is the prettiest of the Cullens. Basically she becomes betrothed to an asshole without knowing it, is attacked by her drunken fiance who left her to die in the snow. Carlisle felt bad for the pretty frostbitten girl and turned her. There's even a pretty cool, albeit overly dramatic, story about her getting her revenge on the fiance. Complete with Rosalie wearing the wedding-dress-to-be while murdering him. You know, the kind of stuff these books could use heaping more spoonfuls of. Rosalie does all of this though to give Bella something to chew on as per what she would be giving up by becoming a vampire, the simple things like having kids and, well, that's pretty much about it.

 

After school, Jacob uses Alice's gap in her vision of the future surrounding werewolves to sneak up and steal Bella away to the reservation again. Though the visit doesn't last long as Jacob tells Bella he would rather her be dead than turned into a vampire. Smooth. Though this last trip to LaPush is what makes Edward realize he's just bigoted against werewolves and he really isn't ever going to be able to stop Bella from seeing Jacob anyways (plus we all know what happens to teenage girls when you tell them to not do something). Bella returns from being held captive/being by watched by Alice to a note from her dad that Jacob had called to apologize and that she's missing things from her room. Edward comes into her room and smells a vampire, but it's not Victoria (thank GAWD, this story needed more vampires badly). Bella of course forgives Jacob and calls to accept his apology. Edward asks for the phone so he can inform the werewolves to be on the lookout for vampires who aren't ginger harbingers of Isabella Swan death. The conversation leads to Edward and Jacob starting to get the werewolves and the Cullen family to work together.

 

 

So Bella goes to the reservation to hang out with the pack for a night while they have a bonfire, tell some Quileute legends about the origins of their people, and how it was when the first vampires came to the northwest. Jacob is the great great great (I'm not sure how many greats) grandson of the first werewolf, Taha Aki. Evidently Taha lived long enough to have had three wives and this third wife, to protect him and their sons during a fight he was losing with a vampire, stabbed herself in the chest to send the vamp into blood lust. In it's frenzy for blood, it fought poorly, and lost to Taha Aki. Exactly the kind of thing you want to tell Bella about right?

 

So after some plot point reiteration, we get to another interesting part. Jasper's back story. So Jasper, the tall blonde weak-willed vampire of the Cullen family was changed during the Civil War by a trio of vampire women who wished to rule a territory south of Texas into Mexico. Being a vampire in the south is evidently different than the wandering nomad vampire that kills as needed in the north. There's gang warfare going on all over the place to fight over the territories with dense population where it would be easy for a vampire to feed. The covens would usually use the tactic of creating a bunch of fresh vampires to raid another coven's territory then trade out young vampires as needed.

 

I want to take a moment to give Meyer credit for something here, she added something to her vampire myth I'd never heard before, and being a credit where credit is due kind of dude, I have to point it out. Evidently the newly created vampire is the strongest form of vampire in the Twilight universe, as it's body and muscles still contain mostly human blood. As human blood is where pretty much EVERY vampire mythos says they derive their strength from, it would make sense that a vampire with a body still filled to the tippy top with human 0+ would easily be able to wreck a vampire who has to feed for every drop in his own body.

 

So anyways, back to Jasper. Jasper a former military man himself, made an excellent vampire war tactician, and helped another vampire Maria run what was the most successful coven in all of the south. Eventually Jasper was sick of all the warring and the killing and went on to run a ferry on the Me-Kong river, no wait, that was John Rambo. Jasper left Maria and began to wander with a couple of vampires when he eventually ran across Alice, who seeing the future, was waiting for him in a diner in Philly. Alice knew Jasper wanted out of the killing life and the two of them went to join the Cullens.

 

Bella goes down to visit Jacob on the reservation and this where Meyer completely ruins his character for me. Jacob flat out tells Bella he's in love with her, and she of course responds with "yeah I know, I love Edward" and all is pretty much like you figure it would be until he steals a kiss. When I say steals a kiss, I don't mean in the sweet way where he sneaks up on her and steals a quick kiss. I mean Jacob mouth rapes Bella while she protests and attempts to shove him off of her yelling "no!" the entire time. Even after Bella belts Jacob in the mouth hard enough to fracture a bone in her hand, Jacob is smug about how much he's certain his magic kiss will make Bella realize that she loves him back. In one terrible moment Meyer takes Jacob Black, the ONE character I can truly enjoy in these books and turns him into one of those douche-bags you see at a bar in a shirt with too much print on it and a beard trimmed like George Micheals in the 80's waiting to date rape the next girl that pays attention to them. No means no, never forget it kids.

 

So Bella graduates from high school. Alice throws a graduation party at the Cullen mansion and the entire school shows up out of curiosity. Even some of the werewolves show up, because Bella invited them before she was violated. Instead of tearing his arms off, Edward decides that it would be best if the werewolves and vampires could work together to defeat what they are now certain is a vampire army created by Victoria in Seattle. So, fucking, CLOSE arm tearing!

 

So that's the way of it. Jasper teaches the werewolves about how newborn vampires fight and they hatch a plan to lead Victoria's army to the clearing by using Bella's scent then hiding her on top of a mountain. Working together they're more than confident the can claim victory. So confident in fact that Bella pleads with Edward to stay with her out of the fight, because no matter how many times she sees with her own two eyes that these are super-humans with not unlike Superman invulnerability, she's out of her mind with fear that someone will get killed.

 

All of this is interspersed with Bella trying DESPERATELY to get Edwards penis inside of her. Somehow a night of Bella being determined to finally get some vamp wang turned into her finally breaking down and getting officially engaged to Edward, with the promise that he would TRY to break her off some, without breaking her neck and drinking all the blood from her body, before changing her into a vampire. Which evidently is a problem when you're a vampire trying to give it to a human. So Edward, in his old fashioned ways, doesn't give her anything but an engagement ring, which Bella refuses to wear anyways. Is there anything about Edward that won't make a girl swoon?

 

The fight between Victoria's army and the united Cullens and werewolves approaches fast and they hide Bella's scent by having Jacob carry her to the top of a mountain where she's to hide out the whole thing. A snowstorm overtakes her encampment on the hill so Edward, who has no body heat is forced to let Jacob spend the night with her in the sleeping bag while Bella in her half wakefulness listens to them have a conversation about their jealousy of one other and generally about what it's like being a vampire and werewolf.

 

So after Jacob leaves for the fight the next morning, Bella FINALLY comes to the conclusion about what a terrible person she is for leading Jacob on and sends Edward to bring him back. Jacob comes back and throws a mini temper tantrum about how he might as well go let a vampire kill himself because Bella is just going to hurt him more, and when Bella frantically thinks the worst of her supposed friend Jacob, he asks for a kiss. Basically saying "kiss me or I'll go kill myself". Meyer did everything her power to turn this character from decent guy into a douchebag date rapist extraordinaire. So Bella, queen gullible herself, asks Jacob to kiss her for real this time. Mid lip lock, it strikes Bella, she DOES love Jacob. Not as much as she loves Edward, but loves him none-the-less. Bella pictures what life would be like if they were together, the kids they would have, growing old together, the whole nine.

 

Like I needed MORE reasons to hate Bella. This little bitch can't even decide who she truly loves and who she doesn't, she's stuck between two men essentially, and she's positive she wants to be changed into a vampire for eons and eons?

 

The worst part? Edward doesn't even get pissed at her about it! Edward is never going to tear the arms off this guy no matter how bad I want it! Before I had time to vomit on the book and throw it across the room, the moment I've been waiting thousands of pages for had finally arrived. Fighting. Glorious warfare between vampires and werewolves. Oh where have you been through this whole thing. It arrives just in time to spare Edward from really explaining why he felt it was okay for Bella not only to kiss the mouth raping Jacob, but to break down into tears in her obvious love of him.

 

Jasper's plan works like gangbusters and the army follows Bella's scent right into the trap set by the united werewolves and Cullens. Except for Victoria and a new vampire by the name Riley. Seth, a werewolf left to send information between Edward and the pack, and Edward square off against Victoria and Riley. The fights are pretty much going well but Bella panics and pulls the third wife stunt by cutting her arm open with a jagged rock. The blood causes distraction like Bella hoped for and the fight is over shortly after. Edward even decapitates Victoria (hey decapitation is good). Edward burns the bodies of Riley and Victoria and they head back to see how everyone else fared.

 

 

When they get back to the scene of the real battle, Jane and a couple of the members of the Volturi show up to find themselves unneeded in the fight against the army. They were really hoping they could clean house on both the Cullens AND Victoria's army. The werewolves hide in the forest from the Volturi in the forest because I guess the Volturi don't know werewolves exist. Bella doesn't know it yet, but finds out quickly that Jacob was hurt in the fight trying to protect one of the younger werewolves who was fighting foolishly. Of course Jacob will be fine, werewolves heal quickly.

 

The story ends with Bella going to Jacob and telling him that even though he was right to believe that she did love him, she loves Edward so much more. They agree to stay friends in spite of the love between them. It concludes with Bella telling Edward she's prepared for everything now; to turn into a vampire, to say good bye to her family and friends, and to do it all the proper way with a wedding. Even after Edward sees this, and in his excitement says "we can run away to Vegas, no ceremony" Bella shows maturity (*GASP*!) and says she has to do it properly. Edward even tries to give Bella some hot Angel losing his soul to Buffy action, but she makes HIM wait this time.

 

My thoughts;

 

Even though Meyer decided to ruin the one character I was pulling for in the series with one swift kick to my I-give-a-shit gland, this was easily the strongest book so far. The pacing was finally consistent, and if the size of this review has anything to show for her effort, Meyer kept it going with plot points instead of relying heavily on the romance of the story. The romantic tensions between characters and soap opera drama between Bella, Edward, and Jacob this time played itself out as a single element of the story instead of being it's driving force as was attempted in the earlier books.

 

Fleshing out back stories for Jasper and Rosalie also finally started to show that characters outside of Bella were capable of depth, and again, it gave you a reason to at least care if they lived or died to an extent. In the earlier books most of the characters in the background were just that, background. No different than the trees or the high school. Hell I would have cared more in New Moon if Bella's truck died than if Rosalie did. Now I feel about the same about either Rosalie or the Truck dying.

 

The ridiculousness of Jacob forcing himself on Bella, then her inevitable coming back around to admitting her love for him was ridiculous, but not really beyond what I would expect from Meyer as a storyteller, it fit her M.O. if you will. This is a good sign though, as you can tell that it at least managed to illicit a reaction from me, instead of indifference or laughter which is all the prior books usually got from me, I found myself actually caring that Meyer was ruining a perfectly sensible character.

 

It all just goes to show what, as a guy, I'm willing to forgive in the end if you show me some vampires and werewolves killing one another. The body count in this book was acceptable finally, with enough giant bloody piles of Native Americans and vampires being burned throughout the book to hold my testosterone driven attention. A theme I REALLY hope continues in the next book.

Deathtroopers Comes Out October 13th

 

I've written about Deathtroopers before, months ago in fact.  It's the first ever Star Wars horror book.  It's about an Imperial prison ship whose hyperdrive fails out in the middle of nowhere.  This ship, desperate for assistance, randomly comes across what looks to be a deserted Star Destroyer that isn't responding to any of their messages.

 

Needing parts to repair their ship, they dock with the ship and discover it's not really an abandoned ship afterall.  The whole crew is still there, they're just not alive anymore.  Oh sure, they're still walking around and stuff, but they've long since stopped breathing.

 

That's right folks, this is a book about zombies.  And not just any zombies mind you, but Imperial zombies.  Stormtroopers, officers, you name it.  Everyone on board that ship is now a walking corpse.  For someone like me, who is a huge fan of both Star Wars and zombies, this book is like a dream come true.  I've been dying to read it ever since it was announced.

 

The above video is a fan made trailer for the book.  It was submitted as part of a contest that Del Ray Books was doing to promote the book.  The other trailers are all kind of low-budget, crappy affairs, but this trailer is solid.  It's dark, it's creepy, and it features a zombie Stormtrooper at the end. 

 

Perfection.

 

The book comes out on October 13th.  It will be available in book stores across the country, or you can pick it up from Amazon by going here.

 

I will buying the book as soon as it's available and will read it and write a review for it as quickly as I can.  But seeing as how I read at a speed similiar to that of a heavily laden sloth on mountainous terrain, it may be a while before you see that.  It will be coming though, hopefully in 2009.  I promise.

Wes' Book Review: Twilight - New Moon

 

This book picks up with our heroine Isabella (Bella) Swan just before her birthday. In spite of Bella's pleas, Edward (and his coven the Cullen family) throw Bella a birthday party. As luck would have it Bella being the most hapless person on gods green earth manages to give herself a paper-cut reading a birthday card in a room full of vampires. Jasper, the weakest willed of the vampires who have sworn off blood, loses his wits completely and goes in for the kill at the smell of a single drop of her blood (like the shark from Finding Nemo). Edward steps in to stop Jasper from killing Bella and somehow in the fracas she manages to smash into something and cut her arm open. Now pouring blood from her arm the rest of the family, as strong as their will to not drink blood is, and as much as they love Bella, can not be in the same room as her while Carlisle the head of the household and only vampire doctor ever, stitches Bella's arm up.

 

Yes, Carlisle's resolve is THAT strong. He and Bella chat about how and why Edward was changed into a vampire by Carlisle, Carlisle's faith and spirituality, and what Edward believes spiritually in relation to that. Edward takes Bella home and this begins his attempt for brouter (brooding and pouting remember) of the century. Bella takes this to mean that to keep her safe Edward is going to take her and they are going to run far away together, where they will, I assume, own a pony farm and he will walk around without his shirt on. After a couple days of being pensive, Edward takes Bella into the forest and informs her that to protect her from the Cullens, the entire family is moving away and he was dumping her. Then Edward leaves Bella all alone having a nervous breakdown in the rain lost in the forest. I have to be honest, even for a vampire, that's cold blooded. Bella is of course eventually rescued.

 

Then she goes cataonic for a while. Like four months.

 

Charlie (Bella's father) finally snaps at having to hang out with an unresponsive teenage girl and threatens to send her back to live with her mother in Jacksonville Florida. She sidesteps having to leave Forks Washington by promising her father she will make an attempt at having a social life, really just trying to find a different place to be catatonic so she doesn't have to leave Forks, the place where she met and shared so many fantastic memories with Edward (you know like that time those two vampires were hunting her to kill her, hahaha good times). Out with a friend Bella tries to confront some rapists from the first book only to discover they weren't the same rapists. In the process discovering that when Bella puts herself in harms way she has a mini psychotic episode where she vividly hears Edwards voice in her head. This is as good as an excuse as any for Bella to pick up two old motorcycles off the side of the road and take them to Jacob Black to fix up with money from her after school job working at a sporting goods store.

 

This of course means that Bella is now spending a lot of time hanging out at the reservation of La Push and in Jacob Black's garage. Which leads to them just generally spending a lot of time together. Hiking, doing homework together, even in one instance going to see a movie together. For all intents and purposes Jacob Black and Bella are now dating, except for the fact that really she's just using him to have what she feels are deeply psychotic episodes so she can hear Edwards voice in her head. Bella even admits several times she knows she's using Jacob and his infatuation for her advantage, but of course none of that matters I guess when you've experienced the most perfect beautiful boy in existence's voice in your head. You should just go ahead and be as selfish as you want, anyone else's feelings be damned. Jacob gets upset that Quil (one of Jacob's friends) isn't spending as much time with him as he used to, but instead with an older boy named Sam Uley and his gang who refer to themselves as protectors. While all this is going on Bella hears rumors about a giant dog the size of a grizzly bear and bodies begin turning up in the woods from her father the police cheif and around the sporting goods store.

 

Then Jacob starts hanging out with Sam Uley and his gang, neglecting his friendship with Bella. So Bella hikes to the meadow where she spent the day discovering all about Edwards being a vampire and in turn runs into Laurent, one of the vampire trio from the first book. Laurent informs Bella that even though James (the vampire that was hunting her in the first book) was dead, as revenge, Victoria (Jame's Vampire mate) had decided to get back at Edward by killing Bella. Laurent then is about to kill Bella himself when a pack of super giant wolves comes into the clearing and chases Laurent into the woods. Bela runs home knowing now that Victoria the red-haired vampire from the first book was hunting her.

 

Bella finally gets Jacob to start talking to her again, and without disobeying orders to not tell Bella about his being a werewolf, gets to her to guess as much. Bella is still thinking the werewolves were responsible for all the murders lately, even though she had seen one vampire try to eat her, and heard about another in the area with the intentions of killing her (which is just speciest to me). So Bella confronts Jacob about it and he laughs her off (though he should have probably been deeply offended at her hypocrisy), and he tells her that the werewolves were there to hunt vampires. That was their sole purpose for existing. This of course is a boon for Bella because she just so happened to be being hunted by a vampire. What a coincidence.

 

 

Well I guess Bella's feelings for Jacob weren't as mixed as she pretends they are, because in attempt to bring on another episode, and hear Edwards voice again she tries to go cliff diving where she had seen some of the boys from reservation doing it earlier in the story. Of course this is Bella, so she does it just as a hurricane force storm is about to brew and almost drowns herself in the process. Bella's saved at the very last minute by Jacob and when she's escorted home discovers Alice Cullen's car in front of her house. Alice had seen Bella jump off the cliff in one of her visions of the future and came to make sure she was okay.

 

Edward calls to check on Bella because he had heard from Rosalie Cullen than Bella had committed suicide. When Edward phones and asks for Charlie, Jacob answers the phone and says "he's at the funeral" (meaning the funeral for one of Charlie's old friends who had a heart attack). Edward assumes Jacob means Bella's funeral and decides he's going to go to Italy to pick a fight with the oldest vampire coven in existence as a way of committing suicide. Alice sees this in a vision and tells Bella and the two of them leave for Italy. Leaving Jacob back in Forks to clean up the mess she left with Victoria of course.

 

The Volturi (the old vampire coven) refuse to flat out kill Edward, so his plan is to walk into a square butt naked and sparkly in their city. Which is breaking rule number one of being a vampire in the Volturi's city, hoping his big 'eff you in the eh' will get him slaughtered. Bella stops him just in the nick of time and Alice, Edward, and Bella are taken before the Volturi. They want to recruit the three of them for their unique abilities (Edward's mind reading, Alice's future seeing, and Bella's inability to be affected by any of the vampires mind powers so it seems). They refuse and the Volturi say that's fine but Bella has to be killed because humans aren't supposed to know that vampires exist (except of course the humans that work for the Volturi). Edward and Alice save Bella by promising that they will eventually turn her into a vampire, which of course suits Bella just fine because it should have been done forever ago anyways. The trio make their escape back to Forks.

 

The Cullens decide to move back into their old place and take a vote to turn Bella into a vampire. Edward and Bella officially get back together. Edward manages to argue it out that Bella won't be changed into a vampire until at least after her high school graduation. Even offering at one point to change Bella that night if she agreed to marry Edward (which was something else that confused me, shouldn't she have jumped at that chance?). Jacob returns Bella's motorcycle to get her in trouble with Charlie, but also to throw a wrench in the plans of turning Bella into a vampire by reminding Edward that the La Push tribe and the Cullens agreement didn't say there would be peace between them if the Cullens didn't KILL anyone, but that the Cullens had agreed they would not BITE anyone.

 

Now for my feelings.

 

I know I complained about the pacing of the last book, but it's the one thing that really bothers me the most so far about this series. This book almost six hundred pages and it doesn't feature one of three main characters in it for almost four hundred. Meyers uses four hundred pages to talk about the emotional agony Bella is suffering from being dumped and her inability to just simply move onto another, in my opinion, much better guy. Then Meyers uses roughly one hundred and fifty pages on the real action and danger in the story. Yes the romance is dialed much further down, but it was replaced with indecision and was nothing short of agonizing for me at points.

 

Remember when you were watching the Matrix sequels? How at the end of the film it wrapped up without including ANY of the subplots it had written into itself. How one moment, a hundred different stories were trying to tie themselves up, and then the next, none of them mattered anymore and you REALLY felt like you had wasted your time paying attention at all? That's how I felt here. I invested myself in the tension between Bella and Jacob and her feelings for him hoping that at the very least there could have been something between Bella and Jacob for Edward to be jealous of. If it meant I didn't ONLY have to hear about their dislike for one another based solely on the fact that one was a vampire and the other a werewolf.

 

Well no such luck. Bella is pretty much completely faithful and all I have to look forward to in the rest of the series is them being at each others throats based on their races, not on anything important like Jacob being the one to take Bella's virginity when Edward dated her first. Now THERE'S something to start a fistfight over. Also, a petty complaint maybe, but she really has a tendency to beat one over the head with ideas sometimes. The Romeo and Juliet being brought up over and over and over again in the story, and to a lesser extent, I GET IT, JACOB LOOKED BIGGER AND BIGGER AND BIGGER. By the end of the book I was expecting Jacob to say "INYUK CHUCK!" before he transformed himself into a werewolf.

 

Does this change my opinion of the series? Not really. I've been told that this book is the worst of the series, and while I didn't personally enjoy it, I could see how someone else could. Bringing werewolves into the mythos of this story of course adds a certain depth to it, and brings all the Stephanie Meyer fans that much closer to loving Buffy the Vampire Slayer (hey you know we have a full on werewolf/human romance in Buffy over here? He even takes her virginity and it's ADORABLE!). I still feel like this is a boon to all of nerd kind and I still feel like no one really has a ton of room to bash the series. I don't think the girls/women that adore these books are dumb for doing so, even if there isn't as much kicking OR kissing in this book. There's a ton of set-up in this book for the rest of the series, and I'm curious to see if Meyer has what it takes to wrap it all up correctly. So I guess I'll have to leave it there, until I can read these other two books I have sitting here and see for myself if Meyer lived up to the potential material she's set in motion with New Moon.

Pat's Book Reviews: Pride And Prejudice And Zombies

 

I originally picked up this book on a whim.  I didn't really expect it to be very good at all, seeing as how it's just an adaptation of the classic Jane Austen novel with zombies added in.  I figured the adaptation would be a one joke book whose joke would most likely get old pretty quickly, but I was quick to learn that my assumption on this matter was wrong.  One could even say . . . dead wrong.

 

Sorry, I won't attempt any more zombie humor in this review.

 

Anyways, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies is actually suprisingly good.  Yes, on a base level it still is technically just the original Pride & Prejudice story with zombies thrown in, but it's a lot more than that too.  For those of you who were never forced to read Pride & Prejudice in high school, let me quickly summarize the original story.  The book was written as a fictional first hand account of life in Victorian England by a young lady named Elizabeth Bennett.  Elizabeth is the second eldest daughter of a poor member of the upper class.  Her mother is obsessed with marrying off all five of her daughters off to wealthy men so that she won't have to worry about them anymore as she's paranoid that they'll all end up on the street.  A rich gentleman named Mr. Bingley moves in nearby and Elizabeth's older sister Jane takes a fancy to him.  They begin courting and Elizabeth is introduced to a Mr. Darcy, who is a friend of Mr. Bingley's.  Darcy is a bit of a prick though and Elizabeth takes an instant disliking to him.

 

It should be noted here that Elizabeth Bennett is a very strong female character.  She's not really taken with flights of fancy and isn't exactly keen having her whole life revolve around whom she'll be married to.  She's intelligent, witty, attractive and very strong willed.  As the story goes on, Bingley and Jane seem to be doing great and are well on their way towards marriage when Bingley suddenly moves back to London (which is a good ways away).  Through the course of the book, Elizabeth finds out that Darcy had a hand in making sure that the marriage didn't happen.  Elizabeth and Darcy run across each other a few times, during which time Darcy professes his love for her.  Knowing that his actions have hurt her sister though, Elizabeth refuses and kind of tears Darcy a new one for being a douche.  He storms off upset at this and proceeds to write a letter to Elizabeth in which he explains the reasons for his actions and how he had only acted to protect his friend Bingley as he had thought Jane had no interest in him.  He also explains a few other things regarding his bad relationship with one Mr. Wickham who happens to be a friend of Elizabeth. 

 

A short while later, one of Elizabeth's younger sisters runs off with this Mr. Wickham.  This sort of act disgraces the family and the whole Bennett household is highly distraught.  Eventually though, through the swift actions of Mr. Darcy, Wickham is forced to Marry Elizabeth's sister (thus preserving the family's honor) and Mr. Bingley and Jane are reunited and quickly marry as well.  Thus, having been convinced of Mr. Darcy's good character and noble intentions from the beginning, Elizabeth agrees to marry Mr. Darcy and they live happily ever after, the end.

 

Mind you, this is a very brief plot summary.  If you want a better one, go here.

 

In Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, that same story is still very much at the heart of the book.  All of the same characters are still there, the same major events take place the way they should and in the end things still come to a close as they originally did.  It's how the story unfolds though that is remarkably different.  This adaptation was written by a man named Seth Grahame-Smith, and he didn't just throw random scenes of zombies appearing out of nowhere into the original Jane Austen text.  No, he went about completely changing the world in which the story takes place.  According to the new novel, the original zombie plague appeared about 50 years before the book begins.  Therefore, the world that Elizabeth and her sisters grow up into is vastly different than the one from the original novel.  This is a world torn apart by zombie attacks.  The world has managed to stay together (for the most part) and society hasn't been destroyed.  It has however been drastically altered due to 50 years of ongoing battles with undead hordes.

 

In this war torn world, it has become popular in British society to have your children sent away to the orient at an early age to become masters of martial arts so that they may better fight and kill zombies when they are adults.  It is a matter of honor and dignity in this world to be known as a capable zombie slayer.  Elizabeth's father decides that just because he has daughters instead of sons is no reason not to make his children capable warriors, so Elizabeth and her four sisters are all sent to China to train with Tibetan monks.  They endure years of brutal training and at the time that the book begins, both Elizabeth and Jane are highly skilled warriors.  The younger three sisters are capable fighters as well, but they are still training under the tutelage of their older siblings. 

 

In this book, Elizabeth is a warrior through and through.  She's an incredibly skilled swordsman who lives by a very strict warrior code of ethics.  She's deadly with most forms of firearms as well as blades and is a skilled hand-to-hand combatant too.  Think of her like Buffy The Vampire Slayer in Victorian England.  These sorts of changes are seen throughout the whole world in which this book takes place.  England itself has been highly influenced by oriental culture to the point of seeing a blending of both British and Asian philosophies being used by most of the major characters in the story.  The zombie attacks are frequent, but for the most part are small events in the story.  Larger attacks elsewhere are alluded to though, including the entire city of Manchester falling to the undead hordes.  The whole city of London has been transformed to a fortress-like environment with large castle walls that surround the entire area.

 

By making the zombies not just a plot device or cheap jokes, but actually a setting in which the story takes place, Grahame-Smith does an amazing job of blending in the zombie action with the original story of Pride & Prejudice.  At no time in the book did the zombie attacks seem out of place.  Yes, the way a lot of the zombie moments are handled are humorous, but that humor is entirely intentional.  This book isn't just a parody of Pride & Prejudice, it also pokes fun at the entire philosophical culture of Victorian England.  It's a bit of historical social commentary, and even though it is done with tongue firmly planted in cheek, it is still incredibly effective at pointing out the some of the ridiculous tendencies of early 19th century England.

 

Grahame-Smith has also done an incredibly admirable job of making his new prose blend seamlessly with Austen's original work.  The book still sounds and reads very much as if Ms. Austen had written it herself.  The book is also accompanied by a small number of absolutely hilarious illustrations, the type of which anyone who has ever read some of these classic novels will instantly recognize.

 

 

Oh, and you know how I mentioned the heavy influence of Asian culture in this book?  You realize, of course that such a heavy influence can only lead to one thing.  Ninjas.  Yes, that's right, this book has ninjas as well as zombies.  I don't want to give away too much about them, but suffice it to say that having them in there just made the book that much cooler.

 

If you've been avoiding this book because you thought it was stupid or that the premise sounded silly, please rethink this.  This is a great and highly entertaining book that can be enjoyed by both Jane Austen fans and zombie fans.  Hell, even people who just like a good romance story or humorous tale will find something to like here.  The new warrior status of Elizabeth Bennet makes her a great female role model for the 21st century.  She's strong, smart, sexy and capable in more ways than most leading female characters that you'll find in other modern books (I'm looking at you Bella Swan).  This book comes highly recommended with the official Geek-tastic seal of approval.

 

Final Grade:  4.5 Stars out of 5

Wes' Book Review: Twilight

 

Unless you've been living under a rock (or in Canada) for the last year or so, you've heard of Twilight. References to it are everywhere; Team Edward shirts, Team Jacob shirts, tween girls wrapping a line around the San Diego Convention Center that would make George Lucas jealous. Inevitably anyone familiar with the basic laws of physics knows that for every action, there is an equal or opposite reaction, and react vampire and Gothic lore fans did. For every dozen twilight fans there was another dozen self-proclaimed nerds shouting that the way vampires were portrayed in the books (probably more the movies but I'll get to that) was "wrong". I never personally understood this myself as vampires have been shown many different ways in many different forms of media. The Nosferatu of the original black and white classic film is about as far from Angel and Spike portrayed in Buffy the Vampire Slayer as the vampires from 30 Days of Night are from Edward Cullen of Twilight. Personally defending the books myself with arguments like this.

 

The one thing I seemed to share with self-proclaimed haters of the Twilight series was that neither of us had actually read the books or seen the movies. The books MUST be horrible, they HAVE to be for vampires to sparkle and be dreamboats who every girl aged ten to twelve seems to have fallen in love with. Wait though, aren't Angel (and to a lesser extent Spike) complete dreamboats in the Buffy and Angel series? That's when it struck me that not only was I being a hypocrite, but I was doing so while being completely ignorant to what I was bashing. That isn't like me at all. When I attended the funeral services for a friend of mine who passed away recently, his girlfriend told an amusing anecdote about how Dan had read all the Twilight books just so he could make fun of the girls in Team Edward shirts from a more knowledgeable standpoint. That settled it.

 

I had to read Twilight and review it for myself.

 

Sure, it might be terrible, but it couldn't be worse than other books I've read. The Silmarillion comes to mind. Heck, I've even read the Bible three times just so when people would ask me why I was an atheist in Temecula (the California bible belt) I could at least explain my point of view from a stance that wasn't ignorant. Twilight couldn't be much harder than those.

 

So here we go;

 

Told from the point of view of Isabella (Bella from now on) Swan. The book begins by following Bella from her move from Phoenix, Arizona to a perpetually rainy Forks Washington. Bella, for your money, could not, even with all the combined efforts of NASA, the US Military, and MIT, be more ordinary if she tried. The efforts Stephanie Meyer went to to make Bella the perfect character for any female human to identify with were so perfect it made me laugh out loud every time her exceptional levels of plainness slapped me in the face. She's tall, but not too tall, has straight brown hair, is clumsy, poor at sports, becomes overwhelmed to the point of tears over almost any occasion, is a little smarter than everyone else in her class due to Phoenix's superior school system in comparison to that of the one ruling over her Forks high school, and spends the entire book questioning why anyone would love or even be interested in her. Bella's character for these reasons, as I've heard from male friends of mine, is a big reason why the entire series should be written off.  What's so exceptional about her that anyone should care what happens to her, most of all the exceptional Edward (we'll get to him in a bit). Though this is how the book identifies itself as being strictly for women (and gay men to a certain extent). There ISN'T anything exceptional about her, and somehow beyond ALL odds she manages to attract the attention of not only every boy in her school, but of the dreamiest male since Brad Pitt swaggered his way onto the set of Thelma and Louise.

 

Edward is introduced as a member of a family (the Cullens) who are beyond any regular measure of attractiveness and athleticism. Edward somehow can NOT keep his eyes off of her, and reacts ALMOST violently to Bella's presence in his class. Bella can not understand the hatred this beautiful Edward has towards her with almost no excuse what-so-ever. Edward is the first archetype of the dime store romance novel introduced. Tall, chiseled from white stone, with high cheekbones and eyes that "smoulder" so often I thought about making "smouldering eyes" a drinking game (every time you read it, take a drink). Edward at one point saves Bella from being crushed by a car with his supernatural vampire abilities leaving Bella with a ton of questions about this superhero roman god in finely tailored clothing who attends high school. I also enjoyed the almost Superman/Clark Kent obvious secret identity thing here. No one notices of course when he stops a full sized van from crushing the perpetual Louis Lane that is Bella. Eventually Edward's malice towards Bella fades into an attraction, and from there develops into a deep and intense love.  A love so deep and pure I couldn't help but laugh and laugh and laugh at it's ridiculousness. Again though, this is where the book shows that it isn't written for me, it's written for my girlfriend (oh dear god is this book ever written for my girlfriend).

 

While Edward and Bella's relationship begins to blossom and they talk more often,  Bella meets a young boy named Jacob Black who unravels all the questions that Bella has of Edward with his tales of Native American folklore. Jacob Black would be the second dime store romance novel archetype. Why else would there be a well built Native American boy in the story? They don't cover it in this story, but I can smell romantic tension from a few books away. Evidently what happened is the Cullens came to Washington long ago to hide from the sun, which comes out in Forks a total of seven days a year, and made a deal that they would not ever enter the Native's reservation land in exchange for the natives not ever selling them out as being vampires (as harmless as they promised to be towards humans). Of course Bella is already far too in love with her picturesque Edward to even care that he's a vampire. Then Edward takes Bella to a meadow and reveals much about himself, how and when he became a vampire, and to the chagrin of vampire fans everywhere that vampires don't burst into flames when in contact with direct sunlight, but instead sparkle.

 

 

The translation via myth of course is that they hid from the sunlight because of bursting into flames, but evidently it was just that they would be highlighted because of their sparkly weakness. Actually the vampires in this story don't really have ANY weaknesses. They're unbelievably strong, much stronger than any vampire I've read about or seen previously.  They play baseball with each other only during thunderstorms to hide the boom of the bat [yes I know vampires playing baseball, I laughed too]. Edward is the fastest of of his family, which is saying a lot because at times they run fast enough to keep pace with a full speed Mercedes. Some of them even carry over minor mental abilities that are exaggerated in the process of being turned into a vampire. Edward can read minds, has a "sister" Alice that is prescient, and another "sibling" Jasper who has the ability to calm or excite people as he wishes.  According to Edward the only way to kill one of their kind is to tear them into pieces and burn the remains.

 

I use quotes around sibling and sister because this isn't Edwards family per se, just his coven. A group of vampires that has sworn off human blood in favor of hunting only animals. That is where you also, though, discover Edward's almost impossible attraction to the plain and hapless Bella. Evidently her blood is too tempting. It's used to explain the avoidance when they first met after his almost outburst of violence at their first encounter. It's Edward's heroin if you will. Having been a vampire that has sworn off the blood of humans for so long, being around Bella is the ultimate temptation, like an alcoholic that eventually has to start attending New Years parties where champagne is served I guess. He's always on the edge of giving into his animal instincts, but is unable to resist being near Bella, who always appears as a vision of beauty to him and smells irresistible.

 

It's also revealed in the story that Bella is the only person Edward has ever met who has a mind that is completely unreadable. So while Edward can pry information from the mind of anyone around him, Bella gets to keep her thoughts a mystery from him. Why any woman would find this to be desirable is completely beyond me (it's true, there really does need to be a sarcasm font).  The real action of the story is pretty anticlimactic. It happens when, while playing baseball, the Cullens run across a trio of vampires. One of the new vampires decides he's going to hunt Bella and the family instigates him by protecting her. She flies back to Phoenix to hide but he follows her there and supposedly kidnaps her mother. Bella is lured away from Alice and Jasper (her protectors), just before Edward arrives, by the hostage scenario. Of course just as Bella is about to be killed the Cullens sweep in and save the day. At one point Bella is almost turned into a vampire, but with some careful blood consumption, Edward saves Bella, and proves his love for her by not drinking her bone dry, in one fell moment.

 

Bella admits to Edward during her recovery process that she wants badly to be a vampire so she can spend all of eternity with him (not for men), and he refuses because "oh boo hoo I'm a monster, I can't damn you forever". It's pretty typical vampire fare to be honest. Then Edward takes Bella to prom, against her wishes, because of her aforementioned inherent clumsiness. Bella thinks she's being turned into a vampire and disappointed to find out that it's just Edward's efforts to make sure that, in spite of his condition, she experiences as much of a normal human life as possible.

 

There you have it, the story of Twilight. Now for my impressions.

 

This book is pretty much exactly what I thought it would be. Though I had hoped that it would be written poorly, it's actually well put together. It drags on in sections much in the same fashion as a Stephen King novel (though being fair I can NOT stand Stephen King because of this fact). Twilight is saccharine sweet, and is in no way shape or form meant for your average man, but couldn't possibly be in any way shape or form be MORE for your average woman. It panders to the awkward teenage girl inside every woman which hopes that in spite of one's overwhelming averageness, an extraordinary man will sweep in and add an element of excitement to their lives. I've read studies saying that every single demographic of women loses self confidence when hitting the age of puberty, and when you take this fact into account with how the character of Bella is structured, it's almost nigh impossible to believe that this book could ever NOT be insanely popular. If this series continues in the vein that was started here with this first book, as I've said to friends and family before, this couldn't be a larger boon to Buffy fans.

 



 

The parallels between Edward and Angel are almost too many to count. Yes, I understand Buffy is a much cooler character than Bella, but the steamy forbidden relationship between a high school girl and an ancient creature of the night who broods and is sexy can not be ignored here. I'm sorry to all my Buffy fan friends who have latched on to hating this book.  No, I didn't personally enjoy the book myself, but it's already too similar with the Joss Whedon series for you to be able to complain. A lot of people will escape into the sparkling vampires argument, but anyone who watched the Angel series knows they did away with the no sunlight at all thing pretty quickly there, which leaves Angel and Edward sort of in the same boat.

 

If there's any reason to not like this book as a man, it's because the romance of the situation is over the top and described from a female point of view that a lot of us will never understand. We've never been awkward teenage girls longing to be loved by someone who is completely above our station in life, but that didn't stop a lot of us from enjoying Pretty in Pink. I've been arguing since comic-con that the vehicle that all of nerdkind has been waiting for to get girls into our culture has finally arrived and read this book in hope that I could maybe prove myself wrong, but as someone who considers himself a pretty big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel series I can say without a doubt, you may not LIKE Twilight, but we certainly have no room at all to bash it.