![]() My rating: 4 of 5 stars Stross writes the kind of books that I find I don't really appreciate fully until I give them a little time to sit, and then read them again. In some cases, years later I find I understand aspects of the world unfolding around me because of things I read in his books years ago - much of accelerando comes to mind. Rule 34 is much the same thing. Halting State wasn't one of my favourites of his - I prefer his space operas and his Laundry novels - and neither will its loose sequel, Rule 34, be a favourite. Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it as Stross is always witty, to the point, original, and ahead of the game. Any fan of his will enjoy this book. He never disappoints. View all my reviews From Here: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/04/the-old-man-and-the-sea-marcel-schindler/ ![]() My rating: 4 of 5 stars I found Not Wanted ... hard to get into, it being partially from the perspective of a cat, after all. But I stuck with it and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The writing is top notch, and the little details simply stick in your gullet as you're reading. There's some scenes I will never forget. I've had a couple discussions about the book as I was reading, and it seems that different people come away with very different interpretations of the book. But by the end I think I had a pretty good handle on it. I wouldn't recommend it for everybody; I think it takes a more discerning reader to appreciate it. But it was certainly a well-crafted novel, and deserves its place as a modern classic. View all my reviews I haven't read 50 shades. And I've pretty much just assured myself that I never will. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a 2011 American animated short film directed by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg, and produced by Moonbot Studios in Shreveport, Louisiana. Described as an "allegory about the curative powers of story", the film centers around bibliophile Lessmore and his custodianship of a magical library of flying books. It was created using computer animation, miniatures and traditional hand-drawn techniques. After winning over a dozen film festivals, the film was awarded the Best Animated Short Film at the 84th Academy Awards. 1: On the first date, try to impress a girl by telling her you can bend spoons with your mind.
2: Invent a language of your own. Decide that the first girl to decipher it will be The One. Sometimes it seems very incongruous that we check the credentials of every author we read, but going to the barber, we just sit down in the chair and say, "Sure, define how I look for the next six weeks...."
![]() Click for more details Ella is 25% off at Smashwords. Isabella would do anything for her little girl, Ella. She loves nothing more than having Ella cut her hair, or watching Ella pet the elephants at the zoo. When Ella gets older, however, as all little girls do, she finds new friends and becomes distant and dismissive with Isabella. Isabella can’t understand why Ella won't talk to her anymore, why Ella ignores her attempts at communicating. She begins to feel as if she doesn't matter, doesn’t exist anymore. Ella is her whole world. She'd be nothing without Ella. Unfortunately for Isabella, she comes to learn that this may, in fact, be very close to the truth. Click HERE to read the first two chapters of Ella. ![]() Click for more details Do Unto Others is 25% off at Smashwords. The Messenger wanders into town from out of the wastes carrying a message he's suffered at great lengths to deliver. The people of Scanlon, the last surviving town in that part of the world, are very eager to hear what the man has to say about the people back east; they'd given them up for dead a long time ago. But when the Messenger isn't sure if these are the people for whom his message was meant, the good people of Scanlon don't take very kindly to his reluctance. Click HERE to read the first two chapters of Do Unto Others. ![]() Click for more details. A String of Momentary Silences is 50% off at Smashwords. Peter Bremmer decides he'd be better off never speaking again. Then Peter meets a man who says more than he ever could without ever saying a word. ![]() My rating: 5 of 5 stars This was a pretty great read. At first I found it difficult to believe that people weren't simply humoring him, but after looking at some pictures, I can see he was actually pretty convincing, especially while wearing dark sunglasses. The book is a fairly straightforward and eloquent narrative, and I found myself engrossed most of the time. I really enjoyed reading about the fallout from the book after it was published as well. All in all, worth the read, no matter who you are. View all my reviews |
L.S. Burton
![]() Lee Burton doesn't have cats or kids, but he does have a lot of books, a couple of mugs he thinks are really fantastic, and a good pair of shoes which haven't fallen apart yet despite his best efforts to murder them with kilometers.
Burton has written almost six books. Almost six as some are still scantily clad in their respective drawers. Each of them had their own goals and were written differently, and he is very fond of them all -- except perhaps for his first attempt at a novel, which remains a travesty. That one he keeps locked in a dark basement and feeds it fish heads. In 2011, Burton won the Percy Janes Award for Best Unpublished First Novel in the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and Letters Competition for his novel Raw Flesh in the Rising. And just recently, in the fall of 2013, Burton published his first science-fiction novel, THIS LAND, about which he boasts constantly. Available at Amazon
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