I’ve just finished reading the book ‘Blood Men’, by Paul Cleave. I must say that this book was something that I was quite excited about, as after reading his previous books, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on his latest creation. Most people, when looking at this type of book, always expect the same ending. I’m not going to ruin the ending of this book for you, but Paul has somehow managed to trick the reader once again, by creating a storyline that’ll never be guessed.
It took me around three sittings to get this one done, and should really have taken less. The first two, I only ended up doing about 50 pages. On the third sitting, I was really only planning to do another 50 pages, give or take, as I had to be up early the next morning. Once I got started though, I just literally couldn’t put the book down, even to the final chapter, I was mesmerised. I know this may sound cliché, as every major book reviewer will put out a one-liner saying ‘I couldn’t put it down’, but in this case it’s true.
My congratulations go out to Paul, as unlike so many other books that I’ve read in the past few weeks (e.g. Breathless – by Dean Koontz), Paul managed to tie up all the loose ends, nothing was left hanging. Yes, I know that sometimes it is good to leave the reader to form their own opinions on what happened, but in Paul’s case, I’m so pleased he did, as it was far more creative and unexpected than what I could have ever dreamed up.
The only thing out of the entire book that I could pick a hole with was him using the phrase ‘Armed defenders squad’, many times in the book. I don’t have a problem with him using this phrase, it just would have been nice if he had of done a little further research into this. I know that most people call them the ‘armed defenders’, but this is not actually their name. They are known as the ‘Armed Offenders Squad’. I know that this is petty and not even worth mentioning, but it was just annoying every time I read those words throughout the book.
I would definitely read this book again and honestly can’t wait to see what Paul releases next. It’s good to see a New Zealand author with so much talent and skill!
Adam.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
An assortment of books and OCD.
Hi All,
Is it just me, or do other people get obsessive compulsive over certain things?
I get obsessive with so much in day-to-day life it's not funny. It happens mainly with most items that I'm interested in. E.g. I have three cars (just finished selling the 4th), I know that I don't really need three cars, but it's this OCD which kicks in and I feel the need to buy.....
One of my current obsessions, which is getting a little out-of-hand at the moment, is books and magazines. Yes, I'm an avid reader, so it only seems natural that I'll have a reasonable amount of books lying around in the weirdest of spots. The problem is that I can't stop myself from continually adding to this collection. I only recently upgraded my bookcase, and I now need to buy another one of this size, so that everything can be nicely organised. (I have to admit, that if I do buy another one, I'm most likely to feel the need for purchasing more books to stock it up with...)
So, you might think that my adding might be just a normal thing. The problem arises with the fact that I am buying too many books, I'm not able to read them all. The other problem is that I am suggested, lent or have library books given to me. I then feel the need to read this material first..... Thus, my own books, which I have purchased, as they are about subjects of which interest me, get pushed to the back of the reading stack..... I'd say my stack is about 50 books large at the moment, which is about 6 months of reading at my current rate. This time-frame will never stand up though, as I'm likely to encounter more books before I get through this whole lot....
Then there is the whole magazine thing. I am interest in two main magazines: Classic Ford and NZ Top Gear. I get a copy monthly of each of these, and for the last six months, haven't had the time to sit and read any of these issues.... I just have them stacked up in a large pile, ready for reading..... If I then read these, I'm not likely to get through anywhere near the books that I have put aside.....
I have come up with a rather ingenious idea though, I'm now listening to audiobooks. I have a subscription for audible.com, which gives me a new audiobook every fortnight. This allows me to do a few extra books, which I'll never get around to actually sitting down and reading. If only I could do this with my magazines.......
Anyway, I should really be reading instead of typing this.....
Adam.
Is it just me, or do other people get obsessive compulsive over certain things?
I get obsessive with so much in day-to-day life it's not funny. It happens mainly with most items that I'm interested in. E.g. I have three cars (just finished selling the 4th), I know that I don't really need three cars, but it's this OCD which kicks in and I feel the need to buy.....
One of my current obsessions, which is getting a little out-of-hand at the moment, is books and magazines. Yes, I'm an avid reader, so it only seems natural that I'll have a reasonable amount of books lying around in the weirdest of spots. The problem is that I can't stop myself from continually adding to this collection. I only recently upgraded my bookcase, and I now need to buy another one of this size, so that everything can be nicely organised. (I have to admit, that if I do buy another one, I'm most likely to feel the need for purchasing more books to stock it up with...)
So, you might think that my adding might be just a normal thing. The problem arises with the fact that I am buying too many books, I'm not able to read them all. The other problem is that I am suggested, lent or have library books given to me. I then feel the need to read this material first..... Thus, my own books, which I have purchased, as they are about subjects of which interest me, get pushed to the back of the reading stack..... I'd say my stack is about 50 books large at the moment, which is about 6 months of reading at my current rate. This time-frame will never stand up though, as I'm likely to encounter more books before I get through this whole lot....
Then there is the whole magazine thing. I am interest in two main magazines: Classic Ford and NZ Top Gear. I get a copy monthly of each of these, and for the last six months, haven't had the time to sit and read any of these issues.... I just have them stacked up in a large pile, ready for reading..... If I then read these, I'm not likely to get through anywhere near the books that I have put aside.....
I have come up with a rather ingenious idea though, I'm now listening to audiobooks. I have a subscription for audible.com, which gives me a new audiobook every fortnight. This allows me to do a few extra books, which I'll never get around to actually sitting down and reading. If only I could do this with my magazines.......
Anyway, I should really be reading instead of typing this.....
Adam.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Cemetery Lake
Hi All,
As the title implies, I'm currently reading 'Cemetery Lake' by Paul Cleave. A little over halfway through, and I'm struggling to put the book down. Can't wait to see what happens in the end and what Paul does with the story. Reading the passage in the back, he has another book coming out this month. I cannot find a corresponding release date for it anywhere else, even his own website just states this month........C'mon....give me a specific day.......
Anyway, I'll post a review of the book on here once I finish it (should be sometime today or tomorrow, depending on my busy schedule....)
Nothing new on the frontier of my book at the moment, as I'm only just back from holiday and didn't get a chance to do any work to it during this period..... Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of things tomorrow and do a little bit more. I'm beginning to get a little excited about how it's going to go, but I might need to do a little re-thinking of the storyline, as I currently think it's a little weak towards the end, but I guess we'll just have to approach that point when we get nearer to it....
Enough for now, catch you all later,
Adam.
As the title implies, I'm currently reading 'Cemetery Lake' by Paul Cleave. A little over halfway through, and I'm struggling to put the book down. Can't wait to see what happens in the end and what Paul does with the story. Reading the passage in the back, he has another book coming out this month. I cannot find a corresponding release date for it anywhere else, even his own website just states this month........C'mon....give me a specific day.......
Anyway, I'll post a review of the book on here once I finish it (should be sometime today or tomorrow, depending on my busy schedule....)
Nothing new on the frontier of my book at the moment, as I'm only just back from holiday and didn't get a chance to do any work to it during this period..... Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of things tomorrow and do a little bit more. I'm beginning to get a little excited about how it's going to go, but I might need to do a little re-thinking of the storyline, as I currently think it's a little weak towards the end, but I guess we'll just have to approach that point when we get nearer to it....
Enough for now, catch you all later,
Adam.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Book Updates: Research
Hi All,
Currently doing some background research on the book that I am in the process of developing. It's going to be about a team of people (not sure what the team name will be yet), who work between Australia & New Zealand solving major crimes. Each team member is going to have a specialised background, but when the team is together they are superb at solving crimes.
So I'm trawling through a bunch of forensic, crime-solving and mastermind criminals of the past books. Taking snippets of past crimes, motives, crime-solving techniques and the like.
I've also been jotting down ideas of the plot that I hope to reveal through the story and different characters, character names, character profiles and such. I can't wait to start physically writing the book and may do so in the next day or two (even though I'm still not sure how the book is going to end....) but I'm sure I can wing it, or develop a nice twist to keep the readers interested.
Underway at the moment, is the plot and characters for the first book, in what I hope to be a series of five books (I'm thinking, although this is open for changes). I'm not even sure how good the book will actually be, as this is my first attempt at ever writing a book, so who knows, it will quite possibly be a major fail! I guess we'll just have to wait and see...?
Oh well, enough for now. I'm sure you're all completely bored with my banter now.....
Regards,
Adam.
Currently doing some background research on the book that I am in the process of developing. It's going to be about a team of people (not sure what the team name will be yet), who work between Australia & New Zealand solving major crimes. Each team member is going to have a specialised background, but when the team is together they are superb at solving crimes.
So I'm trawling through a bunch of forensic, crime-solving and mastermind criminals of the past books. Taking snippets of past crimes, motives, crime-solving techniques and the like.
I've also been jotting down ideas of the plot that I hope to reveal through the story and different characters, character names, character profiles and such. I can't wait to start physically writing the book and may do so in the next day or two (even though I'm still not sure how the book is going to end....) but I'm sure I can wing it, or develop a nice twist to keep the readers interested.
Underway at the moment, is the plot and characters for the first book, in what I hope to be a series of five books (I'm thinking, although this is open for changes). I'm not even sure how good the book will actually be, as this is my first attempt at ever writing a book, so who knows, it will quite possibly be a major fail! I guess we'll just have to wait and see...?
Oh well, enough for now. I'm sure you're all completely bored with my banter now.....
Regards,
Adam.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Under The Dome
Hi All,
I'm back!!! I would have posted a little sooner, however, I've been going full-on with the book that I've just finished - Stephen King: 'Under the Dome'. I have to admit that on the whole I was disappointed with the way the book turned out. He writes a nice little section at the back that describes his journey of writing the book, which he originally thought up in 1974(I think...). He also thanks his friend who helped him with research throughout the book.
Personally, most of the idea that he came up with and the storyline throughout the book was really top notch. My problem, was that there were far too many mistakes throughout and in general, just lots of stuff that didn't exactly make sense or add up...
Some of these things were as such:
-How could Sam Bushey have that last name when she was at school, when she only acquired it once she married Phil Bushey. (Assuming that they aren't already related....)
-It takes huge industrial fans to blow any air through the dome, so how can they clearly speak to one another??? I was under the impression that noise was created by a change in the frequency in airwaves, but this wouldn't work with the dome blocking it??? (Feel free to correct me, science nerds...)
-Spelling errors in the book, such as at one point 'dope' is written 'rope'. Unless this is a new slang word for dope, it appears to the normal eye as a spelling error.
(There were more errors, but I'm not going to bore you to death!)
All of these little things should have been detected, if not by the proof-readers, but by the editor or at least someone at the publishers. Very poor workmanship....
To top the story off, Stephen King ends up ruining the ending.... I'm not going to give too much away, however, I'm personally never going to recommend this book to anyone else. It was sort of just a huge let-down in the last twenty pages. He winds you up all the way through the book, but then, when you expect there to be a big twist at the end, there just isn't.... Don't get me wrong, it was a great storyline, I just think that I could have finished it off 1ox better.
Anyway, that's all for now. I've got to head off for work. I'll post again soon.
Adam.
I'm back!!! I would have posted a little sooner, however, I've been going full-on with the book that I've just finished - Stephen King: 'Under the Dome'. I have to admit that on the whole I was disappointed with the way the book turned out. He writes a nice little section at the back that describes his journey of writing the book, which he originally thought up in 1974(I think...). He also thanks his friend who helped him with research throughout the book.
Personally, most of the idea that he came up with and the storyline throughout the book was really top notch. My problem, was that there were far too many mistakes throughout and in general, just lots of stuff that didn't exactly make sense or add up...
Some of these things were as such:
-How could Sam Bushey have that last name when she was at school, when she only acquired it once she married Phil Bushey. (Assuming that they aren't already related....)
-It takes huge industrial fans to blow any air through the dome, so how can they clearly speak to one another??? I was under the impression that noise was created by a change in the frequency in airwaves, but this wouldn't work with the dome blocking it??? (Feel free to correct me, science nerds...)
-Spelling errors in the book, such as at one point 'dope' is written 'rope'. Unless this is a new slang word for dope, it appears to the normal eye as a spelling error.
(There were more errors, but I'm not going to bore you to death!)
All of these little things should have been detected, if not by the proof-readers, but by the editor or at least someone at the publishers. Very poor workmanship....
To top the story off, Stephen King ends up ruining the ending.... I'm not going to give too much away, however, I'm personally never going to recommend this book to anyone else. It was sort of just a huge let-down in the last twenty pages. He winds you up all the way through the book, but then, when you expect there to be a big twist at the end, there just isn't.... Don't get me wrong, it was a great storyline, I just think that I could have finished it off 1ox better.
Anyway, that's all for now. I've got to head off for work. I'll post again soon.
Adam.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
First Post and General Overview
Hi Everyone!
This is the first post of my new blog, basically I'm just going to quickly outline what this blog is going to be about.
I'll mainly just natter on about all the little happenings in my life, but I will also be updating, posting comments and talking about the book that I am currently developing. Hopefully this will be semi-interesting and some people will enjoy reading, commenting and giving me feedback on what you think about it all!
Currently I'm reading a book called 'Under the Dome' by Stephen King. I'll post another blog in a day or two when I get it finished.
Anyway, I'm away to watch the latest episode of Doctor Who, yay!
Update you all soon,
Adam.
This is the first post of my new blog, basically I'm just going to quickly outline what this blog is going to be about.
I'll mainly just natter on about all the little happenings in my life, but I will also be updating, posting comments and talking about the book that I am currently developing. Hopefully this will be semi-interesting and some people will enjoy reading, commenting and giving me feedback on what you think about it all!
Currently I'm reading a book called 'Under the Dome' by Stephen King. I'll post another blog in a day or two when I get it finished.
Anyway, I'm away to watch the latest episode of Doctor Who, yay!
Update you all soon,
Adam.
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