Review: Split


Split
Split by Tara Moss

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I read this novel a couple of years ago so it's not fresh in my mind but I will say this. I'm generally the type of reader who will pick a book from anywhere in a series, enjoy it, but then not bother with the rest of the set. Split changed that. The edge of the seat quality of this second part from Tara Moss's "psycho magnet" saga commissioned me to round up Fetish, Covet and Hit in order to follow the heroine, Makedde Vanderwall, from the Catwalk to the Crime Scene so to speak.
Split reminded me of scenes ranging from the 2000 Australian film Chopper to dark and intriguing BBC series Wire in the Blood, yet in a world where a truly original story is increasingly elusive Moss has succeeded in writing a body of work that is refreshingly far beyond just another rehashed "Who-Done-It."
Don't wait for a rainy day when the TV's on the blink to read this one. Do it now!




View all my reviews

Review: Keeper of the King


Keeper of the King
Keeper of the King by Nigel Bennett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Without giving too much away, Keeper of the King is, to date, the only story I have come across that throws Vampires into the Arthurian Legend and it does so brilliantly. But don't expect too much about the knights of the round table as this is set in the 1990's.
As with all good modern tales of the Nosferatu Bennett throws in something extra to change the way the reader thinks about Vampires while maintaining a few blood sucking essentials to ensure the characters are still unmistakably our favourite undead creatures of the night. This combined with a bit of sex, romance, and a quest for a certain golden chalice keeps the reader's eyes adhered to the page long after the eyelids want to close for the night.



View all my reviews

Writing

I'd possibly be an accomplished well known novelist if it wasn't for the fact that every time I start to write something fictional I either deviate too far from the original idea, forget it completely, or simply read back over it, hate it, and lose interest followed by deleting it altogether. There was one rather short and depressing poem I wrote several years ago and submitted to website which published it in a book along with the other "winning" entries from their users. Alas, the website, book title and poem have all escaped the confines of my dark recess of a memory and I didn't at the time feel like paying for a copy of the book. Anyway, let's get back on track.
Sitting with my napping dogs, Ellie and Buddha, I had just finished Chapter Two of Tara Moss's Siren when the idea crept inside my head to about a dark mysterious fellow with thoughts of revenge and retribution to dish out. I flipped open my laptop, opened up OpenOffice Writer 2.0 and proceeded to type. What I typed was most definitely not dark nor was it mysterious.
The mysterious man had transformed within mere seconds and I found myself writing about a young woman enjoying the sun late one Spring day...

...so unless something dark and mysterious happens I don't know what's going on.

The Social Circle

Be objective and people will get offensive,
be offensive and people will get amused,
be amusing and people will get serious,
be serious and people will get defensive,
be defensive and people will get suspicious,
be suspicious and people will get paranoid,
be paranoid and people will get unsure,
be unsure and people will get religious,
be religious and people will get scientific,
be scientific and people will get intrigued,
be intrigued and people will get philosophical,
be philosophical and people will get political,
be political and people will get closed minded,
be closed minded and people will get objective...

You know it's true.

Politics and Politicians

The True Definition.
Politics: A process by which groups of people make collective decisions.
Politician: A person involved in influencing public policy and decision making.

The General Public's Definition.
Politics: The process of making policies more stupid and threatening.
Politician: A person who acts in a manipulative and devious way to gain advancement.

One of the main reasons for this is revealed in the second photo.

Malcolm Turnbull,
Former Liberal Party Leader.
A true conservative politician.


Tony Abbott,
Currant Liberal Party Leader
A true embarrassment on a global scale.

On A More Serious Note

What is wrong with people today? They don't want a carbon tax because they fear they might be a little out of pocket? They don't want a carbon tax because they are sceptical of the whole climate change issue? They don't want a carbon tax because the country hasn't voted on it in an official referendum?

Seriously, the world is full of retards who clearly don't understand the severity of the problem we have put ourselves in!

I don't mean people of mental disability when I use the word retards. I'm talking about the everyday normal people who went to school for at least 13 years, participated in some form of tertiary education, and can read, write, observe, assess, and make informed logical decisions in their day to day lives but for the life of them cannot make the indescribably minuscule mental step of using their own senses and memories of years gone by to come to the constantly proven and reinforced scientific fact that the climate of this planet we populate is messed up all over the place and global warming is not just a myth dreamed up for political propaganda and that the human race in its infinite wisdom greatly accelerated (if not caused) the process over the great many decades of the carbon era.

It couldn't be any simpler to understand.
The coal we burn to generate electricity & power steam trains, the oil, petrol, diesel & gas we run our vehicles on, the fires we light to keep warm in winter, etc, etc, etc all loads our atmosphere with constantly increasing amounts of carbon. What does all this mean? It's air pollution for a start and it's increasing the overall temperature of the planet. Polar ice caps are melting faster than they should, cyclones are increasing in both severity and occurrence, islands are being lost to the sea, weather patterns are altered, etc, etc, etc.

The faster we all agree that global warming and climate change are a real and present threat to more than just our way of life and that there is a genuine need to change our ways and then actually do it instead of talk about it the better off we'll all be. So utilise the canvas shopping bags, recycle as much as possible, filter your used cooking oil and run your diesel car on it, walk instead of drive the 5 minutes to the corner shop, plant a native tree in your back yard, unplug electronics if they're not in use and use the ceiling fans instead of the air conditioner.

I hear the same rubbish every day from people. "Say No to Carbon Tax", "It's going to cost people their jobs", "Carbon Tax is Bullshit"... the list goes on but not one has an opinion of their own as to how best to deal with climate change and global warming so until you have read on some facts and listened to the scientists and pulled your head from your backside and looked around you have no place spouting your misinformed opinions.

I could be polite and passive but nothing short of abrupt vulgarities seem to hold the attention of these dumb-shit spastics. We don't have another planet to go start afresh on so lets all do our bit to stop fucking up this one!

Fun Times

Oh, that's right! I have a blog I've left unattended for 3 months. Skipping back over it it seems to be half full of deep and meaningful heartfelt truth from the depths of my soul (yeah right) and the rest is just trivial non-important nonsensical dribble. I can't see any reason to change this either. Therefore I shall just put an update of my trivial, non-important and nonsensical life.

Let's see now...

My bottom left wisdom tooth - Number 38 - decided to poke it's head through and attempt to fuck Number 37 up the arse so the dentist decided to get an X-ray to catch the culprit in the act.


Those with a bit of dental understanding will notice the abscess beneath 38 and the fact that it's rooting the nerve beside it. Want a closer look?




Now, I must point out that the agony i was making with painkiller after painkiller was nothing compared to the actual extraction process.
i.e. I think there was a good reason for the bruise under the surgeon's eye.
Anyway, it's out now as you can see.


You can also see where he drilled into it, and, if you look really close you can see where he slipped with the drill several times.

Fun times.