The Illuminati were, or are, a group of thinkers and scholars which had decided to defy the church, and to speak out what they thought. With leaders such as Galileo, they projected their thoughts but were pacifist, trying to cooperate with the church rather than defy it. But the Illuminati got very violent, and were supposedly exterminated by the church. Supposedly. So when a highly volatile substance called antimatter is stolen from a lab; the same lab in which the corpse was found, the Illuminati are the obvious suspects.

There are two key characters; the rest are more secondary, and though they play important roles, not many of them are often mentioned.

Robert Langdon is a professor of symbology, and looks like ‘Harrison Ford in a tweed coat’. He swims fifty laps a day, and plays water polo well.

Vittoria Vetra is the daughter of the corpse, or the assassinated scientist. With him, she was working on recreating the Big Bang, where she discovered antimatter. It is an extremely explosive substance, and the amount stolen is exceptionally large; one quarter of a gram. This amount could blow up half a city, and due to the battery life of the anti matter container, and this gives Robert and Vittoria a 24 hour window to retrieve the container.

This story is aimed at all round audiences; I think eleven years up is fine, due to the simplistic style of writing. However, there are some rather gory parts which should be taken into account before reading the book.

                I think the book was a very good read, and that the twists in this story are exceptional; you can never be sure who the baddy really is. I give it a 9/10 rating, for the plot, and for the ambigrams.

Well done, Dan Brown!

Rachel Sexton: Sedgewick Sexton’s daughter, she seems the unlikely candidate for a civilian opinion, but in fact, it was a very good idea on Herney’s part: Sedgewick will have a harder time denying the discovery if it was also confirmed by his daughter.

Mike Tolland: made famous by his oceanic documentaries, he is in charge of making a documentary about NASA’s discovery. He is handsome, and is someone that can easily be trusted.

Corky Marlinson: a civilian astrophysicist, he is a grumpy character and someone who is very decided on what he thinks.

Norah Mangor: an ice analyzer who hates Marlinson.

Hours away from when the president is going to reveal this discovery to the public, the civilian scientists realize something is wrong. Very wrong. 8/10 for a gripping, awesome book.

I found out that there was a new Maximum Ride book on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I bought it. That’s how good these series are. This one is no disappointment. I’m really enjoying the environmental view on these books. I think it’s a great way to get the message across to children.

                Max is 98% human, and 2% bird, because some evil scientists from a corporation called Itexicon (Itex for short) messed around with her genes when she was an embryo. So she’s stronger than the average grown man, she has a really efficient heart, and she’s filled with air sack so it’s easier for her to fly (she only weighs 95 pounds). And she has wings. As does the rest of her flock:

Max is fourteen, leader of the flock. She likes a good fight, and found out in ‘Maximum Ride: the Final Warning’ that her mum was Dr Martinez, a very nice avian scientist who has a human daughter (Ella). Because none of the flock know who their parents are.

Fang is second in command. He’s quiet, mysterious, and always wears dark clothes. He’s also fourteen years old.

Iggy is fourteen years old, but he’s blind, and assumes nowhere near as much responsibility as Max or Fang. He’s best friends with Gazzy, and he loves to build explosives (ie. Bombs).

Gazzy (or the Gasman – hint hint) is eight, also has an uncanny love for explosives and is Angel’s brother. They are the only blood siblings in the flock.

Angel is six. She can read minds, send telepathic messages to animals, fly (because of her wings), but other than that, she’s a normal six year old girl. Oh Yeah, and she can breathe underwater.

Nudge is eleven, and she can attract metals. She’s probably the most ‘normal’ member of the flock; she loves talking. She will talk about anything on her mind, and she’s easily the nicest one in the flock; she’s always the one to comfort a distressed flock member.

And Total. He’s a Scottie. A dog. But don’t call him that – he’ll get really mad at you. Because he can talk, and he’s just spurted wings.

                In this book, Mr Chu is the head of an evil corporation (sort of on the Itex level, but for different reasons), and he wants Max to severe her ties with CSM (or Coalition to Stop Madness – an environmental group). Being herself, she refuses, and it goes downhill from there. Mr Chu does some things to really annoy Max, and she’s going to stop him.

                Of course, the flock never does anything small scale, and now, they have the help of the US Navy. No more will be revealed. Bang on 9/10 for this book.

                In previous books, Muchamore tackled difficult subjects, and he would describe the kids involved: Class A talked about how Junior was influenced by drugs, and The Fall had some very interesting points about human trafficking. But The General was just some training exercise. Unless I’m really missing out on something, I doubt Muchamore had an issue in mind when he wrote this book.

                However, the book is still very gripping, and the action (whilst it lasts) is very good. Also, I had to wait a long time for this book, and I think it was worth the wait. And again, it has a great balance of facts and fiction. So I give this book 7/10 , but I’m being particularly critical today; I’ve always given the books a high rating (exclude Dark Sun), and here is a more objective view on the series.

What first attracted me to the book was its title. My love to animals inclines towards horses, and I was curious to see how an author would write about an animal gracious and fast, yet speechless.

                ‘The Blood Red Horse’ is not so much about horses as the bonds formed between people and animals during rough times; in this case, King Richard’s crusade.

                The story revolves around William DeGranville, a teen, who becomes a knight just before the crusade sets sail. Of course, he does have a blood red horse. He’s called Hossana, and he’s William’s war horse. William is going to fight with his brother and with his father; but which of the three will come back?

Already, there had been quite some action: Hossana has nearly been ridden to death, William’s brother, Gavin, has come back from the Holy Land the crusade is trying to capture slightly crazed, and William has been dumped in a horse trough. Just a small insight on what happens in the story: not just fighting.

                Life at home is also included: Ellie (Gavin’s wife to be) is having troubles; namely a man named Constable de Scabious, who is determined to marry Ellie now that he thinks all the DeGranvilles died in the crusade.

                I could go on but there are many more characters and all their stories intertwine, so it doesn’t really feel like ay character was invented for the sake of being there. It feels more like the story relies on all the characters to hold together.

                Another strong point in the book is its historic accuracy: though the author says he only based the story on the crusade, it is very accurate, in exception of a few points.

I give this book a 9/10 star rating, for its depth, and for the plot itself: gripping, intense, and kept in suspension until the last moment.

The City of Beasts:

Alex is in New York with his grandmother, Kate. Kate is a writer for a popular magazine, International Geographic. She has an assignment in the Amazon, to look for a mythical beast who has recently been rampaging in the tropical forest, and since she has to look after Alex, he’s dragged their too. There, he meets Nadia, a Brazilian/Canadian girl who has never seen technology, and the other members of the International Geographic team. They head into the jungle, surrounded by invisible Indians.

Alex and Nadia develop a strong friendship, and together, they are lured by the trail of mysteriousness the Indians leave behind. So when they are kidnapped by the Indians, it seems to be more of a blessing than a curse.

This book took me a while to get into: I would begin to read it, but the beginning would put me off and make me put the book down. Don’t let this happen to you; just as it is difficult to really get into a book you’re reading, a writer needs a bit of time before they get into the book as well.

Just one thing: the plot in this book is not very important. It is more the story of Alex and Nadia as they find themselves.

And so, it scores a strong 9 ½ out of 10 star rating

]]> http://culturesquad.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/the-city-of-the-beasts-isabel-allende/feed/ 0 culturesquad city-of-the-beasts http://culturesquad.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/wicked-gregory-maguire/ http://culturesquad.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/wicked-gregory-maguire/#comments Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:35:42 +0000 Gabriel TSENG http://culturesquad.wordpress.com/?p=99 ]]> The Wizard of Oz was a huge hit when it was released, but Maguire had a different view to the well known story. Wicked expresses his views of what a politically disturbed, and dangerously unstable Oz might have been like at the time of Dorothy’s visit.

Wicked takes a deeper look into the characters, and mainly, follows Elphaba’s (the Wicked Witch of the West) life. The Wizard of Oz gives an extremely bad image to the Witch. Wicked completely topples that idea around, looking at it from the Witch’s side: what if the Wizard was in fact the bad guy, and what If Dorothy was just a bother, or a cause for gossip, not in fact the hero she is presented as in the Wizard of Oz.

I loved Wicked, simply because it was so realistic. I have never read a book where a fantasy world is so well described as here. The book takes time in describing seemingly insignificant details, and they seem to be there more so you can build yourself an image of Oz than for the benefit of the story. But however realistic Oz may seem, Maguire still leaves Oz the magic and mystery Lyman Frank Baum originally put in the story.

But a book being so complete causes problems in the ease of reading: I found it difficult to understand some of the writing, mainly because of my limited vocabulary knowledge. This may have slightly deterred my interest from the book: it was a book you would be reluctant to read, yet equally reluctant to leave. Also (though for some, this may not be a disadvantage) there is a lot of speaking, which seems to polite for what it is: people don’t interrupt each other despite their next point being mentioned at the beginning of someone’s say and some people don’t talk through a whole discussion, whilst more important characters talk throughout the whole of it. One last, more minor point is having to rectify the difference between an animal and an Animal.

Overall, this was a very good book, and the good points win over the bad. Gregory Maguire discusses Evil, and it is interesting to see how he gives different characters different ideas, despite only being one author. One last point: after watching the musical, the book seems long and you are waiting for the major events depicted in the play. If you do have the opportunity to watch the musical, I think you should read the book first; you’ll have a deeper insight on the characters and a more complete story: the musical will be like a fun summary of the story. 8/10

After seeing the Blackriggs massacre; an atrocious act of cruelty, 15 year old John is on the run from the government, with information which could save Scotland from the one acre act. All he has to do is get that information to the rebels. Only one problem. He is accompanied by Ninian, a Fragile-X kid who has no way of expressing his emotions. No way of telling John how close much he knows the rebel leader.

                John is a natural hero in any sort of book: traumatized by the death of his younger brother, he keeps to himself and is generally the loner type. So he has devoted himself to hunting and music: or, more specifically, hunting and violin. He plays the ‘fiddle’ to his brother all the time. Until his house is stormed. By the government. Looking for him.

                Halfway through the story, he meets Lila, a girl willing to help the 2 boys. But with the government risking a heavy price if the information John knows gets out, every decision John takes could play a crucial part to the threesome’s survival. Trusting a friend could mean trusting an enemy. And lying to a stranger could mean losing a vital ally.

                I really enjoyed this book, and if it wasn’t for difficult timing, reading it in a sitting would have been no problem. From the beginning of the book, questions are being formed, and your curiosity starts to grow. The book also keeps the action going, with little drag or boringness to the story.

                This came as a shock to me, but this is based on a true story. A true story well worth reading. 8/10.

Killing is like falling in love,

It’s always with someone special…

Him

It was a stormy afternoon. The clouds were grey, causing the sky to be dark as night.

He watched her struggle through the storm.

He waited.

He cleared his throat.

“Would you like an umbrella miss?”

She smiled not suspecting the things going through his mind.

“Yes please!”

Her last words

Mary Jane

She sat at her window observing the view, it was raining, the street outside was empty. There were no people except for the young woman getting soaked. Behind her an old man with a limp followed. Was he her father? No she showed no acknowledgment of knowing he existed, to her he must have been just another figure in the rain. Mary Jane wondered what he was doing, and froze.

Her body went rigid; her blood ran cold as ice making goose pimples stick out on her arms. That face, that horrible deranged face, the evil one that she had to see when she closed her eyes the one that brought back memories that Mary Jane wanted to forget forever, those cold, dead eyes that lit up with fire from the very depths of hell.

It was him. Mary Jane’s eye’s lit up with fear. Fear raw and fresh oozing all over her, wave upon wave of it hit her inside. Her brain began to pump, her blood pressure soared, her heart rate began rising rapidly up to such dangerous heights. All the monitoring machines began to beep excitedly. She twitched dangerously frothing at the mouth, screaming on the inside. Her eye’s rolled backward as she trembled and shook. A doctor and two nurses ran in, grabbing her arms. “Inject her!” the doctor roared. The syringe plunged, and the needle entered. Mary Jane stopped dead, her eyes closed alarmingly; her body went slack her face went blank and expressionless. She slid silently into a deep sleep. But still her fear was there, and you could tell she was dreaming about him. How awful were those dreams? Let me put it this way, nightmare is an understatement.