20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has been kind enough to supply me with 3 copies of Atlas Shrugged: Part I on DVD to give away. Atlas Shrugged: Part I, a movie I haven’t seen, is based off the book by Ayn Rand, which I haven’t read. I have no idea what this movie is about, but people generally seem to consider the book a classic. Based on the trailer, Atlas Shrugged is something about trains, a man of uncertain identity and a woman who wants to be a train conductor and is not, by any means, a sequal to the 2010 film Unstoppable (which was also made by 20th Century Fox but not based on a book). Again, I haven’t read the book or seen the film, but don’t let that stop you from entering to win a DVD copy of this film!

1) Retweet this tweet.
2) Post a comment on this post. By sure to include your e-mail or Twitter name, so I can contact you if you win.

Deadline is November 6th, 2011 at Midnight. I will contact winners on the 7th. Giveaway open to US and Canadian residents only. Winners will be notified by twitter or e-mail.

Title: Machine Man
Author: Max Barry
Publisher: Vintage
Published: August 9th, 2011
Where I got the book: Powell’s Bookstore

From the back cover:

Scientist Charles Neumann loses a leg in an industrial accident. It’s not a tragedy. It’s an opportunity. Charlie always thought his body could be better. He begins to explore a few ideas. To build parts. Better parts.

Prosthetist Lola Shanks loves a good artificial limb. In Charlie, she sees a man on his way to becoming artificial everything. But others see a madman. Or a product. Or a weapon.

A story for the age of pervasive technology, Machine Man is a gruesomely funny unraveling of one man’s quest for ultimate self-improvement.

Review:

Machine Man has the best opening in a book that I’ve ever read. Charles wakes up in his apartment and desperately searches for his cell phone. It’s funny and everybody can relate to his situation. Who hasn’t lost their cell phone at least once and gone through the process of retracing your steps. Eventually, Chales finds his cell phone. Unfortunately, he loose a leg in the process and starts his obsession with prosthetic limbs.

I’ve you’ve read any of Barry’s books before (and by all means you should), then you know what to expect. There’s a cast of flawed characters running around and a big corporation in the background looking out for its own interest regardless of the cost. Charles, being a totally reasonable engineer, is determined to make the best prosthetic leg imaginable. In Machine Man, Charles is employed by Better Future, a company devoted to making the future better. Once they realize that the prosthetics Charles is making could be very profitable, they take a keen interest in his research. Unfortunately, things quickly get out of control as more limbs are lost and replaced with better ones.

This book is fill with a bunch of very comedic scenes such as Charles being taken for a wild ride by his untested robotic legs. These bits are filled with Barry’s trademark humor.

My one complaint about the book is that the main character is not very likeable. He’s a self obsessed jerk who, for the most part, only cares about making himself better through the prosthetists he makes. When his lab assistants manage to improve eyes with Better Eyes, it’s a product he dislikes because he didn’t think of it. In contrast, Charles does fall in love with Lola and for a while she becomes his obsession. However, it’s not long lived because he is easily distracted with prosthetists. In the end, he’s not a character I could root for on a consistent basis which hindered my overall enjoyment of this book.

Closing Thoughts: While not his strongest work, Machine Man is still a very enjoyable, fun read for people looking for something not too serious.

Question: Has anybody played the video game Deux Ex: Human Revolution? I started played it after finishing this book and I am enjoying the parallels.

Title: Little Brother
Author: Cory Doctorow
Publisher: Listening Library
Published: May 11th, 2010
Where I got the book: Library

From the back cover:

Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems.

But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they’re mercilessly interrogated for days.

When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.

Review:

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book. @fyrefly98 recommended it to me, and I generally trust her taste in books. Her blog, Fyrefly’s Book Blog, is one that I never “mark all as read” because I believe she and I have very similar tastes in books.

But this isn’t a review of @fyrefly98, so let’s get down to business. Cory Doctorow is a writer I’ve heard many good things about but never got around to reading. That may have been a huge mistake on my part. Little Brother is a story set in the not too distant future where the department of homeland security starts spying on people, installing cameras, checking their e-mail and tracking their movements all in the name of freedom. Little Brother is the story of Marcus, a high school student well versed in technology, who gets caught up in the chaos after a terrorist attack on San Francisco. He and his three friends get taken in to custody and harshly questioned by the DHS. After a couple of days, Marcus and two of his friends get out, but the fourth member of their group is still missing and the DHS wont answer any questions. What’s more, the DHS tells his that if he ever tells anybody what happened to him while he was being detained, they will throw him back in a prison and throw away the key. As with most teenagers who get told what to do, Marcus gets angry, and he starts to rebel against the DHS. Using an online alias, Marcus plants the seeds of rebellion against the DHS, and they in turn try to track down the mysterious online persona who is freely using the internet as a way to circumvent the restrictions placed upon people by the DHS in the name of freedom.

One of the things I really liked about this book was the use of technology and youth culture. In the beginning of the book Marcus and his friends play an ARG (alternate reality game) which is something I don’t think many adults would be familiar with. Luckily, Doctorow does a fairly good job at explaining all the technical bits for the readers who may not be familiar with computers, programing, etc. However, these parts do slow down the progression of the story. Who wants to read a page of programing code (or listen to it being read as in the case for the audiobook)?

Speaking of the pacing, I found it hard to stop listening to this book. I normally reserve audiobooks for long drives, but I was caught up in what was happening that I needed to find out what happens next. I was listening to this during the short drive to the grocery store and wherever. I was just too eager to see what happens next. There was also a love story aspect that felt tacked on, and I generally didn’t care for. It slowed down the pacing half-way through the book. Thrilling things still happen, it’s just now Marcus has this girl who tags along and doesn’t add anything, I felt, to the overall plot.

At times this book does come off as preachy, warning about how easy it is for a government to take over and invade a person’s privacy and freedom. There were times were I was rolling my eyes at the ideas this book presented. However, it was never laid on thick enough to detract from my enjoyment of the book.

Closing Thoughts: Aside from the occasionally preachiness about freedoms being taken away by the government and the tacked on love story, Little Brother is a captivating story that left me eager to find out what happens next.

Question: You can download most (all?) of Cory Doctorow’s books for free from his website because most (all?) of them are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license which lets you share, remix and share you remix as long as you don’t sell your remix. This is an interesting idea to me. My question is, what if all books were released under this license? Obviously publishers are still OK to some extent with Doctorow giving his books away for free because there are still people paying for hardcopies.

Title: I Am the Messenger
Author: Markus Zusak
Publisher: Listening Library
Published: September 26th, 2006
Where I got the book: Library

From the back cover:

Meet Ed Kennedy—underage cabdriver, pathetic cardplayer, and useless at romance. He lives in a shack with his coffee-addicted dog, the Doorman, and he’s hopelessly in love with his best friend, Audrey. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence, until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery. That’s when the first Ace arrives. That’s when Ed becomes the messenger. . . .

Chosen to care, he makes his way through town helping and hurting (when necessary), until only one question remains: Who’s behind Ed’s mission?

I am the Messenger is a cryptic journey filled with laughter, fists, and love.

Review:

I’ve had The Book Thief by Markus Zusak sitting on my bookshelf for a couple years now. Every now and again, while looking for my next book to read, I’ll pick it up and read the cover before putting it back on the shelf. I’ve heard nothing but good things about The Book Thief, but it just doesn’t sound appealing. When I asked for audio book recommendations, @booksandmovies told me to give I Am the Messenger a try. At this point I had not heard of the book but, after reading briefly about it, it sounded like something I would be interested in.

I Am the Messenger is the story about a slacker who gets a sudden wake-up call when playing cards start arriving in the mail and instruct him to do things. The tasks set forth involve helping random people in his city. How he helps them turns out to be a little more complicated and people end up getting hurt, both physically and emotionally.

I really liked the pacing of this book. It’s quick, one thing after another; the story is fast and made it hard for me to put down (or in my case hit pause). Since the premise of the book is Ed being forced to help people, it never feels like it spends too much time in one spot. It’s fun being the reader and trying to figure out along with Ed what is the problem that the card led him to and how is he going to fix it. At times, the solution will seem obvious while there are occasions where things aren’t as they seem. For me Another thing I really liked about the book was the people Ed helped in the past are not simply forgotten. Since he has helped them, they continue to be a part of his life.

I feel the ending is a subject people will either love or hate. You see, Ed wants to know who is the one sending him the cards in the mail. When the time comes for all to be explained, there are going to be readers who do not like the explanation. I, however, enjoyed the ending. It was nothing like I expected and now that I’ve had time to think back upon it, any other ending would had cheapened the book.

Closing Thoughts: I really liked this book. It was a fast read because the story and mystery were constantly progressing. It never feels repetitive or dull.

Question: If you’ve read this book, I would be interested to hear your take on the ending…

By now you’ve probably seen this goodbye letter from some random Borders. Part of this is funny; the other part angry. They’re basically flipping off all the customers who ever shopped at Borders. As a former Borders employee I don’t feel this note is justified. Yes, from an employee perspective, customers are annoying. But it’s like that at every retail job from Borders to IKEA to the Apple store. There are a lot of fantastic people out there who know what they are doing when it comes to shopping, but at the same time there are a lot of clueless people who make going to work an unpleasant experience. There is truth in the note. I couldn’t count the number of times people asked me to help them find a book when all they knew was the color of the cover. And yeah, how did Oprah become an expert on books? She picked Million Little Pieces and even as a work of fiction that book is a piece of crap.

However, what this letter neglects is all the awesome people I would run in to while working at Borders. I got excited when somebody asked me to recommend a book to them. Do you know what it’s like to be able to explain one of your favorite books to a total strange then have them purchase it just because they saw how excited you were about it? That was me! Watching customers walk away with the book I told them about was the best part of my job. Then there was the people I worked with. Sure, there were some jerks and a general manager who mysterious disappeared. But for the most part they were awesome, well read people. There was one lady who had seriously read a majority of the romance section. We worked there because we had a passion for books. We loved customers who shared our passion. This letter? It’s not addressed to those who love books. It feels like it was written by employees who are angry that they job that surrounded them with things they love, books, is going away and never coming back. Years from now, when I tell my kids that I worked at a bookstore, will they even know what I’m talking about? Bookstores are slowly coming to an end (sorry) and these employees needed to vent. They needed someone to blame.

So don’t get angry at them for getting angry at their customers. They’re the ones who are losing their jobs that surrounded them with books for eight hours a day.

Booking Through Thursday asks:
What do you think of reading aloud/being read to? Does it bring back memories of your childhood? Your children’s childhood? Does this affect the way you feel about audio books? Do you now have times when you read aloud or are read to?

There are occasions where I will read aloud or have someone else read. Normally this is before bed and it’s the choose your own adventure books. I do spend a good amount of time listening to audiobooks which reminds me of going on road trips when I was young with my family in the minivan. We’d get an audiobook to listen to on the eight hour drive. This was exciting for Lil’ Colin because the books we listened to were grown-up audiobooks. They were books that I wouldn’t have been able to read because they were too complex or long.

Title: Ivan and Misha: Stories
Author: Michael Alenyikov
Publisher: Triquarterly / Northwestern University Press
Published: October 2010
Where I got the book: Electronic Review Copy, part of TLC Book Tour

Synopsis:

In Ivan and Misha, Michael Alenyikov portrays the complexities of love, sexuality, and the bonds of family with boldness and lyric sensitivity. As the Soviet Union collapses, two young brothers are whisked away from Kiev by their father to start life anew in America. The intricately linked stories in this powerful debut, set in New York City at the turn of the millennium, swirl about the uneasy bond between fraternal twins, Ivan and Misha, devoted brothers who could not be more different: bipolar Ivan, like their father, is a natural seducer, a gambler who always has a scheme afoot between fares in his cab and stints in Bellevue. Misha struggles to create a sense of family with his quixotic boyfriend, Smith, his wildly unpredictable brother, and their father, Lyov (“Call  me Louie!”), marooned in Brighton Beach yet ever the ladies’ man. Father and sons are each haunted by the death of Sonya, a wife to Lyov, a mother to his sons. An evocative and frank exploration of identity, loss, dislocation, and desire, Ivan and Misha marks the arrival of a uniquely gifted voice in American fiction.

Review:

I am breaking some rules by reviewing this book. First, I accepted a digital copy of the book to read. I do not have a Kindle or iPad so my time spent reading this book has been in my uncomfortable desk chair. Second, I agreed to have the review up by a certain date (today). I don’t like feeling like i’m a slave to the blog. I like posting when I get around to it.

I know I’ve started out on a negative note, but stay with me. The reason I agreed to accept an digital review copy and the reason I agreed to post my review today was because the book sounded really appealing to me. If you’re a fellow book blogger then you know what it’s like to get review requests for books that sound like something you would never in a million years be interested in read. With Ivan and Misha, however, it sounded exactly like something I would like to read.

There have books i’ve read in the past (Blue Boy, Quarantine) that have explored what it’s like to be different (in a queer sense) and to come from a country with different traditions. Both of those books I greatly enjoyed, so I was looking forward to reading Ivan and Misha.

Now, full disclaimer. I haven’t finished the book. I have about twenty pages left to go, but I need to get this review up. Maybe once I finish the book I will update this review. I make no promises (other than to post this review on time). Ivan and Misha is made up of about five sections that follow different characters. The stories are connected to each other and offer a different perspective on the other characters or events that had transpired in past sections. These stories are not presented in a chronological fashion. It was weird at first to have a character die in one section then to have the next section start from his point-of-view. Since I already knew what was going to happen to that character, I lost a little interest thinking the events of that section were going to lead up to his death again. They didn’t. Instead it offered a different perspective of that character. He turned out to be completely different from how he was made out to be in the previous section. I know I’m being vague; it’s a delicate balance trying to encourage you to read this book and, at the same time, trying not to spoil it for you.

Now the title characters of this book, Ivan and Misha, are twins but complete opposites. They were brought to America at a young age by their father, Louie, who believed America to be a better place than Kiev. Misha’s boyfriend, Robbie, has complicated feelings about his family and is constantly changing his name in attempts to re-invent himself.

This book explores some depressing themes such as being accepted by family members, AIDS, loneliness and love. I’ve really enjoyed reading this book and would recommend that you check it out.

I agreed to review this book as part of a blog book tour put together by TLC Book Tours. While I haven’t read every other blog’s review, I did notice that a couple blogs that I follow featured reviews of their books. I highly recommend that you check out Regular Rumination and Stuff as Dreams are Made On because I like their blogs and you should too.

Closing Thoughts: I should really buy a Kindle or a more comfortable desk chair.

Question: Is it okay for a book blogger to review a book when he still has twenty pages to read?

Title: Abarat: Absolute Midnight
Author/Artist: Clive Barker
Pages: 592
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: September 27th, 2011
Where I got the book: ARC from publisher

From the back cover:

“I know that many of you here have waited years for this Hour,” Mater Motley said, using that voice that, though it was barely conversational in volume, was somehow heard everywhere. “The waiting is over. Tomorrow there will be no dawn. Only midnight, absolute and eternal.”

And so begins a new chapter in the epic story of sixteen-year-old Candy Quackenbush and her journeys through the world of the Abarat, where every hour is an island in one eternal day, and nothing is as it seems.

Candy travels through the Abarat from island to island and across the sea with an unlikely band of friends: the escaped prisoner Malingo the Geshrat, the quarrelsome John Brothers, who all share the same body but never the same opinion, and the many other colorful characters they meet along the way.

The problem is that trouble finds Candy wherever she goes. And soon she discovers a secret plot, masterminded by the diabolical Mater Motley, who is obsessed with becoming Empress of the Islands. Her method is simple. She will darken the skies, putting out the suns, moons, and stars. She will bring absolute midnight.

Review:
I can’t help but feel the first line on the back of the book is Clive Barker’s attempt at acknowledging how long it’s been between books. “I know that many of you here have waited years for this Hour.” Yeah, I’ve been waiting seven years for this book. Oddly enough, I don’t remember when Mater Motley says those lines in the book. I may have glossed over it. After all, this is a long book. 592 pages long. It’s worth it though. Every page is captivating with the descriptions of the fantastical world and characters that reside in the Abarat to the dialog coming from Mater Motley’s lips.

I will keep this review spoiler free but will be writing a spoiler-filled review after the book is released. I have thoughts on certain events, but I can not talk about them here without giving anything away. So. Absolute Midnight picks up after the flood of Chickentown at the end of Days of Magic, Nights of War. Since finding out about the mysterious events surrounding her birth, Candy decides to seek out somehow to help her with the other personality inside her head. Meanwhile, Mater Motley, who may have more page-time than Candy in this book, picks up where her grandson, Christopher Carrion, left off and puts the pieces in motion to bring about absolute midnight throughout all of the Abarat. While telling you what happens would go against my “spoiler free” policy, I can say that Mater Motley’s plans reach their pinnacle halfway through the book and left me wondering how it would be possible to continue the story as it had been progressing so far. It’s kind of like how the first three Harry Potter books are kind of on the lighter side of things then Goblet of Fire comes along and brutally murders Cedric Diggory and brings Voldermort back to life. After GoF, the Harry Potter books take a much darker tone. Absolute Midnight felt very similar to that sudden change in tone. The book ends on such a cliffhanger that I have no idea what to expect from the next book.

Since this is the third book in the series, there weren’t many new characters introduced. By the end of the second book, there was already a large cast of characters surrounding Candy and her adventure. Adding any more would have made it difficult to keep track of who was doing what and where were they in terms of the islands. Thankfully, Absolute Midnight practically cuts all sub-plots and instead focuses on Candy and Mater Motley’s stories. It also felt like there wasn’t as much artwork in this book compared to the amount in the first two books. Some of the pieces had originally appeared at some point during the first two books.

I have two minor complaints with the book, but I’m forced to save those for the spoiler-filled review. Regardless, they did not hinder my enjoyment of the books.

(if you are confused, read the reviews for Abarat and Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War)

Closing Thoughts: I’ve been waiting seven years for this book. When I finished it I concluded that the wait had been worth it. Absolute Midnight it the most action packed chapter in the Abarat saga so far. I couldn’t wait to see what would happen next or how the book was going to end. I felt like I was in the same boat as Candy and had no clue how the Abarat would recover from the events in this book. I just hope I don’t have to wait seven more years for the next book.

Question: I’m glad that Harper re-printed the first two Abarat books just in time for the release of Absolute Midnight. However, I am extremely disappointed that this re-prints are completely devoid of the artwork that was originally published in the books. I would like to know who thought that was a good idea. Why would they cut such a fantastic part out of those books?