I have four words for you: vampire/human hybrid baby.

Stephenie Meyer’s writing style is more akin to a historical romance or fan fiction than that of a sensical novel. Her characters are more or less shallow and 2-dimensional, and the background setting is ill-conceived and inconsistent. But aside from that, the first book in her series, Twilight, isn’t terrible. It’s angsty teenage vampire schlock, but it’s decently enjoyable schlock. The books get worse as the series goes on; #2 is awful and unfocused, #3 is fair and includes some badly-needed background story, but the final book in the series defies rational description.

Anyone building a world inside a story must, by logical definition, follow their own rules in it. Meyer just sort of starts ignoring the rules and background setting she establishes in the previous installments, and by this point in the story the characters are all one-dimensional paper cutouts whose sole purpose is to shadow and prop up the sociopathically selfish main character who quickly loses any intelligence or redeeming features. Every supporting character has his or her one trick and simply does it – poorly. One can almost see the walls of reality crashing in as all of the previously-established setting rules, characters and limitations are ignored or reversed in this book.

This story is so awful it will inspire mental nausea; beyond that, it is badly composed and poorly written. One has to wonder about an author who starts out as an amateur and devolves from there. The popularity of this series does nothing to erase its sins or raise it to the level of good literature. For being purile, immature and shallow is forgiveable; being self-serving, inconsistent, and ridiculous is not.

And to those still foolish enough to wish to live in this world, I say to you; death and sadness, in every book.

This books is an excellent resource for Vampire: The Masquerade players. It’s a grouping of short stories that illustrate different clans, cities, kindred and general night-to-night activites in the World of Darkness. It also has methods of making things like boons and politics work. I have this on the recommended reading list for my Vampire game.

Unlike most of the world, I rate movies on context, appropriateness and what they deliver. This movie was good because it promised to be a wildly zombie weirdfest and it was. It was done right for what it was, and didn’t try to pretend otherwise (as opposed to most Hollywood movies which try to make themselves into something they aren’t.)

This movie gets happily filed under the category of “Does What It Says: Enjoyable”.

This is supposed to be a comedy, and it is, but if you’ve ever had a genuine problem with depression, this WILL NOT make you happy to watch. In fact, it might not make you happy to watch either way. Having been afraid to leave my house and having spent about 2 years not really going out or working, this just made me feel vastly desolate. I would not recommend it.

Don’t get me wrong; this book was useful. But it was more interesting than useful. Also, I’ve spent the last while learning how to change my life, so the information wasn’t too too helpful. It seems to me the career changes in this are painful and not always too successful, and were picked more for their bizarreness rating than realism or example of good career changes. I think this author has a lot to learn about successful transitions and the reasons and methods you use to do them.

You really need to use a lot more milk than butter on this one. I use soy milk, and I think it makes it sweeter! This is the only type of KD I can eat anymore.

I thought this was going to be dry, but the author wove in the stories of the people who searched for and climbed these trees, making them interesting and live. The descriptions were succinct, and, except for a small part or two that gets technical, everything is described in understandable terms. I took time to think about what I had read, and connect the information in my mind to other relevant things. It is very obvious these people love and know the trees, their environs and their place in history. It makes me wonder to know some of those giants have been here since the Parthenon was built. It humbles me that there is something that is resilient even to the deathly touch of humanity.

I hope I will remember what I’ve learned and the feeling I have about it, and connect this knowledge together with other, pertinent knowledge later on, adding to and connecting to my wider understanding of the importance of things in the world.

A good regular book with succinct stories of pertinent facts and appropriate pictures. I loved seeing what Hamilton looked like as it grew, and I never realized it was such an interesting place in time! I really appreciate this book and don’t regret buying it!

They have a decent, non-offensive collection, but since it’s from Disney I worry that they put something in the music. I wish I was kidding…