I’ve been a fan James Maxey for a while now and this remained the only book that I hadn’t read, his earliest book. It does show that it’s his first published novel, or at least shows how much he has improved as a writer since.
It tells the story of man who wakes up one day to find he is sleeping in a house belonging to a strange couple, except he’s not really in a strange house, it is his house. At first he assumes he is dead and that all of this has gone on a month after but everything shows that it isn’t the case. It turns out that he never existed at all, due to a man scientist who has changed the past and, in so doing, altered the present.
The book proposes to be set within a reality version of our world if things like superheroes were real but in all honesty it is no different from any comic book that you can pick up, just in a novel form. I like my superheroes and Maxey comes up with some neat concepts and his heroes are suitably hero-like without going over-the-top or making his story too childlike–this is for adults–but I couldn’t help think that there was something missing, something tangible to make it special, that something that all his later books had that made them so memorable and stylish. This book was entertaining and I enjoyed it but just a few days after I had finished it I can’t even remember the main character’s name, the Nobody of the title. The characters just don’t have the quality that makes them stick in the mind that his other characters, like Bitterwood, had and I think it all has to do with Maxey being a young writer with much to learn, which he obviously did.
I enjoyed it and it’s certainly worth a read but if you’re new to Maxey you should probably pick the Bitterwood trilogy or his short story collection There is No Wheel.

I played and enjoyed the iOS game Infinity Blade of which this novella is a sequel/prequel and so I downloaded this out of interest as the price wasn’t too high, even if it was just a novella. The game didn’t have much of a story, or even a story at all other than an interesting fantasy setting with some science fiction overtones littered through it so I wasn’t expecting too much from this but I finished it pleasantly surprised.
If you don’t know, the game tells the story of a knight who turns up a castle, makes his way through various enemies until he meets the God King whom he fights to the death and his descendants do the same for, well, infinity. Dialogue is spartan and often little detailed but it proved interesting and it led myself to wonder what it was all about. This story by Brandon Sanderson, a writer I knew nothing about, fills all the story ideas in and really fleshes out the characters in a way that the game only hinted at. I was gripped constantly by the story and it really does become involving and emotional at times. It doesn’t explain too much, most likely leaving the rest up to the sequel to the game that comes out next month but I would recommend this, even if you have never played the iOS game.
I also noticed the writer having written a series of book known as Mistborn. I’ll be checking that out after reading this.

Kind of like Rocky for the modern, MMA-loving era Warrior tells the story of a down-on-his-luck father and husband who is running out of money and opportunities to help his family when he decides to do the one last thing that can make money: fight. He used to do it in his youth but now he’s hitting forty and hasn’t fought in years, only surviving on a school teacher’s wage, a job he ultimately loses for his fighting on the side.
It’s all very Rocky but parallel it also shows the story of his brother, someone he hasn’t seen in years who comes back from serving in the marines to train with their former alcoholic father played by Nick Nolte, a role he was certainly designed to play and one he does masterfully . The long-lost brother, played by Tom Hardy, has a mysterious past that he never explains and shows little emotion other than anger and resentment to his family. It’s the most powerful element of the story and this family dynamic is incredibly well-written, the highlight of a very powerful script. One thing about this movie is, unlike general hollywood films that believe the audience is too stupid to understand anything so they have to spell everything out for them, this movie doesn’t. It lets the audience fill in the gaps by actually having to think which is so unusual to see in a movie that it ends up being the most surprising aspect of the whole movie.
That last hour or so is taken up by the big tournament and even though it becomes obvious that the two brothers will end up fighting at the end it just works, emotionally and physically with very well-filmed fights that feel visceral. I was on the edge of my seat many times throughout.
Excellent movie with some of the best emotions and physical fights ever seen on film. Go see it.

Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games Trilogy has apparently many fans, especially in the USA and when amazon were selling the kindle versions in a sale I had to buy it. I bought all three books and unusually for something like that I didn’t even take a break after reading each one, I read them right through and enjoyed them immensely.
Starting with The Hunger Games, the first in the series, and the best of the lot. The story of a girl, Katniss Everdeen, who is chosen to be in the titular Hunger Games, a barbaric TV show where two people are chosen from various poor districts and made to fight to the death for the amusement of the Capital who are the rich part of society in what is left of an apparently mostly destroyed united states while the districts starve to death and produce everything for the fat Capital and are only given food if they put their children into the games.
The main crux of the story of Katniss and Peeta, from the same district and share a kind of love; in the case of Peeta this is true love that any young man would have for a young girl and in the case of Katniss it is just the love of friendship, at least until she decides that showing a fake relationship for the audience actually benefits them both and produces some kind of added likelihood that they may survive this together.
The Hunger Games is excellent and enthralling, enjoyable to the very end, and although this is advertised as a children’s book its very violent and adult in its themes.
The second book, Catching Fire, is not quite as good as the first but still very good, showing how Katniss and Peeta get on after the events of the first book and showing the full extent of the evil of the Capital, something only hinted at in the first book, and showing more of what the outside world is like. This book repeats much of what happened in the first book and ends up being just a little shallow for it. The uniqueness of the first is lost when the author decides to repeat it but it has a surprise ending that makes it worth the while.
The third book, Mockingjay, is probably the weakest of the bunch but don’t let that fool you into thinking its bad. It’s not. Yet it does have something missing, no real main topic or plot point to cling onto while showing you the actions of the Capital feels a little over the top and unrealistic. The character of President Snow in particular goes from being someone interesting and intelligent while being subtly menacing to just being a straight out bad guy and that is disappointing.
The last book is entertaining and as the last of an apparent trilogy its a suitable bookend, especially with the bleak and dark ending which is a very different thing to read.
The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins is a great read for adults and teenagers alike just maybe read it first before you give it to any kids as the violence can get extreme.

Apollo 18 is one of those movies trying to capitalize on the success of Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project before it and, in a way, it proves successful. Critics complain that this style of filming, using handheld cameras for a secret diary feel, is old and dated but its one of my favorite form of filmmaking, certainly a lot better than what the hundred million pound movies are doing. It feels personal and intimate and as long as it produce some fine actors and a good script then it can turn out well which Apollo 18 definitely is.
Mixing real-life footage with set filming the movie follows three male astronauts who go to the moon but the last official trip to the moon was 17, not 18, and the circumstances appear odd and mysterious. It quickly becomes obvious that the astronauts aren’t bring told the truth about why they are there.
Although it does have some horror staples it doesn’t really become a true horror movie. The jump out of your seat moments are few and far between and while other movies always seem to contain nothing but a collection of these moments this movie uses them sparingly which makes it all the more effective when it happens.
The movie is more a psychological horror although there are monsters here, the movie shows that sometimes the government are more monsters than the creatures that live on the moon. Apollo 18 shows the steady mental collapse of an astronaut that becomes infected by a creature they don’t understand in a situation where they can’t help themselves.
The creatures themselves are suitable alien and despite an obviously small budget the movie manages to make them as realistic as possible on their obviously small budget. They are seen very little and even when they are shown on-screen they are covered in shadows or move so quick as to leave most of what the viewer thinks they are to the imagination. For a movie with a tiny budget this is always the way to go and usually makes the scares that much better.
In all the movie is effective and even a little thought-provoking with some good performances throughout. Well worth a watch.

I’ve been reading King since I was young and he’s always been my inspiration as a writer and how I see other books that use his style. He’s been accused of doing sloppy work for the last decade and there is some degree of truth to that but I’ve still enjoyed all the books that I’ve read in the last few years even if they don’t touch the quality of his older works.
Full Dark, No Stars is a collection of four novellas, not unlike his old collection Different Seasons and this doesn’t touch the quality of those older stories but, still, there is some good here.
The first story is of a farmer conniving with his son to dispose of his wife who is threatening to get rid of the farm that has been in his family for generations. He justifies her death by showing how abusive and hurtful she can be towards her son and husband although it still feels like a bit of an overreaction to the situation. There is also some supernatural aspects mixed in to this 1920s set story to make it a little more King-like.
The second story, Big Driver, is the story of a woman’s rape at the hands of a giant clichéd southern hick and her story of her quest for revenge. I was disappointed in this one, I was waiting for a twist that never came and I was frustrated with a main character that just refused to do the obvious and sensible thing by reporting her rape to the police and getting the guy arrested. Yes, that would have led to a less interesting story but it was frustrating to me how an apparently intelligent woman could be so stupid, even if she did really want the guy dead.
The third story is of a man, dying of cancer, who is given the opportunity to pass on his bad luck to someone he hates for nothing more than giving the seller a small percentage of his wages every year. Again, I was waiting for some kind of twist that never happens. It feels like a morality tale without the actual morals and this man just doesn’t feel any remorse for what he has passed on to the person that he hates. I was reading, waiting for the moral lesson to slap me in the face but it doesn’t come; in fact King seems to be justifying ruining a man and his family’s lives as long as you really do hate the guy. Odd but quite enjoyable.
The last story, A Good Marriage, is the story of a woman, happily married for nearly thirty years, who discovers one day that her mild-mannered, coin-collecting spouse is not who she thinks he is and may be a serial killer. I enjoyed this story, again there is no twist when I was expecting one but the ending feels satisfying and does make you wonder just what would you do if you found out the person you loved was a psycho and a murderer. That’s one tough question.
Full Dark, No stars is a fine and fairly entertaining book but it is a bit forgettable, without any of the stories really sticking in my memory like Different Seasons did. King may have lost some of the magic but that doesn’t mean you should just dismiss him completely because, although there may be nothing especially memorable about this book, it still has some good entertainment value.
One more thing: I read the new paperback edition which contained a bonus short story which is even more forgettable than the main stories.

I couldn’t help but get swept up in all the great reviews and constant advertisement for Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels and to find that there are fifteen of them was pretty daunting so I started the first book with little optimism; I very rarely am impressed with books that are popular, finding the ones that few people read to be better most of the time and after reading the first Jack Reacher book I’m not sure my opinion has changed.
Jack Reacher is a wanderer. At the start of the book he has been wandering around the USA for six months after leaving the military. He doesn’t stick in any one place for long and that seems to be the basis for all the novels. He enters a town and gets involved in some kind of conspiracy or action that he just has to sort out himself, always being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is not a bad idea for a series and I get the feeling that this first book, compared with the rest in the series, is more of a test for what the rest will be like.
Killing Floor is told in first-person from Reacher’s point of view and from checking the rest of the books in the series I noticed that the rest are in third-person, which would be much more effective; Reacher is fine as a main character but the story should not be told from his perspective; his opinions are often very annoying and make little sense. He is a shoot first ask questions later kind of guy but the perspective should always be from someone who has some sense and can think things through, not Reacher, so it made sense that the author would change it for later books. Reacher would be much more interesting as seen through another’s eyes.
Some of the plot twists fall a little flat, being obvious from well before and this proved annoying. Jack Reacher constantly knows things rather than just assuming the obvious. He knows that certain characters are dead even though he can’t possibly it so, of course, they’re not really dead at all and Reacher comes off as idiotic and far too eager to spout of things he just doesn’t know. This happens throughout the book and it’s constantly annoying but does not destroy what is a reasonably interesting story involving counterfeit money and murder.
I will read the next book, because I am interested and I do believe things will evolve over time for Jack Reacher but I do hope this is just what I think it is: a starting point for better things.

The movie Skyline looked great in trailers, with the obvious money shot of thousands of human being sucked into the alien ship being the focal point and when that scene does come up it’s great visually but it’s a shame there was no movie to put that scene in. The script, what little there is, is filled with so many clichés that it becomes laughable and so many plot holes that it was becoming obvious that they just let a monkey do the writing as no human being with any kind of cognitive function could have written such a piece of atrocious drivel that is the script. According to the credits there was actually two screen-writers, which is absurd; that’s two monkeys but no common sense.
The cast of actors is almost unknown. I recognized Turk from Scrubs and a guy that used to be in Six Feet Under and that was it. What their names are I don’t care because even if there was some kind of worthy script they probably couldn’t pull it off with any kind of purpose.
The effects of the film, obviously the focal point, is adequate but nothing greater than the average episode of Stargate Universe. The alien creations of this movie also show little inspiration with various examples of carbon copies of other movies and video games, Independence Day in particular. This shows serious laziness on the filmmakers’s part, two visual effects artists.
To top it all off is the ending. When finally it looked like something interesting might happen, it ends. This just tops off an already horrible experience.
The worst movie I’ve seen this year by far.

Alan Wake comes from the makes of the now very old Max Payne games and it shows with dark visuals and a great sense of atmosphere. I was reminded many times of the nightmare sequences from the first Max Payne and although they do share a similar style they differ in story.
Alan Wake is writer who takes his wife to a small town for a break and you know that never turns out well. Before you know it strange things are happening everywhere and it comes into question whether this is all real, a symptom of Wake going steadily insane or just a visualization of the book that Wake has written yet doesn’t remember writing. The story is definitely interesting, a step up from most video game scripts and it combines with a simple but effective game mechanic that relies on interesting uses of your torch and the surrounding landscape more than it does just blasting away with a revolver, although you do get that too. It’s my kind of game style as I do get sick of just mindlessly blasting away at identikit enemies all the time. Alan Wake hits a sweet spot with it’s combination that few games do.
Above the story and the gameplay is atmosphere which Wake is ripe with throughout the game. Dark shadows and a heavy mist hang through the small village with the dark presence of enemies called The Taken at every turn ready to jump out at you. It gives a great sense of dread and malice. I was constantly reminded of Silent Hill which is does copy a fair bit but manages to remove itself enough to stand out on its own.
I enjoyed it immensely and plan to play the two DLC that are available for the game, although it does seem to be another case of producers removing parts of the main game just to sell it on to make a few extra quid, a trend that is becoming far too rife. Still, if you like the game you’re going to want to download them and that’s what I’m going to do.