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Title: Tears of the Desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur
Author: Halima Bashir with Damien Lewis

Thoughts: This was a very moving and touching memoir that made me cry at several points. Prior to reading this novel, I knew little about what has been happening in Darfur, something I am ashamed to admit. This book certainly educated me a lot.

Also I found the traditions that Bashir grew up with interesting to read about and it was obvious how much she loved her family in her descriptions of her childhood and of when she returns to her home village.

There were a lot of disturbing events in the book, but they are there to inform, not to sensationalize them. The part that sticks out the most in my mind was the female circumcision that she had to go through. I had never read an account of it before and being female myself, I know how much of a violation that could be. I can’t begin to imagine the pain or the betrayal she felt, but I can understand.

Bashir is a very brave and strong woman and I think she should be considered someone to look up to as she never stopped fighting in her own way with her care of the injured and speaking out.

(Written for LibraryThing)

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Title: Cybermancy
Author: Kelly McCullough

Thoughts: This is the book that follows directly after WebMage and I liked it, especially as it dealt with the concept of Chaos and the nature of it. It also explains a lot about who or what Necessity is.

Ravirn in this novel becomes a much more interesting character to me when he finally acknowledges the new nature that his new name, Raven, had given him. Now that he’s been disowned by the House of Fate that he was born to, he is no longer a force for Order, but for Chaos as the trickster nature of his new name would suggest. Not that he was all that orderly in the first place, especially compared to Cerice, Ravirn’s girlfriend.

It was a fun book to read and I can’t wait until I get around to reading the third book, Codespell.

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Title: Babylonne
Author: Catherine Jinks

Thoughts: This historical fiction novel was somewhat interesting as it covered a time period of history that I am not intimately familiar with. It made me curious about the Cathars and part way though reading the book I had to look them up out of curiosity. Anyway, I found part of the plot to be rather predictable as in that I closely divined the general gist of the end of the book just from blurb on the back. The writing is also a bit simplistic feeling, but it was written in first person from the point of view of a teenage girl. First person is a hard perspective to write in from my experience. More often than not I find that writing in first person can feel awkward and Jinks’s writing did not feel awkward despite the perspective. I enjoyed reading the book and I may read the books about Babylonne’s father someday when I have the time.

(Written for LibraryThing)

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Title: Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul
Editors: Mark D. White and Robert Arp

Thoughts: By applying philosophical concepts to a familiar piece of pop culture, this book helped me understand many concepts that had previously eluded me, such as Aristotle’s and Kant’s views on ethics. The essays were mostly based off of the comic books and they made very little mention of any of the other Batman related media. I don’t remember much in the way of my thoughts about the book as I’ve read it several weeks ago, but I do remember finding the first essay that asked about the continued living of the Joker. The only other thing I know is that I enjoyed reading this book very much and I found it very educational and enlightening.

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Title: Batman Unauthorized: Vigilantes, Jokers, and Heroes in Gotham City
Editor: Dennis O’Neil

Thoughts: This is a collection of essays written on the pop culture phenomenon of Batman. Some of the essays addressed the latest of the Batman movies, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. As this book was published before the release of The Dark Knight, one of the essays wondered if they could really capture who the Joker is and the movie did, in the end, proved up to the task in my opinion as well as in the opinion of many others.

Some essays were amusing (such as the one about the cost of being Batman) and sometimes not amusing despite the attempt to do so (I was sorely dissappointed by the “To the Batpole!” essay as there are probably fanfiction out there that does a better job). One of my favorite essays was about Arkham Asylum as I’m always quite interested in the exploits of the insane in Gotham.

There were also some essays that just weirded me out. One was the essay written by whom I refer to in my head as “the rabid Frank Miller fanboy” which gave me so many reasons not to read his newer Batman books despite the fact that the essay tried to argue for them. Sorry, I’m just not interested in ridiculous graphic novels that have Superman and Wonder Woman having sex in the sky and crashing an airplane in the process. Then there’s the essay that claims that the campy 60’s Batman is the real Batman, based on the idea that Batman is seen as a commercial symbol by most. I disagree, mostly because I grew up with a different Batman than the one he did. I grew up with the Batman of the more serious animated series from the early 90’s. I have yet to see why so many people from older generations even consider the 60’s campy TV show as good. Perhaps I just don’t have much of a sens of humor (nor does the Batman I grew up with). Another article that confused me was the article comparing Batman to George W. Bush. It confused me a lot until the end because it was not clear to me that the author did not like George W. Bush, but still liked Batman. Other than that, I found many of the essays to be fascinating and enlightening as I am still some what new to the comics canon and several of the essays discussed it.

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Title: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Author: Ishmael Beah

Thoughts: This book was recommended by an acquaintance of mine on his journal and since I had an interest in the plight of child soldiers, I got it to read. To be honest, I have thought about donating money to help these children, but I unfortunately have not done so. There really is no excuse, but I am not good at managing what little money I do have.

Anyways, onto the book. The writer of this book is six years older than me, which means that I was alive when Ishmael went through his ordeal. I wouldn’t have remembered much of back then as I still was very young and because of that, I have very little knowledge of the conflict in Sierra Leone. I really should read up on that as I believe that one should be aware of their world, past and present. This is also the conflict that is the background for the somewhat recent movie Blood Diamond.

There are so many different conflicts that have and are still going on in Africa. Most of them seem to be forgotten or only heard of unless someone cares enough to research the situation and make it heard. I’m one of those people who have only heard about things rather than doing anything about it and I feel guilty about that. Instead I’m too occupied with WWI and European Nationalism. Yet the idea of a nation-state with one common culture and language has spread to Africa and has been the cause of strife there. Yet, in the end, Africa seems to have become a forgotten continent.

Anyways, I digress. This memoir made me think and touched me deeply, especially the parts that described what combat was like that for him. I can never imagine what it would’ve been like for him. Also rather harrowing was when the capital had been taken over by a military coup after Ishmael had finally settled in with his uncle and family. Things had gotten so bad that he had to sneak out of Freetown and get out of the country. I find it just sad that things like that can happen in this world, where a person finds peace after going through so much strife and soon after finds that they have lost it again.

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Title: WebMage
Author: Kelly McCullough

Thoughts: I randomly picked out this book at Barnes and Nobles earlier this year because it looked interesting and I was not mistaken. It was a fun read, especially with the tie in with the world of Greek mythology. After all, our main character, Ravirn, is a descendant of Lachesis, the middle sister of the three Greek Fates. I also like the fact that it’s more than just a fantasy book — it’s also a sci-fi book because it combines magic with computer technology. This synthesis is shown as an upgrade to the older systems of magic throughout the book. However, despite this “upgrade” of magic, the older ways can still be used as backdoors to access things without using the “mweb” as things like ley lines are still connected to the magical “network” and one can still transport themselves to other worlds via paintings and fairy circles.

Ravirn thankfully does have knowledge of these older ways despite how much clueless he can be in other areas of his life, such as his love life and family life. Apparently he angered his Great Aunt Atropos (the Fate responsible for the cutting of the thread of life) by refusing to help her debug a “program” that would take away free will and it leads to quite unfortunate consequences for Ravirn.

The “character” I liked the most was Eris, the goddess of Discord and she actually has a kind of fun personality in this book. I imagine the Discordians would like her a lot. Oh yeah, Eris also uses Macs, appropriate as she has used a golden apple to cause chaos and discord amongst people and so it is associated with her. The Trojan war was started by that apple after all.

I found myself liking this book so much and since I wanted to know what would happen next, I bought the book that follows soon after finishing WebMage. The third book in the series is also already on my amazon wishlist. Yeah, I think that’s pretty much a sign that I liked the book a lot.

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Title: How to Survive a Horror Movie
Author: Seth Grahame-Smith

Thoughts: This book takes a humorous look at the tropes and clichés of the horror movie genre. It even comes with a list of suggested movies to watch in the back of the book. I was glad to find that I already seen several of the movies and that several more are on my Netflix queue.

The author writes as if the reader of the book is already in a horror movie as why else would someone possess such a book? It does seem to be a trope in itself in horror movies; that you get a strange book and after that, bad things start to happen.

What I found especially amusing was the “Figuring out what horror movie stereotype you are” bit. It was amusing to me because I just did not fit into these categories at all in high school (nor do I now). I would more likely than not end up being the quiet, creepy kid you shouldn’t poke at. There’s a reason why some people limited themselves to just throwing things at me from a distance (I still haven’t forgotten about that kid who thought it was funny and clever to throw a Starburst at me, which hit the bridge of my nose exactly and made me cry - I probably won’t ever meet him again anyways as he wasn’t in my year).

Anyways, it was a short, but hilarious read, especially for those of us who love horror movies.

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Title: Lady Knight
Author: Tamora Pierce

Thoughts: This fourth and final book in Tamora Pierce’s “Protector of the Small” quartet. It covers the first year of Keladry’s career as a Lady Knight. Since she is still just newly knighted and is a woman, she still has to earn the respect of both men and women alike when she is put in charge of a refugee camp. This refugee camp, named Haven by Keladry, was built to house refugees from the war taking place on the border of Tortall and Scanra.

Even though Keladry thinks she got assigned there to keep her from the fighting, she still takes her duties as the camp’s commander very seriously. In the end, her job turns out to be an important one. She becomes fiercely protective of her people and because of this she will even go so far as to rescue them from inside enemy territory despite orders not to.

In the end of the book, you learn why the series is called “The Protector of the Small”.

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Title: Squire
Author: Tamora Pierce

Thoughts: This third book of the “Protector of the Small” is my favorite book of the quartet for several reasons. One, you finally get to see Joren and one of his cronies get their own. One thing I must say is that Tamora Pierce knows better than to let annoying blond brats live to reproduce, unlike certain other authors who write for the same age group.

The second reason I like the book is because of the introduction of the Yamani princess to the story. Basically the Yamani is that world’s equivalent to Japan. Their language is basically the same as far as I can tell based on the few words and names in the book. Also similar are the Yamani’s traditions, court behavior, and weapons. Keladry herself had studied the naginata since she was six and she also lived in the Yamani Islands with her parents for several years. I do have to admit that part of the reason that I like this is because I’m a causal anime and manga fan. I also find traditional Japanese culture fascinating as well, which Yamani culture is primarily based on.

Also interesting is Keladry’s experiences throughout the book with the Chamber of Ordeals, which gave her a task after the first time she stepped into the chamber to prove her worth to become a knight of Tortall. This is only the second time Pierce has had a main character enter into the chamber, but in this book, the Chamber of Ordeals makes itself known to Keladry as a sentient being, almost as if it was a god of sorts.

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