While not the coolest thing I say today/yesterday, these were definitely awesomtastic none-the-less. I helped a friend pick out a new skin for her blackberry. She was looking at a few steampunk themes, and we both fell in love with the iPod versions.
Take a gander at these:
Option 2 is probably my favorite I think. They have laptop skins as well, fyi.
/End of Line
~ Darcy
Whitechapel Gods by S.M. Peters
Paperback List Price: 6.99
Pages: 384 ISBN: 978-0451461933
Publisher: Roc
Available for the Sony Reader?: Yes
Available for the Kindle?: Yes
Synopsis: The area known has Whitechapel has been seized by two new Gods and turned into a mechanized hell. For years the citizens of Whitechapel have lived in fear of their omnipotent overlords, giving up their lives to their gods cruel desires. A small band of rebels has been nipping at the heels of Grandfather Clock and Mama Engine, waiting for the chance to bring these powers down. Now with the help of a bright young man from the outside named Aaron, a weapon has been discovered able to strike that necessary fatal blow. But the gods of Whitechapel are aware, and a third unknown power rages in the Underbelly of the city.
My Thoughts: Kudos go to the cover designer & artist. That is a gorgeous cover and very appropriate for the novel.
The rest though was a bit underwhelming. The descriptions were very poor, so even though I imagine Whitechapel looked like the dark and predatory beast I didn’t have a solid visual grasp of the place at any point in the book. The characters too were a bit nebulous as well, though clearer than the setting. The plot itself was predictable, and the only real surprise was the epilogue which was very vague and came out of nowhere.
Now to the good points. There were a few characters I really like, especially Tommy and Oliver. Tommy is both hilarious and pitifull. You really end up feeling for the man as a disease known as “Clacks” slowly eats away at his human parts. He is utterly devoted to Oliver in the way one might expect of a puppy, and who can hate puppies. Oliver (while be the typical rebellion leading do-gooder) is the type of hero you can root for, but he has a powerful character voice once he comes into his own. John Scared is also a great villian, especially when he is interacting with his “children”. It is endearing in a completely creepy manner.
Okay so some of my closer friends may know this about me, but I’m now willing to share it with the world. I have this thing about pens and stationary. I really can’t explain it, but I love collecting interesting pens and papers. Which is the reason that I brag here of the coolest pen ever as seen below.
It was another end of the year gift from the boyfriend, and again highly appropriate. I’ve started working on a series of steampunk shorts and this has that same old-world Victorian appeal. Anyway while not technically bookish, out of sheer giddiness I had to share.
Scar Night by Alan Campbell
List Price: $6.99
Pages: 576
Publisher: Bantam Spectra
Kindle Edition Available?: No
Sony E-Reader Edition Available?: No
Scar Night is the first book of the Deepgate Codex, written by Alan Campbell. While it has been out for two years now the sequel, Iron Angel, has just been published. Scar night was one of the promotional books being handed out by Random House at Comic Con New York at the beginning of april. It was also my favorite free book picked up at the convention.
For a debut novel, I was quite impressed with the writing and concept. Campbell has built an incredibly dark world around a fallen religious utopia. The city of Deepgate could be the hanging gardens of great Babylon if it weren’t for the decay destroying the city from the inside out. There are a lot of really grotesque images. To Campbell’s credit, his visual descriptions made me feel down-right queasy most of the time. I actually had to stop reading this book on the train. It’s rare that I find an author whose writing is strong enough to have such a strong physical effect on me.
I will say though that the book is not perfect. The story is constantly switching perspectives, at it is sometimes both jarring and unnecessary. There are more than a few instances where the reader has to leave the main characters in a frightful situation for a one page aside from a minor character else where in the city. I really hate that sort of thing; it sucks the suspense right out of a moment for me. There were also a few places where things really did slow down towards the end of the book. It was very hard not to skip over a few of the later chapters among the Heshette clan which seemed to do nothing more than give the reader a cursory introduction to the barbarians and explain the bad guy’s already obvious plan.
Don’t get me wrong though, I still really enjoyed this book and look forward to the sequel, Iron Angel. There is room for improvement, true, but also a lot of strength and potential in this series. You won’t have long to wait for my thoughts on the matter either! I just finished my last final for the year and met my boyfriend outside the building. He happened to be holding a certain hardcover book instead of flowers.
^_^
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