The Edge Of The Sea: A Place Where the Mermen are psychotic

The Edge of the Sea by Laurell K. Hamilton

Laurell K. Hamilton is a good writer and I’m convinced of that. Even now she is good. She’s just in a rut of writing stuff that’s X- rated at the moment rather than actually writing a story. Edge of The Sea is a short story she recently wrote that hits much closer to home for anyone who read her earlier stuff. It can be found in the Strange Candy Collection.
The story starts with Adria, who find that her room mate Rachel is missing in middle of the night. It is a beach front house so when she can’t find her, she decides to search the beach. Then she finds that her friend is raped and killed by odd pale man, who in discovery dashes into the sea. His feet turned to fish tale as he ran or I should say swim away. Even though Adria denies it at first, she realizes he’s merman. And he is the one that the news is calling the “Beach rapist” committing killings of young women. And as the killings continues, Adria is determined not be his victim. And if possible, she will get revenge if she can.
This is a short story that appears to take place in an Anita Blake world. Because they briefly mention other monsters such as vampires and monsters to this in one, as in one of Anita’s books they did mention there were mer people. But of course in those books they just never went to the coast to encounter these mer folk. But still, this is the same e world taken to a character that lives there.
So the good? It is an expansion of the Anita Blake world we never seen. Plus I like the mermaid idea. I find that it’s a great concept a lot of authors don’t touch. It’s fairly original. And detail is so well done. From the sound of ocean, to smell of the air, to Adria’s fear and lastly how gorgeous this merman is. She is so full of detail. It’s some thing I loved about Laurell’s work in the past. She can describe everything perfectly. (Especially the men, but I’m not going there in this review) And one last thing. There is a rape scene and I have to say this to Hamilton. Thank you for not some how morphing it into a descriptive sex scene like you do in all our newer books. Those are getting old.
The bad? Well it kind of feels like an Anita story without Anita. Adria didn’t have much character to her at all, but done what Anita would have in the end. So I guess if you read Hamilton’s other works, it’s predictable.
So overall. It’s a tragic loss of a friend and crime spree of a rapist who is a merman. Weird, but still fine. I mean it’s not memorable or anything. But it’s fun.

Overall Rating: I Nice Step Into Fantasy Where the Mermen are psychotic

3 smoothies out of four

Autopsy Room Four:Inspired By Frightening Truth But Delivered A Boring Narrative

Autopsy Room Four By Stephen King

Overall Rating: Inspired by frightening truth but delivered a boring narrative

Okay there is not much of an introduction here other than Autopsy is the first short story in Stephen King’s Everything’s Eventual.
The story starts with only sounds and descriptions from a man inside of a body bag being rolled through a hospital. He can not move or speak. And only pieces together what is happening through the sounds he hears. And the detailed description of man inside the body bag, I have to say is one hell of opening. But it turns out they open up the bag and he find that he is a autopsy room and they are preparing to cut him open. Through this the story the reader is contemplating if he is alive? Is he dead? Is this what death is like for everyone? But he finds that even though he can’t move, blink or anything else, he manages to make a noise that the doctors can’t hear over the radio. Which tells us as readers, he is not dead. And we are given two options as endings. He is either going to die on the operating table a they cut him open or some how he is going to be saved from this mess by someone else.
So let’s start off with the bad. Like I said there is a point toward the beginning of the story where eye realize there is nothing supernatural about this at all. This has no twist ending, and you are limited to the two endings, I proposed about. It can’t be anything else. So it’s predictable. Another thing is, this story had no character. Yes, the man on the table is Howard Cottrell, and some how this happened on golf course. But he might as well bee a alias for Bob the Builder or a alien from space. We don’t know anything about this character. And As I read this I was like why should I care about this character? There was no reason to why I should care. He just didn’t seem real to me. If there’s no character, there’s no story. I felt it needed flashbacks. Something to reveal why he shouldn’t die or just something show what kind of like he wanted to return to so badly. But maybe I’m different than most people. I want more. Stephen King fans tend to praise stories like this, and I have yet to find out why. Yes, horrible things are happening here, but I can’t get into it unless I can relate to it. And to put things simply, it was boring.
So the good? Well, this something than can actually happen. This is a sort of terror where you go this could actually happen to me one day. Unlikely but could still happen, I’m not sure how close to the truth Stephen knows that he is on this one. H ends it’s a snake bit that caused it. But the toxin that can effect the body that way is a extract from a African blow fish. In Africa they use to poison people. They would appear dead paralyzed up to week. The heart beats so shallowly that it can’t be detected by doctors. Then once buried, days later, they would begin to get muscular strength and control back and dug them selves out of their graves. Hence the origin of the zombie legend. Because people believe that they were the walking dead, when they weren’t dead all. So it has a lot of truth in. More truth than most horror stories or novels ever have.
So overall, the story may be scary on the level that this could happen to anybody because it exist, unlike stories that have this things that go bump in the night. But beyond that the story seems to have no heart and no character. I just couldn’t get into it. It really did bore to me past the beginning. It can only recommend this to die hard Stephen King fans, but even they might not like it as much as his other stuff.

1 ½ smoothie out of four.

P.S. check out my book and ebook website at http://www.lelue.webs.com/

Battle Of The Labyrinth: Went Up And Beyond Expectations To Quite Possibly Make It The Best In The Series

The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan

Over all rating: Went up and beyond expectations to quite possibly make this the best in the series.

Okay this one is a book I bought a long time ago. It is called The Battle of the Labyrinth. It is indeed the fourth book in the Percy Jackson series. And this time I actually did pay full price for a book instead of finding it at a yard sale or bargain bins. I was totally hooked on this series. That is until I paid ten bucks to see the movie adaptation at the theatre that ultimately butchered the series, leaving a real bad after taste of hate toward Hollywood. So I took a break before reading this one.

The book is part of the Percy Jackson and The Olympians series. It is focused Percy who is a kid who finds that he is the son of Poseidon so he can manipulate and control water. Yes, the Greek god. The idea of the series is to mix Greek mythology into modern day. (Kind of like Harry Potter did with magic) Who is part of a prophecy (no surprise there) to either save or destroy the world during an upcoming war between Kronos and the gods. And the books play out as a typical fun, action adventure with a very American point of view. The first book was pretty much a road trip killing monsters and a journey to Hades. But I have to say the two sequels never lived up to the original. Sea of Monsters was a retelling of the Oddyssee and the Titan’s Curse…………………… well I’m going to be honest here. I can’t even remember what the third one was really about, other than it was okay but not very exciting.

Now in the fourth one, I might have to forgive Riordan a little bit. The story centers on the labyrinth that was built by Daedalus. It is a great maze that is ever growing and ever changing under the ground of the US. Luke who has sided with the Titans is leading a army through the maze but will need to find Daedelus at the heart of it first to know the way to Camp Half Blood in order to kill the demi gods. Annabeth and Percy stumble across the doorway to the maze and realize that Luke can invade from with the camp’s magical security. They decide to go on a quest to find Deadulas before Luke does with Grover and Tyson. Also Grover is about to lose his searchers license to find the great wild god Pan. So in hopes to find the god he searches underground with the bunch or else he will face exile. Then Nico, who is the son of Hades, is also roaming the maze. He is neither on the Gods or Titan’s side but on his own. He wants revenge on Percy for not being able to save his sister, and Percy believes that he may be able to exchange Percy’s soul for his sister’s. So overall, there is a lot is going on in this one, but it all works out in the end.

So the good? Well the chemistry. In the first one we had Annabeth, Grover and Percy and they were a good mix. I loved all the characters. In part two we didn’t have Grover and in part three we didn’t have Annabeth. To have all three together again was great. In this one you get to see that the characters are growing up. In part three, it was hinted at and then thrown out the window. Percy and Annabeth are actually kind of liking each other. There’s Annabeth’s jealously when she sees Percy with another girl. There’s scene where Percy appears to flirt with her. They are becoming close and they are a real cute couple. (That is if you throw out the fact Annabeth is the daughter of the niece of Percy’s dad. But you have to throw all that out of your head when it come to Greek mythology or else you be reminded of the awful Oedipus tale you had to learn about in Drama.) The story is layered. It went much farther than let’s kill some more monsters on a road trip. There’s an epic battle at the end. (Since battle is in title it can’t be a spoiler) It’s unpredictable, from battling in an arena to escaping a prison, to even a huge twist toward the end that even make the most heartless reader feel sorry for the bad guy. Hell, they even manage to slide a little sci-fi in there somehow. I was amazed.

The bad? Ummmm………..well my favorite color is blue and the author made the cover red. Seriously, I can’t say anything bad about this book. I loved every moment of it.

Overall I love the original. But after a really bad movie adaptation and two mediocre sequels, I didn’t expect this to be all that great. It went up and beyond expectations. I think I like this one more than the Lightning Thief. I went from “Yeah. Percy Jackson is fun series” to “I freak’n Love this series!” after this read. It reminded me of why I started reading these. It’s a perfect book.

4 smoothies out of four

P.S. Check out my book and ebook website, Lelue’s Realm. Google it or go directly to http://www.lelue.webs.com/