Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Review - Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter
AUTHOR: Seth Grahame-Smith
PUBLISHED BY: Hachette Book Group
ISBN: 978-0-446-56308-6
RELEASED DATE: 2010
PAGES: 340

    After his mother’s death, an eleven-year-old Abraham Lincoln is told the truth about vampires from his father. His grandfather, who was also called Abraham Lincoln, was killed by a vampire. To make matters worse, he learns that because his father could not pay a debt, his mother was given a high dose of vampire blood, resulting in her death. From that day forward Abraham vowed to kill every last bloodsucker that came into his path.

    At the age of seventeen, he befriends a vampire Henry Sturges, who informs him that there are good vampires and then there are evil ones. Henry sees potential in the young Abe and spends the summer training him to become a vampire hunter, especially on how to use an axe.

    For the next several years they worked as a team, with Henry providing Abe with vampire names and addresses, and Abe killed them one by one. Abe learns that vampires own slaves and they use them not as workers, but as meals. He is horrified of this and realizes that there is only one way to get rid of vampires - starve them by ending slavery.

Review - Severed

Billy Burgess comic books , graphic novel

SEVERED
Authors: Scott Snyder & Scott Tuft
Art & Covers: Attila Futaki
Publisher: IMAGE COMICS
ISBN: 9781607065296
Pub Date: April 24, 2012
Pages: 192

     In this disturbing adult horror graphic novel, Jack Garron receives a letter that a stranger left in his grandson’s hands that shock him to his core. He starts to remember what happened to him when he was a kid.

    In 1916, Jack had recently found out that he was adopted when he received a letter from his birth father who said he was playing at the Majestic Theater in Chicago. Jack was thrilled that his father was a famous musician as Jack was very talented with a violin. One night, he says good night to his adopted mother, packs his bags along with his violin, and takes off into the night, planning on finding his father. He jumps onto a moving freight train where he is attacked by a drifter, but is luckily saved by another runaway - a girl named Sam who dresses as boy because it is safer for her to travel.

    Meanwhile in Illinois, an orphan boy’s body was found mutilated, which stuns the local police. What kind of human could do this? Or was it something else?

Guest Post with author Viji K. Chary

Billy Burgess guest post ,

More Than Action

by Viji K. Chary

When I was in middle school, I used to read the same books over and over again. Most were below my reading level. At that time, I was not interesting in reading middle-school books. I found them lacking in excitement - too many books with long descriptive passages, undecipherable characters and not enough action.

So, when my sixth grade teacher, Ms. Kahn assigned the class to write a story, the first thing I put in was action. Looking back, that was the only good writing trait in that story!

I wrote about a main character who swam a race across a lake with her friend. Soon after the race began, ‘something’ pulled on her foot. Scared, she climbed out of the lake and ran to the other side.

Review - Usagi Yojimbo: Volume 26 - Traitors of the Earth

Billy Burgess book review , comic book review

The Usagi Yojimbo comic book series was created by Stan Sakai back in 1987. I recall the rabbit samurai appearing a few times in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, so when I saw Volume 26 was available to review on NetGalley, I was eager to review it.

Set during the early 17th century in Japan, the human characters are replaced by animals. Usagi is heavily influenced by the Japanese cinema and is partially based on the famous swordsman Miyamoto Musashi.

Guest Post with author Robert B. Lowe

Billy Burgess guest post ,

WHAT INSPIRED THE PLOT OF PROJECT MOSES?

by Robert B. Lowe

There are a few elements to the plot. There is the grand conspiracy that the main characters discover and must reveal before the rogue agents and corporate masterminds can find and kill the heroes. And, there also is the dynamic of how everything occurs. How the pieces of the grand conspiracy come to light. And, how the main characters uncover the plot and launch their counterattack of sorts against the bad guys.

Journalism.

I’ve made a couple of career changes but my first was as a journalist out of college. I spent 12 years working on newspapers in Arizona and Florida. During most of those years, my job was to work on investigative stories. Sometimes this was based on tips that came in, information that beat reporters had turned up, or simply something in the news that just didn’t look right and deserved more scrutiny.

When it came to deciding on the main character for Project Moses, it was natural to make him – Enzo Lee – a reporter. Like a cop or a lawyer, a journalist is a handy protagonist since he or she always is looking into something new and interesting. Whether it’s a crime or just a light feature, reporters are out there gathering information and in a position to stumble upon something that can drive a mystery-thriller – horrendous crime, massive conspiracy, some truly bad guys, etc.

Review - Skip Rock Shallows

Billy Burgess books , fiction

Skip Rock Shallows
AUTHOR: Jan Watson
PUBLISHED BY: Tyndale Fiction
ISBN: 978-1-4143-3914-6
RELEASED DATE: May 18 2012
PAGES: 400

Fresh out of medical school Lilly Gray Corbett takes an internship in the coal camp of Skip Rock, Kentucky, but not long after she arrives, the town’s doctor dies leaving her as the town’s only physician. The men in the town aren’t ready for a woman doctor and are never respectable to her, treating her as second-class. Skip Rock is a coal town so accidents and injures occur constantly, challenging Lilly everyday.

Her finance Paul is also a doctor, but is in Boston, where she had planned to meet him after her internship is over and begin her life as a doctor’s wife. As she becomes closer to the people of Skip Rock, she debates whether or not she should leave or stay. To make matters worse is that she starts to have feelings for a coal miner named Tern Still.