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AWESOME-tober-fest 2011: The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

Posted in books, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, vampires with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2011, Book Report, books, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, reviews, vampires on October 11, 2011 by Paxton

Day 2 of AWESOME-tober-fest 2011’s Dracula/vampire book week. Today I’m looking at another series of books that don’t star Dracula, but have vampires as the main character. I’m talking about The Strain books by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan.

Director Guillermo Del Toro conceived of this story while trying to develop a vampire television show. When he couldn’t get the show made he contacted Chuck Hogan about writing the story as a trilogy of novels. Del Toro picked crime writer Hogan because he wanted the books to have a basis in science like CSI. The first book in the Strain trilogy, The Strain (official website), was released in Summer 2009. The second book, The Fall, was released in Fall 2010. I got my copy of the first book off paperbackswap.com in Oct 2010 right after The Fall was released in hardback. I really wanted to read it due to Del Toro’s involvement, but Chuck Hogan had also written the book Prince of Thieves from which the movie The Town was based, so I was also excited about that. But, in the back of my mind, I was thinking that vampires have become tired the last few years (Thank you, Mrs Meyer). Could this book actually be any good?

The short answer so far is YES. Suddenly vampires are horrifying again. Del Toro and Hogan have crafted a masterful vampire tale that brings vampires back into the realm of truly terrifying. To date I’ve read Book 1 (The Strain) and Book 2 (The Fall) in the trilogy. Book 3 (The Night Eternal) is being released on Oct 25 (in 2 weeks!).

The first book starts off with a bang. A 747 lands at JFK airport and goes completely dark. No communication, no running lights, no cabin lights. A first response CDC team is called in led by Dr Ephraim Goodweather (Eph). Eph and his team discover a deadly virus strain that takes over the human body and transforms the host into what can only be described as a “vampire”. The first book is all about the discovery of the virus and the initial infection of New York. We also begin to learn the history of the virus with the introduction of Professor Abraham, a holocaust survivor. Abraham has committed his life to destroying vampires and recruits Eph and his team to his cause. Professor Abraham has encountered vampires before, even meeting one of the “Ancients”, one of the first 7 vampires. It is actually one of these Ancients that has “gone rogue” and set this infection into motion to further his own agenda.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2011: Review of Darren Shan’s Cirque Du Freak series

Posted in books, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, reviews, vampires with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2011, Book Report, books, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, reviews, vampires on October 10, 2011 by Paxton

Here we are, Week 2 of AWESOME-tober-fest 2011. Last week was comic book week. This week is book week. We’ll start this week’s entries off with a book series I started a few years ago and I’ve talked about on the blog a few times. It’s not about Dracula specifically, but it features a nice twist on vampires and vampire lore. I’m talking about Darren Shan’s Cirque Du Freak series.

I started Shan’s series back in October 2009. I reviewed the first three books here. The first five books even made it into my year end “best of” book report in 2009. And as of April of this year, I finally finished the 12 book series. I was able to finally acquire the last two books with some help from my buddy Rondal Scott over at Strange Kids Club. So thanks for that, Rondal! Anyway, I thought since I’d talked about this series earlier, and I’ve mentioned it since, that I would wrap things up with a final review of the series.

This series has been very good. The world Shan creates is fascinating. His version of vampires is slightly different but it works. In Shan’s world, vampires are not mindless killers. They do drink human blood, but they are able to exhale a “knockout gas” from their mouth to render a human unconscious and then cut a small scratch into their shoulder or arm from which they drink. They only drink what they need then leave the human to resume his life. However, vampires have a more violent cousin called Vampaneze. They are the vicious “drink until humans are dead” monsters that one normally associates with vampires. Both of these factions are at war with each other in what is called The War of the Scars. The main character is Darren Shan, a boy who is blooded by Larten Crepsley, a former Vampire General. Darren becomes a half vampire, then is whisked away into many different adventures with his mentor, Mr Crepsley, and eventually passes the Vampire Trials, becomes a Vampire Prince and takes part in the War of the Scars as one of the chosen warriors who must defeat the rumored Vampaneze Lord.

One of the fascinating things about this book is the social setup of the vampire nation. Much of the higher order vampires live in Vampire Mountain. Vampire Mountain is ruled by the Vampire Princes, who essentially make all the important decisions for the vampire community. There are also Vampire Generals, who are higher level vampires. And when you come of age, like I mentioned earlier, you have to pass the deadly Trials before you are accepted as a full vampire. The world is just deep and endlessly interesting. Some of the most fun and interesting books took place entirely in Vampire Mountain and had nothing to do with the War of the Scars.

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Learning BASIC with the Marvel Super Heroes

Posted in 80s, books, comic books, nostalgia, pop culture, reviews with tags Book Report, books, comic books, computers, Marvel Comics, pop culture, reviews, technology on August 17, 2011 by Paxton

Yesterday I looked at the Star Wars Q&A Book about Computers. It featured a history of the computer (through 1983) and some awesome art by Ken Barr. Today, I’m looking at another awesomely vintage computer book, it’s the Marvel Super Heroes Computer Fun Book Two from 1984.

This book is LOOOOOOOOONG and it features A LOT of programs. I’ll just be looking at some of the more notable programs and artwork. You can check out my Flickr set to see more.

Here’s the cover to the activity book and the intro page telling you what to expect inside.

And here’s the Fantastic Four to tell you how to use this book (in case you weren’t already aware that you used it to, you know, program your computer).

Here’s Capt America reminding you to code your 900 lines. He gives you 9 examples (there’s another page of code I’m not showing you) of 900 lines from different BASIC environments like the Commodore 64, IBM PC and Apple II.

Here’s a program featuring Cap called Menace of the Gray Gargoyle. It’s a “fence busting” program. See the code here. Man, that Gray Gargoyle looks lame.

This program is called Iron Man to the Rescue. It’s a game in which Iron Man has to stop a ship from shooting missiles at a school filled with children. Hope you get them all or the deaths of thousands of small schoolchildren on your head. Is it just me or does that seem like a needlessly violent scenario for a kid’s computing activity book?

There are two other Iron Man programs. The first is called Robot Retriever. It’s awesome because the title page features MODOK and ROM: Spaceknight. The other is Iron Man’s Lock Problem. I like the artwork on the title page. I didn’t realize Iron Man was popular enough in the 1980s to get three programs in this book.

The article continues below the break…

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A look at the Star Wars Q&A Book about computers (1983)

Posted in 80s, books, computers, movies, pop culture, reviews, Star Wars, technology with tags Book Report, books, computers, movies, pop culture, reviews, Star Wars, technology on August 15, 2011 by Paxton

I love vintage kids books. I love vintage pop culture books. I also love vintage books looking at early computing technology. This week, I get all three wrapped into one. I’ll be looking at three early 80s activity books featuring awesomely retro computing technology. Being a tech guy and a pop culture guy sure pays off some days. The first book I’ll be looking at is the Star Wars Question and Answer Book about Computers from 1983. Yes, I know, mixing Star Wars and computer technology? Yes, please. And the book is filled with some of the most awesome artwork mixing R2-D2 and C3PO and computer machinery. The artwork in this book is by Ken Barr. Ken Barr is a comic artist. He’s done a lot of work for Marvel, especially back in the 70s and 80s with titles like Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, Doc Savage, Savage Sword of Conan and Rampaging Hulk. Most of that work being for Marvel magazines that showcase the really nice painted look of Barr’s creations. You can see a lot of that here, too. This book is mainly an information dump about computers, how they began and what they can be used for. Much of the information is surrounded by Barr’s gorgeous paintings. However there are also pages without artwork but instead use photographs of actual computer machinery.

Here’s the intro to the book explaining about computers. Next to the intro is another information page featuring a picture of an Apple II. Click the images to make them BIGGER.

Here are some pages talking about computers and video games. You can see an adorable picture of R2-D2 playing chess against a computer and both Artoo and Threepio playing an upright arcade machine. I’m seriously in love with that arcade machine painting. See it much bigger here. Continue reading →

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My visit to 2nd & Charles used bookstore

Posted in books, bookstores, comic books with tags books, bookstores, comic books on August 3, 2011 by Paxton

I went back home this past weekend to Hoover, AL to visit my parents. I was driving around and noticed a new store had opened up in what was once a Goody’s. It was orange and white and had a strange name; 2nd & Charles.

For some reason, all weekend, I kept wanting to call it 42nd and Charles. I have no idea why.

Anyway, I asked my parents what it was. They said it was some type of used bookstore. That was all they knew. Well, I love used bookstores, and I can spend hours inside them just looking around, so I decided I have to go to there. The next morning I ventured off with my father to visit this new store and behold the wonders it contained within.

And wonders it did behold. The store is HUGE. It would probably take me a few days to get through the whole thing. The store didn’t have just books, it had video games, video game consoles, DVDs, Blu-Rays, CDs, shirts and assorted other odds and ends. The majority of which is all “gently” used.

When you first walk in you notice a huge mural in the back featuring the name of the store. As you get closer, you notice the mural is made up of the spines of books all stacked into a recess in the wall. There is a sitting area in front of the mural with chairs so you can sit down and enjoy a leisurely read. Very nice.