Friday, July 30, 2010

Not Bugged

Now Playing -
Crickets in the forest behind my house
Life -

One of these times, I'm going to get to spend my days off doing absolutely nothing and going nowhere. But for now, I'll have to be content spending it creating a nice little oasis for us to spend the evenings.

A dragonfly on the inside of the screen

We finally finished the painting on our back porch last night (sort of. We actually have to buy another gallon of white at some point to finish the roof, but that can wait) and this afternoon, I braved the sun and evil ants that live in our bushes to screen it in. I'm really happy with the colors my wife chose. At first, I was kind of hesitant to go with the yellow, but it really does make the porch seem sunny and pleasant.

Our New Porch!

There's still a bit of work to be done, but we pulled out some chairs this evening and as I type this, we're sitting comfortably, a slight breeze stirring the trees, crickets chirping, a hummingbird at the feeder and cinnamon scented Salt City candle flickering beside us. Pretty nice!

Pooka




Reviews Of Unusual Size
 Five Things About...

Books - 


 
GHOST ROAD BLUES
by Jonathan Maberry
2006, 480 pages, ebook
 
1 - I  thought that I'd first discovered Maberry with his zombie novel, Patient Zero, but upon reading this supernatural horror, I realized that I had actually checked out the second novel in the series a few years ago from the library, realized it was the second book, became disappointed and returned it, unread. 

2 - Which means I should have been on the Jonathan Maberry bandwagon from much earlier, and so should you. His novels have great characters and their stories are creepy and well thought out. He has a few other books, including some intriguing-looking non-fiction and a Young Adult zombie novel headed this way too.

3 - The small isolated town of Pine Deep has always been a haunted place. A fact celebrated and taken advantage of every October with haunted hayrides, rubber hands and goulish guest stars. But when a killer arrives in the midst of a rare black harvest, the townsfolk may have their hands full with real horrors. Ones darkly reminiscent of a terrible October thirty years ago...

4 - Sometimes I'm in the mood for a fun, gory, supernatural horror novel and especially with the doses of humor and pop culture references sprinkled through it, Ghost Road Blues hit the spot.

5 - But be warned, this is the first book in the trilogy, and if you don't have book two queued up and ready to dive into, you might be a little haunted yourself until you can track a copy down!

8/10



ALONG CAME A SPIDER
by James Patterson
 1993, 494 pages, ebook

1 - I think this is James Patterson's first novel. I do know that I've seen it with six different covers, watched the movie based off of it, and been amazed at the dozens of books that Patterson has followed it with.
2 - A tightly written, if a bit predictable detective thriller about a high profile kidnapping that begins to overlap with other cases from the past.

3 - Introduces Detective Cross, a tall, handsome, African-American, Psychiatrist Detective. He also loves his kids and his momma, and has a similarly tall, handsome, muscular, wise cracking, African-American partner.Despite the slight cliche overload and the fact that they don't seem as fully developed in this first novel, Patterson has created a great duo.

4 - The villain didn't really do much for me, but the plan and some of the twists were nice.

5 - James Patterson is writing a novel with the Always Stupendous Marshall Karp now, I believe it'll be out in 2011, so mark your calendars. That book is going to be very, very entertaining.

7/10


 

Writing - 

More progress, though it's slow going. I'm at nearly 65,000 words now on my zombie novel!
The Last Sentence - 

I thought campers had toilets!
From - " Graves " (WIP)

5 comments:

The Grows said...

Looks pretty good. Who knew you were such a craftsman.

Anonymous said...

Glad to hear that you've decided to give Ghost Road Blues a try...and delighted to hear that you enjoyed it.

-Jonathan Maberry
www.jonathanmaberry.com

Unknown said...

Thanks, B! Every once in a while my projects don't look like they were made by an overly ambitious walrus with depth perception problems!

Jonathan Maberry! Thanks for visiting the ROUS Motel. I love your books so far! I was just reading your Zombie roundtable discussion the other day too - great stuff!

Sherry said...

Awesome porch!! It looks like it's great fun! How are Ludo's paws? All better? Can he enjoy the porch as well as Pooka, or is it only big enough for one dog?

Unknown said...

Hahah Ludo's paws are getting better! He's not up to walking on the blacktop or cement yet, but he runs around the house and yard just fine.

And he likes to sleep directly under my chair, so it's hard to get a good picture of him, but he likes the porch more than Pooka.