BotW: 10/11-10/7: Ready Player One

Welcome back to the book of the week! Took a couple of weeks of, mainly due to real life being an absolute and total nightmare.  Now, things are settling down and I'm getting things back up and running! This week's book is one that I've read on my Kindle and listened to in audio, because I absolutely love it.  It's narrated by Wil Wheaton, an actor and geek that I absolutely LOVE! 

Ready Player One

Ernest Cline

If you are a child of the 80s, lover of video games, and pop culture in general - this book is absolutely the book for you! It's stunning and by far one of my favorite reads! I highly recommend this book, and I'm even including a guest review which will hopefully inspire you to pick up this book - no matter what format! 

Guest Reviewer: C. S. McClendon

Review:Ready Player One

In 2011, Ernest Cline broke on to the scene with his first novel.  Yes, I know I am a bit late on the band wagon, but having only just discovered the audio you'll have to cut me a little slack.  I have now read the book four times, most of those back to back.  I find Cline's writing refreshing, and easy to slip into, particularly for someone who, like me, depends so heavily on various audio formats.

The book reads almost as if it was meant to be an audio track.  When Cine mentions a song, or t                                                           he sound track of a particular game (both liberally salted throughout the book) I can all but hear the sounds of the 80's, the decade when Both Cline and  I did most of our growing up.  This book, for a that it is a work of Science Fiction, set in the not so distant year of 2044, does a fantastic job of transporting the reader back to the 1980's, and making us feel a surge of nostalgia for those lost years

I love to read dystopian fiction.  It is a favorite genre of mine, from 1984 to the Hunger Games series.  I have read wonderful dystopia, as well as having fought my way through books of the genre that make me feel like I have just spent a week reading stereo instructions.  Ernest Cline, manages to create a world that I both love and fear. I can see us as a race, landing ourselves in the dark,  rusty jungle of the Portland Avenue stacks if we aren't very careful.  Cline has brought us  a world that could easily be waiting just around any corner.

***

If you spend any significant time reading audio books, then you know as well as I do that the writer is only one part of the puzzle.  The right narrator can take even a bad book, and lift it up out of the mud to make it enjoyable.  On the other side of that same coin, a poor narrator, one who isn't on his game, can take even the best story, and scare a reader off of it for good.

In this performance of Ready Player One, Wil Wheaton, who is a child of the 80's himself most certainly brings his A game.  From the first few words, the reader, (or listener in this case) is able to hear the voice of Wade Owen Watts.  With slight changes in his inflection, and a skilled actor's ear for accents and dialect, Wheaton brings to life the full cast of Cline's characters, both the heroes we want to cheer for, and those few oily villains we want to see take a shot to the back of the head.

Working together, Ernest Cline and Wil Wheaton bring the reader a work of cyber-punk art that every audiophile's collection will be enriched by.

***

I won't lie.  This story, for all that I was several years late in finding it, has very quickly become one of my favorites.  You can tell by the fact that I have already reed it several times over.  I knew within the first half hour of this nearly sixteen hour work of audio dystopia that it was going to be one that  I was going to have  trouble putting down, even when it was time to go to bed at night.

From the very first pages, I knew that Wade Watts was a kid just like the awkward geek that I was, and in a lot of ways, still am. As a member of the 99%, Wade finds himself in a game that quickly turns into a fight not only for his own future, but for the future of the world as he knows it.  Can he turn a single lucky break into a victory against the evil minions of I.O.I, the Sixers, who have shown themselves more than willing to stop at nothing to win, and who are not afraid to kill to win?  Can he save both his world and his friends?  These are only some of the questions we hope to find answers to as we draw toward the end of the game whose winner will have the power to change the world forever.  Will Wade and his friends find a way to win the game?  Will they all survive to see the end?  Nothing is certain.  It is all up for grabs, and if you are like me, you will find yourself racing to the end to find the answers.

So I leave you with a question of my own....  Are you Ready, Player One?

Halloween Countdown: 23 Days

Okay, so yesterday I shared with you some of my favorite Stephen King books.  Today, I'm going to share with you a glimmer into one of my favorite Halloween movies.  This, is one of my favorites and it isn't entirely one that is all that scary, but it's one that I watch repeatedly watch much to the annoyance of the people that I live with.  However, I don't have a copy of it anymore, and I'll have to remedy that! 

This is probably right here on the top of my list a far as Halloween movies go! The soundtrack, the story...ALL OF IT! Sarah Jessica Parker, Bette Midler, and Kathy Najimy are my absolute fave trio of witches!  That and Thackery grew up to become Timothy McGee on NCIS! 

Bette Midler's version of "I Put a Spell On You" is by far one of my favorite versions of this song from the movie!  I can't help but dance in my seat and sing along when it comes on! Decidedly love it, and gets me in the spirit of Halloween even more! 

This song was written specifically for the movie and having Sarah sing it is something that makes it even creepier because of the haunting quality of her voice.  It sends shivers through my spine, hearing this haunting call to summon the children to become sacrifices to ensure that the Sanderson sisters can stay alive beyond that single Halloween night. 

Thackery Binks has some spunk and unfortunately that is what gets him in the most trouble! However, the spell is so fun to hear, and I have no desire to piss off the Sanderson sisters! 

Wish List Wednesday!

Welcome to this week's Wish List Wednesday! Where I share with you some of the books that I desperately want to add to my shelves! Seriously, most of what you see will be stuff from when a couple weeks ago I was left completely attended in a Barnes & Nobles! So, with that said, this week it won't be books, but it will be some of the Funko Pops that I absolutely fell in love with and want to use to decorate my shelves! 

Love meh all of these! Really! The Captain Mal and Zoe are requirements simply because I am a Browncoat and absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Firefly!  I am deeply saddened that it is damn near impossible to get a 2nd season of Firefly - even though dear Wash did not survive *sadpanda* 

Halloween Countdown: 24 Days

This month is by far one of my absolute favorite!  It is the month of Halloween, and probably my absolute favorite holiday (well aside from Christmas of course!).  This month I will be sharing with you some of my favorite spooky stories, movies, and various other things! Why? Because it makes my heart happy and I'm all about Halloween and things that go bump in the night!

Over the next few weeks I'll be featuring my top five favorite authors in this genre, and these are in absolutely no particular order, they are just my absolute favorites: 

Stephen King

Joe Hill

Paul Wigmore

Griffin Hayes

Ted Dekkar 

Who doesn't love a good Stephen King book? I mean really! Something that makes your skin crawl, makes you look over your shoulder, worry about who is knock, knock, knocking on your door! 

I have several favorites by this author, and I'll just share a few of these titles with you as recommendations for this ghoulish season!  Just remember, just don't read them before bed!  You've been warned! 

Redrum! Redrum! This book, coupled with the paranormal event hosted at The Stanley Hotel where this book is centered absolutely top my list of Stephen King favorites.  This is a book that I constantly re-read and immerse myself in the terror  that builds within the pages.  I'm also a fan of the movie, as well as the sequel to this book Doctor Sleep. 

As if clowns were terrifying enough, we venture into Derry, Maine and meet Pennywise the Dancing Clown.  Terrifying.  This book is another one of my favorites, and it pretty much solidified my fear of clowns all over again in the thousand pages of this book.  It also makes me never, ever, ever visit Derry, Maine! This movie is again, right up there with my absolute favorites when it comes to spine-tingling, hide under the blanket thrillers! It also is pretty much the only role, where Tim Curry absolutely terrifies me. 

Okay, I've mentioned before my absolute lack of desire to visit Derry, Maine.  This book, revisits the boys from It, twenty-five years later. Things in Derry are no different than they were twenty-five years ago as those four boys, now men, reunite in the woods for their annual hunting trip.  This time, it's to deal with a creature from another world! As if we needed a second warning not to visit Derry, Maine.

What are some of your favorite Stephen King reads? 

Wish List Wednesday!

Welcome to Wish List Wednesdays!!!

In the coming weeks I will be featuring a few books that I desperately want.  Well, not only books, because I have a slight obsession with Funko Pop figures (though I don't actually OWN any of them yet).  So, most of the pictures, and books and things I will be sharing were from a recent trip to Barnes & Nobles where I was left unsupervised. 

We all know how good an idea that is!  Well, at least I didn't have any money with me to use or it really would have been a bad idea since they still had their classics on sale for Buy 2 Get 1 Free and I absolutely love their classics. 

Either way!  Let's get on with the show! 

If you know me personally, you know I love to cook, bake, etc.  This cookbook got added to my list simply because of who is on the cover!  Pauley Perrette is by far one of my FAVORITE actresses and Abby is my absolute favorite character on NCIS! I've looked through this book and seriously want to try some of the recipes that are within its pages!  

Seriously, who doesn't need a good Taste of Home Cookbook! It's so pretty, and it makes me want to spend all day in the kitchen creating tasty, tasty things from within its pages! 

Seriously, if you are offended by gratuitous use of the word fuck, then you are definitely not going to go for Thug Kitchen.  However, if you like good food....you will LOVE Thug Kitchen.  I've been looking at this cookbook for a little while now and I follow the blog, I now want the cookbook!  Sharing a link to one of my fave recipes from this cookbook: Thug Kitchen: Breakfast Tamale