Iain Rob Wright - The Final Winter: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel

Iain Rob Wright - The Final Winter: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel: A pub somewhere in Great Britains nowhere... A few days ago it startet snowing worldwide, and now the snow is responsible for a more or less total breakdown of all infrastructure. Some of the local alcoholics and the waitress are locked-in and try to make the best of it. A stranger enters the pub, says a few friendly words, and then... power breakdown - not only in the pub, but in the whole town, probably in the whole world. When the electrical panel is checked, it is clear, that not simply the RCD is down, but the panel is burned completely.
And things start to get weird: when people of the surrounding shops try to get to the pub one gets murdered by strange hooded figures; another is thrown through the pub window and by that badly injured; freshly drawn beer is suddenly stale...
After a while in the completely frozen pub, where everybody is wrapped in warm clothing and everything flamable is burned, the persons trapped start to get to know and trust each other, which turns out to be a bad mistake! Something bad is still outside, but evil is not banned from the pub - and the hooded strangers outside are on a mission: They want the SINNER. But everyone of the pubpeople has a skeleton in the closet... so who is meant, who can they sent out to stop all this? And will all this be stopped by sending out a single person?

I really liked the book - only thing I did not like as much is the revelation of who the hooded figures are, and who the stranger in the pub is, apart from that it was a nice story, and even better, after finishing the story there are some short-stories from the final winter at the end of the book, stories of what happened in other parts of the world and how people reacted to the situation.

All in all I think I award 8 out of 10.

I am yet undecided as what to read next - I thought about "Watership down" - but the book I have is really old and has a really bad smell... I don't know yet, but will inform you :-)

 --> it turned out to be the first part of the Bartimäus books by Jonathan Stroud.

Michael Collins - The Last Book

"The Last Book", hmmm, I was hoping for an end time story... well serves me right, buying a book just because of its title, not even having a glance at the summary...

Well, ok, what is it about... The world is going to the dogs, nearly everyone is getting aggressive for no reason at all, bombs are exploding everywhere and no terroristic group takes the responsibility for them.
A ghostwriter is asked to write the 3rd (and last) book of a bestselling series (and here you have the explanation for the title :-)). Everything is depending on her to finish what the author of the two first books ist not able to. She - and several others - are drawn deep into a story which started years and years ago, and which will - if everything goes wrong - turn earth into hell.

All in all the book was an OK book, nothing I would read twice, but OK... what buggers me, is when there are words missing in the text, and I am quite sure that that had nothing to do with the ebook conversion, it just seems as if no one really read the text, and me, not being a native speaker in english... well I can't stand it, when I have to think minutes over a sentence, just because I cannot find out its meaning. Only afterwards I find out there was a word missing.

I will award 5 out of 10 for an ok story and a bad editorial office.

So far I have not decided what I will read next - "Bartimäus" or "the final winter" (this should really be an apocalyptic story) or a horro shortstory collection... hmmmmm. Cannot decide.

Michael Bond - A Bear Called Paddington

Michael Bond tells the heartwarming story of a little bear who sits at the beginning of the story at Paddington station with a label round his neck saying "please look after this bear". Family Brown happens to find the little chap, and decides to first feed him and get him something to drink, and after christening him "Paddington" - as no one is able to pronounce his real name - they take him home.

What begins as a nice little story soon turns out to be a mingle-mangle of little disasters - which are always funny for the reader - as I already mentioned, people where turning their heads at me, cause I continuously roared out of laughter. Paddington always does the wrong thing, but always means best, so no one can be mad at him for a long time.

The book is told in chapters which are not really linked, so it is a good book for bedtime reading. Paddington covers a lot of situations - going by tube/elevator/lift for the first time, entertaining a whole department store, painting like one of the old artists, setting the whole house under water - and it is a really enjoyable book. I award 10 out of 10, not only for the story itself but also for the very nice illustrations, which are enjoyable even on their own.

I now turn back to the Zombie Survival Guide (having seen World War Z in the movies, I think I might need to hurry...) - I haven't yet finished the Festival Guide as well, but I have no tickets for any of the upcoming festivals, so I take my time!

Fabian Lutz - Zombie Deutschland, Episode 1 - Ground Zero

Zunächst mal... ich kann keinen noch funktionierenden Link finden - scheinbar haben Amazon und alle anderen Anbieter des eBooks sämtliche Links entfernt - was insofern schade ist, weil man ja fast noch gar nichts über die Geschichte weiß, wenn man Episode 1 fertig hat, und ... aber der Reihe nach.

Die Erzählstruktur ist für mich wieder etwas schwierig... was einfach daran liegt, dass mir geradlinige Geschichten lieber sind. Hier wird in Vorher/Nachher und Aufzeichnungen unterteilt, was es am Anfang nicht gerade leicht macht, der Geschichte zu folgen.
Vorher spielt scheinbar vor irgendeiner Katastrophe, der Sohn einer berühmten Unternehmerfamilie ist verschwunden, und ein Journalist versucht näheres herauszufinden.

SPOILER:

Nachher spielt nach der Katastrophe, und ein Kollege des Vorher-Journalisten schafft es, sich vom Alkohol zu lösen, und das Haus in dem er die letzten Tage verbracht hat, zu verlassen. Das Haus liegt soweit abseits von jeglicher Zivilisation, dass er nichts von der Katastrophe mitbekommen hat. Insofern wundert er sich zuerst, dass das Nachbarsschwein unbeaufsichtigt durch seinen Garten streift, dann über verlassene Panzer und schließlich über das seltsame Wesen, das einmal sein Nachbar war.

Obwohl ich jetzt ein bisschen gespoilert habe, habe ich eigentlich nichts verraten, weil selbst die ganze Geschichte noch kaum etwas verrät... Man, ich wäre so gespannt, wie es weitergeht, ich würde mich sogar versuchen, mit der Erzählstruktur anzufreunden. Hat das Buch vielleicht jemand? Oder kennt wer den Autor? Bitte legt ein gutes Wort für mich ein :-)

Vergeben würde ich einstweilen nur 5 von 10, weil eben so wenig verraten wird, und ich jetzt mitten im Nirgendwo hänge!

Suzanne Collins - Mockingjay

The third volume of the hunger games trilogy tells about Katniss' life after her second hunger games. Things have changed for her, as well as for all the others in Panem. A rebellion against the Capitol is taking place, and its immediate effects on all the districts are changing life not only for Katniss. Still being the symbol which stands against everything from the Capitol, Katniss - the now so-called Mockingjay - has to face war from its worst side: torture, injuries and death.

I am getting more and more a fan of Suzanne Collins, who manages to make this Story even worse than it was in part 2. She describes a dark and nearly death-sentenced world, where only a little hope is left, that somewhen everything might be right again.
Even the lovestory is not really ending in a happy way. Wow, I really appreciated that - I could not have standed a wonderfull hollywood happy end.
So I award 10 out of 10.

I already finished "Zombie Deutschland - Episode I - Ground Zero" by Fabian Lutz (I am not able to find a working link to this one, as well as I am not able to find the other volumes, despite it being ebooks... - can anyone help me out?), and started reading "The Last Book" by Michael Collins (I don't think he is related to Suzanne, but who knows?) as well as something very different and very enjoyable: "Bear called Paddington" by Michael Bond (which is making people turn their head because I am roaring out of laughter)

Suzanne Collins - Catching Fire

In the second book of the hunger games trilogy Katniss' life after the games is prescribed. She and Peeta, both being winner of the 74th hunger games, have to travel to each and every district of Panem, have to look into the eyes of the family members of children they killed.
While travelling, they find out, that life is not so peaceful as it was, the 12 districts of Panem are beginning to fight against the presumingly allmighty Capitol.
When the 75th hunger games are announced, it is clear, that not only Katniss, but Peeta and others as well have to go back into the Arena, where Katniss rises to be the Idol of the new revolution - the mockingjay of Panem.

I really liked the second book. Especially, because it continues with not being a happy story. Everything happening is tragic and one really feels sorry with everyone of the Main characters.
I award 9 out of 10 and already finished the last book of the trilogy "Mockingjay".

Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie Brown - The Big Cat Nap

In the 20th book about Harry Harristeen everything is about cars, people have minor and major accidents, people get murdered in their cars or at the repair Shop, get chased by faster cars etc.
Bad Chance, Harrys old John Deere needs to be repaired as well, and Harry, always interested in everything questions her repairmaster, and hence gets a good idea what might be behind all these murders and behind all These strange car accidents...

Well, the 20th story wants to be a Crozet-story, and sure does a lot to be One, old friends and beloved characters are back in the cast... All the same, there is a lot of productplacement, there are sentences where you don't know whether they are really finished or not... Strange a little! I am not one of those readers, who will stop reading Brown, but to be honest, it is Not so much fun as it was until a few books ago...

I award 6 out of 10 for trying. Coming up next is the second book of the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins (Catching Fire).
Additionally I started reading the Zombie Survival Guide (Max Brooks).