Thursday, 26 January 2012

Die Abenteurer

Die Abenteurer 1 - Auf den Spuren von Atlantis ist eine Sammlung von 9 Heften der Bastei-Lübbe Groschenromanserie "Die Abenteurer". Erzählt wird die Geschichte vom jetzigen "2012"-Helden Tom Ericson und seiner Kollegin Gudrun Heber. Die beiden kommen auf abenteuerliche Weise an einen telepathisch veranlagten Kristall in Form eines kinderfaustgroßen Auges, das der Schlüssel zur sagenumwobenen Insel Atlantis sein könnte, und begeben sich in bester Indiana Jones Manier auf die Suche danach.
Es gibt einen Kar, einen Wissenschaftler, der sich langsam in eine Echse verwandelt, Symbionten, zeitunabhängige Ortsversetzung, Kornkreise, Zeitreisen, Höhlen, Explosionen, Verfolgungsjagden und natürlich einen Hut... Also alles drin, was ein Abenteurer braucht :-)

Danke für die Leihgabe an TH, der auch die restlichen 4 Bände zu Hause hat, und sie mir sicher mal borgt!

Ich vergebe abenteuerliche 8 Punkte und habe bereits mit der Kindle-Edition von "The hunger games" von Suzanne Collins begonnen

Monday, 9 January 2012

Die Abenteurer 1. Auf den Spuren von Atlantis

I started reading Die Abenteurer 1. Auf den Spuren von Atlantis. This book tells the history of Tom Ericsson (the main character of the dime novel 2012). So this will be the next book reviewed!

Monday, 2 January 2012

The mysterious Island

A happy new year, everyone!

Finally I made it :-) Yesterday I finished Jules Vernes "The mysterious island", my first ebook! Regarding the story, it is still one of my favourites, despite I wonder, whether my german version and this version are really the same book, both versions have the grade "complete edition"... but either I am not the attentive reader I like to be, or there are some differences...

Ok, what is this book about? Cyrus Harding (Smith in my german edition), his ex-servant Neb, Gideon Spillett, Herbert and Pencroft, as well as the dog Top, manage to flee - by taking a balloon - from Richmond during the American Civil war. After days and days without knowing their whereabouts they finally see land. The balloon, constantly losing gas, is freed from everything, in order to make it rise again. Harding looses his footing and falls into the agitated sea, Top following swiftly. His friends manage to get to a very small island, just a mile in front of a much bigger land-mass (it is not yet assured, whether this is an island). Well... A few days later they find Harding, in a somewhat mysterious way - Top appears from nowhere and lead the stranded ones to Harding. Harding, after regaining consciousness, does his best to find out their position within the ocean, and dashes all their hopes because they are at least 1200 miles from the next land. After this, the cast-aways speak of themselves as settlers and try to make the perfect island of the now called "Lincoln Island". Harding knows very much about nearly everything, and so they manage to make a formerly waterfilled cave habitable. Many mysterious things happen on Lincoln Island - a pellet is found within a young pecary, a treasure chest is found on the beach, containing everything the settlers need, Top is rescued in a very strange way after having troubles with a dugong... (but I wont whistle blow to much). Well, the settlers even manage to build a large enough boat to make a visit to their "neighbour" Tabor Island. In the end they get known to the mysterious helper, and... well... It is really hard not to tell too much, and not to tell too little...

Best is, you read the book yourselves! I love it, and despite the kindle edition has some spelling mistakes (sometimes it looks like, they scanned the text, and the scanner did not get everything right...) I award 10 out of 10.
As I am now a little behind with Vampira and 2012 it may take a while until I post again!

Sunday, 20 November 2011

Kindle

As a present I got the kindle 4 last week. As "The mysterious Island" from Jules Verne is one of my alltime favorites, and I haven't read it in english so far, I downloaded it, and I am now at 15% -> this will be the next book reviewed!

So far I like the system, and I like the reader itself. What I don't like is, that there are no pagenumbers, but only the percentage you have read so far. I understand why that is, because you can change the font size and the font itself, but all the same, I would like it better if I could see the page number!

The loading works with an micro-USB plug, either via PC or via power socket. The first time load via power socket took about an hour, this has been 3 days ago and although I read very much and played around with the kindle even more the battery is still full.

The "picture" is refreshed around every 7th page, during the other pages only the lines are refreshed, what leads to "ghost letters", but is not really a problem, apart from when you sit under direct light.

So far I am really happy with the kindle, but I don't think, that I will read everything now only on my ebookreader (I still have about 50 unread books in my "unread" shelve). But there are so many classics one can read for free... I really will exhaust the possibility of downloading and reading them for free! [I don't have to much space left for new books, so I will focus on books I really have to have in the physical edition, when buying new books]

Sunday, 13 November 2011

Arkadien fällt

Kai Meyer's "Arkadien fällt" is the third an final volume of the Arkadien-trilogy. Rosa and Alessandro continue to fight for their love, as all shapeshifter clans have a problem with their relationship. As they find out after a lot of research and livethreatening situations, the real bad guy is the hungry man, who wants them to marry (and then kill each other) in order to regain the power the shapeshifters had in former times.

Well, I keep this so short, because I think, one word much spoils everything. The book itself is well written, as usual, but I think there is a little too much action. What the first two volumes lacked on action, this volume likes to pick up. There is very much plot for a book of only 340 pages, so you have to keep track.
But all in all, Arkadien fällt is a good ending for the trilogy, every riddle has a solution and one has a good feeling for the future of the main characters.

I award 7 out of 10 for this book due to the mentioned hurry in the plot (perhaps the book should have had 500 pages, so all would have been well :-)).

I have not yet decided what to read next, as I have not read my current volumes of 2012 and Vampira.

Friday, 28 October 2011

The Lover

This book by Marguerite Duras tells the autobiographic story of a 15 year old girl, living in South East Asia, who becomes some kind of mistress for the son of a Chinese business man, who fells in love with her when he first meets her on a ferry. At first, they only meet on a social basis, going for dinner, for a walk... One day he takes her into a flat somewhere in the busy streets of the town, and makes love to her. She more or less becomes addicted to him, firstly because of experiencing an immense sensation of lust, secondly because he can provide her with the money her family no longer has.
But the "love" story is not the only part of the book (contrary to the movie), instead the main focus is on her family, with her crazy mother, her younger and her older brother, the problems they face due to the depression her mother suffers from, the problems that occur because all the money is gone.
She also is confronted with racial problems, her being white, him being a Chinese.

The story is told in a very strange way... Sometimes it is a first person narrative, sometimes Duras speaks about herself in the third person, the plot is not told in a linear way, but jumps from here to there, from this time to that time. Hardly any names are told (apart from a school friend), she only refers to "him", "his father", "her younger brother", "her older brother" All that made the book a rather hard one to read.
I had high expectations but they where not met. I am actually quite disappointed by the book, which can be reasoned because I like the movie very much, and well, the movie focusses on the love story, the book focusses on her family, which characters are strange, and not really like-able.

All in all... I am not going to rate this book. Please feel free to post your opinion!

Coming up next "Kai Meyer: Arkadien fällt"

Monday, 17 October 2011

No et moi

After a few dime novels I started  "No et moi". I read it in German, as my French is not good enough.

No and me... Me, that is 13 year old Lou, living in Paris with her parents who suffer from the loss of Lous baby sister a few years ago. She is very intelligent and skipped therefore two classes. As a result, she is the youngest in her class, but being as bright as she is, she is still the best. Feeling quite isolated (not one of her classmates, wants to be friends with her) she goes to the trainstation after school in order to watch people. One day, No, a 18 year old homeless starts to speak to Lou. She just needs a person, who talks to her, so Lou gets to the trainstation each daym, gets to know Lou, and even holds a speech at school about homeless women in France, Paris in particular.
Lou`s only "friend" is Lucas, who repeats the class, does not pay attention to what the teachers say, and is a rebel in each and every way.
Lou starts to think, that when each person took one homeless person and took care of them, therefore she wants to convince her parents to take No to live with them. No, being as down as down can be, is being washed and newly dressed at Lucas flat, and then starts her new life with Lou and her parents.
At first everything is perfect, No takes her time to recover, becomes a valueable member of the family and even gets herself a job. When Lou and her parents have to leave Paris for a few days to meet Lous aunt things turn into a different direction...

I have to say, that book is really a pageturner! One always wants to know what happens next and one feels the drama rising... Despite knowing, that there cannot be a happy ending, one cannot stop reading, one is happy when Lou is, one is sad, when Lou is. I started crying in the train again.... So, I think No et Moi is the perfect book for everyone who really likes to be "inside" a book.
I award 10 out of 10 for an outstanding reading experience!

Next one to come is Marguerite Duras` "the Lover"