Not too many titles last December. Not sure why. Too much tv? I don't know.
Midnighters 1 - The Secret Hour by Scott Westerfield is about a teen girl that finds out that she can enter a secret world for an hour at midnight. It seems to be a localized thing, she just moved to the town. She meets several other people who can do the same thing. There are creatures that live in that time and space who have become more vicious than normal. There's stuff to read about and it's not too badly written but I don't think I would buy anymore. I am contemplating putting them on my library list and this post will remind me of that thought. There are several series that I might want to keep up with but don't want to buy.
Saint Overboard by Leslie Charteris is a novel length story featuring my favorite highwayman SimonTemplar. He's chilling on his yacht in the middle of the night when he hears some gunfire near by. A woman swims by and Simon, ever the gracious host, invites her on board. He hides her from Kurt Vogel and his henchmen. She tells Simon she's a Private Eye investigating sunken treasure that has disappeared. Of course Simon likes treaure and he jumps right into the story. It was a pretty good story. I breezed through it pretty quickly. I'll have to go look in the attic and see if there are any up there I might want to re-read. I know I have a couple of dozen Saint books, I'm just not sure where they are. I keep moving stuff up there around.
Six Cult Films From The Sixties by I B Melchoir is pretty entertaining. There isn't much too it, lots of pictures and short essays about the six films he worked on: The Angry Red Planet, The Time Travelers, Reptilicus, Journey To The Seventh Planet, Robinson Crusoe On Mars, Planet Of The Vampires. He wrote and directed the first two and wrote scripts for the all the rest. All are pretty entertaining though some are much better than others. It was another quick read. Like I said there weren't a lot of words.
Here, There Be Dragons by James Owen is the first of a series of books in The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica. Three men are tossed into a magical world where all the places in fiction exist. They are given the job of guarding the magical book of maps that show where everything is. They don't do that great a job at it at first and there's hell to pay. People die, worlds are in danger, you know. They do come out butter side up and soon as you know it there's a sequel. It's well enough written, the characters are mostly interesting, the places they go are fun. I liked it enough to want to read some more. I didn't care for Owen's illustrations very much, though I do like the cover. Owen's drew a comic, Starchild, that I remember seeing in the comic shop but never liked enough to read.
Fablehaven 2 - Rise Of The Evening Star by Brandom Mull is the second of the series. Kendra and Seth are back at home. A kobold attacks and they get taken to Fablehaven by Victoria, a friend of their grandparents. The Society of the Evening Star is acting up and trying to break into Fablehaven for something. That starts a big fight and more people come to fight with the Fablehaven folk. The magical creatures on the secret preserve aren't too much involved. Kendra learns more about her magical powers and Seth acts like an ass. I know he's written to be a young headstrong kid who is breaking the rules for good reason but he's such a dick about it I just don't care that much for him. There are plenty of other interesting creatures and characters to keep me mostly interested. I have the third book and I'll get to that before too long.
Heck - Where Bad Kids Go by Dale E Basye was pretty entertaining. The two kids on the cover die in an explosion in their mall and they go to Heck. They are brother and sister and totally unalike as can be. Milton is nerdy and afraid. Marlo is fearless and completely selfish. She'll do anything she wants at anytime. It was that attitude, and her stealing, that got them into Limbo, the first cicle of Heck. It's where souls are judged and passed along to the other circles of Heck. Milton is totally bummed out that he, a normally good kid, is here with his sister. They have some adventures and I enjoyed their tour in the after world. I plan to put the rest of the series on my library list.
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