Reviewed By: Lauren Lapinski

Picking up almost one year after The Hunger Games, Catching Fire brings us right back into the life of Katniss Everdeen, who updates us on all that has happened since the end of the first book. We see how many things have changed for her since winning the Games and the perils she now faces. Containing less violence and fighting action than The Hunger Games, Book 2 picks up the slack with political intrigue as Katniss faces the consequences of her actions against The Capitol and President Snow.

Her victory tour allows the readers a glimpse of each different District and how they have been affected by the Games. We also see the first signs of rebellion as citizens and politicians begin questioning President Snow.

Collins still manages to take us on a non-stop, page-turning adventure with just as much power as Book 1 and an ending that will leave you simultaneously cursing and praising the author as you bite your nails in wait of the final installment. Catching Fire is a must-read for fans of YA fiction. Give it a try and be sure to pre-order the third book of the trilogy, Mockingjay, due out August 24, 2010.

Review by Ida Vega-Landow

This book has everything for the reader who loves horror, romance and historic fiction. It’s about Anne Boleyn, King Henry VIII’s second wife, for whom he created a whole new church just so he could divorce his faithful first wife, Katherine of Aragon, to marry her. The author supposes that when Henry got tired of Anne and had her convicted on a slew of made-up charges, among them witchcraft, she was not beheaded like a noblewoman, but hanged like a commoner. Or, as the blurb on the back cover of this fascinating book states, “The slightest tweak in history makes all the difference in the outcome…”

One of the ways of creating a vampire is for a person to die a sudden, violent death. Another is for the dying person to deny God with his or her last breath. So when Anne curses God and denounces Him on the scaffold just moments before the trapdoor opens beneath her feet, it allows her to come back as a vampire. And what a vampire! When she rises from her unmarked grave on the grounds of the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, in the shadow of the Tower of London where she was executed, she looks like Lilly Munster; her long, black hair is streaked with white, to go with her pale skin and blood-red eyes. She finds a silver urn on her grave filled with week-old dead flowers from her lover, Thomas Wyatt, the man she would have married if Henry hadn’t fallen in lust with her. After reading the tender poem Thomas left tucked inside the urn, she decides to pay him a visit and walks all the way to his home, Allington Castle, with unnatural speed, which is only natural for someone in her condition, “for the dead travel fast”.

It doesn’t take long for Anne to make Thomas her first victim, after which, with his help, she raises the beheaded bodies of her brother George and her favorite musician, Mark Smeaton, both of whom were accused of committing adultery with her. George comes back as a zombie and Mark as a ghost; she sends Smeaton to play his ghostly violin in the halls of Whitehall Palace, the King’s resident, while she and her zombie brother visit their father at Hever Castle. After paying back Daddy Dearest, who wouldn’t defend her against the king’s false charges, by driving him mad with fear, she lays George to rest again, and then she and Smeaton proceed to haunt Whitehall Palace while Henry prepares to marry his third wife, Jane Seymour.

Anne has a good old time discovering her vampiric powers as she torments Henry by leaving daffodils, her favorite flower, all over the castle, usually spattered with blood, turning crucifixes and portraits of the king upside down, and attacking his favorites, like his chancellor, Thomas Cromwell, and Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk. The only people she spares from torment are her sister Mary, who is taking care of her daughter Elizabeth (destined to become one of England’s greatest queens), and the new queen, Jane Seymour, after Mary tells her how Jane is trying to get Elizabeth restored to her place at court, along with the king’s eldest daughter Mary. But everyone else at court is fair game for Anne Boleyn, Tudor Vampire—especially her former husband, King Henry VIII.

This story is short, but intense. Horror is laden upon horror, like layers of fruit filling in a heavily iced, dark chocolate cake. The author displays a good knowledge of history and life during the Tudor period, though she does tend to lapse into anachronisms from time to time. Like when Anne discovers she is able to make drawbridges rise by mentally commanding it and comments that she was able to enter her father’s castle this way “without hassle”. There were also a couple of references to having sex as “getting your jollies”. Not very Tudorian, but quite droll. I suppose if Anne knows that she’s telling this story to a modern audience, her use of modern slang is understandable.

The author also displays a familiarity with instruments of torture that made me feel very uncomfortable, especially those intended for use on women, like the pear of anguish, the breast ripper, and the Judas Cradle. I haven’t been so grossed out since I toured the dungeon at the New York Renaissance Faire and saw the methods and instruments of torture they used back then, demonstrated on dummies. Disturbingly realistic dummies. But at least I had the satisfaction of seeing old Cromwell get his, which I didn’t get from reading any of Philippa Gregory’s Tudorian novels. Then again, this is made-up history, not the real thing, so anything goes, from raising your beheaded brother to calling up an army of zombies to lynch your worst enemy in his own backyard. I never saw Anne Boleyn so happy before in a fictionalized account of her life; as the late Vincent Price would say, “She’s so amusing.”

But all good things come to an end, as do all good books. And this one ends much too soon for me, just as Anne appears to Henry for the last time to take her bloody vengeance, only to be foiled by one whom she considered her ally from the beginning of her reign of terror. Having her reawaken in the present as a ghost was a nice touch, but was it really necessary to have a Boleyn family reunion, including the relatives who had wronged her? It would have been so much more poignant for Anne to haunt the halls of Whitehall Palace and/or Henry’s tomb for eternity. Not just Henry’s tomb, either; think how thrilling it would be for visitors to hear her spirit weeping over Queen Elizabeth’s tomb. My biggest beef with this book is the title; it should be “Anne Boleyn-Tudor Vampire”, so people will know right away exactly which Tudor is meant. (Remember “The Other Boleyn Girl”, her sister Mary, whom Henry also slept with?) I hope that the author will consider this minor change in future reprints. For now, any complaints or compliments should be directed to her website, which is: http://BloodTouch.Webs.com Long live the queen!

Review by Ida Vega-Landow

Do you like zombies? Do you like the Beatles? Both of them are currently enjoying a long run of popularity that makes them seem immortal. But wait a minute–what if they were immortal? I mean, what would happen if someone decided to cross the current literary obsession with zombies with music lovers’ long-running obsession with the Fab Four? Well, someone did!

Ladies and gentlemen, meet The Beatles, in an alternate universe where zombies are as common and accepted as vampires in the world created by Charlaine Harris in her Southern Vampire series, upon which the popular TV series “True Blood” is based. Alan Goldsher, a talented but sick-minded gent, is responsible for this black comedy; it is based upon the facts of Beatlemania which every true fan is familiar with, but with a grotesque twist.

Based upon the theory that zombies first came to England on a slave ship via the Liverpool docks around 1837, after a careless sea captain disposed of some dead slaves without making sure they were dead, Goldsher speculates that The First Zombie may have come from Tunisia, where the Undead are relatively docile. (“Docile” as compared to your average Undead, that is. It seems that Tunisian zombies can get by on a handful of brains a year if they had to, unlike your average zombie, who requires a brain a day.)

The First managed to survive by lurking in the train yards of Liverpool, where he was assured of peace and quiet, plenty of dark places to hide in and plenty to eat, in the form of unwary tramps and railroad employees working late. After the Liverpool sewer system was completed in 1929, The First and his children–all the poor souls that he converted into zombies–relocated there. And it was from there that The First crawled out of a toilet into the Liverpool Maternity Hospital on October 9, 1940, where he wandered into the room of Mrs. Julia Lennon, who had just endured a thirty-hour labor, and snatched up her baby boy John. After undergoing the Liverpool Process (described in gruesome detail in the book’s introduction), our boy John became the (un)living legend he is today. And because of the legendary Liverpool Process, he also became one of the strongest, smartest Liverpudlian zombies ever created.

In short order, our John grew up to become a major music fan and aspiring musician, who was determined to become “the Toppermost of the Poppermost”. But unlike the dearly departed John Lennon of this universe, he wanted to–dare I say it?–rule the world. And I don’t mean just the music world, either. He wanted to rule the whole world. So he recruited cute little Paul McCartney into his band and then turned him into a zombie. Paul then turned young George Harrison into a zombie. John wanted to turn Stu Sutcliffe, but Stu was turned into a vampire first by his German girlfriend’s best friend (the details of who gets turned into what get complicated, but stick with it, it’s worth the effort). So they recruit a replacement drummer from Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, none other than Richard Starkey, a/k/a Ringo Starr. But nobody turns Ringo into anything, because he’s a Seventh Level Ninja Lord. Come on, everybody knows supernatural creatures need a Renfield, a mortal guardian who protects them from their mortal enemies. So the Fab Four, in Alan Goldsher’s universe, are literally a killer rock band who loves their fans to death. And they have no shortage of willing fans who want to die for them. Except that they don’t really die, they just get turned into zombies.

This darkly humorous version of Beatlemania will appeal to anybody who loves zombies and The Beatles. The entire British Invasion becomes the Attack of The Undead Rockers, led by the Fab Four and their arch rivals The Zombies, who aren’t really zombies, they just call themselves that, which pisses off The Beatles to no end. It also pisses off Rod Argent, cofounder of the Zombies, who thinks the lads from Liverpool are just trying to ride on his band’s coattails. Meanwhile, The Rolling Stones are led by fearless zombie hunter Mick Jagger, whose attempts at eradicating The Beatles fail comically and disastrously every time.

The only thing scarier than The Beatles is John’s romance with Yoko Ono, who in this universe is not only an avant-garde artist but also a Ninth Level Ninja Lord who kicks Ringo’s ass when he tries to get rid of her to save the group. And wait till you read about what happened to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi when The Beatles went to him to be enlightened. Not that he didn’t deserve it, for being such a holy hypocrite in real life, preaching about peace and love while sexually harassing his female followers, especially Mia Farrow’s sister Prudence, which is why nobody ever saw her hanging out with the rest of the seekers of wisdom during that long visit to Rishikesh, India. But John claims that he, Paul, and George ate Prudence because she spent so much time locked up in her room and the boys didn’t like her standoffishness. John even refers to her as “Dear Prudence” as he lovingly describes how he and his mates devoured her like a fried chicken at a picnic; “Our picnic was very civil. I got the drumsticks, George got the thighs and wings, Paulie got the breasts.”

Without a doubt, “Paul Is Undead” is gruesome fun for everyone. Some of the humor is questionable, like the part where the Beatles drop acid and John has a vision of Jesus agreeing with him that the Beatles are, indeed, bigger than Jesus, because, apparently, Our Sweet Lord can’t play the guitar to save His life. I could have accepted that if it was only an acid-induced delusion on John’s part, but did the author really have to include a statement from Jesus in which He admits that He would have liked to keep John in Heaven, but didn’t for fear of offending His Father? Things like that can get you banned in the Bible Belt of this great country, Mr. Goldsher, just like The Beatles were. And what really happened at the end of the book, when The Beatles were staging a comeback at the Double Door, a dive bar in Chicago? Was this book published posthumously? Or is the author now a zombie as well? Unless Goldsher decides to write a sequel (if he’s still able to write, that is), we may never know. So get ready to meet The Beatles as you’ve never seen them before. The worlds of music and horror will never be the same again.

Reviewed By: Lauren Lapinski

With constant predictions of the human race and the world coming to an end in the year 2012, many of us fear what the near and distant future hold. Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games takes place sometime in the distant future in the ruins of North America, now known as Panem. In this dystopia future, an event is held each year known as the Hunger Games, where children from age 12 to 18 are selected by lottery to compete in a televised fight to the death with only one surviving victor. The heroine, Katniss Everdeen , enters the Hunger Games after her younger sister’s name is selected from the lottery and she volunteers to take her place.

Collins’ style is very well written, easy to read, and fast paced. Every chapter leaves the reader in suspense and is nearly impossible to put down. The basic plot of kids killing kids for survival has been done before, in novels such as Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale, but the similarities end with that violent concept. The novel also deals with other serious issues such as hunger, political corruption, and what passes as entertainment for a pubic so desensitized and dehumanized by televised violence and reality shows. Collins has said the story is also inspired by the Greek myth of Theseus, as well as an experience of channel surfing between reality shows and coverage of the war in Iraq.

The Hunger Games is definitely a book to check out, a story that is wonderfully woven with intricate of excellent sub-plots, tear-jerking events, and an ending that will leave you dying to get your hands on the sequel.

Review by Ida Vega-Landow

This book should have been a delightful revisionist historic fantasy. Set during World War II in Detroit, the protagonist, Jared Cleaves, is a young man working in one of Henry Ford’s factories (Building G, near the center of the Ford River Rouge factory complex) manufacturing golems for the war effort. So why did I find it such a long, tedious read? Well, first there’s Jared’s rah-rah attitude about the war; he’s deferred from the draft because of a childhood injury to his hand that left him unable to hold a gun. He’s depressed because he actually wants to be at the front, shooting Nazis and getting shot at, to prove his manhood.

Second, the racist attitudes of the book’s predominantly white characters toward American Negroes and American-born Germans are so upfront and downright ignorant that it disgusts me. I know that kind of attitude was common back then, but it still bothers me to read about it. Being a minority myself (Hecho en Nueva York, but still primarily Puerto Rican), I tend to identify with other minorities. Even the blasé way that everyone accepts the existence of magic and the fact that both the U.S.A. and Germany are using it to help them win the war is spoiled for me by the factory workers’ constant references to “niggers” and the anti-Semitic way they treat the rabbi who animates the golems they build.

Third, the worst part was finding out that our hero, Jared, is nothing but a pawn on the chessboard of the local powers that be, the local OEI office vs. the local Nazi spies. Both sides know that Jared’s got magic in his blood through his mother, a native of the Ozarks who practiced witchcraft in her youth, and from having seen the Nain Rouge, or Red Dwarf, a creepy character who always appears just before a major disaster in the Detroit area.

It was the Dwarf who caused Jared to injure his hand when he was just a little boy riding in his father’s Model-T Ford while the old man was running rum during Prohibition. The Dwarf also keeps running through Jared’s dreams, blasts from the past where Jared finds himself reliving the POV of a historic character who also saw the Dwarf just before something horrendous happened; Antoine de Lamothe-Cadillac, the French explorer who founded Detroit, who was run out of town by British troops in 1701, a British soldier before the British were slaughtered at the battle of Bloody Run in 1763, a local baker before Detroit was burned down in 1805, and General Hull before he surrendered the city during the War of 1812. The Dwarf is definitely a harbinger of bad luck, and the General Marshall of the OEI as well as the local Nazi agents both want to use Jared to find the Dwarf, so they can sic him on their enemies.

Watching an honest man being batted around like a mouse between a group of cats is not something that I’m fond of. Seeing him sinking deeper and deeper into wartime intrigue while trying to serve his country and take care of his family, a young wife who strips airplane parts at another factory and an adorable two-year-old daughter, was almost painful. His arrogant boss, his snotty mother-in-law, and his wiseguy father don’t do much to endear themselves to the reader either.

If the story had been a bit more fastpaced, it might have been more bearable. But the pace is so slow, with so many historic flashbacks, not just in Jared’s dreams but in the narrative, as well as all the mentions on the side of how the war is doing overseas via radio broadcasts, newsreels and newspapers, is enough to make you scream. I know that Mr. Irvine is just trying to make it historically accurate, but I wish he had been a little more subtle about it. Overall, I would give “The Narrows” a C- for being well-intentioned and historically accurate, but too long. Even allowing for the fact that the copy I read was an advance uncorrected proof, I still thought it was too long. When they come out with a finished, proofread copy I may give it another try to see if it’s improved. But for now, I’m just glad to be finished with “The Narrows”. To paraphase what was said about King James I, nothing becomes this book as much as the ending of it. If only it had come sooner…!

Review by Ida Vega-Landow,

Once again we are entertained, or afflicted, by a smartass who has decided to “improve” Jane Austin by adding an element of horror to one of her classic romance novels. As if “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” by Seth Grahame-Smith wasn’t bad enough (and by that I mean good enough to be skewered on “Mystery Science Theater 3000″, if it were still on the air, and if anybody brave enough to film PP&Z could be found), we now have “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters”, in which the course of true love not only seldom runs smooth, but frequently has blood-stained water. You see, in this alternate version of Miss Austin’s novel, dear old England has been afflicted by “The Alteration; which had turned the creatures of the ocean against the people of the earth; which made even the tiniest darting minnow and the gentlest dolphin into aggressive, blood-thirsty predators, hardened and hateful towards our bipedal race”.

This time around, the darling Dashwood family has been evicted from their seaside manor by their selfish half-brother after their father was eaten by a hammerhead shark. Their mother’s cousin, Sir John, offers them a haven on Pestilent Isle, where the two older sisters, sensible Elinor and sensitive Marianne, find suitors who are treasure hunters (in more ways than one), while Margaret, the youngest (who hardly has anything to do in the original novel), becomes obsessed with a mysterious, smoking mountaintop and the chanting she hears coming from it every night through the window of their dilapidated little cottage on Pestilence Island. Colonel Brandon, Marianne’s more honorable suitor, has tentacles on his face due to a sea witch’s curse. Sir John, Mrs. Dashwood’s cousin, is married to “Kukaphahora, now Lady Middleton, a six-foot-two-inch, jewel-bedecked princess of a tribe indigenous to a far-flung atoll” whom he abducted during his days as a pirate. She appears to be a dutiful wife, but she’s just humoring her vulgar husband while planning her escape from England.

This book has more sea creatures in it than Kip Addotta’s song, “Wet Dream”. Every possible form of marine life attacks the Dashwood sisters, along with every other human who goes down to the sea in ships, or even just picnics by the shore (the account of one unfortunate young lady devoured by a giant jellyfish at a bonfire party on Sir John’s beach is both gruesome and funny enough to make Mike, Servo and Crow blubber). Everything in this book has a maritime theme. Even London becomes Sub-Marine Station Beta, four miles under the surface, “some miles off the Welsh coast, just beyond the Cardigan Bay,” where all the beautiful people go for their summer holiday (Sub-Marine Station Alpha having suffered a dreadful fate due to the betrayal of the mermen masquerading as humans who helped design it). Instead of dances and card parties, the most popular form of entertainment at the station is visiting Hyde Park—I mean Hydra-Z, “more properly known as the Hydro-Zoological Laboratory and Exhibition Arcade”, one of the station’s more popular scientific facilities, “where captured monsters were submitted to the most rigorous re-training and biological modification programs…and brought before paying audiences to demonstrate how completely they had been made to do the will of man.”

This sounds just like the modern water parks where seals, dolphins and killer whales are trained to perform tricks for the amusement of humans, like the one in Florida where a female trainer was recently killed by the orca she was putting through its paces. This book was written last year, otherwise I’d accuse the contemporary author, Mr. Winters, of capitalizing on that tragic incident when he gleefully describes how the giant trained lobsters at one such performance gradually turn upon their trainer, then the audience, forcing Marianne to find out that her precious Mr. Willoughby is secretly engaged to another girl, whom he chooses to rescue instead of her as the lobsters start crawling out of the water tank, cutting off hands, feet and heads with their enormous claws as they advance. (Can’t you just hear Mike Nelson yelling “Quick! Throw some melted butter at them!”)

One thing I’ll say for this fishy version of Miss Austin’s novel, things may get clammy, but they are seldom dull. The ending is also a lot more spectacular than the original one; it includes the resourceful Elinor fighting off a pirate attack with only a whittling knife, as well as what happens to young Margaret after she’s left behind on Pestilence Island with their mother to investigate the mysterious, smoking mountain and the hairless, sharp-toothed natives that nobody else ever seems to see, with their mysterious chant of “K’yaloh D’argesh F’ah! K’yaloh D’argesh F’ah!” We are also intrigued by a mysterious five-pointed star that keeps popping up across Elinor’s vision every time she sees Lucy Steele, her rival for Edward Ferrar’s affections. I was starting to think that the girl must be a werewolf, but it turned out to be a lot worst; at least for Robert Ferrar, the fellow she wound up marrying! So, if you’re a good Catholic who’s also given up meat for Lent, put on “Wet Dream” and read this book. I promise it won’t give you a haddock; in fact, it will give your whole life new porpoise. Okay, okay, I’ll clam up, but buy this book, don’t be shellfish!

Review by Ida Vega-Landow

This is the most charming children’s book I’ve ever read since The Chronicles of Narnia, which the movies do not do justice to! It’s a fictional account of what might have happened to the dog named Jack that author Jack London knew during his brief sojourn in Alaska during the Gold Rush of 1897. This is the same dog on which London based the character of Buck, the domestic dog who goes feral in his classic novel “Call of the Wild”. Dog lovers will adore this book, which gives such loving insight into a dog’s point of view about the behavior of humans. Even a cat lover like me will find it easy to get into Jack’s character and sympathize with him.

Jack is a big, lovable mastiff who lives with Marshall Bond and a group of other miners in a shack on Split Up Island on the Yukon River. He spends his time pulling sleds and guarding the property of his masters on the island. Jack goes through three masters in this book, not all of them good men. Since there were so many people coming and going during the turbulent period of the Gold Rush, lots of things got left behind, passed on to, or stolen by others. Supplies, tents, horses and dogs were valuable assets to gold miners. Smart men knew how to take care of these assets; not so smart ones would wear them out, lose or destroy them through carelessness and stupidity.

The young Jack London came to Split Up Island during the winter of ’97, along with two companions, to try their luck at panning for gold, as did many young men of that era. When Jack London met Jack the mastiff, the first thing the dog did was go up to the man and smell him, while the man put his hands deeply into the dog’s fur and stroked him. Jack thought that “The man’s hands felt good…and he smelled right”, so he accepted him. This was the beginning of a brief but beautiful friendship.

Jack the dog and Jack the man became very close during that bitter Alaskan winter, so close that Jack the dog saved Jack the man’s life when a runaway horse nearly trampled him in town.

Sadly, despite the deep friendship that developed between the two Jacks over the winter, when the spring thaw came Jack the man was forced to return to his home in Oakland, California after he became sick. For weeks afterward, Jack the dog spent a lot of time on the bank of the Yukon River, looking upstream and whining sadly as he waited for his beloved master to return. But he never came back.

Meanwhile, Franco Stupendo and his two brothers also came to the Yukon to seek their fortune. They needed dogs and didn’t care how they got them, so they stole Jack and another dog from Split Up Island one dark night. Now poor Jack spent his days slaving away with three other dogs, pulling a sled filled with heavy equipment, used as a beast of burden when there wasn’t enough room on the sled for supplies, frequently beaten and forced to go hungry when the food ran short. He spent his nights dreaming of his good friend Jack and how he would return one day to save him from these brutal men.

But it was another good man who saved Jack, a stranger who walked into the Stupendo brothers’ camp one day to feed the starving dogs. His name was Jake Jamison; he took a fancy to Jack and claimed that Jack was his dog and had been stolen from him on the Yukon River. He had to beat up one of the Stupendo brothers in order to take Jack away, but beat him he did, and Jack went happily with his new master, who was as kind as the Stupendos were cruel. So began another beautiful friendship, one that would last longer, as this man stayed to seek his fortune in the Yukon with his faithful dog by his side.

The author divides his time between showing us how Jack London is doing in Oakland, writing what would become his bestselling classic about life in the Yukon, and how Jack the dog does in the Yukon with his new master, who discovers that his new best friend has a talent for finding people who have been buried beneath deep snow by the frequent avalanches. This talent comes in very handy when a little girl goes missing after an avalanche and her frantic mother comes looking for the Avalanche Dog to find her buried child. Happily, Jack is able to locate the little girl, who becomes his good friend, while her grateful mother takes a shine to Jack’s friend Jake.

Dirk Wales gives both Jacks, man and dog, a happy ending in this book, which is charmingly illustrated by the talented Barry Moser. The stark black and white illustrations give a more realistic view of the harshness of life in the Yukon than all the pretty pictures in your average kids’ book. So if you love dogs, or know a child who does, be sure to get a copy of “Jack London’s Dog” for yourself or your favorite young dog lover to while away a cold winter’s night. It’s got the Mom’s Choice Award, and is as wholesome as a kid’s book can get without descending into sentimentality. I recommend it for kids between 6 and 12 years old, who are just getting into the classics and need something more challenging than the average kids’ book filled with brightly colored pictures of talking animals and toys. This book teaches kids about the values of friendship and kindness to animals without being preachy or moralistic. It doesn’t attempt to protect kids from the harshness of life, but warns them that there is cruelty in the world and they had better be prepared to defend themselves from it, as well as those they love. It also shows them that there is goodness in the world, and the company of good people and good dogs can be more rewarding than a pile of gold nuggets.

Review by Kathryn Ramage

“The author is supposed to be chronicling seven generations of a single family, but he tells the same story over and over again. All the characters live lives of selfless duty to the state, get old and die–and then the next generation comes along and does it all over again!”

“That’s the whole point, Doctor. The repetitive epic is the most elegant form of Cardassian literature, and The Never-Ending Sacrifice is its greatest achievement.”

–Dr. Julian Bashir and Elim Garak, in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, The Wire

The classic Cardassian novel, The Never-Ending Sacrifice by Ulan Corac, opens with a dedication “For Cardassia,” and exemplifies the Cardassian ideal of unwavering dedication to the homeworld and placing the needs of the State above personal considerations. As noted by Dr. Bashir’s and Garak’s discussion above, the plot is extremely repetitive and some readers, particularly human ones, might find it a dreadful bore. Fortunately, Una McCormack’s novel of the same name is neither.

McCormack’s The Never-Ending Sacrifice is the tale of Rugal Pa’Dar, a Cardassian boy who made his appearance an early Deep Space Nine episode, “Cardassians.” In this episode, we discover that Rugal was abducted from his family as a small child while his father was stationed on Bajor during Cardassia’s occupation of that planet, left in an orphanage, and eventually adopted by a Bajoran couple. When he is found as a teenager, a custody dispute arises between Rugal’s Bajoran parents and his biological father, Kotan Pa’Dar, who is now an important official on Cardassia. Commander Sisko of Deep Space Nine decides to return Rugal to Pa’Dar.

The episode ends there. McCormack follows Rugal’s life through the next eight years as he comes of age on that militaristic, oppressive world that bears a close resemblance to the one portrayed in George Orwell’s 1984; everyone is closely monitored by listening devices and the Obsidian Order, Cardassia’s intelligence agency, for signs of seditious thoughts or acts. Unquestioning loyalty to the State is of primary importance. And Rugal is as rebellious as a boy who considers himself Bajoran and hates all things Cardassian would naturally be. His father’s repeated refrain is “Try not to get us all killed”–a warning that Rugal ignores at first, since he resents Kotan for taking him away from his Bajoran family and the world he considers his true home.

As the years pass, Rugal does not learn to love Cardassia nor the ideals it upholds (he tries to read Ulan Corac’s novel once, but falls asleep during the first chapter). He does, however, learn to care for things and people on it: his father, an orphaned girl who is being brought up by her relatives, some of the older traditions of the Cardassian people, such as the moving chant his father and girl-friend perform at his acerbic grandmother’s funeral. He understands something of how their world came to be the way it is, and seeks to change it.

For a DS9 geek, this story is a fascinating retelling of almost the entire series, as viewed from someone living on Cardassia during that same time. The episodes related to Cardassia are well-researched, and the story is full of characters and incidents from them. Rugal and his father are acquainted with dissidents who appeared in other Deep Space Nine episodes, and of course have repeated confrontations with Gul Dukat (who stole Rugal from his father in the first place). The Klingon invasion of Cardassia, the Dominion War, and its aftermath are seen through Rugal’s eyes. While I was reading, I kept saying to myself, “Yes, I remember that! That happened in [episode name].” There is little to be seen of the major characters from Deep Space Nine except for Dukat, but Miles O’Brien and Elim Garak both have important parts to play near the end of the story. But it is the development of Rugal’s character as he grows from surly teenager to political activist to unwilling soldier to one of few surviving Cardassians in a war-shattered galaxy that makes this story more than a catalog of previously seen DS9 characters and events. In the end, Rugal comes full circle when he adopts an orphaned human child he finds on a colony world and fights to keep her over the objections of people who believe the child belongs with her own kind. He realizes then that he too is part of a never-ending sacrifice, and not “For Cardassia.”

Reviewed by Ida Vega-Landow

For those of you who can’t get enough of Sookie Stackhouse, this slim volume contains five short stories about our mind reading heroine by her intrepid creator, Charlaine Harris, the Southern belle with the macabre sense of humor. This book is for those who wonder what Sookie does between books—I myself have often wondered when and how she found out about her cousin Hadley’s death before she went to New Orleans to settle her estate in “Definitely Dead”—and whether Ms. Harris can tell a complete story about Sookie without it being book length. Happily, she can do so, with the humor and solemnity we’ve come to expect from the creator of the Southern Vampire series.

If you like fairies, clap your hands for “Fairy Dust”, which is about the murder of Claudette, the triplet sister of Claudine and Claude, the two fairies who have appeared so often in Sookie’s life. Claudette was another character mentioned in passing in one of the novels, which made me curious to know more about her. “Gift Wrap” features Sookie’s great-grandfather Niall Brigant, a real fairy prince who gives her one heck of a Christmas present one lonely Christmas eve. They’re the first and the last stories in this collection.

In between these two gems is “Dracula Night”, from the anthology “Many Bloody Returns” about horrific birthdays, in which Sookie is invited to Club Fangtasia, the local vampire hangout, to celebrate Dracula’s birthday. “One Word Answer” is about the death of Sookie’s cousin Hadley and how she uncovered the murderer without even leaving town. “Lucky” co-stars her witchy friend Amelia Broadway and how they turn detective to help a local insurance agent, who’s also got witchery in his family. He’s been exceptionally lucky and now fears that his luck is running out.

“A Touch of Dead” is a tasty little bite of Sookie in the night, which should hold us until the return of HBO’s “True Blood”, the sanguine series based on the Southern Vampire novels, next season. Despite the growing popularity of the “Twilight” novels and movies, I prefer “True Blood” and the Southern Vampire series, which is definitely for adults, not teens. Go, Charlaine! Show those wimpy little teenybopper bloodsuckers how real vampires prey! Halleluiah!

Book Review: Shoujo Art Studio

Review by Linda Yau

How many readers of shoujo manga would also enjoy the process of learning how to create this form of art? I imagine there would be a sizable number of people willing to take a few lessons or two. Now then, how about reading Shoujo Art Studio: Everything You Need to Create Your Own Shoujo Manga Comics and beginning from there.

Shoujo Art is a digital art instruction hardcover, which includes a compact disc. The book and disc breaks down the steps of creating a shoujo manga story in a digital environment for the student.

The book begins with a brief history and rules of what shoujo manga is. Then the book explains what physical tools are needed, and quickly moves onto the software necessary for this book. Following a crash course on the tools in Adobe Photoshop Elements, (a free consumer version of Adobe Photoshop), the author continues for the rest of the book explaining what is aspects for a shoujo manga. Creation of characters, or backgrounds, tones, or any aspect of a general shoujo manga is not necessary, because this is where the compact disc is useful.

There are over 100 Photoshop samples of shoujo manga/comic elements. Samples of characters, page layouts, backgrounds accessories, word balloons, focus lines, and others are within the compact disc’s directory.

Now for using this book, there are some expectations, and the necessity of having some tools and programs before using this book. However, in the larger picture users would most often have these programs available. This book is suitable for the computer aware person, and while there is some instruction for PC use, there is a Mac curve here. Also in spite of the general samples provided, there are limitations in how many variations can be, thus if there is an actual aspiration of being a professional shoujo manga creator, then it would be advised to actually go and take lessons. This book is used as a fun activity for people to try and create a basic shoujo manga. If there is a shoujo manga that is created from this book, then it would be for the student to actually write a story that can go with their creation.

Avalon: Web of Magic – All That Glitters (Book Two)

Review by Kris

Before I jump into the synopsis and review of this book I have to thank the fans of this series. When you read the comments posted after my review for Avalon: Web of Magic – Circles in the Stream (Book One) you’ll see that I got thoroughly spanked because of my idiocy and ineptitude. I did make some mistakes and I am very sorry for that. Emily does follow some of the dogs that she is taking care of into Ravenswood when she runs into Adriane. When I initially read the book I thought she wanted to ask the girl who brought in the cat if she knew what was hurting or killing the local animals. Another thing I made a mistake on was the fact that Ozzie was never a magical creature and his spell didn’t backfire. It was the Fairimentals (very magical creatures made of air, earth, water or fire and live in the magical world of Aldenmore) who disguised Ozzie as a ferret to protect him. When I read these books, I read them all together so many things mushed together in my brain and I misrepresented some of the story. So I must apologize to both the author and the fans for my mistakes and I hope I get this review right, and if I screw it up again don’t hesitate to straighten me out! Also to the one reader who was upset I didn’t mention Stormbringer, I had planned on doing that in my review for the third book, so have no fear, she’ll get her time to shine.

Now on to the synopsis and review of Avalon: Web of Magic – All That Glitters (Book Two)!

The Fairimentals of Aldenmore, to save the magic of the universe, have found their three mages in Pennsylvania. Those mages are the Healer, Emily Fletcher, the Warrior, Adriane Charday, and the Blazing Star, Kara Davies. The Fairimentals also sent them a helper named Ozzie, who happened to be an elf but is now disguised as a ferret. Each of the girls were given a gift, a gemstone that helps them harness their magical abilities. But only Emily and Adriane were given stones and Kara is beyond jealous. She wants a fancy jewel and one that is more powerful that either Adriane’s or Emily’s. One day at the Ravenswood Preserve Kara stumbles upon just this stone. Not only is it beautiful but she can sense that it is very powerful.

School is just about to begin when Kara’s world turns upside down. She has clothes that turn up missing, slimy banshees seem to be foretelling of doom all because of her, she seems to be attracting actual dragonflies (tiny, flying, magical dragons), and a wild cat seems to be watching her. It’s so hard to be popular with her fellow students and magical creatures alike. She is at a loss with what she needs to do. She has this magical ability but she can’t talk about it with her friends, and the two girls who understand what she’s going through aren’t popular enough for her to associate with in public. Will Kara be able to manage her popularity with both the magical world and the regular world?

When I first started this series I have to say that I immediately knew that I wasn’t going to like Kara. I then started the second book and almost immediately began to despise her. I was always able to relate to Emily and Adriane (they resemble me quite a bit when I was their age) but Kara was always the type of character that I always disliked. She suffers from a ginormous superiority complex and feels that because she’s the Blazing Star she deserves to be the best. It’s because of that attitude that is now causing her all of these problems (namely the banshees). If she continues with the superior attitude it is foretold that she could become like the Dark Sorceress. She is the witch that is stealing all of the magic from the magical web that she can find, taking the magic from the animals of Aldenmore, and is also looking for Avalon so she can keep the magic for herself. She eventually does redeem herself and I found myself feeling for her, at least a little. I still am not a huge Kara fan but she seems to be trying a little harder to accept Adriane and Emily as friends.

So far I’m finding this to be a great series. It not only has a great message about saving animals and saving the Earth but it also shows that girls are awesome! I feel that this is a good series for late elementary to middle school readers, unless you’re like me and love to read books for all ages on the spectrum (one of my favorite books is ABC and 123 by Colin McNaughton, a book aimed at early readers and I’m 30!) Seven Seas is doing an excellent job with the publishing. The books are aimed to spark interest with manga readers and so the illustrations have a very cool look to them. Not only are they publishing this series but they’ve also started publishing a manga series featuring the Avalon: Web of Magic characters. These are aimed at all ages. I love the idea of expanding the series beyond just the books and I found the manga to be just as fun as the novels.

I recommend this series to girls of all ages because of the awesome message contained within these pages.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Review by Ida Vega-Landow

As a longtime lover of Regency Romance, I thought I would hate reading this satirical version of “Pride and Prejudice”, after Seth Grahame-Smith finished adding his touch of Gothic Horror to the well-loved romantic classic. Surprisingly enough, it turned out to be readable; not only romantic, but funny! Especially in parts where Grahame-Smith expands upon Austin’s sometimes overblown prose to the point where you suspect him of having watched one too many episodes of “Month Python’s Flying Circus”.

Absurdity abounds in this book, where 18th Century England has been overwhelmed by a plague of zombies, transforming all the dead into carnivorous predators who attack at any hour of the day or night, forcing young ladies and gentlemen to learn martial arts in order to defend themselves and their people from the unmentionables, as they are politely called. But despite all the carnage taking place on England’s roads and in lonely places–sometimes even in one’s own drawing room, or in the kitchens, through a back door carelessly left open–there are still some traditionalists like Mrs. Bennet who firmly believe that it is a girl’s duty to be married. Her more practical spouse, after having his five daughters trained at a Shaolin monastery in China (how he can afford it on such a limited income from an entailed estate is never explained), believes their duty should be to battle the undead menace that threatens all England. Or as Austin/Grahame-Smith put it, “The business of Mr. Bennet’s life was to keep his daughters alive. The business of Mrs. Bennet’s was to get them married.”

The Reverend Collins, who winds up dumping the independent Elizabeth for her more passive friend Charlotte, comes off as even stupider than he was in the original book, as he is blissfully unaware that poor Charlotte, having been bitten by a zombie, is slowly turning into one of the undead. Upon learning of his daughter’s rejection of Collins and his wife’s displeasure thereby, Elizabeth’s father had me in stitches when he informed her that “Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do; for I shall not have my best warrior resigned to the service of a man who is fatter than Buddha and duller than the edge of a learning sword.”

In addition to the more purple prose, there are also the most delightfully gruesome illustrations, as well as a front cover showing a blood-spattered lady with half her face and part of her throat eaten away, her blood-red eyes giving away her zombified condition. The disagreeable Mr. Darcy has been transformed into a warrior, trained in the Japanese tradition, who admires the heroine’s Shaolin Chinese training as well as her dark eyes, while deploring the vulgarity of her family. This is enough to make Elizabeth determined to teach him a lesson, preferably at the point of her sword. The rest of the book is filled with accounts of their mutual sparring, verbal and physical, and frequently interrupted by hungry zombies, which they are forced to dispatch in a manner more appropriate to a low-budget horror film than a Regency Romance.

Yes, you’ll howl with laughter to see one of the classics of English Literature rewritten as a Gothic horror story. Even guys will enjoy this traditional Chick Lit novel, now that it’s been transformed into something they’d actually want to read, to quote the blurb on the inside cover. If you are squeamish or easily offended, by all means avoid this book. If you do choose to read it and are offended anyway, remember that it’s a satire, not to be taken seriously. But ardent Austin fans may be forgiven for hoping that Miss Austin rises from her grave in Winchester Cathedral to teach Mr. Grahame-Smith a painful and well-deserved lesson.