Titanicus

Dan Abnett is about the only author that I get his books in hard cover. He is, in my opinion, quite simply one of the most fun reads out there. His characters are all top notch - valiant, heroic, flawed. All the things that draw me to any kind of character. His action scenes play out like movies. Anyway, enough with the gushing, I am starting up his new book, Titanicus.

Reading to the baby

So, I have started reading aloud at night when we go to bed. The idea is so that maybe the baby will will recognize my voice at least a little upon arrival. Right now we are reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I avoided reading this when it first came out mostly because everyone else in the world was reading it and I have fallen into that trap before (Dan Brown, I am looking at you!) but it is actually decent so far. Rowling has a great way with words, almost a poetry in her word choice which makes her very easy to read. She uses many adverbs (and the fact that they stand out means she probably didn't do a great job with 'em) and that is strangely distracting.

Finished The Beast House

It wasn't bad - the ending felt a little Hollywood and had a bit lower body count that I might have liked. Not a terrible book, not a great one either. The concept was very Lovecraftian but it was interesting to see such a different stylistic take on it.

Catching up a bit

I am going to throw the last couple of books I read here as well - in the last month or so.

The Bourne Supremacy - Robert Ludlum

This book, like the first one is quite different from the movies. Continuing on with David Webb aka Jason Bourne he gets drawn back into a world of black ops and assassination. Pretty decent, Ludlum's dialog is good except when he is doing "lovey" dialog between Jason/David/Cain and Marie and then it becomes almost painful to read. Perhaps he got a bonus every time he wrote "darling". I don't know.

His action scenes are top notch and all of the characters are interesting. A pretty easy read, the pages flew by and while there was a lot going on for the main plot, there wasn't a whole lot in the way of subplots making it even quicker to read.



Psychopath by Keith Ablow

Another quick read, though this one had a bit more going on at different levels. As can be expected his character motivations are really good. I was able to connect quite a bit with the three main male characters but that is my own thing, I suppose.

The scenes of violence were descriptive enough to get the point across but he didn't really linger on them. They felt quite clinical for the most part was almost a bit of a detachment. Anyway, a decent read and I will read Ablow again (though I have been warned away from Murder/Suicide). Interestingly, like the Beast House, this is not the first book in a series and I didn't realize that until after I was well involved. It is to the credit of both authors that it didn't really matter.

Beast House

I am reading Beast House by Richard Laymon right now. I am about half way through. It is okay - a really easy read and I rather enjoy his dialog. It feels very real and flows nicely.

It is apparently a sequel.