Reading many comics

   So recently I have gotten back into reading manga, after having finished my last book (I don't remember what that was). So I've read through the entire series of Rosario Vampire. Part 1 that is. It's about a boy who is enrolled in a high school for monsters, him being the only human there, as humans are forbidden to enter,and he would be killed if anyone found out. As soon as Tsukune (the boy) arrives, he is run over by a girl named Moka, who he falls in love with, and she reveals she is a vampire and bites him. It's actually a comedy series, where all the girls at school want to be with Tsukune for one reason or another, and they join him in the newspaper club, which is almost completely made up of girls who like Tsukune.
   Another series I've been reading is Yureka, or id_entity. This one starts off as a funny series, but later on it becomes alot darker. In the MMORPG, Lost Saga, Roto, a mage, and his friends Ah-Dol and Boromid are part of one of the most powerful groups in the game, which they call team Triple Threat. The first volume just introduces all of the characters, and in volume two, the story really starts. Roto (I can't remember his real name) finds a player's card, with Yureka written on it. When he gets home, he accidentally puts in the card, and finds himself playing as a girl. He spies on his friends, pretending to be Yureka. However, the next time he logs on, as Roto, he finds Yureka also there, despite the fact he still has her player card in his bedroom. After that, she becomes a permanent member of their team, though they never change their name officially.
   In other, non-manga news, I've bought myself a Dark Eldar raider, which I hope will let me get the wyches into combat without being gunned down by a punisher cannon. I also hope to upload anothe picture soon, maybe this weekend

Angel

by L.A. Weatherly.
   I picked up this book based on the cover art; it seems interesting to read about dangerous angels. Plus at that point I had a thing for angels. Anyway, this book is about Sam, an Angel Killer, and Willow, a girl who can tell fortunes. Sam is sent to kill Willow by the angels, who actually run the AK organisation, but he realizes she is not an angel, and rescues her from the angels when they come after her.
   This story is part action, part romance. It shows the way that Sam and Willow become friends, from being annoyed at each other for their own reasons. The story is told from several perspectives, the first-person being Willow, while Sam and the Angels are in third-person. Anyway, I'm going to be looking for the sequels for this book, one of which should be released sometime this year.
Oh, and by the way,
Here is my new TF2 video

The Griffin's Flight

Part two in the Fallen Moon series.
   After leaving Eagleholm, and all his friends, Arren travels north, where he could live with other northerners. He and Skandar meet Skade, a griffin turned into a human as punishment for killing a human after they killed hers, because he was a northerner, like Arren. The two of them quickly become friends, and Skade tells Arren she is looking for a spirit cave that will remove her curse. Later, Arren is captured and made a slave, and has to find a way to escape from the slavery and find Skade and Skandar, as well as freeing the other northerners, so they wouldn't be punished if he escaped on his own. He meets his father, Cadrock, who is also sent to the camp after he is caught after his escape from Eagleholm.
   I found Skade to be an incredibly interesting character, and I liked her instantly. I like the way the author makes you like every single character, even some of the other slaves. You feel like they all have a story and a life of their own, rather than being miscellaneous unnamed characters. You also really want Skade and Skandar to get along, so that Skade can be with Arren.

Levaithan

   I picked this book up after a reccomendation from a friend. In addition, the rest of my family, with the obvious exception of my brother, has read it already.
   The first thing that you notice when you read this book is the WW1 style map inside the front cover. In fact, throughout the whole book, there are excellent drawings that really help you to visualise the story. One of the first ones, of the stormwalker, was one of my favourite pictures.
   The story is set around two people, Derin Sharp, who pretends to be a boy so she can join the air force, and Alexander Ferdinand, the son of Franz Ferdinand. Derin comes aboard the Leviathan, a giant flying whale, when her tryout for joining the airforce goes wrong. Alex is woken up in the middle of the night by Count Volger and Master Klopp, and when he realises that they aren't going for a practice run, he accuses them of kidnapping him and lying to him. However, he soon discovers that assassins are actually after him to prevent him from taking the throne after Franz Ferdinand is killed.
   One of the main interesting points of this book is that the Entente have "Darwinist" creations, such as the Leviathan, or the fletchete bats, as part of their civilisation, while the Central Powers, or "Clankers", use steampunk machines, like the stormwalker.

Few new things...

...and I should think of better titles.
   Firest up, a few reviews. The Reformed Vampire Support Group by Catherine Jinks, is about Nina, a modern day vampire, who is part of a support group for vampires. However, the group isn't just there to stop them biting people; the vampires themselves are always sick and can't heal themselves like normal people.
   The story starts when they discover that someone has decided to go and kill vampires, from believing all the horror stories about them, wheras these vampires are almost useless.
   I thought this was a great twist on what "normal" vampires are like. I would reccommend this to people who like comedy, and vampires, and don't have a huge interest in teen romance novels.

  

Shapeshifters

Well, I first saw this book as a MASSIVE book, 900 pages long. Then I found one of the individual books at a different library, and I thought "That sounds interesting" so I borrowed the omnibus.

   I read the first few books and thought that they were good, but when I got to Wyrvenhail, I noticed it had a significant difference. It took me ages, until I realised that this was the only one where the main character isn't in love. I mean, in the first two, Hawksong and Snakecharm, Danica and Zane are in love, and in Falcondance Nicas wants to help Hai and Oliza. I'm not going to spoil Wolfcry by telling you who falls in love, but it was my favourite book in the series. Wyrvenhail seemed interesting at first because Hai is an interesting character, but the whole story seemed sad, until the end, like the Harry Potter books. I think this series is a must read for fantasy readers, and I wanted to read The Den of Shadows series, but I can't find it. I'm also reading Persistence of Memory and Token of Darkness.

The Spook

I'm now going to review the next FOUR books in the series: The spook's Battle, Mistake, Sacrifice, and Nightmare. This is the part in the series where everything starts going downhill for the characters, Tom, the Spook, and Alice. In the spook's battle, they go to Pendle, a witch country, to try and stop the witch clans from uniting. Mab, who rules the Mouldheel clan, begins to like Tom, though she soon finds out that Alice has marked him as her own first. In the Spook's Mistake, Tom is sent to Bill Arkwight, one of the spook's previous apprentices, to learn how to fight water creatures, to swim, and to fight in general. He gets into trouble when he angers Morwena, a water witch who can transfix those who look into her red eye, and who is also one of the Fiend's daughters. In the Spook's Sacrifice, the three of them, along with Bill Arkwight, and a large group of witches who follow Tom's Mam, travel to Greece to fight the Ordeen, Tom's Mam's ancient enemy. In the Spook's Nightmare, Tom, The Spook and Alice travel away from Chipenden, to an island away from the war, but they are quickly accused of witchcraft by the shaman, and, to make matters worse, Bony Lizzie has escaped from the spook's now abandoned house, and is trying to rule the island.
   I've also read Witches, which is a book set in the same world as the Wardstone chronicles, but is about witches, told not only by Tom or the spook, but also from the point of view of  witches, such as Grimalkin or Alice.

L4D2

Ok, I got this game a few weeks ago, and I played through the game online co-op, and then I played alot of versus. I haven't tried scavenge mode or survival. I usually play versus, and I've found that it is alot harder to play as infected than as survivors. It requires alot more teamwork. Survivors just have to stay near each other, and shoot anything that moves. Infected don't take as long to kill as survivors, since guns do way more damage than claws. I think that the Witch should be able to do more damage, because it's annoying when someone just runs up with a spas 12 and blasts at it like crazy, and kills it. Also, sometimes you can trigger the witch as infected, sometimes you can't. I was a boomer and went off right next to a witch, and she didn't notice. Maybe she should be able to detect better, so that crowning becomes risky. Which reminds me, once I found a witch, and fired a grenade with fire upgrade. I think she disappeared, and then I was downed. Another time, in the Passing, I blew up the bride witch using two explosive cans.

Back again

and on new years day. So I'm posting.
   For xmas, my family went to South Australia, for a family party. I ate lots of ham rolls and rocky roads at the party, and had a few cans of coke. I got to try out a bit of the Toy Story game, which was okay, but we only played in Woody's roundup, and didn't get anything done.
   For presents, I received a water pump, two music albums (Foo Fighters' greatest hits, and Fever), a book (Bloodborn), a remote control helicopter, and a jenga game. I've watched most of the videos on the Foo Fighters disc, and I've listened to Fever, which was alright, but I didn't especially like it too much. I haven't gotten the helicopter to hover yet, but we're trying to. At least it doesn't spin around. We played jenga as well. I haven't finished reading Bloodborn yet, but I like it so far, and I've read some of Nathan Long's other books, from the Blackhearts trilogy.
   Book review: This book is about a young vampire called Ulrika, who travels with Gabriella, her mistress, and she teaches Ulrika about living as a vampire. They are sent by the vampire queen to Nuln to find out what is killing and exposing the other vampires in Nuln. I has been very suspenseful so far, and I've tried to write a review before I finish because of this.
   I feel I'm forgetting something.

The Spook's Curse

by Joseph Delaney
  It's actually taken me a while to find this book in the library.
   I originally became interested in this series when I borrowed an audio book of The Spook's Apprentice. I really liked it, so I've been looking for a while, but whenever I come across the series in a library, I couldn't remember which one was next on the series. But now I've finally read it.
   It's about the Spook and Tom going to the funeral of one of the Spook's brothers. The Spook also wants to destroy the Bane, a spirit that he'd been defeated by before. Also, the Quistor, a fanatic, is going around accusing everyone of being a witch or warlock and then burning them, and he considers Spooks to be warlocks because of their jobs. And he has captured Alice, who comes from a family of real witches, and is Tom's friend. The Bane can also control people's minds, causing them to give it blood, and is trying to use them to get back at the Spook.
   I found this story to be suspenseful at times, in a very good way that I liked, because Tom doesn't know who he can trust, and is often confused about whether to stop Alice from doing from what she's doing or not. Alice is a very interesting character.

Oathbreaker: Assassin's Apprentice

by S R Vaught and J B Redmond.
   The version that I read is actually an "uncorrected bound proof", so it's may be slightly different to the published version.
   This book is about a boy named Aron, who is taken away by the Stone, who are a large group of people who are trained as assassins. The other guild, Thorn, train healers. Aron's master, Stormbreaker, looks after him, and has a legacy to call storms. Aron becomes friends with Zed, who also works with Stormbreaker. Almost as soon as Aron leaves his family, they are killed by Brailing guard, and their spirits are sent to kill Aron, Stormbreaker, Windblown, and the girl named Dari who Aron found being carried with them, and they travel to Triune, where the Stone are trained. Meanwhile, the Thorn attempt to murder Nic, a prince.
   I thought this book was interesting because of the characters, especially Stormbreaker. The book is written from multiple perspectives, Aron, Dari, and Nic's, but is in third person instead of first person. The end of the book reminded me a bit of Alanna: The First Adventure, because it has a sense of them going somewhere haunted together. I would probably like to read the next book later.

Red

I went to see this movie with one of my friends, for his birthday. I'd seen a review of this on The Movie Show and I thought that it looked interesting. The statement of "overkill" definitely fits, as seen early on when Frank sets off some bullets in a frying pan and several people appear with machine-guns and shred the house with automatic fire. There are also silly parts, like when the stuffed pig containing a folding-stock grenade launcher, which is fired directly into someone, then when another man throws a grenade, he whacks it right back with the stock, then a girl pops up with an RPG-7 and fires it at the three of them. Marvin faces her down, with a revolver. When she fires her second RPG, he fires a shot right through it, exploding it, and the woman spontaneously explodes for some reason as well. Quite a fun movie, with lots of action mixed with comedy. I liked it alot.