Drawings uploaded

You can see the pencil better from below

I finally uploaded some of my pictures to my deviantArt profile. It took me ages to get the scanner working. I find if you look at pencil drawings from below the screen (or tilt your laptop back) you can see the pictures more clearly.

And, as some of my school colleagues sang this song, and it was hilarious, I have to share it here. In the performance that I saw, "Kayley" wore a bucket on his head.

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.

Angels

Interestingly enough, I have recently read two books titled "Angel" and have found a third. The first one, that I will review now, was written by James Patterson, and is the seventh novel in the Maximum Ride series.
   Now, I found that this book really began to pick up the series again, after the 4th to 6th books. This book actually makes alot more sense than Fang or The Final Warning, and is definately alot more interesting.
   After Fang leaves in the sixth book, he recruits a group of followers - including Max's clone. Max finds out (via his blog) and the groups all meet up to fight a a group that want to wipe out humanity to allow mutants to take over. Come to think of it, this seems alot like Magneto in X-Men. Anyway, Max and her new allies all manage to get along long enough to fight back, although they have troubles as the enemy can hypnotise others to join their cause, before getting the humans together to kill themselves.
   I found that this book definately made the series interesting again, and sets itself up for the last book in the series. The fourth, fifth and sixth books were not really continuous; they had one entire adventure which finished in the same book, unlike the first three that had the School as the enemies throughout all of them, giving you a reason to read the other two after the first. I think it may have been that the series was alot more interesting when people were acutally trying to kill them.

Few updates...

... and I haven't slept for the last 24 hours.
  So, I'll write whatever I think of.
   Two more songs:
   Call me when you're sober - Evanescence
   Chop Suey - System of a Down

   Second, I've had some time to try out some of the new TF2 items.
   The Diciplinary Action is loads of fun, but not actually very useful.
   The "Thousand and one Demoknights" set is great; you have the ability to ram someone AND crit him with your sword in the same charge.
   The Quick Fix is alot more appealing than it was in the Beta; now it has an immunity to slowdown on it's ubercharge, so you can combine it with a "real" uber to be invulnrable and non-knockbackable. I see little use in the new melee weapon for the medic, the amputator or the Ubersaw are way more useful, especially if you don't voice chat.
   I've played a few games on Nightfall, one of the newer Plr maps. I haven't played many plr games before, but I've found that the Pain Train can actually be useful; you'll survive longer than a scout and push just as fast.
   Degroot Keep has had a few plays. I like playing as a demoknight, on either side, and you can launch yourself up a rock in front of blu spawn to land on red battlements. And bowmen can set their arrows on fire using the braziers located around the castle and the aforementioned rock.

   Third, I played AvP while it was on sale on steam, for $10! The single player game was too short, and is not really worth replaying. And there are no multiplayer servers to play on.
   Fourth, I've almost got a start to my story. It's set on a moon base (not Earth's moon), and is about a person who is a relatively powerful mage. Relatively. She can sense other people's emotions, whether she wants to or not. So she goes for training on this station, to try to block out thoughts when she doesn't want to hear them.

The Fallen Moon - The Dark Griffin

The Dark Griffin, the first in The Fallen Moon series, by K J Taylor, is about a man named Arren Cadrockson, who starts his story as Master of Trade at Eagleholm, along with his companion, the griffin Eluna. Grifiners are always treated with respect, even a northener like Arren. At least to his face. When a raid causes the death of one of the criminals, Arren and Eluna are forced to capture or kill a black griffin that has been troubling a nearby town to repay the dead man's family. When he goes to fight the griffin, he sucessfully captures it, but Eluna is killed while defending him. He takes the griffin to the arena at Eagleholm, where, due to his griffin having been killed, and being a northerner, he loses all of his satus, and his job as Master of Trade. Lord Rannagon declines having any knowledge of sending Arren to capture the griffin, and calls Arren mad, which almost everyone believes, because he is a northerner, and he let his griffin get killed. His friends, Flell, Bran and Gern, try to look after him, but when he tells them, Gern is killed in an "accident". Meanwhile, "Darkheart", the griffin captured by Arren, quickly becomes a favourite at the arena. Arren sets out trying to get revenge on Rannagon, who is also his girlfriend Flell's father.
   This book is very good at making you care for Arren, and hate Rannagon for causing Arren to lose his life ;! You also end up wondering if Arren really is crazy, at times, and I spent alot of time wondering if Flell would still love Arren if he tried to kill her father. Even Darkheart is and interesting character. You are also constantly reminded that this is also a very realistic story, that there really isn't anything Arren can do to prove he is right, and that Rannagon is competely serious about his threats. Gern isn't a "Jenkins" who dies before you even know anything about him, he is Arren's friend for almost half the book, and then you feel that the author will kill anyone in this story, when he dies.
   An extremely gripping book, and the series is definately worth reading.

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.

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.

Strange Angels

by Lili St.Crow.
    This book is about a girl named Dru Anderson. She's the daughter of a monster hunter, and helps him when he goes out to "work", by being able to see things he can't. Unfortunately, one night he goes out without her, and comes back an undead zombie. She gets away, and at school, meets Graves, who finds her a place to stay at the mall and becomes friends with her, when he is bitten by a werewulf, but does not become one completely, instead becoming a half-breed type, so he doesn't "change" like others do.
  I really liked this book. It has a good story, lots of great moments, and I like this sort of supernatural theme in writing. Action supernatural, that is. I'm now reading the next book in the series, called "Betrayals", and there appears top be another book coming out this year-or maybe it was already released, and I didn't notice.

Last week of term! What to do?

Actually, I am only writing this post because I can, & because it's the last week of term.
 Although during the Holidays, I will be celebrating my brother's birthday.
I have gotten back into Warhammer 40k again, see the tactical squad in my last entry.
I'm looking forward to the holidays, but I've no idea what I'll be doing.
 Right! I just remembered! For participating in the premier's reading challenge, I was awarded a book called The Angel Stone, by Livi Michael. In addition, last week at the WorldCon Garth Nix signed my copy of Sabriel. So, two special books on two weeks on two Mondays... 2x2x2=...8. Will Monday the 8th be lucky for me for now on? Actually I'm not usually that superstitious.