Cough, cough, wheez...some snot covered book reviews.

We're finally getting a taste of true November weather as it rained all day and all night yesterday. With the foul weather came the cold I was trying to subdue. I was starting to get it a week ago and thought I was in the clear, but it seemed to make a "u" turn and knee me in the groin Friday. So I spent yesterday on the couch watching a few of my favorite movies with a huge box of Kleenex at the ready for the constant Mt. Vesuvius that my nose turned out to be.

I watched the new Episode III DVD. I watched some of the extras including a few deleted scenes that should have been kept in the movie (slaughter of a Jedi and Yoda being exiled to Dagoba). One of the web documentaries had a hysterical scene of Anthony Daniels in his full 3PO garb, walking straight into a small cardboard blockade on the set. Apparently, both Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman got a few laughs out of it also.

Then I watched one of my favorite Bond movies, "GoldenEye" which helped remind me of what a cluster-frell of a move it was to get rid of Brosnan. I think that's enough of that before I get into yet another one of my anti Eon Productions diatribes.

Well folks, my wonderful ADD-esque reading talents finally got through the two books I've been reading for quite some time now. Here's what I thought about them.

First, "SilverFin" from Charlie Higgson. SilverFin is the first of the newest James Bond series aimed straight at the "Harry Potter" crowd. The powers that be have decided to put the ol' keebosh on the adult oriented Bond series that author Raymond Benson was writing so well and opted instead to make a quick buck by exploring the childhood of a young James Bond. The parallels between the SilverFin and the Harry Potter novels are a bit too close. Instead of a young magician being sent to a private magic school, it has a young future secret agent attending the famous, private all boys school, Eaton. Much like Harry has to deal with a bully counterpart at Hogwarts, Bond must also deal with a bully at Eaton named George Hellebore. Of course his father ends up being an evil millionaire megalomaniac who's hell bent on worldwide domination. Higgson also throws a lot Bond giblets into the dressing, such as a cute girl with a sassy name, a secret lair for the villain as well as the strange henchman at the villain's side. All in all, I guess I have to give Higgson props for trying to take the Bond series from the adult audience and taylor it to the younger reader. As the former Bond novels were seeped in sex, violence and complex plot twists, Higgson replaces those with a youthful inexperience and mischievousness within the character. Though I enjoyed the book in a carefree, fun sort of way, it didn't make me think to myself, "I can't wait for the next book in the series!". Nothing really captivated me in the book that much. Much of it was quite predictable. I feel that this is now a children's series and no longer will be able to capture and hold the minds of us adult fans. That's not as much Higgson's fault as he simply was doing as he was paid to do. So the fact that SilverFin wasn't anything special shouldn't be blamed on the author, but more so on whoever owns the rights to the literary Bond who just out to make a buck and trash tradition to do so. Though Higgson writes a decent children's Bond novel, I don't know if I, as an adult, can agree with the direction the rest of these books are going. Hopefully the Bond people will come to their senses and give us adults some new ADULT Bond novels in the near future.

The next book that took up six months of my reading life was Neil Gaimen's, "American Gods". For those not familiar to Gaimen's works, he's most noted for writhing one of best contemporary adult's graphic novellas (comic books) known as The Sandman. The books explored many ancient and modern day mythologies and centered around a family of beings known as The Endless and how they interacted with human life. In American Gods, Gaimen once again explores mythologies intertwinded with human life with many of the ancient beliefs that a lot of our ancestors brought to this county that have become humanized after they're seemingly forgotten by their followers. Gaimen's writing style has always been quite delicate while at the same time there's underrlying wickedness that pops to the surface from time to time. It's no different in American Gods It's a dark, modern day fantasy that revolves around the life of a young man, named Shadow, as he gets out of a prison stint to find out that his wife has died days earlier. He then comes in contact with the mysterious Mr. Wednesday who hires him as his driver. The two then embark in a cross country trip that has them visiting many of the forgotten old world gods who are living among us modern day folks. People who are well educated in a lot of old mythologies will probably get a heck of a lot more out of this book than dullards such as myself. Though, it's not much of a quick read, it does feature a lot of settings that I'm familiar with (House on the Rock). So that was kind of fun. This is indeed not a quickly read. This is a big, dense epic story where I found myself at times wondering, "Where is this leading". It does end up leading somewhere once you hit the end of the book. If you're into big, thought provoking, intellectual dark fantasy, then this is right up your alley. If you're not, then may I suggest Neil Gaimen's "Neverwhere" novel. For me it was far more enjoyable and a faster read than this.

Well, I gotta go grab a fistload of Kleenex right now, so I'll talk to you all soon.

Zangz.