July Birthday Celebration!

My husband and nephew have birthdays two days apart, so today we are having a combined party. It will be all but one of the Minnesota family, because he's off in the Dakotas trying to save the world and our living environment. In addition, we'll have some long time friends and their kids celebrating with us. It's beautiful day here in Minnesota, perfect for barbequing outside and shooting the breeze with friends we haven't seen in ages.

The spouse is making homemade hamburgers and chicken wings with homemade pineapple sauce (plus pineapple/habenero sauce for those inclined to spicy food). We made Bleu Cheese dressing from scratch last night, as well as salsa and a spicy cheese dip (recipe courtesy of our friend Steve). The spouse will be making a Spinach/Articoke dip when he awakens from his slumber. The evening's dessert will be a circus train birthday cake. I think we'll pick up some marshmallows and roast them as well.

I look forward to hanging out, catching up, and pigging out. I'm sure pictures will make their way to Facebook. Wish my friends from Texas could join us, would be a blast and you need to escape the heat and the drought. Miss you guys.

Vampire Zero and 23 Hours by David Wellington

Vampire Zero is the third book in Wellington's vampire/Laura Caxton series. For those familiar with epidemiology, you will recognize that the title is borrowed from the study of disease outbreaks. To stop the spread of an epidemic or pandemic you must find the first person to contract it, so you can figure out how it spread and the speed with which it spread.

Arkeley and Caxton managed to reduce the vampire population to one, the mission now consists of finding this vampire before a new generation of monsters can be birthed. Just as in previous installments, the action is none stop. Neither the audience nor the heroes have a chance to stop and take a breath between incidents of mortal peril. This time the cliffhanger is accompanied with a plot twist, one that I didn't see coming. This led me to start immediately on the fourth segment of Caxton's tale, 23 Hours.

I can't say too much about 23 Hours without giving away the twist involved at the end of Vampire Zero. All I can say is that the setting was something I didn't expect and it gives Laura Caxton an entire new set of challenges to face. I am eagerly awaiting the release of the next volume in the Caxton series, which will be title either 32 Fangs or 32 Teeth, depending on the source you get your information from.

Happy Summer reading everyone!

Artemis Fowl by Eion Colfer

We got Artemis Fowl, the audio book, to listen to during our move. This didn't work as planned since the moving truck didn't have a way to plug in the iPhone to the radio. We have an FM receiver to use instead, but the reception and interference were so bad that we couldn't understand most of the story. So listening to it was put on hold, I heard just enough of the story to know that I wanted to finish it. The narrator, Nathanial Parker, was excellent, his voice intoxicating. His delivery and voices fit perfectly with the story.

 I was unaware when I began listening to the book that the main character, Artemis, was actually an anti-hero. This was a pleasant surprise, it added a nice twist to this YA book for me. I knew that it wouldn't quite follow the formula that many books for children do. The humor is apparent right away, though it is very subtle (and a bit of what we'd call British) in some places. Colfer utilizes a very high level of vocabulary, always a plus in works aimed at children. He does this in a manner that not only teaches the young readers new words, but increases the comedic effect of the scenes. The humor is well balanced by the action scenes, which come to life through the words used to describe them.

Our anti-hero is a young genius from a very wealthy family. His father has disappeared, his mother has lost her mind, and he is trying to regain the family fortune. To achieve his aims, he develops a complex plan to exploit the Faerie population of the world.

On the other side of the conflict are the faeries, the narrative focuses on LEPrecon Holly Short. She is the first female LEP officer, and therefore has a lot to prove to herself and the military complex. Holly is thrown in Artemis' path after a mission goes horribly wrong and she is ordered to go to the surface to recharge her magic.

One aspect I found interesting is that the Faerie equipment wasn't strictly magic based, they combined the best of their magical knowledge with science. The faeries have gone underground, literally, but are also wired into the human's ("Mud People") satellite network to keep tabs on us.

I recommend this for a road trip or just an enjoyable read. This book would work great as a read aloud for the whole family, including the teenagers.

99 Coffins

This book is the sequel to 13 Bullets; however, it is not a typical sequel. This book alternates between the present and flashbacks to the Civil War.

99 Coffins begins on an archeological site related to the Battle of Gettysburg. A group of college students are excavating a weapons cache that they and the university believe to be completely unimportant. What they discover under the cache is another room containing 99 coffins from the Civil War era.

The narration jumps between journals, correspondence, and battle reports from three Civil War soldiers and the events surrounding Laura Caxton. Wellington does a fairly good job of capturing the patterns of Civil War era speech, helping the reader become immersed in the story. In the present day events, Arkeley once again pulls Trooper Caxton (mostly unwillingly) into another fight against the vampires. Caxton must adorn Arkeley's mantle as the lead officer in this case, as the last encounter left Arkeley crippled.

Once again the odds for our heroes seem impossible to overcome, for me this adds to the appeal of a story when done well. Rooting for the underdog feels good. Seeing the human spirit persevering through trials no matter how awful is uplifting, even when the events themselves are horrible and disturbing.

Wellington jumps between the two narratives effectively, using the Civil War accounts to inform the reader about, and accentuate, present day events. We learn more about vampires in this world, yet are aware that we are still missing some necessary details (as Caxton herself realizes). Yet again, Wellington gives us a cliffhanger ending. I have already begun the third book, Vampire Zero.

Happy summer reading everyone.

13 Bullets by David Wellington

If you are looking for sympathetic, tormented, romanticized vampires, you should not read this book. It is a fast-paced, intense vampire book in which vampires are truly horrifying monsters. I've really missed this kind of vampire stories among all the Anne Rice style vampire romances of the past couple of decades. I decided to read this book because I enjoyed Wellington's zombie series so much, Monster Island and Plague Zone, and knew that he wouldn't be following in Rice's footsteps.

I didn't get to complete the book as quickly as I would have liked, the preparations for the move, and then the move itself, kept getting in the way. Life can be very inconvenient at times. I'm sure that the interruptions interfered with the pace of the story for me, otherwise it would have been a very quick read as the pace wraps you up and makes it hard to stop reading.

Set in Pennsylvania, 2003, we are introduced to Special Deputy Jameson Arkeley, he has been given his position because he killed a vampire. Though much of the world believes that vampires are extinct, a few people know better, by the end of the book many more are aware of this. The last known vampire, Justinia Malvern, is being held for study. Special Deputy Arkeley is understandably upset about this, but can't end her life as she's been declared a person and is protected by civil rights law. The problem comes when the vampiric curse escapes her hospital wing and is again unleashed upon the world. In his bid to stop the vampires, Special Deputy Arkeley enlists the help of Laura Caxton, a State Trooper.

Trooper Caxton is an unlikely partner for Arkeley, and it's through her eyes that we see the story unfold. She is small of frame, and her only law enforcement experience is traffic control. He requests her as his partners, because she bothered to read the files on his previous cases. The hunt for vampires consumes Arkeley, and brings Caxton's life into total upheaval. The interplay between the main characters is interesting, it vacillates between antagonistic to admiring. The vampires begin to target Caxton and her girlfriend, spying on them at night and stalking them using half-deads, vampire slaves brought back from death but that do not feed on blood.

The dialogue is good, but the strength of this book lies in its descriptive passages and action sequences. The inhumanity of the vampires is made clear, not only in their actions, but in their hideous appearance and invulnerability. Even high powered bullets bounce off the vampires skin as if they are gnats, only sunlight and fire can harm them when they are at full strength. To harm a vampire in this universe, you must catch them when they are blood-starved or during the day when they lay liquified in their coffin.

So if you are in the mood for an action-packed, vampire-filled police drama, give this books a shot.