The Rule of Thoughts (The Mortality Doctrine #2) by: James Dashner

“Michael completed the Path. What he found at the end turned everything he’d ever known about his life—and the world—completely upside down.
He barely survived. But it was the only way VirtNet Security knew to find the cyber-terrorist Kaine—and to make the Sleep safe for gamers once again. And, the truth Michael discovered about Kaine is more complex than they anticipated, and more terrifying than even the worst of their fears.
Kaine is a tangent, a computer program that has become sentient. And Michael’s completing the Path was the first stage in turning Kaine’s master plan, the Mortality Doctrine, into a reality.
The Mortality Doctrine will populate Earth entirely with human bodies harboring tangent minds. Any gamer who sinks into the VirtNet risks coming out with a tangent intelligence in control of their body. 
And the takeover has already begun.” -Goodreads

There were a lot of books in 2014 that I had high hopes for. Some came through others though fell flat. In my review of The Eye of Minds I basically summed down my experience as: it sucked, but the ending was worth it and that I would be looking forward to the second book. Now that I’ve read the second book I have to say it’s exactly the same.

I don’t know what is going on with Dashner, well I have a vague idea, but I’ll get to that later. I will admit that the Maze Runner series wasn’t perfect, but it was good, it held my interest and told an interesting story and the writing wasn’t bad. Is it wrong for me to compare this work with that one? I’m pretty sure it’s not. The Rule of Thoughts does have an interesting concept idea it’s just that Dashner’s execution is very much lacking. The writing style still has this feel like he’s a newbie debut writer which was exactly how I felt in the last book. The characters are flat, the locations are generic, and the plot is just plain boring.

I think Dashner’s problem is that maybe he’s writing a story about a topic that he might not know too well and is therefore very hesitant with it. Gaming and computer lingo are pretty instrumental if you want to give off the feel that you are writing about games and computers. This is where his shortcomings seem to be coming from. The only words that he uses are hack and code and I’m just like “Okay… what type of hacks, what types of code?” Surely Dashner wouldn’t find it too difficult to pick up a computer book and do a little bit of researching.

My thoughts are kind of going like this, what I want is Log Horizon what I’m getting is .Hack//Sign. Anyone else feeling the same way?

So, yeah, overall the story sucked just like the last book, BUT…. I still want the third one because of that ending. It’s just like he knows the book sucks so he’s just like “Yeah, I’ll hit them hard with that exciting cliffhanger so they’ll go read the next book.” I just kind of want to bang my head against the wall because unlike for this book I am having no expectations whatsoever for The Game of Lives. It’ll suck like the Rule of Thoughts and the Eye of Minds, but hopefully the ending will be somewhat decent like these two.

My final thoughts are that I wished I’d never started this series, but now I feel somewhat invested in it. I rate it 2/5 stars.

Howl’s Moving Castle AMV

Another AMV! Wooh! I’m getting this down. This one is for Howl’s Moving Castle the very awesome Studio Ghibli 2004 movie which I love forever and forever. The song is Cosmic Love by Florence + the Machine, This song has been on my playlist ever since I heard it on another AMV that was for Katanagatari. (Good show BTW)

Without further ado:

First Line #11

Ooh, two posts within a week something interesting is going on. Not really, but I did write this story and I happen to really like it so before I forget I decided to put it up now.

The story is a first line that I did in my creative writing class and is part of the competition hosted by thefirstline.com

I actually decided to put some effort into this one and wrote this in my usual style of randomness. So we got a good story with an extreme twist at the end.

Title: The Visitor

George pressed the call button and said, “Mrs. Whitfield, you have a visitor.”

Though Mrs.Whitfield has no inkling as to who her visitor might be she accepts him none the less with a single buzz as a reply back. The man who wears a pair of khaki’s, held up by black suspenders, and a white button up shirt tucked in (an outfit that is, while stylish, completely out-of-date) slips past George on silent loafered feet.

After the man disappears from his sight George soon forgets that he was ever there to begin with, he only has the faint impression of the bell above the door having been rung as if someone had in fact entered the apartment building, but it’s only faint and he chalks it up to his imagination. He returns to his unending game of solitaire while Mrs. Whitfield receives her visitor.

Mrs. Whitfield is an old lady whose husband had actually died last year, but she had never gotten out of the habit of being a ‘Mrs.’ so the title never changed despite becoming a widow. The apartment that she lives in holds echoes of her previous life, the one before she grew old and alone. Along the mantle our sporting shots of her and her late husband, much younger and holding the arrogance of youth in their eyes as the camera immortalizes them in each daring escapade that they dared to venture on. Nestled in between these old memories are the cherished photos of children, grandchildren, and great children.

While Mrs. Whitfield loves these pictures and the children themselves dearly she held the old fashioned opinion that many of her generation might, that she was perhaps not old enough to have great grandchildren yet, but she’d wave the thought away as soon as it come with a sigh and just murmur to herself: “That’s just the way it is now, I guess.” and she’d turn away from the mantle to go find something else to occupy her time.

The apartment isn’t large. It’s a simple one bedroom, one bathroom, with a small kitchen and living room. Mrs. Whitfield doesn’t require much space especially since it is only just her now. Mrs. Whitfield when not reminiscing on old memories or thinking about her children she can often be found sitting in her chair in the living room with a radio on the small stand beside it playing NPR while she knits various things. Her most recent work happens to be a blue and green baby blanket for one of the aforementioned great grandchildren.

This is where she had been before being told about her visitor. At first Mrs. Whitfield had thought that maybe it was one of her children, but had crossed out the notion upon thinking that one of her children would have called first before in advance so she could be prepared because Mrs. Whitfield did like to be prepared for such matters. Unless of course something had happened and there had been no time to give her advance call. This worried her so to soothe herself she said, “It’s probably just a salesman.” And it if is a salesman she thinks, she hopes that it’s a bible salesman because she is in particular need of a new bible.

When finally the knocking arrives Mrs. Whitfield answers it with what she perceives as a graceful and welcoming smile. Her visitor steps into her living room and while he is doing this Mrs. Whitfield has the impression that she is taking a step back in time for his outfit brings back many memories from her childhood. The years where people dressed respectable and held high regard towards acceptable and fanciful fashion.

The man looks down at the old woman with his own warm smile.

“How do you do?” He asks like a try dapper gentlemen and then continues on without waiting for a reply, “I’m Death and I’m here to take you to see your husband.”

Mrs. Whitfield’s smile fades, “Oh,” she replies in an understandably shocked manner, “I thought you might be a bible salesman.”

Eve & Adam by Michael Grant

In creative writing class today I had an assignment that was to create a poem that was also a review. The review could be of anything from past relationships to movies, but I immediately went to book review and I decided to do a little bit of cheating, so instead of doing an actual book review I’m just going to put up this poem.

~

Review of a book

Eve&Adam by Micael Grant

I  found this while searching the library nook

Now listen to this poem turn to a rant

This book failed on all levels

I hated the writing, I hated the plot

Was this even written by Michael Grant or some devils

I saw his name and I thought, “This is going to be top notch!”

But instead I read through and through

And only felt a sense of disappointment

It read like a crappy debut

I didn’t find an ounce of enjoyment

A girl is asked to create a perfect guy

While a bunch of other unrealistic bullshit goes on

There was a love square, my brain hurts, I want to die

This book didn’t have any good points like Gone.

Don’t be tricked by the name

The book was a complete dive

Even though the Gone series went to fame

This book, I rate a two out of five.

~

Noragami AMV #2

So I finally got around to finishing another AMV.

Note I put finishing and not creating, I’ve actually been working on another AMV (one that I started before this) and I just haven’t gotten around to completing it because I realize now that the song I chose is a really bad song for an AMV.

Anyway back to this one: this is my second Noragami AMV, please watch the first one if you haven’t already- literally, please, because it’ll kind of make more sense… to me anyway. If you start off by watching just this one you’ll be kind of confused because I made it as more of part 2 or sequel, they’re meant to be watched together. Okay, now that I got that.

Here’s a link to the first one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXohb7afixc

and here’s Noragami AMV #2

The Finisher by David Baldacci (Vega Jane #1)

Book Review of The Finisher by David Baldacci. YA-MG. Published 2014. Action, Fantasy.

“Welcome to Wormwood: a place where curiosity is discouraged and no one has ever left.

Until one girl, Vega Jane, discovers a map that suggests a mysterious world beyond the walls. A world with possibilities and creatures beyond her imagining.

But she will be forced to fight for her freedom. And unravelling the truth may cost Vega her life.” -Goodreads

Most YA books you read that are told from a girl’s perspective (and this is a large majority) the girls in question are either whiny, annoying little twits who need everyone to help them achieve their goals or they are in the complete opposite of the spectrum and are a powerhouse of energy that is so completely unbelievable it’s stupidly unrealistic. And of course, since we’re talking YA here there’s always a boy which the previously stated powerhouse will fall in love and become completely useless without said boy, the whiny girl on the other hand won’t have a boy, she’ll have boys because love triangles are so popular and are an actual thing in real life. In The Finisher the main character Vega Jane is neither of these, kind of.

In the beginning Vega is very average considering her situation. And I can actually say this with complete honesty. She is average. She is not some whiny girl wanting to rise up against the government, she’s not some completely unrealistic powerhouse who is actually plotting to achieve something. She’s a girl who’s taking care of her little brother in their parent’s absence, she’s going to work at a factory as a finisher (Ha, look it’s the title), but wait, what is this her best friend is a guy, oh no!, but not really, because if you can imagine it for a YA she’s not in love with him! OMG, I think the world just broke.

Now you’d think that with all of this normal, realistic stuff going on she would be boring, but you’d be wrong. Vega Jane is actually pretty interesting and I have to hand this Baldacci, he did an excellent job at creating a character that is both realistic and awesome. Vega’s got some spunk and she’s not afraid to throw down with the men if they insult her or her friends. My only beef with her is that she’s actually pretty naive and trusting with the people she knows are lying to her. Her council people persons, them, yeah, you know what I mean. She know’s that they’re lying about some things but then she still believes and trusts everything they say and I’m just like “Are you a complete moron?” but then I just kept reminding myself that she has only had schooling till she was like thirteen and she’s grown up admiring these councilmen so why would she not trust them? It still annoyed me though when it seemed like Baldacci was purposefully dumbing her down. But by the end she wisens up and kind of becomes one of those aforementioned powerhouses (it has yet to be seen if this will actually come to pass)

Speaking of Baldacci, the writing in this book was pretty awesome, okay scratch that, what he’s writing about is pretty awesome. The setting and storyline that he invented is completely wow. The creativity and imagination he used for this fantasy novel really rendered it well. However, his actual writing style, that was confusing as fuck. Listen, if you have to have a glossary in the back of the book then you’re doing something wrong. If you’re glossary isn’t actually helpful in anyway you’re definitely doing something wrong. Trying to decipher this guy’s made up and (I think) british lingo was super taxing. It was like trying to translate Gavin speak except an entire books worth. (Gavin Free from Achievement Hunter for those who don’t get the reference.) But despite that I still enjoyed his writing, Wormwood was so vividly described I can imagine it and it’s inhabitants to the tee, and the impressions are definitely long lasting (considering I’m doing this review half a year after I read it) I can still remember all of the character and places, albeit not exactly the names… This book was really well done.

However, that ending filled me with a certain sense of foreboding. Dare I say it, there might be a love triangle on the horizon. Uh! But Baldacci might continue to amaze me and not do that at all, I’ll just have to wait and see. Overall this story was really good. The plot was interesting and held my interest pretty well. The book is actually intended for MG so I think the author did a good job making it enjoyable for people who are not in MG. The writing, a bit confusing, but worth it to read about the unique characters, creatures, and places that Baldacci describes with first class imagery. The book left me, while at a cliffhanger, not about to weep or throw the book against the wall, but still excited and anticipating the next book. That’s a good way to end a book.

Final Verdict: 4/5

Object, Character, Place #6

Haha I’m back if anyone bothered to miss me 🙂

Today I bring you another object character place because my teacher really likes these and so that’s what we’re always doing in her class.

The three things are: An empty cookie jar, in an abandoned house, with a folded, dusty note at the bottom. The edge of the realm between reality and fantasy. An infant who looks 80 years old.

I titled No Names Necessary, one because I couldn’t of a proper name for the piece and two none of the characters here have names, though that’s not too unusual. Anyway, here we are, one of my newest short stories. I think you’ll get a good laugh.

No Names Necessary

Drowning is not fun, almost drowning and ending up on the of the realm between reality and fantasy not very fun either. Forests everywhere. Everywhere. The world is just like one giant forest and then bam! An ocean.

That’s how I got there. I crawled out of the ocean like a bedraggled cat coughing and hacking up seawater as I went. In front of me was… you guessed it, forest. It stretched on for miles and seemed to have no end. I don’t know what happened, I was like “Ah! I’m drowning!” and then I was caught in this janky place. This is not heaven and it doesn’t look like any type of hell either. I always knew I’d end up in purgatory. I now had no doubt that I was about to be eaten up by some awful, creepy monsters.

I didn’t know what to do so after my heart stopped pounding a mile a minute I got up and shook the water off of me. I decided to brave the forests and try to find some type of path. This is the stupidest idea ever, but I was all still jangled up from my near drowning. I just wanted to find my way back home, okay, and I didn’t feel like almost drowning again.

I walked forever, my feet felt like dead bricks by the time I found this abandoned house. Obviously, a haunted house, so obvious. If there were monsters in there or witches like in Hansel and Gretel I would definitely die, but they might have food. The witch from H&G had lots of food. I wanted pizza, okay, don’t judge me.

I went and instead of finding pizza (dammit!) I found instead a cookie jar sitting on a small table right in front of the entrance. Cookies, hell yeah! I hurried over there and opened the jar only to find it empty with only a folded up note inside of it. I reached in and took the note out, when I unfolded it I found out that it was actually a picture of baby.

This baby looked like eighty years old and just as I was thinking this the baby looked up at me and said: “That’s because I am eighty years old.”

The End

Valentine’s Day Poem

It’s this time of year again. To help commemorate it I made this poem. The theme is about being alone on Valentine’s Day. My only stipulation with writing this poem was that it had to be twenty lines. Haha, this poem really describes me pretty well. Enjoy.

Alone on Valentine’s day

I’ll just go to my bed and do nothing but lay

Clearly there is no better way

To keep all those ooey-gooey lovers at bay

I’ll open my laptop and a tub of ice cream

It’s not as depressing as it seems

This is the life, this is the dream

If I get one more love note I’ll just scream

Yes, my soul was sucked out long ago

Every girl dresses up like a hoe

And all these cupids are my foe

Valentine’s day was invented to make people feel low

Girls weep when they don’t get a card

I’ll just stay tucked in, safe away from the bards

Even if I go out I’ll have to keep up my guard

It’s safer if I get my flowers from the yard

But what is this

These two anime characters just shared a kiss

Like stone turning to gravel

My heart begins to unravel.

Object, Character, Place (#4 technically)

This is a story where an object, character, and place are preselected for you and you have to incorporate them into your story. I’ve done others like this, but this will be the first one I’ve posted here, hence my title. If I don’t put that #4 there I’ll get confused later on if I decide to post the ones that came previously.

The Object: A crystal ball that belongs to an old, sad, fortune teller

The Character: Black haired, blue eyed girl, average height

The Location: A train boxcar stuck on a deserted track

This story actually made me laugh at the ending and then I had my sister read and I got her to laugh too. My teacher hasn’t read it yet though so I don’t have her opinion on it. Hopefully, I will someday in the near future.

Is there an End?

The girl fell, fell, fell. Her black hair, tied neatly in two twin braids, whips about her face. Her blue eyes are wide and filled with panic. As she falls a horrid scream understandably falls past her lips, however it is stolen by the wind before anyone can actually hear it.

The girl falls till it becomes past tense as it already technically has. She lands with an ‘umph,’ on the hard packed dirt ground. Her clothes are immediately covered in the fine, dusty dirt, but she is not actually worried about that because she just fell like a million feet and is wondering if she’s dead and if not how? She lays there in the dirt staring at the sky and this sky is something to stare at. It is a bright blue that burns with intensity that our sky only has after a heavy storm has made it such. What’s in the sky though is what really captivate her attention, there are planets in sight. Not moons or stars (there is a small sun though), but what really holds her gaze are the magnificent planets.

There are three in the sky that she can see and all of them are of differing colors and size. They swirl with greens, reds, and purples; yellows, oranges, and pinks; blacks, browns, and blues. Where is she? Who the hell knows?

Slowly, after maybe an hour, maybe more, the girl stands up. She has an average height. She’s wearing a pair of maroon tight, jean overalls, and a band tee underneath. Her small frame wobbles as she makes her way to her feet. On her feet she wears light pink converse, high-tops of course.

She notes her surroundings. Dirt and grass, it’s a field. The sun overhead blazes with a weak glare, just a small itty-bitty star to light up this world. The girl stumbles forward a step and then realizing she has nothing else to do continues with another step.

She walks for miles, or whatever metric system they use there, until she comes up to an old railway. The iron is rusted and brown and the wooden slats have practically turned to dust. The girl changes her direction until she’s walking parallel with the tracks. Hours later and with much fatigue she finds an old boxcar. The wheels are as rusted as the track it stands on and definitely isn’t going to be moving anytime soon. The girl however climbs in regardless. The shade greets her and makes her shiver in her not-very-warm clothes. When she settles in she finds before her an old lady covered in dusty robes and cloths covered in holes.

The girl quickly surmises that this is a fortune teller, albeit a very old and sad looking one. However, when the fortune teller sees her through near blind eyes, she starts to laugh madly. A cackle that makes the girl full of fear. She realizes that she, for no reason, has landed on a strange planet and the first person she meets is a crazy person.

This thought is proven when the fortune teller takes her crystal ball and bashes in the girl’s brains. Blood goes everywhere and the fortune teller continues to cackle madly.

The End

Siege & Storm (The Grisha #2) by: Leigh Bardugo

“Hunted across the True Sea, haunted by the lives she took on the Fold, Alina must try to make a life with Mal in an unfamiliar land. She finds starting new is not easy while keeping her identity as the Sun Summoner a secret. She can’t outrun her past or her destiny for long.
The Darkling has emerged from the Shadow Fold with a terrifying new power and a dangerous plan that will test the very boundaries of the natural world. With the help of a notorious privateer, Alina returns to the country she abandoned, determined to fight the forces gathering against Ravka. But as her power grows, Alina slips deeper into the Darkling’s game of forbidden magic, and farther away from Mal. Somehow, she will have to choose between her country, her power, and the love she always thought would guide her–or risk losing everything to the oncoming storm.” -Goodreads

Yes, I’m finally doing these reviews after like three months have passed since I said that I’d do them.

Okay, let’s go into a brief recap: Alina is on the run with Mal, they’re all lovey-dovey now, but Alina is all like “I can’t use my powers while we’re on the run, I’m no longer pretty.” Then through stupidity the Darkling finds them and a bunch of shit flies. They’re captured on a boat. They find the sea whip. Alina’s rescued by a prince. Yep, now we got ourselves a good old fashioned love square. She goes back to the little palace. Mal says, “I’m not good enough for you, go marry Nikolai.” Alina’s basically “Rawr, I want more power and I might be going crazy, but let’s not tell anyone about it.” Then the Darkling says, “Fuck all of you.” and destroys everything, absolutely everything. Buncha people die, but no one important, Aline gets a new hair do, and then that creepy priest dude that no one trusts takes her into hiding and we still don’t trust him.

Okay, I think I got it all, now let’s get down to nitty gritty.

The pacing of this story was off, like just weird. With in a few chapters Alina has the second amplifier. Her time on the run is zero, I don’t even think a single chapter had passed before the Darkling pops up and kidnaps them. But then as soon as she arrives at the little palace absolutely nothing happens. The elder prince kisses her (let’s just make this a love pentacle), Alina has sun summoner issues, and there’s a mask party that she sneaks away to. That’s it the whole middle of the book is just filler crap that the author just shoved in there trying to flesh out a few chapters. With the beginning starting off so strong and hitting right into the action it was like getting whiplash going to this boring (mostly about who Alina should date) plot.

With everything being so slow you would think that the Bardugo would fill it up with some character development, but no Alina just goes around in circles chasing her own tail and getting no where. She’s having man issues and she’s have power issues, does any of this stuff get resolved? No. By the end of the book she’s still in love with Mal, everyone is telling her to marry Nikolai, and she still has feelings for the Darkling… kinda. Then she somehow manages to gain more power and goes more insane like I’m not going into spoilers here, but just fucking hell.

So where do we stand, read the first fifty pages, the last fifty, and throw everything else away. Everything else is pointless crap.

Now there were a few good points here. The Darkling was badass. Yep, that covers it. Definition of an antihero: a character who has the right reasons for wanting to do something, but the “wrong” execution. The Darkling could be described as an antihero, he wants equality for grisha, but to do so he wants to kill basically everyone. I happen to love antiheroes, it’s seriously like a fetish I have.

Now another good character (I didn’t really like him, but lots of others did) was Nikolai our bastard prince. He’s our anti-antihero, he is the one who is most opposed to the Darkling. Most would say it’s Mal, but Mal is a dipshit and no one likes him. Nikolai wants the same thing as the Darkling, but wants to do it the “right” way.

Overall, I’d say this book was a three out of five. This was like the second Hobbit movie, why was it made? No idea. Was it okay? Sure. We got some new characters, there’s a few twists here and there, and the ending was a definitive wtf just happened ending. Oh, yeah, I also liked that the prologue and epilogue were in third person, it’s different. I like different. Did I wish this book hadn’t been made, yes I do. This could have easily been cut down and been shoved into the third book, but lately there has been a fad with authors and trilogies. I think Bardugo did it like this just so she would have the titles and cover art be unique to each amplifier. Anyway, 3/5 read at your own free will.