Jim Butcher's Ghost Story review

     Ghost Story is the thirteenth book in Jim Butcher's seminal Dresden Files books. If you have not read any of the books in the series this is not a good jumping on place. I suggest you start at Storm Front, the first book of the series. For those that have been reading the series, this is a great continuation and good place to catch your breath. I have read a lot of reviews of people complaining that it does not advance the story at all. I have to kind of disagree with this. It does all kinds of advancing the characters to be who they need to be in the stories coming next. After twelve books, the character development aside from Harry seemed to be at a slow crawl compared to Harry’s development. With this book their growth is turbo charged. This is done pretty much by necessity, as at the end of the previous book Changes, Harry apparently dies.

     So the secondary characters have to learn to deal with the world that Harry has left behind. The world is a much darker place and this is reflected in the characters, including the city of Chicago which in the Dresden Files books is a character unto itself. Jim does a great job of turning minor characters or characters that I really did not care about into major players, and made them really interesting. In recent books Jim, has been slowly been taking away Harrys most powerful allies, such as Michael Carpenter the knight of the Cross, and Harrys half vampire brother Thomas. In this book Jim shows that Harry still allies that can and have stepped up to fill the void. I don’t want to go to deep into this to avoid spoilers, but it will surprise readers of the series. I had a couple moments of “wow I did not know they had that in them” moments.

     I liked what he did so much with the secondary characters that I almost forgot about Harry. The book starts out with him having to go back to Chicago to solve his own murder. Even in death Harry cannot catch a break. He gets sent back as a ghost with no body and no magic. The circumstances behind his death were handled well. Being a ghost also lets harry kind of take a step back and finally take a look at the consequences of his actions. He is usually a blow things up and ask questions later kind of guy. But being dead lets Harry be introspective and see what his actions have wrought with the people he left behind. This leads to some really emotional scenes. All in all this was a very satisfying book and it is highly recommended. You can purchase the book here

Review of Captain America: The First Avenger

I was not sure what to expect from this movie. The super hero movies this summer have been kind of hit or miss for me this summer. Also I after seeing Chris Evans play the Human Torch in the two Fantastic Four movies I was not sure he would be able to pull off a believable Captain America. Boy was I pleasantly surprised. There is a reason that the death of Captain America in 2007 made such big news when the comic came out. Captain America is much of an icon and symbol of America as Superman is. Perhaps even more. This movie hit all the right spots and explained why he is such a symbol and why people look up to him and want to be like him.
The movie starts out telling the story of 98 pound weakling Steve Rogers. I think one of the reason that the other super hero movies this summer were hit and miss for me were that they were origin stories. I knew these characters such as Thor and Green Lantern and did not want to sit through their origin story to wait for them to do something cool. With Captain America his origin is important as the character himself. It is the story of the 98 pound weakling who tries to enlist in the army to fight World War II and keeps getting turned away due to his size and a laundry list of ailments.
Still this does not stop him from standing up for what is right and paying the price with multiple beatings. One of my favorite lines from the movie is when he is asked why he wants to go fight the Nazis. His response "I hate bullies." Who has not felt that way themselves. In a world where a lot of people want to sit around and let other people do the fighting for them and get to enjoy the freedoms that the people fighting die for, this is a great message. Hopefully it will move people to do something.
As someone who has been through the beatings themselves because they were different it was very relatable. This movie was really good before the "hero" even showed up in his costume.
The many tries to enlist draws the attention of a scientist who has created a super soldier serum for the army. Steve is chosen to be the test subject due to what is inside of him. Again with the looking at the heart of people rather than the outside. This is how he becomes Captain America. He eventually gets to go over seas and fight the Nazis and the organization known as Hydra and its leader The Red Skull played really well by Hugo Weaving. Even after Captain America becomes buff he is still the same person inside. Earnest and honest.Chris Evans conveys this very well.
The effects and visuals of the movie were amazing. The shield work itself was awesome. Do yourself a favor and go see this movie.

I'm not worthy!

I have been trying to associate with some people that have much more cred than I do, as far as writing and getting published. They are a tough nut to crack. This is my first foray of dealing with people with a heck of a lot more noteriety than I have. I decided to come up wish some ground rules that people should follow to keep from slitting their wrists.
One: Don't take things personally. The peopleyou are tweeting to have hundreds if not thousands of followers tweeting at them. Not to mention jobs so if they don't answer your tweet just remember you are not the only one.
Two: Be respectful. These are real people with real feelings, and if you want to get an interview from them or a retweet, be respectful. Critism is ok, but be constructive. Don't put out a tweet saying F you! so and so and respect something but an F You! in return.
Three: Contribute to the conversation. Know what you are talking about and people will take you more seriously.
Four: Keep trying. If at first you don't succeed keep trying. If it is an interview be respectful and ask the person if they would possibly have time to answer some questions.
Last and most important. Have fun with what you are doing. Be passionate, people will respect you for it. I have met some really cool people and hope to keep forging relationships, not just because I want to be associated with someone famous but because I appreciate what they do and want them to know it.

First Music Review

I have done a review on comics and movies. Now for my third love, music. I first became aware of Amanda White through a mutual friend on Twitter. One of the first tweets I saw was that she had a CD for sale. I went to the site and checked her bio. I was not sure what to expect from a classically trained opera singer singer singing rock. She pulls it off well. She has voice and swagger that would stand up to any frontgirl or frontman, for that matter. She has the voice of an angel and the mouth of a trucker. A couple of my favorite songs are the opening Midnight Bride, and 'Kay. Midnight Bride comes out rocking and ends with Amanada doing double duty as leading and backing vocals. It really showcases how diverse her voice is. She can go from rocking leads to soaring soprano on the backing vocals on the backing vocals. 'Kay has a tempo that reminds me of Phantom of the opera with a great guitar solo. This is probably a nod to her Andew Lloy Webber influences. All in all a solid CD. She did a great job with the budget she had. Looking forward to hearing what she can come up with using an actual budget.
You can listen to and buy the CD here http://amandawhite.bandcamp.com/

Non-Spoiler review of Transformers 3.

First let me say that the theater we saw the movie we saw it at was awesome. It was the brand new EMAGINE theater in Royal Oak. Not only is it a theater, but it also has a Star Lanes bowling alley in it. Very cool.
Now to the movie.
I was not impressed with the second Transformers movie, and was not expecting much for the third. This one blew the first and second movie away in my opinion. It had a great story, good characterization even with the robots which is no easy feat. The stories stakes were definitely kicked up a notch for this installment. I thought the story concept was really good. One thing you can take out of this movie is Optimus Prime is bad-ass. Great fight scenes with him involved.
As for the actors in the movie, while Rosie Huntington-Whitely is a beautiful girl she did not do much through the movie except look good which I guess is her job. Shia LeBeouf plays his usual neurotic self in the movie. One of my favorite characters was Alan Tudyk's character. You may know him as Wash from Firefly. If not you really need to watch that series. There were some odd scenes with John Malkovitch. But then again he is John Malkovitch. Another pleasant surprise was Ken Jeong as a very strange scientist. It was also good to see McDreamy Patrick Dempsey get taken out in the movie.
Could the movie have been shorter? Yes, but it did not feel long. I did not really get to a point where I thought the movie was really dragging. Great action and visuals held my attention throughout. I thought the 3D effects were used really well. All in all this was my favorite movie of the summer so far. I am sure the final installment of Harry Potter will give it a run for its money, but I thought it was an entertaining movie.